"Arright," squeaked a distant, feminine voice.
"Hallo, Hugh," said a deep voice from a corner near the flaming fireplace.
"Hallo yerself," said the pilot.
"What led you to pilot on a night like this, when the creek is getting higher and higher. I thought a raftsman ought to know that the proper time to raft is when the flood is falling, not rising."
"Not always," said the pilot, and then added, "Is that you, Bill?"
"Yes, it's I, sure enough."
"Well, you're schoolmaster and I'm raft pilot; every man to his own calling, and I suppose every man ought to know best what to do in his own calling; yet you'd criticise me for running timber on a rising flood."
"There are little things in all trades that most everyone ought to know. I was riding to the Burg when I heard your shouts on the raft and I wondered what ill-witted fellow was running on a rising flood on a night like this."
"Don't think it science, eh?" a little nettled to be called ill-witted.
"No. Every one ought to know that when the stream is rising it is higher in the centre than it is on the sides and when falling higher on the sides than in the centre. Hence by due process of ratiocination,"—the school-master paused to give the large, scholarly word due emphasis—"you must run on a falling flood."