to be good
eating, and they were welcome.

Jim Hart also exercised his ingenuity in a very useful manner. In the prow
of the boat, but under the tarpaulin, he spread a layer of mud about two
inches thick. Protected from the rain, it soon dried, forming a hard,
impervious, brick-like covering for the bottom of the boat, and upon this
he built a small smothered fire of dry sticks, a supply of which they kept
in the boat. Here Jim, with all the skill and delicacy of a gastronomic
artist, would cook their wild ducks and wild geese, and, considering the
limited area and resources for the exercise of his favorite occupation,
he did extremely well. Nor was it any longer necessary for them to run in
to the shore and worry in the dripping forest with wet wood.

"It ain't like that stove we built the time we wuz on the ha'nted islan',"
Long Jim would say, "but it's a heap sight better than nothin."

"It shorely is," said Shif'less Sol. "You ain't much account for anything,
Jim, but you kin cook a leetle bit."

Long Jim smiled contentedly.

CHAPTER VIII

THE CHATEAU OF BEAULIEU

They noticed one day a high bluff shooting up on the eastern bank and
running along for some distance. It was clothed in dense green forest, and
it was rather a welcome break in the monotony of the low shores.

"A big city will be built there some day," said the prophetic Paul.[B]

"Now, Paul, why in tarnation do you say that?" exclaimed Tom Ross.

"Why, because it's such a good place. It's a high hill on a great river so
well suited to navigation, and it has a vast, rich country behind it."

But Tom Ross shook his head.

"Seems to me, Paul," he said, "that you're bitin' off a lot more'n you can
chaw. Things that are to happen a hundred years from now ain't never
happenin' fur me."

But Paul merely smiled and held to his opinion.

On the following day they tied up at a point, where the river began a
sharp and wide curve around a long, narrow peninsula. It was just about
dark when they stopped and, as usual, they were able to run the boat into
dense foliage at the margin, where not even the keenest eye could see it.

"We've got plenty of goose and duck left over from dinner," said Henry,
"so I'm thinking, Jim, that you'd better not light the fire on your bricks
to-night."

"All right," replied Jim, "I don't mind restin'. I feel about ez lazy ez
Sol Hyde looks."

But Henry Ware had another and more important thing in mind. His wa