Trinity, so that upon entering
the river, the stream is in your favour. The two rivers are together
four or five miles wide, and form a sort of circus, enclosed by the
shores of Illinois, of Old Kentuck, and her daughter Missouri.[4] We
were nearest to the Illinois side, which gave us a small advantage
over our opponent, who was more on the Kentucky side, end kept coming
on faster and faster, with the other five boats, who had also clapped
more steam on, a short distance behind him. Our Helen M'Gregor still
kept the lead; who the devil could have helped racing? No one, of a
certainty, except such a mackerel-blooded Yankee as old Lambton. All
was heat and steam, rattle and clatter; the engines thumping, the
water splashing, the fire blazing and roaring out of the chimneys,
which sent out clouds of smoke and showers of sparks. The enemy was
close upon us, Father George's honest face almost in a line with our
stern.

"'Helen M'Gregor, hold your own!' cried I. 'Don't spare the wood,
boys, lay it on thick, pile it up moun_tain_eous; ten dollars for you
when you've beaten him!'

"'Hurra!' cried the hundred passengers; 'hurra! The Washington loses,
we are gaining ground.'

"Only the captain could not say a word; he stood there with his blue
lips pressed hard together, looking more like a statue than a man. We
were going our twenty knots, and keep it up we must if we did not want
to fall back amongst the mob of the Huntress, the Ploughboy, and the
rest of them. Every joint and hinge in the boat seemed to be cracking,
the engine roared and groaned, the steam howled and hissed.

"'The Helen M'Gregor is a gallant lass!' cried I. 'A brave
Scotchwoman! She has fire in her veins.'

"And so she really had. She stretched out like a racehorse that feels
the spur in his flank for the first time; not steaming or swimming,
but flying like a bird, rushing like a wild-cat or an elk that's been
shot at; the waters of the Ohio flashing from her side in a white
creamy foam. The Kentucky shores on our right, with their forests and
cotton-trees, were flying away from us; on our left, the banks of
Illinois seemed to dance past us, the big trees looking like witches
scampering off on their broomsticks. Behind us, the high land of
Missouri was rapidly disappearing, Colonel Boon's plantation getting
smaller every second, till at last it appeared no bigger than a
dovecot. Every thing around us seemed in motion, swimming, flying,
racing. Hurras