"I've got to stop this going astern first of all," he decided.
He could see the banks now, and they seemed perilously near in the faint morning light. The other boats of the fleet were steaming up in answer to the signals of distress that Cummings had blown in his excitement.
"What is it? Are you sinking?" called a voice through a megaphone from the deck of the "River Queen."
"No, we are all right," answered Phil, leaning out of the window.
"You'll be high and dry on the Iowa shore if you don't watch sharp. Where are you going?"
"Don't know. Keep out of the way or we're liable to run you down."
Phil grabbed a bell pull and gave it a violent jerk. The engines stopped suddenly, to the Circus Boy's great delight. January had ceased his bombardment and now stood with head thrust though one of the broken windows, gazing in inquiringly at Phil Forrest.
"If one bell stopped the engine, another bell should be the signal to go ahead," reasoned the lad, giving the bell pull two quick jerks. He was right. The machinery started and he could hear the big paddle wheel beating the river into a froth.
The lower deck was in an uproar. Men were shouting and running about, trying to discover what animals had escaped, as the pilot insisted that the hurricane deck was alive with them.
"Get that pilot up here, if you have to drag him. I don't know where the channel is, and I am liable to put the whole outfit aground any minute," shouted Phil Forrest. "Teddy, never mind that idiotic donkey. We're in a fix. Get downstairs, at one jump, and see that the pilot is brought up here lively."