The two boys got on deck and out of range of the mate’s rapid fire of invective as soon as they could. As luck would have it, they ran up against a pilot the first thing, to whom they told something of their trip. This the boys found, as usual, to be an open sesame, and their newly discovered friend showed them over the steamboat, and pumped them for stories about their trip. From the hold, which was hardly seven feet deep, to the hurricane deck and the pilot house they went. The wheel house reached, the pilot was in his own domain, and he made them sit down while he pumped them dry. He marvelled that a boat of the “Gazelle’s” draught could come through at this stage of the water, with only sails for motive power.
From the great brass-bound steering wheel to the tall boilers, which could not find room in the hold, and showed half their circumference above the first deck, the boat was full of interest to the young voyagers.
“Jiminy! what a lot she carries,” Clyde exclaimed, as he noticed the pile of cotton bales, boxes and barrels which was rapidly growing, till it seemed as if it would fill the boat from her blunt bow to stern post.
“She’ll carry a thousand tons without turning a hair,” said the pilot calmly, as he shook their hands. “Tell your captain to come aboard if he cares to.”
Ransom did “care to,” and he went over the craft from keel to flagstaff; noticed her construction, and marvelled at her shallowness—it was part of his business as well as his pleasure, and he wondered how the steamboat mate’s talk would sound if the oaths were left out. He imagined it would simply be intermittent silence.
In describing it afterwards, he said that the mate’s language was like a rapid-fire gun with a plentiful supply of blank ammunition.
Arthur improved rapidly, and by the time they had explored Memphis—visited its fine old Southern mansions, the busy cotton market, and hobnobbed with the steamboat people—he seemed much more like his old self, though his painful thinness and weakness showed how seriously ill he had been.
After staying at Memphis for ten days, the “Gazelle” spread her sails, and slipped down the river on her way to the sea.
At Peters, Arkansas, the boys spied a cabin boat tied up in a little cove, and there was a big “26” painted on its side.
“Well, this is luck!” said Kenneth. “There are the chaps we saw above Philadelphia Point. Hail them, Frank.”