"Shake! Do you really think we could do it, Thad?" he exclaimed.

"Do I? Why, it would be as easy as pie. Think of it; all you have
to do is to let the current carry you along. It's a snap, that's
what!" cried the other, brimming over with enthusiasm.

Ah! Thad was yet to learn that a thousand unforeseen difficulties
lay in wait for those floating craft that drifted down the great
water highway every winter; but "in the bright lexicon of youth
there is no such word as fail," and to his eyes the enterprise was
a veritable voyage of pleasure, nothing less.

"Then we'll go!" declared Maurice, with vim, shaking his chum's
hand furiously. "Given a week to get my traps together, sell what
I don't want, lay in some provisions, buy a few things, like a
flannel shirt and corduroy trousers after the style of those you
wear, and I'll be ready. Say, Thad, what a day this has turned out
after all, and I was just thinking it the blackest ever."

"It's made me mighty happy, I know," asserted Thad, with tears in
his honest blue eyes; "for I'd just hated to lose you, old boy,
sure I would."

"Just to think of our launching on that great old river and
starting for such a long voyage; it's immense, that's what. I've
always wanted to see something of the old Mississippi and to think
that the chance has come. Why, it's like magic, that's what. A
flip of the hand and everything is changed. The opening of Uncle
Ambrose's letter must have been the turning point in my life--our
lives, Thad. Oh, I am so glad I hardly know what to do." "Ditto