''Bring Me His Ears'' - Clarence E. Mulford (good books to read for women txt) 📗

told him that once she drew back from that slimy assassin blade and fully opened the rent in her hull her sinking would follow swiftly. Already men had sounded the river on both sides and reported a steep slant to the bottom, twenty feet of water on the port side and fifteen on the starboard. One of the spare yawls, manned by two officers and a deck hand, shot away from the boat and made hurried soundings to starboard, the called depths bringing a look of hope to the captain's face. Forty yards to the right lay a nearly flat bar; but could he make that forty yards? There remained no choice but to try, for while the Missouri Belle, if she sank in her present position, would not be entirely submerged, she would be even less so every foot she made toward the shallows.

Part of the crew already had weighted one edge of a buffalo hide and stood in the bow, directly over the snag, which luckily had pierced the hull more above than below the water line. The captain signalled and the great paddle wheel turned swiftly full speed astern. The grating, splitting sound of the snag leaving the hull was followed by a shouted order and the hide was lowered overside and instantly sucked against the rent; and the paddle wheel, quickly reversing, pushed the boat ahead at an angle to the current until, low in the water, she grounded solidly on the edge of the flat bar. Anchors were set and cables made taut while the Belle settled firmly on the sandy bottom and rested almost on an even keel. There she would stay if the river continued to fall, until the rent was fully exposed and repaired; and there she would stay, repaired, until another rise floated her. The captain signalled for the paddles to stop and then drew a heavy arm across his forehead, sighed, and turned to face the fur company packet.

The passengers were becoming calm by stages, but the calm was largely the reaction of hysteria for a few moments until common sense walled up the breach. Every eye now watched the oncoming steamboat, which had sailed doggedly ahead for the past two nights and days while the Belle had loitered against the banks. Even the most timid were now calmed by the sight of her lighted cabins as she ploughed toward her stricken sister. Fearful of the snag, she came to a stop when nearly abreast of the Belle and the two captains held a short and shouted conversation. Her yawl soon returned and reported the water safe, but shoaling rapidly; and at this information she turned slightly oblique to the current and, sounding every few feet, crept up to within two gangplanks' reach of the Belle and anchored bow and stern. Her own great landing stage swung out over the cheated waters and hung poised while that of the Belle circled out to meet it, waveringly, as though it had lost a valuable sense. They soon touched, were made to coincide and then lashed securely together. At once, women first, the passengers of the Belle began to cross the arched span a few at a time, and sighed with relief as they reached the deck of the uninjured vessel. On the main deck of the Belle the crew already was piling up such freight as could be taken from the hold and the sound of hammering at her bow told of temporary repairs being made.

Among the last to leave the Belle were Uncle Joe and Tom and as they started toward the gangplank, Captain Newell hurriedly passed them, stopped, retraced his steps, and gripped their hands tightly as he wished them a safe arrival at Independence. Then he plunged out of sight toward the engine room.

The transfer completed, the fur company boat cast free, raised her anchors, and sidled cautiously back into the channel. Blowing a hoarse salute, she straightened out into the current and surged ahead, apparently in no way daunted by the fate of her sister. Captain Graves had commanded a heavily loaded boat when he left St. Louis and the addition of over a hundred passengers and their personal belongings, for whom some sort of provision must be made in sleeping arrangements and food, urged him to get to Independence Landing as quickly as he could. Turning from his supervision of the housing of the gangplank, he bumped into Uncle Joe, was about to apologize, and then peered into the face of his new passenger. The few lights which had been placed on deck to help in the transfer of the passengers, enabled him to recognize the next to the last man across the plank and his greeting was sharp and friendly.

"Joe Cooper, or I'm blind!" he exclaimed. "Alone, Joe?"

"Got my niece with me, and my friend, Tom Boyd, here."

"Glad to meet you, Mr. Boyd—seems to me I've heard something about a Tom Boyd fouling the official craft of the Government of New Mexico," said the captain, shaking hands with the young plainsman. "We'll do our best for you-all the rest of the night, and we'll put Miss Cooper in my cabin. We ought to reach Independence early in the morning. I suppose that's your destination? Take you on to Westport just as easily."

"Independence is where I started for," said Uncle Joe.

"Then we'll put you ashore there, no matter what the condition of the landing is. It's easier to land passengers than cargo. But let me tell you that if you are aiming to go in business there, that Westport is the coming town since the river ruined the lower landing. Let's see if the cook's got any hot coffee ready, and a bite to eat: he's had time enough, anyhow. Come on. First we'll find Miss Cooper and the other women. I had them all taken to one place. Come on."

Shortly after dawn Tom awakened, rose on one elbow on the blanket he had thrown on the deck and looked around. Uncle Joe snored softly and rhythmically on his hard bed, having refused to rob any man of his berth. He had accepted one concession, however, by throwing his blanket on the floor of the texas, where he not only would be close to his niece, but removed from the other men of the Belle, many of whom were not at all reassuring in the matter of personal cleanliness. Arising, Tom went to a window and looked out, seeing a clear sky and green, rolling hills and patches of timber bathed in the slanting sunlight. A close scrutiny of the bank apprised him that they were not far from Independence Landing and he stepped to the rail to look up the river. Far upstream on a sharp bend on the south bank were the remains of Old Fort Clark, as it was often called. About twenty miles farther on the same side of the river was his destination. He turned to call Uncle Joe and met the captain at the door of the texas; and he thought he caught a glimpse of a head bobbing back behind the corner of the cabin. As he hesitated as to whether to go and verify his eyes, the captain accosted him, and he stood where he was.

"Fine day, Mr. Boyd," said the officer. "Sleep well on the soft side of the deck?"

Tom laughed. "I can sleep well any place, captain. If I could have scooped out a hollow for my hips I wouldn't feel quite so stiff."

"Let me know as soon as Miss Cooper appears and I'll have some breakfast sent up to her. If you'd like a bite now, come with me."

"Thank you; you are very considerate. I'll call Uncle Joe and bring him with me."

"You will, hey?" said a voice from the texas. "Uncle Joe is ready right now, barring the aches of his old bones; and I've just been interrupted by Patience. She says she can chew chunks out of the cups, she's so hungry. What's that? You didn't? All right; all right; I'm backing up again! Have it your own way; you will, anyhow, in the end."

"You stay right where you are, Miss Cooper," called the captain. "I'll send up breakfast enough for six, and if you keep an eye on this pair perhaps you can get a bit of it. And let me tell you that it's lucky that you're real hungry, for the fare on this boat is even worse than it was on the Belle. I'll go right down and look to it."

Breakfast over, the three went out to explore the boat, Patience taking interest in its human cargo, especially its original passengers, and she had a good chance to observe them during the absence of the rescued passengers of the Belle, to whom had been given the courtesy of the first use of the dining-room.

Almost all of the original list on this boat were connected in some way with the fur trade, the exceptions being a few travelers bound for the upper Missouri, and two noncommissioned officers going out to Fort Leavenworth, who had missed the Belle at St Louis, missed her again at St. Charles, and had been taken aboard by Captain Graves, who would have to stop at the Fort for inspection.

The others covered all the human phases of the fur business and included one bourgeois, or factor; two partisans, or heads of expeditions; several clerks, numerous hunters and trappers, both free and under contract to the company; half a dozen "pork-eaters," who were green hands engaged for long periods of service by the company and bound to it almost as tightly and securely as though they were slaves. Some of them found this to be true, when they tried to desert, later on. They were called "pork-eaters" because the term now meant about the same as the word "tenderfeet," and its use came from the habit of the company to import green hands from Canada under contracts which not only made them slaves for five years, but almost always left them in the company's debt at the expiration of their term of service. On the way from Canada they had been fed on a simple and monotonous diet, its chief article being pork; and gradually the expression came to be used among the more experienced voyageurs to express the abstract idea of greenness. There were camp-keepers, voyageurs, a crew of keelboatmen going up to the "navy yard" above Fort Union and two skilled boat-builders bound for the same place; artisans, and several Indians returning either to one of the posts or to their own country. They made a picturesque assemblage, and their language, being Indian, English, and French, or rather, combinations of all three, was not less so than their appearance. Over them all the bully of the boat, who had reached his semi-official position through elimination by consent and by combat, exercised a more or less orderly supervision as to their bickerings and general behavior, and relieved the boat's officers of much responsibility.

The boat stopped a few minutes at Liberty Landing and then went on, rounding the nearly circular bend, and as the last turn was made and the steamboat headed westward again there was a pause in the flurry which had been going on among the rescued passengers ever since Liberty Landing had been left. Independence Landing was now close at hand and the eager crowd marked time until the bank should be reached.

Soon the boat headed in toward what was left of the once fine landing, its slowly growing ruin being responsible for the rising importance of the little hamlet of Westport not far above, and for the later and pretentious Kansas City which was to arise on the bluff behind the little frontier village. Independence was losing its importance as