So then we began to ask when there was a steamboat to St. Louis. And a man said, "To-night. Hey, Bill," he called to another feller, "ain't the _City of Peoria_ goin' down to-night?" The feller called back "yes." Mitch's eyes just glowed. He just stepped aside and I did and he said, "Now luck is with us." Then I said, "Let's ask somebody else about the boat, we might as well be sure." Just then a big boy came along, about eighteen, so we asked him. He was carryin' some fish and was in a hurry, and he said, "No boat for a week, kids," and went right on. That took the spirit out of us. So we went to a house-boat and asked a woman who was cookin' supper and she said she didn't know whether the St. Louis boat was a day late or not; that sometimes it was a day late, and if it was, it wouldn't be in till day after to-morrow. Just then her husband came up and heard us, and he said, "'Pears to me the boat went down last night. I can't ricollect. We don't pay much attention to the boats, havin' our own business to watch. But," says the man, "if you go up to the hotel, they have a time card up there; or I'll tell you, go over there to the landing, and look on the door of the office, and see if there ain't a time card tacked up." So we hurried over there, but some one had torn off the card, and the office was closed. Then we went up to the hotel. We could see into the dinin' room and see the waitress girls carryin' trays and the food smelt wonderful, but it was fifty cents to eat and we couldn't afford it. Anyway we came up to ask about the boat. There was a gray-haired little feller standin' behind the desk, and awful busy with people comin' and goin', and we stood there tryin' to get in a word; but just as one of us would say, "What time--" a man would step up and say: "I'm checkin' out," or "Let me have 201 again," or somethin' like that. Finally nobody was there and Mitch got it out, "When does the steamboat go to St. Louis?" The little feller didn't look at Mitch, he looked at me stiddy a long while. Then he looked at Mitch and back again at me. And he says: "Ain't you the son of States Attorney Kirby?" He got me so quick I couldn't say nothin', so I says, "Yes, sir." "Wal," says he, "I thought so. You look like him. And I believe you boys are runnin' away. I think I'll turn you over to the policeman." So I stood there and said to myself, "It's ended--we're done." And I was so scared I couldn't move. And just then Mitch began to talk, and he says: "You can't, because we just talked to him ourselves, and asked him about the boat, and he's gone home to supper, and he knows us and knows where we're visitin' with my aunt here in Havaner. And if you don't want to tell us when the boat comes in so we can go down and look at her and really see a steamboat, all right."