Page:Hugh Pendexter--Kings of the Missouri.djvu/134

 "Take one that saws up and down more slowly and a steamer at the bend will see clear water and have time to get above it before it comes up. Then, peste! It rips out the bottom."

Regardless of snags and sawyers the steamboat faced two big problems—food and huge amounts of fuel. It was the need of the latter that nearly led the two fugitives into the hands of the enemy.

From the bluff it was impossible to see the edge of the river at their feet. Thinking to find a turkey or deer they left their mules and slid down the clay banks and came to a thick grove of cottonwoods. They were advancing through this, with never a thought of danger, when a voice profanely bawling out brought them to a halt.

Dropping to the wet ground they crept forward to the edge of the growth and were astounded to behold the Golden Queen moored to a wood-yard. Her boilers were dead and no smoke was issuing from her stacks. The mate was loudly haranguing and abusing the men who, busy as ants, were bringing wood aboard. In tow was Prevost's keelboat with two men aboard. Neither Prevost nor any of the mountain men were with the boat so far as the two comrades could discover.