hey're yours if you'll go get them."

"What do you want me to do?" he demanded suspiciously.

"Two things: return this boat to its owner--a man named Lilly who
lives----"

"I know the boat," the boy interrupted.

"The other is to be sure to go up to-day after those horses. They're
picketed out."

"All right," agreed the boy, whose enthusiasm kindled as his belief in
the genuineness of the offer was assured.

I seized a rope, swung myself up to the flat fender, and thence to the
deck.

"Come on!" I called to Yank and Johnny, who were hesitating. "It'll cost
more than those horses and blankets are worth to wait."

Thereupon they followed me. The boy made fast our boat to his own. Five
minutes later we were dropping down the river.

"This is what I call real luxury," said Johnny, returning from an
inspection of our craft. "There's a barroom, and a gambling layout, and
velvet carpets and chairs, mirrors, a minstrel show, and all the
fixings. Now who'd expect to run against a layout like this on the
river?"

"What I'd like to know is how they got her out here," said I. "Look at
her! She's a river boat. A six-foot wave ought to swamp her!"

We thought of a half dozen solutions, and dismissed them all. The
discussion, however, served its purpose in inflaming our curiosity.

"I'm going to find some one who knows," I announced at last.

This was not so easy. The captain was of course remote and haughty and
inaccessible, and the other officers were too busy handling the ship and
the swarming rough crowd to pay any attention to us. The crew were new
hands. Finally, however, we found in the engine room a hard bitten
individual with a short pipe and some leisure. To him we proffered our
question.

"Sailed her," said he.

"Around the Horn?" I cried.

He looked at me a bitter instant.

"The sailing wasn't very good across the plains, _at that time_,"
said he.

Little by little we got his story. I am not a seafaring man, but it
seems to me one of the most extraordinary feats of which I have ever
heard. The lower decks of the _McKim_ had been boarded up with
heavy planks; some of her frailer gimcracks of superstructure had been
dismantled, and then she had been sent under her own power on the long
journey around the Horn. Think of it! A smooth-water river boat, light
draught, top heavy, frail in construction, sent out to battle with the
might of three oceans! However, she made it; and after her her sister
ship,