At this moment, the large ship-bell gave the signal for landing; the boat, too, approached the shore more and more, and there, in the shade of enormous cotton-wood trees and cypresses, stood an insignificant little log hut, almost concealed by immense piles of cordwood, and making its presence known merely by the blue smoke which arose from its clay-plashed chimney into the clear morning air.
The boat landed; across the planks, which were quickly shoved out, hurried away labourers, firemen, and deckhands, who were followed, although more slowly, urged on by rough language from the mate of the vessel, by the deck passengers, who, on board other boats, when they undertook to carry wood, merely had somewhat less to pay for their passage, but, on board the "Diana," were carried gratis, so that the task of wood-carrying should be speedily accomplished, and the journey not thereby delayed; it being important for that vessel to preserve her reputation as the fastest boat on the Mississippi.
It was a strange, bustling kind of life which thus suddenly intruded itself on the quiet forest hermitage. The clerk or business-man of the vessel, with a long measuring pole in his hand, sprang upon the piled up wood, and there measured off a certain number of cords, the boundary of which was marked by a couple of logs laid crosswise; the impatient workpeople then fell upon the cordwood like vultures on their prey, and hurried, each man with his load of six or seven long logs, down the steep bank again, on board, where they threw down the wood, and where other men stood in readiness to pile it regularly up. There might be some forty persons in all, who, like busy ants, swarmed out in an almost uninterrupted line over one plank, and returned, loaded, on board again over the other; and within twelve minutes about twenty cord were got on board. The farmer or wood-cutter had meanwhile received his money in the cabin above, and he was just engaged in taking a drop of whisky-punch at the bar, when the bell rang again for starting, and he hastily jumped down, in order not to be carried off with the boat.
The last of the labourers snatched up the remaining logs; another loosened the stern rope, the farmer himself remained forward beside the spring rope; the cry, "All aboard!" was heard, and the planks, seized by others of the sailors or deck hands, flew back.
"Go ahead!" cried the captain, from the upper deck—the rope struck into the water—other sailors stood forward near the bowsprit, and shoved off her head with long poles; and soon after, she was panting once more away on her course up stream.
"Are we still far from the mouth of the Halchee?" inquired Werner of young Helldorf, who had exchanged a few words with the American cordwood cutter.
"Scarcely five miles; we may be there within an hour," replied the other; "but I scarcely think that we shall be able to reach the settlement itself this evening."
"We had, perhaps, on that account, better remain at the mouth of the river, and start from thence early to-morrow morning," Schwarz suggested; "then we shall have no occasion to sleep in the open air."
"But lose half a day"—Werner quickly interrupted him. "What harm will it do us if we should pass one night under the open sky? You are, no doubt, used to it, and it won't hurt me either; at worst, one can only catch cold."
"Well," said Schwarz, with a smile, "I have no objection: your impatience appears to me very natural—therefore, let it be so. But, Helldorf, hadn't you better go up to the pilot again, that we may not pass the place by mistake; that would be a joke!"