CHAPTER V

When the lingering spring sunset came, the flatboat was bowling along so merrily that Abe decided to make a long day’s run of it. He left the bow sweeps and stretched his long bulk on the little after deck with the steering-oar under his arm. Allen pulled out a home-made banjo from some mysterious hiding-place and proceeded to strum it softly. His pleasant tenor voice, floating out across the reaches of the river, was joined by a bass bellow from another broadhorn astern, and for several miles they drifted to the mellow harmony of “Skip to My Lou,” “Weevily Wheat,” “Down the Big River,” and “Wabash Gals.”

The afterglow dimmed out of the sky, and bright stars filled it. And Tad, yawning drowsily, was sent to bed. Rolled up in a blanket on the hard deck planks and lulled by the murmur of the river, he slept as soundly as he ever had in his life.

The sun had already risen when he woke, and he was surprised to see the budding branches of a big sycamore overhanging the deck of the flatboat. Abe was up on the bank chopping wood for the breakfast fire, and Allen was casting off the stern mooring-rope which had been fastened around the tree. Tad threw off his blanket, pulled up a bucket of water from over the side, and hastily performed his morning ablutions.

By the time he had finished, the boat was well on its way again.

“Wal, youngster,” chuckled Allen, “how’s this? You awake an’ ready to eat again?”

The truth was, Tad did have a fine appetite for breakfast, and he admitted it with a grin. “I feel as if I ought to work for it first, though,” he said.

“So you can,” Abe put in. “Here’s the ax. S’pose you split some o’ this wood up in nice fine kindlin’, while I go up forrard an’ persuade her a little with the oars.”

Tad, willing enough, picked up the ax and started clumsily to hack away at the chunk of pine. By dint of hard work he managed to split away a cross-grained sliver from one side and was attacking the larger piece again when a smothered choking sound reached his ears. There lay Allen, rolling on the planks and holding his sides with laughter.

In a country where children learned to use an ax almost as soon as they could walk and supplied the house with firewood before they knew their A-B-C’s, the sight of Tad’s awkwardness was enough to provoke any man’s mirth.

But Abe did not laugh. He left his oars and came down to Tad’s side.

“Watch,” he said. “You’ll git the knack of it in no time.” And swinging the ax one-handed, with no apparent effort, he cleft the log cleanly through the center, then into quarters. His arm rose and fell steadily, and in an amazingly short time there was only a neat pile of slender pine splints lying by the hearth.

As they breakfasted, a big keel-boat, piled with farm implements and furniture and with half a dozen lively-looking children swarming over and through everything, steered close to them.

“Movers,” said Allen.

A bearded man with a cross, discontented face appeared at the gunwale of the keel-boat and hailed them.

“Where are we? Can you tell me?” he shouted.

“This is the Ohio River,” Abe replied cheerfully.

“Yes, but whereabouts--what part?” fretted the mover.

“Jest now,” said Abe, considering, “you’re in Indianny. But in five more minutes your bow-end’ll be in Illinois. Thar’s the Wabash, now.”

He pointed to the right bank a mile or so below, and Tad saw a wide river emptying into the Ohio from the north.

The bearded man muttered something that might have been thanks and went back to the tiller of the keel-boat, while Abe resumed his breakfast.

“They’ll make a mighty valuable addition to the population of whatever place they’re a-goin’ to,” he remarked between mouthfuls of johnny-cake.

“Must be Illinois,” put in Allen. “That question sounded jes’ like a ‘Sucker.’”

The latter scornful epithet, Tad discovered, was universally applied by the Hoosiers to their neighbors on the west. Although hundreds of families were moving from Indiana into Illinois every year and the people of the two States were often blood kin to each other, there was a vigorous rivalry that did not always confine itself to calling names.

Something of this feeling Tad was soon to see, for they made a landing at Shawneetown on the Illinois shore, sometime during the forenoon. One of the first things he had asked his new friends was how he might send word of his safety to his father, in New Orleans. And it had been agreed that they should stop at the first town where steamboats touched and mail a letter.

There were no writing materials aboard the _Katy Roby_. When Abe and Allen had calculations to make, they did it with a burnt stick on the deck planking. So, leaving Allen to guard the flatboat and her cargo, Abe and Tad climbed the muddy hill from the landing-stage and sought a place where paper and ink might be bought. One of the first buildings they reached was a rambling log house with a wide porch in front, which turned out to be a general store. They entered and made their purchases, and Tad started to write his letter, using the head of a barrel for a table. Briefly he described the attempt to put him out of the way and how he had made his escape. Basing his estimate on the average speed of the _Katy Roby_, he wrote that with good luck they would reach New Orleans within two or three weeks.

He was just signing his name to the message when he heard a commotion of some kind outside. The group of loafers who had been hanging around the door when they entered now left the porch with a clatter of boots. A loud voice was raised tauntingly.

“Wal, you long-legged, slab-sided, lousy Hoosier, want to see how it feels to git thrown?” it asked.

Tad hastily pocketed his letter and went to the door. In the midst of a ring of spectators outside, a big, stocky, river-man was brushing the dirt off his hands, while a crestfallen youth in torn homespun lifted himself out of the mud.

Abe’s long, awkward figure towered above the group of bystanders. Evidently the champion’s invitation had been addressed to him. He strolled forward into the ring. “Don’t keer ’f I do,” he said.

There were roars of laughter from the Illinois men.

“Them leather breeches is to scare off the varmints!” one cried.

“What do they feed you on, Longshanks?” asked another.

“Suckers,” answered Abe, with a grin, and pulled his belt a notch tighter.

The river-man was broad-shouldered and powerful, with short, thick arms like a bear’s. He pounded himself on the chest with a huge fist and roared:

“Here I am! I’m ‘Thick Mike’ Milligan o’ Kaskaskia! I kin drink more likker an’ walk straighter, chaw more terbakker an’ spit less juice, break more noses an’ swaller less teeth, than any man on the rivers. I eat wildcat fer breakfast an’ alligator fer supper. I’m a ragin’ hyena! I’m a terror to snakes! Look out, fer I’m a-comin’!”

As he shouted the last words, he jumped in the air and clapped his heels together. Then with a rush he charged at Abe.

There was nothing awkward about the tall Hoosier now. He took a quick sidewise step, springy as a cat on his moccasined feet. One long arm shot out and caught Milligan by his thick neck, spinning him about so that he dropped on one hand and one knee. The river-man was up in an instant, roaring like a bull. But now he came on more warily, trying to get in close, where he could come to grips with his opponent. Abe, circling and retreating constantly, held him out of reach with those long, sinewy scarecrow arms of his.

The onlookers began to hoot and jeer. “They call that wrastlin’ in Indianny?” yelled one. And another edged close to Abe to trip him.

“Look out!” cried Tad, but his warning was unnecessary. The lanky young flatboatman had seen the movement out of the corner of his eye, and instead of falling over the outthrust foot he suddenly leaped backward, seized the tricky bystander by the collar, and hurled him through the air, straight at Milligan. Then, without the loss of a second, he was after the two of them. Catching the river bully off his balance, he lifted him clear of the ground and slammed him on his back, piling the dazed and gasping meddler on top of him before either could collect his wits.

“Thick Mike” picked himself up angrily, while the crowd howled its desire for the “best two out o’ three falls!”

Abe seemed to have undergone a change. He was mad now--mad clean through--and his gray eyes blazed as he trod lightly forward to meet Milligan’s attack.

The river-man tried a new plan. Waiting till Abe was close, he suddenly plunged in low, hoping to get a crotch-hold and upset the lanky Hoosier. This time Abe wasted no time in dodging. Before the other’s hands were fairly on him, he had seized him with both arms around the middle and whirled him, feet in air, over his shoulder. Milligan landed heavily on the small of his back, and with a panther-like spring Abe was on him, pinning his shoulders flat.

There was no longer a question as to which was the better wrestler, and the stocky Kaskaskia man was the first to admit it. He rose, still a little dizzy from the force of his fall, and shook Abe’s hand.

“They ain’t many kin do that,” he grinned. “How tall air ye, lad?”

“Six foot four,” said Abe.

“An’ how old?”

“Nineteen,” answered the flatboatman.

“Great sufferin’ catfish!” the other exclaimed. “Ye’d oughter be a good-sized feller when ye grow up!”

The crowd of loafers did not seem disposed to take their champion’s defeat quite so good-humoredly. As Abe and Tad went back to the store to post the letter, these hangers-on followed at their heels.

“Huh! Wrastle? Sure he kin. That ain’t nothin’,” said one of them. “But what’d he look like in a real ruckus--knock-down an’ drag-out?”

The tall youth turned on the top step and deliberately rolled up the sleeves of his shirt.

“Listen,” he said, quietly. “One Hoosier to one Sucker ain’t a fair fight. But if any two of ye want to tackle me at once, I’ll be pleased to accommodate. Step right up here, boys.”

His words produced an immediate hush. For a moment he stood there eyeing them scornfully, while they shuffled their feet and looked sheepish. Then he entered the store.

“Come on, Tad,” he said with a wink, “we’ll be a-goin’ now.”

The boy gave his letter to the postmaster, got that worthy’s assurance that he would mail it on the steamboat _Nancy Jones_, from Louisville, likely to stop at Shawneetown in the next day or two, and followed Abe down the hill.

Allen, who had heard the shouting, was filled with curiosity. “What’d ye see, boys--a fight?” he asked.

“No,” said Abe, “it was jest a demonstration.” And chuckling, he went about the business of getting headway on the boat. Allen, however, was not satisfied till he had got a glowing account of the wrestling bout from Tad.

“That’s right,” he nodded. “This yere Abe is the powerfullest critter ever I see. He kin outrun, outwrastle an’ outfight any man in our country, back home--yes, an’ outtalk any woman. He’s as fast as greased lightnin’ and tougher’n a white oak post.”

It was early afternoon when they passed the broad mouth of a cave on the Illinois bank. Allen, who had once been as far as Paducah on the steamboat, pointed it out and told the gruesome story of the Wilson Gang, a notorious outlaw band which, twenty-five years earlier, had made the cavern its stronghold.

“Thar was more’n a hundred of ’em,” said he, “an’ they used to rob boats an’ travelers all up an’ down the river. They say thar’s a sort o’ chimney goin’ up from that cave into another one over it, an’ after the gang was cleaned out, sixty skeletons of murdered folks was found up in that secret cave.”

Tad gazed at the place in awe as they drifted past. It looked peaceful enough now. The sun slanted brightly across the gray face of the rock, and a flight of twittering swallows darted in and out of the dusky opening.

They fished and talked, sang and whittled, with alternate spells at the oars, all afternoon, and toward sunset sighted a black cloud of smoke beyond the next bend.

“Steamboat comin’,” remarked Abe. A long, mournful whistle-blast came up the river, and they saw a man, at work in a stump-filled clearing, suddenly drop his plow handles and run down to the shore. He leaped in the air, waving his hat frantically as the tall stacks and shining upper works of the craft appeared around the bend. His horses eyed the approaching monster with alarm, snorted, reared, and would have dashed off if the plow had not buried itself and anchored them.

The steamer passed within a dozen yards of the flatboat and they read her name, _Amazon_, in gilded letters across her paddle-boxes. The big wheels thrashed and churned with a mighty uproar as the vessel forced her way up against the current at all of four or five miles an hour. The foamy wake that rolled out from her paddle-wheels caught the _Katy Roby_ at an awkward angle and made her pitch like a steer. Bracing his feet, Abe pulled on the oars with all his strength to keep the craft from swinging sidewise. A roar of laughter went up from the deck of the _Amazon_ where two or three of the crew were gathered.

“Hold her, bean-pole!” shouted one of them.

Abe dropped the oars, picked up a four-foot stick of firewood, and sent it whirling after the steamer, already many yards away. He threw so hard and so true that the billet bounced off the rail a foot from the fellow’s head, and the steamboat men retreated hastily.

Abe grinned as he handled the sweeps again. “I’m willin’ to take their wash,” he said, “but not their sass.”

That night, when Allen was tuning up his banjo, Tad went aft to lie by the steering-oar with Abe. He looked at the long, easy frame of the backwoods youth and thought of that morning’s wrestling-match.

“Jiminy, but you’re strong!” he said, admiringly.

Abe shifted his position, looking off at the low stars.

“That’s nothin’!” he said gruffly. “I was born big. There’s no credit in that. What I’d like is to be able to sing an’ play the banjo like Allen. I can’t carry a tune any more’n a crow. Or I’d like to go to an academy like you. I bet you’ve read a power o’ books!”

Tad was truthful. “Not such a terrible lot,” he said. “They’ve got a whole library full at school, but when you have to read them, there’s no fun in it.”

“Gee,” murmured Abe, and was silent for a little. Then he turned toward the younger boy, his rugged, homely face serious in the starlight.

“I couldn’t git much schoolin’, back whar we lived on Little Pigeon,” he said. “But I’ve read some--books like the Life o’ Washington, an’ the Fourth Reader an’ the Bible, an’ _Æsop’s Fables_, an’ the Laws of Indiana, an’ _Pilgrim’s Progress_, an’ _Robinson Crusoe_, an’ the Almanac. Guess I’ve read about all the books I could borrow from any one ’round Gentryville.

“’Course I learned to write an’ cipher in the log school. An’ I used to work out the accounts for folks--neighbors--an’ write letters for ’em if they had to send news off. I fixed me up a quill pen out of a turkey-buzzard’s feather, an’ the ink I made out o’ blackberry-briar roots an’ copperas.

“I’d rather have book-learnin’ than all the muscle in the world. They say there’s a new University goin’ to open in Indiana next Fall. If I was rich, maybe I wouldn’t go up thar in a hurry! But I guess I’ll likely stay workin’ ’round on farms an’ boats.”

“I should think you’d want to,” Tad put in. “If I was as big and husky as you, and could do the things you can, I’d never go back to school.”

“Thar,” chuckled Abe, “you’ve put your finger on it. I seem to be a born corn-husker. An’ that’s all right, too. I like an ax. I like to work with an ax, splittin’ rails, buildin’ things. An’ I like to plow, an’ hoe, an’ take care o’ cattle. Only,” he paused, frowning, “some way, that ain’t enough.” And for many minutes thereafter he sat buried in thought, his chin in his hand. Tad, respecting the stern, almost sad expression on the older boy’s face, rose quietly and joined Allen up forward.

Allen finished his song and greeted him. “What’s the matter--Abe got one of his silent spells?” he asked. “Don’t mind him. He’s all right--jes’ shiftless an’ dreamy sometimes.”

And striking a chord or two, he launched into the stanzas of “Old Aunt Phoebe.”