Out of
our very manacles we wrought an invincible device that enabled us to
put it all over every other boat in the fleet.

Like all great inventions, this one of ours was accidental. We
discovered it the first time we ran on a snag in a bit of a rapid. The
head-boat hung up and anchored, and the tail-boat swung around in the
current, pivoting the head-boat on the snag. I was at the stern of the
tail-boat, steering. In vain we tried to shove off. Then I ordered the
men from the head-boat into the tail-boat. Immediately the head-boat
floated clear, and its men returned into it. After that, snags, reefs,
shoals, and bars had no terrors for us. The instant the head-boat
struck, the men in it leaped into the tail-boat. Of course, the
head-boat floated over the obstruction and the tail-boat then struck.
Like automatons, the twenty men now in the tail-boat leaped into the
head-boat, and the tail-boat floated past.

The boats used by the Army were all alike, made by the mile and sawed
off. They were flat-boats, and their lines were rectangles. Each boat
was six feet wide, ten feet long, and a foot and a half deep. Thus,
when our two boats were hooked together, I sat at the stern steering a
craft twenty feet long, containing twenty husky hoboes who "spelled"
each other at the oars and paddles, and loaded with blankets, cooking
outfit, and our own private commissary.

Still we caused General Kelly trouble. He had called in his horsemen,
and substituted three police-boats that travelled in the van and
allowed no boats to pass them. The craft containing Company M crowded
the police-boats hard. We could have passed them easily, but it was
against the rules. So we kept a respectful distance astern and waited.
Ahead we knew was virgin farming country, unbegged and generous; but
we waited. White water was all we needed, and when we rounded a bend
and a rapid showed up we knew what would happen. Smash! Police-boat
number one goes on a boulder and hangs up. Bang! Police-boat number
two follows suit. Whop! Police-boat number three encounters the common
fate of all. Of course our boat does the same things; but one, two,
the men are out of the head-boat and into the tail-boat; one, two,
they are out of the tail-boat and into the head-boat; and one, two,
the men who belong in the tail-boat are back in it and we are dashing
on. "Stop! you blankety-blank-blanks!" shriek the police-boats. "How
can we?--blank the blankety-blank river, anyway