“Wow! what do you think of that, now?” cried Jerry. “Then it wasn’t Ossie and his crowd; nor yet Marcus Stackpole, that did the little job for us?” observed Bluff, bottling some of his wrath for another occasion. “We can lay it all to the storm,” Frank went on to say, as he too examined the frayed end of the piece of cable still hanging from the trunk of the tree; and which it was plain to be seen had never been severed by a sharp instrument. “But that’s just about as bad,” Will plaintively struck up just then. “Perhaps our fine boat has been knocked to pieces before now; or even if she hasn’t, then she must be booming along in the middle of the river, turning around and around as she floats. Why, Frank, this happened half an hour ago, and by now where do you think the _Pot Luck_ can be?” “If she hasn’t been snagged and sunk in the storm,” replied Frank, “or upset by the hurricane wind, why, by now she may be floating peacefully along, all by herself, say about two miles, perhaps three, below here.” “Think of that! And I was expecting to sleep aboard to-night!” Will exclaimed. “I hope you may yet, if there’s any way by which we can overtake a runaway houseboat,” Frank said, as he tried to think. Was there any means of obtaining a team of horses, and by following the country road, getting ahead of the houseboat that had gone adrift in the storm? The countryman ought to know, for he had been born and raised in that section of the State, and must be familiar with the lay of the land. So Frank turned to Seth Groggins. “You understand what has happened to us; don’t you, Seth?” he asked. “Reckon I does; the pesky boat’s gone an’ played you all a mean trick.” “Now, perhaps you might help us overtake our boat, Seth.” “You jest tell me how, then, an’ see me jump,” answered the farmer, quickly, and with a friendly ring in his voice that pleased Frank very much. “Have you got any fast horses at your place?” he asked next. “That’s what I hev, as good a pair as kin be found ‘raound these hyar parts. An’ I sees wot you mean to try, Frank. Think it kin be did?” “How far does this road follow the river?” Frank asked. “Oh! many a mile,” came the answer. “She runs alongside the Mississippi for mebbe four miles, then takes a straightaway course two miles ‘cross a neck o’ land, savin’ somethin’ like five miles, and strikes the winding water agin beyond.” “Just let me figure on that,” Frank went on, calmly, for he knew nothing could be gained by getting excited like Bluff and the others seemed to be. “Six miles from here by the road, and then we strike the river again. Now, how far do you suppose that boat would have to drift with the current before it struck that same point?” “They do say that five miles kin be saved by cuttin’ acrost that neck. I reckon as haow it’d be all o’ three anyway,” the farmer declared, positively.