"Let's go home, boys," he said, as he picked up his axe and started in the direction of the river. "Come, Bim; your reputation as a 'coon dog is so well established that there is no need to test it any further."
Poor Solon, who was too old and stiff to climb the tree, was completely mystified by these strange proceedings; but his expostulation of,
"Wha—wha's de meanin' ob dish yer—!" was cut short by the departure of his companions, and he was obliged to hasten after them.
A few minutes after the 'coon hunters had gone a big boy, and a little girl with a tear-stained face, who had come from a house just beyond the corn-field, reached the spot, to which they had been attracted by the firelight. As they did so, the child uttered a cry of joy, sprang to the water-oak, and caught up a frightened-looking little black and white kitten that was cautiously descending the big trunk backward.
To this day the outcome of that 'coon hunt remains a sealed mystery to poor Solon, while Bim has never been invited to go on another.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE GREAT RIVER AND ITS MISCHIEF.
The scenery amid which the good raft Venture performed its long and eventful voyage changed almost with the rapidity of a kaleidoscope, but was ever fascinating and full of pleasant surprises. The flaming autumnal foliage of the forest-lined banks through which the first hundred miles or so were made, gave way to masses of sombre browns or rich purples, and these in turn to the flecked white of cotton-fields, the dark green of live-oaks, and the silver gray of Spanish moss. The picturesque cliffs of the upper river, rising in places to almost mountainous heights, were merged into the lowlands of canebrakes and swamps, broken by ranges of bluffs along the eastern bank after the Ohio was passed. On these bluffs were perched many cities and towns that were full of interest to our raftmates; among them, Memphis, Vicksburg, Natchez, and Baton Rouge. Every here and there in the low bottom lands of the "Delta" below Memphis they saw the rounded tops of great mounds, raised by prehistoric dwellers in that region as places of refuge during seasons of flood. They passed from the great northern wheat region into that of corn, then into the broad cotton belt, and finally to the land of sugar-cane and rice, orange-trees, glossy-leaved magnolias, and gaunt moss-hung cypresses.
Of more immediate interest even than these ever-changing features of the land was the varied and teeming life of the mighty river itself. The boys were never tired of watching the streams of strange craft constantly passing up or down. Here a splendid packet in all the glory of fresh paint, gleaming brass, gay bunting, and crowds of passengers rushed swiftly southward with the current in mid-channel; or, up-bound, ploughed a mighty furrow against it, while the hoarse coughings of its high-pressure engines echoed along many a mile of forest wall.