like this?" asked Tom in surprise.

"Yep. We give 'em all a wide berth." The wheel rolled over quickly and
the V-shaped, tormented ripple ahead swung away from the bow. "That's
purty nigh to th' surface," commented the pilot. "Jest happened to swing
up an' show its break in time. Hope we kin git past Clay before th' wind
drives us to th' bank. Look there!"

A great, low-lying cloud of sand suddenly rose high into the air like
some stricken thing, its base riven and torn into long streamers that
whipped and writhed. The gliding water leaped into short, angry waves,
which bore down on the boat with remarkable speed. As the blast struck
the _Missouri Belle_ she quivered, heeled a bit, slowed momentarily, and
then bore into it doggedly, but her side drift was plain to the pilot's
experienced eyes.

"We got plenty o' room out here fer sidin'," he observed; "but 'twon't
be long afore th' water'll look th' same all over. We're in fer a bad
day." As he spoke gust after gust struck the water, and he headed the
boat into the heavier waves. "Got to keep to th' deepest water now," he
explained. "Th' snags' telltales are plumb wiped out. I shore wish we
war past Clay. There ain't a decent bank ter lie ag'in this side o' it."

For the next hour he used his utmost knowledge of the river, which had
been developed almost into an instinct; and then he rounded one of the
endless bends and straightened out the course with Clay Point half a
mile ahead.

"Great Jehovah!" he muttered. "Look at Clay!"

The jutting point, stripped bare of trees, was cut as clean as though
some great knife had sliced it. Under its new front the river had cut
in until, as they looked, the whole face of the bluff slid down into the
stream, a slice twenty feet thick damming the current and turning it
into a raging fury. Some hundreds of yards behind the doomed point the
muddy torrent boiled and seethed through its new channel, vomiting
trees, stumps, brush and miscellaneous rubbish in an endless stream. Off
the point, and also where the two great currents came together again
behind it two great whirlpools revolved with sloping surfaces smooth as
ice, around which swept driftwood with a speed not unlike the horses of
some great merry-go-round. The vortex of the one off the point was
easily ten feet below the rim of its circumference, and the width of the
entire affair was greater than the length of the boat. A peeled log, not
quite water-soaked, reached the c