ssippi, stretching
from Tennessee to Natchez, is unbroken forest, inhabited by Indians,
and infested with wolves and panthers. We shall see no sign of
civilization on the eastern shore until after we have skirted six
hundred miles of waste, howling wilderness."

At length they came to where the Ohio is merged and lost in the
Mississippi. The turbid onhurrying volume of mighty waters heaved and
foamed, as if troubled by furious, disturbing forces working below.
The boat shuddered and its strong joints groaned in the strenuous hug
of the river.

"Hereafter we can proceed only by daylight," said Winslow. "We shall
have many dangers to contend with--a succession of chutes, races,
chains, and cypress bends. You will see no end of this gloomy forest.
There are plenty of rattlesnakes, bears, and catamounts in those
jungles, doctor."

"Par bleu! Ze catamount shall stay in ze jungle and delight heself
with her family amiable. We not shall invite heem to tea. Are no
inhabitants in this wilderness?"

"A few whites and some Indians. See those squaws digging wild potatoes
for food."

"Do many boats go to New Orleans?" asked Miss Hale.

"Yes, ma'am; all sorts from a birch canoe to a full-rigged ship.
Hundreds are lost. We are now coming to a wreck-heap."

The passengers saw an immense huddle of drifted logs, and the broken
timbers of shattered boats, and entire scows, rotting, half-submerged,
or warping high and dry on top of the hill of confused ruin. The sight
of these hulks, abandoned to the grinding eddies, added a sense of
dread to the weary anxiety already felt by the girls. The progress
down the Ohio had been tedious; how much more so the interminable
windings on the Mississippi, and the long, lonesome nights, made
sleepless by the cries of birds that flit in darkness, and by the
howls of wild beasts. Evaleen's nocturnal fears, when the barge lay
moored, were not so well founded as were the apprehensions which
daylight renewed, of disaster on the treacherous flood. The more she
learned of the river, the more she realized the risks of each day's
navigation.

"Young ladies, see! That is a sawyer; an ugly one, sticking its sharp
horn up to hook us. I don't mind a danger which shows above water; but
your sleeping sawyer is the mischief to be dreaded."

"What's a sleeping sawyer?"

"If I could point out the nasty thing, I wouldn't dread it; a sleeping
sawyer does its sawing under the surface. We are liable to run on t