the boat.

The frightened young Scout, not knowing how deep the water was under him,
wrapped his legs around the sweep which remained upright, and clung to it
yelling for help.

The impetus of the boat carried the craft on about twenty-five feet before
it was stopped by the current, for the polesmen had stopped work and
turned around to whoop with laughter and delight when they saw the
ridiculous figure perched on the oar in midstream still crying for
rescue.

Shouting words of encouragement they let the boat drift slowly down stream
again. Before they reached him, Pepper's strength gave out, and he slid
slowly down the sweep, and was preparing to battle for his life in the icy
water when his moccasins brought upon a rock in a foot of water, and he
pulled the oar loose, and as the stern of the boat reached him stepped
aboard with a foolish expression on his face, barely wet to the knees.

It would be cruel to Pepper to record in this history the sarcastic
expressions of admiration for his agility and ability "to reach out and
grab trouble every time it went by," as Dick expressed it. There were
references to the "champeen pole vault of Alaska; height ten feet; depth,
twelve inches," "veteran oarsman of the Gold," "Rocked into the Cradle of
the Deep," but the last comment which brought out the old Pepperian red
through the tan and the yellow of the mosquito "dope" was a quotation from
an old boyhood rhyme made by Gerald, apropos of "appearances."

"Willie had a purple monkey, climbing on a
yellow stick,
Willie sucked the purple monkey and it made him
deadly sick."

Arrived at the meadows they found the grass grown to the height of their
heads and a wealth of wild flowers such as they had never seen before.
Acres of yellow poppies, wild geraniums, bluish in color, saxifrage,
magenta colored epilobium, moccasin plants and a hundred others with
familiar faces. But what pleased Swiftwater especially were the immense
quantity of dandelions.

He set the boys at work gathering all the plants they could secure, while
himself began to hunt for a peculiar wild onion, which he finally found in
abundance. He also found sorrel, both the tops and root of which are
pleasant to the taste. They half filled the boat with these and other
harmless edible plants, and then late in the afternoon started to pole up
the river to the fishing grounds, intending to try for th