The ferryman closed his eyes and resumed his smoking. The others watched him intently. Meanwhile George was thinking. Two minutes more passed. The boy was recalling a saying of his father’s: “Sometimes you can taunt an obstinate man into doing things, where you can’t reason with him.”
“Time is up!” said Jenks, at last. “Come, boys, let’s make a break for the boat!”
The ferryman placed his pipe on the ground with the greatest composure. “Take the boat if you want,” he observed, rising to his feet, “but you fellows won’t get very far in it! Look there!”
He pointed up the river’s bank. The boy who had been sent away a few minutes before was coming back to the wharf; he was now, perhaps, a quarter of a mile away, but he was not alone. He was bringing with him five Confederate soldiers, who were walking briskly along with muskets at right shoulder.
“You fellows looked kind o’ troublesome,” explained the ferryman, “so as there’s a picket up yonder I thought I’d send my son up for ’em!”
Watson made a move towards the boat. “Better stay here,” cried the ferryman; “for before you can get a hundred feet away from the bank in this contrary stream those soldiers will pick you off with their muskets. D’ye want to end up as food for fishes?”
The men groaned in spirit. “It’s too late,” muttered Jenks. He could picture the arrival at Marietta of all the members of the expedition save his own party, and the triumphal railroad escapade the next day. And when the Northern newspapers would ring with the account of the affair, his own name would not appear in the list of the brave adventurers.
Suddenly George went up to the ferryman, and said, with much distinctness: “I see we have to do with a coward! There’s not a boatman in Kentucky who wouldn’t take us across this river. Even a Yankee wouldn’t fear it. But you are so afraid you’ll have to get your feet wet that you actually send for soldiers to protect you!”
George’s companions looked at him in astonishment. The boatman, losing his placidity, turned a deep red. “Take care, young fellow,” he said, in a voice of anger; “there’s not a man in Tennessee who dares to call Ned Jackson a coward!”
“I dare to call you a coward unless you take us over to Chattanooga!” answered the boy, sturdily. “You’re afraid—and that’s the whole truth!”