edge, said, "See here, cap, I owe you for a
pack of cards."

"Yep," replied the barkeeper, holding a bottle between his eye and the
light, and measuring its contents.

This was not encouraging. Sandy, with a little effort, went on: "You
see we fellows, three of us, are sparring our way down to St. Louis.
We have got trusted for our passage. We've friends in St. Louis, and
when we get there we shall be in funds. Our luggage is in pawn for our
passage money. When we come down to get our luggage, I will pay you
the six bits I owe you for the cards. Is that all right?"

"Yep," said the barkeeper, and he set the bottle down. As the lad went
away from the window, with a great load lifted from his heart, the
barkeeper put his head out of the opening, looked after him, smiled,
and said, "That boy'll do."

When Sandy joined his brother, who was wistfully watching for him, he
said, a little less boastfully than might have been expected of him,
"That's all right, Charlie. The barkeeper says he will trust me until
we get to St. Louis and come aboard to get the luggage. He's a good
fellow, even if he did say 'yep' instead of 'yes' when I asked him."

In reply to Charlie's eager questions, Sandy related all that had
happened, and Charlie, with secret admiration for his small brother's
knack of "cheeking it through," as he expressed it, forbore any
further remarks.

"I do believe the water is really rising!" exclaimed the irrepressible
youngster, who, now that his latest trouble was fairly over, was
already thinking of something else. "Look at that log. When I came out
here just after breakfast, this morning, it was high and dry on that
shoal. Now one end of it is afloat. See it bob up and down?"

Full of the good news, the lads went hurriedly forward to find Oscar,
who, with his friend from Baltimore, was regarding the darkening scene
from the other part of the boat.

"She's moving!" excitedly cried Oscar, pointing his finger at the "War
Eagle"; and, as he spoke, that steamer slid slowly off the sand-bar,
and with her steam-organ playing triumphantly "Oh, aren't you glad
you're out of the Wilderness!" a well-known air in those days, she
steamed steadily down stream. From all the other boats, still stranded
though they were, loud cheers greeted the first to be released from
the long embargo. Presently another, the "Thomas H. Benton," slid off,
and churning the water with her wheels like a mad thing, took her way
down the riv