They were usually tired, but they were excited also, and that often kept them awake pretty late. The vision of the voyage had taken hold upon their imaginations. They pictured to themselves the calm joy of floating fifteen hundred miles and more down the great river, of seeing strange, subtropical regions that had hitherto been but names to them, seeming as remote as the Nile country itself until now. And as they thought, they talked, but mainly their talk consisted of questions fired at Ed Lowry, who was very justly suspected of knowing about ten times as much about most things as anybody else in the company. Finally, one night Irv Strong got to “supposing” things and asking Ed about them. “Suppose we run on a sawyer,” he said. Ed had been telling them about that particularly dangerous sort of snag. “Well,” said Ed, “we’ll try to avoid that, by keeping as nearly as we can in the channel.” “But suppose we find that a particularly malignant sawyer has squatted down in the middle of the channel, and is laying for us there?” “I doubt if sawyers often do that,” said Ed, meditatively. “Well, but suppose one cantankerous old sawyer should do so,” insisted Irv. “You can ‘suppose a case’ and make a sawyer anywhere you please, can’t you?” Everybody laughed. Then Ed said: “Now listen to me, boys. I’ve been getting together all the books I can borrow that tell anything about the country we’re going through, and I’ll have them all on board. My plan is to lie on my back in the shade somewhere and read them while you fellows pull at the oars, cook the meals, and do the work generally. Then, when you happen to have a little leisure, as you will now and then, I’ll tell you what I’ve learned by my reading.” “Oh, that’s your plan, is it?” asked Phil. “Yes, I’ve thought it all out carefully,” laughed Ed. “Well, you’ll find out before we get far down the river what the duties of a flatboat hand are, and you’ll _do_ ’em, too, ‘accordin’ to the measure of your strength,’ as old Mr. Moon always says in experience meeting.” “But reading and telling us about it is what Ed can do best,” said Will Moreraud, “and that’s what we’re taking him along for.” “Not a bit of it,” quickly responded Phil. “We’re taking him along to make him well and strong like the rest of us, and I’m going to keep him off his back and on his feet as much as possible, and besides--” “But, Phil, old fellow,” Ed broke in, “didn’t you understand that I was only joking?” Ed asked the question with a tender solicitude to which Phil responded promptly. “Of course I did,” he replied. “You always do your share in everything, and sometimes more. But I don’t think you understand. You know we started this thing for you. I don’t know--maybe you’ll never get well if we don’t do our best to make you--” but Phil had choked up by this time, and he broke away from the group and went down by the river. A little later Ed joined him there and, grasping his hand, said:-- “I understand, old fellow.”