too warm a reception.
I'll allow you didn't see me coming, though if I thought you did, I'd
chuck you overboard for that caper."

[Illustration: "'Hold on, young man! One at a time is enough.'"]

The speaker, who stood in the doorway striving to remove the mess of
sticky mush that had struck him full in the breast and now covered a
large portion of his body, including his face, was a man of middle age
and respectable appearance, clad in a rubber suit and a slouched hat.

Filled with shame and contrition at this unexpected result of his
foolish action, Winn was profuse in his apologies, and picking up the
useful table-cloth that had already served him in one emergency,
stepped forward with an offer of assistance. The stranger waved him
back, and removed the greater part of the mess by taking off his rubber
coat. At the same time he said:

"There's no harm done, and worse might have happened. You might have
been pitching stove lids, or hot soup, or knives and forks, you know.
So, you see, I'm to be congratulated on getting off as well as I have.
But where is the boss of this raft, and the crew? How did you happen
to run in here out of the channel? You are not alone, are you?"

"Yes, sir," replied Winn. "I'm captain and crew and everything else
just at present--excepting cook," he added, hastily, as he noted the
stranger's amused glance at the stove and its surroundings.

"Who is cook, then?"

"There isn't any," answered Winn; "and for that reason there isn't any
breakfast, nor likely to be any, for I'll starve before I try my hand
at it again."

"There seems to be plenty of breakfast, such as it is," said the
stranger, gravely, indicating by a glance the many pans of spoiled
mush. Then seeing that the boy was really in distress, and not in a
joking humor, he added, "But let me help you set things to rights, and
then I'll see if I can't show you how to get up some sort of a
breakfast. I'm not a regular cook, as perhaps you may guess; but then,
again, I am one, in a way, as all we river-traders have to be."

"Are you a river-trader?" asked Winn.

"Yes; and there are three of us. But I'll tell you all about it, and
you shall tell me your story after we've had breakfast."

To Winn, the expeditious manner in which his recent culinary disasters
were repaired and a simple but well-cooked breakfast was made ready by
this stranger was a source of undisguised admiration. Even coffee,
clear and strong, was m