The Phantom of the River

by Edward Sylvester Ellis

There were the poles used in handling the flatboat; there were bits of rope scattered about the bottom of the craft. He was sitting upon almost half a score of tough, thin sheets of linen; he was the possessor of a sharp knife and was dextrous in its use; and the wind was blowing almost a gale from the west, and therefore directly up stream; why not sail the flatboat up the Ohio?

This was the question which at first held the youth breathless with the very grandeur and magnitude of the scheme; but, as fully considered, it became simple and more practical.

Jethro was far from suspecting the real use to which his scheme could be possibly put. He knew and suspected nothing of the desperate straits in which his friends were placed at that very hour. He had an altogether different project in view.

"Dey're pickin' dar way frough de woods, whar it's dark, and habing all sorts ob trouble. Dey can't see tings, and dat makes it wusser; de one dat's walkin' at de head will be sartin to hab a limb cotch him under his chin and raise him off his feet; den he'll feel like sw'aring, but will be afeared to do so, 'cause de heathen might oberhear him and stop him, and make him explanify de meanin' of his discumvations.

"De tramp wouldn't be much if de sun war shinin' so dat dey could walk long widout steppin' on snakes. When dey see me come sailin' up de ribber, why, dey will be so pleased dat Mr. Altman won't—dat is, he won't obsist on my workin' so hard, and Mrs. Altman won't frow out so many digustin' hints 'bout de bigness ob my appertite."

Having labored up to his decision, Jethro Juggens threw away no time in carrying it out. It really seemed as if everything had been directed for the last hour or two to prepare this very course to him. The failure of the wooden box to serve him as an armor, and the resort to the sheets of linen, the turning of his steps toward the flatboat, and, above all, that strong, steadily-blowing west wind—many persons would have seen something more than a mere coincidence in these things, and who shall say that this view would not have been right?

The task that presented itself to Jethro Juggens, though a hard one, was by no means impossible. His keen-edged knife soon fashioned excavations in the soft planking at the sides, through which he passed some of the pieces of rope and fastened one of the poles in an upright position, or nearly so, for he was wise enough to place it so that it leaned backward like the masts of ordinary sailing vessels. He secured this as strongly as he could, and then did the same with the second pole on the other side, and directly opposite the first.

He had now two strong uprights or masts. He examined and tested them until certain that nothing more could be done to add to their firmness. Then he set to work to knot or tie a number of the sheets together at the corners, until a sail was fashioned of the right dimensions, and this, in turn, was secured to the masts.

He went about the business with that deliberation and care which marks the skilled workman. Almost any one, placed as he was, would have been hasty, nervous and unfitted to do a good job. It would have been neglected at some point, and, consequently, disaster would have come at the beginning of the enterprise. Jethro wrought as though such a thing as danger was not within a hundred miles, and that, too, when he had recently passed through some terrifying incidents.

When the work was completed, he had a sail containing something like fifty square feet, the sheets secured together with no little skill, and the masts so strongly set that they could be relied upon, unless some unusual cause interfered with them. The only probable contingency to cause misgiving was the wind.