CHAPTER VIII.
The Struggle Between the Lines.
One day, about two weeks after they came out of Arkansas River, the Ticonderoga stopped at Smith's Landing to take on wood, as her supply of coal had run short.

The vessel was made fast to the bank, and, while the seamen were bringing in the wood, the paymaster's steward called Frank's attention to some cattle which were feeding on the bank, and remarked: "I wish we could go out and shoot one of them." "So do I," said Frank; "I've eaten salt pork until I am tired of it.

Let's go and ask the captain." "I'm agreed," said the steward.
The captain was walking on deck at the time and his permission was readily obtained, for he himself had grown tired of ship's pork; Frank, accompanied by the steward, and a seaman who was an expert butcher, started out.

They were armed with muskets, and, as they were all good shots, and did not wish to kill more than enough to feed the ship's company once, they took with them no ammunition besides what was in the guns.

At the place where the Ticonderoga was lying, the levee--an embankment about six feet high, built to prevent the water from overflowing--ran back into the woods about half a mile, then, making a bend like a horse-shoe, came back to the river again, inclosing perhaps a dozen acres of low, swampy land; and it was in this swamp that the cattle were.