The big side-wheeler coughed her way down through the Silverplate Bend cautiously enough, feeling it by the loom of the shore, since the lights at the head and middle of it were gone. Only a solitary beacon at the foot remained, and as they swept the curve the pilot reached for a lever and threw on the search-light, and with it lighted up the bend. All along its front, tree trunks cluttered a ragged bank, and the water rustled through their tops as they lay fallen half-over. He cut the light off, and brought the steamboat a little farther out. “Hate to take chances on McAlpin’s Bar,” he said. “But there are some nasty snags there, and the bar is the lesser evil.” So they came down to the foot of the bend and to the solitary beacon. Then the pilot cast a glance across the river. “Well, by hokey!” he exclaimed. “Big Timber Light is still standing. I’m glad of that. The _Lily_ reset it, and if ever I was glad to see a light I am glad to see that one now.” He brought the big wheel spinning over toward him, and the _Rupert Lee_ swung its nose out from the bank, and slowly turned its huge bulk till it was headed toward the Big Timber Beacon. The current swept it downward as it turned, so that as it finally “straightened out,” the two lights bore almost directly ahead and astern, the proper line for a run through the thread of channel below McAlpin’s Bar. Hinckley thoughtfully eyed the Big Timber Beacon. “Tommy,” he said, “does that light seem to be as high up as usual?” “Pretty low,” commented Tommy, peering out into the darkness. “Looks to me like it ain’t steady, either.” The light was, indeed, swaying with the motion of the tree, but a moment later it swayed much more violently. Barney had taken it from its nail, and was swinging it to and fro in a long arc, in the usual manner of hailing a passing steamboat. “It ain’t the beacon at all—or else some one is using it for a signal-light!” exclaimed the pilot. He threw the lever, and the search-light blazed out. A turn of a little wheel overhead directed the beams, and out of the darkness leaped the picture of a caved bank, a treetop waving in the water, and the figure of some one in the treetop swaying the light. “It’s the beacon all right,” said the pilot, “or it’s where the beacon was.” He reached for a rope, and sounded loudly three long blasts of the whistle, two short and another long. On the lower deck all was activity at once. “What’s the landing, Mr. Hinckley?” came a deep voice from the darkness below. The pilot leaned out of the window and answered: “Head of Big Timber Bend, captain. Something wrong with the beacon—some one in the water.” He signaled the engine-room and the wheels stopped, and again the _Rupert Lee_ swung round. Hinckley took a quick survey of the bank up and down the bend, then turned his light on the beacon tree. The figure of Barney stood out in bold detail.