started to plague the life out of us. But we came out of the large end
of the hole, didn't we, fellows!"

Chatting in this strain they tugged away, and continued to mount higher
up toward the headwaters of the sinuous river. But the Big Sunflower was
an odd sort of a tributary; in fact, like the Missouri, it should really
have been called the main stream, or as Steve expressed it, the "whole
push."

"I've been told that it runs right along into the next county, and
sometimes spreads itself into a bouncing lake. Why, right where
Catamount Island lies, the river is three times as broad as the
Evergreen at Carson."

It was Max himself who volunteered this bit of information. They had
been keeping at this steady paddling for some hours now, and Bandy-legs
was not the only one who grunted from time to time, as he looked at
blistered hands, and felt of his sore arm muscles.

"Well, we don't mean to keep on that far, I hope, fellers," remarked
Bandy-legs, pathetically, at which Steve laughed in derision.

"You'd sure be a dead duck long before we crossed the border, my boy!"
he cried.

"Keep a good lookout ahead," advised Max, some time later.

"He means that the island can't be far away, and by the jumping
Jehoshaphat, boy, I think I can see something that looks just like an
island around that bend yonder," and Steve pointed with his extended