The Last of the Flatboats

“Irv, you and Constant go to the starboard pump,” he said hurriedly; “Ed and Will to the other; the boat must be badly wrenched, and she’ll fill with water. Pump like maniacs.”

The boys went to their posts, and managed to work the pumps, though with difficulty. Water came freely in answer to their efforts, showing that Phil’s conjecture was correct.

Phil himself climbed down the little companionway, receiving some bruises and one rather ugly cut on the head as he did so, for the sudden tossings of the boat still continued, though less violently than before. He found matters below in rather better condition than he had feared. The space under the flooring – or the bilge, as it is called – was full, and there was a good deal of water washing about above the floor. The boat was too unsteady for Phil to estimate the depth of the leakage, or to discover the rapidity with which the water was coming in. But he hoped that diligent pumping might yet save the craft.

Having hurriedly made his inspection, he proceeded next to fill a basket with food, taking first that which could be eaten without further cooking, – canned goods, dried beef, and the like, – and, returning to the deck, deposited his stores in one of the skiffs. He repeated this several times, till he had fully provisioned two of the boats. It did not require many minutes to do this, and they were minutes that he could not use to better advantage in any other way, for there was still no possibility of directing the flatboat’s course by using the oars, and Phil deemed it wise thus to provision the skiffs, so that if the boat should sink, he and his comrades, or some of them, at least, might have a chance of escape in them without starving before reaching dry land somewhere.

The boat had passed safely through the first stretch of timber lands, and was now floating over a broad reach of open plantation country. But the fog was gone now, and, as there was woodland in sight a few miles farther on in the direction in which the current was carrying them, Phil and his friends felt that their respite was likely to be a brief one.

He relieved Ed at the pump, and ordered him to rest. But the boy protested that he was still fresh, and would have worked on if Phil had permitted. Even in this time of danger and hurried effort, Phil could not help thinking how greatly his brother’s health and strength had improved.

“Ed’s getting well,” he said to Irv, as the two tugged at the pump.

“Yes,” rejoined the tall fellow; “a month ago he couldn’t have done such work as this to save his life.”

“And twenty-four hours of such a fog as we’ve been through would have killed him to a certainty. Now he doesn’t even cough.”

A little later, as the boat began floating more steadily, Phil called out: —

“Go below, Ed, and see how much water is in the hold.”

Ed’s report convinced the young captain that the leaks were at least not gaining upon the pumps. An hour later, the boat having become quite steady again, Phil found that the pumps were gaining on the water, which by that time did not rise above the flooring.

The boat had by this time passed again into a forest, and, while the current was now a steady one, it was still very strong. Phil considered the situation carefully, and decided upon his course of action.

“Take a line in a skiff, Will, and pass it once around a tree, then run off with the end of it and hold on, letting it slip as slowly as possible on the tree till the boat comes to a halt. Then make fast.”

To the others he explained: —

“We must check her speed gradually. In such a current as this to stop her suddenly would sling her against some tree like a whip cracker.”

Then he turned to Irv, and said, “Take another line, and do the same thing on another tree.”

By the time that Irv pushed off in his skiff Will had got his line in place around a tree, and had rowed away fifty yards with the end of it. As it tightened, the rope began slipping on the tree, dragging the skiff toward it. Phil called to Will: —

“Don’t get hurt, Will! Let go your rope when you are dragged nearly to the tree.”

Will did so just in time to save himself from an ugly collision, but his efforts had considerably checked the flatboat’s speed, and by the time he let go the line Irv had the other rope around a tree and was repeating the operation. This second line brought the boat to a standstill, and under Phil’s direction she was securely made fast both bow and stern, so that she could not swing about in any direction.

CHAPTER XXIV

A LITTLE AMATEUR SURGERY

“The first thing to be done now,” said Phil, “is to find out what damage we have suffered, and repair as much of it as we can.”

“Better begin with your head then,” said Will. “It seems to have sustained more damage than anything else in sight.”

The cut Phil had received had covered his face and shoulders with blood, and his head was aching severely. But he was not ready to think of himself yet. He must first do everything that could be done for the safety of the boat and crew and cargo. So he dismissed Will’s suggestion, saying: —

“Never mind about my head. I’ll wash the blood off when other things are done. There’s plenty of water, anyhow.”

With that he went below again to inspect. He found that the water there had risen since the pumps were stopped until now it stood about two inches above the false bottom or floor on which the cargo rested. Putting his head out through the scuttle, he called: —

“Two of you go to the pumps – one to each pump. Don’t work too hard, but keep up a steady pumping. As soon as the two get tired, let the other two take their places.”

He withdrew his head, but in a few moments after the pumps were started he thrust it out again to say: —

“Don’t pump so hard! You’ll break yourselves down, and we can’t afford that now.”

He went below again, lighted a lantern and made as thorough an examination of the boat as possible, even moving a good deal of the freight about in order to get at points where he suspected the principal leaks to be. Two of these he closed by nailing blocks of inch board over them.

Meantime he made frequent observations of the water mark he had set, and was rejoiced to find that the pumps were taking water out more rapidly than it was leaking in.

He went on deck and announced the results of his inspection.

“The boat is leaking, of course, but not one-half so badly as there was reason to fear. The bilge is full, and the water stands about an inch deep or a little less on the false bottom. But it stood two inches deep there an hour ago, so I expect that in another hour or so we shall get it down to the bilge, leaving the floor clear. It is important to do that quickly so that the wet part of our cargo, particularly the lower tier of hay bales, may have a chance to dry out. If it stays long in water, of course it will be badly damaged.”

“Well, now,” said Irv, “I’m going to take care of something else that’s badly damaged. Get a pair of scissors, Ed, and some rags, and help me repair Phil’s head.”

Then, taking Phil by the arm, he continued: —

“Come to the bow, Phil, where we can get at the water easily. It will require a young lake to clean you up properly. Off with your shirt, young man!”

Irv treated the matter lightly, but he did not think of it in that way by any means. In common with the other boys, he was deeply concerned over the young captain’s wound. The bleeding had long since ceased, but the boy’s hair was matted, his face covered, and the upper part of his clothing saturated with blood.

The clothing was first removed. Then with wet cloths the face and shoulders were hastily sponged off.

“Now, Ed,” said Irv, who lived, when at home, in the house with his uncle, a physician, and therefore knew better than any one else on the boat what to do for a wound, “you take the scissors and shear off Phil’s hair just as close to the scalp as you can, particularly around the wound. Hair is always full of microbes, you know.”

With that Irv passed through the hold and was absent for some little time. When he returned, he brought with him a teakettle of hot water which he had waited to boil, a basin, and a little box of salt.

“What are those for?” asked Ed, who had by this time reduced Phil to a condition of baldness.

“How much water is there above the false bottom now?” queried Phil, whose mind refused to be diverted from his duty as captain.

“The water to cleanse the wound, the salt to disinfect it, and I didn’t notice any water above the floor,” said Irv, replying to both questions in a single breath.

Ed laughed, but Phil eagerly asked, “You mean that the water doesn’t come over the flooring at all, – that there’s no water above the bilge?”

“I didn’t observe any,” said Irv, “but I wasn’t thinking particularly about it. I’ll go and look again.”

“No,” said Phil; “I’ll go myself if you’ll get me a lantern, for it’s so nearly dark now that it must be quite dark inside.”

When the lantern came, Phil made a hurried inspection with a blanket thrown over his otherwise bare shoulders. Then he thrust his shaven head above the deck and called to the two boys at the pumps: —

“I say, fellows, you can stop one of the pumps now, and keep only one going. One of you go below and get supper. Make it a hearty one, for we haven’t eaten a mouthful in twenty-four hours.”

In the day’s excitements not one of them had thought about food, but now that supper was mentioned they all realized that their appetites were voracious.

Having given his orders, Phil submitted himself again to the hands of his surgeons. Irv poured some of the hot water into a basin and added a tablespoonful or so of salt.

“You see,” he explained, “the trouble with wounds is that germs get into them, so the most important thing of all is to cleanse them thoroughly, and after that to keep them clean. I’m using boiled water” – he was sponging the wound as he talked, – “because boiling kills all the microbes there may be in water.”

“But what is the salt for?” asked Ed.

“To disinfect the wound. You see there must be lots of microbes in it already, and salt kills them. That’s what we salt meat for when we wish to preserve it. The salt kills microbes, and so the meat keeps sound.”

“Then it is the presence of microbes that causes decay in meat?”

“Yes, or decay in anything else. If we hadn’t thrown Jim Hughes’s whiskey overboard, I’d wash this wound with that. It would make Phil jump, but it would do the work. You know nothing decays in alcohol. However, the salt will do, I think.”

When Irv had satisfied himself that the wound was sufficiently cleansed, he drew the edges of the cut together and held them there with sticking plaster.

“Now, Ed,” he said, “won’t you please bring me some cloths that you’ll find in the oven of the stove?”

Ed went at once, but wondering. When he returned, Irv finished dressing the wound, and all went to supper.

“Why did you put the rags in the oven, Irv?” asked Ed. “I noticed you didn’t even try to keep them warm after I brought them to you.”

“Oh, no. I roasted them for the same reason that I boiled the water – to sterilize them.”

“You mean to kill the microbes?”

“Yes. You see everything is likely to be infested with disease germs, so you must never use anything about a wound without first sterilizing it with heat or some chemical. You can use unboiled water, of course, because water cleanses things anyhow, but it is better to use boiled water if you can get it, and every bandage should be carefully sterilized. That’s why I started the fire, boiled the water, and put the rags in the oven to roast.”

At supper Ed ate as voraciously as the rest, and the boys observed with satisfaction that the long fast, the very hard work, the severe strain of anxiety, and the prolonged exposure to the fog had in no way hurt him. Ed declared, indeed, that he was growing positively robust, and his comrades agreed with him.

“What’s the programme now, Phil?” asked one of the party when supper was done.

“A good night’s sleep,” answered the young captain. “In the morning we’ll consider further proceedings with clear heads. One pump is sufficient to keep ahead of the leaks now, and we shall have to keep that going night and day as long as we remain afloat. So usually we’ll keep two men awake to alternate at the pump, but for to-night we’ll stand short watches, keeping only one man awake at a time. Two watches of an hour each for each of us will take us through the night. I’ll take the first watch, as my head is aching too badly to sleep yet. So get to sleep, all of you. I’ll wake one of you in an hour or so.”

The boys objected. They wanted Phil to treat himself as an invalid, and let them do the watching and pumping, but he was obstinate in his determination to do his full share. So they stretched themselves in their bunks and were soon sleeping the sleep of very tired but very healthy young human animals.

CHAPTER XXV

A VOYAGE IN THE WOODS

It was long past midnight when Phil aroused one of his comrades to take his place on watch and at the pump. For the young captain had a good deal of careful thinking to do, and he could do it better alone in the dark than when surrounded by his crew. Moreover, he knew that until his thinking should be done he could not sleep even if he should try.

“I might as well stay on deck and let the other fellows sleep,” he said to himself, “as to lie awake for hours in my bunk.”

In the morning Phil called a “council of war.”

“Now listen to me first, without interrupting,” he said. “I’ve thought out the situation as well as I can, and have made up my mind what we ought to do. After I’ve told you my plan and the reasons for it, you can make any suggestions you like, and I’ll adopt any of them that seem good to me.”

“That’s right,” said Irv. “Let’s hear what you’ve thought and what your plan is. Then we’ll carry it out.”

“No,” said Phil. “I want you to criticise it first, so that if it’s wrong I can change it.”

“All right. Go ahead.”

“First of all, then, we’re out here in the woods. It isn’t a comfortable or a proper place for a flatboat to be in, and we must get out of it as quickly as we can.”

“But how?” broke in Will. “We’re ten or twenty or maybe thirty or forty miles from the river, and we can’t possibly get back again.”

“I don’t know so well about that,” said Phil. “Of course we can’t get back to the river at the point where we left it. But I’m not so sure that we can’t get back to it somewhere else, and at any rate, I’m going to try. Listen, now! The water we’re in is thirty-five feet deep.”

“How do you know?” asked Constant.

“I’ve sounded it. So we’ve plenty of water, and there is no danger of our going aground. But we’re not in any river, for we’re in the midst of the woods, and woods don’t grow in rivers. But this water that we’re in is running toward somewhere at the rate of six or eight miles a hour, and we must go with it. Somehow or somewhere it must run into some river, and that river must somewhere and somehow empty itself into the Mississippi.”

“Why?” asked Constant.

“Because there isn’t anything else for it to run into, and of course it can’t stop running. Now my idea is this. We must cast the boat loose and let her float with the current. It will be very hard work to keep her from smashing into these big trees, but we must do all the hard work necessary. We’ll tie up every night so long as we’re in the woods, and we’ll float all day. Sooner or later we’ll run out of the woods and into a river, and when we do that we’ll follow the river to its end, wherever it may happen to be.”

“But have you any idea where we are?” asked Will.

“No,” said Phil, “except that we are somewhere in the northern part of the state of Mississippi.”

“I know where we are,” drawled Irv Strong.

“Where?”

“We’re in the woods.”

“I’m pleased to observe that you still have ‘lucid intervals,’ Irv,” said Ed Lowry. “But I have a rather more definite idea than that of our whereabouts. I studied it out on the map early this morning.”

“Good, good! Where are we?” cried out all the boys in a breath, and with great eagerness.

“Come here and see,” said Ed, unrolling his great river map. “You observe that a number of rivers originate in northern Mississippi and western Tennessee, almost under the levees of the Mississippi. There are the Big Sunflower, the Coldwater, and the Tallahatchie, with the Yalobusha only a little way off. All of them run into the Yazoo, which in its turn runs into the Mississippi near Vicksburg. All of them are marked on my map as navigable for a part of their course. All of them lie in a great flat basin or lowland swamp. But for the levees the Mississippi would flow into them whenever it rises to any considerable extent. In fact, they must originally have been mere bayous of the great river, running out of it and back into it again. The Mississippi levees have stopped all that ordinarily, but the levees have given way this time, and so the Mississippi is now pouring its water into these rivers, and as there is too much of it for them to hold, it has filled the entire swamp country between them, making one vast stream of them all in effect. We are somewhere in between those rivers, and if we can keep our flatboat afloat and not wreck her among these trees, the current will sooner or later carry us into the natural channel of one or the other of them. That I understand to be Phil’s idea, and he is right.”

“That’s all right,” said Phil, who was restlessly pacing up and down the deck. “But has anybody any suggestion to make?”

Nobody had anything to offer.

“Very well, then,” said the young captain, “let’s get to work. We’ve talked enough. We must keep one fellow at a pump all the time. We can’t do much with the sweeps while we’re in the woods, and our greatest danger is that of running the boat into one of these big trees and wrecking her. To prevent that I want you, Irv, and you, Constant, – for you are the stoutest oarsmen, – to get into a skiff and carry a line about a hundred feet in advance of the boat. She slews around pretty easily under a pull, and I want you two to guide her with a line. I’ll tell you when you are to row to right or left to avoid trees, and the rest of the time you’ve only to keep the line taut so as to be ready for emergencies. Get into the skiff at once, and take a light line with you.”

As soon as the skiff was in position and the guiding line stretched, Phil directed Will Moreraud to jump into another skiff and release the flatboat from her moorings.

It was perilous business navigating thus through a dense subtropical forest. Phil stood at the bow, intently watching and giving his commands in a restrained voice and with an apparent calm that sadly belied his actual condition of mind. Will and Ed “stood by” the sweeps, working the pumps, but holding themselves ready to pull on the great oars whenever Phil should find that mode of guiding the boat practicable.

Every now and then Phil would call to Irv and Constant in the skiff ahead, to pull with all their might to the right or left, and many times the flatboat, in spite of this diligence, had narrow escapes from disaster.

It was terribly hard work, and the mental strain of it which fell upon Phil was worse even than the tremendous physical exertion put forth by the other boys. There was no midday meal served that day, for it would have meant destruction for any one of the boys to leave his post of duty long enough even to prepare the simplest food.

About four o’clock in the afternoon Phil suddenly called to Irv: —

“Carry your line around a tree and check speed all you can!” Then turning to Will: —

“Jump into a skiff, Will, and take out another line, just as you did yesterday. When the boat stops, make fast!”

The boys obeyed promptly, and a few minutes later The Last of the Flatboats was securely tied to two great trees – one in front and one astern.

Then Phil threw himself down on the deck and closed his eyes as if in sleep, and the boys in the skiffs came back on board.

The captain was manifestly exhausted. The strain of watching and directing the course of the boat through so many hours and under circumstances so difficult, the still greater strain put upon his mind by his consciousness that he alone was responsible for the safety of boat and crew and cargo, and finally the sudden relief caused by a glimpse ahead which his comrades had been too busy to share, had brought on something very like collapse.

The boys said nothing, lest they disturb him. He lay still for a quarter of an hour perhaps. Then he got up, stripped off his clothing, and leaped overboard.

Five minutes later he returned to the deck refreshed by his bath, and almost himself again.

As he dried himself with a towel, he said: —

“Two of you go below and get supper. Make it a big one, for we are all starving. And get it as quickly as you can.” Then, after a brief pause, he added: —

“You didn’t notice it, I suppose, but we’re out of the woods!”

“How so?” asked Ed and Irv in unison.

“There’s an open river just ahead,” replied Phil. “Go forward and look. I’m going to sleep now. Wake me up when supper is ready.”

And in a moment the exhausted boy was sound asleep, stretched out upon a hard plank, without pillow or other comfort of any kind.

“Poor fellow!” said Irv. “He’s got the big end of this job all the time.”

With that he dived below, and returning, placed a pillow under Phil’s bandaged head, and spread a blanket over him, for the air was chill.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE CREW AND THEIR CAPTAIN

Utterly worn out as he was, it was not a part of Phil’s purpose – it was not in his nature, indeed – to neglect any duty. He ate a hearty supper with the boys, during which he talked very little. Once he said, suddenly: —

“I suspect it’s the Tallahatchie.”

“What do you mean?” asked Ed.

“Why, the river we’ve reached. It lies to the left of our course. If it was the Sunflower, it would lie to the right. Anyhow, it runs into the Yazoo, and that’s all we ask of it.”

“By the way, Ed,” said Irv, “how long is the Yazoo?”

“I don’t know, I’m sure,” said Ed. “I’ll get the map after supper, and look.”

“Don’t bother,” said Phil. “The navigable part of it is one hundred and seventy-five miles long.”

“How did you come to know that?” asked Will. “I thought Ed was the geographer of this expedition.”

“So he is. But I’m captain, worse luck to it, and it’s my first business to know what lies ahead. So I looked this thing up on the map. The Yalobusha and Tallahatchie run together somewhere near a village called Greenwood, which is probably a hundred feet or so under water just now, – we may even float over the highest steeple in that interesting town, when we get to it, – and those two streams form the Yazoo. By the way, that little side issue of a river happens to be considerably longer, in its navigable part, than one of the most celebrated rivers in the world – the Hudson.”

“You don’t mean it?” exclaimed Irv, for once surprised out of his drawl.

“Maybe I don’t. But I think I do. Ask Ed to study it out. I’m too tired to talk. I’m going to sleep for ten minutes now. Wake me up at the end of that time. Don’t fail!”

With that the exhausted boy rolled into a bunk, and in an instant was asleep again.

Ed got out his maps and studied them for a while.

“He’s right, boys,” said the older one, after some measurements on the map.

“Of course he is,” said Constant. “He’s got into the habit of being right since we chose him to be ‘It’ for this trip. But go on, Ed. Tell us about it.”

“Well,” said Ed, still scrutinizing the map, “the navigable part of the Hudson, from New York to Troy, is about one hundred and fifty-six miles long. The navigable part of the Yazoo is, as Phil said, one hundred and seventy-five miles long. Oh, by the way – ”

“What is the thought behind that exclamation?” said Irv, when Ed paused; for Irv’s spirits were irrepressible.

“It just occurs to me,” said Ed, “that this wonderful river of ours, the Mississippi with its tributaries, is almost exactly one hundred times as long – in its navigable parts – as the greatest commercial river of the East.”

“In other words,” said Irv, “the East isn’t in it with us. Its great Hudson River would scarcely more than make a tail for the Mississippi below New Orleans. It would just about stretch from Cincinnati to Louisville. It would cover only a little more than half the distance from St. Louis to Cairo, or from Cairo to Memphis.”