Supper was prepared as usual.  The provisions secured from the warm-hearted storekeeper of Morehead Landing enabled them to spread themselves to some extent.  And Thad declared that life was worth living again, as he sat there after eating, and lighted his pipe for a smoke.

“What so sober about, Thad?” asked the other, when he had been watching his chum’s face for some little time.

Thad looked up, and grinned in his usual happy way.

“Oh! it ain’t that I’m feeling bad, for I reckon if any feller has a right to call himself lucky that’s me.  Where would I be now if it hadn’t been for you inviting me to make this cruise—­”

“Here, don’t you get to harping along like that again, my boy.  Didn’t you promise to call it square?  And do you suppose for one little minute that I’d be here unless you were?  Why, in the first place the boat belonged to you.  I didn’t have half enough money to take me all the way to Orleans; and I just reckon I’d had a tough deal trying to negotiate more, the way things went at our home town.  Now, just what were you thinking about?  I bet I can give a guess.”

“Well, what?” demanded Thad, quickly.

“It wasn’t about George and Bunny, because then you’d have had a smile on that face of yours.  Seems to me you must have been wondering if they got ’em!”

“Meanin’ the coons of the swamp?  Yes, that’s what I had on my mind.  I never saw one of ’em, and yet somehow I keep a-wonderin’ whether they had a square show.  Oh! well, it ain’t any of our business; and I reckon they must’ve been a bad lot, from what Kim said.  But I’m right glad they didn’t get ’em while we happened to be there, Maurice.”

“That’s me, every time.  But forget it, and let’s talk about what we expect to do down below.  Here’s the charts, such as they are, and none too reliable at the best.  We ought to study ’em time and again, because we may want to take a cut-off and save twenty miles or more.”

“Don’t they say that’s dangerous work?” asked Thad.

“Well, yes, it is, sometimes; but there are several places where all the drifters pass through.  You know our bully good friend.  Bob Archiable, marked two on the map.  He’s used ’em several years in succession, he said.”

“Yes, that’s so; but seems to me he said we’d better keep our eyes and ears open all the way down, and ask questions.  Sometimes these cut-offs fill up, and then a shanty-boat gets lost in a heap of cross canals.  He says they’re like hen tracks sometimes.”

“Well,” remarked Maurice, thoughtfully, “it would be a pretty tough deal if we ever got mixed up in one of those puzzles.  We’re short of grub, and there’s only a few dozen shells left.  Yes, I reckon we will go mighty slow about leaving the old creek and dipping into any of these tempting canals.”

So they chatted and exchanged views as they sat there until both grew sleepy, when the cozy bunks coaxed them into retiring.