Obediently Rod gathered up her rugs and cushions. Carefully he and the captain helped her up the swaying corkscrew stairs, across the dizzy, rain-swept hurricane deck, then up the still narrower, more twisty flight that ended at the door of the high glass-walled box, perched like a bird-cage, away forward.
Inside that box stood a large wooden wheel, and a small, twinkling, white-bearded old gentleman, who looked for all the world like a Santa Claus masquerading in yellow oilskins.
"Ask him real pretty," cautioned the captain. "He thinks he runs this boat, and everybody aboard her. He does, too, for a fact."
With much ceremony Roderick rapped at the glass door, and asked permission for his sister to enter. With grand aplomb the little old gentleman rose from his wheel and ushered her up the steps.
"'Tis for fifty-four years that I and me pilot-house have been honored by the ladies' visits," quoth he, with a stately bow. "Ye'll sit here, behind the wheel, and watch me swing herself up the river? Sure, 'tis a ticklish voyage, wid the river so full of floatin' ice. I shall be glad of yer gracious presence, ma'am. It will bring me good luck in me steerin'."
Marian's eyes danced. She fitted herself neatly into the cushioned bench against the wall. The pilot-house was a bird-cage, indeed, hardly eight feet square. The great wheel, swinging in its high frame, took up a third of the space; a huge cast-iron stove filled one corner. For the rest, Marian felt as if she had stepped inside one of the curio-cabinets in the cabin below; for every inch of wall space in the bird-cage was festooned with mementoes of every sort. A string of beautiful wampum, all polished elks' teeth and uncut green turquoise; shell baskets, and strings of buckeyes; a four-foot diamond-back rattlesnake's skin, beautiful and uncanny, the bunch of five rattles tied to the tail. Close beside the glittering skin hung even an odder treasure-trove: a small white kid glove, quaintly embroidered in faded pink-and-blue forget-me-nots.
"Great-Aunt Emily had some embroidered gloves like that in her trousseau," thought Marian. "I do wonder——"
"Ye're lookin' at me keepsakes?" The pilot sighted up-stream, then turned, beaming. "Maybe it will pass the time like for me to tell ye of them. There is not one but stands for an adventure. That wampum was given to me by Chief Ogalalla; a famous Sioux warrior, he was. 'Twas back in sixty-wan, and the string was the worth of two ponies in thim days. Three of me mates an' meself was prospectin' down in western Nebraska. There came a great blizzard, and Chief Ogalalla and three of his men rode up to our camp, and we took them in for the night."
"And he gave you the wampum in payment?"
"Payment? Never! A man never paid for food nor shelter on the plains. No more than for the air he breathed. 'Twas gratitude. For Chief Ogalalla had a ragin' toothache, and I cured it for him. Made him a poultice of red pepper."