with a dray-load of freight the interior
was thoroughly clean and inviting. The afternoon was spent in laying
in a store of provisions for the voyage, repairing the splintered door,
and mending one of the sweeps, which was on the point of breaking.

By sunset everything was in readiness for a start, and all hands were
gathered about the galley stove, each superintending the cooking of his
specialty for supper. Billy Brackett could make griddle-cakes, or
"nip-naps," as he called them. He fried them in an iron spider, and
the deftness with which he turned them, by tossing them in the air, so
excited the admiration of his raftmates that they immediately wished to
engage him as regular cook for the trip.

"This isn't a circumstance to what I can do in the culinary line,"
remarked Billy Brackett, modestly. "To know me at my best, you ought
to be around when I make biscuit. My heavy biscuit are simply
monuments of the baker's art. They are warranted to withstand any
climate, and defy the ravaging tooth of time. They can turn the edge
of sarcasm, and have that quality of mercy which endureth forever. A
quartz-crusher turns pale at sight of them, and they supply a permanent
filling for aching voids or long-felt wants. In fact, gentlemen, it is
universally acknowledged that my biscuit can't be beat."

"Neither can a bad egg," said Glen, who was trying to make an omelet.

"Let us defer the biscuit for this time, and have a smoking dish of
corn-meal mush instead," suggested Winn. "It is one of the hardest
things in the world to cook, but I know the trick to perfection."

"Mush, mush, mush, tooral-i-addy," sang Binney. At that moment Bim
began to growl, and to sniff at the bottom of the door. They opened it
and looked out. No one was there, nor did they hear a sound. Darkness
had already set in, and they could see nothing. Bim ran to the edge of
the raft, barked once or twice, and then returned to his place near the
stove.

"It must have been your singing that excited him, Grip," remarked Billy
Brackett. "He generally acts that way when a person sings, and I have
heretofore attributed it to envy, though I don't see how it could have
been in this case."

After supper Billy Brackett went into town to call on the telegraph
operator, with whom he had established friendly relations, and to
receive some despatches that he was expecting. He had not been gone
long before Bim, who had been left behind, again began to