“I shed most sartinly a been drownded ef that ere cord had broken, or the eagles had got loose. As it war, the birds kep' beatin' the water wi' thar big wings; an' in that way hindered me from goin' under. I've heerd o' a woman, they called Veenis, bein' drawed through the sea by a couple o' swans; but I don't b'lieve they ked a drawed her at 'a' quicker pace than I war carried over the Massissippi. In less 'n five minits from the time I had dropped out o' the tree, I war in the middle o' the river, an' still scufflin' on. The baldies were boun' for the Arkansaw shore, an' knowin' that my life depended on thar reachin' it, I offered no opposition to thar efforts, but lay still and let 'em go it.
“As good luck wud hev it, they hed strength enough left to complete the crossin'; an' thar war another bit o' good luck in the Arkansaw bank bein' on a level wi' the surface o' the water; so that in five minits more I found myself among the bushes, the baldies still flutterin' about me, as if determined to carry me on over the great peraries. I feeled that it war time to stop the steam; so, clutchin' holt o' a branch, I brought up to an anchor. I tuk good care not to let the birds go,—tho' sartin I owed them that much for the sarvice they hed done me. But jest then I bethunk me o' the Englishman at Grand Gulf,—ah! it war you, ye say?”
“Certainly! And those are the eagles I purchased from Mrs. Stump?”
“Them same birds! Yer shed 'a' hed the young 'uns, but thar warn't no chance ever agin to climb that cyprus, an' what bekim o' the poor critters arterward I haint the most distant idee. I reckon they eended thar days in the neest, which ye can still see up thar, an' ef they dud, I reckon the buzzarts wudn't be long afore makin' a meal o' 'em.”
With my eyes directed to the top of that tall cypress-tree, and fixed upon a dark mass of dead sticks resembling a stack of faggots, I listened to the concluding words of this queer chapter of backwoods adventure.
Mayne Reid.
