Allen was grumbling. “One pigeon! I hit plenty, but they all fell in the water. We’d oughter have a dog along to fetch ’em.” He was reloading rapidly while he talked, and raised the gun again, looking for the likeliest place to shoot. Abe’s voice came from the bows. “Don’t kill any more of ’em, Allen,” he said with something like a command in his tone. “Spose’n you _should_ git one or two more to fall in the boat. It takes more’n three pigeons to make a meal for this crew. You ain’t jest shootin’ ’em for the fun of it, are you?” “Well, why not?” replied young Gentry with a scowl. “Thar’s millions an’ millions. Look at ’em!” He waved his arm in a wide arc. “They’re so thick they’re ’most a nuisance.” “No, sir,” Abe answered. “They never harm crops, do they? An’ they’re pretty, an’ hev a right to live. They’re bein’ killed off too fast as it is. My Pap says when he was a boy in Kaintuck’ there used to be four or five flights every year when the pigeons would make the sun dark for a whole day. You don’t see that now. This flock here is ’most over now. That’s what comes o’ killin’ ’em by the bushel jest for the sport of it.” Even as he spoke, the rear guard of the flock swept over, leaving the sky clear once more. The dark cloud of beating wings drew away rapidly to the north, and in a moment the only traces of the event were the stiffening body in Tad’s hand and the acrid smell of burnt powder as Allen sulkily set about cleaning his gun. When dinner was over, the long-legged backwoods boy rose, stretched and climbed to the forward deck. Before picking up the oars he shaded his eyes with his hand and looked away south-westward. “Boys,” he said, “unless I’m mighty mistook, we’ll pass Cairo an’ be sailin’ down the Mississippi before night.” “Huh,” snorted Allen, “what do _you_ know ’bout it? This ain’t the headwaters o’ Little Pigeon Creek ye’re a-navigatin’!” “Reckon I’m as wise an ol’ barnacle as any aboard this packet,” Abe replied with a twinkle. “Whar do _you_ figger us to be, Cap’n Gentry?” “Wal, le’s see, now,” said Allen. “We sighted Paducah jes’ before noon. Now I fergit how many miles it is from thar, but seems like they told me it was a full day’s run, that time I was down thar I told ye about.” The argument went on spasmodically for the balance of the afternoon. But Abe, as usual, was right. An hour after sunset, in the calm blue dusk, they floated out of the Ohio with the broad current of the Mississippi sweeping down in a resistless muddy tide from the northwest. They knew the power of that flood a moment later when another broadhorn, just below them, was caught in an eddy and whirled end for end like a twig in a brook.