At Keokuk the whole fleet was lashed together in a huge raft, and, after being wind-bound a day, a steamboat took us in tow down the Mississippi to Quincy, Illinois, where we camped across the river on Goose Island.  Here the raft idea was abandoned, the boats being joined together in groups of four and decked over.  Somebody told me that Quincy was the richest town of its size in the United States.  When I heard this, I was immediately overcome by an irresistible impulse to throw my feet.  No “blowed-in-the-glass profesh” could possibly pass up such a promising burg.  I crossed the river to Quincy in a small dug-out; but I came back in a large riverboat, down to the gunwales with the results of my thrown feet.  Of course I kept all the money I had collected, though I paid the boat-hire; also I took my pick of the underwear, socks, cast-off clothes, shirts, “kicks,” and “sky-pieces”; and when Company M had taken all it wanted there was still a respectable heap that was turned over to Company L. Alas, I was young and prodigal in those days!  I told a thousand “stories” to the good people of Quincy, and every story was “good”; but since I have come to write for the magazines I have often regretted the wealth of story, the fecundity of fiction, I lavished that day in Quincy, Illinois.

It was at Hannibal, Missouri, that the ten invincibles went to pieces.  It was not planned.  We just naturally flew apart.  The Boiler-Maker and I deserted secretly.  On the same day Scotty and Davy made a swift sneak for the Illinois shore; also McAvoy and Fish achieved their get-away.  This accounts for six of the ten; what became of the remaining four I do not know.  As a sample of life on The Road, I make the following quotation from my diary of the several days following my desertion.

“Friday, May 25th.  Boiler-Maker and I left the camp on the island.  We went ashore on the Illinois side in a skiff and walked six miles on the C.B. & Q. to Fell Creek.  We had gone six miles out of our way, but we got on a hand-car and rode six miles to Hull’s, on the Wabash.  While there, we met McAvoy, Fish, Scotty, and Davy, who had also pulled out from the Army.

“Saturday, May 26th.  At 2.11 A.M. we caught the Cannonball as she slowed up at the crossing.  Scotty and Davy were ditched.  The four of us were ditched at the Bluffs, forty miles farther on.  In the afternoon Fish and McAvoy caught a freight while Boiler-Maker and I were away getting something to eat.

“Sunday, May 27th.  At 3.21 A.M. we caught the Cannonball and found Scotty and Davy on the blind.  We were all ditched at daylight at Jacksonville.  The C. & A. runs through here, and we’re going to take that.  Boiler-Maker went off, but didn’t return.  Guess he caught a freight.

“Monday, May 28th.  Boiler-Maker didn’t show up.  Scotty and Davy went off to sleep somewhere, and didn’t get back in time to catch the K.C. passenger at 3.30 A.M.  I caught her and rode her till after sunrise to Masson City, 25,000 inhabitants.  Caught a cattle train and rode all night.