Skeeter Butts clung desperately to the pilot-wheel, slapping around it like a dish-rag waving in the wind; Hitch and Vinegar, who had been lying flat on their backs on deck, began to roll and scratch and claw at the deck to keep from falling overboard into the river; Figger Bush fell into the coal-pile near the furnace, scrambled like a cat in an ash-barrel, and kicked lumps of coal all over the boat. There is nothing which can roughhouse a little boat as shamefully as two big boats; from the government tug there came a fan-shaped stern-wave four feet high, rode under the _Mud Hen_, hoisted her nearly end on end, and let her down. Then the wash from the side-wheel steamboat met the tug’s stern-wave, rode over it like a petrel, and came aboard the _Mud Hen_ for a friendly call on the new owners. Four hundred barrels of nice, wet Mississippi River water sat down in the laps of the terrified Tickfall quartet and embraced them lovingly. Then this colored quartet sang a scale of ninety or one hundred assorted yells never before introduced in any musical composition. In fact, they put their souls in their voices with such surprising effect that it introduced them to sounds from their throats which they did not know up to that time they possessed. The _Mud Hen_ turned completely around three times, tossed on the current like a match-box, stood on first one end and then the other, and pretty nearly straight down. The experience was not dangerous, merely exciting; but the quartet did not know that, and when at last the river quieted, and they found themselves still afloat, they regarded it as a miracle wrought by the mercy of heaven. It was five minutes before Skeeter Butts could recover his breath and crawl to the wheel. Five minutes more passed before he was able to speak a word. Then in a dry tone--the only dry thing about Skeeter--he said: “I wus fixin’ to turn aroun’ at de bend, anyhow. I figger it’s ’bout time we wus gittin’ back to de automobile.” The hour’s ride back to the Tickfall landing was free from conversation. Not even Vinegar Atts could think up anything to say. Each had bidden farewell to the world a few minutes before, and now in a sense of great deliverance, they were trying to repossess it. As they approached the landing their courage slowly revived. “Dem two boats sot us right behime death’s door, Skeeter,” Vinegar remarked in a weak voice. “It squoze me up some in death’s door,” Skeeter chattered, slapping at his wet garments. “Dat expe’unce is done ruint me--I won’t never be de same agin.” “I’se glad it happened,” Hitch Diamond growled. “It wus a powerful good try-out fer dis boat. I don’t believe nothing kin sink her now!” “Ain’t it de trufe!” Figger Bush quacked. “I ain’t never gwine be skeart on dis _Mud Hen_ no mo’.” “You look at dat glass water-tube an’ see is de b’iler got plenty water in it!” Skeeter barked. “Mebbe some spilt out when we wus mighty nigh upsot.”