The Last of the Flatboats
Page 10
CHAPTER IX
WHAT HAPPENED AT LOUISVILLE
Just before the landing was made at Louisville, Jim Hughes was seizedwith an attack of cramps and took to his bunk, where he remained untilnear the time for the boat to be afloat again. The boys had feared thathe might go ashore there and get a new supply of liquor, and they hadeven made careful plans to prevent him from bringing any aboard. Hissudden sickness rendered all their plans superfluous.
At Louisville Phil got a fresh supply of newspapers, giving all thelatest news concerning the great bond robbery, and took them aboard toread at leisure. He learned that there was no need of hiring a pilot totake the boat over the falls, which in fact are not falls at all, butmerely rapids. At very high water such as just then prevailed, the onlydifference between that part of the river called the falls and any otherpart was that that part had a much swifter and far less steady currentthan prevailed elsewhere.
"I could take your money for piloting you over the falls," said thegenial old pilot to whom Phil had applied, "but it would be robbery. I'ma pilot, not a pirate, you see. All you've got to do, my boy, is to putyour flatboat well out into the river and let her go. She'll amble overthe falls at this stage of the water as gently as a well-built girlwaltzes over a ball-room floor. She'll turn round and round, just as thegirl does, but it'll be just as innocent-like. There'll be never lessthan twenty-five foot o' water under your gunwales, and there simplycan't any harm come to you. Don't pay anybody anything to pilot youover. Do it yourself, and if anything happens to you, just let old JabezBrown know where it happened, please. For if there's any new rockssprouted up on the falls of the Ohio since the water rose, an old fallspilot like me just naterally wants to know about 'em."
After laying in the provision supply that was needed, includingespecially a big can of milk packed in a barrel of cracked ice, Philreturned to the boat and announced his purpose of "running the falls"without a pilot. It was at supper in the cabin that he made theannouncement, and Jim Hughes, who had been lying in his bunk with hisface toward the bulkhead, suddenly sat up.
"Good!" he said. "They ain't no use fer a pilot when the river's bankfull this way. When'll you start, Phil?"
"Just after daylight to-morrow morning," replied the captain.
"Well, I feel so much better," said Jim, getting out of his bunk, "Ithink I'll sample the pork and potatoes and throw in just a little o'that hot corn bread and the new butter for ballast."
"For a man who a few hours ago was violently ill with an intestinaldisorder," remarked Irv Strong a little later with a very pronouncednote of sarcasm in his tone, "it seems to me, Jim, that you're eating atolerably robust supper. Now if I'd had the cramps you've been sufferingfrom to-day, I really wouldn't venture upon cabbage and potatoes boiledwith salt pork. I'd try something 'bland' first, like a half pound ofshot or a pig's knuckle, or a bologna sausage or a few soft-boiledcobble-stones."
But Jim was deaf to the sarcasm and went on eating voraciously.
"Wonder what that fellow is afraid of," said Phil to Irv as they wentout on deck to set the lights and make ready for the night.
"Don't at all know," responded Irv, "unless he owes money to somebody inLouisville. All I know is that he must have feigned that attack ofcramps, else he couldn't eat now in the way he does. He didn't want togo ashore with you as you proposed, to hunt for a falls pilot."
"Yes," said Ed Lowry, "I've known all day that he was shamming, becausehe hasn't had the slightest touch or trace of proper symptoms. Even whenhe professed to be in the most excruciating pain his pulse wasn't in theleast bit disturbed. I'm no doctor, but I know enough to say positivelythat a man with any such cramps as he pretended to have simply couldn'thave kept his pulse calmly beating seventy-two times a minute as hisdid. I timed it three times and then quit bothering with the fellowbecause I knew he was shamming."
"Wonder what he meant by it," said Will.
"Shoo!" said Constant; "he's listening at the top of the gangway."
"And _I_ wonder what _that_ means," said Phil, whose alert observationof the professed pilot had never been relaxed since the episode atCraig's Landing; "I wonder what he's listening for."
There was naturally no response, for the reason that nobody had anythingto suggest. So the boys went toward the bow where the anchor-light hung,to hear Phil read in his newspapers all the latest details about thegreat bond robbery. They read on deck rather than in the cabin, becauseone boy must at any rate remain there on watch, and they all wished tohear.
The newspapers related that one of the gang of robbers was believed tohave got away with the stolen bonds and money, and that the main purposenow was to find him. One man connected with the crime was already incustody, and from hints given by him it was hoped that he might turnstate's evidence in his own resentment against the "carrier of theswag," who, it was believed, had deserted his fellow thieves, or some ofthem, and meant to keep the whole of the proceeds of the robbery forhimself and one or two others. At any rate, the man in custody had givenhints that were thought to be distinctly helpful toward the discoveryof the "carrier" and his partners who had betrayed the rest of theirfellows.
The case was very interesting, but the boys must be up early in themorning, so at last they broke up their little confab, and all but oneof them went to bed. Constant Thiebaud, who first reached theladder-head, found Jim Hughes seated there with his head just above thedeck.
"I thought you were in bed long ago," said Constant.
"So I was," said Jim; "but I got restless and came out for some air."
It wasn't at all the kind of sentence that Jim Hughes was accustomed toframe, and the boys observed the fact. But they had got used to what IrvStrong called Jim's "inadvertent lapses into grammar," and so they wentto their bunks without further thought of the matter.