The _Desplaines_ seems to be overmanned, for the owner, Mr. Woodruff, asked us to take Taylor off his hands. This we are very glad to do, as we are short, since losing J. J., and Taylor has gotten our launch in good shape at last. In fact we might have used her from St. Louis if we had had him. Taylor is an Englishman, a teetotaler, and is studying with a correspondence school to fit himself for the highest positions attainable by an engineer. One has to be careful what he says to the Memphis people. We mentioned to Prof. Handwerker our need of a dog, and added that we preferred one that did not like negroes, as we wanted him to give warning when any stray ones came near. Next day down came a crate containing a little dog, a brindle terrier, with the word that he could not abide negroes. He at once proceeded to endear himself to every one on board, and fully verified his recommendations. His name is Bluff; and surely never was dog better named. The brave little creature would, we verily believe, bluff an elephant. CHAPTER XIV. SNAGGED IN TENNESSEE CHUTE. President's Island, Dec. 21, 1903.--Yesterday was one of high hopes and unexpected disaster. All morning Taylor wrestled with the engine; Fluent ran down to tell of a telegram awaiting us; we went up in the _Desplaines_ and found it was concerning some mss. not delivered by the express; found the office open, the mss. had been returned to Chicago Saturday on wire from there, and no explanation as to why it had not been delivered during the week, on every day of which we had been to the express office after it. Holiday rush. At 1 p. m. we got off, the launch behind and steered by ropes running around the cabin to its front. All went well till Jim came in to dinner and we took the ropes--gave one turn to see which way the steering ran, found we were wrong and at once turned the other way, but that one turn gave the unwieldy craft a cant in to the shore, along which ran the swift current, and we drifted among a lot of snags, the launch caught, the boat caught, tore the blades off the propeller, broke the coupling; let go the anchor, and came to. In the melee we noticed the front end of a gasoline launch rise from some snags--a wreck, buoyed up by the air in the tank. The boys rowed back but could not locate it. Then we tried to lift our anchor, to find it fouled with something too heavy to be raised, and had to buoy it and cast loose with the 75 feet of cable attached to it. We drifted quietly down to the southern end of this island, where we tied up to the sand bar.