The Phantom of the River

by Edward Sylvester Ellis

"I got my last sickness that time, parson—it's all up—good-by!"

The missionary would have said more, would have prayed with the fellow, despite the terrifying peril around him, had there been time to do so, but Jim Deane was dead.

"God rest his soul!" murmured the good man, gently laying down the head, and drawing the body as closely as he could to the gunwale, where it would be out of the way.

As from the first, the missionary exposed himself with the utmost recklessness, and, where the bullets were hurtling all about him, the wonder was that he had not already been struck; but the life of Rev. J. B. Finley was one of sacrifice, peril, suffering and hardship, in which his last thought was for himself. He was ready for the call of the dark angel, whether he came at midnight, morning, or high noon, and the angel did not come until after the lapse of many years, when the scenes such as we are describing had long passed away.

A strange and for a time wholly unaccountable occurrence took place near the stem of the flatboat, only a moment before Jim Deane was mortally smitten.

Simon Kenton had just withdrawn his attention from Jethro Juggens and his canoe, and was looking toward the bank at his elbow, when he uttered an exclamation, the meaning of which no one caught, or, if he did, failed to notice it in the tumult and hullabaloo. At the same moment the ranger gathered his muscles into one mighty effort, and made a leap toward shore.

Superb as was his skill in this direction, the distance was too great to be covered, and he stuck in the water, but so near land that he sank only to his waist. He struggled furiously forward, seemingly in the very midst of the Shawanoes, and was immediately lost to sight.

There was no time to inquire the meaning of this extraordinary action, and no one suspected it, but it became apparent within a brief space of time.

It was at this juncture that several noticed the wind had risen again. It was blowing not so strongly as before, but with sufficient power to start the flatboat slowly up stream. Boone called to all to keep down, while he, crouching close to the stern, held the oar so that it helped steer the craft into mid-stream.

The missionary did the same with the forward sweep, and, impelled by the wind, the craft slowly forged away from the Kentucky and toward the Ohio shore.