Page:Rover Boys on the Plains.djvu/40

 28 face was full of concern. Not another craft of any kind was in sight, and they were a good two hundred feet from shore.

"Didn't we strike something, Captain?" asked the eldest Rover.

"Reckon we did, sir," was the answer.

"What?"

"A sunken tree, most likely. They are the worst things to be met with on the Mississippi. More than one boat has been sunk by a hidden tree trunk."

"Did the snag poke a hole into us?" asked Tom.

"If it did, we had better make for shore."

"I'll look around and see," said the captain, and did so, accompanied by the boys and Aleck. For the time being, dinner was forgotten.

Fortunately, no great damage had been done. One side board had been loosened, but this was easily nailed tight, and then the houseboat proceeded on her way as before.

"I've heard of boats being wrecked by these snags," said Songbird.

"One boat I was on, some fifteen years ago, was wrecked that way," said Captain Starr. "She was running at full speed, when we struck a big tree that had rather a sharp point The point ran through into the cabin and killed two people, and the boat sank in ten minutes."