to port. Her
fourteen-inch screw, suddenly started at full speed ahead, made the
light, slim craft leap like a spike-spurred horse.

But the turn was too short. She thrust her sharp haughty nose into the
air like an offended lady, and started up the bank after that
information bureau. If a tree had been convenient, I think she would
have climbed it.

I shut her down.

"_She went that time!_" chorused the information bureau. Coming from an
information bureau, the statement was marvellously correct. But I had
suddenly become too glad-hearted for a sharp retort.

"If you will please throw me the line, and push me off," I said
confidently, "I'll drop out into the current."

I dropped out.

"Now for putting a crimp in some people's vanity!" I exulted.

I cranked. Nothing doing! I cranked some more. No news from the crimping
department. I continued to crank; also, I continued to drift. Somehow
the current seemed to have increased alarmingly in speed.

I thought I heard a sound of merriment. I looked up. The little weazened
man was gesticulating wildly with that forefinger of his. He was
explaining something. The information bureau, steadily dwindling into
the distance, was not listening. It seemed to be enjoying itself
immensely.

I swallowed a half-spoken word that tasted bitter as it went down. Then
I cranked again. There seemed to be nothing else to do. It was a hot
day; hot sweat blinded me, and trickled off the tip of my nose. My hands
began to develop blisters. Finally, a deep disgust seized me. I once saw
a tender-hearted lady on her knees in the dust before a balky auto. I
remembered her half-sobbed words: "_You mean thing, you! What is the
matter with you, anyway! Oh, you mean, mean thing!_"

I sat down in front of that engine and abandoned myself to a great
feeling of tenderness and chivalry for that unfortunate lady. In that
moment I believe I would have fought a bear for her! Oh that all the
gasoline engines in the world could be concentrated somehow into one
big woolly, scary black bear, how I could have set my teeth in its neck
and died chewing!

I heard a roaring of waters that broke my vision of bear fights and
gentle ladies in distress. A hundred yards ahead of me I saw rapids. The
words of the information bureau came back to me with terrible
distinctness: "Why, her light timbers will go to pieces on the first
rock!"

Although I am no hero, I didn't get frightened. I got sore. "Go ahead,
and