"Bring Me His Ears" Part 4

The jutting point, stripped bare of trees, was cut as clean as though some great knife had sliced it. Under its new front the river had cut in until, as they looked, the whole face of the bluff slid down into the stream, a slice twenty feet thick damming the current and turning it into a raging fury. Some hundreds of yards behind the doomed point the muddy torrent boiled and seethed through its new channel, vomiting trees, stumps, brush and miscellaneous rubbish in an endless stream. Off the point, and also where the two great currents came together again behind it two great whirlpools revolved with sloping surfaces smooth as ice, around which swept driftwood with a speed not unlike the horses of some great merry-go-round. The vortex of the one off the point was easily ten feet below the rim of its circ.u.mference, and the width of the entire affair was greater than the length of the boat. A peeled log, not quite water-soaked, reached the center and arose as vertical as a plumb line, swayed in short, quick circles and then dove from sight. A moment later it leaped from the water well away from the pool and fell back with a smack which the noise of the wind did not drown. To starboard was a rhythmic splas.h.i.+ng of bare limbs, where a great cottonwood, partly submerged, bared its fangs. To the right of that was a towhead, a newly formed island of mud and sand partly awash.

The pilot cursed softly and jerked on the bell handle, the boat instantly falling into half speed. He did not dare to cut across the whirlpool, the snag barred him dead ahead, and it was doubtful if there was room to pa.s.s between it and the towhead; but he had no choice in the matter and he rang again, the boat falling into bare steerageway. If he ran aground he would do so gently and no harm would be done. So swift was the current that the moment he put the wheel over a few spokes and s.h.i.+fted the angle between the keel-line and the current direction, the river sent the craft sideways so quickly that before he had stopped turning the wheel in the first direction he had to spin it part way back again. The snag now lay to port, the towhead to starboard, and holding a straight course the _Missouri Belle_ crept slowly between them. There came a slight tremor, a gentle lifting to port, and he met it by a quick turn of the wheel. For a moment the boat hung pivoted, its bow caught by a thrusting side current and slowly swinging to port and the snag. A hard yank on the bell handle was followed by a sudden forward surge, a perceptible side-slip, a gentle rocking, and the bow swung back as the boat, entirely free again, surged past both dangers.

The pilot heaved a sigh of relief. "Peterson didn't say nothin' about th' snag or th' towhead," he growled. Then he grinned. "I bet he rounded inter th' edge o' th' whirler afore he knowed it was thar! Now that I recollect it he did seem a mite excited."

"Somethin' like a boy explorin' a cave, an' comin' face to face with a b'ar," laughed Tom. "I recken you fellers don't find pilotin'

monotonous."

"Thar ain't no two trips alike; might say no two miles, up or down, trip after trip. Here comes th' rain, an' by buckets; an' thar's th' place I been a-lookin' fer. Th' bank's so high th' wind won't hardly tech us."

He signaled for half speed and then for quarter and the boat no sooner had fallen into the latter than her bow lifted and she came to a grating stop. The crew, which had kept to shelter, sprang forward without a word and as the captain crossed the bow deck the great spars were being hauled forward. After the reversed paddles had shown the _Belle_ to be aground beyond their help, the spars were put to work and it was not long before they pushed her off again, and a few minutes later she nosed against the bank.

The pilot sighed and packed his pipe. "Thar!" he said, explosively.

"Hyar we air, an' we ain't a-goin' on ag'in till we kin see th' channel.

No, sir, not if we has ter stay hyar a week!"

Tom led the way below and paused at the foot of the companionway as he caught sight of Patience. He glowed slightly as he thought that she had been waiting for him; and when he found that she had not yet entered the cabin for breakfast, the glow became quite p.r.o.nounced. He had seen many pretty girls and had grown up with them, but the fact that she was pretty was not the thing which made her so attractive to him. There was a softness in her speaking voice, a quiet dignity and a certain reserve, so honest that it needed no affectations to make it sensed; and under it all he felt that there was a latent power of will that would make panicky fears and actions impossible in her. And he never had perceived such superb defenses against undue familiarity, superb in their un.o.btrusiveness, which to him was proof of their sincerity and that they were innate characteristics. He felt that she could repel much more effectively without showing any tangible signs of it than could any woman he ever had met. He promised himself that the study of her nature would not be neglected, and he looked forward to it with eagerness.

There was, to him, a charm about her so complex, so subtle that it almost completed the circle and became simple and apparent.

She smiled slightly and acknowledged his bow as he approached her.

"Good morning, Miss Cooper. Have you and your uncle breakfasted?"

"Not yet," she answered, turning toward the cabin. "I think he is waiting for us. Shall we go in?"

The plural form of the personal p.r.o.noun sent a slight thrill through him as he opened the door for her, showed her to the table, and seated her so that she faced the wide expanse of the river.

"I imagined that I felt b.u.mps against the boat sometime during the night," she remarked. She looked inquiringly at Tom and her uncle. "Did we strike anything?"

"Why," Tom answered in simulated surprise, "no one said anything about it to me, and I've been with the pilot almost since dawn. The whole fact of the matter is that this river's dangers are much over-estimated, considering that boats of thirty feet and under have been navigating it since before the beginning of this century. And they had no steam to help them, neither."

Uncle Joe appeared to be very preoccupied and took no part in the conversation.

"I have heard uncle and father speak many times about the great dangers attending the navigation of the Missouri," she responded, smiling enigmatically, and flas.h.i.+ng her uncle a keen, swift glance. "They used to dwell on it a great deal before father went out to Santa Fe. So many of their friends were engaged in steamboat navigation that it was a subject of deep interest to them both, and they seemed to be very well informed about it." She laughed lightly and again glanced at her uncle.

"Since uncle learned that I might have to make the trip he has talked in quite a different strain; but he did suggest, somewhat hopefully, that we put up with the discomforts of the overland route and make the trip in a wagon. Don't you believe, Mr. Boyd, that knowledge of possible dangers might be a good thing?"

Uncle Joe gulped the last of his watery coffee, pushed back, and arose.

"Want to see the captain," he said. "Meet you two later on deck," and he lost no time in getting out of the cabin.

"Well," came the slow and careful answer from Tom, "so many of us pa.s.s numerous dangers in our daily lives, unknown, unsuspected, that we might have a much less pleasant existence if we knew of them. If they are dangers that we could guard against, knowledge of them certainly would be a good thing."

She nodded understandingly and looked out over the tawny, turbulent flood, then leaned forward quickly; and her companion did not lose this opportunity to admire her profile. Coming down the stream like an arrow, with a small square sail set well forward, was a keelboat, its hide-protected cargo rising a foot or more above the gunwale amids.h.i.+ps.

Standing near the mast was a lookout, holding fast to it, and crouched on top of the cargo, the long, extemporized addition to the tiller grasped firmly in both hands, was the _patron_, or captain. Sitting against the rear bulkhead of the hold and facing astern were several figures covered with canvas and hides, the best s.h.i.+ft the crew could make against the weather. The French-Canadian at the mast waved his hand, stopping his exultant song long enough to shout a bon voyage to the steamboat as he shot past, and the little boat darted from their sight into the rain and the rolling vapor of the river like a hunted rabbit into a tangle of briars.

"That's splendid!" she exclaimed, an exultant lilt in her voice. "That's the spirit of this western country: direct, courageous, steadfast! Can't you feel it, Mr. Boyd?"

His eyes shone and he leaned forward over the table with a fierce eagerness. In that one moment he had caught a glimpse into the heart and soul of Patience Cooper that fanned fiercely the flame already lighted in his heart. His own feelings about the West, the almost tearful reverence which had possessed him at the sight of those pioneer women, many with babes at their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, that he daily had seen come into Independence from the East to leave it on the West, the hards.h.i.+ps past great enough to give pause to men of strength, but not shaking their calm, quiet determination to face greater to the end of that testing trail, and suffer privations in a vast wilderness; his feelings, his hopes, his faith, had come back to him in those few words almost as though from some spirit mirror. He choked as he fought to master himself and to speak with a level voice.

"Feel it?" he answered, his voice shaking. "I feel it sometimes until the sheer joy of it hurts me! Wait until you stand on the outskirts of Independence facing the sunset, and see those wagons, great and small, plodding with the insistent determination of a wolverine to the distant rendezvous! Close your eyes and picture that rendezvous, the caravan slowly growing by the addition of straggling wagons from many feeding roads. Wait until you stand on the edge of that trail, facing the west, with rainbows in the mist of your eyes! Oh, Miss Cooper, I can't--but perhaps we'd better go on deck and see what the weather promises."

She did not look at him, but as she arose her hand for one brief instant rested lightly on his outflung arm, and set him aquiver with an ecstatic agony that hurt even while it glorified him. He shook his head savagely, rose and led the way to the door; and only the moral fiber and training pa.s.sed on to him through generations of gentlemen kept him from taking her in his arms and smothering her with kisses; and in his tense struggle to hold himself in check he did not realize that such an indiscretion might have served him well and that such a moment might never come again. Holding open the door until she had pa.s.sed through, he closed it behind them and stumbled into a whirling gust of rain that stung and chilled him to a better mastery of himself. Opportunity had knocked in vain.

"Our friends, the pilots, will not be good company on a day like this,"

he said, gripping the rail and interposing his body between her and the gusts. "The gangplank's out, but there seems to be a lack of warmth in its invitation. Suppose we go around on the other side?"

On the river side of the boat they found shelter against the slanting rain and were soon comfortably seated against the cabin wall, wrapped in the blankets he had coaxed from his friend, the purser.

"Just look at that fury of wind and water!" exclaimed Patience. "I wonder where that little keelboat is by now?"

"Oh, it's scooting along like a sled down an icy slope," he answered, hoping that it had escaped the hungry maw of the great whirlpool off Clay Point. "They must have urgent reasons for driving ahead like that.

It must be an express from the upper Missouri posts to St. Louis.

McKenzie probably wants to get word to Chouteau before the fur company's steamboat starts up the river. Or it may be the urging of the thrill that comes with gambling with death."

Behind them Uncle Joe poked his head out of the cabin door and regarded them curiously. Satisfied that troublesome topics no longer were being discussed he moved forward slowly.

"Oh, here you are," he said, as though making a discovery. "I thought I might find you out here. Captain Newell ain't fit company for a savage wolf this morning. Have you heard how long we're going to be tied up?"

Tom drew a chair toward him and looked up invitingly. "Sit down, Mr.

Cooper. Why, I understand we will stay here all day and night." He understood the other man's restlessness and anxiety about the wait, but did not sympathize with him. The longer they were in making the river-run the better he would be suited.

Uncle Joe glanced out over the wild water. "Oh, well," he sighed. "If we must, then we must. That river's quite a sight; looks a lot worse than it is. h.e.l.lo! What's our reverend friend doing down there? Living in the hold?" He chuckled. "If he is, it's a poor day to come up for air."

They followed his glance and beheld a tall, austere, long-faced clergyman emerging from the forward hatch, and behind him came the pilot with whom they had talked the evening before. When both had reached the deck and stepped out of the rain the clergyman shook his head stubbornly and continued his argument.

"I was told to come up on this packet and examine her carefully on the way," he a.s.serted, doggedly. "Liquor in vast quant.i.ties has been getting past both Fort Leavenworth and Bellevue; and while the military inspectors may be lax, or worse, that is an accusation which cannot truthfully be brought against us at the upper agency. If I am not given honest a.s.sistance in the prosecution of my search, your captain may experience a delay at our levee that will not be to his liking. It's all the same to me, for if it isn't found on our way up, it _will_ be found after we reach the agency."

"But, my reverend sir!" replied the pilot, in poorly hidden anger, "you've been from one end of th' hold to th' other! You've crawled 'round like a worm, stuck yore nose an' fingers inter everythin' thar war to stick 'em in; you've sounded th' flour barrels with a wipin'-stick, an' jabbed it inter bags an' bales. Bein' a government inspector we've had ter let ye do it, whether we liked it or not. I've got no doubts th' captain will be glad ter take down th' engines, rip open th' bilers, slit th' stacks an' mebby remove th' plankin' of th'

hull; but--air ye listenin' close, my reverend sir? If ye try ter git me ter guide ye around in that thar hold ag'in, I'll prove ter ye that th'

life o' a perfect Christian leads ter martyrdom. Jest ram that down yore skinny neck, an' be d.a.m.ned ter ye!"

"I will not tolerate such language!" exclaimed the indignant shepherd.

"I shall report you, sir!"

"You kin report an' be d.a.m.ned!" retorted the angry pilot. "Yo're too cussed pious to be real. What's that a-stickin' outer yer pocket?"

The inspector felt quickly of the pocket indicated and pulled out a half-pint flask of liquor, and stared at it in stupefaction.

"Why--I----"

"Yer a better actor than ye air a preacher," sneered the pilot, glancing knowingly from the planted bottle around the faces of the crowd which had quickly a.s.sembled. "O' course, you deal in precepts; but they'd be a cussed sight more convincin' fer a few examples along with 'em. Good day, my reverend sir!"

The frocked inspector, tearing his eyes from the accusing bottle and trying to close his mouth, gazed after the swaggering pilot and then around the circle of grinning faces. A soft laugh from above made him glance up to where Patience and her companions were thoroughly enjoying the episode.

"Parson, I'll have a snorter with ye," said a bewhiskered bullwhacker, striding eagerly forward, his hand outstretched. "Go good on a mornin'

like this."

"Save some fer me, brother," called a trapper, his keen eyes twinkling.

"Allus reckoned you fellers war sort o' baby-like; but thar's th' makin'

o' a man in you." He grinned. "'Sides, we da.s.sn't let all that likker git up ter th' Injuns."