"At the rate of five feet an hour, how long will it take us to spar our way down to St. Louis?" asked Charlie, quizzically. "Oh, Charlie," cried Sandy, "I know now why the clerk said that there were plenty of fellows who had to spar their way on the river. It is hard work to pull this steamer over the sand-bars and shoals, and when a man is busted and has to work his way along, he's like a steamboat in a fix, like this one is. See? That's the reason why they say he is sparring his way, isn't it?" "You are quite correct, youngster," said the young man from Baltimore, regarding Sandy's bright face with pleasure. "Correct you are. But I never knew what the slang meant until I came out here. And, for that matter, I don't know that I ever heard the slang before. But it is the jargon of the river men." By this time, even sparring was of very little use, for the spars only sank deep and deeper into the soft river-bottom, and there was no chance to raise the bow of the boat from its oozy bed. The case for the present was hopeless; but the crew were kept constantly busy until nightfall, pulling and hauling. Some were sent ashore in a skiff, with a big hawser, which was made fast to a tree, and then all the power of the boat, men and steam, was put upon it to twist her nose off from the shoal into which it was stuck. All sorts of devices were resorted to, and a small gain was made once in a while; but it looked very much as if the calculation of Charlie, five feet in an hour, was too liberal an allowance for the progress towards St. Louis. Just then, from the boat furthest down the river rose a cloud of steam, and the astonished lads heard a most extraordinary sound like that of a gigantic organ. More or less wheezy, but still easily to be understood, the well-known notes of "Oh, Susannah!" came floating up the river to them. Everybody paused to listen, even the tired and tugging roustabouts smiling at the unwonted music. "Is it really music?" asked Oscar, whose artistic ear was somewhat offended by this strange roar of sounds. The young man from Baltimore assured him that this was called music; the music of a steam-organ or calliope, then a new invention on the Western rivers. He explained that it was an instrument made of a series of steam-whistles so arranged that a man, sitting where he could handle them all very rapidly, could play a tune on them. The player had only to know the key to which each whistle was pitched, and, with a simple arrangement of notes before him, he could make a gigantic melody that could be heard for many miles away. "You are a musician, are you not?" asked the young man from Baltimore. "Didn't I hear you playing a violin in your room last night? Or was it one of your brothers?"