“Now listen to me first, without interrupting,” he said. “I’ve thought out the situation as well as I can, and have made up my mind what we ought to do. After I’ve told you my plan and the reasons for it, you can make any suggestions you like, and I’ll adopt any of them that seem good to me.” “That’s right,” said Irv. “Let’s hear what you’ve thought and what your plan is. Then we’ll carry it out.” “No,” said Phil. “I want you to criticise it first, so that if it’s wrong I can change it.” “All right. Go ahead.” “First of all, then, we’re out here in the woods. It isn’t a comfortable or a proper place for a flatboat to be in, and we must get out of it as quickly as we can.” “But how?” broke in Will. “We’re ten or twenty or maybe thirty or forty miles from the river, and we can’t possibly get back again.” “I don’t know so well about that,” said Phil. “Of course we can’t get back to the river at the point where we left it. But I’m not so sure that we can’t get back to it somewhere else, and at any rate, I’m going to try. Listen, now! The water we’re in is thirty-five feet deep.” “How do you know?” asked Constant. “I’ve sounded it. So we’ve plenty of water, and there is no danger of our going aground. But we’re not in any river, for we’re in the midst of the woods, and woods don’t grow in rivers. But this water that we’re in is running toward somewhere at the rate of six or eight miles a hour, and we must go with it. Somehow or somewhere it must run into some river, and that river must somewhere and somehow empty itself into the Mississippi.” “Why?” asked Constant. “Because there isn’t anything else for it to run into, and of course it can’t stop running. Now my idea is this. We must cast the boat loose and let her float with the current. It will be very hard work to keep her from smashing into these big trees, but we must do all the hard work necessary. We’ll tie up every night so long as we’re in the woods, and we’ll float all day. Sooner or later we’ll run out of the woods and into a river, and when we do that we’ll follow the river to its end, wherever it may happen to be.” “But have you any idea where we are?” asked Will. “No,” said Phil, “except that we are somewhere in the northern part of the state of Mississippi.” “I know where we are,” drawled Irv Strong. “Where?” “We’re in the woods.” “I’m pleased to observe that you still have ‘lucid intervals,’ Irv,” said Ed Lowry. “But I have a rather more definite idea than that of our whereabouts. I studied it out on the map early this morning.” “Good, good! Where are we?” cried out all the boys in a breath, and with great eagerness.