XVII.
THE BUSY NOTE OF PREPARATION.
"Peggin' away, all hands, eh? I never heard such a swishing of handsaws and banging of hammers; you make more noise than ten navy yards. How you getting along?"
"Not so briskly as I could wish; we are under contract to finish fifteen of these large batteaux, besides a sixty-foot keelboat by December."
"Sassyfax! Fifteen? What for?"
"To carry colonists down the Mississippi to the Wachita lands. The big keelboat is to transport provisions."
"You don't say! Now, how many men will them fifteen boats accommodate, when they're done? 'Bout thirty to a boat?"
"Yes; thirty or forty; we calculate the whole fleet will carry five hundred men."