lash of oars was heard on the water, Hiram was sure to appear on
deck, however short the time since he had retired to rest.

"You are seeing the river at its best," he was saying one day. "It is
about half-full now; when the water's low, the channel where we can pass
loaded is often only fifty yards wide, with the water running through it
like a sluice. When the water is in flood there is no fear of shoals,
but you have got to look about, for it is full of floating trees and
logs; when these get stuck we call them snags, and if you were to run on
one of them the chances are it would knock a hole as big as a cask in
her bottom, and down you would go in two or three minutes."

[Illustration]

CHAPTER VII.

ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

"WE are going to have a change of weather, I reckon," Hiram said one
afternoon as they were drifting down the stream during their second
voyage. "You have been lucky since we started, but we are going to have
a change at last; and I can tell you when it blows here it's a caution.
They have been having a lot of rain up the country, for the river has
been rising regular for the last ten days. We had best make fast for the
night, and the sooner we does it the better, for the wind is getting up
fast and the rain is just a-going to begin."

In a quarter of an hour the boat was moored to a great tree at the lower
end of an island.

"We shall be snug here," he said, "and out of the way of the drift that
will be coming down presently. You can turn in and take a long spell of
sleep to-night, for sometimes those storms last for days when they come
on this time of year, and you will see there will be a sea on that the
boat could hardly live in. I wish we had stopped two hours ago; there
was a creek where we could have run her in and been snug all through it,
but I didn't think it was coming up so quick, and it's too far on to
the next place to risk it; however, I expect we shall do very well
here."

In another half-hour the gale burst upon them furiously, and Frank
congratulated himself that the boat was snugly moored. The thick muddy
water of the river was speedily lashed into angry waves; the rain came
down in torrents, and although the left-hand bank was but a quarter of a
mile distant it was soon lost to view. Frank was glad to leave the deck
and crawl into the little cabin, and sit down to a hot meal which the
negro cook had prepared.

"Better here than outside, my lad," Hiram said. "I