, sir," answered Mr. Adams, good-natured.

"Maybe you think you can dictate where I travel."

"No, sir. I expect to look after myself, and not after you."

"Well said," approved the long-nosed man. "Now will you have a drink?"

"I never use liquor, sir," returned Mr. Adams--and Charley was proud to
hear him say it.

"'D rather not drink with _me_, perhaps," sneered the long-nosed man.

"I see no reason for drinking with you or at all, sir," sharply replied
Mr. Adams. "Come on, Charley. We've got better business to tend to."

"You have, have you?" called the long-nosed man, after them. "Maybe you
think I don't know what it is. Maybe you think----" but they paid no
more attention to him.

Still, the meeting was not pleasant, and Charley heartily wished that the
"J. Jacobs" had proved to some other Jacobs.

IV

A FRIEND IN NEED

The _Robert Burns_ steadily churned her way down the Mississippi,
yellow and swollen with the spring freshets. She stopped at towns and
other landings--some of these being plantation landings--to discharge
or take on passengers and freight. These stops would have been the
more interesting, to Charley, were he not in a hurry. He wanted to be
sure and catch the _Georgia_, for the Isthmus. Supposing the _Robert
Burns_ were late into New Orleans; then they might miss the _Georgia_.
Of course, there were other boats--the _Falcon_ and the _Isthmus_ and
the _Quaker City_; but with such crowds setting out for the gold
fields, it behooved a fellow to get there as soon as he possibly could.

More "Forty-niners" boarded the _Robert Burns_. One in particular took
Charley's eye. He came out in a skiff, from a small wood landing,
where some steamers, but not the _Robert Burns_, stopped to load up
with fuel. When the _Robert Burns_ whistled and paused, floating idly,
and he had clambered in, he proved to be a very tall, gaunt,
black-whiskered individual, with a long, muzzle-loading squirrel rifle
on his arm. A darky tossed a blanket roll up after him, and rowed away
for the shore.

The man looked like a backwoodsman--and again he looked like a
Californian, too, for his clothes were an old blue flannel shirt (with
a rolling collar having white stars in the corners), patched buckskin
trousers and heavy boots of the regulation style. Charley chanced to
be crossing the salon or main cabin when the man was paying for his
passage, and there witnessed something exciting that made him