THE WOODED ISLAND was narrow, its flanks worn and shaped by the flowing waters of the river.  On the upriver point of the island, where it was instantly visible to all downstream traffic, a crude landing had been thrown together, a mere platform of peeled poles raised a couple of feet above the water of a tiny cove.  Above the landing was a sign:

BEDLOE'S STORE - WHAT DO YOU LACK?
PITTSBURGH PRICES

Some distance back of the landing and at the end of short trail up through the woods, was a tent house of logs anda canvas.  Marty, the harmonica player, paused and lowered the bale of furs to the ground to mop the sweat from his face.

Pa should be able to figure out an easier way of doing things, he told himself, but pa was almighty skittish.  Maybe a narrow escape from hanging did that to a man, but pa had it in mind to change places often... and fast.

Hawkins came down the trail as Marty shouldered the furs.  "There'll be settlers an' folks cornin'," he said, "so you act spry and talk kindly.  We want to make a good impression on folks.  And bust up that canoe."

"Pa," Marty protested, "that there's a good canoe.  It seems a shame to bust -"

"You do what your pa tells you," Hawkins interrupted sharply.  "No tellin' who all may have seen that canoe.  We don't want folks askin' questions."

Marty lowered the bale to the ground again.  "Pa, where be they goin'?  All of them folks, I mean?"

"West... there's a mighty movement afoot, son.  Greatest movement since the Children of Israel fled from bondage in the land of Egypt.  The world has never seen the like, folks from all the lands of creation, streamin' west, flowin' like a great tide, some of them walkin', some drivin' wagons, and some a-horseback.  You look upon this and remember it, son, for these folk are goin west to populate a new land."

"Be we'uns goin' west, pa?"

"I reckon not, son.  We are of the afflictions that beset these poor travelers, these wayfarers upon the earth.  And, I might add, bein' an affliction is a sight more profitable than planting or plowing and tilling.  It surely is... or digging gold, for that matter."

Colonel Jeb Hawkins canted his hat at a rakish angle.  "Son, you listen to your old father.  The world is made up of two kinds of folks, the spoiled and the spoilers... and to my way of thinking it's a whole sight better to be a spoiler.  Now you look sharp.  Folks will be comin'."

Hawkins turned back toward the log and canvas hut, but paused to add, "And mind you... destroy that canoe."

When he had deposited the last bale of furs at the shack, Marty returned to the landing to sink the canoe.  He did so reluctantly, for he admired its fine, clean lines.  When he turned it bottom up and dropped a rock upon it, he had to try several times before he cracked the bark.  Then he shoved it off into the water and sank it, weighting it down with other rocks, just in case.

His thoughts returned to the mountain man's rifle.  Pa should give him that rifle instead of selling it.  Pa was always for selling everything, and meanwhile he'd let his own son be without a rifle-gun.

Movement on the water some distance off caught his eye.  "Pa!" he called.  "Rafts a-comin'!"

Another man stepped from the woods and shaded his eyes upstream.  "Two," he said, speaking back over his shoulder.  "Two big rafts."

Marty watched them coming, almost with regret.  Pa knew what he was doing, he guessed.  Anyway, things mostly turned out the way he said, only sometimes the folks on those rafts seemed like right nice people.  Dora, she was like pa.  She took right to it... like with that mountain man last night....  He
scowled at the rafts, almost hoping they would not stop, There was a wistfulness in him, too.  Why couldn't he and pa and Dora go west of their ownselves?  Pa always made light of a man owning land, but a place of their own... he would fancy that.