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just a series of rapids, not a single DROP as I show in the story.

The other major source for this adventure was Barks' own one-and-only fulltale of $crooge's early life, the untitled story which appears in Dell's1957 special UNCLE $CROOGE GOES TO DISNEYLAND. That tale told of $crooge'sold riverboat days on the Dilly Dollar with his first mate RatchetGearloose (Gyro's grandfather). The villains in that adventure seemed toalready be old enemies of $crooge -- Blackheart Beagle and his threebrawling sons... apparently the grandfather and fathers of the currentBeagle Boys. This means that our Beagle Boys are a group of brothers andcousins... as to which are brothers and which are cousins, you can easilytell by family resemblances. (?) Anyway, my story tells how $crooge met hisUncle Pothole, how they came by the Dilly Dollar and first mate Ratchet,and their first encounter with Blackheart and Sons.

That UNCLE $CROOGE GOES TO DISNEYLAND adventure dealt with $crooge beatingout Blackheart in getting the job of transporting a shipment of gold to NewOrleans. My tale takes a two-year leap ahead at one point, landing in thetime-river immediately after Barks' story when $crooge is on his way to NewOrleans with that very gold bullion.

The third Barks riverboat reference that I use is "The Hall of the MermaidQueen" in UNCLE $CROOGE #68 where $crooge recalls having earned a certainsilver dollar during a riverboat race in 1880. My story shows that moment.

And this tale concludes with $crooge going to work on the "WabashCannonball" railroad, a fact mentioned in Barks' "The Cattle King" in UNCLE$CROOGE #69. (Barks' story has $crooge say he was the "cannon on the WabashCannonball"... but I can't figure out what that's supposed to mean. But itsounds good!)

Though the "Wabash Cannonball" never really existed and was merely the nameof a popular tune on the early 20th Century, I have otherwise made my usualeffort to base the rest of my story on fact. The Galt House is where theaction really was in 19th Century Louisville, and the Legend of the DrennanWhyte was actually a popular tall tale of the time. And believe it or not,the town of Monkey's Eyebrow, Kentucky, actually exists! I would never dare

make up a name that silly! But I must confess I did relocate it just a fewmiles, as I needed for it to be on the Mississippi River rather than whereit's actually located around the bend on (or near) the Ohio River.

* INSANE DETAILS TO NOTE:

The Dilly Dollar's smokestacks are still damaged in the 1882 segment ofthis tale, as they were in the Barks story that I was using as aspringboard. Ratchet makes a reference to just having repaired the boilers.

I couldn't have $crooge's Uncle Pothole hire him for 30 cents an hour as$crooge now pays his nephew, as 30 cents an hour in 1880 would have been ahandsome salary!

All the gag references that Pothole makes to how muddy the Mississippi isare swiped from Mark Twain books.

That safe in the Drennan Whyte was originally labeled an OSO SAFE, the samecompany that $crooge deals with in later life. But the Scandinavian editorsalways delete any lettering I stick in the backgrounds of my stories. Ifinally had to give up such background signage and abandoned what hadpreviously been one of my favorite sources for background humor. I'll showyou a few other special panels before those giant sound effects were

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implanted.

* *D.U.C.K. SPOILER*: After the cover, it should have been easy. Thesplash page dedication is again in the corncob pipe.

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