: The Right of Way — Volume 02 by Parker Gilbert - Canadian fiction Bestsellers American 1895-1923

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Edition: 10

THE RIGHT OF WAY

Volume 2.

OLD DEBTS FOR NEW

Jo Portugtais was breaking the law of the river--he was running a little raft down the stream at night, instead of tying up at sundown and camping on the shore, or sitting snugly over cooking-pot by the little wooden caboose on his raft. But defiance of custom and tradition was a habit with Jo Portugais. He had lived in his own way many a year, and he was likely to do so till the end, though he was a young man yet. He had many professions, or rather many gifts, which he practised as it pleased him. He was river-driver, woodsman, hunter, carpenter, guide, as whim or opportunity came to him. On the evening when Charley Steele met with his mishap he was a river-driver--or so it seemed. He had been up nor'west a hundred and fifty miles, and he had come down-stream alone with his raft- which in the usual course should take two men to guide it--through slides, over rapids, and in strong currents. Defying the code of the river, with only one small light at the rear of his raft, he voyaged the swift current towards his home, which, when he arrived opposite the Cote Dorion, was still a hundred miles below. He had watched the lights in the river-drivers' camps, had seen the men beside the fires, and had drifted on, with no temptation to join in the songs floating out over the dark water, to share the contents of the jugs raised to boisterous lips, or to thrust his hand into the greasy cooking-pot for a succulent bone.

He drifted on until he came opposite Charlemagne's tavern. Here the current carried him inshore. He saw the dim light, he saw dark figures in the bar-room, he even got a glimpse of Suzon Charlemagne. He dropped the house behind quickly, but looked back, leaning on the oar and thinking how swift was the rush of the current past the tavern. His eyes were on the tavern door and the light shining through it. Suddenly the light disappeared, and the door vanished into darkness. He heard a scuffle, and then a heavy splash.

"There's trouble there," said Jo Portugais, straining his eyes through the night, for a kind of low roar, dwindling to a loud whispering, and then a noise of hurrying feet, came down the stream, and he could dimly see dark figures running away into the night by different paths.

"Some dirty work, very sure," said Jo Portugais, and his eyes travelled back over the dark water like a lynx's, for the splash was in his ear, and a sort of prescience possessed him. He could not stop his raft. It must go on down the current, or be swerved to the shore, to be fastened.

"God knows, it had an ugly sound," said Jo Portugais, and again strained his eyes and ears. He shifted his position and took another oar, where the raft-lantern might not throw a reflection upon the water. He saw a light shine again through the tavern doorway, then a dark object block the light, and a head thrust forward towards the river as though listening.

At this moment he fancied he saw something in the water nearing him. He stretched his neck. Yes, there was something.

"It's a man. God save us--was it murder?" said Jo Portugais, and shuddered. "Was it murder?"

The body moved more swiftly than the raft. There was a hand thrust up-- two hands.

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