r must shape
our course for many a mile. On the map I pointed out how, presently,
our river would run into a lake, into which, also, ran another river;
and would emerge on the other side much larger. I showed them that
down that other river, as, indeed, down mine, logs used to float from
the pine forests--many of my father's logs, of ownership said to have
been piratical--and I showed how, presently, this stream would carry
us into one of the ancient waterways down which millions of wealth in
timber have come; and explained about the wild crews of river runners
who once ran the rafts down that great highway, and into the greater
highway of the Mississippi; whence men might in due time arrive upon
the Spanish Main.

"Is there any way a fellow can get across from Lake Michigan into the
Mississippi River?" demanded Lafitte, who was of a practical turn of
mind: and on the map I showed him all the old trails of the fur
traders, explorers and adventurers, French and English, who had
discovered our America long ago; whereat their eyes kindled and their
tongues went dumb.

At last, I told them we must to our hammocks; and soon our bloody band
was deep in sleep. At least, so much might have been said for Lafitte
and L'Olonnois. Alone of the band of sea rovers myself, Black Bart,
sat musing by the fire, the head of my friend, Partial, in my lap.

CHAPTER VIII

IN WHICH WE HAVE AN ADVENTURE

Our band of hardy adventurers arose with the sun on the morning
following our first night in bivouac, and by noon of that day, thanks,
perhaps, in some measure to my own work at the oars, and a sail which
we rigged from a corner of the tent, we had passed into and through
the lake which our map had showed us. Now we were below the edge of
the pine woods, and our stream ran more sluggishly, between banks of
cattails or of waving marsh grasses. We put out a trolling line, and
took a bass or so; and once Lafitte, firing chance-medley into a
passing flock of plover, knocked down a half-dozen, so that we bade
fair to have enough for dinner that night. It was all a new world for
us. No one might tell what lay around the next bend of our widening
waterway. We were explorers. A virgin world lay before us. The nature
of the country along the stream kept the settlements back a distance;
so that to us, now, in reality, retracing one of the ancient
fur-trading routes, we might almost have been the first to break these
silences.

Toward ni