ndle horses, and they steadied when he went to their
heads and talked to them.

We were so busy with our own affairs that we didn't notice what was going
on behind us till we heard Pochette declaiming bad profanity in a high
soprano. Then I turned, and he was trying to stand off old King. But King
wasn't that sort; he yelled to us to move up and make room, and then took
down his whip and started up. Pochette pirouetted out of the way, and
stood holding to the low plank railing while he went on saying things
that, properly pronounced, must have been very blasphemous.

King paid about as much attention to him as he would to a good-sized
prairie-dog chittering beside its burrow. I reckon he knew Pochette pretty
well. He got his rig in place and climbed down and went to his horses'
heads.

"Now, shove off, dammit," he ordered, just as if no one had been near
bursting a blood-vessel within ten feet of him.

Pochette gulped, worked the point of his beard up and down like a villain
in a second-rate melodrama, and shoved off. The current and the wind
caught us in their grip, and we swashed out from shore and got under way.

I can't say that trip looked good to me, from the first rod out. Of
course, the river couldn't rear up and get real savage, like the ocean,
but there were choppy little waves that were plenty nasty enough, once you
got to bucking them with a blum-nosed old scow fastened to a cable that
swayed and sagged in the wind that came howling down on us. And with two
rigs on, we filled her from bow to stern; all but about four feet around
the edges.

Frosty looked across to the farther shore, then at the sagging cable, and
then at me. I gathered that he had his doubts, too, but he wouldn't say
anything. Nobody did, for that matter. Even Pochette wasn't doing anything
but chew his whiskers and watch the cable.

Then she broke, with a snap like a rifle, and a jolt that came near
throwing us off our feet. Pochette gave a yell and relapsed into French
that I'd hate to translate; it would shock even his own countrymen. The
ferry ducked and bobbed, now there was nothing to hold its nose steady to
the current, and went careering down river with all hands aboard and
looking for trouble.

We didn't do anything, though; there wasn't anything to do but stay right
where we were and take chances. If she stayed right side up we would
probably land eventually. If she flopped over--which she seemed trying to
do, we'd get a c