They are too narrow to turn around in, too crooked to back out of, and the shoal water is always up at the head; never elsewhere.

And the head of them is always likely to be filling up, little by little, so that the marks you reckon their depth by, this season, may not answer for next.' 'Learn a new set, then, every year ?' 'Exactly.

Cramp her up to the bar! What are you standing up through the middle of the river for ?' The next few months showed me strange things.

On the same day that we held the conversation above narrated, we met a great rise coming down the river.

The whole vast face of the stream was black with drifting dead logs, broken boughs, and great trees that had caved in and been washed away.