The Last of the Plainsmen 



mechanical skill, I had not added a cheerful idea to 

 my consciousness. The horses of the first team had 

 to be dragged upon the scow, and once on, they 

 reared and plunged. 



When we started, four men pulled the rope, and 

 Emmett sat in the stern, with the tackle guys in hand. 

 As the current hit us, he let out the guys, which 

 maneuver caused the boat to swing stern down 

 stream. When it pointed obliquely, he made fast 

 the guys again. I saw that this served two purposes : 

 the current struck, slid alongside, and over the stern, 

 which mitigated the danger, and at the same time 

 helped the boat across. 



To look at the river was to court terror, but I had 

 to look. It was an infernal thing. It roared in 

 hollow, sullen voice, as a monster growling. It had 

 a voice, this river, and one strangely changeful. It 

 moaned as if in pain it whined, it cried. Then at 

 times it would seem strangely silent. The current 

 was as complex and mutable as human life. It boiled, 

 beat and bulged. The bulge itself was an incompre 

 hensible thing, like a roaring lift of the waters from 

 a submarine explosion. Then it would smooth out, 

 and run like oil. It shifted from one channel to 

 another, rushed to the center of the river, then swung 

 close to one shore or the other. Again it swelled near 



the boat, in great, boiling, hissing eddies. 



26 



