Part 7 (1/2)
They heard the shuffle of feet on the sanded tar roof overhead, the creak of falls and tackles, and in a moment the boat, its long oars manned by six stalwart deck hands and carrying, besides, a steersman at the stern and a leadsman with a sounding pole at the bow, pulled around the side of the steamer and out into the shoal water ahead. Meanwhile, the long line of steamers behind them also came to a stop.
”How much water must there be for us to get through?” asked Al.
”We are drawing three and a half feet,” answered Captain Feilner, ”and we ought to have four feet to go on, but we can do it on three and a half by sparring or warping. Have you never seen those things done?
Well, you will probably have a chance in a few minutes,--and plenty more before we are through with this trip. Some of the other steamers do not draw quite as much as we do but none of them seem to be going to try to pa.s.s us.”
The yawl gradually worked its way diagonally across and down the river, following the crest of the bar, until it had approached quite near to the north bank, the leadsman constantly thrusting his pole down to the river bottom. Then the boat suddenly turned around and came rapidly back to the _Island City_.
”There's three and a half, large, over there,” said the pilot who had acted as leadsman as he came aboard, speaking to Captain Lamont. ”We can go over but you'll likely have to set spars.”
He ascended to the pilot-house and jerked the whistle rope. A warning bellow roared out over the river, re-echoing from the forest-clad bluffs on either side. One by one the steamboats behind them took up the refrain, until the noise resembled that of a manufacturing city at the noon hour.
”What on earth is all that whistling for?” asked Al. ”Are they trying to scare the bar out of the river?”
”No,” laughed Captain Feilner. ”That is a signal that we are going to back up. There isn't room to turn in this channel and all the others must back up, too, so that we won't run into each other.”
The fleet backed for a half mile, then the _Island City_ reversed her wheel and started up again, running this time, however, close in by the north sh.o.r.e. As she went ahead the strokes of her pistons became more and more rapid until, as she approached the crossing, she was going at a great speed for a steamboat.
”He's going to try to belt her through,” exclaimed Lieutenant Dale, coming up at this moment. ”We'll get a jolt. I hope nothing breaks.”
Hardly had he finished speaking when there came a loud grating sound from the bow as the boat's flat bottom began to sc.r.a.pe over the sand.
Her timbers quivered and groaned, her speed diminished so quickly that those who were standing on her decks were nearly thrown down, and then, after sc.r.a.ping along for a few feet slowly and painfully she came to a full stop. For a moment the stern wheel continued to churn the water into white foam; then the pilot, with an impatient gesture, jerked the wire to the stopping-bell down in the engine room, and the ponderous wheel came to a halt.
”No use,” he cried to Captain Lamont, leaning out of the pilot-house window. ”She's nearly over but you'll have to set the spars!”
There was a great shouting and commotion on the lower deck as the spars, two long, heavy timbers like telegraph poles, one on each side of the bow, were swung out and erected in position, their lower extremities resting on the river bottom, the upper, fitted with tackle blocks, rising high above the level of the boat's top deck. Through the tackle blocks ran heavy cables fastened at one end to the boat's gunwale and at the other to the steam capstan. When the spars had been set, the capstan began to revolve, winding up the cable and thus hoisting the bow of the boat until it hung suspended on the spars. At the same time the wheel was slowly revolved, forcing the boat ahead until the spars had tilted forward so far as to let the bow down again into the sand. Then they were dragged forward and set upright once more, and the process was repeated. Before a great while the crest of the bar was pa.s.sed, and the _Island City_ floated on into deeper water and continued her journey.
But though it had not been what river men would consider a hard crossing, she had lost nearly six hours in sounding and sparring, and it was noon by the time she had left the Gasconade out of sight behind her.
The vessels following her each forced its way across the bar in the same manner as she had done, excepting the _Chippewa Falls_ and the _Alone_, boats of smaller dimensions and lighter draft, which were able to slip over without sparring. By the time the last one had pa.s.sed the Gasconade, it was evening again, and the fleet was strung out for miles up the river. The _Island City_ anch.o.r.ed out for the night to a bar just below Kate Howard Chute, so called for a beautiful packet of that name which had sunk there in 1859. The point was only thirty miles above the Gasconade, so that twenty-four hours had been consumed in covering that insignificant distance. The _Island City_ was towing a large barge, intended for use when they should reach the Indian country, but it was very much in the way and r.e.t.a.r.ded her progress considerably.
That evening Al asked Captain Lamont how far it was from St. Louis to the mouth of Cannonball River, Dakota, where it was expected that the actual campaign against the Indians would begin, and was told that it was about fourteen hundred miles. He did some figuring and found that if they continued to progress at the same rate as they had done that day it would be more than six weeks, or past the middle of June, before they would reach their destination. It seemed an astonis.h.i.+ngly long time to him but, as the event proved, he had considerably overestimated the average speed which the fleet could maintain. For days they continued travelling through the State of Missouri, contending with sandbars and head winds. The interior of the State was in a deplorable condition as a result of the war. Guerillas were overrunning it everywhere, and the boats rarely landed at a town without hearing either that some of the marauders had just left on the approach of the fleet or that they had been raiding there a day or two before. General Sully's vessels were so numerous and well armed that the guerillas did not dare attack them. All Missouri River boats at that time were more or less fortified around the pilot-house with timber or boiler-iron bulwarks, to protect the pilots from the bullets of guerillas on the lower river and from those of Indians in the upper country, while the piles of cordwood on the main deck afforded some protection to the men there. Yet the fleet seldom pa.s.sed a downward-bound boat which had not been fired into or boarded, and fortunate was the vessel which had escaped without the loss of one or more people on board killed or wounded.
There were plenty of men in the expedition who would have been glad to encourage such attacks had they been made, for, as was always the case among the cla.s.s of men who worked as laborers on the steamboats, there were many hardened and even desperate characters in the crews of Sully's vessels. Not a few of them were deserters from the Confederate army, tired of fighting but still rebels at heart; and others were Southern sympathizers, fleeing from the draft in the Northern States. Most of these men hoped, when they should draw near to Montana, to find opportunities for slipping away from the expedition and making their way to the gold fields which were just being opened in the placer deposits around Bannack, Last Chance Gulch, Alder Gulch and other places, and which were attracting a wild rush of adventurers from all over the country. Such men were naturally hard to handle and it took steamboat officers of firmness and courage to keep them in control.
Since the beginning of the voyage Al had not had much occasion to mingle with the crew of the _Island City_. The cargo of the steamboat consisted chiefly of corn for the use of the cavalry horses in the Indian country and, once it was on board, required little attention. He therefore seldom had any reason for going to the lower deck except to while away the time, which, indeed, was the princ.i.p.al occupation of the army officers on board. As might naturally be supposed, he was usually with some of them. But one day he was standing on the main deck near the boilers when one of the deck hands, a young fellow a few years older than himself, came by carrying a couple of heavy sticks of cordwood to the furnaces. Al had once or twice in the past noticed this fellow staring at him in a disagreeable way and felt instinctively that it must be because the deck hand was envious of the apparently easy and pleasant time which he was having. Al's back was turned toward him and neither saw the other until one of the sticks collided heavily with Al's shoulder, almost throwing him down. Al turned and though bruised, was on the point of apologizing for being in the way, when the fellow, an ugly, red flush overspreading his face, shouted, with a plentiful sprinkling of oaths between his words,
”Get out of my road, you little Yankee snipe! What are you loafing around here for, anyhow?”
”I'm sorry I got in your way,” replied Al, controlling his temper, ”but I didn't see you.”
”Well, you'd better stay upstairs with your blue-bellied Yankee officers. They oughtn't to let their little pet run around this way.”
Hearing loud words, several other deck hands gathered round, grinning at the excitement, their sympathies evidently with their companion.
”As for my being down here,” Al answered, feeling that it would not do to let such language pa.s.s unnoticed, especially before the other men, ”I have as much business here as you have. As for being a Yankee, I suppose everybody on a United States s.h.i.+p is a Yankee. If they're not, they'd better go ash.o.r.e.”
”It would take a mighty big lot of such spindle-legged doll babies as you to put me ash.o.r.e,” shouted the young ruffian, flinging down his wood and advancing on Al with clenched fists. ”Down South we don't use anything but boats we've kicked the Yankees off of.”
Several of the other deck hands crowded closer, exclaiming,