The tall figure under the colorless, shapeless hat had now lifted himself, and, as if to straighten his muscles after a long cramped position, he stretched to a height that seemed to be that of a giant, threw out his chest, reached his long arms to a prodigious expanse and took a deep breath. As he did so Ann felt someone touch her. It was "Ole Bar." "Some huggin' he could do with them arms in matin' season--hey, Molly," he said; and when Ann turned to look at Ole Bar he winked his good eye at her and waited for an answer. A shout from the crowd made any answer to this remark unnecessary. For a moment the towering youth stood before them like a comical picture, slender, angular, barefooted, his faded yellow breeches scarce more than clearing his knees and showing a pair of spindle legs. His uncolored shirt was flung wide open and over one shoulder was stretched a suspender which held one breeches-leg higher than the other. As the water pumped itself out and the boat began to right, they knew that he had bored a hole. The cheers continued, he lifted his shapeless hat and, with the grace of a gentleman, waved it a couple of times at the cheering crowd. Then he pushed back a mop of black hair, clapped his head-covering down on it and turned to help reload the cargo that had been moved into small boats. To bore a hole in the bottom of a water-filled boat was no great physical task. But the crowd cheered uproariously as the boat righted herself. Men shouted, women waved their bonnets and kerchiefs, and Ann Rutledge shook her branches of wild plums. Again the ungainly young giant waved his hat. "He's waving at you, Ann," John McNeil, who had joined the girls, said, coming up behind her. "Wave at him." And she did and laughed as he swung his limp and tattered hat. "Where do you suppose that kind grow?" Nance asked. "He looks like a giant scarecrow, but he's had lessons in manners, the identical same kind Mentor Graham tells about." It took but a short time to reload the boat. As she started on her way the cheers died, and most of the crowd went up the hill to the village. "Let's stay to see the last of it," Ann said to Nance. "You want him to wave at you some more," John McNeil said to Ann. "Well, go ahead--you'll never see him again." The boat sailed on. To those on board who looked back a few moments later, the mill and dam were resolving themselves into an indistinct patch of gray and brown, against which a bit of pink, waving something white, stood out. As a farewell answer to the waving of the white, the mellow music of the boat horn came floating back. The sun went down behind the forests bordering the smoothly flowing Sangamon; the crude craft passed from view. And yet once again the mellow tones of the primitive horn came floating back over the forest and across the river. "What a good sound!" Ann exclaimed. "It's soft as the first shadows, and it's strong."