Lewis, surprised at having Moses siding with him, cast a grateful look at him. The extreme gravity of the situation, however, was fully apparent to all. How to get so heavy a craft back into the river was a difficult problem. Once off the hammock, all hands, working together, might pole the ark back to the gap; but the strength of a hundred men would hardly have sufficed to force it against the torrent that poured through the gap in the bank.
MacAfee, who had made several voyages, thought that in four weeks the river would fall, and that perhaps by that time they might be able to haul back into the Mississippi. But Merrick and Kenton, and Obed Hargous, boatmen of experience, thought this unlikely.
“When we warp her out of this timber,” said Marion, “she will be strained and sprung so that we can’t keep her afloat. Probably, we’ll have to unload and take her to pieces, and put her together again on the river.”
“That will take months,” said Moses.
“One thing,” said Lewis. “The men in the skiff told me that the Spaniards have closed New Orleans. We couldn’t land our goods, even if we got there. There’s going to be a fight. The rivermen are drilling at Natchez, and troops are coming down from Kentucky and everywhere.”
“Is that true?” asked Marion.
“I expect so,” said Lewis. “I don’t see why they should make it up, do you?”
“I’ll take a skiff and go find out how things stand,” said Marion. His confidence for a moment had deserted him. He felt obliged to get away from the men who were looking to him to be told what to do next. The heavy shock of having their trip brought to so hopeless a termination almost unnerved him. He had hoped so much from this year’s voyage.
He launched his skiff at the edge of the hammock, Kenton and Moses shoving him off, and rowed away across the flooded savannah to the river bank.
When he returned, he confirmed all that the men in the skiff had told Lewis. There was at present no outlet for the cargoes that were collecting below Natchez. The rivermen were preparing to fight. As to the ark, he had talked to a number of barge captains, and they had suggested a project for getting the boat back into the river, when it should have been warped off the hammock.