Allen, with an eye to the profit of the voyage, started to raise some objection, but Abe merely answered, “I’ll pay fer ’em when I git my wages,” and went on rolling out the barrel. When the transaction was completed, the genial trader looked up at the sun and whistled. “What about dinner?” he asked. “I’ve got a big catfish here--more’n Fanny an’ me could eat in a week. S’pose I make some hot coals an’ we’ll broil him on a plank.” The Hoosier crew were in hearty agreement with this idea, and while Abe relieved him at the steering-oar, Allen set about making corn-bread as their share of the feast. Tad, who had no special chores to perform, stayed aboard the scow and got better acquainted with Magoon and the red setter. The old river-man had an ingenious sort of Dutch oven built into the wall of the caboose. Adding dry wood to his fire, he soon had a brisk blaze roaring up the chimney. Meanwhile he proceeded to clean and split the catfish, and peg it out on a piece of plank which had evidently been used before for the purpose. “That pistol,” said Moses Magoon, “my ol’ Pap toted over the mountings from North Caroliny in ’seventy-nine. It’s old an’ rusty an’ ain’t been fired fer fifteen year. ’Tain’t even loaded now, but I keep it handy to persuade some o’ these thievin’ river toughs with. “I been cruisin’ up an’ down the Mississip’ an’ the Ohio ever since I was a young feller, an’ I’ve run afoul of ’em all, one time or another. Jes’ last week here, a big keel-boat with half a dozen men on deck come up alongside, somethin’ like you did. It was Little Billy, an’ his gang, from up the North Fork o’ Muddy Run, an’ I figgered I was in fer trouble. “But this yere Little Billy has only got his eye out fer two things--money an’ whisky--an’ I don’t carry neither one of ’em. I let him come aboard an’ look, an’ he never laid hand on any o’ my goods--jes’ as polite as you please. ‘Well,’ says he, ‘long as ye ain’t got no Kaintucky red-eye, what’ll ye take fer the dog?’ “‘Sorry, Mister,’ I says, an’ I was scairt. ‘She ain’t no ways fer sale,’ I says. ‘She’d break her heart an’ die if I let her go.’ An’ Little Billy, he jes’ grins an’ says, ‘Right, I had a good dog myself, once.’ An’ with that he steps back on his keel-boat an’ off they go. “I had a bad time, couple o’ years back, with Mike Fink--him they call ‘The Snag,’” the old trader went on. “I landed at New Madrid one night an’ went up to the store. When I come back, with my arms full o’ provisions, I see another boat tied up, close above. An’ jest as I was goin’ to step aboard mine, eight or ten men that had been layin’ low under the bank stood up thar in the dark. One of ’em says, ‘All right, stranger, we’ll take keer o’ this,’ an’ he grabs the provisions. Then they march me aboard o’ my own craft an’ tell me to show ’em whar my money is an’ no monkey business. I acted like I was plumb scairt to death--teeth a-chatterin’ an’ knees a-shakin’.