There's a law of the United States
against it. The river may be rising by the time we get to 103, and in
that case we'll run it. We are drawing - how much?'
'Six feet aft, - six and a half forward.'
'Well, you do seem to know something.'
'But what I particularly want to know is, if I have got to keep up an
everlasting measuring of the banks of this river, twelve hundred miles,
month in and month out?'
'Of course!'
My emotions were too deep for words for a while. Presently I said - '
And how about these chutes. Are there many of them?'
'I should say so. I fancy we shan't run any of the river this trip as
you've ever seen it run before - so to speak. If the river begins to
rise again, we'll go up behind bars that you've always seen standing out
of the river, high and dry like the roof of a house; we'll cut across
low places that you've never noticed at all, right through the middle of
bars that cover three hundred acres of river; we'll creep through cracks
where you've always thought was solid land; we'll dart through the woods
and leave twenty-five miles of river off to one side; we'll see the
hind-side of every island between New Orleans and Cairo.'
'Then I've got to go to work and learn just as much more river as I
already know.'
'Just about twice as much more, as near as you can come at it.'
'Well, one lives to find out.
