hen they hurried to
the levee, and, to their surprise, found that the little steamer that
conveyed passengers across the river to the East St. Louis railway
station lay close alongside the "New Lucy." Their task of transferring
the baggage was easy.

"Say, Sandy, you made the bargain with the clerk to bring us down here
on the security of our luggage; it's nothing more than business-like
that you should pay him what we owe," said Charlie.

"Right you are, Charlie," added Oscar, "and it's fair that Sandy, who
has had the bother of sparring our way for us, should have the proud
satisfaction of paying up all old scores." So Sandy, nothing loth,
took the roll of bills and marched bravely up to the clerk's office
and paid the money due. The handsome clerk looked approvingly at the
boy, and said: "Found your friends? Good boy! Well, I wish you good
luck."

The barkeeper said he had forgotten all about the pack of cards that
he had trusted Sandy with, when the lad gave him the seventy-five
cents due him. "I can't always keep account of these little things,"
he explained.

"But you don't often trust anybody with cards coming down the river,
do you?" asked Sandy, surprised.

"Heaps," said the barkeeper.

"And do they always pay?"

"Some of 'em does, and then ag'in, some of 'em doesn't," replied the
man, as with a yawn he turned away to rearrange his bottles and
glasses.

With the aid of a lounger on the landing, whom they thought they could
now afford to fee for a quarter, the youngsters soon transferred their
luggage from the "New Lucy" to the little ferry-boat near at hand. To
their great pleasure, they found on board the pleasant-faced lady
from Baltimore and her party. She was apparently quite as pleased to
meet them, and she expressed her regret that they were not going
eastward on the train with herself and sons. "We have had such a
pleasant trip down the river together," she said. "And you are going
back to Illinois? Will you return to Kansas in the spring?"

"We cannot tell yet," replied Charlie, modestly. "That all depends
upon how things look in the spring, and what father and Uncle Aleck
think about it. We are free-State people, and we want to see the
Territory free, you see."

The pleasant-faced lady's forehead was just a little clouded when she
said, "You will have your labor lost, if you go to Kansas, then; for
it will certainly be a slave State."

They soon were in the cars with their tickets for D