e to be thrue. We're the broth of boys that git in
the ruction ivery toime."

"I wonder if Buster has been overboard again?" mused Jack, smiling at
the recollection of the tremendous splash the fat boy had made the time
he dropped into the Mississippi, and held on by the trailing rope.

"I do be thinkin' ivery toime a big wave comes along; 'there's Buster
takin' wan of his headers again, and makin' the river quake!'" chuckled
Jimmie.

So they beguiled the minutes while lunch was being prepared; which,
since it was only a cold one, did not take much time. Then they sat
and enjoyed themselves, while the _Tramp_ bustled merrily on her way,
and the speeding shore panorama interested them constantly, on account
of the changes taking place.

Occasionally Jack consulted his maps, in order to find out what the
name of some town they were passing might be, and in this way locate
their position.

"Will we make it, do yees think?" asked Jimmie, after one of these
periods of study on the part of the skipper.

"I think so; I hope so," replied the other. "Because, you see, we
ought to pull up there and get ready for a fresh start. So far we've
done just elegant work; but there's no telling what trouble is waiting
for us below. The river gets bigger all the time, until there are
places where you can hardly see across to the low shore on the other
side. And those false cut-off channels will give us the time of our
lives, maybe."

"Of course, ye ixpect that George will be waitin' for us all the while
at Memphis?" remarked Jimmie a little later, as he swept the watery
horizon to the south, and the shore line closer by with the fine
glasses.

"Well, I suppose so," replied Jack. "That is, if he's managed to pull
through without another blowout or breakdown."

"Sure, ye have another guess coming Jack, me bye, and that's no lie,"
remarked Jimmie, a smile beginning to creep over his wide face.

"Then you've seen something," declared the other. "Here, take hold of
this wheel and give me the glasses."

He swept the shore line with a careful scrutiny.

"I see him," he remarked presently. "And it's just as you said,
Jimmie; George is in a peck of trouble again with that cranky
high-power engine. They've tied up to the shore and have got the red
flag flying that was to be our signal of distress. Poor Nick; I can
just picture him right now, grunting over all the misfortunes that
haunt them, while the rest of us have had s