ending you knew we were here, because
you didn't. Ten to one you met that planter, too."

"Meaning Mr. Tweed, the gentleman with the crooked nose, and the long,
thin mustache?" George went on.

"That's the man," laughed Jack. "You quizzed him, too, about a
short-cut, and he posted you. Then, just as we did a little later, you
made a blunder and ran into the wrong channel. Confess now."

"That's just what we did," grinned George. "And ever since I've been
listening to the complainings of Buster. Oh! he's starved to death
twenty times, in imagination of course, since we blundered into that
false cut-off. I had to finally threaten to tie him up and gag him if
he didn't stop. And after that he watched me like a hawk. I guess he
thought I meant to eat him up."

"Well, it was very suspicious," admitted Nick, soberly, "because, you
see, he even pinched me several times; and I got a horrible notion in
my head that he was trying to see how fat I was."

Then the others burst into a roar, in which Nick himself finally
joined, unable to keep a straight face longer.

They sat up long that night, trying to lay plans that gave some promise
of fulfillment, and take them out of the labyrinth of channels.

"If we stay here much longer Herb is going to have a walkover about
winning the silver cup," George remarked, half complainingly.

"Sure, perhaps he do be matin' up wid the same smooth spoken Mr.
Twade," observed Jimmie, with a broad grin.

His suggestion brought out another round of laughter.

"Then be on the lookout tonight, Jimmie," warned George. "And if you
see anything that looks like a big alligator swimming toward us, don't
pour in a broadside too soon, for it may be the old _Comfort_. Misery
likes company, they say. And just to think of us running across you
fellows here, when our last grain of grub had gone."

"Not much danger of them striking the planter, for they keep to the
middle of the river, while we hugged the shore," Jack observed. "But
when morning comes, I'm going to try the plan I spoke of last."

"I think it a bully one, Jack," affirmed Nick, always full of
confidence in the leader of the expedition. "And if anybody can pull
us out of here it's going to be you. The worst of it is I dasen't go
swimming in this black water. It's just cram full of snakes."

"Well," remarked Jack, seriously, "I wouldn't advise you to try it.
Those snakes with the mottled yellow and brown backs are water