CHAPTER VII

The current set over strongly toward the Kentucky shore that afternoon, and soon they found themselves swinging around the outer side of an immense bend. At noon they had been heading almost due south. By three o’clock they were running northwest, and an hour later they were carried over to the Missouri side as another great sweep began, this time to the left.

“That must be New Madrid,” said Allen. “The river makes a big S, an’ the town lays right in the second bend.”

They saw a settlement of twenty or thirty houses sprawled along the bank, with a white church rising from trees above the landing. The river ran fast around the bend, and Abe had left the oars to man the steering-sweep. “Want to land?” he shouted. “Guess we don’t need nothin’,” said Allen. “After hearin’ what happened to that trader feller at New Madrid I’d jest as leave sleep farther down.”

They shot past the drowsy town and swung southward again with the hurrying brown flood. Instead of the wilderness of willow-clad banks and reedy marshes past which they had been drifting, the Missouri shore stretched away here in broad acres of plowed ground.

At sunset they saw ahead of them a big, white-painted house set among trees on a knoll. A broad, rolling lawn stretched down from it to the river, and there were barns and outbuildings half hidden by shrubbery at the rear. Beyond the expanse of lawn and nearer the river, was a less pretentious house, flanked by a row of trim cabins. There were a dozen or more of these, each with its small garden and a curl of blue smoke coming from the chimney.

“Golly,” said Abe, “ain’t that a pretty layout? S’pose we could git some good clear water here? I’m all clogged up with yaller mud, drinkin’ this river water. Let’s land anyhow.”

He steered inshore and tossed a snubbing-rope over one of the piles at the end of the little landing. When they had made the _Katy Roby_ fast, Abe and Allen went up the path toward the smaller house at the end of the line of cabins.

A big man in riding-boots and a wide-brimmed black hat was sitting on the veranda. He had a long, drooping mustache from which a black cigar protruded at a ferocious angle. Altogether he did not look particularly hospitable. Abe stood awkwardly at the foot of the steps.

“Evenin’,” said he. “I reckon a place as fine an’ handsome as this must have a good well o’ water. Ef it ain’t too much trouble, we’d like to fill up a kaig or two.”

The man got up and took the cigar from his mouth. Under the huge mustache he smiled, and his whole expression grew more friendly.

“No trouble whatsomever, stranger,” he answered. “We have to watch out down yere on account o’ these river scalawags that steals our shoats an’ chickens. But now I know ye ain’t that breed o’ varmints, fo’ they won’t drink nothin’ but straight Mississip’ water, one-third mud an’ two-thirds liquid. Bring yo bar’l right along up, an’ make yo’selves free o’ the landin’, ef yo’re stayin’ all night.”

They rolled their big water-keg up to the plantation well, where a couple of grinning darkies filled it for them.

As they came back past the row of slave shanties, a pleasant smell of bacon and corn-pone drifted out to their nostrils. Half a dozen negroes--strapping black field hands in cotton shirts and trousers--lounged on the grass in front of the cabins. One drew weird minor chords from a home-made banjo, and the others were “patting Juba” as they swayed and sang.

Rolling bass and rich husky tenor blended in a throbbing harmony that sent shivers of delight up and down Tad’s spine. It was the first time he had ever heard negroes singing a plantation song. After they had reached the landing and were getting supper aboard the flatboat, the words still came drifting down to them:

“Oh, I long fo’ to reach dat heavenly sho’, To meet ol’ Peter standin’ at de do’; He say to me, ‘Oh, how you do? Come set right yonner in de golden pew.’”

“Gosh,” said Abe, “those boys shore can sing.”

Allen nodded. “Ye’d oughter hear ’em when they git really worked up to it,” said he. “That time I was down to Paducah, there was a big gang of ’em aboard the steamboat, bein’ took down to New Orleans. Sing! Boy, you’d thought they was goin’ on a picnic!”

“Pore things,” said Abe.

“Aw, shucks,” Allen laughed. “Thar goes your tender-heartedness again, Abe. ’Tain’t no use feelin’ sorry fer ’em, no more than cattle goin’ to market.”

Abe shook his head, thoughtfully. “It’s not exactly the same,” he said. “They _ain’t_ cattle, no matter how much folks say so. You take it on a plantation like this one an’ they look to be well kept an’ happy enough. But s’pose this owner dies, or gits a new overseer. Right off, mebbe inside a week’s time, they’re bein’ starved, or whipped, or sold down the river--families broke up--everything changed.

“Misery comes to white folks, too, but at least they’ve got somethin’ to say about it. Looks like we have to have the slaves to raise cotton. But we ought to make it more of a square deal.”

“Oh, well,” yawned Allen, “what’s the use of arguin’? ’Tain’t likely any of us’ll ever be bothered about it, one way or t’other.”

They followed the overseer’s suggestion and spent that night tied up at the plantation landing. The last thing Tad heard before he dropped off to sleep was a broken strain of that barbaric music--a low, sobbing croon, inexpressibly sad--borne down on the night wind from the slave quarters.

The crew of the _Katy Roby_ were up betimes next morning.

“We’re runnin’ slow,” said Abe. “Got to do some rowin’ or we won’t be in New Orleans on schedule. Come on thar, cooks an’ cook’s helpers, git that fry-pan hot!” And he bent his long back to the oars with a vigor that made the ash wood creak.

Within an hour they had left civilization behind them again and were slipping down through the wildest-looking country they had yet encountered. There were many islands, some hardly more than sand-bars where the twisting, gnawing river was depositing the tons of yellow mud it had eaten away, farther up. Jungles of tall cane lined the banks, and often, when the current bore them through a narrow cut, they would pass so close that the cane rattled along the side of the boat.

They were just entering one of these channels, sometime in the middle of the afternoon, and Allen and Tad were speculating as to whether they were yet in Tennessee, when Abe held up his hand for silence.

“Listen,” he said, after a moment. “Dogs barkin’, down in the canebrake. Mebbe we’ll see what they’re a-huntin’.”

The others climbed to the fore deck and stood quiet, listening. Soon they too heard the savage baying of the hounds, away to the south, and as the current brought them nearer they watched the banks intently.

The sound was much closer now, and seemed to have changed in tone. There were short breathless barks and an undercurrent of fierce snarling.

“They’ve got somethin’, sure!” said Abe. “An’ if they ain’t too far back from the river we’ll come in sight of ’em in a minute.”

“Look!” cried Tad.

As he pointed they saw a gaunt black bear, with two cubs running at her side, dash across an opening in the canebrake not twenty yards away.

Close on their heels came the dogs--big mongrel hounds that leaped abreast of the hindmost cub and pulled him down with murderous jaws. The old bear had started into the cane on the far side of the opening but turned at a scream from her luckless baby. With a rumbling growl she rushed back into the tangle of dogs, knocking them to right and left with vicious blows of her great forepaws.

The other cub had taken to the water and was swimming strongly out across the channel.

“Back water with the oars!” shouted Abe from the stern. And lifting the long sweep from its chocks, he thrust it down into the mud like a setting-pole. The flatboat slackened speed and came to a stop. Leaning far out over the gunwale and stretching his long arm downward, Abe gripped the young bear by the scruff of the neck and hauled him aboard, dripping and gasping.

Meanwhile events had developed swiftly on the shore. There was a noise of running feet, and a hunter in deerskin burst out of the cane. As he appeared, the mother bear left her dead cub and plunged into the river. The next second the man came bounding after her, with no weapon but the long hunting-knife he gripped in his right hand.

The bear saw the flatboat, hesitated, and doubled back to the left, only to meet the hunter, who sprang to bar her last path of escape. With a grunt of rage the great black beast surged up on her hind feet and faced this enemy, standing chest-deep in the water before her.

There was something deadly about the slow advance of the bear, her head sunk between hulking shoulders, and her lips curled back savagely over her great, keen eye-teeth. Cool and tense, the man pulled off his coonskin cap with his left hand. And at the moment when the bear lunged toward him, he waved the furry headgear, with its big, flapping tail, almost in her face. There was a great splash of water as the enraged brute struck downward at the moving object. And so swiftly that the boys’ eyes could scarcely follow it, the hunter’s foot-long blade was driven home behind her left shoulder. A vivid spurt of crimson tinged the water, and the huge animal made for the shore with a convulsive bound that swept her adversary off his feet. He was up the next instant, shaking the water out of his hair, and with the knife held ready, he followed his victim up the bank. There was no need for another blow. Halfway out of the water, the bear had coughed and stumbled, and when he reached her there was only a limp furry bulk at the edge of the cane.

The crew of the flatboat had watched this encounter, speechless except for a shout or two of encouragement. Now, as the victor drove off the dogs and stooped to examine the slain cub, Allen looked around with a grin of admiration.

“Phew!” he breathed. “No wonder they call ’em half a horse an’ half an alligator. Chase a b’ar ’cross country, ketch up with her, an’ kill her with a knife in four foot o’ water! Glory be!”

The man wrung some of the water out of his fringed buckskin shirt, then turned toward the _Katy Roby_. Abe was still holding the boat against the current, bracing his weight on the long steering-sweep. It was to him that the hunter now addressed himself.

“Wal, stranger,” he said, “who does that-air cub belong to--you or me?” He spoke without heat, in a clear, drawling voice that had a steely ring in its undertone.

Abe was silent, looking back at him appraisingly. The man was big-framed, powerfully muscled, lean as a stag. He had straight black hair, worn long, after the fashion of the Tennessee hunters. His strong, fearless face with its big hooked nose looked like an Indian’s.

“Ye see, b’ar scalps is wu’th a dollar apiece in Nashville,” the hunter proceeded. “The old un’s skin’ll bring mebbe four dollars more, but I’ve been trackin’ these three fer nigh a week. That’s how I make my livin’, mostly.”

Abe looked down at the cub, which squatted between Tad’s knees, licking its fur dry with a long pink tongue.

“’Pears like the leetle feller got away, fair an’ square,” he replied. “He’d have made the other bank if we hadn’t been thar to pick him up. An’ I reckon the boy here would like to keep him. Tell ye what I’ll do. I’ll wrastle ye fer him.”

The man on the bank shot a keen glance at Abe. “Huh!” said he. “Good ’nough. Quick as I kin git this job done, we’ll slip on down to the next cleared spot an’ see ’bout it.”

With that he stooped and deftly cut a circle around the head of the dead cub, lifting off its scalp with the ears attached. Then he set to work on the big bear and in an incredibly short space of time, he had stripped off the heavy pelt and rolled it up, hair inside. From the haunches he cut some chunks of meat which he pierced with a sharp stick and swung over his shoulder. And whistling to the hounds, he picked up his rifle and powder-horn and set out along the bank.

Abe kept the boat within sight of him except when the high cane occasionally swallowed him up. The lanky Indiana boy had little to say as he worked the boat slowly down-channel.

“What about it, Abe?” chattered Allen. “Think ye kin throw him? He looks powerful stout to me. Don’t you count on keepin’ that b’ar too durn much, Tad.”

But Tad, looking up into the weather-tanned countenance of the steersman, saw a twinkle, deep in the gray eyes, that reassured him.

“Why,” said he to Allen, “you told me yourself he could throw anybody on the river.”

“On Little Pigeon, that was,” Allen amended. “I didn’t say nothin’ ’bout the Mississippi.”

Below them a sandy point thrust out from the Tennessee bank, where the river was making land faster than the rank growth could cover it. There the hunter paused and waved to them to come ashore. They tied the flatboat to a stump a little way above, where there was water enough to land, and strolled down to the sand-bar. Tad led the cub by a piece of rope knotted about its neck.

The stranger was already stripping for action. He pulled off his leather hunting-frock and his inside shirt of wool and stood forth naked to the waist, his big, muscular arms and mighty chest gleaming in the sun. Abe made similar preparations. To Tad’s joy, the long-limbed Hoosier appeared no less impressive than his rival. There was a look of whalebone toughness in the tall lad’s physique that made up for any difference in bulk.

As they faced each other, the hunter seemed to swell, visibly, like a ruffling rooster.

“Whoopee!” he crowed. “I’m the high-an’-mighty boss b’ar-killer o’ the Tennessee bottoms. When I open my mouth all the big b’ars an’ little b’ars fer a hundred mile up an’ down the river start skedaddlin’. I’d ruther wrastle than eat, an’ I give ye warnin’, I’m gwine ter git that cub, or my name ain’t Davy Crockett!”

He accompanied all this with a droll flapping of the arms, and as he shouted the last words he launched himself through the air at his young adversary.