Just then the boat heeled over, the river was broken into great waves again, and all creation seemed to be see-sawing north and south. Phil called the boys to the sweeps, as a matter of precaution, but the boat was helpless in the raging river. She was driven ashore again; that is to say, she was driven over the brink of a submerged river bank, where she stuck securely in the mud. This second earthquake did not last more than thirty or forty seconds, but that was long enough to get _The Last of the Flatboats_ into the worst trouble that she had yet encountered. She seemed to be bending in the middle as if resting upon a fallen tree with both ends free. Phil quickly manned the skiffs and instituted an inspection. By the use of poles and lead lines he soon discovered that two-thirds of the boat’s length lay upon a reasonably level bank, the remaining third overhanging it. It was this that was bending her so dangerously. “Get inside, boys, quick,” he called to his comrades. “The boat’s bow overhangs the bank. We must get all the freight out of it as quickly as possible.” Then in brief sentences he gave his commands. “Roll those apple barrels into the cabin! Carry those bags of meal on deck and well astern! Take the anchor there, too! Lighten the bow all you can!” The boys worked like beavers, and after a while the entire forward part of the boat was free of freight. The cabin as a consequence was full, and the deck so piled up with bags and barrels that ordinary navigation would have been impossible. But at any rate, the danger of breaking the boat in two was averted. Phil then got into a skiff with Irv, and armed with some lanterns, went carefully all around the boat, measuring depths and looking for possibly open seams or other damage. When he returned to the deck he reported:-- “We are lying in about six inches of Missouri mud with two and a half feet of water above it, trespassing to that extent upon somebody’s farm. But the reports from up the rivers when we were at Cairo were that at least twelve inches more water might be expected within forty-eight hours, and as it is raining like Noah’s flood now, and we only need a few inches of water to set us free, we’ll be afloat again by morning if we don’t have another earthquake to send us still farther out into the country.” The event justified Phil’s prediction. About five o’clock in the morning the flatboat floated again, and with a few vigorous strokes of the sweeps she was sent out into the middle of the river. Then Phil gave orders for the restoration of the freight to its proper place. Not until that was done was it possible to get breakfast, for the cabin had been piled full of freight, and when it was done, Phil devoted himself for an hour or more, before he would eat, to an inspection of the boat. He found and stopped a few leaks that had been made by the strain, which had caused the oakum to loosen in the seams.