Dark had completely fallen when they heard a tremendous roar, reverberating and reëchoing over the forest far ahead. It was the steamboat coming from Mobile, but she was still miles away. They heard her powerful whistle again and again, and at last beheld a shaft of white light playing on the trees, shooting into the sky, like a small, brilliant aurora. It was the boat’s searchlight, picking out the intricate land-marks of the channel, but the steamer was still far distant, and it was not for almost an hour that she really came in sight around a curve a mile below.
For half an hour they had seen her as a pale luminosity reflected on the sky through the trees, and she was an imposing spectacle as she swept around the curve, looking like a great white glow on the water, with the long dazzling shaft of the search-light shooting ahead. As she came closer they made out the red glare of her furnaces on the lower deck, the rows of lighted cabin windows, the glass pilot-house high over all where the steersman manipulated the searchlight. Her tall chimneys rolled out black smoke and sparks, and they heard the pounding of her engines and the “crash-crash” of her stern paddle-wheel.
“She isn’t going to run us down, is she?” exclaimed Bob.
The houseboat was certainly a big enough object for the pilot to see. For an instant the searchlight rested on them blindingly, then flickered away. The boat came on, blazing and roaring; she was going to pass several yards to the west, and would have paid no further attention to the houseboat, but Joe snatched up Bob’s rifle, fired three shots in the air, and shouted.
The search-light turned on them again, dazzling, questioningly. The steamboat slowed, and somebody hailed them roughly.
“We want a tow!” Joe yelled.
He knew that these river boats would carry anything or tow anything that they were paid for. There was a little delay, and then the steamer sheered over toward them. They could see the black, interested faces of the roustabouts along the rail, and somebody threw a heavy rope. The houseboat jarred against the steamer’s side, and the hawser was pulled tight. On account of the stern-wheel, towing had to be done alongside and not astern.
Joe stepped aboard the steamer, edged through piles of freight on the lower deck, and made his way to the forward stairway, intending to interview the captain. There were very few passengers aboard, and at the top of the stairway almost the first face he saw was a most familiar one.
“Mr. Burnam!” he exclaimed.
“Why, Joe Marshall!” returned the turpentine operator, in equal surprise. “What on earth are you doing here? Taken to house-boating? And whatever have you been doing to yourself?” gazing at Joe’s tattered and muddy clothing.