TRAVELLERS THREE
"Ready, Marian? The Limited starts in thirty minutes. We haven't a
minute to spare."
"Y-yes." Marian caught up her handbag and hurried into the cab. "Only
my trunk keys--I'm not sure----"
"Your trunk keys! You haven't lost them, of all things!"
"No. Here they are, safe in my bag. But Empress has been so frenzied I
haven't known which way to turn."
Poor insulted Empress, squirming madly in a wicker basket, glared at
Rod, and lifted a wild, despairing yowl.
"You don't propose to leave Mount Vernon Street for the wilds of
Illinois without a struggle, do you, Empress?" chuckled Rod. "Never
you mind. You'll forget your blue silk cushion and your minced steak
and cream, and you'll be chasing plebeian chipmunks in a week. Look at
the river, Marian. You won't see it again in a long while."
Marian followed his glance. It was a silver hoar-frost morning. The
sky shone a cloudless blue, the cold, delicious air sparkled,
diamond-clear. Straight down Mount Vernon Street the exquisite little
panel of the frozen Charles gleamed like a vista of fairyland. Marian
stared at it a little wistfully.
"It will all be very different out West, I suppose. I wonder if any
Western river can be half as lovely," she pondered.
Roderick did not answer. A sudden worried question stirred in his
thought. Yes, the West would be "different." Very different.
"Maybe I've done the worst possible thing in dragging Marian along,"
he thought. "But it's too late to turn back now. I can only hope that
she can stand the change, and that she'll try to be patient and
contented."
Marian, on her part, was in high spirits. She had been shut up for so
long that to find herself free, and starting on this trip to a new
country, delighted her beyond bounds. At South Station, a crowd of
her Wellesley chums stormed down upon her, in what Rod described later
as a mass-play, laden with roses and chocolates and gay, loving
farewells. Marian tore herself from their hands, half-laughing,
half-crying with happy excitement.
"Oh, Rod, I know we're going to have the grandest trip, and the most
beautiful good fortunes that ever were!" she cried, as he put her
carefully aboard the train. "But you aren't one bit enthusiastic. You
stodgy tortoise, why can't you be pleased, too?"
"I'm only too glad if you like the prospect, Sis," he answered
soberly.
Marian's spirits soared even higher as the hours passed. Roderick grew
as rapt as she when the train whirled through the winter glory of the
Berkshires. Every slope rose folded in dazzling snow. Every tree,
through mile on mile of forest, blazed in rainbow coats of icy mail.
The wide rolling New York country was scarcely less beautiful.
At Buffalo, the next morning, a special pleasure awaited them. A party
of friends met them with a huge touring car, and carried them on a
flying trip to the ice-bridge at Niagara Falls. To Marian, every
minute spelled enchantment. She forgot her dizzy head and her aching
bones, and fairly exulted in the wild splendor of the blue ice-walled
cataract. Roderick, on his part, was so absorbed by the marvellous
engineering system of the great power-plant that for once he had no
eyes nor thought for his sister, nor for any other matter.
Their wonderful day closed with an elaborate dinner-party, given in
their honor. Neither Marian nor Rod had ever been guests at so grand
an affair. As they dashed to their train in their host's beautiful
limousine, Marian looked up from her bouquet of violets and orchids
with laughing eyes.
"If this is the West, Rod, I really think it will suit me very well!"
Rod's mouth twisted into a rueful grin.
"Glad you enjoy it, Sis. Gloat over your luxury while you may. You'll
find yourself swept out of the limousine zone all too soon. By this
time next week you'll be thankful for a spring wagon."
By the next morning, Marian's spirits began to flag. All day they
travelled in fog and rain, down through a flat, dun country. Not a
gleam of snow lightened those desolate, muddy plains. There seemed no
end to that sodden prairie, that gray mist-blotted sky. Marian grew
more lonely and unhappy with every hour. She struggled to be
good-humored for Roderick's sake. But she grew terribly tired; and it
was a very white-faced girl who clung to Roderick's arm as their train
rolled into the great, clanging terminal at Saint Louis.
Roderick hurried her to a hotel. It seemed to her that she had
scarcely dropped asleep before Rod's voice sounded at the door.
"Sorry, Sis, but we'll have to start right away. It's nearly eight
o'clock."
"Oh, Rod, I'm so tired! Please let's take a later train."
"There isn't any later train, dear. There isn't any train at all.
We're going up-river on a little steamer that is towing a barge-load
of coal to our camp. That's the only way to reach the place. There is
no railroad anywhere near. There won't be another steamer going up
for days. It's a shame to haul you out, but it can't be helped."
An hour later, they picked their way down the wet, slippery stones of
the levee to where the _Lucy Lee_, a tiny flat-bottomed
"stern-wheeler," puffed and snorted, awaiting them. As they crossed
the gang-plank, the pilot rang the big warning bell. Immediately their
little craft nosed its way shivering along the ranks of moored
packets, and rocked out into mid-channel.
Marian peered back, but she could see nothing of the city. A thick icy
fog hung everywhere, shrouding even the tall warehouses at the river's
edge, and drifting in great, gray clouds over the bridges.
"The river is still thick with floating ice," said the captain, at her
elbow. "The _Lucy_ is the first steam-boat to dare her luck, trying to
go up-stream, since the up-river ice gorge let go. But we'll make it
all right. It's a pretty chancy trip, yet it's not as dangerous as
you'd think."
Marian twinkled. "It looks chancy enough to me," she confessed. She
looked out at the broad, turbid stream. Here and there a black patch
marked a drifting ice cake, covered with brush, swept down from some
flooded woodland. Through the mist she caught glimpses of high, muddy
banks, a group of sooty factories, a gray, murky sky.
"I don't see much charm to the Mississippi, Rod. Is this all there is
to it? Just yellow, tumbling water, and mud, and fog?"
"It isn't a beautiful stream, that's a fact," admitted Rod. Yet his
eyes sparkled. He was growing more flushed and alert with every turn
of the wheels that brought him nearer to his coveted work, his man's
game. "This is too raw and cold for you, Marian. Come into the cabin,
and I'll fix you all snug by the fire."
"The cabin is so stuffy and horrid," fretted Marian. Yet she added,
"But it's the cunningest place I ever dreamed of. It's like a
miniature museum."
"A museum? A junk-shop, I'd call it," Rod chuckled, as he settled her
into the big red-cushioned rocker, before the roaring cannon stove.
The tight little room was crowded with solemn black-walnut cabinets,
full of shells and arrowheads, and hung thick with quaint,
high-colored old pictures. Languishing ladies in chignons and
crinoline gazed upon lordly gentlemen in tall stocks and gorgeous
waistcoats; "Summer Prospects," in vivid chromos fronted "Snow
Scenes," made realistic with much powdered isinglass. Crowning all,
rose a tall, cupid-wreathed gilt mirror, surmounted by a stern stuffed
eagle, who glared down fiercely from two yellow glass eyes. His mighty
wings spread above the mirror, a bit moth-eaten, but still terrifying.
"Look, Empress. Don't you want to catch that nice birdie?"
Poor bewildered Empress glared at the big bird, and sidled, back
erect, wrathfully sissing, under a chair. Travel had no charms for
Empress.
"Will you look at that old yellowed pilot's map and certificate in the
acorn frame? '1857!'" chuckled Rod. "And the red-and-blue worsted
motto hung above it: 'Home, Sweet Home!' I'll wager Grandma Noah did
that worsted-work."
"Not Grandma Noah, but Grandma McCloskey," laughed the captain. "She
was the nicest old lady you ever laid eyes on. She used to live on the
boat and cook for us, till the rheumatism forced her to live ashore.
Her husband is old Commodore McCloskey; so everybody calls him. He has
been a pilot on the Mississippi ever since the day he got that
certificate, yonder. He's a character, mind that. He shot that eagle
in '58, and he has carried it around with him ever since, to every
steamer that he has piloted. You must go up to the pilot-house after a
bit and make him a visit. He's worth knowing."
"I think I'd like to go up to the pilot-house right away, Rod. It is
so close and hot down here."
Obediently Rod gathered up her rugs and cushions. Carefully he and the
captain helped her up the swaying corkscrew stairs, across the dizzy,
rain-swept hurricane deck, then up the still narrower, more twisty
flight that ended at the door of the high glass-walled box, perched
like a bird-cage, away forward.
Inside that box stood a large wooden wheel, and a small, twinkling,
white-bearded old gentleman, who looked for all the world like a Santa
Claus masquerading in yellow oilskins.
"Ask him real pretty," cautioned the captain. "He thinks he runs this
boat, and everybody aboard her. He does, too, for a fact."
With much ceremony Roderick rapped at the glass door, and asked
permission for his sister to enter. With grand aplomb the little old
gentleman rose from his wheel and ushered her up the steps.
"'Tis for fifty-four years that I and me pilot-house have been honored
by the ladies' visits," quoth he, with a stately bow. "Ye'll sit here,
behind the wheel, and watch me swing herself up the river? Sure, 'tis
a ticklish voyage, wid the river so full of floatin' ice. I shall be
glad of yer gracious presence, ma'am. It will bring me good luck in me
steerin'."
Marian's eyes danced. She fitted herself neatly into the cushioned
bench against the wall. The pilot-house was a bird-cage, indeed,
hardly eight feet square. The great wheel, swinging in its high frame,
took up a third of the space; a huge cast-iron stove filled one
corner. For the rest, Marian felt as if she had stepped inside one of
the curio-cabinets in the cabin below; for every inch of wall space in
the bird-cage was festooned with mementoes of every sort. A string of
beautiful wampum, all polished elks' teeth and uncut green turquoise;
shell baskets, and strings of buckeyes; a four-foot diamond-back
rattlesnake's skin, beautiful and uncanny, the bunch of five rattles
tied to the tail. Close beside the glittering skin hung even an odder
treasure-trove: a small white kid glove, quaintly embroidered in faded
pink-and-blue forget-me-nots.
"Great-Aunt Emily had some embroidered gloves like that in her
trousseau," thought Marian. "I do wonder----"
"Ye're lookin' at me keepsakes?" The pilot sighted up-stream, then
turned, beaming. "Maybe it will pass the time like for me to tell ye
of them. There is not one but stands for an adventure. That wampum was
given to me by Chief Ogalalla; a famous Sioux warrior, he was. 'Twas
back in sixty-wan, and the string was the worth of two ponies in thim
days. Three of me mates an' meself was prospectin' down in western
Nebraska. There came a great blizzard, and Chief Ogalalla and three of
his men rode up to our camp, and we took them in for the night."
"And he gave you the wampum in payment?"
"Payment? Never! A man never paid for food nor shelter on the plains.
No more than for the air he breathed. 'Twas gratitude. For Chief
Ogalalla had a ragin' toothache, and I cured it for him. Made him a
poultice of red pepper."
"Mercy! I should think that would hurt worse than any toothache!"
"Maybe it did, ma'am. But at least it disthracted his attention from
the tooth itself. That rattlesnake, I kilt in a swamp near Vicksburg.
Me and me wife was young then, and we'd borrowed a skiff, an' rowed
out to hunt pond-lilies. Mary would go in the bog, walkin' on the big
tufts of rushes. Her little feet were that light she didn't sink at
all. But the first thing I heard she gave a little squeal, an' there
she stood, perched on a tuft, and not three feet away, curled up on a
log, was that great shinin' serpent. Just rockin' himself easy, he
was, makin' ready to strike. An' strike he would. Only"--the small
twinkling face grew grim--"only I struck first."
Marian shivered.
"And the little white glove?"
The old pilot beamed.
"Sure, I hoped ye'd notice that, miss. That glove points to the proud
day f'r me! It was the summer of '60. I was pilotin' the _Annie
Kilburn_, a grand large packet, down to Saint Louis. We had a
wonderful party aboard her. 'Twas just the beginnin' of war times, an'
'twould be like readin' a history book aloud to tell ye their names.
Did ever ye hear of the Little Giant?"
"Of Stephen A. Douglas, the famous orator? Why, yes, to be sure. Was
he aboard?"
"Yes. A fine, pleasant-spoke gentleman he was, too. But 'tis not the
Little Giant that this story is about. 'Twas his wife. Ye've heard of
her, sure? Ah, but I wish you could have seen her when she came
trippin' up the steps of me pilot-house and passed the time of day
with me, so sweet and friendly. Afterward they told me what a great
lady she was. Though I could see that for meself, she was that gentle,
and her voice so quiet and low, and her look so sweet and kind. I was
showin' her about, an' feelin' terrible proud, an' fussy, an' excited.
I was a young felly then, and it took no more than her word an' her
smile to turn me foolish head. An' I was showin' her how to handle the
wheel, and by some mischance, didn't I catch me blunderin' hand in the
frame, an' give it a wrench that near broke every bone! I couldn't
leave the wheel till the first mate should come to take me place. And
Madame Douglas was that distressed, you'd think it was her own hand
that she was grievin' over. She would tear her lace handkerchief into
strips, and bind up the cut, and then what does she do but take her
white glove, an' twist it round the fingers, so's to keep them from
the air, till I could find time to bandage them. I said not a word.
But the minute her silks an' laces went trailin' down the hurricane
ladder, I jerked off that glove an' folded it in my wallet. An' there
it stayed till I could have that frame made for it. And in that frame
I've carried it ever since, all these long years.
"Those were the grand days, sure," he added, wistfully. "Before the
war, we pilots were the lords of the river. I had me a pair of
varnished boots, an' tight striped trousers, an' a grand shiny
stove-pipe hat, an' I wouldn't have called the king me uncle. It's
sad times for the river, nowadays." He looked away up the broad,
tumbling yellow stream. "Look at her, will ye! No river at all, she
is, wid her roily yellow water, an' her poor miry banks, an' her
bluffs, all washed away to shiftin' sand. But wasn't she the grand
stream entirely, before the war!"
Marian looked at the framed river-chart above the wheel. She tried to
read its puzzle of tangled lines. The old man sniffed.
"Don't waste yer time wid that gimcrack, miss. Steer by it? Never!" He
shrugged his shoulders loftily. "It hangs there by government request,
so I tolerate it to please the Department. I know this river by heart,
every inch. I could steer this boat from Natchez to Saint Paul wid me
eyes shut, the blackest night that ever blew!"
Marian dimpled at his majestic tone.
"Will you show me how to steer? I've always been curious as to how it
is done."
"Certain I will."
Keenly interested, Marian gripped the handholds, and turned the heavy
wheel back and forth as he directed. Suddenly her grasp loosened.
Down the stream, straight toward the boat, drifted a rolling black
mass.
"Mercy, what is that? It looks like a whole forest of logs. It's
rolling right toward us!"
"Ye're right. 'Tis a raft that's broke adrift. But we have time to
dodge, be sure. Watch now."
His right hand grasped the wheel. His left seized the bell-cord. Three
sharp toots signalled the engine-room for full head of steam.
Instantly the _Lucy_ jarred under Marian's feet with the sudden heavy
force of doubled power. Slowly the steam-boat swung out of her course,
in a long westward curve. Past her, the nearest logs not fifty feet
away, the great, grinding mass of tree-trunks rolled and tumbled by,
sweeping on toward the Gulf.
"'Tis handy that we met those gintlemen by daylight," remarked the
pilot, cheerfully. "For one log alone would foul our paddle-wheels and
give us a bad shaking up. And should all that Donnybrook Fair come
stormin' into us by night, we'd go to the bottom before ye could say
Jack Robinson."
Marian's eyes narrowed. She stared at the dusk stormy yellow river,
the blank inhospitable shores. She was not by any means a coward. But
she could not resist asking one question.
"Do we go on up-river after nightfall? Or do we stop at some landing?"
"There's no landing between here and Grafton, at the mouth of the
Illinois River. We'll have to tie up along shore, I'm thinkin'." The
old man spoke grudgingly. "If I was runnin' her meself, 'tis little
we'd stop for the night. But the captain thinks different. He's young
and notional. Tie up over night we must, says he. But 'tis all
nonsense. Chicken-hearted, I'd call it, that's all."
Marian laughed to herself. Inwardly she was grateful for the captain's
chicken-heartedness.
A loud gong sounded from below. The pilot nodded.
"Yon's your supper-bell, miss. I thank ye kindly for the pleasure of
yer company. I shall be honored if ye choose to come again. And soon."
Marian made her way down to the cabin through the stormy dusk. The
little room was warm and brightly lighted; the captain's negro boy was
just placing huge smoking-hot platters of perfectly cooked fish and
steak upon the clean oil-cloth table. They gathered around it, an odd
company. Marian and Roderick, the captain, the _Lucy's_ engineer, a
pleasant, boyish fellow, painfully embarrassed and redolent of hot oil
and machinery; and two young dredge-runners, on their way, like Rod,
to the Breckenridge contract. Save the captain and Rod, they gobbled
bashfully, and fled at the earliest possible moment. Rod and the
captain were talking of the contract and of its prospects. Marian
trifled with her massive hot biscuit, and listened indifferently.
"I hope your coming on the work may change its luck, Mr. Hallowell,"
observed the captain. "For that contract has struggled with mighty
serious difficulties, so far. Breckenridge himself is a superb
engineer; but of course he cannot stay on the ground. He has a dozen
equally important contracts to oversee. His engineers are all well
enough, but somehow they don't seem to make things go. Carlisle is the
chief. He is a good engineer and a good fellow, but he is so nearly
dead with malaria that he can't do two hours' work in a week. Burford,
his aid, is a young Southerner, a fine chap, but--well, a bit
hot-headed. You know our Northern labor won't stand for much of that.
Then there is Marvin, who is third in charge. But as for Marvin"--he
stopped, with a queer short laugh--"as for Marvin, the least said the
soonest mended. He's a cub engineer, they call him; a grizzly cub at
that. He may come out all right, with time. You can see for yourself
that you haven't any soft job. With a force of two hundred laborers,
marooned in a swamp seven miles from nowhere, not even a railroad in
the county; with half the land-owners protesting against their
assessments, and refusing to pay up; with your head engineer sick, and
your coal shipments held up by high water--no, you won't find your
place an easy one, mind that."
"I'm not doing any worrying." Rod's jaw set. His dark face glowed.
Marian looked at him, a little jealously. His whole heart and thought
were swinging away to this work, now opening before him. This was his
man's share in labor, and he was eager to cope with its sternest
demands.
"Well, it's a good thing you have the pluck to face it. You will need
all the pluck you've got, and then some." The captain paced restlessly
up and down the narrow room. "Wonder why we don't slow down. We must
be running a full twelve miles an hour. Altogether too fast, when
we're towing a barge. And it is pitch dark."
He stooped to the engine-room speaking-tube. "Hi, Smith! Why are you
carrying so much steam? I want to put her inshore."
A muffled voice rose from the engine-room.
"All right, sir. But McCloskey, he just rung for full speed ahead."
"He did? That's McCloskey, all over. The old rascal! He has set his
heart on making Grafton Landing to-night, instead of tying up
alongshore. Hear that? He's making that old wheel jump. To be sure, he
knows the river channel like a book. But, even with double
search-lights, no man living can see ice-cakes and brush far enough
ahead to dodge them."
"Let's take a look on deck," suggested Rod.
Once outside the warm, cheerful cabin, the night wind swept down on
them, a driving, freezing blast. The little steamer fairly raced
through the water. Her deck boards quivered; the boom of the heavy
engine throbbed under their feet.
"Thickest night I've seen in a year," growled the captain. "I say,
McCloskey! Slow down, and let's put her inshore. This is too dangerous
to suit me."
No reply. The boat fled pitching on.
"_McCloskey!_"
At last there came a faint hail.
"Yes, captain! What's yer pleasure, sir?"
"The old rascal! He's trying to show off. He's put his deaf ear to the
tube, I'll be bound. Best go inside, Miss Hallowell, this wind is full
of sleet. McCloskey! Head her inshore, I say."
On rushed the _Lucy_. Her course did not change a hair's breadth.
"No wonder they call him Commodore McCloskey!" Rod whispered wickedly.
"Even the captain has to yield to him."
"McCloskey!" The captain's voice was gruff with anger. "_Head her
inshore!_ Unless you're trying to kill the boat----"
Crash!
The captain's sentence was never finished.