By adroit steering and an occasional return to my sculling, we were fortunate enough to keep our distance from these other boats, and for the greater part of the day I had the pleasure of pointing out to Alisanda the beauties of the river scenery. Rightful in fact, and most appropriate in truth, is the interpretation which tells us that "Ohio" means "the beautiful river."
A day of clear, warm sunshine, marred by only one shower, gave us our first chance to share the ever-shifting views of headlands and rolling, wooded hills. Though the forest was as yet only half in leaf, and the height of the flood covered all other than the highest of the bottoms, the nature of the scene was an unending wonder to my companions, who in turn compared it with the sterile mountains of Old Spain and the deserts of New Spain. They could not liken it to the tamed woodlands of England; for, notwithstanding a generation of settlement, with the river long since the main artery of a great commerce, these banks were as yet in many places unbroken wilderness, the abode of elk and deer and wolf, of tigerish panther and lumbering bear.
High above us soared eagles and turkey buzzards, spying for carrion and live prey, each according to his nature, as they had soared and spied in the late sixties and early seventies, when Gist and Boone and the great Washington first threaded the untraced wilderness and skimmed downstream in their bark canoes to the dark and bloody hunting-grounds of the hostile tribes. Since then what vast changes had come over the land! What thousands of homesteads hewn out of the gloomy depths of beech and oak, walnut and maple forest! What scores of settlements and towns, ranging in size up to Cincinnati, with its three hundred and more houses, many of brick and stone, its fifteen hundred whites and thousand slaves, its genteel coaches and chariots, and its educational institutions!
Yet, aside from the slaughtered buffalo and the backward-driven savage, how small the change in the forest life! Along the rocky banks the deadly rattlesnake and copperhead still lay coiled in wait; the deer came timidly down to the water along old game traces where the panther still lurked; and flocks of screaming, chattering paroquets still flew up river from the southwest, their emerald plumage contrasting with the bright hues of the redbirds and woodpeckers, the orioles and kingfishers.
The following day, below the mouth of the Scioto River, we had view of one of the strangest sights of the West,—a flight of passenger pigeons. The flock passed upstream above the left shore in a dense column and with a tremendous roaring sound of their millions of wings. Though we were going in a contrary direction, hours passed before we saw the last stragglers of their amazing multitude, and this despite the fact that they are among the swiftest of birds. While making a southward bend of the stream, we came beneath them, the lowermost flying so near overhead that I was able to kill a number simply by flinging fagots among them. As their flesh, though dark, is choice eating, we enjoyed a most savory pie at the evening meal.
During the night the boat caught me nodding and gave itself into the grasp of an eddy, which held it fast for two hours or more. My regret over the delay was short-lived, since at dawn I made the welcome discovery that it had caused us to part company with the last of the cargo flotilla. The rivermen were well supplied with skiffs, and as some of them are not above theft and even outright piracy, I had spent most of these two nights in vigilant watch, with my rifle and Don Pedro's pistols charged and primed against a night attack.
Less welcome than the absence of such consorts was the cold rain which set in before dawn and lasted well along toward noon, with now and then a slashing drive of sleet. I spent the dreary hours fast asleep in my bunk, for Don Pedro insisted upon his right to share the hardships of our voyage.
When I turned out, the sun had burst through, and the leaden clouds were rolling away to the eastward. My first act was to sweep the Ohio shore with an anxious glance. The swiftly changing vistas of winding river and pleasant hills that undulated beneath their cloak of budding green, told me that we had entered upon the run of the Great Bend. By good fortune, I was just in time to sight the well-remembered hills of my childhood home. Another twist of the channel brought us in view of the Little Miami.
Cap in hand, I stepped to the side of the flat, and stood quiet and apart, gazing at the rough, white stone that rose clear against the sky-line on the first crest below the stream's mouth. What memories of childhood rushed in upon me! what bitterness and grief!
At last the envious river swept us around a masking hill. I turned slowly about, with all my heaviness plainly written in my look. Less than three paces behind me stood the señorita, her dark eyes fixed upon me with a soft pity far different from their usual mockery.