'll give you each a hundred if you run it through."

Kit looked out and up the tossing Mane of the White Horse. A long, gray
twilight was falling, it was turning colder, and the landscape seemed
taking on a savage bleakness.

"It ain't that," Shorty was saying. "We don't want your money. Wouldn't
touch it nohow. But my pardner is the real meat with boats, and when he
says yourn ain't safe I reckon he knows what he's talkin' about."

Kit nodded affirmation, and chanced to glance at Mrs Breck. Her eyes
were fixed upon him, and he knew that if ever he had seen prayer in a
woman's eyes he was seeing it then. Shorty followed his gaze and saw
what he saw. They looked at each other in confusion and did not speak.
Moved by the common impulse, they nodded to each other and turned to the
trail that led to the head of the rapids. They had not gone a hundred
yards when they met Stine and Sprague coming down.

"Where are you going?" the latter demanded.

"To fetch that other boat through," Shorty answered.

"No, you're not. It's getting dark. You two are going to pitch camp."

So huge was Kit's disgust that he forebore to speak.

"He's got his wife with him," Shorty said.

"That's his lookout," Stine contributed.

"And Smoke's and mine," was Shorty's retort.

"I forbid you," Sprague said harshly. "Smoke, if you go another step
I'll discharge you."

"And you, too, Shorty," Stine added.

"And a hell of a pickle you'll be in with us fired," Shorty replied.
"How'll you get your blamed boat to Dawson? Who'll serve you coffee in
your blankets and manicure your finger-nails? Come on, Smoke. They don't
dast fire us. Besides, we've got agreements. If they fire us they've got
to divvy up grub to last us through the winter."

Barely had they shoved Breck's boat out from the bank and caught the
first rough water, when the waves began to lap aboard. They were small
waves, but it was an earnest of what was to come. Shorty cast back a
quizzical glance as he gnawed at his inevitable plug, and Kit felt a
strange rush of warmth at his heart for this man who couldn't swim and
who couldn't back out.

The rapids grew stiffer, and the spray began to fly. In the gathering
darkness, Kit glimpsed the Mane and the crooked fling of the current
into it. He worked into this crooked current, and felt a glow of
satisfaction as the boat hit the head of the Mane squarely in the
middle. After that, in the smother, leaping and burying and swamping, h