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Chapter XVI

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We slept most all day, and started out at ssssssssss

night, a little ways behind a mon- ssssssssss

strous long raft that was as long ssssssssss

going by as a procession. She had ssssssssss

four long sweeps at each end, so we ssssssssss

judged she carried as many as thirty ssssssssss

men, likely. She had five big wig- ssssssssss

wams aboard, wide apart, and an open ssssssssss

camp fire in the middle, and a tall ssssssssss

flag-pole at each end. There was a ssssssssss

power of style about her. It amounted ssssssssss

to something being a raftsman on such ssssssssss

a craft as that. ssssssssss

We went drifting down into a big

bend, and the night clouded up and ssssssssss

got hot. The river was very wide, and ssssssssss

was walled with solid timber on both ssssssssss

sides; you couldn't see a break in it ssssssssss

hardly ever, or a light. We talked about Cairo, and wondered whether we would

know it when we got to it. I said likely we wouldn't, because I had heard say

there warn't but about a dozen houses there, and if they didn't happen to have

them lit up, how was we going to know we was passing a town? Jim said if the

two big rivers joined together there, that would show. But I said maybe we

might think we was passing the foot of an island and coming into the same old

river again. That disturbed Jim -- and me too. So the question was, what to

do? I said, paddle ashore the first time a light showed, and tell them pap was

behind, coming along with a trading-scow, and was a green hand at the business,

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