CHAPTER XI.
After spending a few weeks with his family, Captain Boyton received an invitation to visit a friend in St.Louis.While there the swift current of the Mississippi, which was then flowing with ice, tempted him and he made a voyage from Alton to St.Louis, about twenty-five miles.

A boat containing newspaper reporters was to accompany him down; but the weather proved too cold for them and they abandoned him after a few miles.

The thermometer was below zero, and a man was frozen to death that morning in a wagon at Alton.

His reception in St.

Louis was something extraordinary.