Captain Bayley's Heir: A Tale of the Gold Fields of California

by G. A. Henty

"Well, thar war two sorts, you see, at that time. Five-and-twenty years ago the settlements on the river war a long way apart. You might go fifty miles without seeing a village when you once got past the plantations on the lower river; you may say as this region then was like what Kansas is now. Chaps who had made it too hot for them in the east came out here, and just had to wrestle round for a living. New Orleans is pretty bad now, but it was a sight worse then; and St. Louis was a pretty hard place. Then, too, thar war runaway slaves. So you see, one way or the other, a fellow who wanted to get together a band up to any mischief had not to look far for men.

"Well, as I said, thar war two sorts. Thar war the men who lived away from the river, say in the low country between the Arkansas and the main stream, which was then pretty nigh all swamp and forest; perhaps they had hosses, perhaps not, but mostly they had. Well, one fine morning a dozen of them would ride into one of the villages on the river. Thar wasn't much to take thar, you know, onless it war fever, and they had enough of that in thar own swamps. They would wait, may be, for a day or two, till a boat came in, and as soon as it had made fast they would cover the men with thar rifles, and just empty it of all it had got—powder, blankets, groceries, and dry goods, and what not—and make off again. I got my cargo lifted, I should say, a dozen times that way. It war onpleasant, but thar was nothing for it; and it warn't no use making a fuss when you saw half a dozen rifles pinted at you. Why, in the early days of steamers, more than once they got held up, and the fellows went through the passengers and cargo and took what they fancied.

"Well, that was one sort of pirate. The other was what you may call the regular water pirate. They lived on the islands, in among the back-waters, or where-ever thar might be a patch of raised ground among the swamps, and had boats; and they would attack you at night as you war dropping down the stream or poling up the backs. They war wuss nor the others. A sight more nor half of 'em war blacks; and good reason why, for the fevers carried off the whites as joined them before they had been thar long. They was a powerful bad lot, and those who fell into thar hands hadn't much chance of thar lives. The runaway slaves war down on a white man, and he had no marcy to expect at thar hands; besides, they didn't want no tales told which might scare boats from going near the places where they war hiding. So in general they fust emptied the boats, and then scuttled and sunk them, and cut the throats of all on board. Hundreds of boats war missed in those days, and none ever knew for sartin what had become of them.

"I tell you one had to keep one's eyes open in those days. We had strong crews, and every man was armed, and a pretty sharp lookout was kept; but for all that thar was places, back-waters, and cuts, and such like, whar I wouldn't have been stuck in after dark, not for all the money in Orleans. Even in the open river no one was safe from 'em, for they got so bold they would go out, four or five boat-loads, and attack in broad daylight; things got so bad that no one dared go up or down, unless it was ten or twelve boats together for protection. It war the steamers as broke 'em up; thar ain't no stopping a steamer, and every one took to being towed up or down. Then the population increased, and regular expeditions war got up to hunt 'em down. Altogether it got made too hot for 'em, and the game didn't pay; but for some years, I can tell you, they war a terror to the river."

"And were you never attacked, Hiram?"

"I was chased several times," Hiram said; "but I had a fast boat and a good crew, and we generally had four white men on board then, and plenty of arms. Yes, we had some skirmishes, but it was only once I had a regular set-to with 'em, and that war a pretty bad job."

"How was it, Hiram?"

"Well, you see, the river was pretty full, and the wind had been light for some time, and there warn't no way of making against the main stream; I had waited for three weeks, and me and my mates got sick of it. We had a cargo which was due up the river, and we made up our minds at last that we would push on and take our chance. We had eight negroes, all strong active fellows, armed with cutlasses and old ship muskets, and we four whites had rifles and pistols. We allowed we could make a good fight of it, so we agreed as we would go up the back-waters, so managing as to be able to get out into the stream every night and anchor thar. We shifted the cargo a bit, so as to pile it up round the sides, stowing the rice-bags so as to make a sort of breastwork; then off we started.

"For some days we got along well; the blacks poled thar best, and every evening we just hit a pint where we could go out into the stream agin. Two or three times we fancied we war watched, for we heard the snapping of twigs, and sounds in the thick swamp jungle ahead; but I reckon they thowt better of it when they saw two rifle-barrels peeping out from the sacks on each side, and saw we war ready for a tussle. But one day—it wasn't very far from the pint where we mended up that boat the other day—we war later than usual; the stream war stronger than we reckoned on, we had run aground two or three times on the mud, and it war getting dark, and we had two miles yet before we got to a place where we could get out into the river. The blacks war working thar hardest; it didn't need no words from us to keep 'em at it, for they knew as well as we did what was the danger, and the boat just flew along that narrow channel."

"We war on the watch, with our eyes fixed on the bank, and our ears pretty wide open to catch any sound ahead. All of a sudden a gun was fired close alongside. The blacks gave a yell, and would have jumped down into shelter, only I shouted, 'Stick to your poles, men; if you lose them we are done for; there's no danger, it's only one man.' So on we went again, for, luckily, no one was hit. 'That's a signal,' Bill, says I to one of my mates; 'I reckon we shall have trouble afore we are out of this.' On we went, flying between the bushes, which warn't fifteen yards apart. Not a sound was heard but the panting of the blacks, the splash of their poles in the water, and a sort of sighing noise behind, as the ripples the boat made as she glided along rustled among the boughs which dipped down into the stream.