umvations.

"De tramp wouldn't be much if de sun war shinin' so dat dey could walk
long widout steppin' on snakes. When dey see me come sailin' up de
ribber, why, dey will be so pleased dat Mr. Altman won't--dat is, he
won't obsist on my workin' so hard, and Mrs. Altman won't frow out so
many digustin' hints 'bout de bigness ob my appertite."

Having labored up to his decision, Jethro Juggens threw away no time in
carrying it out. It really seemed as if everything had been directed for
the last hour or two to prepare this very course to him. The failure of
the wooden box to serve him as an armor, and the resort to the sheets of
linen, the turning of his steps toward the flatboat, and, above all,
that strong, steadily-blowing west wind--many persons would have seen
something more than a mere coincidence in these things, and who shall
say that this view would not have been right?

The task that presented itself to Jethro Juggens, though a hard one, was
by no means impossible. His keen-edged knife soon fashioned excavations
in the soft planking at the sides, through which he passed some of the
pieces of rope and fastened one of the poles in an upright position, or
nearly so, for he was wise enough to place it so that it leaned backward
like the masts of ordinary sailing vessels. He secured this as strongly
as he could, and then did the same with the second pole on the other
side, and directly opposite the first.

He had now two strong uprights or masts. He examined and tested them
until certain that nothing more could be done to add to their firmness.
Then he set to work to knot or tie a number of the sheets together at
the corners, until a sail was fashioned of the right dimensions, and
this, in turn, was secured to the masts.

He went about the business with that deliberation and care which marks
the skilled workman. Almost any one, placed as he was, would have been
hasty, nervous and unfitted to do a good job. It would have been
neglected at some point, and, consequently, disaster would have come at
the beginning of the enterprise. Jethro wrought as though such a thing
as danger was not within a hundred miles, and that, too, when he had
recently passed through some terrifying incidents.

When the work was completed, he had a sail containing something like
fifty square feet, the sheets secured together with no little skill, and
the masts so strongly set that they could be relied upon, unless some
unusual cause inte