Page:Raymond Spears--Diamond Tolls.djvu/229



TORIT, the little river rat, who had at one time run a whisky boat on the lower river, lived in a "hog pen on a raft," to call it according to the vernacular. His home was, in fact, a scow twenty feet long, four feet wide, and twenty inches deep. The stern of the boat to within five feet of the bow was covered by a tent canvas nearly five feet higher than the gunwales to the peak. The canvas was old, but it had been painted with white lead and tar and fish-net waterproofing, so that it did not leak a drop.

In this rag cabin were a number of things which accorded well with Storit's position in society. The bunk was a shallow box nearly seven feet long, thirty inches wide, and filled with corn leaves. On the bunk were some old blankets.

A soap box filled with cooking utensils rested next to the flap that opened out into the bow. Hanging along the ridge pole were little bags and chunks of smoked meat, thus carefully placed out of the way of the mice which would enter into the boat and build their nests and rear their families in spite of Storit's 223