In recounting his adventure with a shark in the straits of Messina, he became somewhat excited and without thinking, stepped from behind the protecting folds of the table cloth in all the glory of a dress coat, white vest and violently red drawers.
There was a stare of wonder, an awful silence for a moment and then a wild roar of laughter, which brought the orator to a sense of the comical figure he cut, and he fled from the stage with the unfinished shark story on his lips.

The mayor after a violent effort, got the attention of the crowd and explained the situation.

They took it so good humouredly that they gave three rousing cheers for Paul, and a tiger.
To make up for the time he had lost with the hospitable citizens of Helena, Boyton was compelled to make an extra long run and he paddled to Arkansas City without leaving the water, a distance of one hundred and sixty miles in thirty one hours, which was the longest continuous run he ever made up to that time.

That night on the lonesome stretches of the river, he frequently started a loon from its resting place and it would fly off into the darkness with a wild, unearthly shriek, so ghostly in its echoing cadences that with a nervous start, Paul would glance around for that "dead man in a boat." Early in the morning the voyager struck a big eddy and was twisted round and round for quite a while before he could clear himself and then found he was pretty close in shore.

Through the thick growth of cottonwoods he observed a thin spiral of smoke rising, and knowing it to be from the cabin of some negro, he blew a merry blast on his bugle.
Before the clear notes had faded from the morning air, a venerable darkey with whitened head and slightly bent, though walking without the assistance of a cane, appeared on the bluff overlooking the river.