The flat-boats start for New Orleans――All hands appalled by the Mississippi’s flood――A good-for-nothing pilot――They try in vain to make a landing――Passing the “Devil’s Elbow”――Uncle Julius is “mighty scared”――The darky’s song――A sudden wreck, and a close call for Davy――The crew sit all night on the flood-trash of an island in the middle of the river――They are rescued by a steamboat and landed at Memphis――Davy finds a friend in Major Winchester――His return home. The bears having taken to their winter hiding places――at least, those that Davy and his partners had not killed――there was nothing to keep back the work of splitting staves and completing the two boats. The latter were of the flat-bottom sort, strongly built of hewed timbers, and planks sawed in pits or upon scaffolds. They were caulked and pitched, and each had a well for the purpose of bailing water that leaked in. The decks were flat, with a small hatchway house over the entrance of the cabin below it. On board of a ship this would be called the companionway. The steering was done with a long sweep, or oar, at the stern, and sometimes with poles. Thirty thousand staves were put on board the two boats, and as soon as everything was ready a start was made. The Deer and the Obion Rivers flow into the Mississippi at no great distance apart. Near the mouth of the Obion, a lake or bayou joins the channels, and this lake is thought by many to be the one upon whose shores the boats were built. As Davy was but a short time in getting his fleet out of the Obion and into the Mississippi, the lake must have been near the latter river. When they floated out into the Father of Waters, as the Indians call the great river, the venturous woodsmen were appalled by the immensity of the flood upon which they were borne swiftly along. Across the mile or more of yellow water that reached from shore to shore, bordered with leafless sycamores and cypress swamps, they saw new perils loom at every curve of the tortuous stream. The river flows at the rate of two hundred feet per minute, and as island after island, and bend after bend, had to be avoided or navigated with all the strength and watchfulness that was in them, it is not to be wondered at that, as Davy says, all the hands were “bad scared.” Davy’s motto had always been to “go ahead,” but now he seems to have had no choice. He had never been down the river, probably never before had seen it, and the man hired as pilot was found to be a fraud. As the two boats were constantly either drifting apart or bumping into each other, they were lashed together, in the hope that in that way they might be more manageable.