"Ah! that's something like music," exclaimed Captain Crayme, as Fred paused suddenly to repair a broken string. "I never hear that but I think of Wesley Treepoke, that used to run the Quitman; went afterward to the Rising Planet, when the Quitman's owners put her on a new line as an opposition boat. Wess and I used to work things so as to make Louisville at the same time—he going up, I going down, and then turn about—and we always had a glorious night of it, with one or two other lively boys that we'd pick up. And Wess had a fireman that could fiddle off old 'Natchez' in a way that would just make a corpse dance till its teeth rattled, and that fireman would always be called in just as we'd got to the place where you can't tell what sort of whisky 'tis you're drinking; and I tell you, 'twas so heavenly that a fellow could forgive the last boat that beat him on the river, or stole a landing from him. And such whisky as Wess kept! used to go cruising around the back country, sampling little lots run out of private stills. He'd always find nectar, you'd better believe. Poor old boy! the tremens took him off at last. He hove his pilot overboard just before he died, and put a bullet into Pete Langston, his second clerk—they were both trying to hold him, you see—but they never laid it up against him. I wish I knew what became of the whiskey he had on hand when he walked off—no, I don't either; what am I thinking about? But I do, though—hanged if I don't!"
Fred grew pale: he had heard of drunkards growing delirious upon ceasing to drink; he had heard of men who, in periods of aberration, were impelled by the motive of the last act or recollection which strongly impressed them; what if the captain should suddenly become delirious, and try to throw him overboard or shoot him? Fred determined to get the captain at once upon the guards—no, into the cabin, where there would be no sight of water to suggest anything dreadful—and search his room for pistols. But the captain objected to being moved into the cabin.
"The boys," said the captain, alluding to the gamblers, "are mighty sharp in the eye, and like as not they'd see through my little game, and then where'd my reputation be? Speaking of the boys reminds me of Harry Genang, that cleaned out that rich Kentucky planter at bluff one night, and then swore off gambling for life, and gave a good-by supper aboard the boat. 'Twas just at the time when Prince Imperial Champagne came out, and the whole supper was made of that splendid stuff. I guess I must have put away four bottles, and if I'd known how much he'd ordered, I could have carried away a couple more. I've always been sorry I didn't."
Fred wondered if there was any subject of conversation which would not suggest liquor to the captain; he even brought himself to ask if Crayme had seen the new Methodist Church at Barton since it had been finished.
"Oh, yes," said the captain; "I started to walk Moshier home one night, after we'd punished a couple of bottles of old Crow whisky at our house, and he caved in all of a sudden, and I laid him out on the steps of that very church till I could get a carriage. Those were my last two bottles of Crow, too; it's too bad the way the good things of this life paddle off."
The captain raised himself in his berth, sat on the edge thereof, stood up, stared out of the window, and began to pace his room with his head down and his hands behind his back. Little by little he raised his head, drooped his hands, flung himself into a chair, beat the devil's tattoo on the table, sprang up excitedly, and exclaimed:
"I'm going back on all the good times I ever had."
"You're only getting ready to try a new kind, Sam," said Fred.
"Well, I'm going back on my friends."
"Not on all of them; the dead ones would pat you on the back, if they got a chance."