These and other sarcastic remarks made Allen’s supper uncomfortable, and he was in a hurry to leave as soon as it was eaten. Abe and Tad watched the young Hoosier dandy depart down the levee, then set to work straightening up the boat. They enjoyed the cool evening breeze for a while, and when the first stars appeared, they spread their blankets and went to sleep. What time Allen returned they did not know, but he was there in the bed next morning, far too drowsy to do more than open one eye when they called him to breakfast. They heard church bells tolling in different parts of the city and remembered that it was Sunday morning. That was the only indication of the day, for as the town awoke there was anything but a Sabbath calm in the air. All the saloons, dance halls, and gambling-places along the water front were open for business, and the thousands of river-men and sailors thronging the levee brought them plenty of it. Above the din of shouting, fighting, and merry-making, Abe had to talk loud to make himself heard. “Allen won’t want to go ashore again fer a spell,” he said. “We kin leave the boat to him an’ go lookin’ fer that cub o’ yours.” Tad, who had been considerably cast down by the loss of his pet, was eager to follow Abe’s suggestion. They took their way along the water front, asking people they met if they had seen the little black bear. For the most part the question was greeted with jeers or with blank astonishment. But once they encountered a half-drunken raft hand who testified somewhat hazily to having seen not merely one bear but a pair of them, dragging chains after them, and moving in the direction of the steamboat moorings. And a voluble Creole in a little tobacco shop told them that a bear “so beeg as a cow” had looked in the door at him, growled, and passed on. “That b’ar knows what he’s about,” chuckled Abe. “He aims to travel back to Tennessee by steamboat--that’s sartin.” A little farther on they asked their question of a British sailorman, and he nodded and pointed up the nearest street. “Aye,” said he, “that must be the one they caught this mornin’ and are goin’ to bait with dogs. There’s a bit of excitement up at the public ’ouse yonder. Perhaps they’ve started already.” As the two lads hurried forward, they saw that the “bit of excitement” had more the look of a general street fight. A crowd of fifteen or twenty ark hands, all riotously drunk, were milling about a smaller group that seemed to be made up chiefly of steamboat men. In the center was a short, sturdy Irishman, with his blue cap cocked at a pugnacious angle and the joy of battle in his blue eyes. Tad would have recognized that freckled face anywhere. It was Dennis McCann, the mate of the _Ohio Belle_. And crouched between his bowed seaman’s legs was little black Poke.