Chapter 26

A BOAT VOYAGE DOWN THE GREAT RIVER

The tender in which Deck Lyon and his companion had embarked was a keel-boat such as is usually suspended by two ropes from either end to the upper extremity of a pole, like an ensign staff. It was about twelve feet long, and was not likely to upset, even in the turbulent water at the middle of the river which drained the Cumberland Mountains in the south-eastern part of the State.

Very heavy rains had been falling for several days, overflowing brooks and creeks so as to make many of them impassable; and the great river was swollen, though not to an unusual height in the rainy season. Deck made no effort at first to direct the craft, for he was well-nigh exhausted by the fatigues of the day and his efforts to escape from the fortification.

He kept his seat in the stern-sheets, as Fronklyn did in the forward part of the boat, which was still abreast of the camp, but well under the high bank of the stream. The enterprise was a success so far, and they were so well pleased to escape from the immediate vicinity of the enemy that they were not disposed to do anything but rest themselves. But in a few minutes they had recovered their breath, and ceased to pant from their exertions.

Left to its own guidance, or that of the current, it had whirled about two or three times; but Deck was too tired to be disturbed by this movement. Their uniforms were wet through; for it had rained all the afternoon and evening, and the tender had considerable water in her bottom. Under any other circumstances they would have been very uncomfortable; but their satisfaction at the escape from a prison or prison-camp in the near future was the uppermost thought in their minds, and for a time it banished the annoyance of wet and cold.

"If we whirl round like this it will make us dizzy," said the sergeant as a mild joke. "What makes the boat do so?"

"The tender is so happy to get out of Confederate hands that it wants to dance, and it is indulging in a waltz," replied Deck as another pleasantry.

"I wish it wouldn't do so, for I don't like the motion. I suppose you don't intend to continue this voyage down to New Orleans; for that would not be a more agreeable locality than the Beech Grove intrenchments," added Fronklyn.

"I don't believe we shall care to go as far as that."

"How far down do you mean to go, Lieutenant?"

"That depends; if we can get the craft under control, I don't think we need go much farther," said Deck, as he began to feel about in the bottom of the boat.

"What are you fishing for, Lieutenant?" asked his companion.

"I think you had better not use that word any more at present."

"What word?"

"Lieutenant; for I don't care to have my rank published any more on this cruise, for some one on the shore might hear it. Call me Deck; and as you are not a sergeant here any more than I am a lieutenant, I will not call you so; but I forget your first name, as I have never used it."

"They all call me Ben among my friends."

"Very well; Ben it is."

"I am satisfied, Deck, though it seems a little off now to call you by your given name, cut short, though we used to do so before you were promoted. But what are you feeling for?" asked Ben, as his companion continued to poke about him.

"I was trying to find the oars which belong in this boat," replied Deck. "See if you can find them near the bow."

Both of them made diligent search in every part of the boat; but no oars could be found, and it was evident that they were kept on board of the steamer.

"No oars; that makes it bad for us," added Deck.

"I can make a paddle out of my board," suggested Ben.

"Do so if you can," replied Deck as he picked up his own staff.

By this time, after sitting still for a while, both of them were chilled by the wet and the night air, and they needed exercise of some kind to warm them. Ben had a large and sharp knife in his pocket, and he began to whittle the board like a typical Yankee. Deck put his staff into the scull-hole, and made an effort to steer the tender, and thus prevent her from whirling. As a rudder it was a failure; but as an oar, heaving around the stern, he succeeded with much exertion in making a tolerably straight course.

"That village must be Robertsport," said Deck, who had carefully studied all the localities in this region on his map. "There is a big bend of the river here, and we might as well go ashore there as farther down."

"What has the bend to do with our going ashore there, Deck?"

"The water in the river has a tendency to flow straight ahead, Ben; I learned that at Big Bend, on the Green River, near Riverlawn."

"I know the place very well," added Ben.

"When we come to the bend below the village, the current will be likely to shoot us over near the opposite shore."

"But that will take us to the wrong side of the river, and we shall have to get across it afterwards; and, besides, the enemy will be on that side."

"I don't figure it out in just that way, Ben; for the current will take us to the north side of the stream. The river turns to the left, or south; but the water wants to go straight ahead, and that will cast us on the side where we are now: don't you see?"

"Well, I don't see. I am no boatman, and I won't raise any objection," replied Ben. "Here is your paddle. I had to cut it out in the dark, and work by faith, and not by sight, so that it is not handsome."

"It does first rate, Ben; but we shall have to do some hard work in holding the tender to the shore when the current throws it on the bank; and probably it is just as high as it is at the fort."

"I will do my share of the work if you will tell me how, Deck."

In a few minutes more the boat began to feel the current as it came to the bend, and they could hear the roar of the water as it was dashed against the shore. With the paddle Ben had made, Deck contrived to keep the tender from whirling about, though he had to work very hard to do so. With the bow pointed to the shore, which he could now make out in the gloom of the night, she was going ahead very rapidly, having now the full force of the stream.

"What am I to do, Deck?" demanded Ben, who did not feel at all at home while the craft was in the midst of her gyrations.

"The boat is going head on against the shore; but I don't know what sort of a landing-place it will prove to be. But whatever it is, take the painter in your hand"--

"Who?" cried Ben.

"The painter. The rope made fast at your end of the tender," replied the skipper of the craft impatiently; for the sergeant was entirely ignorant of nautical terms. "Take the end of the rope in your hand, and jump ashore as soon as it touches the land."

"All right; I understand you now," responded Ben, as he seized the painter, and stood up in the fore-sheets as well as the rolling of the boat in the current would permit.

"Now for it!" shouted Deck, as he felt the bottom of the boat strike on its keel.

Ben said nothing, but sprang over the bow of the boat, upon what seemed to be a flat shore, with the rope in his hand.

"Hold on with all your might, or I shall go down stream!" called Deck, as he vigorously plied his paddle in an effort to heave around the stern of the boat so that the current might strike it on the broadside.

The action of the stream helped him, and, assisted by the strength of Ben at the painter, the tender was thrown high and dry on the gentle slope where it had struck. The landing had proved to be a much less difficult task than Deck had anticipated, perhaps because he had skilfully handled the craft so that the current did most of the work.

The leader of the enterprise jumped from the stern-sheets upon the ground, which was a part of the tongue of land formed by the great bend, and extending to the south. Then Deck had a chance to look around him, though it was too dark to make out the situation.

"Where are we now, Deck?" asked Ben.

"I never was here before; but I guess we are not more than six miles below the intrenchments of the enemy on the Cumberland, and they have another breastwork on the south side of the river," replied Deck, as he continued to look about him.

"Where is Robertsport, of which you spoke a while ago?"

"That's on the opposite side of the river, not more than a quarter of a mile higher up. I suppose you are satisfied now that you are on the north side of the stream, and not on the south, as you anticipated, Ben," said Deck.

"Yes; I reasoned that matter out, and found you were right. I suppose you are about used up by this time. I wonder what o'clock it is."

"I have a watch if you have a match."

The sergeant took a tin box from his pocket, and lighted a match from it, and held it under his cap. Deck produced his watch, and found that it was twenty-five minutes past one.

"Later than I supposed," he added.

"We have been on our feet nearly twenty-four hours, and I think you must be about played out," said the sergeant with a gape. "I am tired out; and you are still young, too young to go without your regular sleep."

"But I shall survey this locality before I do anything else."

"I am with you."

"I did not expect to find anything like a flat surface here," continued the lieutenant, as he started to walk towards a high bluff in the direction from which they had come.

It was only a couple of rods from the water, and the flat space where they had come ashore was evidently made by the caving of the earth along the bluff, when the river had been even higher than at present. It was a hill which had possibly turned the river aside from its westerly course to the south at some remote period in the past. There was just such a bluff on the other side of the tongue of land, and possibly a hill there had again changed the river's course to the westward. But Deck's theory explained the presence of the fortunate flat where they had landed.

"Now we must find a way to get up on the hill above the high bluff," said he, as he led the way up the river.

Beyond the bluff the bank of the river was the same as it had been all the way from the fort, and the flat came to a sudden ending.

"Here is a flatboat," said Ben, who was the first to discover it. "Somebody must live near here."

"This looks like a path up the bank," added Deck, who had been studying the river above. "I think this must be a ferry, Ben; though I should suppose the ferryman would find it hard work to get through the current that brought us down."

It was plain that some work had been done on the path leading up the bank, which was diagonal with the steep slope. It had been dug out, and in the steepest parts there was something built for a fence or a hand-rail. On the opposite side of the river from Robertsport there was a road to the one extending from Harrison to Somerset. Doubtless the ferry, if there was one, was for the use of travellers into Wayne County, all of which lay on the south side of the river.

The fugitives were ready to mount the bluff by the path; but first they went back to the boat, which might be of use to them later if they had occasion to renew the voyage down the stream. They drew it back, and concealed it behind a huge rock which the current had laid bare. Then they mounted the path to the top of the bluff. Not ten rods from the shore they found a cabin, around which were some fruit-trees and the dried stalks of corn, showing that the land had been cultivated.

"This is some negro's house," said Ben, as they halted under a tree not two rods from the cabin, which was nothing more than a shanty.

"It looks like one. Very likely the ferryman lives here," replied Deck. "But there is some kind of a row going on in that cabin."

"It seems to be lighted up as though something was happening there at this time of night. We will go up nearer and look into the matter," returned Ben, as he walked towards the cabin, and stationed himself at the only window on that side of the building.

They listened for some time, and heard the voices of four different white men, as they judged from their dialect.

"I done tole you I can't cross de riber to-night. We should all be drownded, shore," replied an unmistakable negro.