CHAPTER XX

New Orleans, in that spring of 1828, was as strange and fascinating a place as ever two boys wandered through on a sunny afternoon.

It was a big town--big even to the eyes of Tad, who had seen other cities. Fifty thousand people lived in it, and there were usually two or three thousand sailors from the ships in port besides perhaps five thousand wild, roistering river-men jostling through the streets.

With half the commerce of the vast Mississippi Valley pouring through it, New Orleans was growing and spreading like one of its own rank tropical weeds. It had swept past the walls and moats of the old French-Spanish city years before, and now its newer sections filled most of the crescent-shaped bend above the original town.

It was along the levee of this new part of the city that the flatboat fleet was moored, and the first mile that Abe and Tad traversed was through raw, fresh-built streets that had little of the picturesque about them. Only here and there ancient French houses, set among great trees, showed where the country estates of rich Creoles had once stood.

But when they crossed Canal Street they found themselves breathing a different atmosphere. There was none of the bustling newness of the American quarter. The houses, large and small, had cozy walled gardens and shady balconies, and even the flagstones seemed to drowse in the warm sunshine.

From this residential district they bore southward again and came to a region of old shops, old offices, and here and there a venerable church or public building.

There seemed to be few people stirring at this time of day in the more ancient part of the city. But as they neared the water front they found the streets busier.

At one place in particular a crowd seemed to be collected. It was a ramshackle old hotel building with a driveway leading to an inner courtyard. On the sidewalk before the building and passing in and out were little knots and groups of men, talking and smoking Havana cigars. By far the larger number of these men were prosperous-looking planters from up and down the river and the outlying parishes. They were easily distinguishable by their broad-brimmed felt hats and riding-boots, and by their talk, which was of crops and horses and negroes--mostly of negroes.

Two or three printed posters were tacked up on the wall of the building, and Tad strolled over to read them. One said:

“Runaway--a bright mulatto boy named Cassius, about eighteen years old, strong and large. Will probably head north, as he was Kentucky raised.”

Another advertised: “For sale, a mighty valuable woman, twenty-five with three likely children. A bargain for the lot.”

The third and largest poster was what particularly attracted Tad’s attention, however. As he finished reading it he beckoned to Abe. It said:

“On these premises, every Tuesday and Saturday afternoon, will be held regular auctions of negroes. We have now on hand a large, well selected stock of field hands, house boys, cooks, seamstresses, etc., and will sell as low as any house in New Orleans. Fresh arrivals keep our stock in prime condition at all times, and we have our own jail and yard for boarding them.”

“Abe,” Tad asked, “isn’t this Saturday?”

“Let’s see, so ’tis,” responded Abe. “Want to go in?”

Tad hesitated. “Not much,” said he, “and yet it’s one of the things to see in New Orleans.”

Abe led the way through the driveway into the courtyard. The throng of planters and city men inside made way grudgingly for the tall young backwoodsman in his outlandish costume, and Abe edged forward until he reached a place where both Tad and himself had a view of the auction platform.

The auctioneer was a big, red-faced, jolly-looking man who spoke in a loud voice and was given to coarse jokes when he found the bidding too slow to suit him.

On the ground beside the block stood a row of eight or ten negroes awaiting their turn to be sold. Occasionally one of the planters would go up to a slave, poke him in the ribs, feel of his arms and legs and look him over much as a buyer of cattle would do. In the group of negroes Tad saw a bent old woman with gray hair, one or two handsome young mulatto girls, a smart-looking saddle-colored boy with the manners of a Virginia-bred house servant, and half a dozen coal-black Guinea negroes, scantily clothed in dingy cotton. On the faces of these last there was a wild, stupid, frightened look, quite different from the lazy good humor that Tad had always associated with their race. When he looked closely he saw that one staggered a little as if from weakness, and on the ankles of three or four he could make out raw, new scars--chain and fetter scars.

Abe had seen them, too. “They’re just off the slaver,” he whispered. “Smuggled in through the bayous--bet they haven’t been ashore more’n a week. Look at that pore devil that’s sick!”

The auctioneer had one of the young mulatto women on the block now. He pinched her sportively, chucked her under the chin, and made some ribald remark heard only by the men just below him. Then he brought down his gavel with a thump.

“Well, gents, what am I offered?” he inquired genially. “A thousand dollars as a starter wouldn’t be a bit too much for this wench. They don’t come no better built. A mite broad in the shoulders perhaps, but that’s what a good house-work nigger needs. Look her over, now. Take yo’ time. Now, who’ll offer a thousand? No? Not yet, eh? Well, start her at five hundred, then. What d’ye say? Will the tall gentleman in the fur cap make it five hundred for this prime yaller gal?”

There was a titter in the crowd, but Abe remained silent and impassive while the bidding went forward. Only Tad, looking up at him sidewise, could see a hard white ridge under the tanned skin of his jaw.

The girl was sold at last, and the auctioneer replaced her with the feeble old grandmother, who was poked and prodded into straightening her bent back a trifle and stepping briskly about on the block.

“Now here’s one that’s a bargain,” began the loud, droning voice of the seller. “There’s three or four years of good hard work under her black hide yet. Now I’ll take a starting offer of forty dollars. Who’ll say forty?”

Abe nudged the boy at his side. “Come on,” he muttered. “I can’t stand any more of this.”

Once outside, the tall young river-man took off his cap and wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve.

“Tad,” he said, almost fiercely, “it’s all wrong--this whole slavery business--as wrong as murder. Let’s get away from that place.”

He was sober and silent as they crossed Jackson Square, the old Place d’Armes of the Creoles, and it was not until they had walked up the levee for some distance and were nearing the flatboat moorings again that his old good humor returned.

“Golly,” he marveled. “Aren’t they a sight? I bet ye could walk a mile on nothin’ but boats an’ never wet a toe.”

They found Allen ready to set forth on his evening’s adventure. He was attired in all his finery and had his hair slicked down so that it shone.

“What the Sam Hill is that on yer head?” asked Abe. “Lard?”

“No,” answered Allen proudly, “that’s genuwine b’ar’s grease. I borrowed it from a Tennessee man--third boat up.”

“Say, speakin’ o’ b’ars,” said Abe, “whar’s that good-fer-nothin’ Poke?”

“Oh,” Allen replied, a trifle shamefacedly, “he done pulled his staple an’ walked off ’fore I could ketch him. He was clear up on the levee an’ headin’ west, last sight I had of him.”

Abe looked at him with withering scorn. “You must ha’ taken a lot o’ care o’ the boat,” said he. “It’s a durn wonder the pork an’ provisions didn’t climb out o’ the hold an’ walk off, too.”

These and other sarcastic remarks made Allen’s supper uncomfortable, and he was in a hurry to leave as soon as it was eaten.

Abe and Tad watched the young Hoosier dandy depart down the levee, then set to work straightening up the boat. They enjoyed the cool evening breeze for a while, and when the first stars appeared, they spread their blankets and went to sleep.

What time Allen returned they did not know, but he was there in the bed next morning, far too drowsy to do more than open one eye when they called him to breakfast.

They heard church bells tolling in different parts of the city and remembered that it was Sunday morning. That was the only indication of the day, for as the town awoke there was anything but a Sabbath calm in the air.

All the saloons, dance halls, and gambling-places along the water front were open for business, and the thousands of river-men and sailors thronging the levee brought them plenty of it. Above the din of shouting, fighting, and merry-making, Abe had to talk loud to make himself heard.

“Allen won’t want to go ashore again fer a spell,” he said. “We kin leave the boat to him an’ go lookin’ fer that cub o’ yours.”

Tad, who had been considerably cast down by the loss of his pet, was eager to follow Abe’s suggestion. They took their way along the water front, asking people they met if they had seen the little black bear. For the most part the question was greeted with jeers or with blank astonishment. But once they encountered a half-drunken raft hand who testified somewhat hazily to having seen not merely one bear but a pair of them, dragging chains after them, and moving in the direction of the steamboat moorings. And a voluble Creole in a little tobacco shop told them that a bear “so beeg as a cow” had looked in the door at him, growled, and passed on.

“That b’ar knows what he’s about,” chuckled Abe. “He aims to travel back to Tennessee by steamboat--that’s sartin.”

A little farther on they asked their question of a British sailorman, and he nodded and pointed up the nearest street.

“Aye,” said he, “that must be the one they caught this mornin’ and are goin’ to bait with dogs. There’s a bit of excitement up at the public ’ouse yonder. Perhaps they’ve started already.”

As the two lads hurried forward, they saw that the “bit of excitement” had more the look of a general street fight.

A crowd of fifteen or twenty ark hands, all riotously drunk, were milling about a smaller group that seemed to be made up chiefly of steamboat men. In the center was a short, sturdy Irishman, with his blue cap cocked at a pugnacious angle and the joy of battle in his blue eyes. Tad would have recognized that freckled face anywhere. It was Dennis McCann, the mate of the _Ohio Belle_. And crouched between his bowed seaman’s legs was little black Poke.

Already fists were flying, and matters looked bad for the steamboat men when Abe hit the fringe of the mob like a tornado, with Tad right at his heels. Some he knocked down with his fists, some he flung out of his path, and those who came back for more were treated to a double dose. The vicious flank attack confused the backwoodsmen, and before they could rally, the steamboat crew were pummeling them from in front. In a moment the battle had turned into a rout. Some ran down the street with the victors at their heels, and others took refuge in the saloon.

“Here,” panted Abe to McCann, “let’s take the b’ar an’ git out o’ this ’fore they git together ag’in.”

To the little Irishman, who had been slugging away blindly in the middle of the mêlée, all wearers of buckskin and homespun were enemies.

“An’ who the divil might you be?” he growled, bristling.

“Hold on,” interposed Tad. “Don’t you know me? You gave me breakfast on the _Ohio Belle_ a month ago.”

McCann’s eyes bulged. “Sure an’ it’s the lad that disappeared!” he cried. “It’s himself that’s in it, the saints be praised! Come to me, b’y, an’ let me look at ye!”

He wrung Tad’s hand with both of his, and then gripped Abe’s big fist when the backwoods youth was introduced as a friend.

“So the little cub here is yours?” said McCann. “Begorra, he come a-strayin’ past our moorin’ last night, an’ thinks I, we’ll have a mascot aboard the _Ohio Belle_. So I catches him, an’ ties him to a beam. But this mornin’ he was gone again, an’ when I come ashore I seen a bunch o’ these roustabouts gettin’ ready to murther him with dogs. So I steps in an’ grabs him, an’ that’s that. But come on board the boat with me now, an’ tell me how it comes ye’re not restin’ this minute at the bottom o’ the Ohio.”

They followed the mate to his cabin on the steamer, and Tad had his first chance to unfold the long tale of his adventures. As he described how he was held prisoner by the outlaws, McCann rose and paced the room.

“Begob,” said he, “an’ it’s sorry I am that I didn’t know the man Murrell was aboard. Think o’ the grand chances I had to bash him with a belayin’-pin. An’ him cleanin’ out the gamblers with the money he robbed you of!”

Tad concluded his story by telling of the treatment he had received at his father’s office.

“Mr. McCann,” Abe put in, “I reckon you might be able to identify the lad. They seem powerful hard to satisfy, but they sure ought to take your word.”

“Faith, an’ I’ll try,” said the steamboat man. “I’ll go with ye tomorrer mornin’ whin the office opens. But I’ve got the afternoon off today. I’ll take ye ’round the town.”

And when they had been all over the _Ohio Belle_ and Tad had shown Abe the stateroom where he had slept and the rail over which he had been thrown, they left Poke securely chained, and started forth with the little Irishman as their guide.