"Bring Me His Ears"

by Clarence Edward Mulford

"God 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 lusty 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 père 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 père 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 principal trading posts up the river. They are a great advance over the bullboat, which preceded them."

"And which are still in use, makeshifts 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.