Jake Elliott now spoke again.
"We ain't a goin' to try to run in the dark in all this 'ere drift, are we ?" he asked.
"I can't say that we are," replied Sam.
"Why, you're not going to stop for the night, are you, Sam ?" asked Billy Bowlegs, who was enjoying the boat ride greatly.
"Certainly not," replied Sam.
"Why, you said you was, jist a minute ago," muttered Jake Elliott.
"Oh, no! I didn't," said Sam, whose patience had been sorely taxed already by Jake's persistent disposition to find fault.
"What did you say, then ?" asked that worthy.
"Merely that we're not going to try to run in the dark to-night." "Well, you're a goin' to stop then ?" "No, I am not." "I see how dat is," said Joe, suddenly catching an idea.
"Well, explain it to Jake, then," said Sam laughing.
"W'y, Mas' Jake, don't you see de moon's gwine to shine bright as day, an' so dey ain't a gwine to be no dark to-night." "That's it, Joe," replied Sam, "but if there was no moon I'd still go on.

The drift isn't in the least dangerous." "Why not, Sam ?" asked Tom.
"Well, in the first place, it wouldn't be very easy to knock a hole in such a boat as this anyhow, and as we're only floating, we go exactly with the drift nearest us; we go faster than the drift in by the shore there, because we're in the strongest part of the current, but the drift nearest us is in the same current, and moves as fast as we do, or pretty nearly so.

My paddling adds something to our speed, but not much.

I only paddle enough to keep the boat straight in the channel.
If we were to stop against the bank, and fasten the boat there, the drift would bump us pretty badly, but it can do us no harm so long as we float along with it." [Illustration: SAM PLAYS THE PART OF SKIPPER.] The moon, nearly at its full, was rising now, and very soon the river became a picture.

Running rapidly, bank full, with tall trees bending over and throwing their shadows across it, with here and there a fragment of a moon glade on the water, while the dense undergrowth of the woods, lying in shadow, gave the stream a margin of inky blackness on each side,--it was a scene to stimulate the imaginations of the group of healthy boys who sat in the boat gliding silently but swiftly down the river.
Hour after hour they sped on, not a boy among them in the least disposed to avail himself of Sam's permission to lie down for a nap on the moss in the bottom of the boat.