school next winter, if I were in your place. You'll earn money enough this summer, nearly, to pay your way."

The conversation ceased; but James's thoughts ran on. He began to wonder whether he was such a fooi as would appear from the captain's remarks. It was quite evident that Captain Letcher had set him to thinking in the right direction. If he did possess talents for some high position, he was a fool, surely, to throw them away for nothing. He began to see it in that light. What his cousin had said tallied very well with what several other people had told him, and he began to think that all of them could not be wrong. "In the mouth of two or three witnesses, every word shall be established."

at night.

CHAPTER XIII.

TRIUMPHS ON THE TOW-PATH.

HE boat was nearing the twenty-one locks of Akron.

"Make the first lock ready," cried the captain to his bowman. It was ten o'clock

"Ay!" answered the bowman, promptly.

As the bowman approached the lock, a voice came through the darkness from the bowman of another boat,

"Don't turn this lock; our boat is just around the bend, ready to enter."

"I will turn it; we got here first," answered the bowman of the "Evening Star," with an oath that seemed blacker in the absence of the sun.

"You won't turn it unless you are stronger than we are," shouted bowman number one, adding sufficient profanity to match the vocabulary of the other.

A fight was imminent, as all hands on board saw, and they rallied for the fracas. Such scenes were common on the canal. The boat whose bowman

reached the lock first was entitled to enter first, but when two bowmen reached the lock about the same

time a dispute was almost sure to arise, the result of which was a hand-to-hand fight between the two crews. The boat's crew that came to the top of the pile won the lock. Captains were usually powerless to prevent these contests, however well disposed they might be.

Captain Letcher's bowman commenced turning the gate just as the two boats came up so near that their head-lights shed the brightness of day on the exciting

scene.

"Say, bowman," called Captain Letcher, motioning with his hand for attention. His bowman looked up in response.

"Were you here first?" Evidently the captain questioned his right to the lock.

"It's hard to tell," replied the bowman; "but we're goin' to have the lock, anyhow ;" and the ring of his voice showed determination and fight.

"All right; just as you say," answered the captain, supposing that no interference of his could prevent an

encounter.

The men stood panting for the fray, like warhorses. They seemed to be in just the right mood for a contest. It was a new scene to James, and he stood wondering, with the loud oaths bandied falling on his ear. After having restrained himself as long as he could, he tapped the captain on his shoulder, saying,

"See here, captain, does that lock belong to us?" "I really suppose, according to law, it does not; but we'll have it, anyhow," was the captain's reply. "No, we will not," answered James, with a good deal of determination.

"Why not?" asked the captain, very much sur prised at the boy's interference.

"Because it does not belong to us."

"That's so," the captain replied, seeing at once that James was right.

Probably the captain had never stopped to think whether the custom of fighting for a lock was right or not. But the suggestion of James seemed to act as an inspiration on him, and he called out to his bowman,

Hold on! hold on, boys!"

The men looked up in surprise, as if wondering what had happened. One minute more, and some hard knocks would have been given.

"Hold on!" repeated the captain, in the loudest tone of authority that he could command. "Let them have the lock."

The order was obeyed; the free fight was prevented; the other boat entered the lock; “ peace reigned in Warsaw." James commanded the situation. His principles prevailed.

The boat was all night getting through the twentyone locks, but at sunrise was on Lake Summit, moving forward under as bright a day-dawning as ever silvered the waters. The mules were moving on a slow trot, under the crack of the driver's whip, and everything was hopeful. Breakfast was called. George Lee, the steersman, came out and sat down to the table, and the first word he spoke was,

"Jim, what's the matter with ye?"

66

'Nothing; I never felt better in my life," replied James.

"What did you give up the lock for last night?" "Because it didn't belong to us."

"Jim," continued Lee, in a tone of bitterness, accompanied with his usual profanity, "yer are a cow ard; yer aint fit to be a boatman. Yer may do to chop wood or milk cows, but a man or a boy isn't fit for a boat, who won't fight for his rights."

James only smiled at his fellow-boatman, and went on with his breakfast, making no reply. The captain heard the remarks, and admired the more the courage, coolness, and principle of his boy-driver. He saw that there was a magnanimous soul under that dirty shirt, and he enjoyed the evidence of its reign.

The boat reached Beaver, and a steamer was about to tow her up to Pittsburg, when the following incident occurred, just as the captain describes it.

James was standing on deck, with the settingpole against his shoulders, and several feet away stood Murphy, one of the boat-hands, a big, burly fellow of thirty-five, when the steamboat threw the line, and, owing to a sudden lurch of the boat, it whirled over the boy's shoulders, and flew in the direction of the boatman.

"Look out, Murphy!" shouted James; but the rope had anticipated him, and knocked Murphy's hat off into the river.

"It was an accident, Murphy," exclaimed James, by way of excuse, "I'm very sorry."

"I'll make yer sorry," bellowed Murphy, thoroughly mad, and like a reckless bull he plunged at James, with his head down, thinking to knock him over, perhaps, into the water, where his hat had gone;