ot
be obstructed. In a moment appeared the _Lucy Belle_, a
shallow-draught, flimsy-looking double decker, with two slim
smokestacks side by side connected by a band of fancy grill-work, a
walking beam, two huge paddle boxes and much white paint. She sheered
sidewise with the current around the bend, and headed down upon them
accompanied by a vast beating of paddle wheels. Bobby could soon make
out atop the walking-beam, the swaying iron Indian with bent bow, and
the piles of slabs which constituted the _Lucy Belle_'s fuel. Almost
immediately she was passing, within ten feet or so of the hut. The water
boiled and eddied among the piles, rushing in and sucking back. A fat,
ruddy-faced man in official cap and citizen's clothes leaned over the
rail.

"Well, you made her to-day," shouted North.

"Bet ye," called the man with a grin. "Only aground once."

The _Lucy Belle_ swept away with an air of pride. She made the trip to
and from Redding, forty miles up the River, twice a week. Sometimes she
came through in a day. Oftener she ran aground.

Now Bobby reverted to his original idea.

"I'd like to walk on the logs," said he.

"Well, come on, then," said Jimmy Powers.

They retraced their steps along the booms until near the shore.

"You don't want to try her where she's deep," explained Jimmy Powers,
"'Cause then if you should fall in, the logs would close right together
over your head, and then where'd you be?"

Bobby shuddered at this idea, which in the event continued to haunt him
for some days.

"There's a big one," said Jimmy Powers. "Try her."

Bobby stepped out on a big solid-looking log, which immediately proved
to be not solid at all. It dipped one way, Bobby tried to tread the
other. The log promptly followed his suggestion--too promptly. Bobby
soon found himself about two moves behind in this strange new game. He
lost his balance, and the first thing he knew, he found himself waist
deep in the water.

Jimmy Powers laughed heartily; but to Bobby this was no laughing matter.
The penalties attached both by nature and his mother were dire in the
extreme. He foresaw sickness and spankings, both of which had been
promised him in the event of wet feet merely, and here he was dripping
from the waist down! In any other surroundings or with any other company
he would have wept bitterly. Even in the presence of Jimmy Powers his
lower lip quivered; and his soul filled to the very throat with dismay.
Jimmy Power