Prince Dusty: A Story of the Oil Regions

by Kirk Munroe

If it could only be got into the water, and should prove to be tight and sound, how easy and pleasant it would be to float down the river in it. Whenever they had gone as far as they saw fit by water, they could probably sell the boat for enough money to meet their expenses on the rest of the journey. It seemed a fine scheme, and Uncle Phin hastened to lay it before Brace Barlow and ask his advice concerning it.

The young man listened to it with great interest, and then they drove over to take a look at the stranded craft. After a careful examination, Brace said that, with a little calking of its seams, the boat could be made tight and river-worthy, and that Uncle Phin’s plan seemed to him a first-class one. He furthermore offered his own labor and the use of his team to help prepare the craft for its voyage, and get it once more afloat.

This offer was thankfully accepted, and the two succeeding days had been busy ones for both men and horses. It was found necessary to make several trips back and forth between Brace Barlow’s house and the “Ark,” as he called the boat. Then they calked her open seams, and smeared them thickly with pitch. They constructed a rude track of straight young tree-trunks, from the boat to the water, into which, aided by rollers, long levers, and the horses, they finally succeeded in launching her. After this they had the sweeps to make, and, as there was no stove, Uncle Phin built a fireplace in the middle of the floor, near one end of the cabin. This he did by forming a square of large rocks, filling it with small stones, and covering the whole with a thick layer of earth. They filled the bunks with sweet, fresh straw, and made pillows of the flour sacks stuffed with the same material. Brace Barlow covered one of these bunks with a coarse sheet and a blanket drawn from his own slender stock of household goods. Uncle Phin had his own bedding, that consisted of a thin old army blanket and a tattered comforter. He also had an axe, which was the only piece of valuable property that he possessed.

Then Brace Barlow bought several cooking utensils, a few dishes, and a small supply of provisions, to which he added potatoes and a dozen eggs from his own little farm.

When all this had been accomplished, the two men surveyed their work with great satisfaction, and nothing but his duty to his mother prevented Brace Barlow from joining the party and making the voyage down the river with them.

From information furnished by Uncle Phin the young man gained an idea that the greater part of their journey was to be performed by water, and that Dalecourt was somewhere in West Virginia, within a few miles of the point to which the ark could be navigated.

This was also Uncle Phin’s idea when he learned that the river on which his craft was launched flowed into the Ohio, which in turn washed one of the borders of West Virginia. This new name meant nothing to him. There had been but one Virginia when he left it, and even of its extent he had not the slightest conception. He imagined that, once within the borders of the State, it would be a simple matter to discover and reach his old home. All he knew of travelling and distances was, that when he followed his young mistress to New York, the journey occupied less than two days, and that the one from New York to the oil country had been accomplished in about the same space of time. So now, while he was well aware that a boat, drifting with the current, would not travel quite as fast as a train of cars, he did not, for a moment, doubt that two or three weeks or a month at the very most, would see them safely established beneath the stately magnolias of Dalecourt.

Had he known that between the place where they must leave their boat and their destination, there stretched a weary distance of nearly five hundred miles, much of which was across rugged mountain ranges, it is probable that even his stout heart would have shrunk from so great an undertaking. But he had no knowledge of this, and, as happily ignorant of what was before them as was his beloved “lil Marse,” now sleeping so peacefully on his bed of straw, the old man floated contentedly over the gleaming waters, and recalled bright pictures of the dear old home he hoped so soon to see.

The night was far advanced; he was worn out with the fatiguing labor of the preceding two days, there was no sound to disturb him, and so, after a while, his head sunk low over the steering oar, and ere long he too was fast asleep.

Thus, with no wakeful eye to determine her course, the Ark drifted on through the night; now in deep shadows of great hills or dark forests, then across long stretches of silvery moonlight; here caught by an eddy and turned slowly round and round; there held for a moment on the point of some glistening sand-bar from which she would slowly swing off and again move ahead.