pale and trembled as he read it; but I assured him he
was perfectly safe, and that no one but myself was in possession of his
secret.

After breakfast, when I had finished my regular "chores," I hastened to
the swamp to work on the raft. I cannot describe the satisfaction which
this labor, and the thinking of it, afforded me. It was fully equal to a
trip down the river in a steamboat. Day after day, and night after
night, in my trips to Riverport, and in my bed, I anticipated the voyage
down the stream, and the pleasure of keeping house in our mansion on the
raft, with Flora and Sim.

After three days' hard work, we had the body of the raft completed. We
had covered the long logs with short ones, and on the upper tier laid a
flooring of slabs, which were more plentiful than boards, as they were
thrown away by the saw-mills above. The platform was more than a foot
above the surface of the water, and I was confident that it would carry
us high and dry.

It only remained to build the house--the most pleasing because it was
the most difficult part of the job. This structure was to be eighteen
feet long and six feet wide, placed in the middle of the platform. I put
together two frames of the requisite size, forming the sills and plates
of the building, and boarded them up and down, leaving three windows on
each side, and a door at the rear end. I made the rafters of slabs, with
the round side down.

On the fifth day, so enthusiastically had we labored, I expected to
complete the outside of the house, so that Sim could sleep in it. I was
putting on the last of the roof boards, which lapped over so as to shed
the rain, when an unfortunate circumstance occurred to delay the work.
My bow-legged friend and fellow-laborer was the most willing boy in the
world. He was quite skilful in the use of the axe; but he was very
awkward in his movements, and did not always work to the best advantage.

Towards the last of the work, we had come short of boards, and I was
thinking of going to the saw-mills, seven miles up the stream, to buy a
few to complete the work. But there was a heavy rain in the night, which
raised the creek, and brought down quite a number of them. I had swung a
boom out so as to catch them. Sim had just hauled one of these, soaked
with water, out of the river. While he was raising the end to hand it up
to me, on the roof, his feet slipped, and he went into the stream with a
"chug," like a frog.

Sim could not sw