"More fun right hyar than in a free-fer-all at a winter rendyvoo, pardner. You kick wuss nor a mule. An' whar _you_ goin'?" he asked a tin-horn gambler who took advantage of his lapse of alertness to dart past him. Zack swung his stiff arm and the gambler bounced back as though he had been struck with a club. "Thar's plenty o' it hyar if yer lookin' fer it," he shouted, raising his pistol. Uncle Joe clawed his way back again, Tom's double-barreled rifle in his hands, and grimly took his place at his friend's side. Suddenly he cocked his head and then heard Tom's voice bellow past his ear. "Listen, you fools! Th' fur boat! Th' fur boat!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. His companions and the other little group of resolute men took up the cry, and as the furor of the crowd died down, the answering blasts rolled up the river. Suddenly a light, and then an orderly series of them pushed out from behind the last bend downstream, and showers of sparks from the belching stacks of the oncoming fur company boat danced and whirled high into the night, the splashing tattoo of her churning paddles sounding like music between the reassuring blasts of her whistle. The two stokers hanging from the levers of her safety valves kicked their feet in time with her whistle, not knowing which kick would usher them on an upward journey ending at St. Peter's eager gate. Their skins were as black as the rods they swung from, but their souls were as white as their rolling eyes. "Thank God!" screamed a woman who was fighting her way through the crowd toward Tom's post, her clothing nearly torn from her; and at the words she sagged to the deck, inert, unresisting. Tom leaped forward and hauled her back with him, passed her on to Patience and resumed his grim guard. A great shout, still tinged with horror and edged with fear, arose from the decks of the _Belle_ and thundered across the river, the answering roar chopped up by the insistent whistle. Several red, stringy, rapier-like flashes pierced the night and the heavy reports barked across the hurrying water, to be juggled by a great cliff on the north bank.