A Volunteer with Pike. Robert Ames Bennet

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СКАЧАТЬ if to consider—"No. I could bring you more than one for whose faithfulness I could vouch, but none who is not foul-mouthed and—to a foreigner—insolent."

      Shifting my gaze to the nearest flat, I waited in eager suspense. He answered with a question: "Do I understand you to say that with my help one man could guide so clumsy a craft?" I nodded, with assumed carelessness. "And you are yourself skilled as a riverman, señor?" Again I nodded. I could not trust myself to speak. He continued with polite hesitancy: "Would you, then, think it odd, Dr. Robinson, if I requested you to make the river journey with me?"

      "Señor!" I cried, "it would give me great pleasure!"

      "Carambo!" he muttered, at sight of my glowing face.

      A moment's hesitancy would have lost me all the vantage I had gained. I held my left hand level before me, and swept off the upturned palm with my right. There are few of the Indian signs which do not pass current from the lakes of the North and the swamps of the South to the most remote of the tribes in the Far West. I was right in my surmise that they were known even across the Spanish borders.

      The señor bowed in quick apology: "A thousand pardons, Señor Robinson!"

      "A man does not ride post-haste without expense," I said, with a seriousness which was not all feigned.

      "A thousand pardons!" he repeated. "My purse is at your disposal, Señor Robinson. I do not speak in empty compliment. Such funds as you may require—"

      "Muchas gracias!" I broke in. "I have enough silver left to jingle in my pocket. My thought was that it would be more agreeable to work my passage with an acquaintance than with strangers. At this season it is unusual for persons of culture to undertake the river trip. The voyage is becoming quite the fashion among young gentlemen of means and enterprise, but they seldom venture over the mountains before settled weather, and the rivermen, as I have remarked, are not always the best of company."

      "Señor, no more! We share this voyage as fellow-travellers—my boat and your skill. Is it not so?"

      "Señor, my thanks!" I replied. "Yet first, there is the question of Señorita Vallois's pleasure. It is a long voyage. I would not thrust myself upon your intimacy against the lady's inclinations."

      "My niece will be no less pleased than myself to travel in company with a gentleman of your acquaintance. I will answer for that. My niece has lived for three years in England. While we travel in Anglo-America, we are agreed to comply with such customs of the country as do not differ too widely from our own."

      I bowed low to hide my extreme satisfaction. It was the rarest of good fortune to have penetrated the reserve with which a Spanish gentleman surrounds the ladies of his family. But it was not my part to dwell upon the fact. I hastened to point out a flatboat which had caught my eye when we first rode down to the bank.

      "What is your opinion of that craft?" I asked.

      "So large a boat—for two men? Santa Maria!"

      "Hardly forty feet over all," I replied. "Let us go aboard."

      He swung to the ground as quickly as myself, and we hitched our horses to the nearest stump. As the flat was moored alongside the rough wharf, we had only to step aboard. The height of the water brought the craft almost on a level with the wharf.

      A glance or two showed me that the boat was already fitted out with steer-oar, sweeps and poles, a kedge with ample line, and a light skiff, snugly stowed in the ten-foot space of open prow. Having next made sure that she was well calked and dry, I led the señor through the house. It was divided into three apartments or rooms, of which the one nearest the stern was some five feet the longest.

      "Here," I said, pointing to the rude but well-built fireplace, "is the kitchen, salon, and dining-room of our floating inn."

      We passed on through the middle and forward rooms. Like the kitchen, both were limited to a width of seven feet by the need of a runway without, along each side of the boat. But Señor Vallois looked about approvingly.

      "We could share this cabin," he said, glancing about the forward room.

      "My thanks, señor, but I can make shift to sleep on deck," I replied.

      "There will be rain—there is always rain in this northern country of yours. No. You will do me the favor of sharing this cabin with me. There are two berths, as you see."

      I looked gravely at the rude bunks built, one above the other, on the left wall, and bowed my acceptance of the offer.

      "It is well," he continued. "My niece and her woman will share the middle room. There remains only the question of purchase."

      "Leave the bargaining to me," I said quickly, at sight of the shrewd-faced Yankee who came down the wharf as we stepped out into the open prow.

      "The affair is entirely in your hands, doctor," assented the señor.

      The Yankee stepped aboard with an air of brisk business.

      "I cal'clate ye want a boat," he began. "Let ye have this 'un dirt cheap."

      "How much?" I demanded.

      "One seventy-five."

      "Lumber cordelled by keelboat from New Orleans?" I rallied him in smiling irony.

      He looked me up and down with a speculative eye.

      "We-ell, stranger, I might knock off ten dollars."

      "You mean fifty."

      Again he surveyed me; then appraised the rich broadcloth of my companion.

      "Be ye buyin' fer him?" he queried.

      "We make the trip together. I can go as high as a hundred and twenty-five. We could do better at Pittsburg, but are willing to give you the bargain, to save our boots."

      He looked again from my mud-smeared buckskins to the señor's fine apparel, and smiled sourly. "Ye'll git no such boat at the price, here or at Pittsburg, if ye wait till the next freeze. One fifty is my best offer. Take it or leave it."

      "Skiff, kedge, sweeps, poles, and steer-oar included," I stipulated.

      He assented, with well-feigned reluctance: "As she stands—lock, stock, and barrel."

      I handed him a five-bit piece. "Taken! Yet I'd have had you down fifteen more if we were not in haste."

      "I'd ha' eased your high-nosed don of a round two hundred, my lad, had he done his own dickering," muttered he, as, at a word from me, the señor drew out a bulging purse and counted into my palm the hundred and fifty dollars in American gold.

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