George at the Wheel; Or, Life in the Pilot-House

by Harry Castlemon

"We'll put a detective after him, and find out everything he has done since Clayton discharged him. Don't you think that would be the best way, skipper?"

"There is no need of it," was the reply. "I know pretty nearly what he has done since he has been on board this boat, and that's enough for me. Don't look so down-hearted, George. I told you that the blame should be placed right where it belonged, and I have kept my word. Murray is the guilty man!"

Without paying any attention to the exclamations uttered by his auditors, the captain gave a hurried account of all the incidents that had happened since the Telegraph left Helena, and the story, while it cleared George, confirmed the suspicions that every one of them had entertained from the moment it became known that he was suspected of robbing the safe. The young pilot was almost overwhelmed by the congratulations he received, and it is hardly necessary to add that he cherished the strongest feelings of gratitude toward the men who had stood by him and believed in him when everything seemed to point to him as the guilty one.

George never saw Murray after that. In fact, nobody seemed to think of him, until the boat had left Cairo and was well on her way toward St. Louis, and then some one asked, merely out of curiosity, where he kept himself ever since the captain ordered him out of the office. Even Walker couldn't tell. At Murray's request he had assigned him to a stateroom, and he had not seen him since he went into it. An examination showed, that the stateroom was empty, although the lower bunk looked as though it had been occupied.

"He's all right; you may depend upon it, Ackerman," said Walker, who had lost no time in making things straight with George. "I know, as well as I want to know it, that he left the boat at Memphis. As we got there in the night, it was no trouble at all for him to step off without being seen by anybody."

The clerk was right. That was just the way that Mr. Murray had taken, to avoid the troubles that would certainly have befallen him if he had gone on to St. Louis. George never heard of him again, as long as he stayed on the river.

Mr. Black was not out of a "job" more than two days after he reached St. Louis. Another of Mr. Richardson's boats, the Benefit, was about to start for New Orleans, and he was one of the pilots who was engaged to take her down and bring her back. The other was Mr. Scanlan, who afterward went down the river with Mr. Black and George on the ill-fated Sam Kendall. Mr. Scanlan spent all his time ashore, Mr. Black stayed at home with his family, and George was left to take the boat up to the coal-fleet. He could not help thinking of the company he had the last time he went up there, and wondered where Tony was now, and whether he was not sorry he had ever run away from home; for by this time it had become known, that he had not been killed by Mr. Vandegriff's negroes, as everybody at first believed. He had been heard from at Cairo. From that city he had written to Mr. Vandegriff, that he was about to strike out for himself; and he had sent that gentleman all his money, with the exception of fifty dollars, which he had kept out for his own use. Unfortunately the report had became raised abroad, that Tony had stolen those fifty dollars; but that was something that George could not believe. It was not like Tony.

The Benefit arrived at New Orleans late one afternoon, and when George had eaten his supper, he strolled out to take a look about the levee. When he came back to his boat he did not go aboard, but seated himself on a bale of cotton to watch a gulf steamer that was getting under way. While he looked at her, he thought of Tony Richardson.

"I suppose that foolish fellow is on deep water by this time, and supping sorrow with a big spoon," soliloquized George, as he put his hands under his legs and kicked his heels against the bale of cotton. "I don't know anything about a sailor's life, but from what I have heard and read of it, I should say it was the very life for which Tony is the most unfitted. There goes a sailor now. I wish Tony could have seen him before he ran away."

The subject of these thoughts was a young fellow who just then came sauntering along with his hands in his pockets. His face was covered with coal-dust, his clothing was very dirty and ragged, and his shoes were almost ready to drop from his feet. When he came opposite to the place where George was sitting, he caught sight of the strip of canvas which was stretched around the railing of the Benefit's hurricane deck, bearing the words, "For St. Louis." He looked at it for a moment, and then walked toward the gang-plank, still keeping his gaze directed toward the strip of canvas, which presently came within range of the steamer's name on the pilot-house. When the sailor saw that, he faced about at once and started up the levee again, this time walking pretty rapidly; but before he had made many steps, he felt George Ackerman's grasp upon his arm.