They steered down the river without great haste. Doss studied the shanty-boats which he saw moored in the various eddies, large and small. Some he spoke of casually, as store-boats, fishermen, market hunters, or, as they passed between Caruthersville and the opposite shore, a gambling boat. Even the river pirate, gloating over his prey, and puzzled only as to the method of making the most of his victim, could not penetrate the veil which it happened the Mississippi River interposed between them and the river gambling den--for the moment. There is no use seeking the method of the river, nor endeavouring to discover the processes by which the lives of thousands who go afloat down the Mississippi are woven as woof and warp in the fabric of river life and river mysteries. The more faithful an effort to select one of the commonest and simplest of river complications, the more improbable and fanciful it must seem. Doss, in intervals when he was not consciously registering the smile of good humour, the generosity of an experienced man toward the chance visitor, and the willingness to defer to the gentleman from Up the Bank, brought his expression unconsciously to the cold, rough woodenness of blank insensitiveness--the malignance of a snapping turtle, to mention a medium reptilian face. A whim, and the necessity of delay, led Doss to suggest that they take a look up the Obion River as a likely hiding place. Of course, Doss knew best, and they quit the tumbling Mississippi for the quiet wooded aisle of the little river. When they emerged, two days later, Augustus Carline could well thank his stars, though he did not know it, that he was still on the boat. All unconscious of the real nature and habits of river rats he had given the little wretch a thousand opportunities to commit one of the many crimes he had in mind. But he developed a reluctance to choose the easiest one, when from hint after hint he understood that a mere river piracy and murder would be folly in view of the opportunity for a more profitable stake which a man of means offered. As he steered by the government boat which was surveying Plum Point bars, Doss showed his teeth like an indignant cat. Five or six miles below he offered the supine and helpless Carline the information: "There's Yankee Bar. We'll swing wide and land in below, so's not to scare up any geese or ducks that may be roosting there." Eagerly Doss searched through the switch willows for a glimpse of the setback of the water beyond the bar. Away down in the old eddy he discovered a shanty-boat, and to cover his involuntary exclamation of satisfaction he said: "Shucks! There's somebody theh. I hoped we'd have it to ourselves but they may be sports, too. If they are, we'll sure have a good time. Some of these shanty-boaters are great sports. We'll soon find out!" He steered into the eddy and the two men stepped out on the flat boat's deck to greet them.