with people who flocked to the banks of the river from adjacent villages. "Where are you from?" "Where are you bound?" "What are you loaded with?" were questions that they frequently had to answer.

The days were not all sunshine. Heavy storms sometimes descended upon them, and they had to exert themselves to the utmost to keep their little craft right side up. Day after day they were drenched with rain, and still they must keep on the voyage. Violent storms sometimes raged at night, the wind blowing almost a hurricane, and the rain pouring down in torrents, and still there was no alternative, they must make their bed on their little boat and take the pelting of the storm. Those were times that tried their spirit, and yet they had no complaints to utter. Never for a moment did Abraham wish he had not undertaken the voyage. The object of his expedition had taken complete possession of his soul.

At Madame Bushane's plantation, six miles below Baton Rouge, they had an adventure that is worthy of rehearsal here. The boat was tied up, and the boys were fast asleep in the stern, when footsteps on board awoke them. After listening a moment Abraham whispered,

"Foul play, Allen! A gang of niggers come to rob us!"

Thinking to frighten them away, Allen shouted, "Bring the guns, Abe, shoot 'em."

But the negroes did not flee, and the silence was as oppressive as the darkness.

"Trouble for us," said Abraham, in a low tone, as he sprang to his feet and put his hand upon a billet of wood. "We must fight for our lives. Come."

Waiting and listening again for a moment, and hearing nothing, Abraham cried out:

"Who's there?" No response.

"Who's there?" he called, with more emphasis. The voices of several negroes, in threatening tones, responded.

"What are you here for, you rascals?" thundered Abraham. "Be off with yourselves, or we'll throw you into the river!" And he dashed after them in the darkness, followed by Allen. The negroes stood their ground armed with cudgels, and a fearful battle began

at once.

"Kill them!" shouted Abraham to Allen. "They mean to kill us. Knock the scoundrels into the water." And the clubs flew, and heavy blows were dealt back and forth, until the contest became so close and hot that clubs were useless, and a hand-to-hand fight was inevitable. For ten minutes or more the conflict raged, spattering the deck with blood, and threatening the saddest results. At length, however, Abraham threw one of the number into the river, when the others leaped from the boat upon the shore.

"Let's after them!" shouted Abraham, so thoroughly aroused and excited as to banish all fear. "Show them no quarter."

And the boys pursued them with their clubs for half a mile, yelling at such a rate that the negroes thought, no doubt, that half a score of boatmen were after them. They were Madame Bushane's slaves, seeking plunder on the boat, and they were thoroughly terrified. They had not counted upon such a belligerent reception. Abraham and Allen saw at once that it was a case of life and death, and therefore they fought with desperation. The negroes left some of their best blood on deck, and it was mingled with that of our two young boatmen. For they received blows well nigh as hard as those they gave, and their blood told of their wounds.

Abraham received a blow over his right eye, the scar of which he carried through life.

"We must get the boat off now as quick as possible," said Allen, as they returned from the pursuit. "The scamps may come back with twice the number."

"I was just thinking of that," replied Abraham. "Jump aboard, and I will untie the boat. We must lose no time."

In a minute Allen was aboard, and scarcely another minute had passed before Abraham followed him, having loosed the boat.

"We are safe now, if the whole plantation comes," said Allen, as they shoved off into the stream.

"We sha'n't need to go far," added Abraham. change our position, and we are safe."

"Only

"That may be, but I think I shall sleep with my eyes open the rest of the night."

"And I will keep you company," responded Abraham. "The next time I come to New Orleans I shall come armed. This going to war without a gun is not quite the thing."

"I wish we had been armed," said Allen. "Wouldn't we have made the feathers fly?"

"The wool, you mean," replied Abraham, jocosely. He had become as cool as if nothing had happened. "They meant to kill us."

"Of course they did. It wouldn't have done for them to rob us, and leave us to tell the story to their master. But they might have made away with us, and robbed and sunk the boat, and nobody been any the wiser for it."

They are no fools, if they be niggers."

'No; but after all they are not so much to blame," added Abraham. Slavery has robbed them of everything, and so I s'pose they think it is fair play to take what they can get."

We shall only add that the voyage was continued to New Orleans, and the cargo of bacon and other produce disposed of to advantage. The boys returned to Indiana on the deck of a steamer, according to Mr. Gentry's arrangement before they started.

It is a remarkable fact that Abraham, who fought the slaves to save his life, should become their emancipator, as we shall discover, thirty-five years thereafter !

XIII.

SUNDRY INCIDENTS.

`HERE is very satisfactory evidence that Abraham went on a trading trip for his father before he served Mr. Gentry, and that he built a boat himself for the expedition. For Mr. Carpenter, the painter, in his "Six Months in the White House," has the following from Mr. Lincoln's lips, related to show how he came into possession of the first dollar he could call his

own:

In the Executive Chamber, one evening, there were present a number of gentlemen, among them Mr. Seward.

A point in the conversation suggesting the thought, the President said: "Seward, you never heard, did you, how I earned my first dollar?" "No," rejoined Mr. Seward. "Well," continued Mr. Lincoln, "I was about eighteen years of age. I belonged, you know, to what they call down south the 'scrubs'; people who do not own slaves are nobody there. But we had succeeded in raising, chiefly by my labour, sufficient produce, as I thought, to justify me in taking it down the river to sell.

"After much persuasion I got the consent of mother to go, and constructed a little flat-boat, large enough to take a barrel or two of things that we had gathered, with myself and little bundle, down to New Orleans. A steamer was coming down the river. We have, you know, no wharves on the Western streams; and the