"And all the time he had a thousand sewed in his shirt! Wasted opportunities like that lay heavy on a man when he hears the angels tuning up and smells the calla-lilies."
Bridges agreed in all seriousness, and went on to say: "Lucky, if I gotta get out of this country the way I got into it I'm going to let you bury me in Dawson. Look at them rapids ahead of us! Why, the guy that laid out this river was off his nut!"
"You're talking sense. We'll stick till they build a railroad up to us or else we'll let 'em pin a pair of soft-pine overcoats on the two of us. The idea of us calling ourselves wiseacres and doing circus stunts like this! We're suckers! We'll be working in the mines next. I bet I'll see you poulticed onto a pick-handle before we get out."
"Not me! I've raised my last blister, and if ever I get another callous it'll be from layin' abed. Safe and sane, that's me. I—"
Bridges' words were cut short by an exclamation from Doret, who had approached, in company with the Countess Courteau.
"Hallo!" the French Canadian broke in. "Dere comes dat beeg barge."
Out from the lower end of the gorge the Kirby craft had emerged; it was plunging along with explosions of white foam from beneath its bow and with its sweeps rising and falling rhythmically. To Doret's companions it seemed that the scow had come through handily enough and was in little further danger, but 'Poleon, for some reason or other, had blazed into excitement. Down the bank he leaped; then he raised his voice and sent forth a loud cry. It was wasted effort, for it failed to carry. Nevertheless, the warning note in his voice brought his hearers running after him.
"What's the matter?" Pierce inquired.
The pilot paid no heed; he began waving his cap in long sweeps, cursing meanwhile in a patois which the others could not understand.
Even while they stared at the Rouletta she drove head on into an expanse of tumbling breakers, then—the onlookers could not believe their eyes—she stopped dead still, as if she had come to the end of a steel cable or as if she had collided with an invisible wall. Instantly her entire after part was smothered in white. Slowly her bow rose out of the chaos until perhaps ten feet of her bottom was exposed, then she assumed a list.