At the same moment a most delicious whiff of frying bacon reached the hungry boy, mingled with the unmistakable and equally enticing odor of coffee.

There was no doubt as to the direction from which these came, and plunging into the cotton-wood thicket, Winn made his way diagonally up and across the tow-head.
In less than a minute he reached its opposite side, where he halted to gaze with amazement at the very strangest-looking craft he had ever seen.
At first he thought it a small stern-wheeled steamboat.

She certainly had such a wheel, but then there was no chimney.

Perhaps she was a trading-scow.

Who ever heard, though, of a trading-scow with a pilot-house such as this nondescript craft had on the forward end of its upper deck?
Besides, there were no sweeps, nor was she in the least like any trading-scow Winn had ever seen.