having the best times possible, horseback
riding, hunting, and helping to round-up cattle. Then the whole party
had gone back to the Mississippi, embarked on the _Dora_, as the
houseboat was named, and floated down the mighty stream once more.

"This sort of thing is simply grand," Fred Garrison had remarked, as
he stood on the forward deck of the craft, yet an hour later he had
changed his tune. The houseboat had gone whirling in a bend of the
stream, struck a snag and hurled poor Fred overboard. He was hauled
up by Sam and Dick Rover, and then it was ascertained that the
houseboat was leaking and would have to be laid up again for repairs.

They had stopped at the town of Shapette, a small place, and there
they found a carpenter who promised to do what they wanted. When the
houseboat was laid up the captain had come to them with a letter.

"My brother in Cairo is dead," said Captain Starr. "I shall have to
leave you and look after his children."

The captain was an eccentric individual and the Rovers did not like
him much, so they were perfectly willing to let him go. They decided
to look around for somebody else to manage the houseboat and in the
meantime run the craft themselves.

With the party as cook and general housekeeper was Alexander Pop, a
colored man who had once been a waiter at Putnam Hall, but who was
now attached to the Rover household. The boys had expected to leave
Aleck, as he was called, in charge of the _Dora_ while they visited
a nearby sugar plantation, but the colored man had begged to be taken
along, "jes fo' de change," as he expressed it. As Aleck had remained
on the houseboat during the entire time the boys were on the plains
Dick agreed to take him along; and thus, for the time being, the
_Dora_ had been left in the sole care of the planter.

After the visit to the sugar plantation the party had ridden to
Shapette, to do a little shopping before returning to the houseboat.
There Tom and Sam had left the others, to make certain that the _Dora_
was in proper trim to continue the trip down the Mississippi. On the
way Sam stopped at a plantation house to get a drink of water, and
when he rejoined his brother it was to learn the dismaying news that
the houseboat and the man left in charge of the craft had mysteriously
disappeared.

CHAPTER II

ABOUT A MISSING HOUSEBOAT

"Let us go down the river and see if the _Dora_ is behind yonder
trees," suggested Sam, after he had had time to