Dan walked up the plank that ran from the shore to the bow of the house-boat, and entered the cabin without ceremony. It was as dismal a hole as he had ever looked into, and Dan, accustomed as he was to gloomy surroundings, wondered how anybody could live there. It contained but one apartment, and that was used as a 299kitchen, sitting-room, dining-room and bed-room. The men were lounging in their bunks, while their wives were gathered about the rusty stove puffing vigorously at their well-blackened cob-pipes. When the boat careened under Dan’s weight, one of the men sprang from his bunk and made an effort to conceal a couple of chickens he had just been picking; but as soon as he saw who the visitor was, he laid them down again, for he knew he had nothing to fear.

“Mornin’. I reckon I skeered ye jest a trifle, didn’t I? How wet ye be in here,” said Dan, glancing at the little pools of water that filled every depression in the rough, uneven floor.

“Come in an’ take a cheer, Dannie,” said the man who had tried to hide the chickens, while the other two sat up in their bunks and nodded to him. “It is damp, that’s a fact; but, you see, it rained powerful yesterday, the roof aint by no means as tight as it might be, an’ the ole scow leaks water awful. We can’t hardly keep her pumped out.”

“Then what makes ye stay here?” asked Dan. “I know a nice, tight leetle house over thar on 300the shore of the lake, with two big rooms into it, an’ thar aint nobody lives thar.”

“We’ve seen it; but it’s locked up.”

“What’s the odds? Take something an’ pull one of the steeples out, an’ ye kin get in as easy as fallin’ off a log.”

“We don’t want to get into no trouble. Who owns it?”

“Don Gordon; but he’s off somewhere goin’ to school, an’ thar’s no tellin’ when he will be to hum.”

“Does he live thar when he’s to home?”

“No. He jest stays there a leetle while an’ shoots ducks an’ geese. That’s what he built it fur.”

“Rich folks always has nice things,” said one of the men who had not spoken before, “but we poor folks has to take what we can get. We’re just as good as Gen’ral Gordon too, every day in the week.”

“So be I,” said Dan, “an’ I wouldn’t stand back if I wanted to go thar. Thar aint no sense in Don’s livin’ in that shantee when his father’s got a big house with carpets an’ a pianner into it, an’ chiny an’ silver to set the table with.”

301“No, thar ain’t,” said the man who had done the most of the talking and who answered to the name of Barlow. “We’ll move our duds over thar, if we can get in, an’ stay thar until we can fix our boat up a little. If everything works right, we’ll have a better one before long.”

He got upon his feet as he spoke and drew from under his bunk a short bar of iron, which had more than once come into play when Barlow wanted to force an entrance into somebody’s smoke-house. Carrying this in his hand, he went ashore with Dan, who led the way through the woods toward Don Gordon’s shooting-box. It was the work of scarcely a moment to pull out one of the staples, and when that had been done, the door swung open, and Dan and his companion went in to take a survey of the interior. It was dry and comfortable, as clean as it could possibly be, and Barlow at once decided that he would live there as long as he remained in that neighborhood.

“It’s nice to be rich,” said he, seating himself in one of the empty bunks, after touching a match to the pile of light wood which the lawful owner of the shooting-box had left in the fire-place. 302“It’s nice to have horses an’ hounds an’ niggers to work for you, while you have nothing to do but ride around the country an’ enjoy yourself. That’s the way I’d live if I had the chance to make money that your brother’s got.”

“Yes, Dave makes right smart,” said Dan, with some pride in his tones, “an’ he don’t do no work, nuther. But he’s scandalous mean with what he ’arns. He gives it all to mam, an’ me an’ pap never have none of it. He’s gettin’ mighty tired of Dave’s way of doin’, pap is, an’ t’other night he told Dave that he could jest fork over every cent of his ’arnin’s, an’ let pap have the handlin’ of ’em. Dave, he said he wouldn’t do it, an’ I’m looking for the biggest kind of a furse up to our hou............