He had also conceived a great fancy for the
two manly young fellows whose fortunes had become so strangely
connected with those of the _Venture_, and was glad they were to be his
companions on the voyage.
Billy Brackett was not only rejoiced that he had at length been
successful in finding both Winn and the raft, but was delighted to meet
again those with whom he had already shared so much of peril and
pleasure. That they had again become his mates in such a peculiar
manner, and amid such different scenes, was proof, as he quaintly
expressed it, that "Truth can give the most expert fiction points, and
still beat it at its own game."
Glen and Binney were raised from a depth of dismay, caused by the loss
of their money and the resulting predicament into which they were
thrown, to a height of felicity at the prospect of a raft voyage down
the Mississippi, under the leadership of their beloved campmate, Billy
Brackett. They also liked Winn; and, judging from what had already
happened to him, regarded him as a boy in whose company a variety of
adventures might reasonably be hoped for.
Owing to their past experience with the "river-traders," Billy Brackett
and Winn were somewhat uneasy at the presence of Grimshaw and Plater in
town, and their manifest desire to regain possession of the raft.
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