Page:The Wreck of a World - Grove - 1890.djvu/70

54 suicide from panic, and satisfied them that they were in no more danger in the middle of the stream than they had been on one side of it.

We steamed on all day, making good progress with the aid of the rapid current, and ever accompanied by our persistent foe, till, as the sun went down, we came in sight of the spires and palaces of St. Louis. And here, to our great joy, we shook off our pursuers. For at this spot is the junction of the Missouri and Mississippi, two of the mightiest rivers in the world, and the bridges having been destroyed by the inhabitants before their flight, the machines were completely hemmed in between two impassable floods.

And now our journey assumed a more agreeable character, as the spirits of all revived, under the influence of the change of scene, the novelty of the life, and the removal of the incubus of fear. For several days we journeyed on with nothing to record more remarkable than the occasional stranding of a vessel on a mudbank, and collisions, threatened or actual, with "snags," as the floating drift timber is locally called. Whenever we passed a town or village we stopped, blew our whistles, hoisted flags, or if it were