This proposed visit became the greatest thing in my life, a great adventure, as we glided back from Buffalo, past the locks at Lockport, where there was much fighting; past lock after lock, where the lock-tenders tried to sell magic oils, balsams and liniments for man and beast and once in a while did so; and to whom Ace became a customer for hair-oil; after using which he sought the attention of girls by the canal side, and also those who might be passengers on our boat, or members of the emigrant families which crowded the boats going west; past the hill at Palmyra, from which Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet, claimed to have dug the gold plates of the Book of Mormon; past the Fairport level and embankment; for three days floating so untroubled along the Rochester level without a single lock; through the Montezuma Marsh again; and then in a short time would come Tempe, and maybe my great meeting with Rucker, my longed-for visit to my mother.  And then Captain Sproule got a contract for a cargo of salt to Buffalo, and we turned westward again!  It would be late in the fall before we returned; but I should have more money then, and should be stronger and a better fighter.

Canal-boating was fast becoming a routine thing with me; and I must leave out all my adventures on that voyage to Buffalo, and back to Tempe.  I do not remember them very clearly anyhow.

One thing happened which I must describe, because it is important.  We were somewhere west of Jordan, when we met a packet boat going west.  It was filled with passengers, and drew near to us with the sound of singing and musical instruments.  It was crowded with emigrants always hopeful and merry, bound westward.  Evidently the hold had not been able to take in all the household goods of the passengers, for there was a deck-load of these things, covered with tarpaulins.

I was sitting on the deck of our boat, wondering when I should join the western movement.  When I got old enough, and had money enough, I was determined to go west and seek my fortune; for I always felt that canalling was, somehow, beneath what I wanted to do and become.  The packet swept past us, giving me a good deal the same glimpse into a different sort of life that a deckhand on a freighter has when he gazes at a liner ablaze with lights and echoing with music.

On the deck of the packet sat a group of people who were listening to a tall stooped man, who seemed to be addressing them on some matter of interest.  There was something familiar in his appearance; and I kept my eye on him as we went by.

As the boat passed swiftly astern, I saw that it was John Rucker.

He was better dressed than I had ever seen him; his beard was trimmed, and he was the center of his group.  He was talking to a hunchback—­a strange-looking person with a black beard.  I wondered what had made such a change in Rucker; but I was overjoyed at the thought that he was off on a peddling trip, and that I should not meet him at home.