Just then the bus backed up to the hotel and a lot of men got out with satchels and came hurryin' in and writin' their names in the book and gettin' rooms and things--and while the clerk was flustered with this business, we sneaked out. [Illustration: "Ain't You the Son of States Attorney Kirby?"] So then we was pretty hungry and we went back to the river, I don't know just why. But we came to the fisherman's boat again, where the woman was cookin' supper, and said she, "Did you find out when the boat comes?" And we said no, but we asked her if we could have some fried fish for a nickel and she says "yes," and asked us in, and so Mitch and me sat with the fambly and looked out of the little winder at the river and et all the cat fish we wanted, with corn bread and onions and things. There was a baby at the table and his nose kept runnin' and his ma just let it; and besides there was a little girl with hands as little as a bird's and black eyes and a pig tail, which made her hair as tight around her head as a drum; and besides them, two boys and a man who boarded there and the husband. And we could see the bed to one side and some cots. They all lived here together, right on the river, with the mosquitoes and the flies, which was awful. And at supper the man said: "Now ain't it funny that nobody can tell about the boat! She's comin' in to-night from St. Louis and will land about 11, like she allus does. And she goes back to-morrow, or the next day, I forget which. Sometimes she changes her schedule and don't go back till Saturday--and sometimes they get up an excursion here to go up to Copperas Creek, and then she don't go back until that's over. But when she gets in, just ask the captain, and he'll know for sure." [Illustration: Looking Straight up into the Sky] After supper, we walked out by the river. We waited till about eight o'clock and then took a swim, and I was beginnin' to think where we was goin' to sleep. But Mitch had decided that. There was a shed near the shore with the slant away from the river, and Mitch says, "That's the place. The water moccasins won't bother us there, and the mosquitoes won't, after a bit, and we can see down the river for miles, and see the _City of Peoria_ when she first turns the bend down there." So we got up on the shed and lay down lookin' straight up into the sky at the stars. It was a clear night and as quiet as a graveyard, only now and then we heard a voice, or a dog bark, or the dip of an oar in the river. And Mitch lay with his hands under his head lookin' up at the stars and not sayin' anything. After a while he says: "Skeet, I told you there was somethin' on my mind, and there is. There's more than one thing on my mind, but I'm just wonderin' whether I'll tell you all of it or not." "Why not?" says I.