"Bring Me His Ears" Part 5

"Shucks!" exclaimed a raw-boned Missourian. "That's only a sample he's takin' up ter Bellevue. He ain't worryin' none about a little bottle like that, not with th' bar'ls they got up thar. What you boys up thar do with all th' likker ye take off'n th' boats? n.o.body ever saw none o'

it go back down th' river."

The baited inspector hurled the bottle far out into the stream and tried to find a way out of the circle, but he was not allowed to break through.

"You said somethin' about Leavenworth bein' careless, or wuss," said a soldier who was going up to that post. "We use common sense, up thar.

Thar's as much likker gits past th' agencies on th' land side as ever tried ter git past on th' river. Every man up-bound totes as much o' it as he kin carry. Th' fur company uses judgment in pa.s.sin' it out, fer it don't want no drunken Injuns; but th' free traders don't care a rip. If th' company ain't got it, then th' Injuns trade whar they kin git it; an' that means they'll git robbed blind, an' bilin' drunk in th'

bargain. If I had my way, they'd throw th' hull kit of ye in th' river."

"That's right," endorsed a trapper, chuckling, and slapping the inspector on the back with hearty strength. "You hold this hyar boat to th' bank at Bellevue jest as long as ye kin, parson. It makes better time than th' boys goin' over th' land, an' 'tain't fair ter th' boys.

Think ye kin hold her a hull week, an' give my pardners a chanct ter beat her ter th' Mandan villages?" He looked around, grinning. "Them Injuns must have a hull pa.s.sel o' furs a-waitin' fer th' first trader."

"What's th' trouble here?" demanded the captain, pus.h.i.+ng roughly through the crowd. "What's th' trouble?"

"Nothing but the baiting of a government inspector and a wearer of the cloth," bitterly answered the encircled minister.

"Oh," said the captain, relieved. "Wall, ye git as ye give. Are ye through with th' hold?"

The inspector sullenly regarded him. "I think so," he answered.

The captain wheeled to one of the crew. "Joe, throw on that hatch, lock it, and keep it locked until we get to Bellevue," he snapped. "We're ready to comply with government regulations, at the proper time and place. You and your friends can root around all you want after we get to Bellevue. The next time I find you in the hold with a lighted candle I'll take it away from you and lock you in there." He turned, ordered the crowd to disperse and went back to the texas.

It was an old story, this struggle to get liquor past the posts to the upper Missouri, and there were tricks as yet untried. From the unexpected pa.s.sage of this up-bound inspector, going out to his station at the agency, and his officious nosings, it was believed by many that any liquor on board would not have a chance to get through. And why should the _Belle_ be carrying it, since her destination and turning point was Bellevue?

"Is it true that liquor is smuggled up the river?" asked Patience as the inspector became lost to sight below.

Her companions laughed in unison.

"They not only try to get it up," answered Tom, "but they succeed. I've been watching that sour-faced parson on his restless ramblings about the boat, and I knew at once that there must be a game on. Sometimes their information is correct. However, I'll back the officers of this packet against him, any time."

"I'm afraid you'd win your bet, Mr. Boyd," choked the uncle.

"Uncle Joe! What do you know about it?" asked his niece accusingly.

"Nothing, my dear; not a single thing!" he expostulated, raising his hands in mock horror, his eyes resting on three new yawls turned bottomside up on the deck near the bow. He mentally pictured the half-dozen bullboats stowed on the main deck near the stern, each capable of carrying two tons if handled right, and he shook with laughter. This year the fur company's boat carried no liquor and its captain would insist on a most thorough inspection at Bellevue; but the fur posts on the upper river would be overjoyed by what she would bring to them. After the inspection she would proceed on her calm way, and tie against the bank at a proper distance above the agency; just as the _Belle_ would spend a night against the bank at a proper distance below Bellevue; and what the latter would run ash.o.r.e after midnight, when the inquisitive minister was deep in sleep, would be smuggled upstream in the smaller boats during the dark of the night following, and be put aboard the fur boat above.

"Uncle Joe!" said his niece. "You know something!"

"G.o.d help the man that don't!" snorted her uncle. "Look there!"

A heavily loaded Mackinaw boat had shot around the next bend. It was of large size, nearly fifty feet long and a dozen wide. In the bow were four men at the great oars and in the stern at the tiller was the _patron_, singing in l.u.s.ty and not unpleasant voice and in mixed French and English, a song of his own composing.

Patience put a finger to her lips and enjoined silence, leaning forward to catch the words floating across the turbulent water, and to her they sounded thus:

_"Mon pere Baptiste for Pierre Chouteau He work lak dam in le ol' bateau; From Union down le ol' Missou Lak chased, by gar, by carcajou._

_"Le coureurs des bois, le voyageur, too, He nevaire work so hard, mon Dieu, Lak Baptiste pere an' Baptiste fils, Coureurs avant on le ol' Missou._

_"McKenzie say: 'Baptiste Ladeaux, Thees lettaire you mus' geeve Chouteau; Vous are one dam fine voyageur-- So hurry down le ol' Missou._

_"Go get vous fils an' vous chapeau, You mebby lak Mackinaw bateau'-- Lak that he say, lak one dam day Le voyage weel tak to ol' St. Lou!"_

As the square stern of the fur-laden boat came opposite the packet the mercurial _patron_ stopped his song and shouted: "_Levez les perches!_"

and the four oars rose from the water and shot into the air, vertical and rigid. The pilot of the steamboat, chancing to be in the pilot house, blew a series of short blasts in recognition, causing the engineer to growl something about wasting his steam. The crew of the Mackinaw boat arose and cheered, the _patron_ firing his pistol into the air. Gay vocal exchanges took place between the two boats, and the patron, catching sight of Patience, placed a hand over his heart and bowed, rattling off habitant French. She waved in reply and watched the boat forge ahead under the thrust of the perfectly timed oars.

"Mackinaw boat," said Tom, "and in a hurry. _There's_ the express. There is a belief on the river that the square stern of those boats gives them a speed in rapids greater than that of the current. They are very safe and handy for this kind of navigation, and well built by skilled artisans at the boat yards of the princ.i.p.al trading posts up the river.

They are a great advance over the bullboat, which preceded them."

"And which are still in use, makes.h.i.+fts though they are," said Captain Newell as he stopped beside them. "But you can't beat the bullboat for the purpose for which it was first made; that of navigating the shallower streams. I thought you would be glad to know that we expect to be under way again early in the morning. But, speaking of bullboats, did you ever see one, Miss Cooper?"

"I've had them pointed out to me at St. Louis, but at a distance," she answered. "Somehow they did not impress me enough to cause me to remember what they looked like."

"Why, I'll show you some," offered Tom eagerly. "There's half a dozen on the main deck."

Uncle Joe squirmed as he glanced around, and arose to leave for the card room, but the captain smiled and nodded.

"Yes, that's so, Mr. Boyd. Take a look at them when the rain lets up.

We're always glad to carry a few of them back up the river, for we find them very handy in lightering cargo in case we have mean shallows that can be crossed in no other way. You'd be surprised how little water this boat draws after its cargo is taken ash.o.r.e."

"But why do they call them bullboats?" asked Patience.

"They're named after the hides of the bull buffalo, which are used for the covering," explained the captain. "First a bundle of rather heavy willow poles are fas.h.i.+oned into a bottom and bound together with rawhide. To this other and more slender willow poles are fastened by their smaller ends and curved up and out to make the ribs. Then two heavy poles are bent on each side from stem to stern and lashed to the ends of the ribs, forming the gunwale. Everything is lashed with rawhide and not a bolt or screw or nail is used. Hides of buffalo bulls, usually prepared by the Indians, although the hunters and trappers can do the work as well, are sewn together with sinew after being well soaked. They are stretched tightly over the frame and lashed securely to the gun'le, and they dry tight as drumheads and show every rib. Then a pitch of buffalo tallow and ashes is worked into the seams and over every suspicious spot on the hides and the boat is ready. Usually a false flooring of loosely laid willow poles, three or four inches deep, is placed in the bottom to prevent the water, which is sure to leak in, from wetting the cargo. In the morning the boat rides high and draws only a few inches of water; but often at night there may be six or eight inches slopping around inside. I doubt if any other kind of a boat can be used very far up on the Platte, and sometimes even bullboats can't go up."

"How was it that the fur company's boat was tied at the levee at St.

Louis, after we left?" asked Tom. "Rather late for her, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is," answered the captain. "The great event on this river has always been the annual upstream fur packet. She is coming along somewhere behind us, and very likely will pa.s.s us before we reach the mouth of the Kaw. They take bigger chances with the river than we do because they've got to get up to Fort Union and away again while there's water enough." He looked at Patience. "Are you going far, Miss Cooper?" he asked, anxious to get the conversation into channels more to his liking.

"Santa Fe, captain," she answered as placidly as though it were a shopping trip from her home to the downtown stores of St. Louis.

"Well, well!" he exclaimed, as if he had not known it. "That will be quite an undertaking!"

Tom Boyd was staring at her aghast, doubting his ears. The slowly changing expression on his face caught her attention and she smiled at him.

"You look as if you had seen a ghost, Mr. Boyd," she laughed.

"I'm going to do my very best not to see one, Miss Cooper; or let anyone else see one," he answered mysteriously. "I am glad that I, too, am bound for Santa Fe. It is a great surprise and pleasure to learn that you are going over the same trail."

"Why, didn't you say that you were going over the Oregon Trail this year?" she quickly asked. "At least, I understood you that way."

"I often let my enthusiasm run away with me," he answered. "Much as I would like to go out to Oregon I will have to wait until my affairs will permit me to follow my inclination. You see, I've made two trips to Santa Fe, it has got into my blood, and there are reasons why I must go over that trail again. And then, knowing the trail so well, it is possible that I can make very good arrangements this year. But isn't it a most remarkable coincidence?"

"Very," drily answered the captain. "By the way, Mr. Boyd: you and Mr.

Cooper seem to be quite friendly, and neither of you waste much time in the company of your present roommates. Seeing that you are both bunked with strangers, how would it suit you if I put you together in the same room? Good: then I'll speak to Mr. Cooper, and if it's agreeable to him I'll have the change made. Sorry to tear myself away from you two, but I must be leaving now." He bowed and stepped into the cabin, smiling to himself. He distinctly remembered his conversation with the young man, only the day before, when Tom had a.s.sured him with great earnestness that he no longer could resist the call of the emigrant trail and that he was going to follow it with the first outgoing caravan. The captain was well pleased by the change in the young man's plans, for he knew that the niece of his old friend would be safer on her long journey across the plains if Tom Boyd was a member of the caravan. He turned his steps toward the gaming tables to find her uncle, whom he expected would be surrounded by the members of a profession which Joe Cooper had forsaken many years before for a more reputable means of earning a living.

The reputation of "St. Louis Joe" was known to almost everyone but his niece; and the ex-gambler was none too sure that she did not know it.

While his name was well-known, there were large numbers of gamblers on both rivers, newcomers to the streams, who did not know him by sight; and it was his delight to play the part of an innocent and unsuspecting merchant and watch them try to fleece him. Not one of the professionals on the _Missouri Belle_ knew he was playing against a man who could tutor him in the finer points of his chosen art; but by this time they had held a conference or two in a vain attempt to figure why their concerted efforts had borne bitter fruit. One of them, smarting over his moderate, but annoyingly persistent losses, was beginning to get ugly.

While his pocketbook was lightly touched, his pride was raw and bleeding. Elias Stevens was known as a quick-tempered man whom it were well not to prod; and Joseph Cooper was prodding him again and again, and appearing to take a quiet but deep satisfaction in the operation. At first Stevens had hungered only for the large sum of money his older adversary had shown openly and carelessly; but now it was becoming secondary, and the desire for revenge burning in Stevens was making him more and more reckless in his play.

The careless way in which Joe Cooper had shown his money to arouse the avarice of the gamblers had awakened quick interest in others outside the fraternity, and other heads were planning other ways of getting possession of it. Two men in particular, believing that the best chance of stealing it was while the owner of it was on the boat, decided to make the attempt on this night. If the boat should remain tied to the bank their escape would be easy; and if it started before daylight they could make use of the yawl, which was towed most of the time, and always during a run after dark.