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Rh both the conductor and the brakeman assured them earnestly that the train did go to Loving’s Landing, and after some persuasion Chub allowed himself to be dragged aboard.

“Have your own way,” he sighed. “But when you get out in Chicago or Cincinnati or New Orleans don’t blame me, don’t blame me! I wash my hands of the whole undertaking.”

“I guess it won’t hurt them,” answered Dick cruelly.

Loving’s Landing, at first sight, didn’t appear to be worth the trouble they had taken to find it. It was largely composed of lumberyards, machine-shops and wharves in front of which dirty little canal-boats were lying. Higgins’s Boat Yard was difficult to discover, each informant directing them differently, but at last they found it tucked away between the railroad and the river and hidden by a lumberyard. They presented their credentials at the office and were directed to where the Jolly Roger lay ready for launching. By that time Chub was speculating on the chances of obtaining luncheon in such a “one-horse metropolis.”

The Jolly Roger lay at the top of the way, one