De Hauteroche was furious—half frantic when I imparted to him my convictions; for, although the source whence the 1,000 dollars had come, was still a mystery to him, yet there was the proof of its having been sent, and the presumption of its having been stolen.
The New Orleans police were at once put in charge of the matter; and, as no communication could possibly reach Saint Louis sooner than by the Sultana, it was resolved that we ourselves should be the bearers of the answer, and call upon the banking-house of Gardette and Co, the moment we arrived in that city.
Detectives were set upon the search for Despard, but of course only as spies—since as yet we could allege nothing stronger than suspicion against him. The espionage, however, was likely to prove unsuccessful: for up to the hour of the Sultana’s leaving—which occurred just at sunset—the sportsman’s whereabouts had not been ascertained; and the detectives, in quaint phraseology, declared their belief that the “gentleman was G.T.T.” (Gone To Texas).
Story 2, Chapter XII.
The Missouri Belle.
The traveller who ascends the mighty Mississippi, will see neither hill nor mountain—nothing that can he called highland—until he has attained a thousand miles from its mouth. Only the bold headland on which stands the town of Natchez, and those very similar projections known as the “Chickasaw Bluffs,” one of which forms the site of the flourishing city of Memphis. All the rest, on both sides of the river, as far as the eye can reach, is low alluvion, rising only a few feet above the surface of the stream, and often, for hundreds of miles, periodically drowned by inundation, or covered continuously by a stagnant marsh. The forest hides all this from the eye; and frequently the banks of the river have the appearance of dry land, when there is not a spot of earth upon which you may rest your foot.
This character continues till you have passed the mouth of the Ohio, and have entered upon the regions of Missouri and the Illinois. There the scene changes as if by magic. The river no more appears wandering over a flat country; but runs in the bottom of a deep gorge or valley, whose sides are nearly precipitous—often rising to the height of hundreds of feet above the surface of the water.
We had been six days steaming up the river; and on the seventh at sunset, the Sultana reached the highland region, entering the gorge-like valley, just as night was closing over it.