I mind me when Jim Tarburt was
drowned: No 'count, Jim. He'd no more sense than a yaller dog. 'Twas a
big streak o' luck for his wife and babies, for Susannah Tarburt
married old man Hopping, and when he died the very next year she was
left rich. Then there was that pore thin school-marm, Ireen Bunker.
She--"
And Mrs. Skenk continued with a catalogue, long as that of the ships
in the _Iliad_, of travellers who, in fording the Salinas, had
crossed that other grim river which flows for ever between time and
eternity. We had reached the banks before she had drained her memory
of those who had perished.
"'Tis bilin'," she muttered, as she peered up and down the yellow,
foam-speckled torrent that roared defiance at us; "but, good Land! we
can't go around now. Keep the horses' noses upstream, young man, and
use your whip."
We plunged in.
What followed took place quickly. In mid-stream the near horse
floundered into a quicksand and fell, swinging round the pole, and
with it the off horse. I lashed the poor struggling beasts
unmercifully, but the wagon settled slowly down--inch by inch. Death
grinned us in the teeth.
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