We don't reckon to run lightnin' trips on this ferry." But Clarence was himself again.

"Twenty dollars for two more oars in that boat," he said quietly, "and fifty if you get me over in time to catch the down stage." The man glanced at Clarence's eyes.

"Run up and rouse out Jake and Sam," he said to the other boatman; then more leisurely, gazing at his customer's travel-stained equipment, he said, "There must have been a heap o' passengers got left by last night's boat.

You're the second man that took this route in a hurry." At any other time the coincidence might have struck Clarence.

But he only answered curtly, "Unless we are under way in ten minutes you will find I am NOT the second man, and that our bargain's off." But here two men emerged from the shanty beside the ferryhouse, and tumbled sleepily into the boat.