The night passed quietly enough. With the cabin door fast secured, of course the boys knew that no one could find entrance; and though they may have aroused once or twice all around through the night, no one heard a suspicious sound. At dawn the boys were early in the river. Frank, however, did not think he cared to take his customary dip; and Jerry winked an eye at him, as much as to say he understood why. Truth to tell, Frank was determined not to leave any opening for the stranger to slip aboard, if he wanted to do so. Then again, he felt ashamed of suspecting Luther Snow, who seemed loath to part with his new-found friends. They gave him a good breakfast, and Frank took up a collection of several dollars from the boys, which sum he pressed into the hand of the old man as they prepared to leave him. Perhaps there was a tear in Luther Snow’s eye; certainly there was a wistful look on his face as the houseboat started away from the shore, leaving him waving his hand after them from the bank. “That money ought to take him part of the way on his journey,” remarked Jerry, as the intervening trees quite hid their late guest from them. “And then he can work in some big city,” said Will. “A carpenter gets good wages every place; and it won’t take him long to save enough to go on further. Why, in a month he ought to be down to New Orleans, long before we expect to show up.” “He certainly did want to go along with us all right, Frank,” Bluff observed. “Why, every time he looked at our old junk he’d shake his head, and heave a sigh. Reckon he just thought what a fine snap it’d be if he could get aboard, and be carried all the way down to the place he wants to reach, without spending a red cent for grub, or traveling expenses.” “And only for what Uncle Felix said in his letter,” spoke up Jerry, “I’d voted to let the old fellow go along with us. But we did him some good, anyway. That cash ought to carry him a hundred or two miles along the river on a boat, deck passage.” “If he doesn’t have the hard luck to lose that, too,” remarked Frank, drily. “Some people have a weakness that way, you know, boys.” There was some touch of mystery in his way of saying this, and the others looked at him, as though hoping Frank would “open up and explain,” as Bluff put it; but he changed the subject, and left them wondering. “Don’t suppose there’s a chance in a hundred that we’ll ever hear anything from Luther Snow again?” Will observed, later on. “He said he would write to us at New Orleans, and you gave him your uncle’s address, which he jotted down in his little notebook,” Frank remarked; but he somehow failed to mention the fact that he had observed with surprise how strange it was to see a man who followed the trade of carpenter happen to possess such a delicate little volume in his pocket, when one would rather expect to see a well-thumbed five-cent book under the circumstances.