’He swum to it, and as he come pushing it to the raft, the men spread to one side.  But the old man got it aboard and busted in the head, and there was a baby in it!  Yes, sir, a stark naked baby.  It was Dick Allbright’s baby; he owned up and said so.

’"Yes,” he says, a-leaning over it, “yes, it is my own lamented darling, my poor lost Charles William Allbright deceased,” says he,—­for he could curl his tongue around the bulliest words in the language when he was a mind to, and lay them before you without a jint started, anywheres.  Yes, he said he used to live up at the head of this bend, and one night he choked his child, which was crying, not intending to kill it,—­which was prob’ly a lie,—­and then he was scared, and buried it in a bar’l, before his wife got home, and off he went, and struck the northern trail and went to rafting; and this was the third year that the bar’l had chased him.  He said the bad luck always begun light, and lasted till four men was killed, and then the bar’l didn’t come any more after that.  He said if the men would stand it one more night,—­and was a-going on like that,—­but the men had got enough.  They started to get out a boat to take him ashore and lynch him, but he grabbed the little child all of a sudden and jumped overboard with it hugged up to his breast and shedding tears, and we never see him again in this life, poor old suffering soul, nor Charles William neither.’

‘Who was shedding tears?’ says Bob; ‘was it Allbright or the baby?’

’Why, Allbright, of course; didn’t I tell you the baby was dead.  Been dead three years—­how could it cry?’

‘Well, never mind how it could cry—­how could it keep all that time?’ says Davy.  ‘You answer me that.’

‘I don’t know how it done it,’ says Ed.  ’It done it though—­that’s all I know about it.’

‘Say—­what did they do with the bar’l?’ says the Child of Calamity.

‘Why, they hove it overboard, and it sunk like a chunk of lead.’

‘Edward, did the child look like it was choked?’ says one.

‘Did it have its hair parted?’ says another.

‘What was the brand on that bar’l, Eddy?’ says a fellow they called Bill.

‘Have you got the papers for them statistics, Edmund?’ says Jimmy.

‘Say, Edwin, was you one of the men that was killed by the lightning.’ says Davy.

’Him?  O, no, he was both of ’em,’ says Bob.  Then they all haw-hawed.

’Say, Edward, don’t you reckon you’d better take a pill?  You look bad—­ don’t you feel pale?’ says the Child of Calamity.

‘O, come, now, Eddy,’ says Jimmy, ’show up; you must a kept part of that bar’l to prove the thing by.  Show us the bunghole—­do—­and we’ll all believe you.’

‘Say, boys,’ says Bill, ’less divide it up.  Thar’s thirteen of us.  I can swaller a thirteenth of the yarn, if you can worry down the rest.’

Ed got up mad and said they could all go to some place which he ripped out pretty savage, and then walked off aft cussing to himself, and they yelling and jeering at him, and roaring and laughing so you could hear them a mile.