ver
made to be."

"You're right, old hoss," said Tom Ross.

"Well," said the shiftless one, "I can't argify with you now, ez the
general hez called on his colonel, which is me, an' his major, which is
Paul, to find him a nice new boat like one o' them barges o' Clepatry
that Paul tells about, all solid silver, with red silk sails an' gold
oars, an' we're meanin' to do it."

Fortune was with them, and in a quarter of an hour they discovered, deep
among bushes growing in the shallow water, a large, well-made boat with
two pairs of oars and with small supplies of parched corn and venison
hidden in it.

"Good luck an' bad luck come mixed," said the shift-less one, "an' this
is shorely one o' our pieces o' good luck. The woman an' the children
are clean tuckered out, an' without this boat we could never hev got
them back. Now it's jest a question o' rowin' an' fightin'."

"Paul and I will pull her out to the edge of the clear water," said
Henry, "while you can go back and tell the others, Sol."

"That just suits a lazy man," said Sol, and he walked away jauntily.
Under his apparent frivolity he concealed his joy at the find, which he
knew to be of such vast importance. He approached the dusky group, and
his really tender heart was stirred with pity for the rescued captives.
Long Jim and Silent Tom held the smaller two on their shoulders, but
the older ones and the woman, also, had fallen asleep. Sol, in order to
conceal his emotion, strode up rather roughly. Mary Newton awoke.

"Did you find anything?" she asked.

"Find anything?" repeated Shif'less Sol. "Well, Long Jim an' Tom
here might never hev found anything, but Henry an' Paul an' me, three
eddicated men, scholars, I might say, wuz jest natcherally bound to find
it whether it wuz thar or not. Yes, we've unearthed what Paul would call
an argosy, the grandest craft that ever floated on this here creek,
that I never saw before, an' that I don't know the name uv. She's bein'
floated out now, an' I, the Gran' Hidalgo an' Majordomo, hev come to
tell the princes and princesses, an' the dukes and dukesses, an' all the
other gran' an' mighty passengers, that the barge o' the Dog o' Venice
is in the stream, an' the Dog, which is Henry Ware, is waitin', settin'
on the Pup to welcome ye."

"Sol," said Long Jim, "you do talk a power uv foolishness, with your
Dogs an' Pups."

"It ain't foolishness," rejoined the shiftless one. "I heard Paul read
it out o' a book oncet,