The Story of Duciehurst: A Tale of the Mississippi

by Charles Egbert Craddock

Long, long he stood at gaze, watching in the direction of the bar, his ear keenly attentive, aware that he could hear from far the slightest impact of a paddle on that silent surface. But the wind was rising now; the mists, affrighted, spread their tenuous white wings and flitted away. Presently there lay visible before him, vaguely illumined by the light of a clouded moon, the vast spread of the tossing turmoils of the sky, the dark borders of the opposite bank, the swift swirling of the great river, and the white structure of the steamboat, rising dimly into the air on the sand-bar. Her lights were faint now, lowered for the night; the vague clanking of the dynamo came athwart the currents; still the surface of the waters showed no gliding craft, and listen as he might he heard no measured dip of paddle.

Once more he betook himself back to the shack and found Connover and Jorrocks seated on the outer stair. They evidently had no faith in the adage of honor among thieves, and albeit they had alternately enjoyed the refreshment of a nap in the bunks of the cabin one remained always vigilant as to the movements of Binnhart. As the night wore on and naught was developed both had taken up a position on the outer stair and alertly awaited the crisis.

Dan Berridge and his father were but poor exemplifications of the sybarite, but the paramount instincts of self-indulgence overpowered their hope of loot, and their doubt of the fair-dealing of their co-conspirators, and in their respective bunks they snored as noisily as if in the sleep of the just.

Jessy Jane alone took note of the fact that, but for their disclosure of the somnolent talk of the stranger, the others would have known naught of the possibility of the discovery of the hidden valuables at Duciehurst and she resented the chance that they would profit to the exclusion of her and hers. She remained in the dark in the back room of the little cabin, but up and dressed, now and again listening intently for any stir of movement or sound of voices. When she heard the heavy tread of Jorrocks and Connover tramping to the outer stair as they relieved each other’s watch, she would set the communicating door ajar to thrust in her tousled red head to spy upon their motions, withdrawing it swiftly. Now she perceived through the dim vista of the room the square face of Jorrocks against the gloom of the night, looking at her with calculating, narrowing eyes, evidently appreciating the full significance of her espionage, and, beyond still, a vague shadowy outline which she recognized as Jasper Binnhart’s profile. She closed the door with a bang, partly in pettishness and partly through embarrassment, at the moment that Binnhart grew stiff and rigid, motionless in excitement. He had sighted a canoe down the river, which was shining in a rift of the clouds, a mile, nay, two, below the landing for which it was bound. Thus she did not see his wild, silent gesture of discovery, his hand thrown high into the air. Its muscles became informed with a mandatory impulse as he beckoned to Jorrocks and Connover to follow and set forth in a dead run for the water’s side.

A skiff was lying there scarcely discernible in the vague light. It belonged to the shanty-boater, and into it the owner threw himself, grasping the oars, the other two with less practiced feet tumbled into the space left available, and the craft shot out from the land under the swift, strong strokes of the shanty-boater, rowing as if for a purse. There was a belt of pallor along the horizon. A sense of dreary wistfulness, of sadness, lay on the land, coming reluctantly into view. The clouds hung low and menacing, although the wind still was high. The dawn was near, or even the practiced eyes of the river pirates might not have distinguished the dugout, seeking to cross the great expanse, yet being carried by the strong current further and further down the river from its objective point.

“See her now?” asked Jorrocks, resolutely rowing and never turning his head.

“Well out todes mid-stream,” replied Binnhart. “Nigh to swampin’, too. Git a move on ye, Jorrocks, git a move on ye.”

After a contemplative moment he suddenly threw himself on another pair of oars and the combined strength of the two men sent the light boat shooting like an arrow down the surface of the river upon the craft, evidently having shipped water and beginning to welter dangerously, showing a tendency to capsize, the trick so frequently practiced by the faithless dug-out.

“Hello, sport!” called out Binnhart, as soon as he was within earshot. “You’ll go to the bottom in three minutes unless you can swim agin the Mississippi current better than I can. Will you have a lift?”

The stranger’s exhausted face showed ghastly white in the dull, slow light. His wide, dark eyes were wild and suspicious. There was something in their expression that sent a chill coursing down the spine of the impressionable Connover, his shaken, exacerbated nerves all on edge from his constant potations, as well as from the excitements of this experience and the strain of his long vigil. The stranger scanned them successively, keeping the canoe in place by an occasional dip of the paddle. It might seem as if he debated the alternative—Davy Jones’s locker or a place among these boat-men. When he spoke his reserved gentlemanly tone struck their attention.