ough to kick in public on such
subjects. As it was, the man said something so much worse that right
there the front busted out of the tiger-cage and for a few brief moments
we were given over to chaos.

I had seen Whitewater walloped and I knew how full of parlor tricks the
kid was, but this time he went insane. He knocked that man off the
counter at the first pass and climbed him with his hobnails as he lay on
the floor. A fight is a fight, and a good thing for spectators and
participants, for it does more to keep down scurvy than anything I know
of, but the thud of those heavy boots into that helpless flesh sickened
me, and we rushed Prosser out of there while he struggled like a maniac.
I never saw such a complete reversal of form. Somewhere, away back
yonder, that boy's forefathers were pirates or cannibals or butchers.

When the fog had cleared out of his brain the reaction was just as
powerful. I took him out alone while the others worked over the Alder
Creek party, and all at once my man fell apart like wet sawdust.

"What made me do it--what made me do it?" he cried. "I'm crazy. Why, I
tried to kill him! And yet what he said is true--that's the worst of
it--it's true. Think of it, and I fought for her. What am I coming to?"

After the clean-up we came to camp, waiting for the river to break and
the first boat to follow. It was then that the suspense began to tell on
our partner. He read and reread his letters, but there was little hope
in them, and now, with no work to do, he grew nervous. Added to
everything else, our food ran short, and we lived on scraps of whatever
was left over from our winter grub-stake. Just out of cussedness the
break-up was ten days late, the ten longest days I ever put in, but
eventually it came, and a week later also came the mail. We needed food
and clothes, we needed whisky, we needed news of the great, distant
world--but all we thought of was our mail.

The boy had decided to go home. We were sorry to see him leave, too, for
he had the makings of a real man in him even if he shaved three times a
week, but no sooner was the steamer tied than he came plunging into my
tent like a moose, laughing and dancing in his first gladness. The
mother was well again.

Later I went aboard to give him the last lonesome good wishes of the
fellow who stays behind and fights along for another year. The big
freighter, with her neat staterooms and long, glass-burdened tables,
awoke a perfect pani