CHAPTER IV

“Hard upon the beach oar-- She moves too slow. All the way to Shawneetown, Lo-o-ng time ago-o.”

The song came sifting into Tad’s consciousness pleasantly, to the accompaniment of a snapping, sizzling noise and a most appetizing smell. He opened his eyes and tried to think where he was, but everything was dark around him--dark and strange. He put out a hand and felt bags close by. Then he remembered in a flash all the details of the catastrophe that had brought him there. With a start he sat upright, looking out over the tops of bales and boxes.

It was not only morning but bright, broad daylight. And the boat was moving. He could see the line of trees on shore marching past. Painfully, for he was very stiff and sore, he changed his position so that he could look out ahead. There in the waist of the broadhorn, just forward of the shelter, was a small fire blazing cheerfully on a rough clay hearth. Over it crouched a young man in a cap and “store clothes,” holding a frying-pan full of bacon, which gave forth the pleasant aroma he had already noticed.

The tuneful cook resumed his song, adding a verse that took his crew on the next stage of their journey, and Tad, looking beyond him, discovered that there was still another person aboard the flatboat. Up on the half-deck, forward, a big, loose-jointed young fellow of nineteen moved back and forth. In each brown fist he gripped the handle of a fifteen-foot sweep-oar trimmed out of an ash sapling, and pulled steadily and powerfully, walking two steps forward and two back at each stroke. He was dressed in a coarse butternut shirt and fringed leather hunting-breeches, which made a quaint contrast to the more pretentious costume of the man by the fire. He was a tremendously tall youngster--as tall as any one Tad had ever seen--and his gaunt, big-featured, homely face, with the quirk of humor at the corners of his mouth, attracted the boy instantly. He had a mop of tousled, rusty-black hair and deep-set gray eyes that were fixed, at that moment, on the Kentucky shore.

The singer’s voice ceased abruptly, and Tad, glancing in his direction, found the man’s eyes looking straight into his own.

“Well, I’ll be tee-totally--” he began, and rose, almost dropping the pan. “Looky here, Abe! Leave go them oars an’ come a-runnin’.”

The young giant in the bows landed amidships in a single long jump.

“What is it? Snakes?” he cried.

For answer the other pointed a finger at Tad, as the boy crawled out of his hiding-place. The look of open-mouthed astonishment on the cook’s face had changed now to one of outraged wrath.

“See here, you--you dirty, thievin’ skunk!” he blustered. “What in the nation do ye think ye’re a-doin’ aboard of our--”

His voice was drowned by a roar of good-natured merriment from his tall companion. And Tad, looking down at himself for the first time, realized what a grotesque appearance he presented. The brief night-shirt he had worn when the gambler entered his stateroom had been torn to ribbons in the fight which followed. And after being covered with mud and further ripped by the briars, it was no longer recognizable as a garment. From head to foot he was smeared with dirt and dried blood, and his hair was matted with twigs.

“All right,” he grinned, “I don’t blame you for laughing, or for thinking I’m a thief, either. But you don’t have to worry. I just crawled in here to sleep last night, and--”

“What do ye mean by makin’ free with other folks’ property?” began the smaller of the two boatmen. The one called Abe put a restraining hand on his shoulder.

“Shut up, Allen,” he said. “Let the boy tell his story. You’re cold, ain’t you, son? Here, wrap yerself up in this.”

Gratefully, Tad pulled around him the heavy blanket which was offered, and proceeded to give them an outline of his adventure, while Allen continued cooking the breakfast.

“Humph!” grunted that individual, still sourly, when Tad had finished. “How much was you robbed of?”

“Not quite two hundred dollars,” answered the boy.

“Ha, ha!” chuckled the doubter. “That’s a likely yarn!”

“Wait a minute, Allen,” Abe interrupted. “I don’t know how much money he had an’ don’t keer. But I do know when a boy’s tellin’ the truth. What’s your name, sonny?”

“Thaddeus Hopkins,” answered the boy. “People generally call me Tad.”

“All right, Tad,” the tall young backwoodsman continued. “I reckon the fust thing you’re interested in is breakfast. After that we’ll see about dressin’ you and make some plans.

“Now, Allen, if the viands are prepared you may serve our frugal repast.”

There was such a comical dignity in his stiff bow as he made the last remark that both his hearers laughed in spite of themselves. Without more ado they attacked the smoking pile of bacon and cornmeal johnny-cake, and Tad thought no food he had ever eaten had tasted quite so good. There had seemed to be a prodigious lot of it when they started, but the giant sweep-oarsman had an appetite quite in keeping with his huge, gaunt frame, and in fifteen minutes the pans were empty.

“Thar,” said Abe as he wiped the last of the bacon grease from his tin plate with a piece of corn-bread, “now maybe we can give some attention to navigatin’ the good ship _Katy Roby_.”

He winked at Tad as he pronounced the name, and Tad, glancing at Allen, saw him flush with embarrassment and turn quickly to the business of cleaning the breakfast utensils.

Abe looked at both banks, to make sure the broadhorn was drifting on the right course, and rummaged in a pine box under the shelter, astern. From it he pulled forth presently a pair of woolen breeches, worn and shrunken, and a clean white cotton shirt.

“These may fit ye a bit long,” he said to Tad, “but rollin’ up the legs an’ sleeves won’t hurt a thing. Maybe ye’ll grow into ’em.”

Tad was really touched, for he could see that the gangling young boatman had given him his own “best clothes.”

“Thanks,” he said. “That’s mighty good of you. And if you don’t mind, I’m going to wash before I put them on.”

There was a length of new rope for mooring, tied to one of the bow-posts, and when Tad had stripped off his rags he threw the rope over the side and let himself down into the river. In the bright morning sun it felt warmer than the night before, but there was no temptation to stay in long. He scrubbed off as much of the grime as he was able, holding on by one hand, and then clambered back aboard. Five minutes later he was warm, dry, and decently clad, at least according to the simple standards of the river.

“Now, Allen,” said Abe, resting on his oar-handles, “what are we a-goin’ to do with this young rooster?”

Allen was frowning in perplexity.

“Got any folks along this part o’ the river?”

“No,” Tad said. “I don’t know a soul between here and New Orleans. But if you want to put me ashore, I suppose I could get something to do and earn my keep until Father comes for me.”

Abe shook his head. “That don’t seem to me exactly reasonable,” he said. “We’re a-goin’ down to New Orleans ourselves, an’ we could maybe use a spare hand. What d’ye say, Cap’n?”

Allen seemed a trifle dubious. “Think the rations’ll hold out?” he asked.

“Sartin they will,” Abe replied. “We can make it quicker’n we planned, by runnin’ nights sometimes. An’ with a real dead-shot rifleman like you along, we ought to jest about live on b’ar an’ turkey meat, anyhow.”

The other member of the crew was somewhat mollified by these words. “Wal, maybe so,” said he. “I reckon we can’t help ourselves. What can ye do, boy? Cook?”

“I’m sorry,” Tad hesitated, “I--I don’t think I can, but perhaps I could learn.”

“I b’lieve Allen, here, would condescend to give ye a lesson,” put in Abe, seriously.

“Hm,” said Allen. “Can ye ketch fish, or chop wood?”

“I never tried,” answered Tad, “but I’d like to.”

Abe, who had been rowing hard during this questioning, leaned on his oars again.

“Now see here,” he said, “you don’t have to worry about this yere boy. Any youngster with the spunk to wrestle with a robber, an’ be dropped off a steamboat into cold water at midnight, an’ swim across the Ohio River, an’ run three miles, naked, with mean dogs after him--can look out for himself. He’ll be cookin, fishin’, _an’_ choppin’ wood long ’fore he gits to New Orleans.”

With these words Tad was officially admitted to membership in the crew of the home-made flatboat _Katy Roby_ and set forth on one of the strangest and most interesting adventures that ever befell a fifteen-year-old school boy.

All that fine April day they made steady progress down the swollen river. Part of the time Abe and Allen worked at the oars, adding a mile or two an hour to the speed of the current. Part of the time they loafed in the sun on the half-deck, asking Tad questions about the politer world of the Eastern cities and swapping yarns about their own great frontier country.

“You mean to tell me they _all_ wear shoes in New York?” asked Abe incredulously.

“Yes,” said Tad, “all but a few poor children. I’ve never gone barefoot since I was a baby.”

“Gosh!” the lanky backwoodsman exclaimed. “Look at _my_ feet!” He pulled off his moccasin and showed a sole covered by a single vast callus. “Outside of about five months in winter when I wore hide boots, I never had a shoe on my foot till last year. Pap always figgered it was cheaper to let me grow my own leather,” he added, with the twinkle in his gray eyes that Tad was learning to expect.

Piecing together what the two boatmen told him and what he picked up from their conversation, he learned that Allen Gentry was the son of a merchant living in the settlement at the mouth of Little Pigeon Creek, where Tad had first sought shelter in the flatboat. His father, James Gentry, was the owner of the craft, and was sending Allen to sell the corn, pork, and potatoes which made up its cargo in the great produce market of New Orleans.

Abe, as he himself told Tad, was merely a “hired hand,” sent along to do the heavy work and to “take keer” of Allen. But it was quite apparent that the long-limbed country boy with his quaint humor and his common sense was the real leader of the expedition.