Thereafter, as he sat brooding on a log beside the noisy river, with Jim stretched at his feet, Tug Blackstock felt that Brine's Rip, for the lack of a childish voice and a head of flaxen curls, had lost all savour for him. And his thoughts turned more and more towards the arguments of a grey-eyed girl, who had urged him to seek a wider sphere for his energies than the confines of Nipsiwaska County could afford.