"I'll get the line loose while you start up the fire. Then we'll push out of here and cook breakfast while we float downstream. Every mile made now may save us trouble later; for you know what old Pap Larkin told us about sudden freezes coming sometimes in November, and we want to get in the big river before we strike anything like that."
In less than ten minutes they were moving out of the mouth of the creek, with the river, half wreathed in fog, lying before them.
"We'll have to keep a good lookout, unless we want to run a chance of cutting down some river steamer coming upstream," laughed Thad.
"Oh, that's easily avoided by keeping close in by the shore until this mist rises, which I calculate it will do by 9 o'clock or so," replied Maurice, using his pole to advantage, so as to send the boat out upon the current of the river, where they were speedily moving merrily along.
It was a delight to cook breakfast with such surroundings, and a constantly changing panorama along the shore.
Never did bacon have such a delicious odor; and when the coffee boiled up, sending its fragrance throughout the cabin and out of the partly open door, Maurice, who was attending to the steering part of the business at the time, loudly bewailed the fact that he must wait five long minutes more ere satisfying the craving appetite that these suggestions of breakfast put on edge.
While they were still eating they passed a place on the Kentucky side that from the map they believed to be Uniontown, which proved that they were making fair progress while sitting around—which is one of the finest things in connection with drifting south.
As Maurice said it reminded him of a garden that grew while the proprietor slept, for they could count on so many miles a day with ordinary good luck, and not a hand put out to urge the craft along.
While both these boys had spent much of their lives upon the banks of the Ohio, and were accustomed to the various sights familiar to all river dwellers, at the same time things had a vastly different appearance now that they were afloat and actually drawing a little nearer and nearer to the sunny southland with each passing hour.
They were in good spirits all the time, and hailed other voyagers with the customary salutations suitable to the occasion.