“‘Wild hog.’  What’s wild about you?” sneered the other.  “You picked the right animal but the wrong variety.  Any kind of a hog makes a bad partner.”

For a time the work proceeded in silence, then the latter speaker resumed:  “You said I was a dam’ something or other.  What was it?” The object of this inquiry maintained an offensive, nay an insulting, silence.  “A what?” Linton persisted.

Quirk looked up through his mask of sawdust.  “If you’re gettin’ tired again why don’t you say so?  I’ll wait while you rest.”  He opened his eyes in apparent astonishment, then he cried:  “Hello!  Why, it’s rainin’.”

“It ain’t raining,” Tom declared.

“Must be—­your face is wet.”  Once more the speaker cackled shrilly in a manner intended to be mirthful, but which was in reality insulting beyond human endurance.  “I never saw moisture on your brow, Tom, except when it rained or when you set too close to a fire.”

“What was it you wanted to call me and was scared to?” Mr. Linton urged, venomously.  “A dam’ what?”

“Oh, I forget the precise epithet I had in mind.  But a new one rises to my lips ’most every minute.  I think I aimed to call you a dam’ old fool.  Something like that.”

Slowly, carefully, Mr. Linton descended from the scaffold, leaving the whip-saw in its place.  He was shaking with rage, with weakness, and with fatigue.

“‘Old’?  Me old?  I’m a fool, I admit, or I wouldn’t have lugged your loads and done your work the way I have.  But, you see, I’m strong and vigorous and I felt sorry for a tottering wreck like you—­”

“’Lugged my loads’?” snorted the smaller man.  “Me a wreck?  My Gawd!”

“—­I did your packing and your washing and your cooking, and mine, too, just because you was feeble and because I’ve got consideration for my seniors.  I was raised that way.  I honored your age, Jerry.  I knew you was about all in, but I never called you old.  I wouldn’t hurt your feelings.  What did you do?  You set around on your bony hips and criticized and picked at me.  But you’ve picked my last feather off and I’m plumb raw.  Right here we split!”

Jerry Quirk staggered slightly and leaned against a post for support.  His knees were wobbly; he, too, ached in every bone and muscle; he, too, had been goaded into an insane temper, but that which maddened him beyond expression was this unwarranted charge of incompetency.

“Split it is,” he agreed.  “That’ll take a load off my shoulders.”

“We’ll cut our grub fifty-fifty, then I’ll hit you a clout with the traces and turn you a-loose.”

Jerry was still dazed, for his world had come to an end, but he pretended to an extravagant joy and managed to chirp:  “Good news—­ the first I’ve had since we went pardners.  I’ll sure kick up my heels.  What’ll we do with the boat?”

“Cut her in two.”

“Right.  We’ll toss up for ends.  We’ll divide everything the same way, down to the skillet.”