I have always believed in inland waterways for carrying the heavy freight of this nation; because the easiest and cheapest way to transport anything is to put it in the water and float it.

This lesson I learned when Ace whipped up Dolly and Jack and took our craft off toward Syracuse.
It was a hard day for me.

We were passing boats all the time, and we had to make speed to keep craft which had no right to pass us from getting by, especially just before reaching a lock.

To allow another boat to steal our lockage from us was a disgrace; and many of the fights between the driver boys grew out of the rights oL passing by and the struggle to avoid delays at the locks.

Sometimes such affairs were not settled by the boys on the tow-path--they fought off the skirmishes; the real battles were between the captains or members of the crews.
If there were rules I don't know now what they were, and nobody paid much attention to them.