"Hold on, stranger, I'll resky yo' in a minit," he yelled. When he drew nearer and Paul spoke to him, he appeared as tickled as a boy at a monkey show. "Wal, ef yo' aint jus' th' cutes' little cuss I ever seed paddlin' aroun' out here in the ice like a beaver."
However, he expressed much disgust, not to say contempt, when Boyton refused to land and take a drink of "Virginia's own Mountain Dew."
After hard work through the ice gorged river, Paul reached Wheeling and rested there until the next morning. On resuming the voyage he was frequently compelled to mount an ice cake to look for the best place to strike open water, where he could get at least enough paddling to keep up his temperature. While on one of those lookouts he heard the clear, ringing sound of an ax on the frosty morning air, wielded by the powerful arm of some hardy chopper. Looking along shore Paul discovered the wood cutter just about the same instant that worthy discovered him. The tall, lank West Virginian eyed the strange looking creature far a second, dropped the ax and started in a lope for his cabin. Suspecting that the curious landsman was going after his rifle, as it is customary for them to shoot at anything in the water they cannot understand, Boyton sounded a lusty blast on the bugle to attract the chopper's attention from the shooting iron. The man returned to the water's edge, loosened a flat bottomed boat from the ice and with an iron shod pole pushed out from shore toward Paul, who was rapidly approaching with the floe. As Boyton neared the woodcutter he thought, "Here comes another lantern-jawed individual who wants to ask me if I'm cold." To his surprise the man never opened his mouth, but ran his boat as close as he, could get it to the object of his curiosity and after a long stare turned his craft and began poling back to shore. When about twenty yards away he stopped as though he had forgotten some important matter, and seriously inquired:
"Say, mister, be yo' stuffed wuth cork or wind?"
"Wind," tersely answered the Captain.
He waited for no further reply, but poled solemnly and silently back to his cabin.
Below Pomeroy, Boyton, making his first all night run and feeling drowsy was moving along mechanically, when he was startled by hearing the paddle wheels of a steamer, which proved to be the Telegraph, bearing right on him. With all his energy he rose up and shouted: "Port, port, or I am a dead man."
Instantly the wheel was put over and the steamer glided by, barely missing him.
At six o'clock next morning, as he was nearing Gallipolis, he observed a boat putting out from one of the floating houses, or Jo-boats that are frequently met along the Ohio and Mississippi, containing two river gypsies. Boyton paid no attention to them until they were close behind. Then he stood up expecting to ask the time of day. He made that movement just in time, for one of the men, pale with excitement, was taking deliberate aim at him with a musket. Boyton yelled out a warning as the trigger was about to be pressed, and saved his life. The river pirate was profuse in his apologies.
"Great etarnal jeehosophat, straanger; I wouldn't a shot yer 'fur two dollars an' a half, I wouldn't, by golly, fur I'm loaded bang up ter th' muzzle with slugs fur geese. It were a narry escape fur me."