That night about ten we hove in sight of the lights of a town away down in a left-hand bend.
I went off in the canoe to ask about it. Pretty soon I found a man out in the river with a skiff, setting a trot-line. I ranged up and says:
“Mister, is that town Cairo?”
“Cairo? no. You must be a blame’ fool.”
“What town is it, mister?”
“If you want to know, go and find out. If you stay here botherin’ around me for about a half a minute longer you’ll get something you won’t want.”
I paddled to the raft. Jim was awful disappointed, but I said never mind, Cairo would be the next place, I reckoned.
We passed another town before daylight, and I was going out again; but it was high ground, so I didn’t go. No high ground about Cairo, Jim said. I had forgot it. We laid up for the day on a towhead tolerable close to the left-hand bank. I begun to suspicion something. So did Jim. I says:
“Maybe we went by Cairo in the fog that night.”
He says: