board two flat boats, which, were to be towed
across by two broadhorns, while a third followed
with the rest of the party. Dawn was just
breaking, no steamer was in sight, no wreath of
filmy wood-smoke was on the horizon. Once
on the Missouri bank, safety would be easily
secured, since the depredations had been confined
to Tennessee. We were allowed to come out
of our prison, and found ourselves, blinking like
owls in the daylight, on the margin of the turbid
water. The first flat boat, full of horses, was
towed off by a broadhorn pulling six oars. The
two girls and their father were in the
sternsheets, but Mrs. Stone lingered, lest the German
or Black Dave might do us, as she said, "a
mischief at parting." But the captain was in good
humour. He patted us on the back, laughing
heartily, and advised us to " stick to Broadway
pavement and Philadelphy park, onst we got
there."

The last horses were embarked, and the
rowers of the broadhorn settled themselves on the
benches and grasped their oars. " All aboard,
quick, boys!"

"Stay," said Black Dave, looking round,
"where's that Massachusetts bird?"

Nobody knew. One said he was in the
first boat. Another denied this. No one had
seen him since the previous evening. Black
Dave ground his teeth, and muttered a deep
curse.

"He's deserted, the cur! To git the reward
them Reg'lators offered!"

"He's stole the third broadhorn. It's
gone!" cried a panting scout, running up.
There was a moment of suspense, then a rush,
and the remaining boat was so crowded that it
was sunk gunwale deep in the water. The
captain, rifle in hand, stood up in the
sternsheets.

"Pull, all! I hear the dip of oars!"

Flash! went the six oars into the water, and
off went the heavily-laden boat, towing the flat
with the horses. The progress was necessarily
slow. But a few yards had been gained,
before a loud outcry proved that the island was
invaded. We were still standing on the shore,
waving our hands to Mrs. Stone, whose hard
face had relaxed into a smile, and who seemed
heedless of the danger.

"Hurrah! Bang at 'em, boys—there the
villains air!" bawled fifty voices, and a crowd of
armed men in gaily fringed hunting-shirts or
homespun suits, well armed, came at a run
through the bushes. " Down!" cried Flint,
throwing me to my knees and stooping himself,
just in time to escape death, as the rifle-balls
whizzed over us. I looked up. I saw Black
Dave drop on his knees, fire his gun, rise again,
stagger, and finally roll over into the river,
mortally wounded by the discharge. No one else
was hit. Cutting the tow-rope and crouching
down as much as possible, the outlaws managed
to escape further harm, and, abandoning their
plunder, reached the Missouri shore.

We were at first roughly handled, and were
even in some danger of being promptly hanged or
shot by order of Judge Lynch, when two
witnesses to character came forward. One, on
whom we looked with disgust, was the
treacherous scoundrel who had betrayed the rest of
the gang for gold; the other, wonder of
wonders, was—Ned Granger, who caught me in his
arms and hugged me like a bear!

"Dear Ned, I thought you were dead."
"That's exactly what I thought of you,
Barham, dear old boy, and of the general there.
No, I was very little hurt, and was able to help
the other uninjured passengers in caring for
those poor creatures who were scalded or torn
by the explosion. Every house is like a
hospital. Ah! it was a shocking business. But
though unhurt, you see, I had lost my luggage
and money in the crash, and this honest farmer
here has taken care of me these last weeks. So
I came to help him to get back his stolen nags,
little thinking whom I should find on Island
Number Ten."
Flint and I kept our word with Mary Stone.

THE BEMOANED PAST.

WE have gone back in the world. The pre-
Raphaelites say so. Antiquarians say so. The
men who rank Gothic architecture among the
moralities, and class a well-carved finial with a
well fulfilled virtue, say so. So say the grumblers
and the fault-finders, the pessimists and the
unbelievers: the times of the San Graal and Sir
Launcelot, of abbots of Crowland and monks
of Hereford, were better than they are now, and
humanity has slipped two steps back for every one
taken in advance. Happening to think that
the infallibility of the grumblers and the pre-
Raphaelites just a trifle doubtful, and that the
doctrine of Progress seems to me a hair's breadth
nearer the truth, I will count up on my fingers
the blessings which the past days had and those
which they had not; and then we can strike the
balance, and say which is best off, the San
Graalites or ourselves.

To begin with, they had no books—no
Subscription Circulating Libraries with rapid supply;
no London Library, with graver reserve fund of
acknowledged authorities; no British Museum,
leviathan of its kind—nothing but a few
manuscripts, hidden away in the conventional libraries,
where dirty old monks, in horsehair shirts,
passed their lives in transcribing volumes which
we should run through in a week. To be sure,
they put in some lovely bits of scroll-work
down the sides and across the top, with impossible flowers
and very often immodest adjuncts
among the tracery; and they made little pictures
as headings, very bright, and with the gold standing
up well embossed—pictures where the heads
were set on awry, and the hands held up in
dislocation, with all the fingers glued together, and
the palms as big as faces; and they dressed the
apostles in the cloaks and jerkins of the period,
and spoke of the Roman soldier who pierced the
august side at the Crucifixion as " the knight
who jousted with Jesus;" besides other pleasant