they say he is
sparring his way, isn't it?"

"You are quite correct, youngster," said the young man from Baltimore,
regarding Sandy's bright face with pleasure. "Correct you are. But I
never knew what the slang meant until I came out here. And, for that
matter, I don't know that I ever heard the slang before. But it is the
jargon of the river men."

By this time, even sparring was of very little use, for the spars only
sank deep and deeper into the soft river-bottom, and there was no
chance to raise the bow of the boat from its oozy bed. The case for
the present was hopeless; but the crew were kept constantly busy until
nightfall, pulling and hauling. Some were sent ashore in a skiff, with
a big hawser, which was made fast to a tree, and then all the power of
the boat, men and steam, was put upon it to twist her nose off from
the shoal into which it was stuck. All sorts of devices were resorted
to, and a small gain was made once in a while; but it looked very much
as if the calculation of Charlie, five feet in an hour, was too
liberal an allowance for the progress towards St. Louis.

Just then, from the boat furthest down the river rose a cloud of
steam, and the astonished lads heard a most extraordinary sound like
that of a gigantic organ. More or less wheezy, but still easily to be
understood, the well-known notes of "Oh, Susannah!" came floating up
the river to them. Everybody paused to listen, even the tired and
tugging roustabouts smiling at the unwonted music.

"Is it really music?" asked Oscar, whose artistic ear was somewhat
offended by this strange roar of sounds. The young man from Baltimore
assured him that this was called music; the music of a steam-organ or
calliope, then a new invention on the Western rivers. He explained
that it was an instrument made of a series of steam-whistles so
arranged that a man, sitting where he could handle them all very
rapidly, could play a tune on them. The player had only to know the
key to which each whistle was pitched, and, with a simple arrangement
of notes before him, he could make a gigantic melody that could be
heard for many miles away.

"You are a musician, are you not?" asked the young man from Baltimore.
"Didn't I hear you playing a violin in your room last night? Or was it
one of your brothers?"

Oscar, having blushingly acknowledged that he was playing his violin
for the benefit of his cousins, as he explained, his new-found
acquaintance said, "I play t