I do not know what aroused me, but I immediately sat upright, startled and instantly awake, the first object confronting me being Sam on the crest of the opposite ridge, eagerly beckoning me to join him.

The moment he was assured of my coming, and without so much as uttering a word of explanation, he vanished again into the shadow of the woods.
I crossed the ravine with reckless haste, clambering up the opposite bank, and sixty feet beyond suddenly came into full view of the broad expanse of water.

Scarcely had I glimpsed this rolling flood, sparkling under the sun's rays, when my gaze turned up stream, directed by an excited gesture of the negro.

Less than a mile away, its rapidly revolving wheel churning the water into foam in ceaseless battle against the current, was a steamboat.

It was not a large craft, and so dingy looking that, even at that distance, it appeared dull gray in color.