When Sandy joined his brother, who was wistfully watching for him, he said, a little less boastfully than might have been expected of him, "That's all right, Charlie. The barkeeper says he will trust me until we get to St. Louis and come aboard to get the luggage. He's a good fellow, even if he did say 'yep' instead of 'yes' when I asked him." In reply to Charlie's eager questions, Sandy related all that had happened, and Charlie, with secret admiration for his small brother's knack of "cheeking it through," as he expressed it, forbore any further remarks. "I do believe the water is really rising!" exclaimed the irrepressible youngster, who, now that his latest trouble was fairly over, was already thinking of something else. "Look at that log. When I came out here just after breakfast, this morning, it was high and dry on that shoal. Now one end of it is afloat. See it bob up and down?" Full of the good news, the lads went hurriedly forward to find Oscar, who, with his friend from Baltimore, was regarding the darkening scene from the other part of the boat. "She's moving!" excitedly cried Oscar, pointing his finger at the "War Eagle"; and, as he spoke, that steamer slid slowly off the sand-bar, and with her steam-organ playing triumphantly "Oh, aren't you glad you're out of the Wilderness!" a well-known air in those days, she steamed steadily down stream. From all the other boats, still stranded though they were, loud cheers greeted the first to be released from the long embargo. Presently another, the "Thomas H. Benton," slid off, and churning the water with her wheels like a mad thing, took her way down the river. All these boats were flat-bottomed and, as the saying was, "could go anywhere if the ground was a little damp." A rise of a very few inches of water was sufficient to float any one of them. And, in the course of a half-hour, the "New Lucy," to the great joy of her passengers, with one more hoist on her forward spars, was once more in motion, and she too went gayly steaming down the river, her less fortunate companions who were still aground cheering her as she glided along the tortuous channel. "Well, that was worth waiting some day or two to see," said Oscar, drawing a long breath. "Just listen to that snorting calliope, playing 'Home, Sweet Home' as they go prancing down the Big Muddy. I shall never forget her playing that 'Out of the Wilderness' as she tore out of those shoals. It's a pretty good tune, after all, and the steam-organ is not so bad now that you hear it at a distance." CHAPTER XX. STRANDED NEAR HOME.