LV

LVLOVE MAKES A CUT-OFF

But the grandfather addressed the adventurer. "You'd rather not, I fancy.""Rather not; looks too unanimous the wrong way.""Would you still like to have Hugh's advice?""I would! I'd like to hear yo'-all's argument."Ramsey dropped into her chair with a tired sigh and up-stream gaze though with an inner ear of keenest attention.Hugh glanced toward his father's door, whence at any moment, as every one realized, the actor might beckon."I have no argument," he began."You have," breathed a voice, unmistakably Ramsey's; "you always have.""You know," he continued to the Kentuckian, "there's something in all of us, I don't say what, or whether wise or foolish, that says: 'Don't do it.' You feel it, don't you?"Madame interrupted: "Maisdon't do w'at?"Ramsey faced the group as if to answer just that question. "Now we pass between Cedar Point and Pecan Point and head for the Second Chickasaw Bluffs!""Ah bah,lesbloff'," murmured madame and repeated to Hugh: "Something say, 'Don' do it'?Maisw'at it say don' do?""Don't mix the great races we know apart by their color.""Umph! An' w'at is thad something w'at tell uz that?""Grandfather calls it race conscience.""Grandfather!" whimpered Ramsey, while madame asked:"Of w'at race has Phylliz the conscien'? An' you would know Phylliz' race—ad sight—by the color?""I'd know it!" put in the Kentuckian. "She's white, to all intents and purposes.""No," said Hugh, "not quite to all. Not to all as organized society, in its——"Ramsey, with eyes up the river, sighed: "Mrs. Grundy?""Yes, but Mrs. Grundy in her best intents and purposes.""In her race conscience," wailed Ramsey to the breeze."In her race conscience," assented Hugh.Ramsey whipped around. "Thought you had no argument.""I'm giving grandfather's," said the grandson."Humph! it's yours. I'd know it at sight—by the color.""Miss Ramsey," said the old man, toying with his cane, "Hugh and I have been finding that, right or wrong, Mrs. Grundy or Mr. Grundy, race conscience is a wonderful, unaccountable thing for which men will give their life-blood by thousands." His voice failed. He waved smilingly to Hugh."And when," broke in Hugh to Ramsey, "when Mrs. Grundy, in her race conscience, says Phyllis is not white no one ought to snap his fingers in even Mrs. Grundy's face merely to please himself or to relieve some private situation."Ramsey stood up, flashing first on him and then to her mother, dropped again, and with her face in her elbow on the chair's back recited drearily—from her third reader:"You can hear him swing his heavy sledgeWith measured beat and slow,Like the sexton ringing the village bellWhen the evening sun——""Ramzee!" exclaimed madame, while the old nurse groaned: "Oh, Lawd 'a' massy!"The girl rose, laughed, and flashed again: "Well, if Phyllis ain't white what is she? She's got to be something!""Yes," said the youth, "but not everything. I know her wrongs. But none of us, with whatever rights and wrongs, can have, or do, or be——""Oh, don't we know all that?" Ramsey turned to the grandfather and with sudden deference sprang to help him rise. He faced her and the Californian together."Miss Ramsey, Hugh has all your feelings in this matter."Madame, "California," and old Joy eagerly assented."But poor, blundering old Mrs. Grundy, always wronging some one," the old man smilingly continued, "is really fighting hard for a better human race. That's the greatest battle she can fight, my dear young lady, and when——""Well," rejoined Ramsey with eyes frankly tearful, "she fights it mighty badly.""Ah, a hundred times worse than you think. Yet we who presume to fight the blunders of that battle must fight them unselfishly and to help her win."Old Joy groaned so approvingly that he turned to her."What do you think, old mammy?""Who, me? Lawd, I thinks mighty little an' I knows less. Yit one thing I does know: Phyllis ain' gwine. She know' you cayn't make her white by takin' her to whah it make' no odds ef she ain't white. Phyllis love' folks. She love' de quality, she love' de crowd. White aw black aw octoroom free niggeh, Phyllis gwine to choose de old Hayle home and de great riveh—full o' steamboat'—sooneh'n any lan' whah de ain't mo'n one 'oman to de mile. Phyllis ain't gwine."The closing words faded to soliloquy. For every one stood up, and even the old woman's attention was diverted to Watson's apprentice approaching from the captain's room. On his way below for the doctor he came, in the actor's behalf, to ask if he might bring up also Mrs. Gilmore.Assuredly he might. How was the patient?"Very quiet," the boy hopefully replied. Whereupon madame begged leave to repair at once to the sick-room, but neither of the Courteneys would consent nor either of them allow the other to go. The steersman passed on down.From enviously watching him do so, "California" turned to the company and in open abandonment of his amazing proposition said drolly that never before had he failed, in so many ways "hand-running," to make himself useful. He reseated Madame Hayle and would have set the daughter beside her, but the mother bade Ramsey give Joy the chair and leaned wearily on the old woman's shoulder. Both Courteneys urged their seats on the girl, and when she would not accept while either of them stood for her servant to sit, the grandfather left Hugh debating with her, took "California's" arm, found other chairs a few paces away, and engaged him in a gentle parley which any one might see was an appeal to his sober second thought. It was Ned's shift up at the wheel, but the change of watch was near; his partner stood at his elbow. Their gaze was up a reach between the two most northern of those four groups of bluffs whose mention even Ramsey was for the moment tired of, yet they studied the three couples on the roof below."Runs smooth at the present writing," said Watson."Clair chann'l ef noth'n' else," responded Ned. The allusion was neither to boat nor stream but to a certain opportuneness of things, whose obviousness to them, looking down, was mainly what kept Ramsey standing. While she stood beside the two empty chairs cross-questioning Hugh with a fresh show of her maturer mildness and he stood inwardly taking back his late farewell to sweet companionship and softly answering in his incongruous pomp of voice with a new tenderness, and while the worn-out mother gradually let her full weight sink on the tired slave, this obvious propitiousness was embarrassingly increased by the two weary ones falling asleep.True, the clearness of channel—this channel in the upper air—was not absolute, but its obstacles nettled mostly the pilots. To Ramsey, even to Hugh, obstacles were almost welcome, as enabling them to show to a prying world that nothing beyond the grayest commonplace was occurring between them. One such interruption was the upcoming and passing of Mrs. Gilmore and the physician to the sick-room and the cub pilot's parting with them to join the younger pair. The boy found Hugh confessing that he should not know exactly how to word Phyllis's "free papers" but adding that the first clerk would be pleased to make them out at once if Ramsey's eagerness so dictated. It did, and presently the modest intruder was hurrying away on a double errand: to bear this confidential request to the clerk and then to seek the Brothers Ambrosia and with them and the two under-clerks arrange for the evening performance, the giving of which, however, Ramsey insisted, must depend on the captain's condition when evening should come."Wish it were here now," she said as they watched the messenger go. "Don't you?""I could," he replied, "but it will be here soon enough."The conversation which followed remained in their memory through years of separation.She spoke again in her new tone: "You think your father will get well, don't you?""No, Ramsey."At those words her heart did two things at once: stopped on the first, rebounded on the second. But it fell again as he added: "I fear I must lose my father to-night."She stood mute, looking into his eyes and pondering every light and shadow of the severe young face that to her seemed so imperially unlike all others. "He's great," she said in her heart. "And he loves with his greatness. Loves even his father that way; not as I love mine or love anybody, or ever shall or can, or could wish to, unless I were a man and as great as him—he. I never could have dreamt of any one loving me that way, but if any ever should I'd worship him." Suddenly her sympathy rose high."Oh, why not just think to yourself: 'Hewilllive'?""Why should I? Should I be fit to live myself if I were not true to myself?""You are! You always are!""No one can be who isn't truthful to himself."Ramsey gazed again. A sense of his suffering benumbed her, and for relief she asked: "Is that why you don't wish it were evening, when really you do?"He smiled. "I can't wish the sun to get out of my way. That's what it would mean, isn't it?"She fell to thinking what it meant. All at once she pointed: "That's the First Chickasaw Bluff.... Yes, I s'pose it does mean that.... It's terrible how thoughtless I am.""It doesn't terrify me. I promise you it never shall."Was he making game of her? She narrowed her lids and looked at him sidewise. No, plainly he was not; so plainly that she took refuge in another question. "Don't you like night better than day sometimes?""I do, often.""Why?""For one thing, we can see so much farther.""Oh, ridiculous! we can't see nearly so far!""We can see so much farther and wider, deeper, clearer. The day blinds us. Spoils our sense of proportion. At night we see more of what creation really is. Our sun becomes one little star among thousands of greater ones, and we are humbled into a reasonableness which is very hard not to lose in the bewilderments of daylight."Ramsey sank to the arm of a chair, but when he remained standing she stood again. "Wasn't you saying something like that the evening we left New Orleans?" she asked."To my father, yes. I couldn't have said it in daylight then. I couldn't say it in daylight now to any one but you, Ramsey."Her heart leaped again. Her eyes looked straight into his; could not look away. He spoke on:"You're a kind of evening to me, yourself; evening star."Her bosom pounded. She glanced up behind to the pilots. Watson had the wheel. As she strenuously pushed back her curls she felt her temples burn. She could have cried aloud for Hugh to cease, yet was mad for him to go on.And so he did. "You are my evening star in this nightfall of affliction. I tell you so not in weakness but in strength and in defiance: in the strength I summon for the hour before me; in the defiance I fling to your brothers. I may never have another chance. If ours were the ordinary chances of ordinary life I should say nothing now. I should wait; wait and give love time; time to prove itself in me—in both of us. Iasknothing. I am too new to you, life is too new—to you—for pledges."She flashed him a glance and then, looking up the river, said, with the ghost of a toss: "I'm older than you think."He ignored the revelation. "But I will say," he went on, "—for these three days and nights have been three years to me and I feel a three years' right to say—I love you; love you for life; am yours for life though we never meet again. For I believe that we belong to each other from the centre of our souls, by a fitness plain even to the eyes of your brothers."For I believe that we belong to each other from the centre of our souls, by a fitness plain even to the eyes of your brothers"For I believe that we belong to each other from the centre of our souls, by a fitness plain even to the eyes of your brothers"Still looking up the flood and red from brow to throat, Ramsey murmured two or three words which she saw he did not hear. Yet he stood without sound or look to ask what she had said, and presently repeated:"I believe in God's sight we belong to each other.""So do I," said Ramsey again, with clearer voice and with her brimming eyes looking straight into his. A footfall turned her and she faced the relieved pilot."Isn't this Island Thirty-three," she asked, "right here on our starboard bow?""Thirty-three," assented Ned. "Alias Flour Island; butnotFlow-er Island. Flour-ladened flatboats wrecked there in the days o' yo' grandfather, Eliphalet Hayle, whose own boats they might 'a' been, only Hayles ain't never been good at losin' boats. But his'n or not,canyou suspicion they wuz flow-er-ladened? Shucks! them that spell it that-a-way air jest as bad an' no wuss than them that stickbonto Plum in Plum P'int an' pull theyout o' Hayle fo' Hayle's P'int! They jest a-airin' they ignorance. Some fellers love to air they ignorance. I do, myself."He gave these facts of topography in reward of the grave interest that Hugh—elated interest that Ramsey—still seemed to take in all such items, as well as to allow them to infer that he had not noticed them betraying interest in anything more personal."Hayle's P'int—" he resumed, and when Madame Hayle and old Joy roused and glanced around on him, while the senator and the general reappeared close by, looking back down the steamer's wake with military comments on the First Chickasaw Bluff, just left behind, he addressed them all as one. Hayle's Point, he persisted, was miles away yet and comparatively unimportant "considerin' its name," but the small cluster of houses on the Arkansas side up in the next bend was Osceola, where Plum Point Bars made the "wickedest" bit of river between Saint Louis and the Gulf; a bit that "killed" at least one steamboat every year. He said they were then passing a sand-bar, under water at this stage, which had been Island Thirty-two until "swallered whole" by the "big earthquake" of 1811."Better'n forty year' ago, that was. Only quake ever felt in these parts, but so big that, right in the middle of all the b'ilin' an' staggerin' an' sinkin' down to Chiny, the Mis'sippi River give birth to her fust steamboat—an' saved it!" So he continued, egged on by the conviction that, over and above the intrinsic value of the facts, these conversational eddies outside the current of incident "a-happ'min' to 'em yit" helped forward his two most deeply interested hearers on that course erroneously supposed never to run smooth.Be that as it may, the two pilots' joint theory of maxims working as well backward as forward worked here; deep waters ran still. Love, that is, having broken intolerable bounds in one short fierce "chute" of declaration, was content to run deep and still and to give broad precedence to duties, sorrows, and courtesies. The pair noticeably drifted apart and conversed with others when others were quite willing they should drift together. Madame Hayle needed but a glance or so to perceive that something beautiful had happened in the spiritual experience of her daughter. By and by when the commodore and the Californian rejoined the group, Hugh and his grandfather spent a still moment looking into each other's eyes and when both gazes relaxed at once the story had been told and understood.They turned to hear what was passing between the general, senator, and Californian. Said the soldier:"Sssirs, I only insssist thatifthis region ever sees war Port Hudson, Grand Gulf, Vvvicksburg, these fffour Chickasaw Bluffs, and Island Ten up here above us will be imp-regnably fffortified."Ramsey turned to the actor's wife as she came from the texas."How's the captain?" asked both she and her mother. But Mrs. Gilmore was too overcome to reply.Ramsey saw the actor at the stateroom door. He had beckoned. Hugh and the grandfather were on their way. At a quieter pace the four women followed and more slowly still the other four men. Reaching Gilmore, the Courteneys paused and spoke, then looked back to Ramsey and madame, and beckoned—Hugh to the mother, the commodore to Ramsey. Gilmore repeated the gesture and they glided forward. At the same time the player advanced to meet his wife, and, as if some intuition had rung the call, the scene-loving twins appeared in the senator's halted group and stood with them gazing, while Madame Hayle, the commodore, Ramsey, and Hugh entered the captain's room.

"Rather not; looks too unanimous the wrong way."

"Would you still like to have Hugh's advice?"

"I would! I'd like to hear yo'-all's argument."

Ramsey dropped into her chair with a tired sigh and up-stream gaze though with an inner ear of keenest attention.

Hugh glanced toward his father's door, whence at any moment, as every one realized, the actor might beckon.

"I have no argument," he began.

"You have," breathed a voice, unmistakably Ramsey's; "you always have."

"You know," he continued to the Kentuckian, "there's something in all of us, I don't say what, or whether wise or foolish, that says: 'Don't do it.' You feel it, don't you?"

Madame interrupted: "Maisdon't do w'at?"

Ramsey faced the group as if to answer just that question. "Now we pass between Cedar Point and Pecan Point and head for the Second Chickasaw Bluffs!"

"Ah bah,lesbloff'," murmured madame and repeated to Hugh: "Something say, 'Don' do it'?Maisw'at it say don' do?"

"Don't mix the great races we know apart by their color."

"Umph! An' w'at is thad something w'at tell uz that?"

"Grandfather calls it race conscience."

"Grandfather!" whimpered Ramsey, while madame asked:

"Of w'at race has Phylliz the conscien'? An' you would know Phylliz' race—ad sight—by the color?"

"I'd know it!" put in the Kentuckian. "She's white, to all intents and purposes."

"No," said Hugh, "not quite to all. Not to all as organized society, in its——"

Ramsey, with eyes up the river, sighed: "Mrs. Grundy?"

"Yes, but Mrs. Grundy in her best intents and purposes."

"In her race conscience," wailed Ramsey to the breeze.

"In her race conscience," assented Hugh.

Ramsey whipped around. "Thought you had no argument."

"I'm giving grandfather's," said the grandson.

"Humph! it's yours. I'd know it at sight—by the color."

"Miss Ramsey," said the old man, toying with his cane, "Hugh and I have been finding that, right or wrong, Mrs. Grundy or Mr. Grundy, race conscience is a wonderful, unaccountable thing for which men will give their life-blood by thousands." His voice failed. He waved smilingly to Hugh.

"And when," broke in Hugh to Ramsey, "when Mrs. Grundy, in her race conscience, says Phyllis is not white no one ought to snap his fingers in even Mrs. Grundy's face merely to please himself or to relieve some private situation."

Ramsey stood up, flashing first on him and then to her mother, dropped again, and with her face in her elbow on the chair's back recited drearily—from her third reader:

"You can hear him swing his heavy sledgeWith measured beat and slow,Like the sexton ringing the village bellWhen the evening sun——"

"You can hear him swing his heavy sledgeWith measured beat and slow,Like the sexton ringing the village bellWhen the evening sun——"

"You can hear him swing his heavy sledge

With measured beat and slow,

Like the sexton ringing the village bell

When the evening sun——"

"Ramzee!" exclaimed madame, while the old nurse groaned: "Oh, Lawd 'a' massy!"

The girl rose, laughed, and flashed again: "Well, if Phyllis ain't white what is she? She's got to be something!"

"Yes," said the youth, "but not everything. I know her wrongs. But none of us, with whatever rights and wrongs, can have, or do, or be——"

"Oh, don't we know all that?" Ramsey turned to the grandfather and with sudden deference sprang to help him rise. He faced her and the Californian together.

"Miss Ramsey, Hugh has all your feelings in this matter."

Madame, "California," and old Joy eagerly assented.

"But poor, blundering old Mrs. Grundy, always wronging some one," the old man smilingly continued, "is really fighting hard for a better human race. That's the greatest battle she can fight, my dear young lady, and when——"

"Well," rejoined Ramsey with eyes frankly tearful, "she fights it mighty badly."

"Ah, a hundred times worse than you think. Yet we who presume to fight the blunders of that battle must fight them unselfishly and to help her win."

Old Joy groaned so approvingly that he turned to her.

"What do you think, old mammy?"

"Who, me? Lawd, I thinks mighty little an' I knows less. Yit one thing I does know: Phyllis ain' gwine. She know' you cayn't make her white by takin' her to whah it make' no odds ef she ain't white. Phyllis love' folks. She love' de quality, she love' de crowd. White aw black aw octoroom free niggeh, Phyllis gwine to choose de old Hayle home and de great riveh—full o' steamboat'—sooneh'n any lan' whah de ain't mo'n one 'oman to de mile. Phyllis ain't gwine."

The closing words faded to soliloquy. For every one stood up, and even the old woman's attention was diverted to Watson's apprentice approaching from the captain's room. On his way below for the doctor he came, in the actor's behalf, to ask if he might bring up also Mrs. Gilmore.

Assuredly he might. How was the patient?

"Very quiet," the boy hopefully replied. Whereupon madame begged leave to repair at once to the sick-room, but neither of the Courteneys would consent nor either of them allow the other to go. The steersman passed on down.

From enviously watching him do so, "California" turned to the company and in open abandonment of his amazing proposition said drolly that never before had he failed, in so many ways "hand-running," to make himself useful. He reseated Madame Hayle and would have set the daughter beside her, but the mother bade Ramsey give Joy the chair and leaned wearily on the old woman's shoulder. Both Courteneys urged their seats on the girl, and when she would not accept while either of them stood for her servant to sit, the grandfather left Hugh debating with her, took "California's" arm, found other chairs a few paces away, and engaged him in a gentle parley which any one might see was an appeal to his sober second thought. It was Ned's shift up at the wheel, but the change of watch was near; his partner stood at his elbow. Their gaze was up a reach between the two most northern of those four groups of bluffs whose mention even Ramsey was for the moment tired of, yet they studied the three couples on the roof below.

"Runs smooth at the present writing," said Watson.

"Clair chann'l ef noth'n' else," responded Ned. The allusion was neither to boat nor stream but to a certain opportuneness of things, whose obviousness to them, looking down, was mainly what kept Ramsey standing. While she stood beside the two empty chairs cross-questioning Hugh with a fresh show of her maturer mildness and he stood inwardly taking back his late farewell to sweet companionship and softly answering in his incongruous pomp of voice with a new tenderness, and while the worn-out mother gradually let her full weight sink on the tired slave, this obvious propitiousness was embarrassingly increased by the two weary ones falling asleep.

True, the clearness of channel—this channel in the upper air—was not absolute, but its obstacles nettled mostly the pilots. To Ramsey, even to Hugh, obstacles were almost welcome, as enabling them to show to a prying world that nothing beyond the grayest commonplace was occurring between them. One such interruption was the upcoming and passing of Mrs. Gilmore and the physician to the sick-room and the cub pilot's parting with them to join the younger pair. The boy found Hugh confessing that he should not know exactly how to word Phyllis's "free papers" but adding that the first clerk would be pleased to make them out at once if Ramsey's eagerness so dictated. It did, and presently the modest intruder was hurrying away on a double errand: to bear this confidential request to the clerk and then to seek the Brothers Ambrosia and with them and the two under-clerks arrange for the evening performance, the giving of which, however, Ramsey insisted, must depend on the captain's condition when evening should come.

"Wish it were here now," she said as they watched the messenger go. "Don't you?"

"I could," he replied, "but it will be here soon enough."

The conversation which followed remained in their memory through years of separation.

She spoke again in her new tone: "You think your father will get well, don't you?"

"No, Ramsey."

At those words her heart did two things at once: stopped on the first, rebounded on the second. But it fell again as he added: "I fear I must lose my father to-night."

She stood mute, looking into his eyes and pondering every light and shadow of the severe young face that to her seemed so imperially unlike all others. "He's great," she said in her heart. "And he loves with his greatness. Loves even his father that way; not as I love mine or love anybody, or ever shall or can, or could wish to, unless I were a man and as great as him—he. I never could have dreamt of any one loving me that way, but if any ever should I'd worship him." Suddenly her sympathy rose high.

"Oh, why not just think to yourself: 'Hewilllive'?"

"Why should I? Should I be fit to live myself if I were not true to myself?"

"You are! You always are!"

"No one can be who isn't truthful to himself."

Ramsey gazed again. A sense of his suffering benumbed her, and for relief she asked: "Is that why you don't wish it were evening, when really you do?"

He smiled. "I can't wish the sun to get out of my way. That's what it would mean, isn't it?"

She fell to thinking what it meant. All at once she pointed: "That's the First Chickasaw Bluff.... Yes, I s'pose it does mean that.... It's terrible how thoughtless I am."

"It doesn't terrify me. I promise you it never shall."

Was he making game of her? She narrowed her lids and looked at him sidewise. No, plainly he was not; so plainly that she took refuge in another question. "Don't you like night better than day sometimes?"

"I do, often."

"Why?"

"For one thing, we can see so much farther."

"Oh, ridiculous! we can't see nearly so far!"

"We can see so much farther and wider, deeper, clearer. The day blinds us. Spoils our sense of proportion. At night we see more of what creation really is. Our sun becomes one little star among thousands of greater ones, and we are humbled into a reasonableness which is very hard not to lose in the bewilderments of daylight."

Ramsey sank to the arm of a chair, but when he remained standing she stood again. "Wasn't you saying something like that the evening we left New Orleans?" she asked.

"To my father, yes. I couldn't have said it in daylight then. I couldn't say it in daylight now to any one but you, Ramsey."

Her heart leaped again. Her eyes looked straight into his; could not look away. He spoke on:

"You're a kind of evening to me, yourself; evening star."

Her bosom pounded. She glanced up behind to the pilots. Watson had the wheel. As she strenuously pushed back her curls she felt her temples burn. She could have cried aloud for Hugh to cease, yet was mad for him to go on.

And so he did. "You are my evening star in this nightfall of affliction. I tell you so not in weakness but in strength and in defiance: in the strength I summon for the hour before me; in the defiance I fling to your brothers. I may never have another chance. If ours were the ordinary chances of ordinary life I should say nothing now. I should wait; wait and give love time; time to prove itself in me—in both of us. Iasknothing. I am too new to you, life is too new—to you—for pledges."

She flashed him a glance and then, looking up the river, said, with the ghost of a toss: "I'm older than you think."

He ignored the revelation. "But I will say," he went on, "—for these three days and nights have been three years to me and I feel a three years' right to say—I love you; love you for life; am yours for life though we never meet again. For I believe that we belong to each other from the centre of our souls, by a fitness plain even to the eyes of your brothers."

For I believe that we belong to each other from the centre of our souls, by a fitness plain even to the eyes of your brothers"For I believe that we belong to each other from the centre of our souls, by a fitness plain even to the eyes of your brothers"

Still looking up the flood and red from brow to throat, Ramsey murmured two or three words which she saw he did not hear. Yet he stood without sound or look to ask what she had said, and presently repeated:

"I believe in God's sight we belong to each other."

"So do I," said Ramsey again, with clearer voice and with her brimming eyes looking straight into his. A footfall turned her and she faced the relieved pilot.

"Isn't this Island Thirty-three," she asked, "right here on our starboard bow?"

"Thirty-three," assented Ned. "Alias Flour Island; butnotFlow-er Island. Flour-ladened flatboats wrecked there in the days o' yo' grandfather, Eliphalet Hayle, whose own boats they might 'a' been, only Hayles ain't never been good at losin' boats. But his'n or not,canyou suspicion they wuz flow-er-ladened? Shucks! them that spell it that-a-way air jest as bad an' no wuss than them that stickbonto Plum in Plum P'int an' pull theyout o' Hayle fo' Hayle's P'int! They jest a-airin' they ignorance. Some fellers love to air they ignorance. I do, myself."

He gave these facts of topography in reward of the grave interest that Hugh—elated interest that Ramsey—still seemed to take in all such items, as well as to allow them to infer that he had not noticed them betraying interest in anything more personal.

"Hayle's P'int—" he resumed, and when Madame Hayle and old Joy roused and glanced around on him, while the senator and the general reappeared close by, looking back down the steamer's wake with military comments on the First Chickasaw Bluff, just left behind, he addressed them all as one. Hayle's Point, he persisted, was miles away yet and comparatively unimportant "considerin' its name," but the small cluster of houses on the Arkansas side up in the next bend was Osceola, where Plum Point Bars made the "wickedest" bit of river between Saint Louis and the Gulf; a bit that "killed" at least one steamboat every year. He said they were then passing a sand-bar, under water at this stage, which had been Island Thirty-two until "swallered whole" by the "big earthquake" of 1811.

"Better'n forty year' ago, that was. Only quake ever felt in these parts, but so big that, right in the middle of all the b'ilin' an' staggerin' an' sinkin' down to Chiny, the Mis'sippi River give birth to her fust steamboat—an' saved it!" So he continued, egged on by the conviction that, over and above the intrinsic value of the facts, these conversational eddies outside the current of incident "a-happ'min' to 'em yit" helped forward his two most deeply interested hearers on that course erroneously supposed never to run smooth.

Be that as it may, the two pilots' joint theory of maxims working as well backward as forward worked here; deep waters ran still. Love, that is, having broken intolerable bounds in one short fierce "chute" of declaration, was content to run deep and still and to give broad precedence to duties, sorrows, and courtesies. The pair noticeably drifted apart and conversed with others when others were quite willing they should drift together. Madame Hayle needed but a glance or so to perceive that something beautiful had happened in the spiritual experience of her daughter. By and by when the commodore and the Californian rejoined the group, Hugh and his grandfather spent a still moment looking into each other's eyes and when both gazes relaxed at once the story had been told and understood.

They turned to hear what was passing between the general, senator, and Californian. Said the soldier:

"Sssirs, I only insssist thatifthis region ever sees war Port Hudson, Grand Gulf, Vvvicksburg, these fffour Chickasaw Bluffs, and Island Ten up here above us will be imp-regnably fffortified."

Ramsey turned to the actor's wife as she came from the texas.

"How's the captain?" asked both she and her mother. But Mrs. Gilmore was too overcome to reply.

Ramsey saw the actor at the stateroom door. He had beckoned. Hugh and the grandfather were on their way. At a quieter pace the four women followed and more slowly still the other four men. Reaching Gilmore, the Courteneys paused and spoke, then looked back to Ramsey and madame, and beckoned—Hugh to the mother, the commodore to Ramsey. Gilmore repeated the gesture and they glided forward. At the same time the player advanced to meet his wife, and, as if some intuition had rung the call, the scene-loving twins appeared in the senator's halted group and stood with them gazing, while Madame Hayle, the commodore, Ramsey, and Hugh entered the captain's room.

LVIEIGHT YEARS AFTER

"A hundred months," says the love-song that beguiled so many thousands of hearts throughout the Mississippi Valley in those old "Lily Dale," "Nellie Gray," "What is Home Without a Mother?" days, when the lugubrious was so blithely enjoyed at the piano. Its first wails date nearly or quite back to October, 1860."A hundred months had passed" since that first up-stream voyage of theVotaress, or, to be punctilious, something under a hundred and two. It was the opening week of that mid-autumn month in which it became evident that Abraham Lincoln would be the next president. Another new boat, new pride of the great river, the fairest yet, still in the hands of her contractors, and on her trial trip from Louisville to New Orleans, was rounding, one after another, now far in the east, now as far in the west, the bends nearest below Memphis: Cow Island, Cat Island, St. Francis, Delta—so on.The river was low. You would hardly have known a reach, a cut-off, a point of it by any aspect remembered from that journey of April, '52. Scantness of waters appeared to contract distances. "Paddy's Hen and Chickens," just above Memphis, were all out on dry sands and seemed closer under the "Devil's Elbow" than eight years before. Every towhead and bar and hundreds of snags were above water and as ugly as mud, age, sun bleach, and turkey-buzzards could make them. Many a chute comfortably run by theVotaresswas now "closed for repairs," said one of the pilots of theEnchantress. He was the whilom steersman we knew as Watson's cub; a very capable-looking man now. At the moment, he was off watch and had come out from the bar to the boiler deck with a trim, supple man of forty, whose shirt of fine white flannel was open at the throat, where a soft neckerchief of red silk matched the sash at his waist: "California," eight years older and out of the West again despite his "never" to Hayle's twins."I like to change my mind sometimes," he explained. "It shows me I've got one."A towering, massive, grizzly man several years older than the Californian, with a short, stiff, throat-latch beard and a great bush of dense, short curls, stood by the forward guards, a picture of rude force and high efficiency. At every moment, from some direction among the deck's loungers a light scrutiny ventured to rest on him, to which he seemed habituated, and the lightest was enough to reveal in him a striking union of traits coarse and fine. He wore a big cluster diamond pin, a sort of hen-and-chickens of his own, secured by a minute guard-chain on a ruffled shirt-front of snowiest linen, where clung dry crumbs of the "fine-cut" which puffed the lower side pockets of his gray alpaca sack coat. His gold-headed cane was almost a bludgeon. He had come aboard at Memphis, having reached that city but a few hours earlier by rail-way train from White Sulphur Springs, Va., where he had had the good fortune to find great relief from rheumatism. The young lady in his company, now back in the ladies' cabin, was his daughter, they said, beautiful and all of twenty-two, yet unmarried! This man the pilot and the Californian approached and waited for his attention. When he gave it the pilot spoke."Commodore," he said, "welcome back to the river."The big man grew bigger and his shaggy brows more severe."I feel welcome," he said. "Only place under God's canopy where I can breathe down into my boots.""And you want the roof for it here, don't you? I do. Roof or wheel. Commodore Hayle, my friend Mr. So-and-so, from California. He's your brand; Kentuck' born and raised."The two shook hands, scanning each other's countenances. The eyes of both were equally blue, equally intrepid."Are you the man—?" Hayle began to ask with grim humor."I think so.""Well, my boy, I've been wanting to see you for better than eight years." The speaker glanced around for privacy."Come up," said the pilot; "I'm just going on watch." They followed him. On the roof he continued:"Seen Captain Hugh yet, commodore? He's sure enough captain now, you know; youngest on the river. He was looking for you a bit ago. This is a beautiful boat he's going to have, eh?""Humph, yes.Votaressover again." The critic gave her a fresh scrutiny from cutwater to stern rail, from freight guards to the oak-leaf crown on either chimney-top."Why, commodore, she knocks the hindsights off the oldVotaressevery way. You'll see that mighty quick.""Humph, yes; best yet, of the Courteney type. Ridiculous, how they hang to that. I'll build a boat to beat her inside a year if old Abe ain't elected. If he is, we'll just build gunboats and raise particular hell." On the skylight the speaker amiably declined to climb any higher."No, us two Kentuck's will try it here." The pair found seats together, and soon the Californian was making the best of an opportunity he, no less than Gideon Hayle, had coveted for eight years. It interested him keenly, as affording a glimpse into the famous boatman's character, that the latter showed a grasp of the dreadful voyage's story as vivid and clear in each of its two versions—the mother and daughter's and the twins'—as though the intervening months had been one instead of a hundred—and two.They rehearsed together the arrival of theVotaressat Louisville in the dead of night; confessed the folly of any "outsider" seeking the grief-burdened Gideon's ear in that first hour of reunion with his family, and the equal unwisdom of his pressing, in such an hour, an acute personal question upon Hugh and his grandfather who, at Paducah, had just buried John Courteney."And you've never pressed it sence?" asked "California.""Mm-no.""Nor let either o' them press it?""No!"—a sturdy oath—"nor you nor anybody alive. Go on with your story."The gold hunter went on unruffled; told it as he had seen it occur; recounted, among other things, how, on the final landing of the immigrants, at Cairo, Marburg and not a few besides had covered Madame Hayle's hands with kisses and tears and would have done Hugh Courteney's so could they have got at him. His hearer frowned and set his big jaw, but the narrative flowed on, describing how, like Marburg, many had waved affectionate farewells to Hugh and to Ramsey which she could guess no reason for in her case except her own wet eyes, but which "California" saw was because, through himself and Phyllis, the immigrants had found her out as another who believed in letting the oppressed go free and come free. He told even those irrelevant things about himself which had made him ludicrous. They imparted a needed lightness and kindled the big commodore's smile."They never found out," said "California," "that the fellow who played 'Bounding Billow' and 'A Life on the Ocean Wave' was me—I—myself."He told all as honestly, fearlessly as we might know he would. When his huge listener tried to say off-handedly that every man who knew anything knew that women and men never see things alike and that different witnesses could, quite honestly, give irreconcilable accounts of the same thing, the Californian serenely waved away all such gloss and with the seated giant hanging over him like a thunder-cloud said that the twins could never see anything straight enough to tell the truth about it if they wanted to and that just as certainly they often didn't want to. Pausing there and getting no retort, he ventured another step. Said he:"And there you've hung the case up for eight years.""That's my business!" Gideon smote the arm of his chair."California" laughed a moment like a girl, with drooping head. Then—oh, the twins had their good points, yes. One was the way they stuck to each other. And their biggest virtue, their "best holt," the one their worst enemy couldn't help liking them for, was their invincible sand."The devil couldn't scare 'em with his tail red-hot."At that the father laughed gratefully."They'd ought to be in some trade where pluck," the Californian went on, "is the whole show. They'd ought to be soldiers. As plain up-and-down fighters for fight'n's sake, commodore, they'd hit it off as sweet as blackstrap!"The truth smote hard but the parent feigned a jovial inappreciation. If that was so they had made a "most damnable misdeal," he laughed, having settled down in Natchez together, "too soft on each other to marry and as tame as parrakeets"; Julian as county sheriff, his brother a physician.The Californian silently doubted the tameness. Abruptly, though in tones of worship, he inquired after Madame Hayle.Madame just then was at home, on the plantation at Natchez. Yes, she and Ramsey often made trips with Gideon on thatParagonwhich they had gone up the river to come down on, in '52. TheParagon, wonderfully preserved, was still in the "Vicksburg and Bends" trade and happened then to be some forty-eight hours ahead of theEnchantressand nearing New Orleans. Madame and her daughter now and then spent part of the social season in the great river's great seaport, which was—"bound to be the greatest in the world, my boy," said Gideon. But Ramsey——When Ramsey became the topic, even "California," while the father boasted, had to hold on, as he would have said, with his teeth to keep from being blown away. Her "one and only love" was the river! She "knew it like a pilot" and loved it and the whole life on it not merely for its excitements, variety, and outlook on the big world."That is to say——for its poetry," prompted "California.""Yes, not for that only but just as much for its prose, by Mike! Why, my boy, that's all that's kept her single!""Except!" said the Californian softly, but Gideon pressed on. "And single, now, I reckon, she'll always be. Why, sir, not a day breaks but she knows, within an hour's run, the whereabouts of every Hayle boat alive.""Some Courteney boats too, hmm?""Why, eh"—a stare—"I shouldn't wonder. Yes. Humph! 'youngest captain on the river'—fact is, that'sher. Lady as she is, and lovely as she is, she's a better steamboatman to-day than—than many a first-class one. She's nearer being my business partner than any man I ever hired.""Partner's share of the swag?""No," laughed the giant, "but I'm leaving her the boats.""Well," said "California," "all that's good preparation."The huge man shot him a glance and the two pairs of blue eyes held each other. Then "California" smiled his winsomest and said: "Did you ever notice how much easier you can see through the ends of an iron pipe than through its sides?"Gideon stared. "Humph! Any fool that wants to see through me may see and be—joyful. What do you think you see?""Oh, things you'd ought to thought of and never have.""Why, you in'—Well, I'll be damned.""Shouldn't wonder a bit," said "California" so amiably that the big man laughed."Maybe you'll tell me my oversights!""No, but you'll be told, shortly, if the man I think I know is the man I—think I know. Let's pass that now, commodore. Oh, I wish you'd been with us on theVotaress. How different things might 'a' turned out. You know? I don't believe any other trip on all this big river, barring the first steamboat's first, ever made so big a turning-point in so many lives. Why, jest two or three things in it, things and people, made me another man.""One not so need'n' to be hanged?""Yes, and not so hungry to hang other fellers. I hadn't ever met up with such aristocratic stock as I did then but I tchuned right up to 'em and I've mighty nigh held their pitch ever sence. Fo'most of all was this Hugh Courteney. Fo'most because, he being a man, I wa'n't afraid of him. But a close second was yo' daughter; second because, she being a woman, I was afraid of her. Why, even Phyllis, that's now chambermaid on this boat——""By Jupiter!" Gideon Hayle half started from his seat. "On this boat? our Phyllis? that Ramsey set free?""Yes. Captain Hugh's nurse that was.""Look here, my boy, is that why you're aboard?""No, sir-ee! Don't you fret. That trip, I tell you, made another man of me. It lifted; why, commodore, it made me a poet.""Made you a—Oh, go 'long off!""Yes, sir. Writ poetry ever sence. Dropped prose; too easy. It's real poetry, commodore; rhymes as slick as grease. Show you some of it later.""George! if you do I'll jump into the river.""Agreed! I've got some that'll make you do that.""You haven't got any that wouldn't."Neither smiled, neither frowned. Obviously each knew how to like an adversary and when "California" rose and the two, glancing aft, saw another two approaching from the pilot-house, one of whom was Watson, Hayle touched the poet detainingly and said:"Don't go 'way, I want some more of your prose.""Want to know why I'm here? Not countin' the fun o' seein' Captain Hugh, half the reason's that gentleman yonder comin' with Mr. Watson, and the other half's his lady, down below a-powwowin' with yo' daughter. Fact is I'd struck it rich again out West and got restless and come East, and at Saint Louis I see by a newspaper that them two was allowin' to go down to Orleans on this boat this trip, and ree-collect-in' the pinch they got into of old on theVotaress, s'I to myself,'me too!'"Here the other men drew near and, while "California" ran on, silently pressed the big hand offered sidewise by Hayle."And with that I set down and writ a poem—took me a whole night—to the best half dozen o' them that was on the other trip, invitin' 'em, at my expense, to jump on when we come by—at New Carthage—Milliken's Bend—Vicksburg—and trustin' to luck and fresh post stamps to find 'em. But little did we dream o' seein' you walk aboard, at Memphis, and still less yo' daughter and her old Joy; did we, Mr. Gilmore?"

"A hundred months," says the love-song that beguiled so many thousands of hearts throughout the Mississippi Valley in those old "Lily Dale," "Nellie Gray," "What is Home Without a Mother?" days, when the lugubrious was so blithely enjoyed at the piano. Its first wails date nearly or quite back to October, 1860.

"A hundred months had passed" since that first up-stream voyage of theVotaress, or, to be punctilious, something under a hundred and two. It was the opening week of that mid-autumn month in which it became evident that Abraham Lincoln would be the next president. Another new boat, new pride of the great river, the fairest yet, still in the hands of her contractors, and on her trial trip from Louisville to New Orleans, was rounding, one after another, now far in the east, now as far in the west, the bends nearest below Memphis: Cow Island, Cat Island, St. Francis, Delta—so on.

The river was low. You would hardly have known a reach, a cut-off, a point of it by any aspect remembered from that journey of April, '52. Scantness of waters appeared to contract distances. "Paddy's Hen and Chickens," just above Memphis, were all out on dry sands and seemed closer under the "Devil's Elbow" than eight years before. Every towhead and bar and hundreds of snags were above water and as ugly as mud, age, sun bleach, and turkey-buzzards could make them. Many a chute comfortably run by theVotaresswas now "closed for repairs," said one of the pilots of theEnchantress. He was the whilom steersman we knew as Watson's cub; a very capable-looking man now. At the moment, he was off watch and had come out from the bar to the boiler deck with a trim, supple man of forty, whose shirt of fine white flannel was open at the throat, where a soft neckerchief of red silk matched the sash at his waist: "California," eight years older and out of the West again despite his "never" to Hayle's twins.

"I like to change my mind sometimes," he explained. "It shows me I've got one."

A towering, massive, grizzly man several years older than the Californian, with a short, stiff, throat-latch beard and a great bush of dense, short curls, stood by the forward guards, a picture of rude force and high efficiency. At every moment, from some direction among the deck's loungers a light scrutiny ventured to rest on him, to which he seemed habituated, and the lightest was enough to reveal in him a striking union of traits coarse and fine. He wore a big cluster diamond pin, a sort of hen-and-chickens of his own, secured by a minute guard-chain on a ruffled shirt-front of snowiest linen, where clung dry crumbs of the "fine-cut" which puffed the lower side pockets of his gray alpaca sack coat. His gold-headed cane was almost a bludgeon. He had come aboard at Memphis, having reached that city but a few hours earlier by rail-way train from White Sulphur Springs, Va., where he had had the good fortune to find great relief from rheumatism. The young lady in his company, now back in the ladies' cabin, was his daughter, they said, beautiful and all of twenty-two, yet unmarried! This man the pilot and the Californian approached and waited for his attention. When he gave it the pilot spoke.

"Commodore," he said, "welcome back to the river."

The big man grew bigger and his shaggy brows more severe.

"I feel welcome," he said. "Only place under God's canopy where I can breathe down into my boots."

"And you want the roof for it here, don't you? I do. Roof or wheel. Commodore Hayle, my friend Mr. So-and-so, from California. He's your brand; Kentuck' born and raised."

The two shook hands, scanning each other's countenances. The eyes of both were equally blue, equally intrepid.

"Are you the man—?" Hayle began to ask with grim humor.

"I think so."

"Well, my boy, I've been wanting to see you for better than eight years." The speaker glanced around for privacy.

"Come up," said the pilot; "I'm just going on watch." They followed him. On the roof he continued:

"Seen Captain Hugh yet, commodore? He's sure enough captain now, you know; youngest on the river. He was looking for you a bit ago. This is a beautiful boat he's going to have, eh?"

"Humph, yes.Votaressover again." The critic gave her a fresh scrutiny from cutwater to stern rail, from freight guards to the oak-leaf crown on either chimney-top.

"Why, commodore, she knocks the hindsights off the oldVotaressevery way. You'll see that mighty quick."

"Humph, yes; best yet, of the Courteney type. Ridiculous, how they hang to that. I'll build a boat to beat her inside a year if old Abe ain't elected. If he is, we'll just build gunboats and raise particular hell." On the skylight the speaker amiably declined to climb any higher.

"No, us two Kentuck's will try it here." The pair found seats together, and soon the Californian was making the best of an opportunity he, no less than Gideon Hayle, had coveted for eight years. It interested him keenly, as affording a glimpse into the famous boatman's character, that the latter showed a grasp of the dreadful voyage's story as vivid and clear in each of its two versions—the mother and daughter's and the twins'—as though the intervening months had been one instead of a hundred—and two.

They rehearsed together the arrival of theVotaressat Louisville in the dead of night; confessed the folly of any "outsider" seeking the grief-burdened Gideon's ear in that first hour of reunion with his family, and the equal unwisdom of his pressing, in such an hour, an acute personal question upon Hugh and his grandfather who, at Paducah, had just buried John Courteney.

"And you've never pressed it sence?" asked "California."

"Mm-no."

"Nor let either o' them press it?"

"No!"—a sturdy oath—"nor you nor anybody alive. Go on with your story."

The gold hunter went on unruffled; told it as he had seen it occur; recounted, among other things, how, on the final landing of the immigrants, at Cairo, Marburg and not a few besides had covered Madame Hayle's hands with kisses and tears and would have done Hugh Courteney's so could they have got at him. His hearer frowned and set his big jaw, but the narrative flowed on, describing how, like Marburg, many had waved affectionate farewells to Hugh and to Ramsey which she could guess no reason for in her case except her own wet eyes, but which "California" saw was because, through himself and Phyllis, the immigrants had found her out as another who believed in letting the oppressed go free and come free. He told even those irrelevant things about himself which had made him ludicrous. They imparted a needed lightness and kindled the big commodore's smile.

"They never found out," said "California," "that the fellow who played 'Bounding Billow' and 'A Life on the Ocean Wave' was me—I—myself."

He told all as honestly, fearlessly as we might know he would. When his huge listener tried to say off-handedly that every man who knew anything knew that women and men never see things alike and that different witnesses could, quite honestly, give irreconcilable accounts of the same thing, the Californian serenely waved away all such gloss and with the seated giant hanging over him like a thunder-cloud said that the twins could never see anything straight enough to tell the truth about it if they wanted to and that just as certainly they often didn't want to. Pausing there and getting no retort, he ventured another step. Said he:

"And there you've hung the case up for eight years."

"That's my business!" Gideon smote the arm of his chair.

"California" laughed a moment like a girl, with drooping head. Then—oh, the twins had their good points, yes. One was the way they stuck to each other. And their biggest virtue, their "best holt," the one their worst enemy couldn't help liking them for, was their invincible sand.

"The devil couldn't scare 'em with his tail red-hot."

At that the father laughed gratefully.

"They'd ought to be in some trade where pluck," the Californian went on, "is the whole show. They'd ought to be soldiers. As plain up-and-down fighters for fight'n's sake, commodore, they'd hit it off as sweet as blackstrap!"

The truth smote hard but the parent feigned a jovial inappreciation. If that was so they had made a "most damnable misdeal," he laughed, having settled down in Natchez together, "too soft on each other to marry and as tame as parrakeets"; Julian as county sheriff, his brother a physician.

The Californian silently doubted the tameness. Abruptly, though in tones of worship, he inquired after Madame Hayle.

Madame just then was at home, on the plantation at Natchez. Yes, she and Ramsey often made trips with Gideon on thatParagonwhich they had gone up the river to come down on, in '52. TheParagon, wonderfully preserved, was still in the "Vicksburg and Bends" trade and happened then to be some forty-eight hours ahead of theEnchantressand nearing New Orleans. Madame and her daughter now and then spent part of the social season in the great river's great seaport, which was—"bound to be the greatest in the world, my boy," said Gideon. But Ramsey——

When Ramsey became the topic, even "California," while the father boasted, had to hold on, as he would have said, with his teeth to keep from being blown away. Her "one and only love" was the river! She "knew it like a pilot" and loved it and the whole life on it not merely for its excitements, variety, and outlook on the big world.

"That is to say——for its poetry," prompted "California."

"Yes, not for that only but just as much for its prose, by Mike! Why, my boy, that's all that's kept her single!"

"Except!" said the Californian softly, but Gideon pressed on. "And single, now, I reckon, she'll always be. Why, sir, not a day breaks but she knows, within an hour's run, the whereabouts of every Hayle boat alive."

"Some Courteney boats too, hmm?"

"Why, eh"—a stare—"I shouldn't wonder. Yes. Humph! 'youngest captain on the river'—fact is, that'sher. Lady as she is, and lovely as she is, she's a better steamboatman to-day than—than many a first-class one. She's nearer being my business partner than any man I ever hired."

"Partner's share of the swag?"

"No," laughed the giant, "but I'm leaving her the boats."

"Well," said "California," "all that's good preparation."

The huge man shot him a glance and the two pairs of blue eyes held each other. Then "California" smiled his winsomest and said: "Did you ever notice how much easier you can see through the ends of an iron pipe than through its sides?"

Gideon stared. "Humph! Any fool that wants to see through me may see and be—joyful. What do you think you see?"

"Oh, things you'd ought to thought of and never have."

"Why, you in'—Well, I'll be damned."

"Shouldn't wonder a bit," said "California" so amiably that the big man laughed.

"Maybe you'll tell me my oversights!"

"No, but you'll be told, shortly, if the man I think I know is the man I—think I know. Let's pass that now, commodore. Oh, I wish you'd been with us on theVotaress. How different things might 'a' turned out. You know? I don't believe any other trip on all this big river, barring the first steamboat's first, ever made so big a turning-point in so many lives. Why, jest two or three things in it, things and people, made me another man."

"One not so need'n' to be hanged?"

"Yes, and not so hungry to hang other fellers. I hadn't ever met up with such aristocratic stock as I did then but I tchuned right up to 'em and I've mighty nigh held their pitch ever sence. Fo'most of all was this Hugh Courteney. Fo'most because, he being a man, I wa'n't afraid of him. But a close second was yo' daughter; second because, she being a woman, I was afraid of her. Why, even Phyllis, that's now chambermaid on this boat——"

"By Jupiter!" Gideon Hayle half started from his seat. "On this boat? our Phyllis? that Ramsey set free?"

"Yes. Captain Hugh's nurse that was."

"Look here, my boy, is that why you're aboard?"

"No, sir-ee! Don't you fret. That trip, I tell you, made another man of me. It lifted; why, commodore, it made me a poet."

"Made you a—Oh, go 'long off!"

"Yes, sir. Writ poetry ever sence. Dropped prose; too easy. It's real poetry, commodore; rhymes as slick as grease. Show you some of it later."

"George! if you do I'll jump into the river."

"Agreed! I've got some that'll make you do that."

"You haven't got any that wouldn't."

Neither smiled, neither frowned. Obviously each knew how to like an adversary and when "California" rose and the two, glancing aft, saw another two approaching from the pilot-house, one of whom was Watson, Hayle touched the poet detainingly and said:

"Don't go 'way, I want some more of your prose."

"Want to know why I'm here? Not countin' the fun o' seein' Captain Hugh, half the reason's that gentleman yonder comin' with Mr. Watson, and the other half's his lady, down below a-powwowin' with yo' daughter. Fact is I'd struck it rich again out West and got restless and come East, and at Saint Louis I see by a newspaper that them two was allowin' to go down to Orleans on this boat this trip, and ree-collect-in' the pinch they got into of old on theVotaress, s'I to myself,'me too!'"

Here the other men drew near and, while "California" ran on, silently pressed the big hand offered sidewise by Hayle.

"And with that I set down and writ a poem—took me a whole night—to the best half dozen o' them that was on the other trip, invitin' 'em, at my expense, to jump on when we come by—at New Carthage—Milliken's Bend—Vicksburg—and trustin' to luck and fresh post stamps to find 'em. But little did we dream o' seein' you walk aboard, at Memphis, and still less yo' daughter and her old Joy; did we, Mr. Gilmore?"

LVIIFAREWELL, "VOTARESS"

Montezuma Bend ... Delta ... Delta Bend ... Friar's Point ... Kangaroo Point ... Horseshoe Bend and Cut-off. Some, at least, of these we remember. At mention of them the Gilmores and "California" smiled—behind Ramsey: such a different, surpassingly different Ramsey!Near theEnchantress'sbell these four and old Joy were gathered about Gideon Hayle, Watson, and Hugh Courteney—such an inspiringly different Hugh! Two or three showed a divided attention, letting an occasional glance stray down the waters ahead, where Old Town Bend swung from west to south.At the same moment, in Horseshoe Cut-off, some twelve or fifteen miles below, another swift, handsome steamer, upward bound—the great river could hardly yet show more than one handsomer—swept into the north from an easterly course under Island Sixty-four and pointed up the middle of the stream to pass between Sixty-three and Sixty-two where, at the head of the reach, they parted the river into three channels and widened it to more than a league. She would have been an animating sight if only for the fact that every soul aboard who was not just then engaged in running her was at the guards of one or another of her graceful decks. The forecastle was darkened by her crew standing in a half circle about the capstan, her larboard pantry guards were crowded with white-jackets, her roofs were gay with ladies and children. In elated oblivion of the charming picture presented by their own boat and themselves, all were awaiting a spectacle which their pilots and captain had said would surely be met within the next hour's run.Although behind them was a tortuous fifty miles in which hardly more signs of human life had been seen or heard than if their way had been on the open Atlantic, the beauty of the wilderness alone, transfigured in the lights of the declining day, might well have satisfied the eye. A red sun was just touching the horizon. Its beams and the blue shadows that divided them lay level, miles long, athwart the glassy stream and its green and gray forests and tapered and vanished in a low eastern haze. The tints of autumn already prevailed along the shores, and the indolent waters mirrored the reversed images of the two islands in outlines clearer than their own and from bank to bank took on in enriched hues the many colors of the sky. At the far end of the reach, between and somewhat beyond the islands, stood well out of the shrunken flood a sand-bar, its middle crested green and gold with young poplars and willows, all its ill favor made picturesque and the whole mass glorified by the sunset. By this bar the waters of the central channel were again divided, north and south, and the steamer, with another eastward turn, straightened up for the southern passage between the bar and Sixty-three."We'll pass her close," said one of the boat's family to those who hung on his words. "In this low water she's got to come round the bar and well over to the left bank, same as us."On the boiler deck and on the roof passengers of the kind that see for themselves pointed out to the kind that see only what they are shown the smoke of another boat, across the forests on the Arkansas side, in Old Town Bend. There were ways for some to know even at that distance that she was a craft they had never yet seen, but every two minutes the distance grew less by a mile. Presently, as the nearer boat, giving the bar's eastern head a wide berth, swung once more into the north, theEnchantressglided into view on the larboard bow hardly two miles away. But before theEnchantressas well, looking south across the same interval, gleamed a picture worthy of her delight. For there came theVotaress, curling white ribbons from her cutwater, her people waving and cheering, a swivel barking from her prow, and the whistles high up between her chimneys roaring in long salute.By no premeditation could the unpremeditated scene have been finer. TheVotaress, as she took the wider circuit against the Mississippi shore, caught the whole power of the setting sun on all her nearer side while she swept close along an undivided curtain of autumn forest drenched in the same sunlight and quaking to her sudden breeze. North and west of her, where the sand-bar lay bare of trees, theEnchantress, larger, stronger, swifter, moved in her own shade but was set against the far splendor of a saffron, green, and crimson sky in which the fiery sun showed only its upper half sinking beneath the landscape. The lights of all her decks, just lit, gave no vivid ray but glinted like gems on a court lady. Her bridal whiteness was as pure hid from the sunbeams as her sister's bathed in them. From both the high black smoke streamed away through the evening calm and from their twinkling wheels the foam swept after them like trains of lace. We speak for our poet, who, lacking fit imagery of his own, recalled one of Jenny Lind's songs:"I see afar thy robe of snow,I see thy dark hair wildly flow,I hear thy airy step so light,Thou com'st to wish thy love good night.Good night, my love, good night."Good night,Votaress! He could not know, nor Ramsey, nor any of those among whom they stood, that these bends were never again to see you in your beauty—though in tragedy, yes! yes! They knew that in the shipyards of the Ohio you were to receive a beautiful rejuvenation; but knew not that then, as a dove may be caught by a lynx, you were to be caught by a great war, a war greater than the great river, and should return to these scenes a transport; a poor, scarred, bedraggled consort to gunboats; slow reptilian monsters of iron ugliness and bellowing ferocity. They knew not of days when you must swarm with blue soldiers—including Marburg—sometimes hot and merry for battle, sometimes shot-torn, fever-wasted, yellow-eyed, a human rubbish of camp and siege, lighter part of the deadly price of conquered strongholds and fallen cities—Forts Henry and Donelson, Columbus, Island Ten, Fort Pillow, Port Hudson, Vicksburg, Memphis; or that, after all, in recovered decency, honored poverty, you should wear out a gentle old age as a wharf-boat to your unspeakable inferiors. And neither could they, those voyagers on the new steamer, foresee the happier vision of theirEnchantressliving through the war charmedly unscathed, sharing the palmiest days of the Mississippi's navigation without ever being surpassed in speed or beauty, even by younger Courteney boats, and at last falling asleep peaceably at her moorings hard by the vast riverside railway warehouses on the outskirts of a greater New Orleans.All this forces its way through the mind while we see the meeting boats cover half the run between them. On theEnchantressa deck-hand mounted the capstan."They're going to sing," hurriedly said Ramsey to Hugh. "I wish they'd sing ''Lindy Lowe' that I've heard about!"And whether by happy chance or on some signal dropped down from him or because the chantey was a new one and the crew were glad to show it off, it was chosen. The two steamers passed close with a happy commotion throughout both and the song swelled. Then the wooded crest of the bar hid each from each, and Hugh turned to Gideon: "Now, commodore, if Miss Hayle is willing I'd like to take you both below and show you over the boat—before supper."When their descent brought them to the boiler deck the song was yet in full swing. When, passing on down, they reached the engine room the fact was amusingly clear to many on all decks, among them the Gilmores, the Californian, and Watson, that the singers had lit on a new bearing for their lines and were singing them now in compliment to a certain two whose story was by this time known to all on board. Whether, back between the sweeping cranks and shafts of the two great engines and wheels, behind the "doctor" and the "donkey" and with Hugh and Ramsey at his elbows, the alert Gideon heard the song at all was doubtful; so deep in debate were the two men, the quiet and the loud, on dimensions and powers: length, beam, hold, stroke, diameters of cylinders and of wheels, in such noted cases as theChevalier, theEclipse, theJ. M. White, theNatchez,Antelope,Paragon,Quakeress, andAutocrat. The three were there yet when the song's last echo died, with Island Sixty-four eastward astern, Sixty-five southward ahead, the brief twilight failing and the supper bell ringadang-dinging.At table a far-away whistle softly roared and theEnchantresssonorously responded."A Hayle boat," said Ramsey to Hugh; "theRegent.""And we're singing 'Lindy' again!" said Mrs. Gilmore.Gideon, busy talking a few seats away, talked straight on, but a cloud on his brow showed now that he had heard the song the earlier time. Every one tried hard to listen to him and the melody with the same ears. Under the table somebody's toe had no better manners than gently to beat time.

Montezuma Bend ... Delta ... Delta Bend ... Friar's Point ... Kangaroo Point ... Horseshoe Bend and Cut-off. Some, at least, of these we remember. At mention of them the Gilmores and "California" smiled—behind Ramsey: such a different, surpassingly different Ramsey!

Near theEnchantress'sbell these four and old Joy were gathered about Gideon Hayle, Watson, and Hugh Courteney—such an inspiringly different Hugh! Two or three showed a divided attention, letting an occasional glance stray down the waters ahead, where Old Town Bend swung from west to south.

At the same moment, in Horseshoe Cut-off, some twelve or fifteen miles below, another swift, handsome steamer, upward bound—the great river could hardly yet show more than one handsomer—swept into the north from an easterly course under Island Sixty-four and pointed up the middle of the stream to pass between Sixty-three and Sixty-two where, at the head of the reach, they parted the river into three channels and widened it to more than a league. She would have been an animating sight if only for the fact that every soul aboard who was not just then engaged in running her was at the guards of one or another of her graceful decks. The forecastle was darkened by her crew standing in a half circle about the capstan, her larboard pantry guards were crowded with white-jackets, her roofs were gay with ladies and children. In elated oblivion of the charming picture presented by their own boat and themselves, all were awaiting a spectacle which their pilots and captain had said would surely be met within the next hour's run.

Although behind them was a tortuous fifty miles in which hardly more signs of human life had been seen or heard than if their way had been on the open Atlantic, the beauty of the wilderness alone, transfigured in the lights of the declining day, might well have satisfied the eye. A red sun was just touching the horizon. Its beams and the blue shadows that divided them lay level, miles long, athwart the glassy stream and its green and gray forests and tapered and vanished in a low eastern haze. The tints of autumn already prevailed along the shores, and the indolent waters mirrored the reversed images of the two islands in outlines clearer than their own and from bank to bank took on in enriched hues the many colors of the sky. At the far end of the reach, between and somewhat beyond the islands, stood well out of the shrunken flood a sand-bar, its middle crested green and gold with young poplars and willows, all its ill favor made picturesque and the whole mass glorified by the sunset. By this bar the waters of the central channel were again divided, north and south, and the steamer, with another eastward turn, straightened up for the southern passage between the bar and Sixty-three.

"We'll pass her close," said one of the boat's family to those who hung on his words. "In this low water she's got to come round the bar and well over to the left bank, same as us."

On the boiler deck and on the roof passengers of the kind that see for themselves pointed out to the kind that see only what they are shown the smoke of another boat, across the forests on the Arkansas side, in Old Town Bend. There were ways for some to know even at that distance that she was a craft they had never yet seen, but every two minutes the distance grew less by a mile. Presently, as the nearer boat, giving the bar's eastern head a wide berth, swung once more into the north, theEnchantressglided into view on the larboard bow hardly two miles away. But before theEnchantressas well, looking south across the same interval, gleamed a picture worthy of her delight. For there came theVotaress, curling white ribbons from her cutwater, her people waving and cheering, a swivel barking from her prow, and the whistles high up between her chimneys roaring in long salute.

By no premeditation could the unpremeditated scene have been finer. TheVotaress, as she took the wider circuit against the Mississippi shore, caught the whole power of the setting sun on all her nearer side while she swept close along an undivided curtain of autumn forest drenched in the same sunlight and quaking to her sudden breeze. North and west of her, where the sand-bar lay bare of trees, theEnchantress, larger, stronger, swifter, moved in her own shade but was set against the far splendor of a saffron, green, and crimson sky in which the fiery sun showed only its upper half sinking beneath the landscape. The lights of all her decks, just lit, gave no vivid ray but glinted like gems on a court lady. Her bridal whiteness was as pure hid from the sunbeams as her sister's bathed in them. From both the high black smoke streamed away through the evening calm and from their twinkling wheels the foam swept after them like trains of lace. We speak for our poet, who, lacking fit imagery of his own, recalled one of Jenny Lind's songs:

"I see afar thy robe of snow,I see thy dark hair wildly flow,I hear thy airy step so light,Thou com'st to wish thy love good night.Good night, my love, good night."

"I see afar thy robe of snow,I see thy dark hair wildly flow,I hear thy airy step so light,Thou com'st to wish thy love good night.Good night, my love, good night."

"I see afar thy robe of snow,

I see thy dark hair wildly flow,

I hear thy airy step so light,

Thou com'st to wish thy love good night.

Good night, my love, good night."

Good night,Votaress! He could not know, nor Ramsey, nor any of those among whom they stood, that these bends were never again to see you in your beauty—though in tragedy, yes! yes! They knew that in the shipyards of the Ohio you were to receive a beautiful rejuvenation; but knew not that then, as a dove may be caught by a lynx, you were to be caught by a great war, a war greater than the great river, and should return to these scenes a transport; a poor, scarred, bedraggled consort to gunboats; slow reptilian monsters of iron ugliness and bellowing ferocity. They knew not of days when you must swarm with blue soldiers—including Marburg—sometimes hot and merry for battle, sometimes shot-torn, fever-wasted, yellow-eyed, a human rubbish of camp and siege, lighter part of the deadly price of conquered strongholds and fallen cities—Forts Henry and Donelson, Columbus, Island Ten, Fort Pillow, Port Hudson, Vicksburg, Memphis; or that, after all, in recovered decency, honored poverty, you should wear out a gentle old age as a wharf-boat to your unspeakable inferiors. And neither could they, those voyagers on the new steamer, foresee the happier vision of theirEnchantressliving through the war charmedly unscathed, sharing the palmiest days of the Mississippi's navigation without ever being surpassed in speed or beauty, even by younger Courteney boats, and at last falling asleep peaceably at her moorings hard by the vast riverside railway warehouses on the outskirts of a greater New Orleans.

All this forces its way through the mind while we see the meeting boats cover half the run between them. On theEnchantressa deck-hand mounted the capstan.

"They're going to sing," hurriedly said Ramsey to Hugh. "I wish they'd sing ''Lindy Lowe' that I've heard about!"

And whether by happy chance or on some signal dropped down from him or because the chantey was a new one and the crew were glad to show it off, it was chosen. The two steamers passed close with a happy commotion throughout both and the song swelled. Then the wooded crest of the bar hid each from each, and Hugh turned to Gideon: "Now, commodore, if Miss Hayle is willing I'd like to take you both below and show you over the boat—before supper."

When their descent brought them to the boiler deck the song was yet in full swing. When, passing on down, they reached the engine room the fact was amusingly clear to many on all decks, among them the Gilmores, the Californian, and Watson, that the singers had lit on a new bearing for their lines and were singing them now in compliment to a certain two whose story was by this time known to all on board. Whether, back between the sweeping cranks and shafts of the two great engines and wheels, behind the "doctor" and the "donkey" and with Hugh and Ramsey at his elbows, the alert Gideon heard the song at all was doubtful; so deep in debate were the two men, the quiet and the loud, on dimensions and powers: length, beam, hold, stroke, diameters of cylinders and of wheels, in such noted cases as theChevalier, theEclipse, theJ. M. White, theNatchez,Antelope,Paragon,Quakeress, andAutocrat. The three were there yet when the song's last echo died, with Island Sixty-four eastward astern, Sixty-five southward ahead, the brief twilight failing and the supper bell ringadang-dinging.

At table a far-away whistle softly roared and theEnchantresssonorously responded.

"A Hayle boat," said Ramsey to Hugh; "theRegent."

"And we're singing 'Lindy' again!" said Mrs. Gilmore.

Gideon, busy talking a few seats away, talked straight on, but a cloud on his brow showed now that he had heard the song the earlier time. Every one tried hard to listen to him and the melody with the same ears. Under the table somebody's toe had no better manners than gently to beat time.

LVIII'LINDY LOWE

[Music: Come, smil-in' 'Lind-y Lowe,... de pooti-ess gal I know,... On de fin-ess boat dat ev-eh float, In de O-hi-o, De Mas-sis-sip-pi aw de O-hi-o.][Listen to a midi file of this music]Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, teef whiteh dan de snow,On de finess boat dat eveh float,In de O—hi—o,De Mas—sis—sip—pi aw de O—hi—o.Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, to de Lou'siana sho',(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, by de Gu'f o' Mexico,(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, to de bayous deep an' slow,(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, whah de moss wave, to an' fro,(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, de bell done ring to go,(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, whah de muscadimons grow,(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, befo' de whistle blow',(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, de pride o' Lake St. Jo',(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, I love' you long ago,(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, I'll love you mo' an' mo',(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, how kin you treat me so?(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, whah de sweet pussimmon grow(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, de steam-kyahs runs too slow,(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, whah de blue pon'-lily grow,(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, O don't you tell me no!(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, I's bound to be yo' beau,(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, whah de wile white roses grow,(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, de fust of all de row,(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, eyes sweeteh dan de doe,(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, whah de white magnonia blow',(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, an' awake up, fiddle an' bow,(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, we'll a-dance de heel an' toe,(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, to de tchune o' Jump, Jim Crow,(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, come, de pootiess gal I know,On de finess boat dat eveh float'In de O—hi—o,De Mas—sis—sip—pi aw de O—hi—o.

[Listen to a midi file of this music]

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, teef whiteh dan de snow,On de finess boat dat eveh float,In de O—hi—o,De Mas—sis—sip—pi aw de O—hi—o.Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, to de Lou'siana sho',(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, by de Gu'f o' Mexico,(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, to de bayous deep an' slow,(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, whah de moss wave, to an' fro,(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, de bell done ring to go,(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, whah de muscadimons grow,(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, befo' de whistle blow',(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, de pride o' Lake St. Jo',(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, I love' you long ago,(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, I'll love you mo' an' mo',(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, how kin you treat me so?(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, whah de sweet pussimmon grow(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, de steam-kyahs runs too slow,(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, whah de blue pon'-lily grow,(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, O don't you tell me no!(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, I's bound to be yo' beau,(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, whah de wile white roses grow,(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, de fust of all de row,(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, eyes sweeteh dan de doe,(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, whah de white magnonia blow',(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, an' awake up, fiddle an' bow,(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, we'll a-dance de heel an' toe,(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, to de tchune o' Jump, Jim Crow,(Chorus)Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, come, de pootiess gal I know,On de finess boat dat eveh float'In de O—hi—o,De Mas—sis—sip—pi aw de O—hi—o.

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, teef whiteh dan de snow,On de finess boat dat eveh float,In de O—hi—o,De Mas—sis—sip—pi aw de O—hi—o.

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, teef whiteh dan de snow,

On de finess boat dat eveh float,

In de O—hi—o,

De Mas—sis—sip—pi aw de O—hi—o.

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, to de Lou'siana sho',(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, to de Lou'siana sho',

(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, by de Gu'f o' Mexico,(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, by de Gu'f o' Mexico,

(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, to de bayous deep an' slow,(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, to de bayous deep an' slow,

(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, whah de moss wave, to an' fro,(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, whah de moss wave, to an' fro,

(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, de bell done ring to go,(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, de bell done ring to go,

(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, whah de muscadimons grow,(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, whah de muscadimons grow,

(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, befo' de whistle blow',(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, befo' de whistle blow',

(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, de pride o' Lake St. Jo',(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, de pride o' Lake St. Jo',

(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, I love' you long ago,(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, I love' you long ago,

(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, I'll love you mo' an' mo',(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, I'll love you mo' an' mo',

(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, how kin you treat me so?(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, how kin you treat me so?

(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, whah de sweet pussimmon grow(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, whah de sweet pussimmon grow

(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, de steam-kyahs runs too slow,(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, de steam-kyahs runs too slow,

(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, whah de blue pon'-lily grow,(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, whah de blue pon'-lily grow,

(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, O don't you tell me no!(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, O don't you tell me no!

(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, I's bound to be yo' beau,(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, I's bound to be yo' beau,

(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, whah de wile white roses grow,(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, whah de wile white roses grow,

(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, de fust of all de row,(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, de fust of all de row,

(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, eyes sweeteh dan de doe,(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, eyes sweeteh dan de doe,

(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, whah de white magnonia blow',(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, whah de white magnonia blow',

(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, an' awake up, fiddle an' bow,(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, an' awake up, fiddle an' bow,

(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, we'll a-dance de heel an' toe,(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, we'll a-dance de heel an' toe,

(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, to de tchune o' Jump, Jim Crow,(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, to de tchune o' Jump, Jim Crow,

(Chorus)

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, come, de pootiess gal I know,On de finess boat dat eveh float'In de O—hi—o,De Mas—sis—sip—pi aw de O—hi—o.

Come, smilin' 'Lindy Lowe, come, de pootiess gal I know,

On de finess boat dat eveh float'

In de O—hi—o,

De Mas—sis—sip—pi aw de O—hi—o.

LIX"CONCLUSIVELY"

Alone in the wide light of a harvest-moon that wrapped all shores in deep shadow and turned the mid-channel to silver, Hugh and Ramsey stood at the low front rail of the texas roof.There were but few to see them, but every eye in range was aware of her and of a refined simplicity of dress adorning a figure whose pliant grace was the finishing touch to her joyous erectness. Hugh's gaze was frankly on her, and his mind on the first night he had ever seen her, when, with her hair wind-tossed in loose curls, she had stood at this spot on theVotaressand in carelessness of a whole world had sung "The Lone Starry Hours."Equally distant from them were the pilot-house behind and above and the bell down forward on the skylight. To right and left on a thwartship line just back of them towered the chimneys softly giving out their titanic respirations. Watson, though off watch, was up at the wheel beside his partner, pretending not to see the two beneath. In other words, he was still, after eight and a half years, "in the game." The Gilmores were with him, both in body and spirit.Out forward of the bell, below it on the main roof, one of the boat's builders, responsible for her till she should reach New Orleans, sat in the captain's chair."After eight years and a half," Hugh himself had gravely begun to say to Ramsey, when two men, "California" and a fellow smoker, sauntered across the skylight roof close below. Gilmore, up in the pilot-house, was annoyed."Our poet," he murmured to his wife, "will spill the fat into the fire yet, if we don't stop him."But the Californian had purposely encumbered himself with this stranger to make it plain that, hover as he might, he waived all claim to her attention. What better could a man do? And now he forbore even to look her way. The abstention was as marked as any look could have been. As they passed, Hugh was silent, but Ramsey spoke, her speech a light blend of response and evasion."On theVotaress," she said, "the front of the texas didn't stand out forward of the chimneys, like this.""Doesn't this make a handsomer boat," the lover asked, "seen either aboard or from the shore?"Ramsey said yes, she had noticed the improvement from the Memphis wharf-boat. "She was a splendid sight; yes, out in the stream, just before her wheels first stopped. At least she was to any one loving boats and the river.""Then you haven't changed?" asked Hugh, not for information but in the tone that always meant so much beneath the speech.Her answer was merely to meet his gaze with a gentle steadfastness, each knowing that the other's mind was overcircling all the years that had divided them. Through those years they had exchanged no spoken or written word. Yet according to Watson true love finds ways, large love large ways, pure love pure ways. Sometimes love's friends really help; help find ways, or keep ways found; even make chutes and cut-offs. Gilmore, Watson, and the Vicksburg merchant happened to be Odd Fellows, and the Gilmores, to whom letter-writing was, next to their profession, their main pleasure, had been a sort of clearing-house for Friendship, Love, and Truth—and especially for social news—to all theVotaress'sold coterie; Hugh, the pairs of Milliken's Bend, Vicksburg, and Carthage, the boat's family, Phyllis, Madame Hayle, even old Joy—with madame for amanuensis—and Ramsey herself. She and Hugh, had followed every step in each other's course, upheld by a simplicity of faith in friendship, love, and truth, which hardly needed to ask the one question abundantly answered by this steadfastness of eye.Now she looked away to the moon's path on the river, and the question of change came back from her: "Have you?""Only to grow.""You have grown," she said, "every way.""And you," he replied, "every beautiful way. I have just said so to your father."Her response came instantly: "How did that happen?""We made it happen."She looked at him again. "We," of course, meant "I." Truly she had grown every beautiful way, but it was yet as wonderful as ever to stand, saying what she had said, hearing what she was hearing, eye to eye, open soul to open soul, with one who could make words—words at any rate—happen between himself and Gideon Hayle. She looked this time not alone into his eyes but on all his unhandsome countenance, and in a surviving upflare of her younger days' extravagance thought whether, among all time's heroes of the world's waters, there had ever been one too great for Hugh Courteney's face. So looking she thrilled with the belief that there was nothing such men had ever done which this one might not some day, the right day, equal or surpass.Again she looked away and as she looked the hovering Californian murmured to his new-found confidant:"You can't see the glory of her in this light nohow, unless you'd seen her already in the full blaze of the cabin, or of broad day, with the light in that red hair. If you had you wouldn't need even the moonlight now. You'd only need to know she was there and you'd see her without looking. I seen her in her first long dress, jest a-learning to fly and some folks showing no more poetic vision than to call her 'almost plain.' I saw the loveliness a-coming, like daybreak in the mountains. Andhesaw it. I saw he saw it. And now? I tell you, sir, her brow is like the snowdrift, her throat is like the swan, and her face it is the fairest—I never seen Annie Laurie, but if she's better looking or sweeter behaving—I'd rather not. Anyhow they're enough alike to be sisters. I've writ a poem on this one. Like to show—hmm? Hold on. It don't quite suit me yet but—what's your hurry? When it does, I Joe! it'll be a ripsnorter. I've worked eight year and a half on it and they say genius is jest a trick o' takin' infinitessimal pains.... No, I'm not sleepy. Reckon I'll go up to the pilot-house. So long. Pleasant dreams."While he so spoke Ramsey had said: "Here comes another boat, down in the next bend. Or is she in the chute?""The chute," replied Hugh. "That's the oldAntelope.""Ah, up and running again! I know all about you and theVotaresssaving her people that awful night she sank.""Who told you?""Oh, a dozen, at a dozen times; but the best was Phyllis, writing to us.""Phyllis behaved heroically that night; made up for all the past—though really she'd done that before.""I'm glad you feel that way," murmured Ramsey and suddenly asked: "Why did you take my father to your room just now?""To show him the plans for another boat.""Humph!" What crystalline honesty was in his answers, she pondered. They were as prompt as a mirror's."Rivals," she remarked, "don't ordinarily show plans.""Your father and I are not ordinary rivals."What did that mean? Her, and not mere boats' plans? She did not look at him this time. Like "California" she could see without looking. "Think I'll rejoin the Gilmores," she sighed, as certain couples came up to see theAntelopego by. She feared a recurrence of "'Lindy Lowe." On the way to the pilot-house she leisurely inquired:"Do you think you'll ever build a finer boat than this?""Yes, and larger, and faster.""Not this season?""No, I should hope not for many. Yet——""Boats' lives," she prompted, "are so uncertain.""Yes, grandfather thinks——""Oh, if only he were here!" She paused to let Hugh notice that she had "were" and "was" in hand at last. Then:"How long will that boat be?""Three hundred and thirty feet. She'll have ten boilers. Her cylinders will be forty-three inches, her stroke eleven feet. She'll carry eighty-five hundred bales of cotton.""Goodness! How wide will she be?""In the beam fifty. Over all, at the wheelhouses, ninety. Her wheels will be forty-five feet in diameter and their buckets nineteen feet span. You still like figures, boats' figures, I hope?"She still liked, for second choice, to make him, to herself, ridiculous; liked it even now while inwardly laughing and weeping at him for not coming to personal matters infinitely more important. "Go on," she said, "I like cabin figures. How long, wide, and high will the cabin be?""Two hundred and sixty-three by nineteen by sixteen.""What'll her name be? Another e-double-s, of course?""No, I've just been telling your father—here comes theAntelope. I was telling him that grandfather——"An overhead roar of reply to the signal of the approaching boat drowned all words, but Ramsey had learned on coming aboard that the grandfather was still sound though beyond four score, and her one vivid wish now was to know more not of him but of Hugh and her father. Yet she had to let Hugh hand her up the pilot-house stair, and without him rejoined the Gilmores while Watson spoke down to the man in the captain's chair as to the light-draughtAntelopehaving come up through the chute of Island So-and-so. She was just in time to accept her share in the splendor and gayety of the two boats' meeting and passing. As the picture dissolved, Mrs. Gilmore slyly pinched Ramsey's finger while asking Watson:"Why don't our men sing?Iwant some more 'Lindy!"Had she not heard the signal for the lead? No, in the excitement she had not, though both Ramsey and "California" had, there being to them an unfailing poetry in the casting of the lead, whether by day or, as now, by the glare of a torch basket let down close to the water under the starboard freight guards. At one end of the breast-board the two ladies, at the other the actor and the Californian, looked out and down. The boat's builder had left his seat and stood with Hugh at the forward rail. From the freight guards, far below, the leadsman, unseen up here except to experienced "poetic vision," sent up a long-drawn chant telling the fathoms of depth shown on the sounding-line that flew forward from his skilled hand into the boat's moonlight shadow, plunged to the river's bed, vibrated past his feet in the glare of the pine torch, stretched aft while he chanted, and was recovered in dripping coils and hove again."Mark under wa-ater, twai-ai-ain."As the notes resounded Hugh looked up to the pilots and in his quietest speaking voice repeated:"Mark under water, twain."But our concern here is mainly with those for whom the scene, the calls, veiled two private conversations. Three or four times the one melodious cry, following as many casts, rose from below, and each time, with all its swing and melody left out, Hugh passed it on up to the pilots. Between the strains Gilmore said softly to "California":"My dear fellow, no. Every time we show ourselves their partisans we make heavier hauling for them. They'd tell us so, only that—don't you see?—they can't even do that. It would beinfra dig." But in fact Ramsey was just then telling something much like that to his wife."Yes," admitted the Californian, full of a new scheme, yet always generous, "and that was a ten-strike, your wife, after supper, taking Miss Hayle away from Hugh and Gideon in such gay style. Did you see how't sort o' eased the old man's mind?"The leadsman's cry changed and so came twice or thrice, Hugh as often repeating it to the pilots, while Ramsey and Mrs. Gilmore, though hearkening, whispered busily."Shoaling," commented Mrs. Gilmore to Ramsey."Not seriously," said the river-wise Ramsey. "Go on. What did you get out of him at last?" She had a merry sparkle.Once more the far-below cry rose to them and was restated by Hugh without color or thrill. Ramsey well knew that so it was always sung and spoken, yet she remarked:"Hear that absurd difference—in those two voices.""That's the difference between him and other men, Ramsey; even between him and your father."She liked that, though now she felt bitter toward him for not being more like ordinary mortals."Go on," she lightly repeated. "If he won't make words happen with me I must take him second-hand.""You naughty girl! He'll tell you all you'll let him.""Oh, I'll let him, all he'll tell me. What did he say?""He said the very best was, that under all your mantle of new charms——"Ramsey's soft laugh interrupted. "He didn't. He never said that, my lady. He wouldn't know how. You said it.""Well, he did say that under it all there's nothing lost of the Ramsey we began with.""The slanderer!" They laughed together. The calls of the lead were passing unnoticed. "Mark above water, twain; mark, twain; quarter less, twain; half, twain; nine and a half; by the mark, nine; nine feet.""The slanderer! Why, that's actionable! I'll have the law on him!" The speaker's mirth was overdone. As the leadsman sang another cry and Hugh sedately spoke it she tinkled as of old and said: "Don't get excited, captain. Keep cool."Mrs. Gilmore sobered. "You may laugh, but I believe he's talked with your father conclusively and will to you to-night, if you'll allow it.""Humph! you don't know that he'll come near me. Aboard his own boat, on her trial trip, he's got other fish to fry. But even if he should, don't you see how absolute the deadlock is? Oh, you must have seen it these eight years and more!—in spite of everybody's silence.""We didn't. We don't see it even now, Gilmore and I. We don't believe Captain Hugh sees any deadlock whatever. He merely knows you think you do. You think to accept him would condemn him to death?""Mrs. Gilmore, I know it would. My brothers—may have broken promises but they—keep—their—threats. You know that's the fashion of all this country, from Cairo down.""Ma-a-ark, twai-ai-ain," chanted the leadsman for his final call, and not only Hugh but an echo from the land repeated it. To many an ear, poetic ear, that echo is there yet, in all that country, from Cairo down. But that is aside. Watson and his partner threw the wheel over and theEnchantressswept round for the chute.In the bright moonlight Hugh and the boat's builder turned back toward the solitary chair, placidly conversing. Gilmore talked on with "California." His wife and Ramsey drew back into the corner behind them."Your brothers," murmured Mrs. Gilmore, "threatened Hugh's life just the same before you came into the issue at all.""Yes," said Ramsey, "and they're watching their chance yet. Julian told me so this summer and Lucian berated him for 'showing his hand.' Oh, that isn't the deadlock, by itself. The deadlock is that as long as Hugh Courteney holds off the feud will keep, but when he doesn't I come in and it won't; everything's precipitated. And so, you see?..."Hmm! Hugh Courteney won't put himself, or me, or mom-a, where, in a fight for his life, no matter who's killed the killing would be in the family, and the killed would be ours, mom-a's—and—and mine. The twins see that. Jule says it, and, what's worse, Luce says nothing. That's whytheyare entirely satisfied with the deadlock.... Look."The boat's contractor was leaving the deck. Hugh had started toward the pilot-house. But when Mrs. Gilmore looked she looked beyond him in meditation."I know what you're thinking," said Ramsey. "But it'll never happen. They've settled down to the ordinary term of a decent life, thank God!... Here he comes. Think he'll talk to me? Yes, he will. He'll begin where he left off." She laughed. "He's going to tell me the name of his next boat, if he ever builds another. Anything 'conclusive' in that?"Mrs. Gilmore was grave a moment longer and then brightly said: "There might be! There may be! I can see—I can see how he—" She could not finish. Hugh had entered.His coming broke in upon another conversation, that of Gilmore and "California.""Old boy, no. Suppose it should work out as you plan. You leave us at Natchez; that's easy. You live there a week, a month, free with your gold and making friends—of the sort gold makes. You get into a political quarrel with the twins—nothing easier—and in a clear case of your own self-defence the two are:—"'—Laid in one grave.Sing tooralye,' etc.""Wouldn't that be poetic justice? and ain't I a poet?""Undoubtedly. Then by miracle you come off scot-free.""Not essential. I take my chances.""Still, you have that hope; freedom is sweet. More-over, miracle of miracles, what you did it for is never guessed. But, my dear fellow, there are two who'd never need to guess. Like us they'd know and that knowledge would sunder them forever. They'd never willingly look into each other's faces again.""Nnn-o. No, course they wouldn't. I seen that from the jump but I sort o' hoped you'd maybe know some way to get round that; it being the only real difficulty.""Sorry, but I don't. Odd how narrow-minded one's friends can be, but when they are—what can we do?""Yes, that's so.... Mr. Gilmore, you're not narrow-minded; I've got a poem——"It was there Hugh entered. But it was there, too, that Watson made a move in his modest part of the game.With his eyes out ahead down the chute they were entering—"If any one," he drawled, "wants to see a scandalous fine moonlight picture of this river, one they'll never forget, the best place from whence to behold it is the texas roof, down here, out for'ard o' the chimneys.""If Captain Hugh would go with us," pensively said Mrs. Gilmore, "we'd all go." And soon the pilots were alone."Now," growled the younger, with his gaze down there on Ramsey, "don't that beat you? Her making California stay so's Cap'n Hugh can't pair off with her!""Be easy," said Watson; "that's according to Hoyle. Don't shoot till they settle.... There. Now I'll go down and take care of California. By cracky! run smooth or run rough, I believe it's going to go this time."

Alone in the wide light of a harvest-moon that wrapped all shores in deep shadow and turned the mid-channel to silver, Hugh and Ramsey stood at the low front rail of the texas roof.

There were but few to see them, but every eye in range was aware of her and of a refined simplicity of dress adorning a figure whose pliant grace was the finishing touch to her joyous erectness. Hugh's gaze was frankly on her, and his mind on the first night he had ever seen her, when, with her hair wind-tossed in loose curls, she had stood at this spot on theVotaressand in carelessness of a whole world had sung "The Lone Starry Hours."

Equally distant from them were the pilot-house behind and above and the bell down forward on the skylight. To right and left on a thwartship line just back of them towered the chimneys softly giving out their titanic respirations. Watson, though off watch, was up at the wheel beside his partner, pretending not to see the two beneath. In other words, he was still, after eight and a half years, "in the game." The Gilmores were with him, both in body and spirit.

Out forward of the bell, below it on the main roof, one of the boat's builders, responsible for her till she should reach New Orleans, sat in the captain's chair.

"After eight years and a half," Hugh himself had gravely begun to say to Ramsey, when two men, "California" and a fellow smoker, sauntered across the skylight roof close below. Gilmore, up in the pilot-house, was annoyed.

"Our poet," he murmured to his wife, "will spill the fat into the fire yet, if we don't stop him."

But the Californian had purposely encumbered himself with this stranger to make it plain that, hover as he might, he waived all claim to her attention. What better could a man do? And now he forbore even to look her way. The abstention was as marked as any look could have been. As they passed, Hugh was silent, but Ramsey spoke, her speech a light blend of response and evasion.

"On theVotaress," she said, "the front of the texas didn't stand out forward of the chimneys, like this."

"Doesn't this make a handsomer boat," the lover asked, "seen either aboard or from the shore?"

Ramsey said yes, she had noticed the improvement from the Memphis wharf-boat. "She was a splendid sight; yes, out in the stream, just before her wheels first stopped. At least she was to any one loving boats and the river."

"Then you haven't changed?" asked Hugh, not for information but in the tone that always meant so much beneath the speech.

Her answer was merely to meet his gaze with a gentle steadfastness, each knowing that the other's mind was overcircling all the years that had divided them. Through those years they had exchanged no spoken or written word. Yet according to Watson true love finds ways, large love large ways, pure love pure ways. Sometimes love's friends really help; help find ways, or keep ways found; even make chutes and cut-offs. Gilmore, Watson, and the Vicksburg merchant happened to be Odd Fellows, and the Gilmores, to whom letter-writing was, next to their profession, their main pleasure, had been a sort of clearing-house for Friendship, Love, and Truth—and especially for social news—to all theVotaress'sold coterie; Hugh, the pairs of Milliken's Bend, Vicksburg, and Carthage, the boat's family, Phyllis, Madame Hayle, even old Joy—with madame for amanuensis—and Ramsey herself. She and Hugh, had followed every step in each other's course, upheld by a simplicity of faith in friendship, love, and truth, which hardly needed to ask the one question abundantly answered by this steadfastness of eye.

Now she looked away to the moon's path on the river, and the question of change came back from her: "Have you?"

"Only to grow."

"You have grown," she said, "every way."

"And you," he replied, "every beautiful way. I have just said so to your father."

Her response came instantly: "How did that happen?"

"We made it happen."

She looked at him again. "We," of course, meant "I." Truly she had grown every beautiful way, but it was yet as wonderful as ever to stand, saying what she had said, hearing what she was hearing, eye to eye, open soul to open soul, with one who could make words—words at any rate—happen between himself and Gideon Hayle. She looked this time not alone into his eyes but on all his unhandsome countenance, and in a surviving upflare of her younger days' extravagance thought whether, among all time's heroes of the world's waters, there had ever been one too great for Hugh Courteney's face. So looking she thrilled with the belief that there was nothing such men had ever done which this one might not some day, the right day, equal or surpass.

Again she looked away and as she looked the hovering Californian murmured to his new-found confidant:

"You can't see the glory of her in this light nohow, unless you'd seen her already in the full blaze of the cabin, or of broad day, with the light in that red hair. If you had you wouldn't need even the moonlight now. You'd only need to know she was there and you'd see her without looking. I seen her in her first long dress, jest a-learning to fly and some folks showing no more poetic vision than to call her 'almost plain.' I saw the loveliness a-coming, like daybreak in the mountains. Andhesaw it. I saw he saw it. And now? I tell you, sir, her brow is like the snowdrift, her throat is like the swan, and her face it is the fairest—I never seen Annie Laurie, but if she's better looking or sweeter behaving—I'd rather not. Anyhow they're enough alike to be sisters. I've writ a poem on this one. Like to show—hmm? Hold on. It don't quite suit me yet but—what's your hurry? When it does, I Joe! it'll be a ripsnorter. I've worked eight year and a half on it and they say genius is jest a trick o' takin' infinitessimal pains.... No, I'm not sleepy. Reckon I'll go up to the pilot-house. So long. Pleasant dreams."

While he so spoke Ramsey had said: "Here comes another boat, down in the next bend. Or is she in the chute?"

"The chute," replied Hugh. "That's the oldAntelope."

"Ah, up and running again! I know all about you and theVotaresssaving her people that awful night she sank."

"Who told you?"

"Oh, a dozen, at a dozen times; but the best was Phyllis, writing to us."

"Phyllis behaved heroically that night; made up for all the past—though really she'd done that before."

"I'm glad you feel that way," murmured Ramsey and suddenly asked: "Why did you take my father to your room just now?"

"To show him the plans for another boat."

"Humph!" What crystalline honesty was in his answers, she pondered. They were as prompt as a mirror's.

"Rivals," she remarked, "don't ordinarily show plans."

"Your father and I are not ordinary rivals."

What did that mean? Her, and not mere boats' plans? She did not look at him this time. Like "California" she could see without looking. "Think I'll rejoin the Gilmores," she sighed, as certain couples came up to see theAntelopego by. She feared a recurrence of "'Lindy Lowe." On the way to the pilot-house she leisurely inquired:

"Do you think you'll ever build a finer boat than this?"

"Yes, and larger, and faster."

"Not this season?"

"No, I should hope not for many. Yet——"

"Boats' lives," she prompted, "are so uncertain."

"Yes, grandfather thinks——"

"Oh, if only he were here!" She paused to let Hugh notice that she had "were" and "was" in hand at last. Then:

"How long will that boat be?"

"Three hundred and thirty feet. She'll have ten boilers. Her cylinders will be forty-three inches, her stroke eleven feet. She'll carry eighty-five hundred bales of cotton."

"Goodness! How wide will she be?"

"In the beam fifty. Over all, at the wheelhouses, ninety. Her wheels will be forty-five feet in diameter and their buckets nineteen feet span. You still like figures, boats' figures, I hope?"

She still liked, for second choice, to make him, to herself, ridiculous; liked it even now while inwardly laughing and weeping at him for not coming to personal matters infinitely more important. "Go on," she said, "I like cabin figures. How long, wide, and high will the cabin be?"

"Two hundred and sixty-three by nineteen by sixteen."

"What'll her name be? Another e-double-s, of course?"

"No, I've just been telling your father—here comes theAntelope. I was telling him that grandfather——"

An overhead roar of reply to the signal of the approaching boat drowned all words, but Ramsey had learned on coming aboard that the grandfather was still sound though beyond four score, and her one vivid wish now was to know more not of him but of Hugh and her father. Yet she had to let Hugh hand her up the pilot-house stair, and without him rejoined the Gilmores while Watson spoke down to the man in the captain's chair as to the light-draughtAntelopehaving come up through the chute of Island So-and-so. She was just in time to accept her share in the splendor and gayety of the two boats' meeting and passing. As the picture dissolved, Mrs. Gilmore slyly pinched Ramsey's finger while asking Watson:

"Why don't our men sing?Iwant some more 'Lindy!"

Had she not heard the signal for the lead? No, in the excitement she had not, though both Ramsey and "California" had, there being to them an unfailing poetry in the casting of the lead, whether by day or, as now, by the glare of a torch basket let down close to the water under the starboard freight guards. At one end of the breast-board the two ladies, at the other the actor and the Californian, looked out and down. The boat's builder had left his seat and stood with Hugh at the forward rail. From the freight guards, far below, the leadsman, unseen up here except to experienced "poetic vision," sent up a long-drawn chant telling the fathoms of depth shown on the sounding-line that flew forward from his skilled hand into the boat's moonlight shadow, plunged to the river's bed, vibrated past his feet in the glare of the pine torch, stretched aft while he chanted, and was recovered in dripping coils and hove again.

"Mark under wa-ater, twai-ai-ain."

As the notes resounded Hugh looked up to the pilots and in his quietest speaking voice repeated:

"Mark under water, twain."

But our concern here is mainly with those for whom the scene, the calls, veiled two private conversations. Three or four times the one melodious cry, following as many casts, rose from below, and each time, with all its swing and melody left out, Hugh passed it on up to the pilots. Between the strains Gilmore said softly to "California":

"My dear fellow, no. Every time we show ourselves their partisans we make heavier hauling for them. They'd tell us so, only that—don't you see?—they can't even do that. It would beinfra dig." But in fact Ramsey was just then telling something much like that to his wife.

"Yes," admitted the Californian, full of a new scheme, yet always generous, "and that was a ten-strike, your wife, after supper, taking Miss Hayle away from Hugh and Gideon in such gay style. Did you see how't sort o' eased the old man's mind?"

The leadsman's cry changed and so came twice or thrice, Hugh as often repeating it to the pilots, while Ramsey and Mrs. Gilmore, though hearkening, whispered busily.

"Shoaling," commented Mrs. Gilmore to Ramsey.

"Not seriously," said the river-wise Ramsey. "Go on. What did you get out of him at last?" She had a merry sparkle.

Once more the far-below cry rose to them and was restated by Hugh without color or thrill. Ramsey well knew that so it was always sung and spoken, yet she remarked:

"Hear that absurd difference—in those two voices."

"That's the difference between him and other men, Ramsey; even between him and your father."

She liked that, though now she felt bitter toward him for not being more like ordinary mortals.

"Go on," she lightly repeated. "If he won't make words happen with me I must take him second-hand."

"You naughty girl! He'll tell you all you'll let him."

"Oh, I'll let him, all he'll tell me. What did he say?"

"He said the very best was, that under all your mantle of new charms——"

Ramsey's soft laugh interrupted. "He didn't. He never said that, my lady. He wouldn't know how. You said it."

"Well, he did say that under it all there's nothing lost of the Ramsey we began with."

"The slanderer!" They laughed together. The calls of the lead were passing unnoticed. "Mark above water, twain; mark, twain; quarter less, twain; half, twain; nine and a half; by the mark, nine; nine feet."

"The slanderer! Why, that's actionable! I'll have the law on him!" The speaker's mirth was overdone. As the leadsman sang another cry and Hugh sedately spoke it she tinkled as of old and said: "Don't get excited, captain. Keep cool."

Mrs. Gilmore sobered. "You may laugh, but I believe he's talked with your father conclusively and will to you to-night, if you'll allow it."

"Humph! you don't know that he'll come near me. Aboard his own boat, on her trial trip, he's got other fish to fry. But even if he should, don't you see how absolute the deadlock is? Oh, you must have seen it these eight years and more!—in spite of everybody's silence."

"We didn't. We don't see it even now, Gilmore and I. We don't believe Captain Hugh sees any deadlock whatever. He merely knows you think you do. You think to accept him would condemn him to death?"

"Mrs. Gilmore, I know it would. My brothers—may have broken promises but they—keep—their—threats. You know that's the fashion of all this country, from Cairo down."

"Ma-a-ark, twai-ai-ain," chanted the leadsman for his final call, and not only Hugh but an echo from the land repeated it. To many an ear, poetic ear, that echo is there yet, in all that country, from Cairo down. But that is aside. Watson and his partner threw the wheel over and theEnchantressswept round for the chute.

In the bright moonlight Hugh and the boat's builder turned back toward the solitary chair, placidly conversing. Gilmore talked on with "California." His wife and Ramsey drew back into the corner behind them.

"Your brothers," murmured Mrs. Gilmore, "threatened Hugh's life just the same before you came into the issue at all."

"Yes," said Ramsey, "and they're watching their chance yet. Julian told me so this summer and Lucian berated him for 'showing his hand.' Oh, that isn't the deadlock, by itself. The deadlock is that as long as Hugh Courteney holds off the feud will keep, but when he doesn't I come in and it won't; everything's precipitated. And so, you see?...

"Hmm! Hugh Courteney won't put himself, or me, or mom-a, where, in a fight for his life, no matter who's killed the killing would be in the family, and the killed would be ours, mom-a's—and—and mine. The twins see that. Jule says it, and, what's worse, Luce says nothing. That's whytheyare entirely satisfied with the deadlock.... Look."

The boat's contractor was leaving the deck. Hugh had started toward the pilot-house. But when Mrs. Gilmore looked she looked beyond him in meditation.

"I know what you're thinking," said Ramsey. "But it'll never happen. They've settled down to the ordinary term of a decent life, thank God!... Here he comes. Think he'll talk to me? Yes, he will. He'll begin where he left off." She laughed. "He's going to tell me the name of his next boat, if he ever builds another. Anything 'conclusive' in that?"

Mrs. Gilmore was grave a moment longer and then brightly said: "There might be! There may be! I can see—I can see how he—" She could not finish. Hugh had entered.

His coming broke in upon another conversation, that of Gilmore and "California."

"Old boy, no. Suppose it should work out as you plan. You leave us at Natchez; that's easy. You live there a week, a month, free with your gold and making friends—of the sort gold makes. You get into a political quarrel with the twins—nothing easier—and in a clear case of your own self-defence the two are:—

"'—Laid in one grave.Sing tooralye,' etc."

"'—Laid in one grave.Sing tooralye,' etc."

"'—Laid in one grave.

Sing tooralye,' etc."

"Wouldn't that be poetic justice? and ain't I a poet?"

"Undoubtedly. Then by miracle you come off scot-free."

"Not essential. I take my chances."

"Still, you have that hope; freedom is sweet. More-over, miracle of miracles, what you did it for is never guessed. But, my dear fellow, there are two who'd never need to guess. Like us they'd know and that knowledge would sunder them forever. They'd never willingly look into each other's faces again."

"Nnn-o. No, course they wouldn't. I seen that from the jump but I sort o' hoped you'd maybe know some way to get round that; it being the only real difficulty."

"Sorry, but I don't. Odd how narrow-minded one's friends can be, but when they are—what can we do?"

"Yes, that's so.... Mr. Gilmore, you're not narrow-minded; I've got a poem——"

It was there Hugh entered. But it was there, too, that Watson made a move in his modest part of the game.

With his eyes out ahead down the chute they were entering—"If any one," he drawled, "wants to see a scandalous fine moonlight picture of this river, one they'll never forget, the best place from whence to behold it is the texas roof, down here, out for'ard o' the chimneys."

"If Captain Hugh would go with us," pensively said Mrs. Gilmore, "we'd all go." And soon the pilots were alone.

"Now," growled the younger, with his gaze down there on Ramsey, "don't that beat you? Her making California stay so's Cap'n Hugh can't pair off with her!"

"Be easy," said Watson; "that's according to Hoyle. Don't shoot till they settle.... There. Now I'll go down and take care of California. By cracky! run smooth or run rough, I believe it's going to go this time."

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