u see it
here, sometimes it runs like a mill-stream. The art of sailing here is
to know the river; for what with its back currents and its eddies, its
channels behind islands and its sandbanks, one who knows it can manage
to make his way up, while one who didn't know would be drifting backward
instead of getting forward. That's what you have got to learn.
Fortunately the wind generally blows up the stream; when it don't it's a
case of down anchor. There are places where one can hardly get along
unless the wind happens to be unusually strong, and there I generally
get a tow. The boss has got about twenty steamers on the river, so we
don't generally have to wait many hours before one comes along. The tugs
is gradually doing away with sailing boats, and in time there won't be
many of our kind of craft left; but they are useful, you see, for small
places where the steamers don't stop, and for the rivers which run into
the Mississippi."

The next morning at daybreak the sail was hoisted, the hawsers thrown
off from the shore, and the flat made her way up the river. Frank was
surprised to see how fast she sailed, although the wind was but light.
The work was easy, for the wind was steady and they seldom sailed at
night, the wind generally dropping at sundown. They touched at numerous
little settlements, and gradually got rid of the cargo with which they
had started.

Sometimes they left the main river and sailed for many miles by narrow
channels, where the current, for the most part, was almost
imperceptible. They were more than a month from the time they started
before they reached the spot at which they were to take in the cargo for
their return voyage. The flat was then loaded up with grain, which was
put in in bulk and covered with tarpaulin; the boat was now laden down
nearly to the water's edge.

The downward voyage differed widely from that up the river; the sail was
now seldom used, and instead of skirting the shores they kept in
mid-channel, from time to time directing the boat's course by the use of
the sweeps. The moon was nearly full when they started, and they
continued their voyage by night as well as day. Hiram and Frank took it
by turns to be on watch; but the former was seldom down below, except on
the rare occasions when the river was free from shoals.

Frank had by this time learned by the ripples on the water to detect the
shallows, and could direct the course without assistance; but as soon as
the sp