Yes, they had killed buffalo; at least, Sandy had; and the youngster’s exploit on the bluff of the Republican Fork was glowingly narrated by the generous and manly Charlie. This story broke the ice with the newly met voyagers and, before the gong sounded for supper, the Whittier boys, as they still called themselves, were quite as well acquainted with the party from Baltimore, as they thought, as they would have been if they had been neighbors and friends on the banks of the Republican.
The boys looked in at the supper-table. They only looked; for although the short autumnal afternoon had fled swiftly by while they were chatting with their new friends or exploring the steamboat, they felt that they could not possibly take another repast so soon after their first real “tuck-out” on the “New Lucy.” The overloaded table, 222 shining with handsome glass and china and decked with fancy cakes, preserves, and sweetmeats, had no present attractions for the boys. “It’s just like after Thanksgiving dinner,” said Oscar. “Only we are far from home,” he added, rather soberly. And when the lads crawled into their bunks, as Sandy insisted upon calling their berths, it would not surprise one if “thoughts of home and sighs disturbed the sleeper’s long-drawn breath.”
Time and again, in the night-watches, the steamer stopped at some landing by the river-side. Now it would be a mere wood-pile, and the boat would be moored to a cottonwood tree that overhung the stream. Torches of light-wood burning in iron frames at the end of a staff stuck into the ground or lashed to the steamer rail shed a wild, weird glare on the hurrying scene as the roustabouts, or deck-hands, nimbly lugged the wood on board, or carried the cargo ashore, singing plaintive melodies as they worked. Then again, the steamer would be made fast to a wharf-boat by some small town, or to the levee of a larger landing-place, and goods went ashore, passengers flitted on and off, baggage was transferred, the gang-plank was hauled in with prodigious clatter, the engineer’s bell tinkled, and, with a great snort from her engines, the “New Lucy” resumed her way down the river. Few passengers but those who were to go ashore could be seen on the upper deck viewing the strange sights of making a night-landing. 223 And through the whole racket and din, three lads slept the sleep of the young and the innocent in room Number 56. “Just the number of the year with the eighteen knocked off,” Sandy had said when they were assigned to it.
When the boys had asked in Leavenworth how long the trip to St. Louis would be, they were told, “Three or four days, if the water holds.” This they thought rather vague information, and they had only a dim idea of what the man meant by the water holding. They soon learned. The season had been dry for the time of year. Although it was now November, little or no autumnal rains had fallen. Passengers from Fort Benton said that the lands on the Upper Missouri were parched for want of water, and the sluggish currents of the Big Muddy were “as slow as cold molasses,” as one of the deck-hands said to Sandy, when he was peering about the lower deck of the steamboat. It began to look as if the water would not hold.
On the second afternoon out of Leavenworth, as the “New Lucy” was gallantly sweeping around Prairie Bend, where any boat going down stream is headed almost due north, the turn in the river revealed no less than four other steamers hard and fast on the shoals that now plentifully appeared above the surface of the yellow water. Cautiously feeling her way along through these treacherous bars and sands, the “New Lucy,” with slackened speed, moved bravely down upon the stranded fleet. 224 Anxious passengers clustered on the forward part of the steamer, watching the course of events. With many a cough and many a sigh, the boat swung to the right or left, obedient to her helm, the cry of the man heaving the lead for soundings telling them how fast the water shoaled or deepened as they moved down stream.
“We are bound to get aground,” said Oscar, as he scanned the wide river, apparently almost bare to its bed. “I suppose there is a channel, and I suppose that pilot up there in the pilot-house knows where it is, but I don’t see any.” Just then the water before them suddenly shoaled, there was a soft, grating sound, a thud, and the boat stopped, hard and fast aground. The “New Lucy” had joined the fleet of belated steamers on the shoals of Prairie Bend.
The order was given for all passengers to go aft; and while the lads were wondering what they were so peremptorily sent astern for, they saw two tall spars that had been carried upright at the bow of the boat rigged into the shape of a V upside down, and set on either side of the craft, the lower ends resting on the sand-bar each side of her. A big block and tackle were rigged at the point where the spars crossed each other over the bow of the boat, and from these a stout cable was made fast to the steamer’s “nose,” as the boys heard somebody call the extreme point of the bow.
“They are actually going to hoist this boat over 225 the sand-bar,” said Sandy, excitedly, as they viewed these preparations from the rear of the boat.
“That is exactly what they are going to do,” said the pleasant-faced young man from Baltimore. “Now, then!” he added, with the air of one encouraging another, as the crew, laying hold of the tackle, and singing with a queer, jerky way, began to hoist. This would not avail. The nose of the boat was jammed deep into the sand, and so the cable was led back to a windlass, around which it was carried. Then, the windlass being worked by steam, the hull of the steamer rose very slightly, and the bottom of the bow was released from the river-bottom. The pilot rang his bell, the engine puffed and clattered, and the boat crept ahead for a few feet, and then came to rest again. That was all that could be done until the spars were reset further forward or deep water was reached. It was discouraging, for with all their pulling and hauling, that had lasted for more than an hour, they had made only four or five feet of headway.
“At the rate of five feet an hour, how long will it take us to spar our way down to St. Louis?” asked Charlie, quizzically.