column of smoke
standing straight up in the sky and knew it was the burning Cabin of the
Snakes. He had not intended to fire the house, but on the whole, was
not sorry.

During the afternoon of the following day, a lazily moving flat boat
attracted Paul's attention as it drifted with the current at some
distance ahead. It was desirable to see and talk to any human being and
he increased his speed. As the flat boat with its unwieldy load was
in no particular hurry, he soon overhauled it and a blast from the
bugle caused the navigator of the craft to cast his eyes up stream.
He gazed curiously at Paul for a moment and exclaimed:

"Wall, drat my buttons, I never thought I would see a human critter
goin' down the Missouri in sich a rig as thet."

He leaned back and awaited the "critter's" approach. He was a tall, raw
boned man with a shock of reddish grey hair and tangled beard; a pair
of keen grey eyes shown from behind deep, overhanging brows. Though he
had the appearance of a farmer, he might have been anything from a
deacon to a rustler, so far as could be judged by his appearance. The
craft he was piloting down was loaded with a miscellaneous collection of
household effects and a couple of sad eyed hounds were the man's only
companions.

Paul quickly observed all this as he pulled up and heard the boatman's
remark. Reaching the side of the boat, he asked:

"How far are you going down, stranger?"

"Ain't pertic'lar how fur so as I git outen this country. I had a farm
on this river once; but she's gone now, stranger, gone slick an' clean.
River cut under and rounded me out an' I reckon the feller on the other
side owns my land now."

It is a fact that the constantly changing currents of the Missouri,
frequently cut into and swallow up acres upon acres on one side only
to leave exposed as much land on the other and the owner of the land
next to that left exposed, becomes richer by so many acres, while the
man on the other side becomes impoverished to that extent. Thus the
expression is common in the Upper Missouri country that "a man may go
to bed owning a fine farm on one bank and wake up in the morning to
find it owned by the fellow on the opposite side."

"Well, where do you propose going to now?" inquired Boyton.

"I don't propose goin' anywhare. I only want to git outen this country.
She's a holy terror an' I stood it jest as long as I could. All thets
left