noon
`` You 're right , '' replied Jack , `` though I 'd just hate to have any accident happen while it lasts . We 're a long ways from shore , Jimmie , remember . '' `` But the swimmin 's foine , by the same token , '' was the immediate response of the ready-witted Irish lad , who never took trouble by the forelock , believing there was always time enough for worrying after things had happened . As had become their habit , they ate a cold lunch at noon , though Jimmie hinted broadly that it might pay them to pull in closer to the shore , and anchor , while he made a pot of coffee . The afternoon began to wane as they came in sight of Cairo on its low point of land at the junction of the two great streams . `` My sowl , whativer becomes of all the wather ? '' exclaimed Jimmie , as they passed the mouth of the Ohio , and could see the great flood of turgid water that was pouring into the Mississippi , there having evidently been something of a rain to the eastward recently .