“You did,” replied Phil; “and you reported to me, though you may have forgotten the fact, that it was ‘full up to the cork.’ Those were your own words, Will.” Will remembered, though he had not before thought of the significance of the fact. “Well, Phil, what was the matter with him, then?” asked Ed. “Shamming, just as he shammed the cramps yesterday.” “But for what purpose?” “I don’t know, any more than you know why he pretended to have cramps. My theory is that he was so anxious to get down the river that he tried to make us miss Craig’s Landing entirely. The sum and substance of the matter is this. At Craig’s Landing I wanted to put the fellow ashore. Now I don’t want to do anything of the kind, and I won’t either, till I can read a good many riddles that he has given me to puzzle over.” “Can we help you to read the riddles?” “Yes. Watch him closely, and tell me everything you observe, no matter how little it may seem to mean.” Just then Jim Hughes came up out of the cabin scuttle, and all the boys except Phil found occasion to go to other parts of the boat. When you have been talking unpleasantly about another person, you naturally shrink from talking to him. Phil, however, stood his ground. “Hello, Jim!” he called out. “How are the cramps, and how’s the carpet-bag? Going to try to earn your board now by steering a little?” Jim hesitated in embarrassment. Suddenly Phil began bombarding him with questions like shots from a rapid-fire gun. “Where did you come from, anyhow, Jim? What’s your real name? What are you hiding from? How much do you know about the river? and about flatboating? Have you really ever been down the river before, or was that all a sham like your cramps yesterday? Who are you? What are you?” Jim struggled for a moment. There was that in his face which might have appalled anybody but a full-blooded, resolute, dare-all boy. But he quickly mastered himself. “See here, Phil,” he said in persuasive tones, “you’re mighty hard on a poor feller like me, and I don’t know why. That was a vicious clip you hit me at Craig’s Landing.” Phil instantly responded, and again after the fashion of a breach-loader. “So you remember that, do you? Then you were not so drunk as you pretended.” “Well,” said Jim, “I was pretty full, but of course I knew who hit me.” “You were not drunk at all,” said the boy. “You hadn’t even been drinking. I smelt of your breath, and the blow I struck didn’t knock you senseless, for an hour, as you pretended, or for six seconds either. Now look here, Jim, I don’t know what your purpose is in all this shamming, but I know for a fact that it is shamming, and I’ve had quite enough of it.” With that the boy turned away in that profound disgust which every healthy-minded boy or man feels for a lie and a liar. CHAPTER XI THE WONDERFUL RIVER