"You know what a hard winter we've had, with this low water and no
January rise, and all that ice in the Ohio. They say they're starving
for coal down in Cincinnati, and here we've no end of it stacked up.
Well, Hammond, he's had hard work enough to keep the men along through
the winter. Many another man would have turned them off, but he wouldn't
do it; so he's shinned here and shinned there to get money to pay them
their wages, and they've had scrip, and we've fairly brought goods up to
the store overland, on horseback and every kind of way, just for their
convenience; and now the damned Irish rascals, with some of the Sandy
boys for leaders, have made up their minds to strike for higher wages
the minute we have a rise, just when we'll need all hands to get the
coal off, and all those boats laying at the mouth, too. I heard it day
before yesterday, by chance like, when Jim Foushee and the two O'Learys
were sitting smoking on the fence behind the store. The O'Learys were
tight with the Redeye they had aboard, and let it out in their stupid
'colloguing,' as they call it; but Jim Foushee saw me standing at the
window, and right away called in two or three of the Sandy men and
threatened my life if I told Hammond. They have watched me like a cat
ever since, and never left me and Hammond alone together. They are with
Hammond now, launching a coal-boat, or I'd never have got off with you."
I sat breathless. I knew it was ruin to let the expected rise pass
without getting the coal-boats down; but what could be done?
"Don't look so pale, Janet. You can tell Hammond, you know, and he'll
find a way to circumvent them. And it was to tell you all this that I
brought you out here this afternoon, only my unlucky tongue would talk
of what I see it's too soon to talk of yet. But here's Louisa, right
ahead. Make haste and get your traps, while I settle my business, and
we'll be back, perhaps, in time for you to manage some way to see
Hammond to-night. Nobody knows you went with me, and you'll never be
suspected."
Not Tom Salyers's most rapid and vigorous rowing could make our little
skiff keep pace with my impatience; but, thanks to his efforts, the sun
was still high when he landed me in the little cove behind our house,
where I could run up through the woods to our back-door, while he pulled
boldly up to the store-landing and called some of the men to help him
carry his purchases up the bank. I did not stop for a word with my
step-mother, but, passing rapidly through the house, threw my parcels on
the bed in the sitting-room, and, running down the walk to the
maple-tree under which my dug-out was always tied, jumped into it and
sculled out into the river. The coal-boat had just been launched, and
George Hammond was standing on the bank superintending the calking of
the seams which the water made visible. I pushed up to the bank, and
called to him as I neared,--
"Can you not come, Mr. Hammond, a little way up-stream with me? I have
found those young tulip-trees that you want for your garden; they are
just round the bend above Nat's Creek. Jim Foushee will see to that
work, and I have just time to show them to you before supper."
I was a favorite with Jim Foushee. He laughed a joking welcome to me, as
he said,--
"I'll see to this, Sir, if you want to go with Janet Rainsford. She's
the gal that knows the woods. A splendid Sandy wife you'll make some
young fellow, Janet, if you don't get too book-learned."
In five minutes we were off and had rounded the point out of sight and
hearing. In a few hurried words I told my story, but at first Mr.
Hammond would not believe it.
"Those men that I've done so much for and worked so hard for this
winter!"
At last, convinced, his face set with the determined look that I had
seen on it once or twice before.
"I'll not raise the wages of a single man, and, what's more, I'd turn
them all off the place, if only I could find others. But those boats at
Catlettsburg, they are the most important. The Company would send me up
men from Cincinnati, if only I could get word to them; but these rascals
will stop any letter I send. Those Sandians are capable of it,--or
rather they are capable of putting the Irishmen up to doing their dirty
work for them."
"A letter would be safe, if it once reached Catlettsburg?" I asked.
"Certainly. But how to get it there?"
"I can take it. Nobody will suspect me. Give me the letter to-night, and
I will go to-morrow."
"You, Janet? you are crazy!"
"No, indeed. I often ride to Louisa; what is to hinder me from having
errands to Catlettsburg. I could go down there in one day, and take two
days back, if my father thinks it is too much for old Bill to take it
through in one."
"Oh, you could borrow Swiftfoot. I have often lent him to you, and he
would carry you safely and surely. I don't believe any harm would come
to you, and so much depends upon it."