The afterglow dimmed out of the sky, and bright stars filled it. And Tad, yawning drowsily, was sent to bed. Rolled up in a blanket on the hard deck planks and lulled by the murmur of the river, he slept as soundly as he ever had in his life. The sun had already risen when he woke, and he was surprised to see the budding branches of a big sycamore overhanging the deck of the flatboat. Abe was up on the bank chopping wood for the breakfast fire, and Allen was casting off the stern mooring-rope which had been fastened around the tree. Tad threw off his blanket, pulled up a bucket of water from over the side, and hastily performed his morning ablutions. By the time he had finished, the boat was well on its way again. “Wal, youngster,” chuckled Allen, “how’s this? You awake an’ ready to eat again?” The truth was, Tad did have a fine appetite for breakfast, and he admitted it with a grin. “I feel as if I ought to work for it first, though,” he said. “So you can,” Abe put in. “Here’s the ax. S’pose you split some o’ this wood up in nice fine kindlin’, while I go up forrard an’ persuade her a little with the oars.” Tad, willing enough, picked up the ax and started clumsily to hack away at the chunk of pine. By dint of hard work he managed to split away a cross-grained sliver from one side and was attacking the larger piece again when a smothered choking sound reached his ears. There lay Allen, rolling on the planks and holding his sides with laughter. In a country where children learned to use an ax almost as soon as they could walk and supplied the house with firewood before they knew their A-B-C’s, the sight of Tad’s awkwardness was enough to provoke any man’s mirth. But Abe did not laugh. He left his oars and came down to Tad’s side. “Watch,” he said. “You’ll git the knack of it in no time.” And swinging the ax one-handed, with no apparent effort, he cleft the log cleanly through the center, then into quarters. His arm rose and fell steadily, and in an amazingly short time there was only a neat pile of slender pine splints lying by the hearth. As they breakfasted, a big keel-boat, piled with farm implements and furniture and with half a dozen lively-looking children swarming over and through everything, steered close to them. “Movers,” said Allen. A bearded man with a cross, discontented face appeared at the gunwale of the keel-boat and hailed them. “Where are we? Can you tell me?” he shouted. “This is the Ohio River,” Abe replied cheerfully. “Yes, but whereabouts--what part?” fretted the mover. “Jest now,” said Abe, considering, “you’re in Indianny. But in five more minutes your bow-end’ll be in Illinois. Thar’s the Wabash, now.” He pointed to the right bank a mile or so below, and Tad saw a wide river emptying into the Ohio from the north. The bearded man muttered something that might have been thanks and went back to the tiller of the keel-boat, while Abe resumed his breakfast.