can go as wet as any
man if need be, but I like to keep a dry jacket when I can. The wind is
just howling outside. I reckon this is going to be a bigger storm nor
ordinary, and I have seen some biggish storms on the Mississippi too. I
have had some narrer escapes of it, I can tell you, special in the days
before there was nary a tug on the river, and we had to row or pole all
the way up; besides there ain't so many trees brought down as there used
to be in a flood, seeing as the country is getting more and more cleared
every day.

"I reckon the time will come when you will be able to go up either the
Mississippi or Missouri to the upper waters without seeing a tree
drifting down, and when there won't be a snag in their beds. I mind the
time when the snags were ten times worse than they is now. I mind once
we ran on one of the darned things in pretty nigh as wild a night as
this is going to be. I had six hands along with me, and we wanted to get
down, 'cause we knew the old man would have a cargo ready for us, and we
wanted a run of a day or two on shore at Orleans before we started up
again, so we held on. The wind was higher than we reckoned on, and we
was just saying we should have done better to tie up, when there was a
crash. I thought at first that she would have gone over with the shock,
but she didn't--not that it would have made much odds, for there was a
snag through her bottom, and the water pouring in like a sluice. It was
darkish, but we could make out there was some trees a boat's-length or
two ahead which had been caught as they rolled down by another snag, and
hung there. The boat didn't float more than a minute after she struck,
and then we were all in the river, those who couldn't swim gripping hold
of the oars and poles; half a minute and we were all clinging to the
boughs, and hoisting ourselves as well as might be clear of the water.

"I tell you, lad, that was a night. It wasn't that we was drenched to
the skin with the rain pouring down, and the wind cutting through
us--that kind of thing comes natural to a boatman--but it was the
oncertainty of the thing. The trees moved and swayed with the waves and
current; the flood we knew was rising still, and any moment they might
break away from the snag and go whirling along, over and over, down the
river. Even if they didn't break away of theirselves, another tree might
drive down on us, and if it did, the chances was strong as the hull
affair would brea