PREFACE.
Up the River is the sixth and last of "The Great Western Series." The events of the story occur on the coast of Florida, in the Gulf of Mexico, and on the Mississippi River. The volume and the series close with the return of the hero, by a route not often taken by tourists, to his home in Michigan. His voyaging on the ocean, the Great Lakes, and the Father of Waters, is finished for the present; but the writer believes that his principal character has grown wiser and better since he was first introduced to the reader. He has made mistakes of judgment, but whatever of example and inspiration he may impart to the reader will be that of a true and noble boy, with no vices to disfigure his character, and no low aims to lead him from "the straight and narrow path" of duty.
The author has a copy of his first book before him as he writes. On the title-page is this line: "A Tale of the Mississippi and the South-West." The preface, dated 1852, contains this passage: "In the summer of 1848, the author of the following tale was a passenger on board of a steamboat from New Orleans to Cincinnati. During the passage—one of the most prolonged and uncomfortable in the annals of western river navigation—the plot of this story was arranged. Many of its incidents, and all of its descriptions of steamboat life will be recognized by the voyager on the Mississippi." Since that time the author has travelled on the upper waters of the great river.
His last book, by a coincidence at the present time, also relates to the Mississippi. Nearly a generation has passed away between the first and the last; and the latter is the writer's seventy-fifth book. The author has endeavored to make his works correct in facts and descriptions, as well as in moral tendency; and in the preparation of them he has travelled over fifty thousand miles by sea and land.
To his young friends,—some of the earlier of whom are now middle-aged men and women, with boys and girls of their own, reading the same books their fathers and mothers read a quarter of a century ago,—to his young friends the author again returns his sincere and hearty thanks for the favor they have bestowed upon his numerous volumes.
Dorchester, Mass., June 1, 1881.
CONTENTS.
| PAGE | ||
| CHAPTER I. | ||
| In Captain Boomsby's Saloon | [11] | |
| CHAPTER II. | ||
| Four Thousand Dollars | [23] | |
| CHAPTER III. | ||
| Adieu to the Boomsbys | [34] | |
| CHAPTER IV. | ||
| Nick Boomsby has Aspirations | [47] | |
| CHAPTER V. | ||
| The Strange Movement of the Islander | [59] | |
| CHAPTER VI. | ||
| A Lively Chase | [71] | |
| CHAPTER VII. | ||
| A Fog off the Florida Coast | [81] | |
| CHAPTER VIII. | ||
| A Port in a Storm | [93] | |
| CHAPTER IX. | ||
| A Visit from an Old Acquaintance | [104] | |
| CHAPTER X. | ||
| Intelligence of the Islander | [116] | |
| CHAPTER XI. | ||
| Difficult Navigation | [127] | |
| CHAPTER XII. | ||
| The Calamity on French Reef | [138] | |
| CHAPTER XIII. | ||
| A Night Lost in the Storm | [149] | |
| CHAPTER XIV. | ||
| Looking for the Islander | [160] | |
| CHAPTER XV. | ||
| A Partial Solution of the Mystery | [172] | |
| CHAPTER XVI. | ||
| Across the Gulf of Mexico | [184] | |
| CHAPTER XVII. | ||
| The Sylvania in Ambush | [196] | |
| CHAPTER XVIII. | ||
| How Nick Boomsby managed his Case | [208] | |
| CHAPTER XIX. | ||
| A Search for the Lost Treasure | [220] | |
| CHAPTER XX. | ||
| The Theory and the Facts | [231] | |
| CHAPTER XXI. | ||
| Up the Mississippi | [242] | |
| CHAPTER XXII. | ||
| The Islander in a Bad Fix | [253] | |
| CHAPTER XXIII. | ||
| An Embarrassing Situation | [265] | |
| CHAPTER XXIV. | ||
| A Crevasse on the Mississippi | [277] | |
| CHAPTER XXV. | ||
| Sailing Across the Fields | [289] | |
| CHAPTER XXVI. | ||
| A Desperate Struggle with the Rushing Waters | [301] | |
| CHAPTER XXVII. | ||
| The Planter and his Family | [312] | |
| CHAPTER XXVIII. | ||
| A Distinguished Passenger | [324] | |
| CHAPTER XXIX. | ||
| Up the River for many Days | [335] | |
| CHAPTER XXX. | ||
| Up another River and Home Again | [347] | |