noon
`` Wal , I ca n't pull dis boat ` gainst dat current , so I guess we pass on till I fin ' my shirt , den bimebye we pick it up some steamboat an ' go home . '' Five miles below his quick eye detected his half-submerged `` bark '' lodged beneath some overhanging firs which , from the water 's action , had fallen forward into the stream , and by rare good-fortune it was still upright , although awash . He towed it to the next sand-bar , where he wrung out and donned his shirt , then tipped the water from the smaller craft , and , making it fast astern of the Peterborough , set out again . Towards noon they came in sight of a little stern-wheeled craft that puffed and pattered manfully against the sweeping current , hiding behind the points and bars and following the slackest water . `` It 's the Mission , boat ! '' cried Necia . `` It 's the Mission boat !