The Carmi Chums was the name they went by all along the river. Most other roustabouts had each a name of his own; so had the Carmi Chums for that matter, but the men themselves were never mentioned individually—always collectively.

No steamboat captain who wanted only a single man ever attempted to hire half of the Carmi Chums at a time—as easy would it have been to have hired half of the Siamese Twins. No steamboat mate who knew them ever attempted to "tell off" the Chums into different watches, and any mate who, not knowing them, committed this blunder, and adhered to it after explanation was made, was sure to be two men short immediately after leaving the steamer\'s next landing.

There seemed no possible way of separating them; they never fell out with each other in the natural course of events; they never fought when drunk, as other friendly roustabouts sometimes did, for the Carmi Chums never got drunk; there never sprang up any coolness between them because of love for the same lady, for they did not seem to care at all for female society, unless they happened to meet some old lady whom one might love as a mother rather than as a sweetheart.

Even professional busybodies, from whose presence roustabouts are no freer than Church-members, were unable to provoke the Carmi Chums even to suspicion, and those of them who attempted it too persistently were likely to have a difficulty with the slighter of the Chums.

This man, who was called Black, because of the color of his hair, was apparently forty years of age, and of very ordinary appearance, except when an occasional furtive, frightened look came into his face and attracted attention.

His companion, called Red, because his hair was of the hue of the carrots, and because it was occasionally necessary to distinguish him from his friend, seemed of about the same age and degree of ordinaries as Black, but was rather stouter, more cheery, and, to use the favorite roustabout simile, held his head closer to the current.

He seemed, when Black was absent-minded (as he generally was while off duty), to be the leading spirit of the couple, and to be tenderly alive to all of his partner\'s needs; but observing roustabouts noticed that when freight was being moved, or wood taken on board, Black was always where he could keep an eye on his chum, and where he could demand instant reparation from any wretch who trod upon Red\'s toes, or who, with a shoulder-load of wood, grazed Red\'s head, or touched Red with a box or barrel.

Next to neighborly wonder as to the existence of the friendship between the Chums, roustabouts with whom the couple sailed concerned themselves most with the cause of the bond between them. Their searches after first causes were no more successful, however, than those of the naturalists who are endeavoring to ascertain who laid the cosmic egg.

They gave out that they came from Carmi, so, once or twice, when captains with whom the Chums were engaged determined to seek a cargo up the Wabash, upon which river Carmi was located, inquisitive roustabouts became light-hearted. But, alas, for the vanity of human hopes! when the boat reached Carmi the Chums could not be found, nor could any inhabitant of Carmi identify them by the descriptions which were given by inquiring friends.

At length they became known, in their collective capacity, as one of the institutions of the river. Captains knew them as well as they knew Natchez or Piankishaw Bend, and showed them to distinguished passengers as regularly as they showed General Zach. Taylor\'s plantation, or the scene of the Grand Gulf "cave," where a square mile of Louisiana dropped into the river one night. Captains rather cultivated them, in fact, although it was a difficult bit of business, for roustabouts who wouldn\'t say "thank you" for a glass of French brandy, or a genuine, old-fashioned "plantation cigar," seemed destitute of ordinary handles of which a steamboat captain, could take hold.

Lady passengers took considerable notice of them, and were more successful than any one else at drawing them into conversation. The linguistic accomplishments of the Chums were not numerous, but it did one good to see Black lose his scared, furtive look when a lady addressed him, and to see the affectionate deference with which he appealed to Red, until that worthy was drawn into the conversation. When Black succeeded in this latter-named operation, he would, by insensible stages, draw himself away, and give himself up to enthusiastic admiration of his partner, or, apparently, of his conversational ability.

The Spring of 1869 found the Chums in the crew of the Bennett, "the peerless floating palace of the Mississippi," as she was called by those newspapers whose reporters had the freedom of the Bennett\'s bar; and the same season saw the Bennett staggering down the Mississippi with so heavy a load of sacked corn, that the gunwales amidships were fairly under water.

The river was very low, so the Bennett kept carefully in the channel; but the channel of the great muddy ditch which drains half the union is as fickle as disappointed lovers declare women to be, and it has no more respect for great steamer-loads of corn than Goliath had for David.

A little Ohio river-boat, bound upward, had reported the sudden disappearance of a woodyard a little way above Milliken\'s Bend, where the channel hugged the shore, and with the woodyard there had disappeared an enormous sycamore-tree, which had for years served as a tying-post for steamers.

As live sycamores are about as disinclined to float as bars of lead are, the captain and pilot of the Bennett were somewhat concerned—for the sake of the corn—to know the exact location of the tree.

Half a mile from the spot it became evident, even to the passengers clustered forward on the cabin-deck, that the sycamore had remained quite near to its old home, for a long, rough ripple was seen directly across the line of the channel.

Then arose the question as to how much water was on top of the tree, and whether any bar had had time to accumulate.

The steamer was stopped, the engines were reversed and worked by hand to keep the Bennett from drifting down-stream, a boat was lowered and manned, the Chums forming part of her crew, and the second officer went down to take soundings; while the passengers, to whom even so small a cause for excitement was a godsend, crowded the rail and stared.

The boat shot rapidly down stream, headed for the shore-end of the ripple. She seemed almost into the boiling mud in front of her when the passengers on the steamer heard the mate in the boat shout: "Back all!"

The motion of the oars changed in an instant, but a little too late, for, a heavy root of the fallen giant, just covered by the water, caught the little craft, and caused it to careen so violently that one man was thrown into the water. As she righted, another man went in.

"Confound it!" growled the captain, who was leaning out of the pilot-house window. "I hope they can swim, still, \'tain\'t as bad as it would be if we had any more cargo to take aboard."

"It\'s the Chums," remarked the pilot, who had brought a glass to bear upon the boat.

"Thunder!" exclaimed the captain, striking a bell. "Below there! Lower away another boat—lively!" Then, turning to the passengers, he exclaimed: "Nobody on the river\'d forgive me if I lost the Chums. \'Twould be as bad as Barnum losing the giraffe."

The occupants of the first boat were evidently of the captain\'s own mind, for they ............