“They also have fog-horns, but they sometimes get themselves run down by steamships, and once in a great while one of them runs into the side of a steamship. The Cunard steamer _Oregon_ was sunk in that way by a sailing craft. That sort of thing would happen oftener if the big steamships were to stop or run very slowly in fog. By running at full speed they make it pretty sure that they will themselves do any running down that is to be done. With their enormous weight and great speed they can cut a sailing vessel in two without much danger of serious damage to themselves, and as they have hundreds of people on board while a sailing ship has a very few, the steamship captains hold that it is right to shift the danger in that way.” The night dragged slowly along. Now and then a little conversation would spring up, for the boys were sleeping very little, but often there would be no word spoken for an hour at a time. The fog made the air very chill, and the boys, who remained on deck all night, had to stir about frequently to keep reasonably warm. The fog began whitening at last as the daylight dawned, and all the boys strained their eyes to see through it. But it showed no sign of lifting. CHAPTER XXIII THROUGH THE CREVASSE As the daylight increased, it became possible to see a little further into the fog, and there was now a little air stirring in fitful fashion, which tore holes in the thick bank of mist, but only for a moment or two at a time. Through one of these brief openings Phil presently made a startling discovery. The flatboat was running at an exceedingly rapid rate along a nearly overflowed levee on the Mississippi side of the river, and within fifty or sixty feet of it. The crest of the embankment rose only a few inches above the level of the water, and the current was swifter than any that Phil had seen since the flatboat had left the falls of the Ohio behind. What it all meant Phil did not know, nor could he imagine how or why the boat had drifted out of the main current to the shore in this way; but he felt that there was danger there, and calling his comrades to the sweeps, made every effort to regain the outer reaches of the river. But try as they might at the oars, the boat persisted in hugging the bank, while her speed seemed momentarily to increase. Men on the levee were calling to Phil, but so excitedly that he could not make out their meaning. Presently there was another little break in the fog-bank, and Phil saw what was the matter. Just ahead of the boat the levee had given way, and the river was plunging like a Niagara through a crevasse, already two or three hundred feet wide, and growing wider with every second. The boat had been caught in the current leading to the crevasse, and was now being drawn into the swirling rapid.