By a mighty effort Billy Brackett spun the skiff around, and with the energy of despair pulled back towards the raft. The stout oars bent like whips. If one of them had given way nothing could have saved our raftmates from destruction. Had the tough blades been of other than home make, and fashioned from the best product of the Caspar Mill, they must have yielded. With each stroke Billy Brackett rose slightly from his seat. Arms, body, and legs made splendid response to the demands of the invincible will. Years of careful training and right living were concentrated into that supreme moment. Another might have sought personal safety by plunging overboard and diving deep into the river. Glen and Winn might have followed such an example. Binney and Solon, being unable to swim, could not. But Billy Brackett was too true an American to consider such a thing for an instant. Generations of Yankee ancestors had taught him never to desert a friend nor yield to a foe; never to court a danger nor to fear one; to fight in a righteous cause with his latest breath; to snatch victory from defeat. As the skiff dashed alongside the _Venture_ the vast, glowing, seething mass of flame, smoke, and crashing timbers swept by so close that the raftmates were obliged to seek a shelter in the cool waters from its deadly heat. Clinging to the edge of the raft, with their bodies entirely submerged, they gazed breathlessly and with blinded eyes at the grandest and most awful sight to be seen on the Mississippi. It was a huge lower-river packet, and was completely enveloped in roaring flames that poured from every opening, and streamed furiously from the tall chimneys the trailing banners of the fire-fiend. The boat was under a full head of steam, her machinery was still intact, and the great wheels, churning the glowing waters into a crimson foam, forced her ahead with the speed of a locomotive. The back draught thus caused kept the forward end of her lower deck free from flame. Here, as she rushed past, the boys caught a glimpse of the only sign of life they could discover aboard the ill-fated packet. It was a dog leaping from side to side, and barking furiously. They had hardly noted his presence when a curious thing happened. There came an explosion of steam, a crash, and the starboard wheel dropped from its shaft. Thus crippled, the blazing craft made a grand sweep of half a circle in front of the raft. Then, as the other wheel also became disabled and ceased its mad churnings, the boat lay with her head up-stream, drifting helplessly with the current. The packet was not more than a couple of hundred feet from the raft when its wild progress was thus checked, and now the barkings of the dog, that had already attracted the boy's attention, were heard more plainly than before. All at once Billy Brackett, who had regained the wave-washed deck of the raft, called out, "It's Bim! I know his voice!"