, perhaps
better for his serious counsel of them, that none of them made any
answer. Silently, like so many shadows, they dropped down to the
ground.

"What was that, Kammerer?" cried a voice on the boat, calling down
to some one on the shore.

"There are men here," was the answer. "Somebody's out there."

The night was now astir. Men half clothed, but fully armed, now
lined up along the beach, along the gunwale of the boat.
Apparently there were some twenty or more of them in all.

"River pirates, likely," said the leader, who had now come down the
gang-plank. "Fall in, men! Fall in!" His voice rang sharp and
clear, like that of an officer.

"Line up along this beach, and get down low!" he commanded. "Hold
your fire! Hold!--What do you mean?--What are you doing?" His
voice rose into a scream.

Some one had fired a shot. At once the thicket was filled with
armed men. Some unknown member of the boat party, standing on the
deck behind the leader, had fired at a movement seen in the willows
twenty yards away. The aim was true. A groan was answer to the
shot, even before the exclamation of the leader was made. Young
Desha fell back, shot through the body. His friends at first did
not know that any one had been hurt, but to lie still under fire
ill suited their wild temper. With a common impulse, and without
order, they emptied their guns into the mass of dark figures ranged
along the beach. The air was filled with shouts and curses. The
attacking party advanced. The narrow beach of sand and mud was
covered with a struggling mass of fighting men, of which neither
party knew the nature of the other, and where the combatants could
scarce tell friend from foe.

"Get in, men!" cried Dunwody. "Go on! Take the boat!" He pressed
on slowly, Judge Clayton at his side, and they two passed on up the
gang-plank and into the boat itself. The leader of the boat
forces, who had retired again to the steamer deck, faced them here.
It was Dunwody himself who reached out, caught him in a fell grip
and took away from him his rifle.

"Call your men off!" he cried. "Do you all want to get killed?"

"You pirates!" exclaimed the boat leader as soon as he could get
his breath. "What do you mean by firing on us here? We're
peaceable men and on our own business."

Dunwody stood supporting himself on his rifle, the stock of it
under his arm. "You call this peace!" he said. "We didn't intend
to attack you. We're