“I dun’no’,” says Mark Tidd, while we were building a fire and getting breakfast, “whether it’s m-more dangerous to be ahead or b-b-behind the enemy.”

“Why?” I asked, for it looked to me like we were a lot less likely to be caught when we were behind.

“Well,” says he, “if we’re ahead we can always t-try to escape by p-paddlin’, but if we’re behind and run on to ’em sudden, what can we do? We can’t paddle up-stream against this c-current, can we?”

“We’ll have to go perty careful and keep our eyes open,” I says.

We had some coffee and a little bacon. Mark allowed he felt a lot better when it was down, and I’ll admit I wasn’t half as worried. Mark says eatin’ is one of the most important things there is.

“Why,” says he, “the Emperor Napoleon told his folks an army travels on its stomach. What he meant was an army of h-h-hungry men wasn’t any good to him at all.”

We washed up our coffee-pot and frying-pan and packed things away in the canoe. Then we launched her and started out to follow Collins and Jiggins down the river. If it hadn’t been for Mark and his games it wouldn’t have been very exciting, but right off he started to be Father Marquette again, and I was Louis Joliet, a fur-trader. As near as I could get at it, Mark was to preach to the Indians and convert them while I was swapping two-cent beads for ten-dollar pelts.

“The f-farther we go,” says Mark, “the wilder and savager the natives get. A couple of days from now I b-bet we run into cannibals l-like those that passed in the boat.”

Collins and Jiggins had got promoted to cannibals now.

We went cautious, I can promise you. Between being honestly worried about the men ahead of us and being make-believe afraid of Indians we came pretty close to having our hands full. Every time we came to a curve we had to go slow and back water so as not to come swinging around on Jiggins & Co. unexpected, and once or twice when the current was strong we did sweep around kerflip. As luck had it, they weren’t there waiting for us, but it would have been just the same if they had.

The current was swift all the time, but sometimes it was swifter than others. Whenever the stream got narrower it crowded the water together so it seemed to shoot through; and then it went so smooth and purring-like it almost frightened you. It acted strong. It was lucky we knew a little about a canoe, or we would have tipped over or smashed ashore fifty times. Even as it was we brushed a tree that had toppled into the water and grazed a stump that came just to the surface. If we’d hit that square Mark would have had some use for his canvas and paint.

It began to get hot after a while, and we began to get tired. There isn’t anything so tiresome to your back as riding in a canoe when you aren’t used to it. I wished Mark would say something about taking a rest, but he didn’t. I suppose he was wishing I would. Folks get into lots of trouble, off and on, by being afraid to be the first to give in. All the same, I wasn’t going to admit I couldn’t stand as much as he could.

Once he saw a sort of dilapidated shanty back a ways from the river, and there was a man standing in front of it. Mark said to go ashore and question him.

“He’s a p-peaceful Indian,” says Mark. “I can tell by his p-paint.”

We ran the canoe to shore and got out. The man walked toward us, and he was funny-looking as all-git-out. With one side of his face he was sort of scowling, and with the other side he came pretty close to grinning good-natured.

“Howdy-do,” says Mark; and the man nodded with a jerk.

“F-f-fine day,” says Mark.

“If you like it hot,” says the man.

“Live here?” asked Mark, polite as could be.

The man scowled harder with the scowling side, and kind of wrinkled up the good-natured side of his face. Then he gave the end of his nose a little twist like he wanted to make sure it wouldn’t fly off unbeknownst to him while his mind was taken up with other things. Then he cleared his throat and coughed and scratched his head.

“Wa-al,” says he, “I sleep here, and I eat here. Some folks that hain’t afraid of stretchin’ the truth might go so far’s to say I live here. Pers’nally it don’t look to me like I done a great amount of livin’, so to speak.”

“F-f-farm?” asked Mark.

“Don’t calc’late to,” says the man.

“Well,” says Mark, sort of puzzled, “what do you do?”

“Right now, young feller, about all I do is hope. ’Tain’t a payin’ business, though comfortin’. I calc’late to work a mite and fish a mite and loaf consid’able. Doorin’ the fall and winter I hunt some and trap and read up in the papers what happens durin’ the summer. Also”—he stopped and twisted his nose again—“also I git so energetic-like that I’ve been knowed to shove a fish-shanty on to the ice and spear.”

“S-s-see many folks goin’ down the river?” asked Mark.

“’Tain’t what you’d call crowded. No. Couldn’t go so far’s to say people was jostlin’ one another.”

“Did you happen to see a b-b-boat with two men go past this mornin’?”

“Fat man that was hummin’ and a thin man that was sweatin’?”

“Yes,” says Mark.

“Sort of in a hurry?”

“They would ’a’ b-been,” says Mark.

“Lemme think,” says the man. “Now, did I see them men or did I jest imagine I seen ’em? If my dawg ’d ’a’ been here he’d ’a’ barked at anybody that went by. But he didn’t bark. That hain’t anythin’ to go by, though, ’cause he run off last spring.” He stopped again and made like he was studying hard.

“Supposin’ they’d stopped and asked me had I seen a couple of boys, one fat and one lean? Would that ’a’ been them?”

“I guess it would,” says Mark; and you could see he was tickled to death with the man.

“Then,” says he, “there can’t be no doubt I seen ’em.”

“How l-long ago?” asked Mark.

“A perty good-sized nap,” says he.

Mark didn’t understand any more than I did. “What’s that?” he cried.

“Just my way of tellin’ time,” says the man. “Day’s divided into naps. I snooze and wake and snooze and wake. I know how long ago a thing happened by countin’ back how many times I been asleep.”

“How l-long is a perty good-sized nap?”

“More’n twice as long as a skimpy nap.”

That was the best we could get out of him, though Mark tried him a couple of times more.

“Did they stop and ask you about anything?” Mark asked.

“Asked me about two boys.”

“What did you t-t-tell ’em?”

“Young feller,” says the man, scowling like anything with his left eyebrow, “I judged it best not to state anythin’ definite. When folks is huntin’ for folks it may be friendly and it may be unfriendly. You might be doin’ a favor, or you might not, as the case may be. Them men looked perty anxious, so, thinks I, this here is a time for thinkin’ and meditation. Likewise it’s a time for bein’ sure you don’t do nothin’ about somethin’ you don’t know nothin’ about. So I was what the newspapers calls non-committal. Big word, eh? I’ve remembered her nigh two years, and hain’t never had no use for her before. Pays to save them words, though. Time always comes for ’em.”

“What did you say to them?”

“Says I, ‘Gentlemen and strangers, I hain’t been app’inted watchman of this here river, though I do notice it consid’able. But I got my weaknesses, gentlemen, and one of ’em is for sleep. I jest woke up, so to speak. Before I done so there might ’a’ been a Barnum’s Circus parade a-floatin’ down, though it would ’a’ been the first time sich a thing’s happened in ten year.’ That’s all I said to ’em, young fellers, and they went away in more of a hurry than ever.”

“If you w-w-wouldn’t tell them anything,” says Mark, suspicio............