“There wasn’t a dissenting voice. They were all anxious, it seemed, to get on to their destination. I went down and gave the engineer his orders.
“‘Full steam ahead,’ I said a little angrily. ‘Give her all you’ve got. The commissioner and his party are in a hurry to get to Half Way House.’
“Soon after, when I went to the deck, the Lady Marian was thundering under my feet like a huge locomotive. We drove straight into a head wind, a furious storm of sleet and snow. It kept me busy trying to figure out where I was. Every little while, I was compelled to take soundings. The minutes and the hours slipped on. The night was black as a crow’s wing. Snow piling up in drifts along the deck—slippery as ice. Still no sight of Half Way House. I couldn’t see a light twinkling. I was certain that we must be close upon it by that time and finally I rang orders to the engineer to slow down and, a few minutes later, to stop altogether.
“Nearly frozen, I stood there like a lost child gazing out through the storm. One thing that worried me was the rate of speed we were drifting. I had never seen the current so swift here before. It literally boiled around us. When the steamer went forward again, the velocity of the current increased. Then two miles farther on, it became steadier, less precipitous.
“For a long time I stood out there on the deck, shivering, weary, disgusted, unable to account for the phenomenon. I knew the river like you gentlemen know a book. I had never run into anything like that before. Between Painter’s Ferry and Half Way House, such a current simply did not exist. Then suddenly, like a clap out of a blue sky, it struck me all at once. I got so blamed mad that I felt like jumping overboard. For the first time in all my life, I had committed an unpardonable error.”
“What was it?” asked Dick, unable to contain himself any longer.
With maddening deliberateness, the old river man silently filled and relighted his pipe. He turned toward his young questioner and grinned broadly.
“In the terrific storm and darkness,” he explained, “I had run completely past Half Way House and down an uncharted stretch of river six miles past the first portage. All things considered, I was mighty fortunate. If it had been a few weeks later, I would have run slap-dash into the rocks there at the portage.”
“Did you go back to Half Way House that same night?”
Captain Morrison laughed and shook his head.