Anyhow, I'm going to like him for his little girl's sake, until I find out that he is really a bad man." "I wonder if it could have been Mr.Gilder ?" thought Winn, as he remembered how that gentleman had won his confidence.

Then he entertained Cap'n Cod and Sabella by relating the incident of his warm reception to the first and only one of the "river-traders" whom he had met.
By noon of the next day they reached the point at which Billy Brackett had last seen the raft, and they knew that here their search for it must begin in earnest.

For five days more they swept on down the mighty river at the rate of nearly a hundred miles a day.

They no longer ran at night, for fear of passing the raft in the darkness, but from sunrise to sunset they hurried southward with all possible speed.
They made inquiries at every town and ferry landing; they scanned critically every raft they passed, and boarded several that appeared to be about the size of the _Venture_, though none of them showed a tent in addition to its "shanty." During every minute of daylight either Billy Brackett or Winn watched the river from the upper deck, but at the end of five days they had not discovered the slightest trace of the missing raft.
Cap'n Cod became so interested in the chase that he would willingly have kept it up by night as well as by day, without stopping to give exhibitions anywhere; but this Billy Brackett would not allow.
"We are certainly travelling faster than they," he argued, "even if they are not making any stops, which is improbable, considering the nature of their business.

So we must overtake them sooner or later, and we can't afford the risk of missing them by running at night.
Besides, this is a show-boat, and not a police patrol boat.