r head out to look round and
see what we are doing. Do you hear them niggers holloaing like so many
tom-cats? What good do they suppose that will do?"

"I can't see anything," Frank said when he looked out; "it's pitch dark.
I will make this hole a bit bigger, and then I will take the lantern and
crawl forward and see what has become of the blacks. I am afraid the
tree has stove the boat in: look at the water coming up through the
float-boards."

"Ay, I expect she is smashed somewhere; it could hardly be otherwise; I
reckon this is going to be about as bad a job as the one I was telling
you about. Here, lad, put this bottle of rum into your jacket and this
loaf of bread; I will take this here chunk of cold beef; like enough we
may want 'em afore we are done."

When Frank had enlarged the hole sufficiently to allow his body to pass
through, he put the lantern through and then crawled out. He was in a
tangle of branches and leaves. The head-rope was a long one; the tree
had fallen directly towards them, and the boat was, as far as Frank
could see, wedged in between the branches, which forked some forty feet
above the roots; a cross branch had stove in the cabin top, and another
rested across the scuttle of the cabin used by the negroes.

"Hand me the axe, sharp, Hiram," he said; "the niggers can't get out,
and our bow isn't a foot out of water."

Hiram handed up the axe, seized another, and with a great effort
squeezed himself through the hole and joined Frank in the fore-part of
the boat, which was waist-deep in water.

"Never mind the branch, lad, that will take too long to cut through, and
another two or three minutes will do their business; here, rip off two
or three of those planks, that will be the quickest way."

Although impeded in their work by the network of boughs, they speedily
got off two or three planks and hauled up the frightened negroes. It was
but just in time, for there were but a few inches between the water and
the top of the low cabin.

"Shut your mouths and drop that howling," Hiram said, "and grip hold of
the tree; the boat will sink under our feet in another minute. Stick to
your lantern, lad, a light is a comfort anyhow; I'll fetch another from
the cabin, and some candles; I know just where they are, and can feel
them in the water."

In a minute he rejoined Frank, who was sitting astride of one of the
branches.

"That's a bit of luck," he said; "the candles are dry. There ain't more