The current set over strongly toward the Kentucky shore that afternoon, and soon they found themselves swinging around the outer side of an immense bend. At noon they had been heading almost due south. By three o’clock they were running northwest, and an hour later they were carried over to the Missouri side as another great sweep began, this time to the left. “That must be New Madrid,” said Allen. “The river makes a big S, an’ the town lays right in the second bend.” They saw a settlement of twenty or thirty houses sprawled along the bank, with a white church rising from trees above the landing. The river ran fast around the bend, and Abe had left the oars to man the steering-sweep. “Want to land?” he shouted. “Guess we don’t need nothin’,” said Allen. “After hearin’ what happened to that trader feller at New Madrid I’d jest as leave sleep farther down.” They shot past the drowsy town and swung southward again with the hurrying brown flood. Instead of the wilderness of willow-clad banks and reedy marshes past which they had been drifting, the Missouri shore stretched away here in broad acres of plowed ground. At sunset they saw ahead of them a big, white-painted house set among trees on a knoll. A broad, rolling lawn stretched down from it to the river, and there were barns and outbuildings half hidden by shrubbery at the rear. Beyond the expanse of lawn and nearer the river, was a less pretentious house, flanked by a row of trim cabins. There were a dozen or more of these, each with its small garden and a curl of blue smoke coming from the chimney. “Golly,” said Abe, “ain’t that a pretty layout? S’pose we could git some good clear water here? I’m all clogged up with yaller mud, drinkin’ this river water. Let’s land anyhow.” He steered inshore and tossed a snubbing-rope over one of the piles at the end of the little landing. When they had made the _Katy Roby_ fast, Abe and Allen went up the path toward the smaller house at the end of the line of cabins. A big man in riding-boots and a wide-brimmed black hat was sitting on the veranda. He had a long, drooping mustache from which a black cigar protruded at a ferocious angle. Altogether he did not look particularly hospitable. Abe stood awkwardly at the foot of the steps. “Evenin’,” said he. “I reckon a place as fine an’ handsome as this must have a good well o’ water. Ef it ain’t too much trouble, we’d like to fill up a kaig or two.” The man got up and took the cigar from his mouth. Under the huge mustache he smiled, and his whole expression grew more friendly. “No trouble whatsomever, stranger,” he answered. “We have to watch out down yere on account o’ these river scalawags that steals our shoats an’ chickens. But now I know ye ain’t that breed o’ varmints, fo’ they won’t drink nothin’ but straight Mississip’ water, one-third mud an’ two-thirds liquid. Bring yo bar’l right along up, an’ make yo’selves free o’ the landin’, ef yo’re stayin’ all night.”