rold Bird, who had remained
outside, behind a barrel.

"Hit?" queried Sam.

"Yes, they are stuck fast, and we are drifting right on top of them!"

The news proved true, the launch had gotten caught on a sunken tree
trunk and was helpless on the bosom of the river, the propeller
whirling madly. The houseboat was less than two hundred feet away
and coming forward as swiftly as the current could carry her.

"Look out! Don't smash us--we are stuck!" yelled Dan Baxter.

"Sheer off!" came from Solly Jackson. "Sheer off, or we'll all be
wrecked!"

It was a position of unexpected and extreme peril, and those on the
houseboat realized it as well as those on the launch. Yet what to do
our friends did not exactly know.

"Out with the sweeps--on this side!" called out Dick, and ran for
the biggest sweep he could find. "Jam over the rudder!" he called to
Songbird, who was at the tiller.

The rudder went over in a jiffy and out went three long sweeps. This
served to swing the houseboat over several points, but not enough to
take her entirely out of the course of the launch.

"We are going to hit as sure as fate!" cried Sam.

"Yes, and we may all go to the bottom," answered Fred.

CHAPTER XII

STUCK ON A SNAG

It was certainly a moment of intense anxiety, both for those on the
launch and on the houseboat, and for the time being the fight between
the two factions came to an end. A smash-up out there in that
swiftly-flowing current might make it necessary for everybody to swim
for his life.

"Can't you back the boat?" asked Sack Todd of Dan Baxter. "We must
get out somehow!"

Dan Baxter worked over the motor for a few seconds, and just as the
houseboat swung closer started the launch backwards. All expected a
crash, but it did not come.

"The _Dora_ is stuck!" called out Dick. "We have hit something under
water!"

The eldest Rover was right, and slowly the houseboat began to swing
around. In the meantime the launch backed away, made a half-circle,
and began to move again down the Mississippi.

"They are loose!" called out Sam.

"Yes, and we are fast," answered Harold Bird. "But I am rather glad
we didn't run into the launch and smash her completely."

The moving of the launch had caused the sunken tree trunk to turn
partly over, and in this position two immense limbs caught the _Dora_
tightly so that, although the houseboat swung broadside to the current,
she could get no further.

"They are getting awa