Irv was glad enough to make the promise and to fulfil it. For he, too, knew with what reckless fervor the high-mettled boy would be sure to inflict punishment for the insult should he learn of it. “Phil is the jolliest, best-natured fellow in the world,” explained Irv, when he asked the other boys not to tell their captain what had happened, “but you know what a temper he has--or rather you don’t know. None of us does, because nobody has ever made the mistake of stirring him up with a real, vital insult.” “No,” said Will, “and I pity the fellow that ever makes that particular mistake.” “We’ll never tell him,” said Constant. “If we did, we mightn’t be able to deliver our prisoner.” CHAPTER XVII AT ANCHOR Phil had sent two telegrams,--one to the authorities at Memphis, and the other to the plundered bank in Cincinnati. In each he had announced his captures,--the man and the funds,--and in each he had asked that officers to arrest and persons to identify the culprit should be waiting at Memphis on the arrival of the flatboat. On his return to the flatboat he felt himself so excited and sleepless that he sent his comrades below to sleep and by turns to watch the prisoner. He would himself remain on duty on deck all night. As the night wore away, the boy thought out all the possibilities, for he felt that for any miscarriage in this matter he would be solely responsible. Among the possibilities was this: that should the flatboat arrive at Memphis before some one could get there from Cincinnati to identify the prisoner, he might be discharged for want of such identification. It would take a day or two to send men by rail from Cincinnati to Memphis, while the fierce current of this Mississippi flood promised to take the flatboat thither within less than twenty hours. After working out all the probabilities in his mind as well as he could, Phil called below for all his comrades to come to the sweeps. He did not tell them his purpose; they were too sleepy even to ask. But studying the “lay of the land” on either side, he steered the flatboat into a sort of pocket on the Tennessee shore, and to the bewilderment of his comrades, ordered the anchor cast overboard. By the time that the anchor held, and the boat came to a rest in the bend, the boys were much too wide awake not to have their minds full of interrogation marks. “What do you mean, Phil?” “Why have we anchored?” “How long are we to remain here?” “What’s the matter, anyhow?” “Have you gone crazy, or what is it?” These and a volley of similar questions were fired at him. He did not answer. He went to one side of the boat and then to the other to observe position. “How much anchor line is out, Will?” he presently asked. “Nearly all of it,” answered his comrade. “This won’t do,” said Phil. “Up anchor.” The boys were more than ever puzzled. But they tugged away at the anchor windlass till the flukes let go the bottom and the anchor was halfway up. Then Phil called out:--