Two days later the ice had almost disappeared and the “Gazelle” left her snug berth for the last stretch of her journey to the Crescent City. The delay seemed to add to the yacht’s eagerness to be gone, for she sped on her way like a horse on its first gallop after a winter in the stable.
On, on she flew, drawing nearer to her goal, scarred from contact with ice, snags and sandbars, but still unhurt, triumphant. Surely the sun was rewarding their persistence; for he no longer hid his face from them, but shone out in all mellowness and geniality. Their worries fled at his warm touch, and their hearts sang his praises.
The “Gazelle” seemed glad as she forged ahead, as if to say, “Hurrah! I have conquered, I have stood old Mississippi’s bumps and jars! All these are of the past, and now for Old Ocean!”
Light after light was passed and marked off on the list, and soon the last one shone out. It had no name, so as they lustily gave three cheers for the last of the little beacons which had so long been their guides and dubbed it “Omega,” the “Gazelle” sped on with only the smoke of the great cotton market as a guide. New Orleans was in sight.
The pillars of smoke—the smoke of the city of their dreams—led them on. They could hardly realize that that dim cloud, that dark streak in the distance was really the city which they had striven so hard to reach.
A feeling of great satisfaction came over them as the “Gazelle” responded to the tiller, which was thrown hard down, and headed into the wind. A few flaps of the sails in the evening breeze, the sudden splash of the anchor forward, followed by the swir of the cable as it ran through the chocks, and the creaking pulleys as the sails were lowered, was the music in honor of the “Gazelle’s” successful voyage from far away Michigan to New Orleans.
The trip of one thousand eight hundred miles had been full of incident and some satisfaction, purchased, however, at the price of severe toil and many hardships, with a decided preponderance of troubles over pleasures. Sickness had visited the crew at a time when their location made medical aid impossible; the most severe winter recorded, accompanied with the ice packs and low stages of water, made it seem many times as if all hands were indeed candidates for admission into the realms of “Davy Jones’s locker.” But all this was now of the past; for here was the “Gazelle” anchored in a snug cove in the outskirts of the Southern metropolis safe and sound, the captain and crew strong, well, happy, and in all ways improved by their struggles.
The sun was still two hours high when Kenneth and Frank rowed ashore in “His Nibs” and scrambled up the steep side of the high levee which protects the city from inundation.
As they looked back on the “Gazelle” so peacefully riding at her anchorage, they felt like giving three lusty cheers for their floating home. Beyond the yacht and moored at the docks were two immense ocean-going steamships, while a short distance up the river was a full-rigged ship with loosened canvas falling in graceful folds from the yards. The scene was a pleasing one, and the two boys drank it in with all their eyes; they loved the sea, and these monster boats had a peculiar charm for them. But the “clang, clang” of a bell suddenly awakened them from their reverie, and they started in all haste to get down town for the mail they knew must be waiting.
The anchorage was at Carrollton, one of the suburbs of New Orleans, so the boys had a splendid opportunity of seeing the city on their long trolley-car journey to the main Post Office. The batch of mail that was handed out to them gladdened their hearts, and it took considerable resolution to refrain from camping right out on the Post Office steps and reading their letters. They remembered, however, their promise to Arthur and Clyde to bring back with them the wherewithal to make a feast in honor of their safe arrival in the Crescent City.