They felt somewhat easier when one of their number, detailed to watch the movements of their unwelcome visitor, returned and reported that he had gone back up the river. Still, they thought it well to again alter the appearance of the raft by removing the tent, and so lengthening the "shanty" as to materially change its aspect. They also allowed the raft to drift night and day for nearly five hundred miles without a pause. Then, again feeling safe from pursuit, they tied up just below the City of Alton, Illinois, and prepared to resume their dishonest business. Their plan of operations was to purchase goods wherever they stopped, but always in such small quantities that for the bills they tendered in payment they received a certain amount of good money in change. A little farther along they would offer the goods thus accumulated for sale so cheaply that they readily disposed of them. In this way they not only did a thriving business, but kept up the appearance of being what they claimed to be--"river-traders" and raftsmen. In this wicked scheme of cheating and stealing, Plater and Grimshaw felt no scruples nor regrets; but with Mr. Gilder, especially after his meeting with Sabella, the case was different. He was a man of gentlemanly instincts, and was a skilful engraver, who had worked in the Government Printing-office at Washington for several years. There he was extravagant, got into debt, yielded to the temptation to make a fortune easily, and became a counterfeiter. The present undertaking was his first experience in that line of wickedness, and he was already heartily sick of it. While on the island, where his part of the work was engraving and printing, he had not realized the contemptible nature of his unlawful business. He had merely been filled with pride in his own skill, which feeling his associates took good care to encourage by artful praise. When he met Sabella, it flashed across him for the first time that his own little girl, far away in an eastern city, was the daughter of a criminal, and from that moment he was a changed man. Through the long days and longer nights, as the raft drifted down the great river, these thoughts were ever with him: "What will she say when she finds it out? How will she act? Will she ever kiss me, or even speak to me again? I have made her very name a disgrace. What shall I do to wipe it out? What shall I do?"