He drew closer and saw a roofed shelter covering the after part. It looked warm and dry. Surely there could be no harm in resting there until daylight. He would come ashore before the owners appeared, he told himself. And a moment later he was scrambling aboard. There were rough, warm burlap bags and a heavy tarpaulin in the shelter. Shivering, he made a place for himself in a deep, snug corner and pulled the canvas cover about him. After a moment or two his body began to warm the nest, and a heavenly peace seemed to soothe his weariness like a drug. Before another minute passed, he had fallen into a slumber far too deep for dreams. CHAPTER IV “Hard upon the beach oar-- She moves too slow. All the way to Shawneetown, Lo-o-ng time ago-o.” The song came sifting into Tad’s consciousness pleasantly, to the accompaniment of a snapping, sizzling noise and a most appetizing smell. He opened his eyes and tried to think where he was, but everything was dark around him--dark and strange. He put out a hand and felt bags close by. Then he remembered in a flash all the details of the catastrophe that had brought him there. With a start he sat upright, looking out over the tops of bales and boxes. It was not only morning but bright, broad daylight. And the boat was moving. He could see the line of trees on shore marching past. Painfully, for he was very stiff and sore, he changed his position so that he could look out ahead. There in the waist of the broadhorn, just forward of the shelter, was a small fire blazing cheerfully on a rough clay hearth. Over it crouched a young man in a cap and “store clothes,” holding a frying-pan full of bacon, which gave forth the pleasant aroma he had already noticed. The tuneful cook resumed his song, adding a verse that took his crew on the next stage of their journey, and Tad, looking beyond him, discovered that there was still another person aboard the flatboat. Up on the half-deck, forward, a big, loose-jointed young fellow of nineteen moved back and forth. In each brown fist he gripped the handle of a fifteen-foot sweep-oar trimmed out of an ash sapling, and pulled steadily and powerfully, walking two steps forward and two back at each stroke. He was dressed in a coarse butternut shirt and fringed leather hunting-breeches, which made a quaint contrast to the more pretentious costume of the man by the fire. He was a tremendously tall youngster--as tall as any one Tad had ever seen--and his gaunt, big-featured, homely face, with the quirk of humor at the corners of his mouth, attracted the boy instantly. He had a mop of tousled, rusty-black hair and deep-set gray eyes that were fixed, at that moment, on the Kentucky shore. The singer’s voice ceased abruptly, and Tad, glancing in his direction, found the man’s eyes looking straight into his own. “Well, I’ll be tee-totally--” he began, and rose, almost dropping the pan. “Looky here, Abe! Leave go them oars an’ come a-runnin’.”