me. They could not escape from the
place except by boat. He went ashore himself, after I had given him a
full description of the fugitives.

He returned in a short time, and said a report would come down in the
course of an hour or two. Our party had a merry time at breakfast, and
the meal was as elaborate as the resources of the New Orleans market
and the skill of Gopher could make it. Colonel Hungerford, as he
insisted that we should call him, was in the highest spirits. Before
the meal was over, a gentleman came on board and desired to see the
governor. He was the marshal of the city. No such passengers as had
been described to him had landed. He had telegraphed to Baton Rouge for
the police to search the steamer on her arrival.

Nothing more could be done, and we started up the river again. We
arrived at the capital of the state at four in the afternoon. We spent
the day in viewing the wonders of the mighty river, the waters of which
were almost up to the top of the levees. The governor said that the
country was inundated for thirty miles, though we could see but little
water except what was between the fringe of the trees on the banks of
the stream.

It takes the waters about a month to travel from the melting snows on
the north and north-west to the Gulf. At the mouth of the Missouri the
flood rises about twenty-five feet; below the Ohio the rise is
sometimes more than fifty feet, while at New Orleans it seldom exceeds
twelve feet. The greater height, caused by the addition of the waters
of the Ohio to the flood, is reduced in Louisiana by the passage of
much of the flow through the Atchafalaya, La Fourche, and other bayous,
into the Gulf of Mexico.

On our arrival at the capital, we found that the Queen had not been
searched, for telegraphic communication with points below had been cut
off by the flood.

CHAPTER XXIX.

UP THE RIVER FOR MANY DAYS.

Colonel Hungerford was even more vexed at the failure of the plan to
arrest the fugitives than I was. But Baton Rouge was on the last of the
bluffs that one sees in descending the great river, and above the
region of continuous levees. There was no doubt we could operate from
this region, and secure the capture of the fugitives.

"How long since the Queen left?" asked the governor, of the man who had
given us the information.

"She must have been gone nearly three hours," he replied.

"The fugitives are not likely to leave the steamer before she ge