The River: Chapters 1–7

by Gary Paulsen
In this sequel to Hatchet, Brian Robeson returns to the wilderness accompanied by a government psychologist who wishes to study his survival techniques. But after a devastating accident, Brian must fight to save both of their lives.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Chapters 1–7, Chapters 8–15, Chapters 16–25

Here are links to our lists for other works by Gary Paulsen: Hatchet, The Voyage of the Frog.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. hatchet
    a small ax with a short handle used with one hand
    “Just a minute.” Brian stopped them. “Maybe I didn’t understand what you said—let me get it straight. You want me to go back and do it over again? Live in the woods with nothing but a hatchet?”
  2. embedded
    enclosed firmly in a surrounding mass
    Brian had a mental picture of the porcupine coming into his shelter in the dark, throwing the hatchet and hitting the rock embedded in the wall and getting sparks.
  3. phony
    fraudulent; having a misleading appearance
    Derek held up his hands and shook his head. “No. Not like that. Nothing phony. We haven’t worked it all out yet, but we thought one of us would go with you and stay out there with you, live the way you live, watch you—learn. Learn. Take notebooks and make notes, write everything down. We really want to know how you did it—all the parts of it.”
  4. evasive
    deliberately vague or ambiguous
    In all his dealings with the new world around him since he was reborn in the woods—as he thought of it—he had to be evasive, hold back.
  5. maroon
    leave stranded or isolated with little hope of rescue
    In all the time since his return, he had had dozens of kids and not a few adults say how much they would have liked to do it—be marooned in the woods with nothing but a hatchet.
  6. contract
    engage by written agreement
    “There is money,” Derek said. “We can contract him and the government will pay well for his help.”
  7. clamber
    climb awkwardly, as if by scrambling
    But now he clambered in and took the seat in back with a relaxed attitude—it all felt the same and yet different somehow.
  8. attitude
    a complex mental state involving beliefs and feelings
    But now he clambered in and took the seat in back with a relaxed attitude—it all felt the same and yet different somehow.
  9. aspect
    a characteristic to be considered
    Derek had decided he should be the one to go—even though he had little or no survival knowledge—because he was a psychologist and that was the aspect they wished to learn about.
  10. veto
    command against
    Brian’s mother thought of using the same lake, but Derek vetoed it because they wanted it all to be new to Brian.
  11. terrain
    a piece of ground having specific characteristics
    “We selected the lake carefully,” Derek said, circling it with a felt-tip pen while they sat in Brian’s dining room. “It has the same kind of terrain as the lake you crashed into, and roughly the same altitude and kind of forest.”
  12. altitude
    elevation above sea level or above the earth's surface
    “We selected the lake carefully,” Derek said, circling it with a felt-tip pen while they sat in Brian’s dining room. “It has the same kind of terrain as the lake you crashed into, and roughly the same altitude and kind of forest.”
  13. slouch
    assume a drooping posture or carriage
    He flew loosely, slouched in the seat, his fingers lightly on the wheel, and something about him, the way he sat and moved with the music, relaxed Brian.
  14. amphibious
    operating or living on land and in water
    Down and to the right he saw the amphibious float with the wheels on the side.
  15. skim
    move or pass swiftly and lightly over the surface of
    The floats didn’t seem to slow the plane very much, as big as they were, and they skimmed over the trees until the pilot gained enough altitude to make them seem to slow down.
  16. fondness
    a positive feeling of liking or affection
    He didn’t forget them—he knew he would never forget them—but he didn’t think about them as much; and when he did, there wasn’t any fondness.
  17. drone
    make a monotonous low dull sound
    He looked out the window again. Only forest below now, forest and lakes and the plane droning.
  18. jolt
    move or cause to move with a sudden jerky motion
    The air was rough, rougher than he remembered from before, but he didn’t mind the jolting.
  19. repellent
    a chemical substance that keeps animals away
    Derek had gone over the list with his mother. Food for weeks, tent, a rubber boat, first-aid kit and mosquito repellent, fishing gear, a gun—a gun.
  20. throttle
    a valve that regulates the supply of fuel to the engine
    The pilot was all business now, his hands working the controls, easing the throttle, settling the plane the last bit down to the lake.
  21. clearing
    a treeless tract of land in the middle of a wooded area
    The pilot headed the plane toward a clearing to the right of where the river left the lake, nudging the throttle now and then to keep it moving on the floats until it at last slid through some green reeds and bumped the shoreline.
  22. coordinated
    dexterous in using more than one set of muscle movements
    Derek climbed out onto the float—moving a little stiffly, and Brian noted that he wasn’t very athletic, seemed not to be too coordinated—and stepped ashore.
  23. mustiness
    the quality of smelling old, stale, or moldy
    He flared his nostrils, smelled the air, pulled the air along the sides of his tongue in a hissing sound and tasted it, but there was nothing. Just summer smells. The tang of pines, soft air, some mustiness from rotting vegetation.
  24. jabber
    talk in a noisy, excited, or declamatory manner
    So much talk, Brian thought. Just jabber, jabber all the time.
  25. compromise
    an accommodation in which both sides make concessions
    “How about a compromise?”
  26. taint
    place under suspicion or cast doubt upon
    It wouldn’t be the same. Even the radio would taint it.
  27. wade
    walk through relatively shallow water
    Derek and Brian worked it back and around, wading in the water, pushing at the floats—the water felt warm to Brian, shore warm—and when they had it aimed well out, the pilot started the engine.
  28. disintegrate
    break into parts or components or lose cohesion or unity
    Things began to disintegrate fast after that.
  29. crude
    not carefully or expertly made
    They had made a crude lean-to—Brian missed the overhanging rock with his shelter back inside a great deal.
  30. shingle
    building material used as siding or roofing
    Clearly it would not stop the rain, though they had tried to make rough shingles of old pieces of half-rotted bark, yet it was a start.
  31. sliver
    a thin fragment or slice that has been shaved from something
    There was a sliver of moon, which made enough light to see the lake well, the flat water with the beam of moonlight coming across it, and even with the mosquitoes still working at him he was amazed at the beauty.
  32. override
    prevail or be more important than
    Somehow the beauty overrode the mosquitoes.
  33. externalize
    give reality to; represent in concrete form
    Derek nodded. “That’s what I mean. You have to tell me everything, externalize it all for me, so I can write it.”
  34. dependent
    contingent on something else
    “Just that. Out here, in nature, in the world, food is everything. All the other parts of what we are, what everything is, don’t matter without food. I read somewhere that all of what man is, everything man has always been or will be, all the thoughts and dreams...and every little and big thing is dependent on six inches of topsoil and rain when you need it to make a crop grow—food.”
  35. skimpy
    containing little excess
    It was not a thick stand—it would maybe have been enough for one person, but with two it was skimpy—still, there were some and they worked through the brush in their underwear, eating every berry they could find.
Created on Thu Jun 06 08:05:57 EDT 2019 (updated Thu Jun 06 10:27:35 EDT 2019)

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