his pardner?  Ain’t he got a pardner?” Two more men had thrown off their packs and were coolly taking an inventory of the dead man’s possessions.  One called aloud the various articles, while the other checked them off on a piece of dirty wrapping-paper.  Letters and receipts, wet and pulpy, strewed the sand.  A few gold coins were heaped carelessly on a white handkerchief.  Other men, crossing back and forth in canoes and skiffs, took no notice.

The Scandinavians glanced at the sight, and their faces sobered for a moment.  “Where’s his pardner?  Ain’t he got a pardner?” the irritated man demanded of them.  They shook their heads.  They did not understand English.  They stepped into the water and splashed onward.  Some one called warningly from the opposite bank, whereat they stood still and conferred together.  Then they started on again.  The two men taking the inventory turned to watch.  The current rose nigh to their hips, but it was swift and they staggered, while now and again the cart slipped sideways with the stream.  The worst was over, and Frona found herself holding her breath.  The water had sunk to the knees of the two foremost men, when a strap snapped on one nearest the cart.  His pack swung suddenly to the side, overbalancing him.  At the same instant the man next to him slipped, and each jerked the other under.  The next two were whipped off their feet, while the cart, turning over, swept from the bottom of the ford into the deep water.  The two men who had almost emerged threw themselves backward on the pull-ropes.  The effort was heroic, but giants though they were, the task was too great and they were dragged, inch by inch, downward and under.

Their packs held them to the bottom, save him whose strap had broken.  This one struck out, not to the shore, but down the stream, striving to keep up with his comrades.  A couple of hundred feet below, the rapid dashed over a toothed-reef of rocks, and here, a minute later, they appeared.  The cart, still loaded, showed first, smashing a wheel and turning over and over into the next plunge.  The men followed in a miserable tangle.  They were beaten against the submerged rocks and swept on, all but one.  Frona, in a canoe (a dozen canoes were already in pursuit), saw him grip the rock with bleeding fingers.  She saw his white face and the agony of the effort; but his hold relaxed and he was jerked away, just as his free comrade, swimming mightily, was reaching for him.  Hidden from sight, they took the next plunge, showing for a second, still struggling, at the shallow foot of the rapid.

A canoe picked up the swimming man, but the rest disappeared in a long stretch of swift, deep water.  For a quarter of an hour the canoes plied fruitlessly about, then found the dead men gently grounded in an eddy.  A tow-rope was requisitioned from an up-coming boat, and a pair of horses from a pack-train on the bank, and the ghastly jetsam hauled ashore.  Frona looked at the five young giants lying in the mud, broken-boned, limp, uncaring.  They were still harnessed to the cart, and the poor worthless packs still clung to their backs, The sixth sat in the midst, dry-eyed and stunned.  A dozen feet away the steady flood of life flowed by and Frona melted into it and went on.