e coffee could be boiled and bacon
broiled, and started a fire, for the air was chill on the river,
especially when they were running between the hills and no sun could
strike them.

When the fire blazed up, Chad sat by it watching Tall Tom and the
school-master at the stern oar and Rube at the bow. When the turn was
sharp, how they lashed the huge white blades through the yellow
water--with the handle across their broad chests, catching with their
toes in the little notches that had been chipped along the logs and
tossing the oars down and up with a mighty swing that made the blades
quiver and bend like the tops of pliant saplings! Then, on a run, they
would rush back to start the stroke again, while the old Squire yelled:

"Hit her up thar now--easy--easy! NOW! Hit her up! Hit her up--NOW!"

Now they passed between upright, wooded, gray mountain-sides, threaded
with faint lines of the coming green; now between gray walls of rock
streaked white with water-falls, and now past narrow little valleys
which were just beginning to sprout with corn. At the mouth of the
creeks they saw other rafts making ready and, now and then, a raft
would shoot out in the river from some creek ahead or behind them. In
an hour, they struck a smooth run of several hundred yards where the
men at the oars could sit still and rest, while the raft shot lightly
forward in the middle of the stream; and down the river they could see
the big Dillons making the next sharp turn and, even that far away,
they could hear Jerry yelling and swearing at his patient brother.

"Some o' these days," said the old Squire, "that fool Jake's a-goin' to
pick up somethin' an' knock that mean Jerry's head off. I wonder he
hain't done it afore. Hit's funny how brothers can hate when they do
git to hatin'."

That night, they tied up at Jackson--to be famous long after the war as
the seat of a bitter mountain-feud. At noon the next day, they struck
"the Nahrrers" (Narrows), where the river ran like a torrent between
high steep walls of rock, and where the men stood to the oars
watchfully and the old squire stood upright, watching every movement of
the raft; for "bowing" there would have meant destruction to the raft
and the death of them all. That night they were in Beattyville, whence
they floated next day, along lower hills and, now and then, past a
broad valley. Once Chad looked at the school-master--he wondered if
they were approaching the Bluegrass--but Caleb H