very thing we are most in need of, sent by a special providence to
crown our labors with success. I'll go down and have a look at her,
while you stay here and help Grim pack up the stuff. We might as well
be prepared for a sudden move, and he'll tell you what we have just
been talking about."

So Mr. Gilder, donning his rubber coat, a garment that Plater would
have scorned to wear, left the clearing through another bushy thicket
on the opposite side from that by which his confederate had entered it.
An almost undiscernible path led him to the shore of the island that
was washed by the main channel of the river. Here he struck into a
plainly marked trail that followed the water's edge. In this trail Mr.
Gilder walked to the southern end of the island, and up its other side
until he reached a comfortable camp that bore signs of long occupancy.
It stood high on a cut bank, and just below it a rude boom held a
miscellaneous assortment of logs, lumber, and odd wreckage, all of it
evidently collected from the stray drift of the great river.

From the edge of the bank, a short distance from this camp, the man
commanded a good view of the stranded raft, and for several minutes he
stood gazing at it. "There's the very thing to a T, that we want," he
said to himself. "Not too big for us to handle, and yet large enough
to make it seem an object for us to take it down the river. I can't
see what they want of three shanties, though; one ought to be enough
for all the crew she needs. Our first move would be to tear down two
of them, and lengthen the other; that alone would be a sufficient
disguise. We haven't got her yet, though, and she isn't abandoned
either, for there's smoke coming from that middle shanty. I reckon the
cook must be aboard, and maybe he'll sell the whole outfit for cash,
and so give us a clear title to it." Here Mr. Gilder smiled as though
the thought was most amusing. "I'll go off and interview him anyway,
and I'd better be about it too, for the river is still rising. She
won't hang there much longer, and if the fellow found his raft afloat
again before a bargain was made he might not come to terms. In that
case we should be obliged to take forcible possession, which would be
risky. I'm bound to have that raft, though. It is simply a case of
necessity, and necessity is in the same fix we are, so far as law is
concerned."

While thus thinking, Mr. Gilder had stepped into a light skiff that was