The bayou, the boat, the crew, came under my eyes.
Not the crew as I had noted it when taking my departure from Henry Woodley's plantation, for the four negroes were not seen. I saw only white men.
There were three of them. Two were Black and his confederate, Stinger. The other, a man unknown to me, but whose physiognomy and general appearance rendered him a fit associate for the two already named.
All these appeared busy as bees, though not occupied in the same manner. I first saw Stinger, who was engaged on that end of the flat where the steps led down into the caboose. He was scrubbing the roof-boards and apparently, also, the slips, with a brush in hand and a bucket standing beside him.
Crawling a little further along the branch, the other two came in sight. There was a staging from the flat to the shore. It sloped down to the bottom of a sort of doorway in the side of the boat. I could see that a half-score cotton-bales had been rolled across it, and lay upon the land. Among these Black, in his shirt-sleeves, and the strange man, were busy.
The flat, after all, had met with an accident, and they were unloading to prevent it from sinking. This was my first impression, and I began to think there had been a snag, and in some way or other I had been mistaken about the whole business.
I no longer wondered at the boat having been brought up the bayou. I only wondered at not seeing the negroes. There was not one of them visible. They might be inside the boat, assisting to get out the cotton. But then I should have heard their voices, or some noise they must necessarily have made, and there was none. Where could they be?
I had not been long looking on before I discovered that Black and his assistant were engaged in an operation that quite mystified me. As I have said, they were busy among the cotton-bales. With inquiring eyes I watched their proceedings. I saw the two take hold of a bale, unloose the ropes that bound it, rip off the "bagging" from one of its sides, and then stitch in its place another piece, after which the binding-cords were readjusted.
For some time I was puzzled by this singular proceeding, and it was only after a prolonged scrutiny that I could conjecture what it meant. At length, however, I arrived at the elucidation, strange and improbable as it appeared.
I observed that the pieces of canvas removed were from the sides that carried the plantation-mark and the name of the owner. I could make out the word "Woodley." On those that replaced them, which appeared in other respects precisely similar, I saw that there was a different mark, and a different name. In the large black lettering, I could read: "N. Bradley."