oot of the water fallen far below the usual summer
level.

It was the snag-boat. Crossing her bows and drifting past her slowly, I
stood up and shouted to the party in the pilot house:

"I want to speak to the captain."

He came out on the hurricane deck--the man who invented the river. He
was still stiff and proud, but a swift smile crossed his face as he
looked down upon us, half-naked and sun-blackened there in our dinky
little craft.

"Captain," I cried, and perhaps there was the least vainglory in me; "I
talked to you at Benton."

"Yes, sir."

"Well, _I have found that water!_"

CHAPTER IV

MAKING A GETAWAY

Tell a Teuton that he can't, and very likely he will show you that he
can. It's in the blood. Between the prophecy of the snag-boat captain
and my vainglorious answer at the Cheyenne crossing, I learned to
respect the words of the man who invented the eccentric old river. In
the face of heavy head winds, I quoted the words, "You'll never get
down"--and they bit deep like whip lashes. On many a sand-bar and gravel
reef, with the channel far away, I heard the words, "Plenty of water,
yes, but you won't find it!" And always something stronger than my
muscles cried out within me: "The devil I won't, O, you inventor of
rain-water creeks!" Hour by hour, day by day, against almost continual
head winds and with the lowest water in years, that discouraging
prophecy invaded me and was repulsed. And that is why we have pessimists
in the world. A pessimist is merely a counter-irritant.

I stood on the bank for some time after the _Atom I_ slid into the
water, admiring her truly beautiful lines. Once I was captain of a trunk
lid that sailed a frog-pond down in Kansas City; and at that time I
thought I knew the meaning of pride. I did not. All three of us were a
bit puffed up over that boat. Something of that ride that goes before a
fall awoke in my captain's breast as I loved her with my eyes--that
trim, slim speed-thing, tugging at her forward line, graceful and
slender and strong and fleet as a Diana.

I said at last: "I will now get in her, drop down to the town landing,
and proceed to put to shame a few of these local motor-tubs that make so
much fuss and don't go anywhere!"

I loved her as a man should love all things that are swift and strong
and honest, keen for marks and goals--a big, clean-limbed, thoroughbred
horse that will break his heart to get under the wire first; a
high-power rifle,