I contented myself with watching the masked shadows on the shores.

I contented myself with dreams, dreams which I stigmatized as unwarranted and wrong.
We were running that night in the dark, before the rising of the moon, a thing which cautious steamboat men would not have ventured, although our pilot was confident that no harm could come to him.

Against assurance such as this the dangerous Missouri with its bars and snags purposed a present revenge.

Our whistle awakened the echoes along the shores as we plowed on up the yellow flood, hour after hour.

Then, some time toward midnight, while most of the passengers were attempting some sort of rest, wrapped in their blankets along the deck, there came a slight shock, a grating slide, and a rasping crash of wood.