It was true, as Nance had said, New Salem was out to witness the unusual sight of a flat boat on the dam where it had been stuck nearly twenty-four hours. It was a river craft of the usual flat-boat size, about forty feet long by fifteen wide, and sides six feet high. One end was covered with a roof of boards, and there were other boards fitted with ragged sails to hasten the freight-bearer on its long journey of 1800 miles to New Orleans. The crowd on the river bank and the platform of the mill was lavish with suggestions and advice which were shouted to the crew working desperately to save the cargo. Ann Rutledge and Nance Cameron paused a moment to take in the view of the unfortunate boat, whose rear stuck clear of the water and into whose fore the barrels were slowly settling. It seemed nothing could prevent the impending catastrophe. "Let's get out on the platform. I would like to see that funny, tall fellow your father told about," Ann said. Passing through the mill, deserted for the time by the dusty miller, the girls joined the crowd on the platform and Ann found herself standing by a peculiar appearing personage, a small man of uncertain age, who wore foxed breeches and coon-skin cap, and who had but one good eye which just now was fastened on the fore of the imperiled boat. "'Ole Bar's' come back," Ann whispered, punching Nance and turning her eye toward the old man who stood beside her. 'Ole Bar' was a person of interest, and very peculiar. He was chewing some sort of a cud rapidly. When an unusually interesting suggestion was shouted out over the roar of the dam water, he rolled his cud into a hollow made by the loss of two back teeth and kept quiet until the moment of suspense was past, when he made up time working his jaws. Nance only glanced at him now. "I wonder where that tall baboon is?" she said, craning her neck toward the raft. "See that thar patch of something that ain't no color the Lord God ever made nor no shape He ever seen? Well, that's his hat. He's under it, squattin' in the boat, doin' something to get 'er goin'." "What's he doing?" Ann ventured. "Eh--that's it," Ole Bar said with a dry smile. "The rest of the crews runnin' about like chickens with their heads chopped off, and these here galoots along shore is yelping like a pack of coyotes after a buffalo bull. But he's keepin' cool. This kind generally gits something done. Howsomever, that ark's goin' over. I've been numerous in turkey-trottin' and bee-runnin' and bar-killin', but I hain't never before seen an ark in no such fix as this un is." "Look Nance," Ann whispered. "He's rising up--look!" A moment his body partially showed. Then he bent low again. The next moment there was a sudden spurt of water from the bottom of the boat. The water pumping its way out caught the attention of the crowd. "He's emptying her out!" they cried. "How did he do it?"