Raftmates: A Story of the Great River

by Kirk Munroe

RAFT MATES.

CHAPTER I.

THE RAFT.

Although the Venture was by no means so large a raft as many that Winn Caspar had watched glide down the Mississippi, he considered it about the finest craft of that description ever put together. He was also a little more proud of it than of anything else in the whole world. Of course he excepted his brave soldier father, who had gone to the war as a private, to come home when it was all over wearing a major's uniform; and his dear mother, who for four weary years had been both father and mother to him, and his sister Elta, who was not only the prettiest girl in the county, but, to Winn's mind, the cleverest. But outside of his immediate family, the raft, the Venture, as his father had named it, was the object of the boy's most sincere admiration and pride. Had he not helped build it? Did he not know every timber and plank and board in it? Had he not assisted in loading it with enough bushels of wheat to feed an army? Was he not about to leave home for the first time in his life, to float away down the great river and out into the wide world on it? Certainly he had, and did, and was. So no wonder he was proud of the raft, and impatient for the waters of the little river, on a bank of which the Caspar's lived, to be high enough to float it, that they might make a start.

Winn had never known any home but this one near the edge of the vast pine forests of Wisconsin. Here Major Caspar had brought his New England bride many years before. Here he had built up a mill business that was promising him a fortune in a few years more at the time when the war called him. When peace was declared, this business was wellnigh ruined, and the soldier must begin life again as a poor man. For many months he struggled, but made little head-way against adverse fortune. The mill turned out lumber fast enough, but there was no demand for it, or those who wanted it were too poor to pay its price. At length the Major decided upon a bold venture. The Caspar mill was but a short distance from the Mississippi. Far away down the great river were cities where money was plenty, and where lumber and farm products were in demand. There were not half enough steamboats on the river, and freights were high; but the vast waterway with its ceaseless current was free to all. Why should not he do as others had done and were constantly doing—raft his goods to a market? It would take time, of course; but a few months of the autumn and winter could be spared as well as not, and so it was finally decided that the venture should be undertaken.

It was not to be a timber raft only. Major Caspar did not care to attempt the navigating of a huge affair, such as his entire stock of sawed material would have made, nor could he afford the expense of a large crew. Then, too, while ready money was scarce in his neighborhood, the prairie wheat crop of that season was unusually good. So he exchanged half his lumber for wheat, and devoted his leisure during the summer to the construction of a raft with the remainder.

This raft contained the very choice of the mill's output for that season—squared timbers, planks, and boards enough to load a ship. It was provided with two long sweeps, or steering oars, at each end, with a roomy shanty for the accommodation of the crew, and with two other buildings for the stowing of cargo. The floors of these structures were raised a foot above the deck of the raft, and were made water-tight, so that when waves or swells from passing steamboats broke over the raft, their contents would not be injured. In front of the central building, or "shanty," was a bed of sand six feet square, enclosed by wooden sides, on which the camp-fires were to be built. Much of the cooking would also be done here. Besides this there was a small stove in the "shanty" for use during cold or wet weather.

The "shanty" had a door and three windows, and was in other ways made unusually comfortable. The Major said that after four years of roughing it, he now meant to take his comfort wherever he could find it, even though it was only on a raft. So the Venture's "shanty" was very different from the rude lean-to or shelter of rough boards, such as was to be seen on most of the timber rafts of the great river. Its interior was divided into two rooms, the after one of which was a tiny affair only six by ten feet. It was furnished with two bunks, one above the other, a table, two camp-chairs, and several shelves, on one of which were a dozen books of travel and history. This was the sleeping-room that Winn was to share with his father.

A door from this opened into the main living-room of the "shanty." Here were bunks for six men, a dining-table, several benches, barrels, and boxes of provisions, and the galley, with its stove and ample supply of pots, pans, and dishes. The bunks were filled with fresh, sweet-smelling wheat straw, covered with heavy army blankets, and the whole affair was about the most comfortable "shanty" ever set up on a Mississippi timber raft. To Winn it seemed as though nothing could be more perfect or inviting, and he longed for the time when it should be his temporary home.

For a whole month after the raft was finished, loaded, and ready to set forth on its uncertain voyage, it remained hard and fast aground where it was built. To Winn's impatience it seemed as though high-water never would come.

"I don't believe this old raft is ever going to float any more than the mill itself," he remarked pettishly to his sister Elta one day in October, as they sat together on the Venture and watched the sluggish current of the little river.

"Father thinks it will," answered Elta, quietly.

"Oh yes. Of course father thinks so; but he may be mistaken as well as other folks. Now if I'd had the building of this craft, I would have floated all the material down to the mouth of the creek. Then everything would have been ready for a start as soon as she was finished."

"How would you have loaded the wheat?" demanded Elta.

"Why, boated it down, of course."

"And so added largely to its cost," answered the practical girl. "You know, Winn, that it was ever so much cheaper to build the raft here than it would have been 'way down there, and, besides, father wasn't ready to start when it was finished. I heard him tell mother that he didn't care to get away before the 1st of November. Anyhow, father must understand his own business better than a sixteen-year-old boy, even if that boy's name is Winn Caspar."

"Oh, I never saw such a girl as you are!" exclaimed Winn, impatiently. "You are always making objections to my plans, and telling me that I'm only a boy. You'd rather any time travel in a rut that some one else had made than mark out a track for yourself. For my part, I'd much rather think out my own plans and try new ways."

"So do I, Winnie; but—"

"Oh, don't call me 'Winnie,' whatever you do! I'm as tired of pet names and baby talk as I am of waiting here for high-water that won't ever come."

With this the petulant lad rose to his feet, and leaping ashore, disappeared among the trees of the river-bank, leaving Elta to gaze after him with a grieved expression, and a suspicion of tears in her brown eyes.

In spite of this little scene, Winn Caspar was not an ill-tempered boy. He had not learned the beauty of self-control, and thus often spoke hastily, and without considering the feelings of others. He was also apt to think that if things were left to his management, he could improve upon almost any plan proposed or carried out by some one else. He had mingled but little with other boys, and as "man of the family" during his father's four years of absence in the army, had conceived a false estimate of his own importance and ability.

Absorbed by pressing business cares after resuming the pursuits of a peaceful life, Major Caspar had been slow to note the imperfections in his boy's character. He was deeply grieved when his eyes were finally opened to them, and held many an earnest consultation with his wife concerning the son, who was at once the source of their greatest anxiety and the object of their fondest hopes.

CHAPTER II.

WINN ASSUMES A RESPONSIBILITY.

It was during one of these conversations with the boy's mother that Major Caspar decided to take Winn with him on his raft voyage down the Mississippi.

"If I find a good chance to place the boy in a first-class school in one of the large cities after the voyage is ended I shall do so," said the Major. "It is only fair, though, that he should have a chance to see and learn something of the world first. After all, there is nothing equal to travel as an educator. I honestly believe that the war did more in four years towards educating this nation by stirring its people up and moving large bodies of them to sections remote from their homes than all our colleges have in fifty."

"But you mean that Winn shall go to college, of course?" said Mrs. Caspar, a little anxiously.

"If he wants to, and shows a real liking for study," was the reply; "but not unless he does. College is by no means the only place where a boy can receive a liberal education. He may acquire just as good a one in practical life if he is thoroughly interested in what he is doing and has an ambition to excel. I believe Winn to be both ambitious and persevering; but he is impulsive, easily influenced, and impatient of control. He has no idea of that implicit obedience to orders that is at the foundation of success in civil life as well as in the army; and, above all, he is possessed of such an inordinate self-conceit that if it is not speedily curbed by one or more severe lessons, it may lead him into serious trouble."

"Oh, John!" expostulated the mother. "Do you realize that you are saying these horrid things about our own boy—our Winn?"

"Indeed I do, dear," answered the Major, smiling; "and it is because he is our boy, whom I love better than myself, that I am analyzing his character so carefully. He has the making of a splendid fellow in him, together with certain traits that might easily prove his ruin."

"Well," replied Mrs. Caspar, in a resigned tone, "perhaps it will do him good to go away and be alone with you for a while. It is very hard to realize, though, that my little Winn is sixteen years old and almost a man. But, John, you won't let him run any risks, or get into any danger, will you?"

"Not knowingly, my dear, you may rest assured," answered the Major. But he smiled as he thought how impossible it was to keep boys from running risks and getting into all sorts of dangerous positions.

So it was decided that Winn should form one of the crew of the Venture whenever the raft should be ready to start on its long voyage; and ever since learning tins decision the boy had been in a fever of impatience to be off. So full was he of anticipations concerning the proposed journey that he could talk and think of nothing else. Thus, after a month of tiresome delay, he was in such an uncomfortable frame of mind that it was a positive trial to have him about the house. For this reason he was encouraged to spend much of his time aboard the raft, and was even allowed to eat and sleep there whenever he chose. At length he reached the point of almost quarrelling with his sister, whom he loved so dearly; but he had hardly plunged into the woods, after leaving her on the raft, before he regretted his unkind words and heartily wished them unsaid. He hesitated and half turned back, but his "pride," as he would have called it, though it was really nothing but cowardice, was too strong to permit him to humble himself just yet. So, feeling very unhappy, he tramped moodily on through the woods, full of bitter thoughts, angry with himself and all the world. Yet if any one had asked him what it was all about, he could not have told.

Winn took a long circuit through the silent forest, and by the time he again reached the river-bank, coming out just above the mill, he had walked himself tired, but into quite a cheerful frame of mind. The mill was shut down for the night, its workers had gone home, and not a sound broke the evening stillness. The boy sat on a pile of slabs for a few minutes, resting, and watching the glowing splendor of sunset as reflected in the waters of the stream at his feet. At length he started up and was about to go to the house, where, as he had decided, his very first act would be to ask Elta's forgiveness. The house stood some distance from the river-bank, and was hidden from it by the trees of a young apple orchard. As Winn rose to his feet and cast a lingering glance at the wonderful beauty of the water, he noticed a familiar black object floating amid its splendor of crimsons and gold.

"I wonder how that log got out of the boom?" he said, half aloud. "Why, there's another—and another! The boom must be broken."

Yes, the boom of logs, chained together end to end and stretched completely across the creek to hold in check the thousands of saw-logs that filled the stream farther than the eye could see, had parted near the opposite bank. The end thus loosened had swung down-stream a little way, and there caught on a snag formed of a huge, half-submerged root. It might hold on there indefinitely, or it might get loose at any moment, swing wide open, and set free the imprisoned wealth of logs behind it. As it was, they were beginning to slip through the narrow opening, and those that had attracted Winn's attention were sliding downstream as stealthily as so many escaped convicts.

The boy's first impulse was to run towards the house, calling his father and the mill-hands as he went. His second, and the one upon which he acted, was to mend the broken boom and capture the truant logs himself. "There is no need of troubling father, and I can do it alone better than any number of those clumsy mill-hands," he thought. "Besides, there is no time to spare; for if the boom once lets go of that snag, we shall lose half the logs behind it."

Thus thinking, Winn ran around the mill and sprang aboard the raft that lay just below it. Glancing about for a stout rope, his eye lighted on the line by which the raft was made fast to a tree. "The very thing!" he exclaimed. "While it's aground here the raft doesn't need a cable any more than I need a check-rein, and I told father so. He said there wasn't any harm in taking a precaution, and that the water might rise unexpectedly. As if there was a chance of it! There hasn't been any rain for two months, and isn't likely to be any for another yet to come."

While these thoughts were spinning through the boy's brain, he was casting loose the cable at both ends and stowing it in his own little dugout that was moored to the outer side of the raft. Then with strong deep strokes he paddled swiftly upstream towards the broken boom. After fifteen minutes of hard work he had secured one end of the cable to that part of the boom resting against the snag, carried the other to and around a tree on the bank, back again to the boom, and then to the inshore end of the broken chain. Thus he not only secured the boom against opening any wider, but closed the exit already made.

[Illustration: "Winn secured one end of the cable
to that part of the boom resting against the snag.">[

"That's as good a job as any of them could have done," he remarked to himself, regarding his work through the gathering gloom with great satisfaction. "Now for the fellows that got away."

It was a much harder task to capture and tow back those three truant logs than it had been to repair the boom. It was such hard work, and the darkness added so much to its difficulties, that almost any other boy would have given it up in despair, and allowed the three logs to escape. But Winn Caspar was not inclined to give up anything he had once undertaken. Having determined to do a certain thing, he would stick to it "like a dog to a root," as one of the mill-hands had said of him. So those logs had to go back inside of that boom, because Winn had made up his mind that they should; but they went so reluctantly, and gave him so much trouble, that it was long after dark and some hours past supper-time before the job was completed.

When Winn at length returned to the raft he was wet, tired, and hungry, though very proud of his accomplished task. He was shivering too, now that his violent exertions were ended, for the sky had become overcast, and a chill wind was moaning through the pine-trees.

"I wonder if I can't find something to eat here?" he said to himself. "I'm good and hungry, that's a fact, and they must have had supper up at the house long ago." Entering the "shanty," and feeling carefully about, the boy at length found matches and lighted a lamp.

Hello! There was plenty to eat; in fact, there was a regular spread at one end of the table, with plate, cup and saucer, knife, fork, and napkin, all neatly arranged as though he were expected. "What does it mean?" thought Winn; and then his eye fell on a bit of folded paper lying in the plate. It was a note which read as follows:

"DEAR BROTHER,—As you didn't come home to supper, I thought perhaps you were going to spend the night on the raft, and so brought yours down here. You can heat the tea on the stove. I'm awfully sorry I said anything to make you feel badly. Please forget it, and forgive your loving sister,——ELTA."

"Bless her dear heart!" cried the boy. "She is the best sister in the world. The idea of her asking my forgiveness, when it is I who should ask hers. And I will ask it, too, the very minute I see her; for I shall never be happy until we have kissed and made up, as we used to say when we were young ones. I guess, though, I'll eat the supper she has brought me first. And that's a good idea about heating the tea, too. I can get dry by the stove at the same time. I'll have a chance to see Elta before bedtime, and she'd feel badly if I didn't eat her supper anyway."

All of which goes to show how very little we know of what even the immediate future may bring forth, and that if we put off for a single hour doing that which ought to be done at once, what a likelihood there is that we may never have a chance to do it.

CHAPTER III.

A MUD-BESPATTERED ARRIVAL FROM CALIFORNIA.

Acting upon the suggestion contained in Elta's note, Winn lighted a fire in the galley stove, and was soon enjoying its cheery warmth. When the tea was heated, he ate heartily of the supper so thoughtfully provided by the dear girl, and his heart grew very tender as he thought of her and of her unwearying love for him. "I ought to go and find her this very minute," he said to himself; "but I must get dry first, and there probably isn't any fire up at the house."

To while away the few minutes that he intended remaining on the raft, Winn got one of the books of exploration from a shelf in the little after-room, and was quickly buried in the heart of an African forest. Completely lost to his surroundings, and absorbed in tales of the wild beasts and wilder men of the Dark Continent, the boy read on and on until the failing light warned him that his lamp was about to go out for want of oil.

He yawned as he finally closed the book. "My! how sleepy I am, and how late it must be," he said. "How the wind howls, too! It sounds as if we were going to have a storm. I only hope it will bring plenty of rain and high-water. Then good-bye to home, and hurrah for the great river!"

By this chain of thought Winn was again reminded of Elta, and of the forgiveness he had meant to secure from her that evening. "It is too late now, though," he said to himself. "She must have gone to bed long ago, and I guess I might as well do the same; but I'll see her the very first thing in the morning."

With this the tired boy blew out the expiring flame of his lamp, and tumbled into his bunk, where in another minute he was as sound asleep as ever in his life.

In the mean time the high-water for which he hoped so earnestly was much nearer at hand than either he or any one else supposed. The storm now howling through the pines had been raging for hours about the head-waters of the creek, and the deluge of rain by which it was accompanied was sweeping steadily down-stream towards the great river. Even as Winn sat by the stove reading, the first of the swelling waters began to rise along the sides of the raft, and by the time the storm broke overhead the Venture was very nearly afloat.

Although Winn slept too soundly to be disturbed by either wind or rain, the storm awoke Major Caspar, who listened for some time to this announcement that the hour for setting forth on his long-projected journey was at hand. He had no anxiety for the safety of the raft, for he remembered the stout cable by which he had secured it, and congratulated himself upon the precaution thus taken. "Besides, Winn is aboard," he reflected, "and he is almost certain to rouse us all with the joyful news the minute he finds that the raft is afloat." Thus reassuring himself, the Major turned over and went comfortably to sleep.

Elta knew nothing of the storm until morning, but hearing the rain the moment she awoke, she too recognized it as the signal for the Venture's speedy departure. From her window she had heretofore been able to see one corner of the raft; but now, peering out through the driving rain that caused the forest depths to appear blue and dim, she could not discover it. With a slight feeling of uneasiness, she hastily dressed, and went to Winn's door. There was no answer to her knock. She peeped in. Winn was not there, nor had the bed been occupied.

"He did spend the night on the raft, then, and so of course it is all right," thought the girl, greatly relieved at this discovery. "The Venture must be afloat, though. I wonder if father knows it?"

Just then Major Caspar appeared, evidently prepared to face the storm.

"Well, little daughter," he said, "high-water has come at last, and the time of our departure is at hand. I am going down to see what Winn thinks of it."

"Oh, can't I go with you, papa? I should dearly love to!" cried Elta.

"Well, I don't know," hesitated the Major. "I suppose you might if you were rigged for it."

This permission was sufficient, and the active girl bounded away full of glee at the prospect of a battle with the storm, and of surprising Winn on the raft. Three minutes later she reappeared, clad in rubber boots and a water-proof cloak, the hood of which, drawn over her head, framed her face in the most bewitching manner.

The Major attempted to protect her still further with a large umbrella; but they had hardly left the house before a savage gust swooped down and gleefully rendered it useless by turning it inside out. Casting the umbrella aside, the Major clasped Elta's hand firmly in his. Then with bowed heads the two pushed steadily on towards the river-bank, while the wind scattered bits of their merry laughter far and wide.

It took them but a few minutes to reach the little stream, when their laughter was suddenly silenced. There was the place where the Venture had been put together, there was the tree to which it had been so securely moored; but the raft that had grown into being and become a familiar sight at that point no longer occupied it, nor was it anywhere to be seen. Only a flood of turbid waters, fully two feet higher than they had been the evening before, swept over the spot, and seemed to beckon mockingly towards the great river.

"Why, the raft has gone!" exclaimed Elta, in a dismayed voice.

[Illustration: "'Why, the raft has gone!' exclaimed Elta">[

"It certainly has," answered the Major, grimly; "and as it cannot possibly have floated up-stream, it must have gone towards the Mississippi. I only hope that Winn managed in some way to check and hold it before it reached the big water; otherwise we may have a merry hunt for it."

While he spoke they had been hurrying to a point a short distance down-stream, around which the creek made a bend. From here they could command a view of half a mile of its course, and somewhere along this stretch of water they hoped to see the raft safely moored. They were, however, doomed to disappointment; for as far as the eye could see there was no sign of the missing craft. Full of conjectures and forebodings of evil they reluctantly turned back towards the house.

The mill-hands, some of whom were to have formed the crew of the Venture, had already discovered that it was gone. Now they were gathered at the house awaiting the Major's orders, and eagerly discussing the situation.

Mrs. Caspar, full of anxiety, met her husband and daughter at the open door, where she stood, regardless of the driving rain.

"Oh, John!" she cried, "where is Winn? What has become of the raft? Do you think anything can have happened to him?"

"Certainly not," answered the Major, reassuringly. "Nothing serious can have befallen the boy on board a craft like that. As to his whereabouts, I propose to go down to the mouth of the creek at once and discover them. That is, just as soon as you can give me a cup of coffee and a bite of breakfast, for it would be foolish to start off without those. But the quicker we can get ready the better. I shall go in the skiff, and take Halma and Jan with me."

Nothing so allays anxiety as the necessity for immediate action, especially when such action is directed towards removing the cause for alarm. So Mrs. Caspar and Elta, in flying about to prepare breakfast for the rescuing party, almost worked themselves into a state of hopeful cheerfulness. It was only after the meal had been hastily eaten, and the Major with his stalwart Swedes had departed, that a reaction came, and the anxious fears reasserted themselves. For hours they could do nothing but discuss the situation, and watch for some one to come with news. Several times during the morning Elta put on her water-proof and went down to the mill. There, she would gaze with troubled eyes at the ever-rising waters, until reminded that her mother needed comforting, when she would return to the house.

On one of these occasions the girl was surprised to see a saddle-horse, bearing evidences of a hard journey, standing at the hitching-post near the front door. But this first surprise was as nothing to the amazement with which she beheld her mother clasped in the arms of a strange young man who was so bespattered with mud that his features were hardly recognizable. Mrs. Caspar was laughing and crying at the same time, while both she and the young man were talking at once. Near them, and regarding this tableau with the utmost gravity, was a powerful-looking bull-dog, who would evidently be pure white when washed.

For a full minute Elta stood in the doorway gazing wonderingly at this strange scene. Then her mother caught sight of the girl's wide-eyed bewilderment, and burst into a fit of laughter that was almost hysterical.

"It's your uncle William!" she cried, as soon as she could command her voice. "My little brother Billy, whom I haven't seen for twelve years, and he has just come from California. Give him a kiss, dear, and tell him how very glad we are to see him."

Then Elta was in turn embraced by the mud-bespattered young man, who gravely announced that he should never have recognized her.

"No wonder, for she was only a baby when you last saw her!" exclaimed Mrs. Caspar; "and I'm sure I should never have recognized you but for your voice. I don't know how you look even now, and I sha'n't until you wash your face."

"What's the matter with my face? Is it dirty?" asked the young man.

For answer Mrs. Caspar led him in front of a mirror.

"Well, I should say it was dirty! In fact, dirty is no name at all for it!" he laughed. "I believe I look about as bad as Binney Gibbs[1] did when he covered himself with 'mud and glory' at the same time, or rather when his mule did it for him."

"Who is Binney Gibbs?" asked both Mrs. Caspar and Elta.

"Binney? Why, he is a young fellow, about Winn's age, who went across the plains with me a year ago. By-the-way, where is Winn? I want to see the boy. And where is the Major?"

Then, as Mrs. Caspar explained the absence of her husband and son, all her anxieties returned, so that before she finished her face again wore a very sober and troubled expression.

"So that is the situation, is it?" remarked the new-comer, reflectively. "I see that Winn is not behind his age in getting into scrapes. He reminds me of another young fellow who went campmates with me on the plains, Glen Matherson—no, Eddy. No; come to think of it, his name is Elting. Well, any way, he had just such a habit of getting into all sorts of messes; but he always came out of each one bright and smiling, right side up with care, and ready for the next."

"He had names enough, whoever he was," said Elta, a little coldly; for it seemed to her that this flippant young uncle was rather inclined to disparage her own dear brother. "Yes, he certainly had names to spare; but if he was half as well able to take care of himself as our Winn is, no one ever had an excuse for worrying about him."

"No, indeed!" broke in the young man, eagerly; "but I tell you he was— Why, you just ought to have seen him when—"

"Here comes father!" cried Elta, joyfully, running to throw open the door as she spoke.

[1] See Campmates, by the same Author.

CHAPTER IV.

BILLY BRACKETT STARTS DOWN THE RIVER.

It needed but a glance at Major Caspar's face, as, dripping and weary, he entered the house, to show that his search for the raft had been fruitless. His wife's mother-instinct translated his expression at once, and the quick tears started to her eyes as she exclaimed,

"My boy! What has happened to him?"

"Nothing serious, you may rest assured, my dear," replied the Major. "I have not seen him; but I have heard of the raft, and there is no question as to its safety. We reached the mouth of the creek without discovering a trace of it. Then we went down the river as far as the Elbow, where we waited in the slack-water to hail up-bound steamboats. The first had seen nothing of the raft; but the second, one of the 'Diamond Jo' boats, reported that they had seen such a raft—one with three shanties on it—at daybreak, in the 'Slant Crossing,' ten miles below. If I could have got a down-river boat I should have boarded her and gone in pursuit, sending the men back to tell you what I had done. As we were unable to hail the only one that passed, I gave it up and came back to report progress."

"Oh, I am so glad you did!" cried Mrs. Caspar.

"So am I," said the young stranger, speaking for the first time since the Major's entrance. The latter had glanced curiously at him once or twice while talking to his wife, but without a gleam of recognition. Now, as he looked inquiringly at him again, Mrs. Caspar exclaimed:

"Why, John, don't you know him? It's William—my own brother William, just come from California."

"So it is," replied the Major, giving the young man a hearty hand-shake—"so it is, William Brackett himself. But, my dear fellow, I must confess I was so far from recognizing you that I thought your name was—"

"'Mud' I reckon," interrupted the other, laughing; "and so it will be before long, if I don't get a chance to clean up. But, Major, by the time both of us are wrung out and dried, and sister has looked up some dinner, I'll be ready to unfold a plan that will make things look as bright for you and Winn and the rest of us as the sun that's breaking away the clouds is going to make the sky directly."

Mrs. Caspar's brother William, "Billy Brackett," as all his friends called him, was a young civil engineer of more than usual ability. He had already gained a larger stock of experience and seen more of his own country than most men of his age, which was about twenty-six. From government work in the East and on the lower Mississippi he had gone to the Kansas Pacific Railway, been detailed to accompany an exploring party across the plains, and, after spending some time on the Pacific coast, had just returned to the Mississippi Valley—out of a job, to be sure, but with the certainty of obtaining one whenever he should want it. From the moment of leaving San Francisco he had intended making the Caspars a visit, and had directed his journey towards their home. In Chicago he had run across an engineering friend named Hobart, who was at that moment regretting the pressure of business that forbade his trying for what promised to be a most profitable contract. It was one for furnishing all the bridge timber to be used in the construction of a new railway through Wisconsin. The bids were to be opened in Madison two days later. Acting upon the impulse of the moment, Billy Brackett hastened to that city and tendered a bid for the contract, which, to his surprise, was accepted.

In doing this the young engineer had counted upon the assistance of his brother-in-law, from whose mill he expected to obtain the timber he had thus contracted to furnish. As the work must be begun immediately, he hurried on to the Major's house with an offer of partnership in this promising undertaking, and arrived as we have seen.

"It's a big thing Major," the young man said in conclusion, after explaining these details at the dinner-table; "and it's not only a big thing in itself, but it will lead to other contracts equally good."

"I should like nothing better than to join you in such an enterprise Billy," replied the Major; "but I don't see how I can go into it just now, with this affair of Winn and the raft on my hands. You say the work must be begun at once?"

"Yes. It really should be started this very day, and it can, if you'll agree to the rest of my plan. You see, I've only told you the half I thought out before getting here. Since then I have added as much more, which is something like this: Suppose you and I change places. You take my horse and go to Madison in the interests of the contract, while Bim and I will take your skiff and start down the river in the interests of Winn and the raft. You know a heap more about getting out bridge timber than I do, while I expect I know more about river rafting than you do. Not that I'm anything of a raftsman," he added, modestly, "but I picked up a good bit of knowledge concerning the river while on that government job down in Arkansas. If you'll only give me the chance, I'll guarantee to find the raft and navigate it to any port you may choose to name—Dubuque, St. Louis, Cairo, New Orleans, or even across the briny—with such a chap as I know your Winn must be for a mate. When we reach our destination we can telegraph for you, and you can arrange the sale of the ship and cargo yourself. As for me, I've had so much of dry land lately that I'm just longing for a home on the rolling deep, the life of a sailor free, and all that sort of thing. What do you say? Isn't my scheme a good one?"

"I declare I believe it is!" exclaimed the Major, who had caught a share of his young kinsman's enthusiasm, and whose face had visibly brightened during the unfolding of his plans. "Not only that, but I believe your companionship with Winn on this river trip, and your example, will be infinitely better for him than mine. I have noticed that young people are much more apt to be influenced by those only a few years older than themselves than they are by persons whose ideas they may regard as antiquated or old-fogyish."

"Oh, papa, how can you say so?" cried Elta, springing up and throwing her arms about his neck. "How can you say that you could ever be an old fogy?"

"Perhaps I'm not, dear, to you," answered the Major, smiling at his daughter's impetuosity; "but to young fellows mingling with the world for the first time nothing pertaining to the past seems of any value as compared with the present or immediate future. Consequently a companion who is near enough of an age to sympathize with the pursuits and feelings of such a one can influence him more strongly than a person whose thoughts are oftener with the past than with the future."

"I can't bear to hear you talk so, husband," said Mrs. Caspar. "As if our Winn wouldn't be more readily influenced by his own father and mother than by any one else in the world! At the same time, I think William's plan well worth considering, for I have hated the idea of that raft trip for you. I have dreaded being left alone here with only Elta, too, though I wouldn't say so when I thought there wasn't anything else to be done."

With this unanimous acceptance of the young engineer's plan, it took but a short time to arrange its details, and before dark everything was settled. The Major was to leave for Madison the next morning, while Billy Brackett was to start down the creek that very evening, so as to be ready at daylight to begin his search for the missing raft at the point where it had been last reported. By his own desire he was to go alone in the skiff, except for the companionship of his trusty Bim, who made a point of accompanying his master everywhere. The young man was provided with an open letter from Major Caspar, giving him full authority to take charge of the raft and do with it as he saw fit.

Both Mrs. Caspar and Elta wrote notes to Winn, and gave them to Billy Brackett to deliver. The major also wrote a line of introduction to an old soldier who had been his most devoted follower during the war. He was now living with a married niece near Dubuque, Iowa, and might possibly prove of assistance during the search for the raft.

Thus equipped, provided with a stock of provisions, and a minute description of both the raft and of Winn, whom he did not hope to recognize, the young engineer and his four-footed companion set forth soon after supper on their search for the missing boy. An hour later they too were being swept southward by the resistless current of the great river.

CHAPTER V.

HOW THE VOYAGE WAS BEGUN.

When Winn Caspar turned into his comfortable bunk aboard the raft on the night of the storm, it never once occurred to him that the Venture might float before morning. She never had floated, and she seemed so hard and fast aground that he imagined a rise of several feet of water would be necessary to move her. It had not yet rained where he was, and the thought that it might be raining higher up the stream did not enter his mind. So he went comfortably to bed, and slept like a top for several hours. Finally, he was awakened so suddenly that he sprang from the bunk, and by the time his eyes were fairly opened, was standing in the middle of the floor listening to a strange creaking and scratching on the roof above his head. It had aroused him, and now as he listened to it, and tried in vain to catch a single gleam of light through the intense darkness, it was so incomprehensible and uncanny, that brave boy as he was, he felt shivers creeping over his arms and back.

Could the sounds be made by an animal? Winn knew there were wild-cats and an occasional panther in the forests bordering the creek. If it was caused by wild-cats there must be at least a dozen of them, and he had never heard of as many as that together. Besides, wild-cats wouldn't make such sounds. They might spit and snarl; but certainly no one had ever heard them squeak and groan. All at once there came a great swishing overhead and then all was still, save for the howling of the wind and the roar of a deluge of rain which Winn now heard for the first time.

The boy felt his way into the forward room and opened the door to look out, but was greeted by such a fierce rush of wind and rain that he was thankful for the strength that enabled him to close it again. Mingled with the other sounds of the storm, Winn now began to distinguish that of waves plashing on the deck of the raft. Certainly his surroundings had undergone some extraordinary change since he turned in for the night, but what it was passed the boy's comprehension.

After a long search he found a box of matches and lighted the lamp, forgetting that all its oil had been exhausted the evening before. It burned for a few minutes with a sickly flame, and then went out. Even that feeble light had been a comfort. It had showed him that everything was still all right inside the "shanty," besides enabling him to find and put on the clothes that he had hung near the stove to dry. As he finished dressing, and was again standing in utter darkness puzzling over his situation, he was nearly paralyzed by a blinding glare of light that suddenly streamed into the window nearest him. It was accompanied by the hoarse roar of steam, a confusion of shoutings, and the loud clangor of bells. Without a thought of the weather, Winn again flung open the door and rushed into the open air. So intense and dazzling was the flood of yellow light, that he seemed to be gazing into the crater of an active volcano. It flashed by as suddenly as it had appeared, and the terrified boy became aware that a big steamboat was slipping swiftly past the raft, but a few feet from it. The bewildering glare had come from her roaring furnaces; and had not their doors been thrown open just when they were, she would have crashed at full speed into the raft, with such consequences as can easily be imagined. As it was she was barely able to sheer off in time, and a score of voices hurled back angry threats at the supposed crew of the raft, whose neglect to show a lantern had so nearly led to death and destruction.

So long as he could detect the faintest twinkle of light from the rapidly receding boat, or hear the measured coughings of her exhausted steam, Winn stood gazing and listening, regardless of the rain that was drenching him to the skin. He was overwhelmed by a realization of his situation. That steamboat had told him as plainly as if she had spoken that the Venture was not only afloat, but had in some way reached the great river, and was drifting with its mighty current. He had no idea of how long he had thus drifted, nor how far he was from home. He only knew that the distance was increasing with each moment, and that until daylight at least he was powerless to help himself.

As he turned towards the door of the "shanty," he stumbled over something, which, by stooping, he discovered to be the branch of a tree. To the keen-witted boy this was like the sight of a printed page.

"That accounts for the noise on the roof that woke me," he said to himself. "The raft was passing under those low branches at the mouth of the creek, and I can't be more than a mile or so from there now."

For an instant the idea of paddling home in his canoe and leaving the raft to its fate flashed across his mind, but it was dismissed as promptly as it had come. "Not much I won't!" he said, aloud. "I've shipped for the voyage, and I'm going to see it through in spite of everything. Besides, it's my own fault that I'm in this fix. If I hadn't carried away that cable this thing never could have happened. What a fool I was! But who would have supposed the water could rise so quickly?"

The thought of his little dugout caused the boy to wonder if it were still attached to the raft where he had made it fast the evening before. Again he ventured outside to look for the canoe, but the darkness was so dense and the violence of the storm so bewildering that, after a narrow escape from stepping overboard, he realized that without a light of some kind the undertaking was too dangerous. "There must be a lantern somewhere," he thought. "Yes, I remember seeing one brought aboard." Finally he discovered it hanging near the stove, and, to his joy, it was full of oil. By its aid his search for the canoe was successful, and he was delighted to find it floating safely alongside, though half full of water, and in danger of being stove against the timbers of the raft by the waves that were breaking on deck. With infinite labor he at length succeeded in hauling the little craft aboard and securing it in a place of safety. Then, though he would gladly have had the comfort of a light in the "shanty," the thought of his recent narrow escape warned him to guard against another similar danger by running the lantern to the top of the signal-pole, and leaving it there as a beacon.

He could do nothing more; and so, drenched, chilled, and weary, the lonely lad crept back into the "shanty." How dreary it was to be its sole occupant! If he only had some one to talk, plan, and consult with! He felt so helpless and insignificant there in the dark, drifting down the great river on a raft that, without help, he was as incapable of managing as a baby. What ought he to do? What should he do? It was so hard to think without putting his thoughts into words. Even Elta's presence and counsel would be a comfort, and the boy laughed bitterly to recall how often he had treated the dear sister's practical common-sense with contempt because she was only a girl. Now how gladly would he listen to her advice! It was pretty evident that his self-conceit had received a staggering blow, and that self-reliance would be thankful for the backing of another's wisdom.

As Winn sat by the table, forlorn and shivering, it suddenly occurred to him that there was no reason why he should not have a fire. There was plenty of dry wood. How stupid he had been not to think of it before! Acting upon this idea, he quickly had a cheerful blaze snapping and crackling in the little stove, which soon began to diffuse a welcome warmth throughout the room. By a glance at his watch—a small silver one that had been his father's when he was a boy—Winn found the night to be nearly gone. He was greatly comforted by the thought that in less than two hours daylight would reveal his situation and give him a chance to do something. Still, the lonely waiting was very tedious, the boy was weary, and the warmth of the fire made him sleepy. At first he struggled against the overpowering drowsiness, but finally he yielded to it, and, with his head sunk on his folded arms, which rested on the table, was soon buried in a slumber as profound as that of the earlier night.

At daylight the unguided raft was seen in the "Slant Crossing" by the crew of an up-bound steamboat, and they wondered at the absence of all signs of life aboard it. Every now and then the drifting mass of timber touched on some sand-bar or reef, but the current always swung it round, so that it slid off and resumed its erratic voyage. At length, after floating swiftly and truly down a long straight chute, the Venture was seized by an eddy at its foot, revolved slowly several times, and then reluctantly dragged into a false channel on the western side of a long, heavily-timbered island. Half-way down its length the raft "saddle-bagged," as the river men say, or floated broadside on, against a submerged rock. It struck fairly amidship, and there it hung, forming a barrier, around the ends of which the hurrying waters laughed and gurgled merrily.

With the shock of the striking Winn awoke, straightened himself, and rubbed his eyes, wondering vaguely where he was and what had happened.

CHAPTER VI.

MR. GILDER AND HIS RUDE RECEPTION.

After emerging from the "shanty," it did not take the solitary occupant of the raft long to discover the nature of his new predicament. The water was sufficiently clear for him to make out an indistinct outline of the rock on which the raft was hung, and as the rain was still falling, he quickly regained the shelter of the "shanty," there to consider the situation. It did not take him long to make up his mind that this was a case in which assistance was absolutely necessary, and that he must either wait for it to come to him or go in search of it. First of all, though, he must have something to eat. He had no need to look at his watch to discover that it was breakfast-time. The condition of his appetite told him that.

Now Winn had never learned to cook. He had regarded that as an accomplishment that was well enough for girls to acquire, but one quite beneath the notice of a man. Besides, cooking was easy enough, and any one could do it who had to. It was only necessary to put things into a pot and let them boil, or into an oven to bake. Of course they must be watched and taken from the stove when done, but that was about all there was to cooking. There was a sack of corn-meal in the "shanty," and a jug of maple syrup. A dish of hot mush would be the very thing. Then there was coffee already ground; of course he would have a cup of coffee. So the boy made a roaring fire, found the coffee-pot, set it on the stove, and filled a large saucepan with corn-meal.

"There may be a little too much in there," he thought; "but I can save what I can't eat now for lunch, and then fry it, as mother does."

Having got thus far in his preparations, he took a bucket and went outside for some water from the river. Here he remained for a few minutes to gaze at a distant up-bound steamboat, and wondered why he had not noticed her when she passed the raft. Although the river seemed somewhat narrower than he thought it should be, he had no idea but that he was still in its main channel, and that the land on his left was the Wisconsin shore.

Still wondering how he could have missed seeing, or at least hearing, the steamboat, the boy reentered the "shanty." Thinking of steamboats rather than of cooking, he began to pour water into the saucepan of meal, which at once began to run over. Thus recalled to his duties, he removed half of the wet meal to another pan, filled it with water, and set both pans on the stove. Then he poured a stream of cold water into the coffee-pot, which by this time was almost red-hot. The effect was as distressing as it was unexpected. A cloud of scalding steam rushed up into his face and filled the room, the coffee-pot rolled to the floor with a clatter, and there was such a furious hissing and sputtering that poor Winn dropped his bucket of water and staggered towards the door, fully convinced that he was the victim of a boiler explosion.

When the cloud of steam cleared away, the boy ruefully surveyed the scene of disaster, and wondered what had gone wrong. "I'm sure nothing of the kind ever happened in mother's kitchen," he said to himself. In spite of his smarting face, he determined not to be daunted by this first mishap, but to try again. So he wiped the floor with a table-cloth, drew another bucket of water from the river, and resolved to proceed with the utmost care this time. To his dismay, as he stooped to pick up the coffee-pot, he found that it had neither bottom nor spout, but was a total and useless wreck. "What a leaky old thing it must have been," soliloquized the boy.

Just then his attention was attracted by another hissing sound from the stove and a smell of burning. Two yellow streams were pouring over the sides of the saucepans.

"Hello!" cried Winn, as he seized a spoon and began ladling a portion of the contents from each into a third pan. "How ever did these things get full again? I'm sure I left lots of room in them."

At that moment the contents of all three pans began to burn, and he filled them with water. A few minutes later all three began to bubble over, and he got more pans. Before he was through with that mush, every available inch of space on the stove was covered with pans of it, the disgusted cook was liberally bedaubed with it, and so was the floor. The contents of some of the pans were burned black; others were as weak as gruel; all were lumpy, and all were insipid for want of salt.

For a moment Winn, hot, cross, and smarting from many scalds and burns, reviewed the results of his first attempt at preparing a meal with a comical expression, in which wrath and disgust were equally blended. Then, yielding to an impulse of anger, he picked up one of the messes and flung it, pan and all, out through the open door. He was stooping to seize the next, which he proposed to treat in a similar manner, when a hand was laid on his shoulder, and he was almost petrified with amazement by hearing a voice exclaim:

"Hold on, young man! One at a time is enough. It's very pleasant to be greeted warmly, but there is such a thing as too warm a reception. I'll allow you didn't see me coming, though if I thought you did, I'd chuck you overboard for that caper."

[Illustration: "'Hold on, young man! One at a time is enough.'">[

The speaker, who stood in the doorway striving to remove the mess of sticky mush that had struck him full in the breast and now covered a large portion of his body, including his face, was a man of middle age and respectable appearance, clad in a rubber suit and a slouched hat.

Filled with shame and contrition at this unexpected result of his foolish action, Winn was profuse in his apologies, and picking up the useful table-cloth that had already served him in one emergency, stepped forward with an offer of assistance. The stranger waved him back, and removed the greater part of the mess by taking off his rubber coat. At the same time he said:

"There's no harm done, and worse might have happened. You might have been pitching stove lids, or hot soup, or knives and forks, you know. So, you see, I'm to be congratulated on getting off as well as I have. But where is the boss of this raft, and the crew? How did you happen to run in here out of the channel? You are not alone, are you?"

"Yes, sir," replied Winn. "I'm captain and crew and everything else just at present—excepting cook," he added, hastily, as he noted the stranger's amused glance at the stove and its surroundings.

"Who is cook, then?"

"There isn't any," answered Winn; "and for that reason there isn't any breakfast, nor likely to be any, for I'll starve before I try my hand at it again."

"There seems to be plenty of breakfast, such as it is," said the stranger, gravely, indicating by a glance the many pans of spoiled mush. Then seeing that the boy was really in distress, and not in a joking humor, he added, "But let me help you set things to rights, and then I'll see if I can't show you how to get up some sort of a breakfast. I'm not a regular cook, as perhaps you may guess; but then, again, I am one, in a way, as all we river-traders have to be."

"Are you a river-trader?" asked Winn.

"Yes; and there are three of us. But I'll tell you all about it, and you shall tell me your story after we've had breakfast."

To Winn, the expeditious manner in which his recent culinary disasters were repaired and a simple but well-cooked breakfast was made ready by this stranger was a source of undisguised admiration. Even coffee, clear and strong, was made in a tin can. One edge of the can was bent into the form of a rude spout; then it was filled two-thirds with water, and set on the stove. When the water came to a boil, half a cupful of ground coffee, tied loosely in a bit of clean muslin, was dropped into it, and allowed to boil for three minutes. A kind of biscuit made of flour, water, shortening, baking-powder, and salt, well mixed, and rolled thin, was quickly baked, first on one side and then on the other, in an iron skillet on top of the stove. At the same time a single cupful of corn-meal, well salted, and boiled for half an hour, furnished a large dish of smoking mush. Half a dozen thin slices of bacon broiled on a toaster completed what Winn enthusiastically declared was the very best breakfast he had ever eaten. Still, the boy was so ravenously hungry that it is probable even his own burned and lumpy mixture of corn-meal would not have tasted so bad as it looked.

While he was busy with the breakfast, the stranger, who said his name was Gilder, talked pleasantly on many subjects. At the same time he managed somehow to learn all about Winn and his family, the raft and how it happened to be where it was, without giving a single item of information concerning himself in return.

When Winn finally declared that he could eat no more, Mr. Gilder also pushed back his chair, and said:

"Now, then, for business. First, I must tell you that you are in a very serious predicament. I examined the position of this raft before coming aboard, and arrived at the conclusion that both it and its cargo are in a fair way of becoming a total loss. As soon as the river falls again, which it is likely to do at any time, the raft will probably break in pieces of its own weight. In that case you would lose both it and your wheat. The only plan I can suggest for saving the raft is to lighten it until it floats clear of the rock on which it is hung, by throwing the wheat overboard; or, if you can manage it, land your wheat on the island, where it can remain until you can take it away. Of course the decision as to which of these things you will do rests entirely with yourself; but you must make up your mind quickly, for with this uncertain state of water there isn't an hour to lose."

CHAPTER VII.

A GANG OF "RIVER-TRADERS."

For a whole minute Winn sat silent, while from the opposite side of the table Mr. Gilder regarded his perplexed countenance with an expression that was not altogether pleasant. Winn, suddenly looking up from his hard thinking, was a bit startled by it; but as it instantly melted into one of smiling sympathy, his confidence in the man remained unbroken. Had he seen Mr. Gilder two hours earlier, instead of one, his opinion of the individual who had just prepared such a capital breakfast, expressed so great friendliness, and now showed him so plainly the unpleasant predicament into which he had fallen, would have been decidedly different.

At that time Mr. Gilder was kneeling beside an opening in the floor of a log-hut, in the centre of the island, and lifting from it a tray of odd-looking but beautifully made tools. The hut was small and rudely constructed. It was surrounded by a dense forest growth, and stood in a tiny clearing from which no road or trail could be seen to lead. All its appointments were of the most primitive description, and yet a single glance into its interior would have impressed one with the belief that its occupants were millionaires. The effect of piles and stacks of greenbacks, enough to form the capital of a city bank or fill the vaults of a sub-treasury, amid such surroundings, would certainly have startled even those accustomed to the handling of great wealth. The bills, all of which were new and crisp, were done up in neat packages, each of which was marked with the number of hundreds or thousands of dollars it contained. In one corner of the room stood a small printing-press of exquisite make. Besides this press, a work-bench, table, and several rude stools, the single room of the hut contained only the piles of greenbacks.

A man sat beside the table counting and sorting a large number of bills, the worn appearance of which showed them to have been in active circulation for some time. This man was small, and had a weazened face devoid of hair except for a pair of bushy, iron-gray eyebrows, beneath which his eyes gleamed as cunningly bright as those of a fox. He answered to the name of Grimshaw; and as he counted bills with the deftness and rapidity of a bank cashier, he also paid a certain amount of attention to the remarks of his companion, who was talking earnestly.

"I tell you what it is, Grim," the other was saying, as he bent over the secret opening in the floor, "it's high time we were moving. This is a first-class location, and we've done well here; but you know as well as I do that our business requires a pretty frequent change of scene, and I'm afraid we've stayed here too long already. One of those mill fellows said only yesterday that we must have collected a powerful lot of stuff by this time, and asked if we weren't about ready to invite him up to inspect and bid on it. I told him we were thinking of putting it into a raft and taking it down-river. Never had such an idea, you know, but the notion just popped into my head, and I'm not sure now but what it's as good a one as we'll strike. What do you think?"

"It'll take a heap of hard work, and more time than I for one want to spare, to build a raft large enough for our purpose," answered Grimshaw. "Still, I don't know as the idea is wholly bad."

"It would take time, that's a fact," answered Mr. Gilder, lifting his tray of tools to the table and proceeding to polish some of them with a bit of buckskin. "And it looks as though time was going to be an object with us shortly. That last letter from Wiley showed that the Chicago folks were beginning to sniff pretty suspiciously in this direction. I've been asked some awkward questions lately, too. Yes, the more I think of it, the more I am convinced that we ought to be getting out of here as quickly as we can make arrangements. We must talk it over with Plater, and come to some decision this very day. He's— Hello! Something's up. Plater was to stay in camp till I got back."

Again came the peculiar, long-drawn whistle that had arrested the attention of the men, and which denoted the approach of a friend. Mr. Gilder stepped to the door and answered it. Then he looked expectantly towards a laurel thicket that formed part of the dense undergrowth surrounding the hut. In a moment the dripping branches were parted near the ground, and a man, emerging from the bushes on his hands and knees, stood up, shook himself like a Newfoundland dog, and advanced towards the open door. He was a large man with long hair and a bushy beard. He was clad in flannel, jeans, and cowhide boots, and was evidently of a different class from Mr. Gilder, who appeared to be a gentleman, and was dressed as one. "What's up, Plater?" asked the latter.

"Big raft, three shanties on it, in false channel, saddle-bagged on the reef pretty nigh abreast of camp. Can't see nobody aboard. Reckon she broke adrift from somewheres while her crew was off on a frolic."

"You don't say so!" cried Mr. Gilder, excitedly. "Perhaps it's the very thing we are most in need of, sent by a special providence to crown our labors with success. I'll go down and have a look at her, while you stay here and help Grim pack up the stuff. We might as well be prepared for a sudden move, and he'll tell you what we have just been talking about."

So Mr. Gilder, donning his rubber coat, a garment that Plater would have scorned to wear, left the clearing through another bushy thicket on the opposite side from that by which his confederate had entered it. An almost undiscernible path led him to the shore of the island that was washed by the main channel of the river. Here he struck into a plainly marked trail that followed the water's edge. In this trail Mr. Gilder walked to the southern end of the island, and up its other side until he reached a comfortable camp that bore signs of long occupancy. It stood high on a cut bank, and just below it a rude boom held a miscellaneous assortment of logs, lumber, and odd wreckage, all of it evidently collected from the stray drift of the great river.

From the edge of the bank, a short distance from this camp, the man commanded a good view of the stranded raft, and for several minutes he stood gazing at it. "There's the very thing to a T, that we want," he said to himself. "Not too big for us to handle, and yet large enough to make it seem an object for us to take it down the river. I can't see what they want of three shanties, though; one ought to be enough for all the crew she needs. Our first move would be to tear down two of them, and lengthen the other; that alone would be a sufficient disguise. We haven't got her yet, though, and she isn't abandoned either, for there's smoke coming from that middle shanty. I reckon the cook must be aboard, and maybe he'll sell the whole outfit for cash, and so give us a clear title to it." Here Mr. Gilder smiled as though the thought was most amusing. "I'll go off and interview him anyway, and I'd better be about it too, for the river is still rising. She won't hang there much longer, and if the fellow found his raft afloat again before a bargain was made he might not come to terms. In that case we should be obliged to take forcible possession, which would be risky. I'm bound to have that raft, though. It is simply a case of necessity, and necessity is in the same fix we are, so far as law is concerned."

While thus thinking, Mr. Gilder had stepped into a light skiff that was moored near the boom, and was pulling towards the stranded raft. He first examined its position, and assured himself that very little labor would be necessary to float it; then he stepped aboard, and very nearly lost his customary self-possession upon the receipt of Winn's warm greeting. He was on the point of returning it in a manner that would have proved most unpleasant for poor Winn, when he discovered that his supposed assailant was only a boy, and that the act was unintentional. It took the shrewd man but a few minutes to discover the exact state of affairs aboard the raft, and to form a plan for gaining peaceful, if not altogether lawful, possession of it. This plan he began to carry out by the false statement of the situation made to Winn at the conclusion of the last chapter. This beginning was not made, however, until he had first gained the lad's confidence by a deed of kindness.

When Winn looked up from his hard thinking he said, "I hate the thought of throwing the wheat overboard, even to save the raft. There are two thousand bushels of it, and I know my father expects to get at least fifty cents a bushel. So it would seem like throwing a thousand dollars into the river. Then, again, I don't see how it will be possible to land it, and so lighten the raft. It would take me a month to do it alone with my canoe. Besides, father is sure to set out on a hunt for the raft the moment he finds it is gone, and so is likely to come along most any time."

"All the greater need for haste," thought Mr. Gilder; but aloud he said, "That is very true, but in the mean time your raft will probably break up, and your wheat be spilled in the river anyway. Now suppose you agree to pay me and my partners a hundred dollars to get the wheat ashore for you and reload it after the raft floats."

"I haven't a cent of money with me," replied Winn.

"That's bad," said the other, reflectively. "It's awkward to travel without money. But I'll tell you what we'll do. I hate to see a decent young fellow like you in such a fix, and I'm willing to take a risk to help him out of it. Suppose I buy your wheat? I told you that I and my partners were river traders. To be sure, our business is mostly in logs, lumber, and the like; but I don't mind taking an occasional flyer in wheat, provided they are willing. You say your father expects to get fifty cents a bushel for this wheat. Now I'll give you forty-five cents a bushel for it; that is, if my partners agree. That will leave five cents a bushel to pay us for landing it, transferring it to some other craft, and getting your raft afloat. What do you say?"

"I wish I could ask father about it," hesitated Winn, to whom, under the circumstances as he supposed them to exist, the offer seemed very tempting.

"Oh, well," sneered Mr. Gilder, "if you are not man enough now to act upon your own responsibility in such an emergency, you never will be. So the sooner you get home again and tie up to your mother's apron-string the sooner you'll be where you belong."

The taunt was as well worn as it was cruel, and should have given Winn an insight into the true character of his new acquaintance; but on a boy so proud of his ability to decide for himself, and so ignorant of the ways of the world as this one, it was sufficient to produce the desired effect.

Winn flushed hotly as he answered: "The wheat is my father's, and not mine to sell; but for the sake of saving it as well as the raft, I will let you have it at that price. I must have the cash, though, before you begin to move it."

"Spoken like the man I took you to be," said Mr. Gilder, heartily. "Now we'll go ashore and see my partners. If they agree to the bargain, as no doubt they will, we'll get to work at once, and have your raft afloat again in no time."

CHAPTER VIII.

DISAPPEARANCE OF THE RAFT.

When Winn and his new acquaintance stepped outside of the "shanty," it did not seem to the boy that the river was falling, or that the raft was in a particularly dangerous position. He would have liked to examine more closely into its condition, but his companion so occupied his attention by describing the manner in which he proposed to remove the wheat, and so hurried him into the waiting skiff, that he had no opportunity to do so.

The "river-traders'" camp was not visible from the raft, nor did Mr. Gilder, who handled the oars, head the skiff in its direction. He rowed diagonally up-stream instead, so as to land at some distance above it. There he asked Winn to wait a few minutes until he should discover in which direction his partners had gone. He explained that one of them had been left in camp at a considerable distance from that point, while he and the third had been rowing along the shore of the island in opposite directions, searching for drift-logs. Thus he alone had discovered the stranded raft. Now he wished to bring them to that point, that they might see it for themselves before he explained the proposed wheat deal. With this Mr. Gilder plunged directly into the tall timber, leaving Winn alone on the river-bank.

It was fully fifteen minutes before the man returned to the waiting lad, and he not only looked heated but anxious.

"I can't think what has become of those fellows!" he exclaimed, breathlessly, as he wiped the moisture from his forehead with a cambric handkerchief. "I've been clear to camp without finding a trace of either of them. Now there is only one thing left for us to do in order to get them here quickly. You and I must start around the island in opposite directions, because if we went together we might follow them round and round like a kitten chasing its tail. If you meet them, bring them back here, and I will do the same. If you don't meet them, keep on until you are half-way down the other side of the island, or exactly opposite this point; then strike directly into the timber, and so make a short-cut back here. In that way you will reach this place again as soon as I, for the island isn't more than three hundred yards wide just here. Be spry, now, and remember that the safety of your raft depends largely upon the promptness with which we get those other fellows here."

With this Mr. Gilder began to walk rapidly down the shore in the direction he had chosen. Carried away by the man's impetuosity, Winn did not hesitate to obey his instructions, but started at once in the opposite direction. Mr. Gilder, noting this by a backward glance over his shoulder, instantly halted and concealed himself behind a large tree-trunk. From here he peered at the retreating figure of the boy until it was no longer visible. Then he gave vent to the same peculiar whistle with which Plater had announced his own approach to the log-hut in the woods. The sound was immediately answered from no great distance, whereupon Mr. Gilder hastened in that direction. A minute later he returned, bringing a coil of stout rope, one end of which he made fast to a tree on the bank. At the same time both Grimshaw and Plater appeared, each bearing a large package securely wrapped in canvas on his shoulder.

All three men entered the skiff and pulled out to the raft, carrying the loose end of the rope with them. Mr. Gilder and Grimshaw quickly returned to the land, leaving the burly Plater to make a vigorous attack with an axe against the sides of one of the wheat bins. He soon splintered and tore off a board, leaving an aperture through which a broad stream of wheat rushed out on the deck of the raft. This Plater began to shovel overboard, working with furious energy, as though combating a hated enemy. In ten minutes both bins were empty, and so much of the wheat had gone into the ever-rising waters that the raft, which had been on the point of floating when Plater began his operations, now did so, and swung in close to the bank at the end of its new cable.

[Illustration: "A broad stream of wheat rushed out on the deck">[

In the mean time the other men had brought several skiff-loads of their peculiar merchandise to the raft, and now it took but a few minutes to transfer what remained on the bank directly to it. Even the tent, which had been hastily torn down, together with a portion of their camp outfit, was tossed aboard, and within fifteen minutes from the time of Winn's departure the Venture, with its new crew at the sweeps, was moving slowly out from the island, and gathering impetus from the current for a continuance of its eventful voyage.

Without a suspicion that the gentlemanly stranger who had so kindly smoothed away his culinary difficulties, and, while apparently willing to assist him, was also anxious to make a good bargain for himself, was anything but what he appeared to be, Winn made his way briskly towards the head of the island. It was only after rounding it and starting down the opposite side without seeing a sign of those whom he sought that he began to have misgivings.

"I wonder if it is all right?" he said to himself. "What could be the man's object in telling me that the raft was in a dangerous position if she isn't? I declare I don't believe she is, though! She didn't look it when I left, and I do believe the river is still rising. I wonder if I haven't done a foolish thing in leaving the raft? If I have, the best thing to do now is to get back as quickly as possible."

By this time the boy had worked himself into a fever of apprehension, and, remembering what he had been told concerning the narrowness of the island, he determined to make a short-cut across it. This was exactly what the far-sighted Mr. Gilder had anticipated, and Winn fell an easy victim to his artfully planned trap. For nearly an hour the boy, versed in wood-craft as he was, wandered and struggled through the dense undergrowth of that island forest. Suddenly, as he burst his way through a thicket, he was confronted by the log-hut so lately occupied by the "river-traders." Winn shouted as he approached it; but, of course, received no reply. It had the lonely look of a place long deserted, and the boy paused for but a single glance into its uninviting interior. Then, getting his bearings anew by the sun that was beginning to struggle through the clouds, he pushed his way resolutely towards the western side of the island, which, somewhat to his surprise, he reached a few minutes later.

He emerged from the timber at the abandoned camp of the traders; but without stopping to examine it, he ran to the water's edge, and gazed anxiously both up and down stream. There was no sign of the raft nor of any moving object. "It must be farther up, around that point," thought Winn, and he hurried in that direction. From one point to another he thus pursued his anxious way until the head of the island was once more in sight. Then he knew that he must have passed the place where the raft had been, and that it was gone.

As a realizing sense of how he had been duped and of his present situation flashed through his mind, the poor boy sat down on a log, too bewildered to act, or even to think.

CHAPTER IX.

ALONE ON THE ISLAND.

Winn Caspar was indeed unhappy as he sat on that log and gazed hopelessly out over the sparkling waters, on which the sun was now shining brightly. Although he had explored only a portion of the island, he felt that he was alone on it. But that was by no means the worst of the situation. The raft in which he had taken so much pride, his father's raft upon which so much depended, the raft on which he had expected to float out into the great world, was gone, and he was powerless to follow it. All through his own fault, too! This thought was the hardest to bear. Why, even Elta would have known better. Of course she would. Any one but he would, and she was wiser than almost any one he knew. How dearly he loved this wise little sister, and to think that he had parted with her in anger! When was that? Only last evening! Impossible! It must have been weeks ago. It wasn't, though! It was only a few hours ago, and his father had hardly had time to come and look for him yet. Perhaps he was even now on his way down the river, and might be passing on the other side of the island.

With this thought the boy sprang to his feet, and hurrying to the head of the island, eagerly scanned the waters of the main channel. There was nothing in sight, not even a skiff or a canoe. "Even my dugout is gone," thought Winn, with a fresh pang, for he was very fond of the little craft that was all his own. Then he wondered how he should attract his father's attention, and decided to build a fire, with the hope that Major Caspar might come to it to make inquiries, and thus effect his rescue.

Having a definite object to work for cheered the boy somewhat, and his heart grew sensibly lighter as he began to collect wood for his fire. But how should he light it? He had no matches. For a moment this new difficulty seemed insurmountable; then he remembered having seen the smouldering remains of a fire at the abandoned camp on the other side of the island. He must go back to it at once.

Hurrying back around the head of the island, Winn reached the place just in time to find a few embers still glowing faintly, and after whittling a handful of shavings, he succeeded, by a great expenditure of breath, in coaxing a tiny flame into life. Very carefully he piled on dry chips, and then larger sticks, until finally he had a fire warranted to live through a rain-storm. Now for another on the opposite side of the island!

He could not carry lighted sticks the way he had come. It was too far. He thought he could get them safely across the island, though, if he only knew the most direct path. He would first discover this and then return for his fire. Quite early in the search he stumbled across a very narrow trail that seemed to lead in the right direction. By following it he came once more to the deserted log-hut in the forest, but search through the little clearing as he might, he could not see that it went any farther.

Taking his bearings, after deciding to open a trail of his own from there to the river, the boy attacked a thicket on the eastern side of the clearing with his jack-knife. A few minutes of cutting carried him through it, and, to his amazement, he found himself again in an unmistakable trail. It was narrow and indistinct, but it was none the less a trail, leading in the right direction, and the boy was woodman enough to follow it without hesitation to the river-bank. A steamboat was passing the island, but though Winn waved frantically to it and shouted himself hoarse, no attention was paid to him. With a heavy heart he watched it out of sight, and then began another collection of wood for his signal-fire.

When it was made, he again crossed the island, selected a blazing stick from the camp-fire, and started to retrace his steps. By the time he reached the log-hut he found it necessary to stop and renew his blaze by building a fire in the rude chimney. By thus establishing a relay station he finally succeeded in getting a blaze to the desired spot on the channel side of the island, and in starting a brisk fire at that point.

Here the boy would have stayed and watched for the craft that he fondly hoped would come to his deliverance; but it was now a long time since breakfast, and his hard work had made him very hungry. He might find something to eat at that abandoned camp, which he had not yet examined. At any rate he would go and look. So he piled logs on his fire until satisfied that it would last for some hours. Then picking up a bit of shingle from the beach, he wrote on it with the stump of a lead-pencil:

"I am on the island. Follow the trail and you will find me.——WINN CASPAR."

This note he stuck in a cleft sapling, from which he first cut the top, and which stood so near the fire that it was certain to attract attention. Then feeling that he could do nothing more in that place, he set forth in search of something with which to satisfy his hunger. On his way back he stopped at the hut, and made a thorough but vain search for food. There was not so much as would have fed a mouse, and the only thing of value that the boy discovered was a rusty fish-hook stuck into one of the wall logs. Before leaving the hut he replenished the fire in the chimney-place, thinking that perhaps he might return there to sleep. Then he went on to the camp.

Here Winn's search for food was as unsuccessful as it had been at the hut. He found a number of cooking utensils, battered and smoked, and discovered an old axe still sticking in the log on which it had been last used. He also found some bits of rope and cord. He knotted together enough of the latter to make a rude line, attached his fish-hook to it, cut a pole, dug some bait, and began to fish just above the "river-traders'" boom. For some time he sat there, patiently, but got no bites. The poor boy began to grow desperate with hunger.

"I declare! I've a great mind to swim for the main-land," he said, aloud. "No I won't, though. I can do better than that. Besides, the water is cold enough to give me a cramp. I can make a raft of these logs. Why didn't I think of it before?"

Thrusting the butt end of his pole into the soft earth of the bank, and weighting it with a good, sized stone, the boy went to the boom to examine its contents. There were plenty of logs suitable for the foundation of a raft, and more than enough lumber to deck it handsomely. But what was that brown stuff filling so many of the crevices between the logs and timbers?

"Wheat, as I'm a living boy!" exclaimed Winn, stooping and gathering some of the stuff in his hands. "Wheat! but where can it have come from? Did the Venture suddenly break up and go to pieces after all, as Mr. Gilder said she would?" If so, then the situation was worse than he had supposed, for until now the boy had entertained some hopes of being able to follow and perhaps recover the raft, especially if his father should come along and discover him. But if the raft were broken up, as the presence of this wheat seemed to indicate, then its loss was indeed total and irreparable.

"But if they have not gone off with the raft, what has become of those river traders?" argued the boy with himself. "They might have followed the broken sections, or even gone off on one of them. I believe that's what they have done!" he exclaimed aloud. "That accounts for their leaving in such a hurry, and taking their provisions with them. I didn't think that Gilder was such a bad sort of a chap after all. Now he is pretty sure to come back for me after he has secured what he can from the wreck. But what am I to do for something to eat in the mean time? If I could only catch a fish!"

Just then there was a great commotion in the water, and the pole left sticking in the bank began to bend ominously. Winn sprang towards it; but as he stretched out his hand it flew back into position, and the flurry in the water subsided. The wretched line had parted, and the big catfish, from which the boy could have made such a capital supper, was seeking the deepest hole in the river. The worst of it all was that he had taken Winn's only hook with him, and so put an end to any further efforts for his capture.

The boy could have cried with hunger and vexation. It wouldn't have done him any good, though, and he knew it; so he began to gather a tin cup full of the water-soaked wheat instead. This he set on a bed of coals to boil, and was so hungry that he could not wait for it to be done, but ate it half raw, without salt, butter, sugar, syrup, milk, or anything that serves to render such food palatable, and only partially cooked at that, it still seemed to Winn one of the best things he had ever eaten, and he immediately started the cooking of another mess. There was not much of the wheat in sight, and to secure a second cupful the boy scraped up every grain that he could find.

"After this comes starvation," thought Winn; "unless I can get away from this island, and I am going to begin work on that raft at once."

He carefully collected every bit of rope he could find, and thus secured enough to lash together four of the largest logs. Above these he laid a platform of boards, and longed for some nails with which to fasten them in place. He did remarkably well considering his limited means, and by sunset had completed a raft that would more than support his weight. If he could only keep it clear of snags and reefs it would also bear him in safety down the river, to some place where there were suppers and breakfasts to be had.

It would not do to attempt the voyage on such a frail structure in the dark, of course; and so, at sunset, Winn reluctantly began his preparations for passing a night of loneliness on the island.

CHAPTER X.

A NIGHT OF STRANGE HAPPENINGS.

Winn's preparations for the night were of the simplest description, because he had so little to prepare. The boy tried to console himself with this thought. "If I had provisions I should have to cook," he said to himself; "and if there is one thing in this world meaner than another it is cooking. I never realized before what mother has to go through with every day. Never complains of it, either. She's a regular angel, though, and things always seem to go right with her. Now with boys it's just the other way. See what a fix I've got into all on account of being a boy, and trying to do things. Seems to me that Gilder must have been a pretty patient sort of a boy to learn to cook the way he does. I wonder if he ever gets into scrapes? He'd be in one if he was in my place now, and I wish I knew how he'd get out of it."

While thus thinking Winn was by no means idle. He cut a number of bushes and leaned them against the ridge-pole of the "traders'" tent, the frame of which they had left standing. This shelter was so arranged as to form a wind-break on the north side of the fire, the grateful warmth being thus reflected from its inner surface. An armful of twigs and another of dry grass formed the boy's bed, and a drink of river-water his supper. He had thought of passing the night in the log-hut; but as darkness came on he could not bear the thought of its lonesomeness. It was bad enough to be alone on the river-bank, with a broad expanse of star-dotted sky to look at; but that forlorn little hut, shut in on all sides by the dark forest! Ugh! It made him shiver to think of it. No; he was decidedly better off where he was, and even if his father came along during the night, which Winn did not think probable, he could not fail to see the notice posted beside the signal-fire. It was important that he should remain near his new raft too, so that at the first streak of daylight he could board it and be off.

After a while the lonely lad fell into a sleep filled with troubled dreams. An owl came and hooted above him; the night wind sighed weirdly through the tall timber behind him; while queer gurglings, mysterious splashings, and other strange sounds came from the swift-flowing river close at hand. Although none of these sounds wakened the boy, they tinged his dreams with their uncanniness.

For some hours he slept, and then woke with a start. He was sitting bolt upright, and felt certain that something cold and wet had just touched his face. He put a hand to his cheek. Yes, there was a wet spot. What were those two bright points shining in the dim fireglow! They looked like eyes. Winn sprang to his feet. At his movement the glowing eyeballs vanished. Some animal uttered an indescribable sound, something between a bark and a snarl, there was a rustling of dead leaves, and then all was still.

While the boy stood trembling with the vague fear that always accompanies a suspected but unknown danger, and staring blankly into the darkness, there came to his ears from the forest depths a sound that was almost as terrifying as the recent presence of the unknown animal. It seemed a mingling of howls, cries, and groanings. It rose and fell, now loud, and then almost inaudible; but it always came from the direction of the deserted log-hut. At length it ceased, and now Winn noticed for the first time that a faint light was beginning to tinge the eastern sky above the tree-tops.

"Daylight is coming," thought the boy, "and it is high time for me to be off." He was glad of an excuse for leaving a place that had all at once become filled with such unexplained terrors. Feeling his way cautiously to the river-bank, he reached the little raft without mishap. It took him some time to get it clear of the boom; but at length he succeeded, and with a very decided feeling of relief he pushed off into the current, and proceeded on his journey.

Winn's spirits rose as his clumsy craft moved out from the heavy shadows of the island, and he began to whistle to convince himself that he had not been afraid of anything after all. Suddenly he heard low voices close beside him, a dark object dashed up to his raft, and a dazzling light was flashed full in his face. The next instant two men sprang to his side, threw him down, searched him for arms, secured his knife, which was the only thing resembling a weapon that he possessed, and forced him into a large skiff containing several other men.

"Close the lantern," ordered one of these in a low but stern voice, "and pull for that fire on shore. No doubt we'll bag some more of them there." Then to Winn the man said, "So you thought you could give us the slip, did you, young fellow? Well, you found us up too early, didn't you? Now the best thing you can do is to afford us all possible aid in capturing the rest of your gang. It'll count big in your favor with the Judge, I can tell you. How many are there on the island?"

"I don't know what you mean—" began Winn, indignantly; but a heavy hand was instantly clapped over his mouth.

"Shut up!" whispered the man, hoarsely, but with terrible distinctness. "If you speak another loud word I'll brain you. You'll find out what I mean when we've landed you safely in Dubuque jail. Now answer me in a whisper. How many of your pals are on the island?"

"I haven't any pals," replied Winn, putting as much force into his whisper as he dared, "and there isn't any one on the island. This is an outrage, and—"

"That will do," answered the man, sternly. "If that's the tone you are going to take, we don't want to hear any more of it."

Just then the bow of the skiff was run on the bank, and the man, grasping Winn's arm, stepped ashore, saying, "Now make yourself useful, young fellow, and lead us to your mint or den or whatever you call it. If you don't want to I'll find a way to compel you, and if you try any low-down tricks, I'll make you wish you'd never been born."

"Do you mean the log-hut?" asked Winn.

"Yes, if that's what you call it; but you want to get a move onto you in a hurry."

Bewildered and indignant as he was, Winn was yet cool enough to realize the folly of resistance. He also reflected that when these men found the hut deserted, and that there was no one besides themselves on the island, they would be willing to listen to his story. At any rate, so long as he was in their power it was best to do as they directed. So, with the leader's hand still grasping his arm, the boy led the way into the narrow trail that he had already traversed so often.

Proceeding slowly, and with such extreme caution that not a sound betrayed their presence, the men followed in single file. At the edge of the little clearing Winn halted, and was about to speak, when a hand was again clapped over his mouth with the force of a blow.

"Whisper!" came the order.

"Well there's your hut," whispered the boy, as soon as he was given the chance, "and if you find any one in it, then I'm a liar, that's all."

The hut was plainly visible by the firelight that streamed from its open window. Winn wondered at the brightness of this light, for it seemed as though the fire he had left there the evening before ought to have burned out long ago. He also wondered that he did not remember having closed the door. As no light came from its direction, it certainly appeared to be closed now. As these thoughts flashed through the boy's mind, the man who held him, and who was evidently the leader of the party, whispered,

"You say there isn't anybody in there, but it looks to me as if there was. Anyhow, we'll find out in another minute, and if you've led us into a trap or played us false, I'll see that you swing for it, or my name's not Riley. Bill, you stay here and see that this chap doesn't put up any game on us while we surround that den of thieves. Have your guns ready for use, men."

Although all this was spoken in a whisper, inaudible beyond its immediate group of hearers, there was no mistaking the man's stern meaning, and Winn experienced an uneasy dread such as he had not heretofore felt throughout this strange adventure.

Suppose there should be some one in the hut? Suppose the "river-traders" had returned to the island and should resent this intrusion even to the point of resisting it? In such a case what would happen to him? If his captors were triumphant they would declare he had led them into a trap, for doing which they had promised to hang him. If, on the other hand, the "river-traders" had returned and should make a successful fight, would not their wrath also be directed towards him for leading their assailants to the hut? In either case, it seemed to the bewildered boy that his position was decidedly unpleasant, and he awaited the immediate developments of the situation with no little anxiety.

Those who had followed him had disappeared like shadows, and Winn could not detect a sound save the suppressed breathing of the man who had been detailed to guard him, and who now held his arm.

Suddenly a dog's bark broke the stillness, and a loud challenge, followed by a pistol shot, rang out through the night air. There was a confused trampling; the forest echoed with a roar of guns; the door of the hut was burst open, and a furious rush was made for the interior.

In his excitement Winn's guard loosed his hold of the boy's arm and took a step forward, the better to distinguish what was going on.

Winn was free, and acting upon the impulse of the moment, he slipped behind a great tree-trunk, stole noiselessly a few paces farther, and then dashed away with the speed of a deer back over the trail leading to the river. He did not pause when he reached the camp in which he had passed the night so unhappily, but bounded down the bank to the water's edge. Here he cast loose the painter of the skiff that had brought Mr. Riley and his men to the island, and, with a mighty shove towards the channel, gave a spring that landed him at full length in its bottom. Here he lay breathless and almost motionless for the next thirty minutes, or until his craft had drifted below the tail of the island, and was spinning down the main channel of the great river.

CHAPTER XI.

BILLY BRACKETT'S SURPRISING SITUATION.

When Billy Brackett set forth on his search for a nephew and a runaway raft he did not anticipate any difficulty in finding them. The appearance of the raft had been minutely described to him, and, according to this description, it was too distinctive in its character to be mistaken for anything else. Three shanties, and they of unusual construction, on a raft of that size formed a peculiarity sufficient to arrest the immediate attention of all river men. Thus the young engineer felt certain that by making an occasional inquiry and proceeding at a speed at least double that of the raft, he could easily trace and overtake it, even though it should not run aground, which he thought more than likely to happen early in its voyage.

So Billy Brackett rowed down the creek without a trace of anxiety to mar the pleasure of the adventure into which he had so unexpectedly tumbled. One peculiarity of this light-hearted young man was that no proposition to leave a beaten track and strike into an unexplored trail, even though it led in exactly the opposite direction, could be too absurd or unexpected to meet with his ready approval, always providing it promised plenty of adventure. At the same time he never lost sight of the fact that he had a living to earn, besides a professional reputation to win and maintain. Consequently he generally managed to make his adventures keep step with his duties. In the present instance he felt that Major Caspar's aid was necessary to the fulfilling of his timber contract. He also realized that the only way to obtain it was by taking his brother-in-law's place in searching for the lost raft and navigating it down the river to a market. He had no family ties to bind him to times or places, and with Bim for company he was ready to start at any moment for any portion of the globe.

"Bim" was a diminutive of Cherubim, a name bestowed by its present owner upon the wretched puppy that he had rescued from an abandoned emigrant wagon high up in the California Sierras, because like Cherubim and Seraphim he "continually did cry." The little one was nearly dead, and its mother, lying beside it, was quite so, when they were discovered by the tender-hearted engineer. He had fought his way through a blinding snowstorm and high-piled drifts to the abandoned wagon on the chance of finding human beings in distress. When he discovered only a forlorn little bull-pup, he buttoned it warmly under his blanket overcoat and fought his way back to camp. During that struggle the helpless creature won its way to Billy Brackett's heart, as all young things, human or animal, were sure to do, and assumed a place there that had never since been resigned.

From that day Bim, or "U-Bim," as he was sometimes called, had so thrived under good feeding, kind care, and judicious training that when he started with his master to voyage down the great river he was as fine a specimen of a full-blooded bull-dog as could be found in the country. He was pure white, bow-legged, and broad-chested. His upper lip was drawn slightly back, so as to display his teeth; but this expression of ferocity was relieved by the almost human intelligence of his eyes. He was absolutely fearless, but as loving and gentle as he was brave. He understood every word spoken within his hearing, and his master declared that for his wisdom he ought to be named "Solomon." He never made an unprovoked assault upon a living creature, and would stand any amount of abuse from children or those weaker than himself. Let an indignity be offered to his beloved master in his presence, though, and his fury was as terrible as that of a young lion. Then woe to the unfortunate in whose flesh those gleaming teeth were once fastened. From the vise-like grip of the powerful jaws behind them nothing but death or Billy Brackett's command could effect a release.

Such were the occupants of the skiff that soon after dusk shot out from the mouth of the Caspar Creek on the broad bosom of the great river. Billy Brackett talked to his dog as he would to a human companion, and at that moment he was saying:

"Look here, Bim, I've a great mind to play a joke on that young nephew of ours when we find him. You see, he won't know us from Adam, and probably doesn't remember that he has an Uncle William in the world. Now what is to hinder us from working the stranger racket on him? Wrecked, or broke, or something, and want to earn a passage down the river on a raft, it being easier as well as more sociable and pleasanter in every way than a steamboat. What's to hinder us from doing it, eh? Nothing? Right you are, old dog, and we'll do it, too, if we get the chance. Thus will we discover what sort of stuff he is made of, and get acquainted with his inside self, as Glen Eddy used to say. So you understand, U-Bim, that you are not to give us away or let on that we are any kin to the Caspars. Sabe? All right. Now for a twenty-mile spin down-stream, and then we'll hunt a place to lie by for the night."

With this the young man bent lustily to his oars, while Bim sat in the stern of the skiff, alert to every movement made by his master, and swaying his body like that of a genuine cockswain.

Billy Brackett recognized the "Slant Crossing," when they reached it, from the description he had received of its length and direction; but below that point the river for a thousand miles was a blank so far as his personal knowledge of it was concerned.

Although the night was dark, and there were but few guide-lights on the river in those days, he found no difficulty in keeping the channel until the skiff passed through the chute at the head of Winn's island. At this point the false channel seemed, in the darkness, to be as wide and desirable as the true one, and for a minute he was puzzled as to which he should take. "Not that I suppose it would make any great difference," he remarked to Bim. "It's about time to tie up, though, and we want to be sure to do that on the main channel, so as not to miss a chance of seeing the raft at daylight."

For answer Bim left his seat, ran to the bow of the boat, uttered a short bark, and fixed his gaze pointedly down-stream.

"A light, as sure as you are a dog of wisdom!" cried Billy Brackett, looking in the direction thus indicated. "I vow, Bim, your name ought to be 'Solomon Minerva,' and I must have a 'howl' engraved on your collar the first chance I get. That is, if you ever arrive at the dignity of owning any collar besides that old strap. Your light looks as though it might proceed from a camp-fire, and I reckon it's on the main channel too. At any rate, we'll pull down there and make inquiries."

A few minutes later the skiff was run ashore near the beacon blaze that Winn Caspar had left on the eastern side of the island, and its occupants were searching the vicinity for those whom Billy Brackett had so confidently expected to find near it.

"It is very strange," he muttered. "Some one must have built this fire; but why he did so if he didn't want to camp beside it beats me. Hello! What's this? Hooray; we are on the right track after all! But what foolishness is that boy up to? and what can he be doing on this island? Thirdly, where is the raft? Eh, Bim! You haven't seen a stray raft round here, have you? No. I thought you would have mentioned it if you had. So he is on this island is he? and leaves word that we can find him by following the trail? Perhaps the trail leads to the raft; but where is the trail? Hello! you've struck it, have you? Good dog! Here, let me tie this bit of twine to your collar. There, now you're better than a lantern."

As we all know, the trail upon which Billy Brackett and Bim were thus started led directly to the log-hut in the forest. When the former discovered this, he fully expected to find his nephew within. To his surprise, although a fire smouldered on the hearth, there was no other sign of human occupancy. Then the young man searched in vain for some hit of writing, such as had guided him to this point.

"I declare!" he exclaimed at length; "the corollary is worse than the theorem, and things are becoming so decidedly mixed that we must begin to go slow. I for one propose to replenish that fire, and then bunk down right here for the rest of the night."

With this the young man went out into the darkness and began groping about for wood with which to keep up the fire until morning.

In the mean time, Bim, left to his own devices, had struck the trail leading from the hut to Winn's camp, and started along it, probably thinking that his master was following him as before. The dog soon discovered Winn, and undertook to establish friendly relations with him by rubbing his cold nose against the boy's cheek. The suddenness with which Winn started up caused the dog to spring back into the darkness, from the shelter of which he regarded his new acquaintance distrustfully. Just then Billy Brackett, to cheer the loneliness of his log-hut, began to chant the ballad of "The Baldheaded Man," and Bim, hearing his master's voice, darted off in that direction.

Now Billy Brackett, though very fond of music, and possessed of an inextinguishable longing to produce melodious sounds, could not sing any more than Bim could. His efforts in this line had so often been greeted with derisive shouts and unkind remarks by his engineering comrades that he no longer attempted to sing in public. When alone, however, and out of hearing of his fellows, he still sometimes broke forth into song. Bim always howled in sympathy, but the effect of their combined efforts had never been so surprising as upon the present occasion, when they caused the precipitate flight from the island of the very nephew for whom the young engineer was searching.

In blissful ignorance of this unfortunate result of their performance, Billy Brackett and Bim sang and howled in concert, until their repertory was exhausted, when they lay down on the floor of the hut, and with the facility of those to whom camp life has become a second nature, were quickly asleep. From this slumber Billy Brackett was startlingly awakened, some time later, by Bim's bark, and a pistol shot that rang out from the profound stillness of the forest like a thunder-clap. He grasped the dog's collar and sat up. Before he could rise any farther there came a roar of guns, a trampling of feet, a confusion of voices, a rush, and a crashing of wood. The next instant the door of his hut was burst in, and the room was filled with armed men, every one of whom seemed to be pointing a rifle or a pistol straight at his devoted head.

CHAPTER XII.

THE TRAPPERS TRAPPED.

When the leader of the party by whom Winn had been made prisoner (as related in the last chapter but one) peered cautiously in at the open window of the log-hut to make certain that it was occupied, he was disappointed to discover but one man, where he had confidently expected to find several.

This leader, who had told Winn that his name was Riley, was a Sheriff, though such a new one that this was his first important undertaking since assuming office. Consequently he was most anxious for its success, and also somewhat nervous from anxiety. He had laid his plans well, the hut was completely surrounded, and he was elated at the thought of the prize so surely within his grasp, as well as of the glory that would be his for effecting this important capture. He expected to find several men in the hut, and counted upon their being desperate characters who would make a stout resistance before yielding themselves prisoners. The Sheriff had therefore prepared his followers for a fight, and made all his arrangements with this in prospect. Now, to discover but one man, and he peacefully sleeping, caused these warlike preparations to appear ridiculous, and called for a decided modification of Mr. Riley's plans.

Having satisfied himself by a careful survey that the man had no companions, and that the hut contained no rifles nor other fire-arms, the Sheriff retired noiselessly from the window and rejoined his followers. He explained the situation in a whisper, and then proposed that as they could not fight a single unarmed man, they should paralyze him with terror. As the Sheriff expressed it, they would "scare him stiff" by a general discharge of guns, a yell, and a rush for the door. These were to follow a signal that he would give from his post at the open window, through which he would cover the sleeping man with his revolver.

The new programme being understood, the Sheriff returned to his station, pointed his pistol at Billy Brackett's head, and was about to order him to throw up his hands and surrender, when he made a slight movement that aroused Bim. This faithful sentinel sprang up with a loud bark. In the dim light Sheriff Riley had not noticed the dog, and he was so much upset by this unexpected challenge that his finger closed on the hair-trigger of his revolver. Fortunately his aim was so wild that no harm was done by the shot that followed. It was all the signal that the Sheriff's followers needed, and they immediately carried out their part of the programme to the letter.

When the tumult subsided, the situation was as already described. Billy Brackett sat on the floor, grasping Bim's collar, and awaiting further developments as calmly as though he were merely a disinterested spectator of this unique performance. The dog, with teeth displayed to an alarming extent, stood ready to fly at the invaders whenever he should be released. In front of this group, and a few paces from it, stood half a dozen men, all of whom held guns that were pointed at the young engineer. The form of the Sheriff, with pistol still levelled at his prisoner, appeared at the open window.

"Do you surrender?" he demanded.

"Certainly," replied Billy Brackett, cheerfully; "if you desire it. I'm always ready to accommodate, especially when it's no trouble to do so."

"Throw up your hands, then," commanded the Sheriff.

"To do that," argued the prisoner, without moving, "I shall be obliged to let go my hold of this bull-dog. The moment I do so our friends with the empty guns will be apt to fancy that about a yard of particularly hot and well-greased lightning has been forged for their especial benefit. Still, if you insist—"

"Oh, hang your dog!" exclaimed Mr. Riley. "You must hold on to him, of course, until we can find a rope to tie him with. Where are your pals?"

"This is the only one I have at present," answered Billy Brackett, indicating him by a glance; "but I am in search of another, and have reason to believe that he is on this island at this very minute. Haven't seen anything of him, have you? He is a young fellow, about sixteen, named Caspar, son of Major Caspar, of Caspar's Mill, up the river a bit. He left home yesterday on a raft, and I was to join him hereabouts."

"What sort of a raft?" asked the Sheriff.

"Big timber raft. Two sweeps at each end, and three shanties on it, two of them filled with wheat."

"No," replied Mr. Riley, in a relieved tone; for on hearing the well-known name of Caspar his men had exchanged meaning looks and smiles, which indicated their belief that the Sheriff might be getting into hot-water. "I did arrest a young rascal of about that age half an hour ago," he continued, "just as he was leaving this island on a raft; but it was only a small affair, built of two or three logs, and not at all such a raft as you describe. I've got the boy out here now, and I believe him to be one of your pals, in spite of your cheeky talk. Yon don't want to give me any more of it, either," he concluded, in a fierce tone, assumed to reassert the dignity of his office. "So just cork up, and come along quietly, or you may find yourself in trouble."

"All right," replied Billy Brackett, calmly; "but first, perhaps you'll be kind enough to tell me who you are, why you are taking such an interest in me, and where you want me to go."

"I am the Sheriff of Dubuque County, Iowa," was the answer. "I have a warrant for your arrest as a member of the most dangerous gang of counterfeiters that has ever operated in this section of country, and I want you to go with me to the county jail, which will be only a stopping-place on your journey to State-prison."

"I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Sheriff, and obliged for your courtesy," said Billy Brackett, politely. "Now if you will do me the favor to read the names mentioned in your warrant, I shall have nothing further to request."

"William Gresham, alias Gilder, et al.," replied Mr. Riley.

"Good. But suppose I can prove to you that I am not the person you take me to be, and that my name is neither Gresham nor Gilder, et al., but that I am a civil engineer, William Brackett by name, brother-in-law of Major Caspar, whom I am certain you must know, and that you are making a rather sizable mistake in connection with this business. Supposing, also, I state that I am just now engaged on an important mission which will not admit of delay, and that in case you insist on taking me to jail, I can and will make you suffer, even to the extent of losing your office."

By this time Billy Brackett was standing up, while Bim, reluctantly obeying his stern command, lay motionless at his feet. The men of the Sheriff's posse had ceased to level their guns at the young engineer, and even Mr. Riley was so impressed with this bold attitude and declaration of innocence that he consented to come inside the hut and examine the papers offered for his inspection. He was about to declare his satisfaction with them, and admit that perhaps he had made a mistake, when the man whom he had left to guard Winn rushed up with the announcement that his prisoner had escaped.

At this the Sheriff's face clouded angrily. "We'll find him if he is still on the island!" he exclaimed. "If he has left it we'll follow him; and, at any rate, Mr. Brackett, I must now insist upon your coming to Dubuque, where you will be granted every opportunity for proving what you please. In the mean time, you and I will await here the result of the search for the escaped prisoner that my men will at once proceed to make."

To this Billy Brackett returned no answer, but stood silently considering how he should avoid the vexatious delay that now appeared inevitable. While he was thus cudgelling his brains, one of the searching party returned to report that the skiff in which they had come up the river was missing.

The Sheriff became furious. "I don't believe it!" he cried. "Here, you! Stop and guard this prisoner, while I go and take charge of the search myself."

As Mr. Riley departed, the new guard entered the hut, leaned his rifle against the wall, and took a seat near the door.

Then Billy Brackett stooped and whispered to his ever-faithful comrade, "Watch him, Bim!" and the dog answered with a low growl that spoke volumes. Turning to the guard the young engineer said, "My friend, if you make the slightest motion or shout for help, that bull-dog will fly at your throat. I am going to leave you alone with him for a minute, and as you value your life, I beg of you to keep perfectly quiet until you hear from me." With this the prisoner leaped lightly from the window and disappeared.

[Illustration: "'Watch him, Bim!'">[

For two minutes the guard sat as motionless as though carved from stone, his fascinated gaze fixed on the gleaming teeth and bloodshot eyes of the bull-dog that stood rigidly before him. Then a shrill whistle rang out on the still air, and at its sound the dog, dashing past him, disappeared like a flash. In another minute Billy Brackett's lusty strokes were sending his own skiff dancing out towards the middle of the main channel, while Bim, thumping with his tail in appreciation of his master's praises, occupied the stern seat as calmly as though with him such events as those just recorded were of every-day occurrence.

CHAPTER XIII.

WINN'S LONELY CRUISE.

During the half-hour that Winn allowed to elapse before he considered it safe to rise from his recumbent position in the bottom of the skiff, he had ample opportunity to recover his breath, and reflect upon the new situation into which he had been so strangely forced. At first he fancied that he heard sounds of pursuit, and momentarily expected to be greeted by a stern order from the bank to bring the skiff ashore. He wondered if a failure to comply would be followed by a rifle-shot, and then began to calculate the chances of being hit in such a case. But why should he be shot at? What had he done that he should be arrested, threatened with jail and hanging, and treated like an outlaw generally? Whom did these men take him for? and who were they? By the manner in which they had spoken of a judge, they must represent the law in some way; but why he should be an object of their pursuit puzzled the boy more than a little.

To be sure, he had now laid himself open to the suspicion of being a river thief, by carrying off their skiff. Would it not be well to return it at once? He could talk to them, and explain how he happened to be on the island, while still at such a distance from shore as to be beyond their reach. They might shoot, though, and if they really considered him the rascal they pretended, it was almost certain that they would. No, that plan would not work. The only thing left to be done was to take the skiff to Dubuque, telegraph to his father from there, or try and find one of the Major's friends in that city who would do so for him, and at the same time provide him with food and shelter until his father came. Yes, that was the best plan.

Having reached this determination, Winn sat up and looked about him. The light which he had mistaken for dawn was that of a late-rising moon, and it hardly penetrated the mist hanging low over the river. There was nothing in sight; not even the dark mass of timber on the island. Winn might have been in the middle of the ocean for all that he could see or hear. Never in his life had the boy felt so utterly forsaken and alone. He decided to pull diagonally across the current towards shore, the mere sight of which would be reassuring. But where were the oars? Until this moment he had not noticed that there were none in the boat. For some unknown reason they had been taken from it when the party landed on the island; and now the lonely navigator was utterly without the means of propelling or even guiding his craft. He tried to tear up one of the floor boards, with the idea of using it as a paddle; but it was nailed in place so firmly as to resist his utmost efforts. Finally, faint for want of food, exhausted, and disheartened, the poor boy threw himself in the bottom of the skiff and yielded to his despair. At length he fell asleep.

So the dawn of Winn's second day on the river caught him napping, as the first had done. In its gray light the skiff drifted past the little city of Dubuque, perched high on the bluffs of the western bank, but no one saw it. There were several steamboats and trading scows tied to the narrow levee, but their crews were still buried in slumber. Even had they been awake they would hardly have noticed the little craft far out in the stream, drifting with the hurrying waters. In a few minutes it was gone, and the sleeping city was none the wiser for its passing. So for hours it drifted, now bow on, then broadside to, and as often stern first; here caught and spun round by an eddy, then tossed aside and allowed to proceed on its unguided course. The cotton-woods on the tow-heads beckoned to it with their trembling fingers; but it paid no heed. Grim snags lay in wait for it, but it nimbly avoided them, and as the hours passed each one of them saw the drifting skiff some miles farther away from the island at which this strange voyage was begun.

When Winn finally awoke, he was so bewildered, and so much at a loss to account for his surroundings, that for a minute he lay motionless, collecting his scattered senses. It certainly was late in the day, for the sun was shining full upon him from high in the heavens. He had that comfort at least; but oh! how he ached from lying on that hard floor, and how faint he was from hunger.

The boy's head rested on a thwart, and he faced the after-end of the skiff. As he was about to rise, his glance fell on something wrapped in newspaper and tucked under the stern seat. If it should only prove to be food of any description, "even burned mush," thought Winn, grimly, how happy it would make him! In another second he was undoing, with eager fingers, the lunch of crackers and cheese that Sheriff Riley's wife had so thoughtfully thrust into her husband's hands as he left the house the morning before, and which he had as thoughtfully tucked under the stern seat of his skiff. He was probably thinking of it, and wishing he had it, at this very moment. As for Winn, he was eating it as fast as possible, and thinking that he had never tasted such good crackers or such a fine piece of cheese in his life. With each mouthful his spirits rose and his strength returned, until, when the last crumb had disappeared and been washed down with a double handful of sweet river-water, the boy's pluck and cheerfulness were fully restored.

Now what should he do? He did not know that he had passed Dubuque, though he feared that such might be the case. Thinking of it brought to mind the island with those upon whom he had so recently turned the tables, and left as prisoners within its limits. He even laughed aloud as he pictured them toiling, as he had toiled the evening before, to construct a raft on which to escape. "I wonder if they found any one in that log-hut," he thought, recalling its lighted window. "And, oh! if it should have been father! It might have been. He might have seen my signal-fire, found my message, and got as far as the hut. Now what will he do? Oh, how I wish I could get back! Why didn't I think of all this before leaving the island? That was a horrid sound in the woods, though. And that animal! I wonder what it could have been?"

By this time the current had carried the skiff close in to the drowned bottom-lands of the Illinois shore. They were covered with a heavy growth of timber, and Winn knew that in many places the wellnigh impassable swamps which this concealed extended back a mile or more from the channel. Otherwise he would have abandoned the skiff and made the attempt to swim ashore.

The Iowa bluffs rose invitingly on the opposite side of the river. On them he saw a few scattered settlements, but they were too far away, and he must wait until the current set him in that direction before thinking of making a landing. He saw an occasional ferry-boat making its slow way across the river, but it was always either too far above him or too far below him for his signals to be noticed, and so the hours dragged on until it was late afternoon, and Winn was again beginning to feel the pangs of hunger.

"I can't spend another night in this wretched boat!" he exclaimed aloud, when he saw that the sun was within an hour of its setting. "I'll swim the whole width of the river first!"

During the day he had passed a number of small islands, but had not cared to attempt a landing on them. He knew that he would be even worse off on an island than in the skiff, and so he had watched them glide by without giving them any particular thought. Suddenly it occurred to him that on any one of these islands he might pick up an oar, a paddle, or at least something that would answer in place of these, and from that instant they acquired a new interest.

The next one that he approached was only a tow-head, which is a sand-bar on which has sprung up a thick growth of slender cotton-woods, or other quick-shooting, water-loving trees.

"I might find what I want there as well as on a larger island," thought Winn, "and, at any rate, I'll make a try for it." So when the skiff had drifted as near the tow-head as it seemed likely to, and was rapidly sliding past it, the boy threw off his coat, kicked off his shoes, and, taking one end of the skiff's painter with him, plunged overboard and began to swim towards the desired point.

The distance was not more than a hundred feet, but the current swept him down so much more rapidly than he expected that he was barely able to catch one of the very last of the tow-head saplings and cling to it. While his own progress was thus checked, that of the skiff was not, and in a second the painter was jerked from his hand.

Exhausted as he was, Winn was on the point of letting go his hold on the sapling and making a desperate effort to overtake the rapidly receding skiff. Fortunately he had enough practical sense, though this is not generally credited to sixteen-year-old boys, to restrain him from such a rash act. So he crawled out on the sand beach, and sat there watching what he considered to be his only hope grow smaller and smaller until it finally disappeared. As it did so, the sun slowly sank behind the western bluffs; and though the boy did not look up from the wet sand on which he had flung himself, he knew instinctively that another night, with its darkness, its chill, and its nameless terrors, was upon him.

He was so numbed by this latest disaster that he had not the heart even to seek a place of shelter for the night. What good would anything that he could find or construct do him? He had neither matches nor food, dry clothing nor bedding. What did it matter, though? He would probably be dead before the sun rose again, anyway. So the poor lad nursed his misery, and might, in truth, have lain on those wet sands until he perished, so despairing was he, when all at once he was aroused by a sound so strange to hear in that place that, though he raised his head to listen, he thought he must be dreaming. He wasn't, though, for there came again to his ears, as distinct as anything ever heard in his life, a merry peal of clear girlish laughter. Not only that, but it sounded so close at hand that the boy sprang to his feet and gazed eagerly in the direction from which it came, fully expecting to see its author standing near him.

CHAPTER XIV.

A PEAL OF GIRLISH LAUGHTER.

In vain did Winn gaze in every direction, up and down the river, across its darkening waters, and into the shadowy thicket behind him. There were no objects in sight, save those with which he was already only too familiar. Again he began to doubt the evidence of his senses, and wonder if his mind had not become somewhat unsettled by his misfortunes. But no, there was the ringing peal of laughter again. This time it was accompanied by a strange chattering sound such as he had never heard before. At the same moment a most delicious whiff of frying bacon reached the hungry boy, mingled with the unmistakable and equally enticing odor of coffee. There was no doubt as to the direction from which these came, and plunging into the cotton-wood thicket, Winn made his way diagonally up and across the tow-head.

In less than a minute he reached its opposite side, where he halted to gaze with amazement at the very strangest-looking craft he had ever seen. At first he thought it a small stern-wheeled steamboat. She certainly had such a wheel, but then there was no chimney. Perhaps she was a trading-scow. Who ever heard, though, of a trading-scow with a pilot-house such as this nondescript craft had on the forward end of its upper deck? Besides, there were no sweeps, nor was she in the least like any trading-scow Winn had ever seen. A low house occupied her entire width, and extended along her whole length except at the curve of her bows, where there was room left for a small deck. A structure with a door and windows, that was somewhat larger than the pilot-house, rose from the upper deck near its after-end. There were three doors on each side of the main house, a large one well forward, a small one nearly amidship, and another large one well aft. There were also six small windows on each side, and from three of those nearest Winn a cheerful light was streaming, while the other three were dark. There was a name painted on the boat's side in such large black letters that even in the fading twilight Winn managed to read it—"W-H-A-T-N-O-T," he spelled slowly—"Whatnot! Well, if that isn't the queerest name for a boat I ever heard of!"

Just then, however, there were things of far greater importance to a boy in his situation than queer names. The tantalizing odors that were pouring from that after-window, for instance, and the sound of voices that rang out merrily from the two just beyond it. The boat was moored to a tree, with her bows pointed up-stream, and had swung in so close to shore that by standing on a half-submerged log, which served as a fender to keep her off a few feet from the bank, Winn could look into one of the open windows. It was evidently that of the galley, for the odor of frying came from it, and half hidden in a cloud of fragrant steam was the form of a negro bending over a small stove.

This was a welcome and comforting sight; but hungry as he was, Winn's curiosity was stronger than his appetite. He must see into those other windows, and discover the source of the merry laughter that had so suddenly banished his loneliness and despair of a few minutes before. Cautiously advancing a few steps along the slippery log, he reached a point that commanded a view of the room or compartment next forward of the galley. It was of good size, and occupied the entire width of the boat.

In the centre of this room was a table spread for supper, and beside it, so as to take advantage of its bright lamp, was a group that to Winn appeared both extraordinary and fascinating. A white-haired old man was seated before an easel, on which was stretched a large canvas. A young girl stood near him watching the movements of his brush with deep interest, and at the same time evidently restraining, with gentle but firm hands, the impatient struggles of something which she addressed as "Don Blossom," but whether it was a child or an animal Winn could not see. In his effort to do so he stood on tiptoe, and just as the old man began to say, "There, Sabella, that will do for this sitting," the boy's treacherous footing slipped from under him.

With a half-suppressed cry and a loud splash he was plunged headlong into the narrow space of water between the boat and the shore.

A frightened exclamation came from the interior of the boat, and then the small door on that side was flung open. At the same instant a woolly head was thrust out of the galley window, and a trembling voice cried, "Golly, Marse Cap'n! Wha' dat ar? Yo' heah um?"

"Yes, Solon, I heard it, and you want to come here as quick as you can. Some one is in trouble," answered the old man, who was standing with the girl in the open doorway. He held a lamp above his head, and was peering anxiously in the direction of the splashings and flounderings that Winn, sitting in the shallow water, but tightly wedged between the log and the boat, was making in his efforts to extricate himself.

"Who's there?" cried the old man, who could not yet make out what was taking place; "and what are you doing?"

[Illustration: "'Who's there?' cried the old man">[

"It's me!" returned Winn, regardless of his grammar; "and I am sinking in this awful mud. Hurry up and push your boat away from the log, or I shall be drowned!"

While the old man and the negro exerted all their strength at the pole, with which they finally succeeded in pushing the boat a foot or so out into the stream, Sabella was also busy. Though greatly excited, and somewhat alarmed by the unexpected appearance of a human being in that place, and his perilous situation, she still had presence of mind enough to run for a rope, one end of which she fastened to the table. She carried the other end out through the door, and tossed it over the side just in time for Winn to catch it, as the moving of the boat once more gave him freedom of action.

Hauling himself up by this welcome rope, and at the same time being assisted by the two men, the boy quickly gained the open doorway, where he stood blinking in the bright lamplight, while mud and water ran from him in streams. He faced the occupants of the boat, who, standing a few steps back in the room, regarded him with undisguised wonder, not unmixed with suspicion. On the table behind them stood a small, gaudily-dressed object, that Winn at first took to be a child. Upon his appearance it remained motionless for a few seconds, and then, with a frightened cry, it sprang to the little girl's shoulder, from which it peered at the stranger, chattering angrily all the while.

"Well, I am blest if this isn't a most extraordinary situation!" exclaimed the old man. "It suggests a tableau of Venus rising from the sea."

"Or a alligator," said the negro.

Sabella wanted to laugh at the comical spectacle presented by the dripping, coatless, hatless, bare-footed, and generally woe-begone boy; but pitying his evident embarrassment, she exclaimed:

"Uncle, how can you! Don't you see that he is shivering? You must go at once and find him some dry clothes. Solon, show this boy to the engine-room, where he can change his wet things. Don Blossom, be quiet, sir! Aren't you ashamed of yourself!" Then, turning to Winn with a cheery smile, she said, "We are very sorry for your accident, and should like to know all about it after you are dry again. If you will go with Solon to the engine-room, he will do everything he can for you."

The Captain had already hastened away on his quest for dry clothing. As he left the room, Winn noticed that he had a wooden leg. It was not one of the modern kind, so carefully constructed as to closely resemble the real article, but an old-fashioned, iron-shod stick of timber strapped to his right knee.

As Sabella finished speaking, she too left the room, running after the Captain, and smiling cheerfully as she went at the mud-streaked boy, who still stood speechless and motionless in the doorway.

Now, at Solon's invitation he followed the negro into what had been called the engine-room, though to Winn's eye it looked as little like an engine-room as any place he had ever known. At one side was a horse-power treadmill, such as he had often seen used for the sawing of wood. Half of it was sunk below the level of the deck, and covered with a removable floor. It was geared in the most direct and simple manner to a shaft that disappeared through the rear wall of the room, and presumably connected with the stern wheel he had previously noticed. There was also a belt extending to a shaft pulley overhead, but beyond this there was no trace of machinery, nor was there either boiler or furnace. There was what looked like a stall at one end of the room, but it contained only bales of hay and sacks of oats.

"Yes, sah, we uses a mewel-ingine when we hab um. We hain't got no mewel at de present time, but we 'specs ter contrac' fer one shortly," explained the negro, noting Winn's inquiring glances, as he assisted him to remove his wet garments.

Before the boy had a chance to ask the questions that were at his tongue's end, he, as well as the other occupants of the boat, was startled by a loud hail from the river.

"Hello! What steamer is that?"

"The Whatnot, of Dubuque," was the answer.

"Do you know the Sheriff of Dubuque County?"

"Who—Riley? Yes, I know him."

"Do you know his skiff?"

"As well as I know my own boat, for I built it."

"Have you seen it pass down the river to-day, containing only a boy between sixteen and seventeen years old?"

"No. Haven't seen it or any other skiff. What's the matter? Has it been stolen?"

"That'll do, thank you. Good-night," came the reply, without an answer to this last question, and then the stranger passed out of hearing down the river.

CHAPTER XV.

"CAP'N COD," SABELLA, AND THE WHATNOT.

In order to explain the presence beside that tow-head of the queer craft on board which Winn had found shelter, and of its several occupants, who were making such kindly efforts to relieve his distress, it is necessary to take a twenty-year glance backward. At that time Aleck Fifield, a Yankee jack-of-all-trades, who had been by turns a school-teacher, sailor, mechanic, boat-builder, and several other things as well, found himself employed as stage-carpenter in a Boston theatre. He had always been possessed of artistic tastes, though they had never carried him beyond sign-painting, and of dramatic longings, which had thus far been satisfied with a diligent reading of Shakespeare and attending the theatre at every opportunity. Now, being regularly connected with the stage, both these tastes expanded, until through one of them he blossomed into a very passable scene-painter. Through the other he overwhelmed himself with despair, and convulsed an audience with laughter, by appearing once, and once only, as Captain Thomas Codringhampton in the popular sea drama of "Blue Billows." His failure as an actor was so dismal and complete as to be notorious. Unkind comparisons of other bad acting with that of Cap'n Cod became stock jokes in every theatre of the country. From that day the stage name clung to him; and though it galled at first, the passage of time soothed the wound, until finally Aleck Fifield became proud of the name. As he grew older, it represented to him the fame for which he had longed when young. When the war broke out and he became one of the bravest defenders of the Union, he was everywhere known as "Cap'n Cod." After the war, in which he managed to lose a leg, he went to Iowa to live with his only relative, a widowed niece, who had but one child, a little girl.

Between this child, Sabella, and the white-haired veteran, who could tell more tales than a fairy-book, and construct more toys than Santa Claus ever dreamed of, there sprang up an affection that could not have been stronger had they been father and daughter. On one side it was based upon boundless love and admiration, and on the other upon admiration and boundless love. When Sabella went to school, the Captain's business kept him within sight of the school-house; and when school was out, the little girl was nowhere happier than in his company. For her sake he was the friend of her friends, and among the children of Dubuque no one was so popular as Cap'n Cod. They did not live in the city, but on a small farm a few miles from it, and this Cap'n Cod was supposed to manage. Farming was, however, the one occupation for which he had no taste, and but for his capable niece the annual crops would not have paid the expense of raising them.

When Sabella was twelve years old and rapidly developing into beautiful girlhood, her mother died, leaving her and her little property to the unrestricted guardianship of Cap'n Cod. Now matters went from bad to worse so far as the farm was concerned, until, to save it from the hammer, it was deemed best to rent it to a more practical farmer than the child's devoted guardian.

This gave Cap'n Cod the opportunity and an excuse for carrying out a cherished scheme that, but for the opposition of his niece, he would have put into operation long before. It was the painting of a panorama, the building of a boat to hold it, and thus equipped, to float away down the great river in search of fame and fortune. Now Sabella must of course be included in the plan; for not only did she and Cap'n Cod consider it impossible to get along without each other, but the latter declared that such a bit of travel would be the very best kind of an education for his grand-niece.

This scheme had been in the old man's mind for so long that the panorama, worked on at odd moments for more than two years, was nearly finished at the time of his niece's death. With his own savings, and largely by his own labor, he now built his boat, the Whatnot. When she was completed, his money was gone. But what of that? Was he not prepared to realize a fortune? He knew that it would shortly be theirs, and Sabella's faith was strong as his. She never for a moment doubted that her dear guardian was the artist he claimed to be, or that the panorama he had painted was the most perfect thing of its kind ever seen. So she was as enthusiastic concerning the project as the old man himself, and eagerly aided in his preparations to the full extent of her ability. There was but one point on which they disagreed. When Cap'n Cod had exhausted his own resources, and the motive power of the Whatnot still remained unprovided, Sabella begged that he would draw some of her money from the bank and use it, but this the old man firmly declined to do.

"No, Sabella," he would say; "what is mine is yours; but what is yours is your own, and it would be as bad as stealing for me to touch it."

"But it is mine," the girl would argue; "and if I want to give it to you, more than I want to do anything else with it, I don't see why you shouldn't let me."

"No, dear," her guardian would reply. "It is not yours. It is only held in trust for you until you become of age, by which time you will have many other uses for money besides gratifying an old man's whim."

"But you will pay it back long before then."

"I might, and then again I might not. There is nothing more uncertain than the things we think we are sure of."

Then the girl would throw her arms about his neck and exclaim, "Oh, you dear old stupid! How horridly honest you are! and what a beautiful world this would be if everybody in it was just like you."

"Yes, my dear; Stupidity and Honesty are apt to be comrades, and undoubtedly they would make a beautiful world if left to themselves; but it would be frightfully dull. Now don't you worry your pretty head about the mule, for we can drift with the current until we have given two or three exhibitions, and so made money enough to buy one. Then, having earned him, how much more shall we enjoy him than if he were only a borrowed mule?"

Cap'n Cod would have preferred a steamboat to one propelled by mule-power, but the expenses of machinery and an engineer were too great to be considered. He made the Whatnot look as much like a steamboat as he could, and even proposed ornamenting her with an imitation chimney as soon as he could afford such a luxury. He also hoped soon to be able to engage some active young fellow as deck hand and general assistant. In the mean time the Whatnot's crew consisted of himself, Sabella, and Solon, an old negro who had been cook of the mess to which Cap'n Cod had belonged in the army, and who had followed his fortunes ever since.

As nearly every one in Dubuque who was at all interested in such things had seen the panorama during its painting and construction, and as Cap'n Cod's dramatic reputation was well known there, he deemed it advisable to give the first exhibitions of his show in some smaller and less critical places. He called it a "show," because, even at the outset, it contained two attractions besides the panorama, and he hoped in the course of time to add still others.

Those already on hand were a monkey and a hand-organ, both of which were much greater rarities in the Mississippi Valley at that time than they are now. They formerly belonged to an Italian, who, sick, penniless, and friendless, had sunk exhausted by the road-side a few miles from Dubuque. Several persons passed him without heeding his feeble appeals for aid before Cap'n Cod happened along and discovered him. The old soldier at once engaged a team, carried the dying stranger home, and there, with Sabella's pitying aid, cared for him until the end, which came a few days later. During these last days his monkey was the man's inseparable companion. It cuddled beside him in bed, and answered his feeble terms of endearment with voluble chatterings. With his latest breath the dying stranger consigned his helpless pet to the same pitying care that had helped him over the bitterest of all human journeys. He said, "Monka, Don Bolossi, you keep-a him alway."

So Don Bolossi, Americanized to "Don Blossom," transferred all his affections to Sabella, and with the hand-organ, for which no claimant could be found, was added to the attractions of "Cap'n Cod's Great Panoramic Show."

One of the Captain's last bits of work in Dubuque was to build a skiff for Sheriff Riley, and with the money thus earned to defray immediate expenses, the Whatnot started on her voyage down the river at sunrise of the very morning on which Winn Caspar unconsciously drifted past Dubuque in that very skiff. Being deeper in the water, the show-boat drifted somewhat faster than the skiff, and so had nearly caught up with it by the time the tow-head was reached. Here Cap'n Cod determined to tie up for the night, as he did not wish to stop at a town until his final preparations for an exhibition were made.

Among these was the painting of a life-sized representation of Don Blossom hanging by his tail from the limb of a tree, which was to be displayed on the outside of the boat as an advertisement. This was the labor upon which the Captain was engaged when Winn Caspar discovered the Whatnot. Sabella had undertaken to hold the restless little model from which the white-headed artist was painting, and the peals of laughter that attracted Winn's attention were called forth by the absurdities of this situation.

CHAPTER XVI.

BIM MAKES AN ENEMY.

Billy Brackett's satisfaction at his escape from a situation that promised to cause him a vexatious delay was tinged with a new anxiety concerning Winn. As he pulled swiftly across the river, so as to be lost to view from the island as quickly as possible, he expressed his feelings aloud to Bim:

"What new scrape can that young rascal have got into now—eh, old dog? It was bad enough to start down the river alone on a big raft without even bidding his folks good-bye; but now he seems to have lost the raft somewhere, to have landed on that island, to have been arrested for something, to have escaped, and to have run off with the Sheriff's boat. It looks as though he had the same happy faculty for getting into scrapes that distinguished my young friend Glen Eddy. Somehow I have a fellow-feeling for such boys. It is strange, too, for I can't remember ever getting into any scrapes myself. We must put a stop to it, though, in Winn's case. It will never do for him to be cavorting about in this scandalous manner, so long as we are responsible for his decent behavior and safe return. We shall surely find him, and probably the raft also, at Dubuque. Then we will take our nephew in hand, and by simple force of example instruct him in that dignity of deportment that steers clear of scrapes. Eh, Bimsey?"

At this Bim sprang from his seat, and made such a violent effort to lick his master's face that the latter was very nearly tumbled over backward. By the time order was restored, daylight was beginning to appear, and the young man saw that he was far enough below the island for it to be safe to again cross the river and head for Dubuque. He reached this place soon after sunrise, or about an hour after Winn passed it, and a few minutes after the departure of the Whatnot.

A hasty inspection of the various craft lining the water-front of the city convinced him that the raft was not among them. He found several persons who knew Sheriff Riley's skiff, but none of them had seen it that morning. This, however, did not discourage the young engineer, for a skiff is so much smaller than a raft as to be easily overlooked. He would make a more thorough search after visiting the hotel, where he hoped Winn might also have gone for breakfast.

On his way he stopped at the telegraph office, and sent the following despatch to both Mrs. Caspar and to the Major at Madison:

"Have heard of Winn, and am on his track. The boy is all right.——W. B."

"That is true so far as it goes," soliloquized Billy Brackett, "and will relieve their present anxiety. By to-morrow, or perhaps within a few minutes, I shall certainly have something more definite to wire."

At the hotel he was greatly disappointed to find no trace of the missing lad, and after eating a hearty breakfast he made a thorough search of the water-front, though of course without avail. He had intended dropping a hint here and there of the predicament in which he had left Sheriff Riley and his followers, but on second thoughts concluded to let them work out their own plan of escape from the island, rather than run the risk of further delay.

By noon he was ready to depart from Dubuque, satisfied that there was no information to be gained in that place concerning either Winn or the raft. Although he was not discouraged, he was puzzled, and was even beginning to feel anxious at the strange aspect this affair of the lost Venture was assuming.

Until sunset he rowed steadily and swiftly downstream, hailing the ferrymen as he passed, and stopping at the settlements on both sides of the river to make inquiries. He also hailed passing boats, and boarded several rafts that he discovered tied to the western bank, but all in vain. He failed to learn anything about Winn, and heard that but one raft had passed down the river the day before. It was described as having a single "shanty," a tent, and a crew of three men. As that was not the kind of a raft he was looking for, this information only added to the young man's perplexity. It never occurred to him that the raft might have been stolen and disguised. So, as he was certain he had not passed it, there was but one solution to the problem. The Venture must have been wrecked and gone to pieces during the storm of that first night, and Winn must have escaped to the island.

Even with this explanation the mystery of Winn's second disappearance remained as great as ever, and by the time Billy Brackett hailed the Whatnot, as has already been noted, he was as thoroughly bewildered as ever in his life. Nor could he decide on any plan of action that seemed in the least satisfactory. He knew there was a town a mile or so below where the Whatnot lay, and there he had determined to spend the night. But for his desire to reach this place before darkness should wholly shut in, he would have boarded the Whatnot merely to gratify the curiosity excited by her strange appearance. As it was, he felt that he had no time to spare, and so hastened on.

It was quite dark as he approached the lights marking the town he was seeking; but as he drew near he discovered what appeared like a part of the levee slowly moving out from shore. Above it rose dimly a white object that he had taken for a house, and still above this shown a lantern. In a moment he saw that it was a raft resuming its voyage down the river, and he determined to make an inquiry from its crew before landing.

Pulling his skiff alongside, the young man sprang aboard. As he did so he noticed that the white object was a tent, and that there was a single "shanty" amidship. It was the very raft that had been described to him as being the only one to pass down the river the day before. These details so occupied his attention that he did not notice a skiff made fast to the side of the raft just forward of where he tied his own. Not seeing it, he did not, of course, ask any questions concerning it. If he had, he might have learned that the raftsmen had just picked it up, floating, empty and ownerless, down the river. There had been no oars in it, but they had rowed it to the raft with an extra pair from their own skiff. In their preparations for departure they had not yet found time to examine it, and knew nothing of its contents.

As Billy Brackett walked towards the "shanty," there was a sudden commotion at its entrance. A gruff voice exclaimed,

"Get out of here, you cur!"

This command was evidently accompanied by a savage kick, which was immediately followed by a yell and a heavy fall as Bim's white teeth sank deep in the calf of one of Mr. Plater's legs.

The dog, tired of his long confinement in the skiff, had eagerly leaped aboard the raft, and with friendly inquisitiveness had poked his nose into the open doorway of the "shanty" just as Plater was emerging from it.

Bim's master realized in a moment what had happened, and sprang to the scene just as two other figures came running in the same direction from the forward end of the raft.

Mr. Plater, though on his back, had nearly succeeded in drawing a pistol from his hip pocket. In a few seconds more poor Bim's earthly career would have been ended, but his owner's movements were quick enough to save him, and before the pistol could be drawn, Billy Brackett had seized the dog's collar.

"Let go, sir!" he ordered, sternly, and Bim instantly obeyed the command. Then realizing that discretion is the better part of valor when the odds are three to one, the young engineer, with the dog in his arms, ran to the side of the raft, sprang into the skiff, and shoved off. He was followed by a storm of threats and angry imprecations, at which he only smiled, as he took to his oars and pulled through the friendly darkness towards the landing from which the raft had already drifted quite a distance.

Making his way to the wharf-boat, and giving the watchman a quarter to look out for his skiff until morning, Billy Brackett, weary and disheartened, sought such accommodation as the only hotel of the little town afforded. All night he tossed sleeplessly on his uncomfortable bed, striving in vain to unravel the mystery in which the fate of his nephew and of Major Caspar's raft had become enshrouded.

In the morning he strolled undecidedly down to the wharf-boat, and, missing his skiff, asked the watchman, who was just going off duty, what he had done with it.

"Why, there it is, sir, just where you left it," answered the man, in a surprised tone, pointing to a skiff that Billy Brackett was certain he had never seen before.

"That is not my boat," he said.

"It is the one you came in last night," answered the watchman. "And here is the coat you left in it. I took the liberty of bringing it in out of the dew."

The young engineer looked at the coat the man was holding towards him, and shook his head.

"That is not mine, either," he said.

"Whose is it, then?"

"I'm sure I don't know. You'd better look in the pockets. They may contain some clew."

Acting upon this suggestion the watchman thrust his hand into a breast-pocket of the coat and drew forth a note-book. He opened it.

"Here's something writ in it," he said; "but as I'm not quick at making out strange writing, maybe you'll read it, sir."

Taking the book from the man's hand, and glancing carelessly at its title-page, Billy Brackett uttered a cry of amazement. There, written in a clear boyish hand, was the inscription:

"Winn Caspar. His Book."

[Illustration: "Billy Brackett uttered a cry of amazement.">[

CHAPTER XVII.

THE TRUTH, BUT NOT THE WHOLE TRUTH.

Winn was greatly perturbed by hearing from the Whatnot's engine-room the inquiries concerning Sheriff Riley's skiff, and Cap'n Cod's replies. He had not meant to steal the boat, of course, but it now seemed that he was regarded as having done so, and was being hotly pursued by some one interested in its recovery. It was not the Sheriff himself, for the voice was a strange one; so it was probably one of his men, who undoubtedly had one or more companions. Winn was too ignorant of the world to know whether escaping from a sheriff who had unjustly arrested him, and running off with his boat, would be considered a serious offence or not. He only knew that while perfectly conscious of his own innocence, he yet felt very much as though he were fleeing from justice. He had not even known until that minute that his late captor was a sheriff, nor could he imagine why he had been arrested. What he did know was that some one well acquainted with the fact that he had taken a skiff not his own was now searching for it and for him. This was sufficient to alarm him and fill his mind with visions of arrest, imprisonment, and fines which his father would be compelled to pay.

Then, too, the Captain of this strange craft on which he had just found an asylum, but from which he would already be glad to escape, had declared himself to be a friend of Sheriff Riley, and well acquainted with his boat. Of course, then, he would gladly aid his friend in recovering his property, and would not hesitate to make a prisoner of the person who had run off with it. In that case he would be taken back to Dubuque in disgrace, his father would have to be sent for—and who knew where he might be by this time?—and there would be a long delay that he would probably have to endure in prison. In the mean time what would become of the raft lost through his carelessness and self-conceit?

Decidedly all this must be prevented if possible; and though the boy would have scorned to tell a lie even to save his life, he determined to tell as little of the truth as would be necessary to answer the questions that he knew would shortly be put to him.

While Winn was puzzling over this situation, and trying to frame a plausible story that would account for his presence on the tow-head without overstepping the bounds of truth, the door of the engine-room opened, and Cap'n Cod stumped in. He brought an armful of dry clothing, and was beaming with the satisfaction that he always felt when engaged in helping any one out of trouble.

"Well, my muddy young friend," he exclaimed, good-naturedly, "how are you getting on? Has Solon taken good care of you? Here are some clothes that, I guess, you will have to make the best of until your own can be dried. They probably won't come within a mile of fitting, but clothing does not make the man, you know, and we are not very critical as to appearances aboard the Whatnot. By-the-way, my name is Fifield—Aleck Fifield. What did you say yours was?"

"I don't think I said," answered the boy, slipping into a woollen shirt many sizes too large for him; "but it is Winn."

"Winn, eh? Good name. Belong to the Massachusetts Winns?"

"My parents came from there, but I was born in Wisconsin."

"Yes, yes. Just so. But, there! I musn't hinder you. Supper is ready, and if you haven't any better place to go to, we should be most happy to have you join us."

"Thank you, sir," replied Winn. "I shall be only too glad to do so, for I haven't had any supper, and the raft to which I belong has probably gone off down the river without me."

"So you belong to a raft, eh? And what happened? Did you tumble overboard from it?"

"No, sir. I came to this island in the skiff, and was trying to make a line fast, when the skiff got away from me."

"And they didn't notice it through the gloom until it was too late to do anything, and so you got left! Yes, yes. I see just how it all happened! Such accidents are of common occurrence on the river, and you were very fortunate to find us here. I shall be delighted to have you for a guest tonight, and in the morning your friends will undoubtedly return to look for you."

As he thus rattled on in cheery fashion, Cap'n Cod gathered up Winn's wet clothing, preparatory to taking them to the galley to be dried. Not finding either coat or shoes in the water-soaked pile, he inquired if the boy had left the raft without them.

"No, sir," replied Winn; "but I took them off, and left them in the skiff."

"You did! That's bad; for when your friends find the skiff with your clothes in it, they will be apt to imagine you are drowned. Then they'll search the river below here for your body, instead of coming back to look for you. Never mind, though," he added quickly, mistaking the expression of relief which this suggestion brought to Winn's face for one of dismay, "we'll soon relieve their anxiety. We'll get a mule, and put him in here as quick as our show earns his price. Then we'll go humming down the river faster than any raft that ever drifted. We may be several days in overtaking them, but I shall be only too happy to have you remain with us for that length of time, and longer, too, if you will. I am greatly in need of an assistant to help me run the show. So if you are willing to take hold and work with us, the obligation will be wholly on my side."

"Of course I will, sir!" exclaimed Winn, whose spirits were rising as the difficulties of his situation began to disappear. "I will do anything I can, only I didn't know this was a show-boat, and I'm afraid I am pretty ignorant about shows anyway."

"That will be all right," replied the Captain. "My own experience in the dramatic line has been so extensive that I shall have no difficulty in posting you. I am surprised, though, that you did not recognize this boat as having been built by one of the profession, and especially adapted to its requirements. There are certain features about the Whatnot—which, by the way, I consider a most original and attractive name—that are intended to indicate—"

"Suppah, sah! An' Missy Sabel awaitin'," interrupted Solon, thrusting his woolly head into the doorway at that moment.

Glad as Winn was of this diversion, and though he was as thankful as only a famished boy can be that a bountiful meal awaited him, he would willingly have gone hungry a little longer rather than enter that dining-room just then. Although the engine-room did not afford a mirror, he was conscious that he must present about as absurd a figure as can well be conceived. He was bare-footed, and the left leg of his trousers was turned up to keep it from the floor, while the right, owing to the Captain's misfortune, barely reached his ankle. A checkered woolen shirt hung about him in folds, and over it he wore a garment that Cap'n Cod was pleased to style his "professional coat." It was a blue swallow-tail, with bright brass buttons. As worn by Winn the tails hung nearly to the floor, the cuffs were turned back over his wrists, and the collar rubbed against his ears.

"A pretty costume in which to appear before a strange girl," thought poor Winn, who was noted at home for being fastidious concerning his dress and personal appearance. "I know I must look like a guy, and she can't help laughing, of course; but if she does, I'll never speak to her as long as I live, and I'll leave this craft the very first chance I get."

While these thoughts were crowding fast upon one another, the boy was being dragged into the dining-room by Cap'n Cod, and formally presented as "Mr. Winn, of Massachusetts," to "my grand-niece Sabella, sir."