Longshanks

Down the last long hill into Wheeling Town came the stage, its four lean horses at a canter and its brakes squealing under the heavy foot of Long Bill Mifflin.

The steamboat! It left at eight. He reached for his big silver watch under the pillow, and found to his relief that it was only a few minutes after six. At the same time he disc...

For three or four seconds Tad was too terrified to move. Then he recovered his presence of mind and scrambled up, drawing a deep breath to shout for help. But before he could ut...

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...

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 b...

They were peeling potatoes for the noon meal on the fourth day of the flatboat’s voyage when Tad chanced to look off to the southward and stood up suddenly, with an exclamation...

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 h...

That was a wrestling-match that Tad never forgot. Abe met the opening rush of the Tennesseean with an old trick, but a good one. Crouching just at the right time, he caught the...

The little bear took very kindly to his new home. He slept well and rose to stretch himself hungrily when the first beam of sunlight came over the brown water. Softly he padded...

Memphis, in 1828, was little more than a raw hamlet straggling along the river. It had a big landing-stage for steamers and a series of smaller wharves where the arks and keel-b...

The storm struck hard, lashing the muddy water high along the levee and tossing the broadhorns at their moorings. After the furious wind came rain in a deluge that drenched the...

The next thing Tad knew was a sensation of intense physical discomfort. His head throbbed fiercely, his wrists were chafed, and he lay, in a very painful position, face down, ac...

There may have been worse nights in history than the one Tad spent in that garret, but in all his experience he never was to know a longer or more nerve-racking one.

The ten-foot drop to the ground jarred Tad from head to toe but did not really hurt him. He was up in an instant, and without even a backward glance at the house he made for the...

As he descended, Tad could see the levee, below, and half a mile to the northward the huddled houses of Natchez-under-the-Hill. There was the big steamboat landing, piled with f...

Tad kept his misgivings to himself as the flatboat voyaged southward. Both of his companions were so genuinely happy over his safe return that nothing else really seemed to matt...

He seemed to be running, leaden-footed, down the bed of an interminable brook, where at every step the deep, black mud sucked horribly at his heels. He struggled forward, his he...

Five or six miles below, they sighted a tiny, tree-clad island in midstream, and there once more made the boat fast. This time nothing interrupted their slumbers. They were unde...

It was barely daylight; yet the breakfast fire was snapping merrily, and Abe was busy preparing for a start. As the boy washed himself, he saw signs of similar activity on board...

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...

Dennis McCann knew a lot about New Orleans. He had been spending days exploring the town every time he got into port, and there were few corners into which he had not penetrated...