“All right—have it that way. It was the moth-eatenest rat-trap I ever met. Bob turned a handspring and crouched behind it, and grabbed a long, varnished pole out of the mess.”
“Varnished!” snapped Bob scornfully. “That was a beaver pole and they’d chewed the bark off.”
“My son, that’s not the point—ain’t it?” reasoned Buck with dignity. “You grabbed the pole and we charged you over the rocks—pointed, slippery rocks, Mrs. Morgan. And as we got near enough our host—our host!” with telling emphasis—“poked us off those rocks with that pole. It takes only a small poke, Mrs. Morgan, to knock a man at a crucial moment off a little rock that’s slippery. We got some of our feet wet that way,” he reflected, glancing down. “Donnie fixed him,” he went on. “Didn’t you, Donnie, you idiot?” And he patted the stammerer affectionately.
“I d-did,” Donnie acknowledged, modest but firm.
The account went on.
“You wouldn’t notice it, Mrs. Morgan, but Donnie’s got a brain, and sometimes he works it. He did this time. He withdrew and nobody missed him, being such as he is, and he ran down the portage and found another crossing and got over and doubled up the river. He came behind Bob and Bob didn’t notice because of the battle, but we saw him coming and we kept Bobby in play till he got close, and then—”
“And th-then I th-threw my arms around him and c-clasped him to my heart b-backward,” Donnie cut in. “F-fellows, d-didn’t he yell when he f-felt me?”
Again the three rolled on each other, while Bob threw sand at them, and grinned.
The tale proceeded.
“They went over together, cracking that old dam effect—if that’s what it calls itself—into a million stars.”