The Jack-Knife Man

by Ellis Parker Butler

Peter limped back to his driftwood, but as he pushed through the leafless willows he dropped his gun and hobbled hastily toward the shanty-boat. Forced by the weight of river ice pressing in at the head of the slough, the slough ice was “going out,” and it was going out rapidly. Already, as far as Peter could see down the slough, the surface was covered with hurrying river ice, borne along by wind and current.

In his concern for the shanty-boat and Buddy, Peter forgot his ankle. He knew well the power of the ice, and he fought his way along the shore through the willow thickets, fearing at each glimpse to see the shanty-boat crushed against some great water-elm and heaped high with ice, and fearing still more to see nothing of it whatever. Once let the shanty-boat find the mouth of the slough and pass out into the broad Mississippi and, he well knew, he might have a long fight to overtake it. The boat might travel for days jammed in the floating ice, before he could reach it, or it might be crushed against some point or in some cove. What would then be Buddy's fate? What, indeed, might not be the boy's fate already, if he had been frightened by the grinding of the ice against the boat, by the snapping of the shore cable or by the motion of the boat, and had attempted to reach the shore? Peter beat the willow saplings aside with his arms as he tried to make haste, jumping into them and thrusting them aside like a swimmer.

In places the water had overflowed the feet of the willows, and through this Peter splashed unheeding. Once, in trying to keep outside the willow fringe, he would have slipped into the slough had he not saved himself by clinging to the bushes, and he was wet to the waist. Here and there the bank lay a foot or two higher, and there were no willows, but a tangle of dead grapevines impeded him. In other places the shore dipped and the water stood as deep as Peter's knees, and he crashed through the thin ice into icy water. He did not dare venture back from the shore lest he pass the shanty-boat, stranded against some tree.

Cold as the air was the sweat ran from Peter's face, and he panted for breath. To pass leisurely along the bank of such a slough is strenuous work, but to fight along it as Peter was fighting, is real man's work, and Peter—thin, delicate as he looked—was all iron and leather. For a mile and a half he worked his way, until he reached a great sycamore, known to all the duck hunters as the “Big Tree.” Below the Big Tree the slough widened into a broad expanse of water known as Big Tree Lake. Peter stopped short. In the middle of the lake, knee-deep in water and holding fast to a worn imitation-leather valise from which the water was dripping, stood a man. The shanty-boat, thrown out of the main current, had been pushed into shallow water, where it had grounded unharmed, and it was for the shanty-boat the man with the valise was making, swearing heartily each time he took a new step in the icy water. Peter yelled and the man turned, and looked back. At the first glimpse of the face Peter picked up a stout slab of driftwood.

The man wore the ragged remnant of a felt hat on a mass of iron-gray hair that hung over his beady eyes, and all his face but his eyes and a round red nubbin of a nose was hidden by a mat of brown beard. When he saw Peter he scowled and splashed recklessly toward the boat, swearing as he went.

The western side of the lake was overgrown with wild rice, a favorite feeding spot for the migrating ducks. Indeed, the entire lake was apt to disappear during very low water, leaving only sun-baked mud with the slough running along the eastern margin. Through the shallow ice-topped water Peter splashed after the tramp, breaking the ice as he went. Until he was well out in the lake the ice had not been broken, and Peter could not understand this. It was as if the tramp had jumped a hundred yards from the shore. But Peter did not give it much thought. He had something more important to think of.

The tramp had reached the shanty-boat and had clambered aboard, and with the pike pole Peter had left lying on the roof, was trying frantically to pole the boat off the bar into deeper water. A boat adrift is any one's boat, if he can keep it, and once the boat swung clear of the bar into deeper water the tramp could laugh at Peter. He rammed the pike-pole into the sand-bar and threw his weight upon it, straining and jumping up and down while Peter splashed toward him.

But the boat would not budge. The pike-pole found no grip in the soft sand of the bar, and Peter came nearer, holding up one arm to protect his head. He expected the tramp to strike him down with the heavy pike-pole, and he was ready to make a fight for it, but as Peter's hand touched the deck the tramp put down a hand to help him aboard.

“All right, pardner,” he said in a voice so gruff it seemed to come from great depths, “I'll give you half the vessel. I've been dyin' for company since I come aboard. It's lonely on this yacht.”

Peter grinned a grin he had when he was angry, that made his face wrinkle like a wolf's.