Raftmates: A Story of the Great River

by Kirk Munroe

While these thoughts flashed through Winn's mind, his companion was clambering up over the low guards, and Bim's joyful welcome of his master was pitiful in its extravagance. The dog seemed to say, "I knew you would come if I only waited patiently and barked loud enough. Now you see why I couldn't leave."

The object to which Bim thus directed attention, as plainly as though possessed of speech, was a little curly-haired puppy, a Gordon setter, so young that its eyes were not yet opened.

Billy Brackett picked it up and dropped it over the side into Winn's arms. Then he tried to do the same by Bim; but, with a loud bark, the nimble dog eluded his grasp, and dashed away into the thick of the smoke. Tongues of flame were licking their cruel way through it, and as Bim emerged, his hair was scorched in yellow patches. He dragged out a dead puppy, laid it at his master's feet, and before he could be restrained had once more dashed back into the stifling smoke. Again he appeared, this time weak and staggering, every trace of his white coat gone. He was singed and blackened beyond recognition; but he was a four-footed hero, who had nobly performed a self-imposed duty. As he feebly dragged another little dead puppy to his master's feet, Billy Brackett seized the brave dog in his arms, and sprang over the side of the doomed steamboat into the waiting skiff. Tears stood in the young man's eyes as the suffering creature licked his face, and he exclaimed, "I tell you what, Winn Caspar, if this blessed dog isn't possessed of a soul, then I'm not, that's all!"

Meanwhile Winn was pulling the skiff swiftly beyond reach of danger. It was none too soon; for before they reached the raft, the glowing mass behind them reared itself on end as though making a frantic effort to escape its fate. Then, with a hissing plunge, it disappeared beneath the turbid flood of the great river. A second later there came a muffled explosion, and a column of water, capped by a cloud of steam, shot upward. At the same time the scene was shrouded in a darkness made absolute by the sudden extinguishing of the fierce light, while the silence that immediately succeeded the recent uproar seemed unbroken.

Then the momentary hush was invaded by the sound of many voices, some of which were uttering groans and cries of pain. A score of fortunates from the burned packet, who had been driven by the flames to the extreme after-end of the boat, where they were hidden from the view of those on the raft, had leaped into the water as they were swept past, and managed to reach it while Billy Brackett and Winn were away.

Now, by means of the skiff, others whose cries for help located them in the darkness were picked up. Many persons had escaped soon after the breaking out of the fire by means of the small boats and life-raft carried by the packet; while still others, comprising nearly half the ship's company, were lost. It was one the most terrible of the many similar disasters recorded in the history of steamboating on the Mississippi; and to this day the burning of the Lytle is a favorite theme of conversation among old river men.

When Glen Elting learned the name of the ill-fated craft, he started and turned pale. "The very packet for which we were waiting!" he cried, with bated breath. "Oh, Binney, how many things we have to be thankful for!"

"Indeed we have," answered the boy; "and not the least of them is that we are in a position to help these poor people, who have been overtaken by the misfortune that was reaching out for us."

These two were tearing sheets into bandage strips, and dressing wounds with the salve and ointments found in Major Caspar's medicine chest. Solon was providing a plentiful supply of hot-water over a roaring fire in the galley stove, and bustling about among the forlorn assembly, that, drenched and shivering, had been so suddenly intrusted to his kindly care. Billy Brackett and Winn rowed in every direction about the raft so long as there was the slightest hope of picking up a struggling swimmer.

Their last rescue was that of a man clinging to a state-room door, and so benumbed with the chill of the water that in a few moments more his hold must have relaxed. Beside him swam a dog, also nearly exhausted.