Phil shuddered, held onto Sophie and looked over his shoulder.  Straddling a river rock was a young man, with clear intelligent eyes.  In his dark-skinned fist he gripped a rock, ready to strike again.

     The young rescuer's fingers relaxed, letting the rock fall carelessly to the ground.  "Ain't you one of the Balfrey boys?" he asked.  Phil looked hard, but couldn't place the stranger who pumped first his hand, then Sophie's.  "Name's John Bennett."  He was stout and solid and as straight forward as they come.  "Sorry the dog got you.  If it weren't you, it woulda been me."

     Phil looked down at his bloody pant leg.  "Heck, it ain't nothin'.  Just scratch."

     "You always say that," said Sophie.  After examining Phil's leg she turned to the young man, "Excuse me, but didn't you say our name was Bennett?"

     "That's right," John assured her.  "Now, Ol' Man Bennett, he's my pa, 'cept  he don't think so."  As John spoke he gazed not at them, but at the ripples in the river.  "Now, my ma, she's a full blooded Karuk Indian.  They got together when he first came to this country.  That is, before he made his fortune."  John's eyes traveled up river.  "You didn't by chance see his hydraulic minin' operation up McNeil Creek, did you?"

     Sophie and Phil nodded their heads.  They were completely mesmerized by this young spirited, John Bennett and his story.

     "Well, he's also got a mine up Horn Creek and Crapo."  With the slightest movement of his head, John motioned north, south, east and west.  "Anyways, Ol' Man Bennett, he turns me and my sister Millie Jane and my ma out into the cold and marries this white woman and now they got three youngins of  their own -- my half sisters and brother."  John ground his teeth together and his dark eyes churned bitter as buttermilk.  "But I know who I am."  His expression quickly warmed at the sight of an osprey rising fronm the river, carrying a fish, head forward, in it's talons.

     "He don't like to think so, that Ol' Man Bennett, but I know who I am."

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