Mile after mile they put behind them in this fashion.
“Oh! I hope we will make it, Frank,” Will would say every little while; and at such times the other thought it his duty to cheer the doubting chum up by declaring that he felt sure they would, as they were making such splendid time.
“But even if we do see the poor old Noah’s Ark away out in the middle of the river, floating along, however in the wide world can we get to her?” Will asked.
“No use crossing a bridge till we come to it,” Frank told him. “When we understand the situation we’ll have some plan ready to meet it. Here’s where we leave the river; isn’t it, Seth?” as the driver urged his team over a little plank bridge at a point where the road turned abruptly to the left.
“Yep, that’s the ticket,” replied the other. “Two mile now, and then we strike her agin. Go ’lang thar, Fanny; gaddup, Bob, ye lazybones!”
But this was only “talk,” as Bluff expressed it, for both horses were doing the best they knew how, and making splendid time. After a while, Frank knew from the signs that they must once more be approaching the river. He could hardly still his own excited heart, so very much depended on the events of the next half hour.
Finally they burst into view of the swiftly flowing Mississippi again. Out over its broad bosom every eye went, seeking for some sign of the floating houseboat.
“Doan’t see nuthin’ o’ her, mister!” announced Seth, in a disappointed tone; “but then, I reckons as haow she ain’t hed time yet to float this far. Inside harf a hour we kin spect to see the runaway, if it stays as light as it is naow.”
Frank had not been looking in the same quarter as the others, who seemed to have taken it for granted that the houseboat, when she appeared, would be found far out on the flood.
He cast his eye closer to the shore that stretched away toward the north, until it became dim and uncertain in the starlight; for the heavens were now clear from horizon to horizon, and the air wonderfully pure after the thunder squall of the earlier evening.
“I think I see her coming up yonder, boys!” said Frank, as he pointed a trembling finger, to assist his chums locate the dark moving blur that had just caught his eye a little distance above the spot where they sat in the wagon.