illy Brackett, there were his initials, rudely cut with
a jack-knife, just inside the gunwale. How well he remembered carving
them, one sunny afternoon, when he and Elta were drifting down the
creek! Yes, indeed, it was his canoe fast enough, but how came it
there? There was but one way to obtain an answer, and in another
minute Cap'n Cod was being plied with eager questions as to when,
where, and how he came into possession of the dugout.

"That canoe?" he questioned slowly, looking from one to the other, and
wondering at their eagerness. "Why, I bought it off a raft just before
leaving Dubuque. You see, I didn't have any skiff, and didn't feel
that I could afford to buy one. So I was calculating to build one
after we'd got started. Then a raft came along, and the fellows on it
must have been awfully hard up, for they offered to sell their canoe so
cheap that I just had to take it. Two dollars was all I gave for it;
and though it isn't exactly--"

"But what sort of a raft was it?" anxiously interrupted Winn.

"Just an ordinary timber raft with a 'shanty' and a tent on it, and--"

"You mean three 'shanties,' don't you?"

"No; one 'shanty' and a tent. I took particular notice, because as
there were only three men aboard, I wondered why the 'shanty,' which
looked to be real roomy, wasn't enough."

"Three men!" exclaimed Billy Brackett--"a big man, a middle-sized man,
and a little man, like the bears in the story-book. Why Winn, that's
our raft, and I've been aboard it twice within the last four days."

"You have! Where? How? Why didn't you tell me? Where is it now?"

"Oh, I have been aboard it here and there. Didn't mention it because I
haven't been acquainted with you long enough to post you in every
detail of my previous history, and now that raft is somewhere down the
river, between here and St. Louis." Then changing his bantering tone,
the young engineer gave a full explanation of how he happened to board
the _Venture_ twice, and when he finished, Winn said,

"But you haven't mentioned the wheat. Didn't you notice it?"

"Wheat! Oh yes. I do remember your father saying he had put some
wheat aboard as a speculation; but I didn't see anything of any wheat,
nor was there any place where it could have been concealed."

"Then they must have thrown it overboard, as I was afraid they had, and
there was a thousand dollars' worth of it, too."

"Whew! Was there as much as that?" said Billy Bracket