''Bring Me His Ears'' by Clarence E. Mulford (story reading txt) 📖

slightly as he thought that she had been waiting for him; and when he found that she had not yet entered the cabin for breakfast, the glow became quite pronounced. He had seen many pretty girls and had grown up with them, but the fact that she was pretty was not the thing which made her so attractive to him. There was a softness in her speaking voice, a quiet dignity and a certain reserve, so honest that it needed no affectations to make it sensed; and under it all he felt that there was a latent power of will that would make panicky fears and actions impossible in her. And he never had perceived such superb defenses against undue familiarity, superb in their unobtrusiveness, which to him was proof of their sincerity and that they were innate characteristics. He felt that she could repel much more effectively without showing any tangible signs of it than could any woman he ever had met. He promised himself that the study of her nature would not be neglected, and he looked forward to it with eagerness. There was, to him, a charm about her so complex, so subtle that it almost completed the circle and became simple and apparent.

She smiled slightly and acknowledged his bow as he approached her.

"Good morning, Miss Cooper. Have you and your uncle breakfasted?"

"Not yet," she answered, turning toward the cabin. "I think he is waiting for us. Shall we go in?"

The plural form of the personal pronoun sent a slight thrill through him as he opened the door for her, showed her to the table, and seated her so that she faced the wide expanse of the river.

"I imagined that I felt bumps against the boat sometime during the night," she remarked. She looked inquiringly at Tom and her uncle. "Did we strike anything?"

"Why," Tom answered in simulated surprise, "no one said anything about it to me, and I've been with the pilot almost since dawn. The whole fact of the matter is that this river's dangers are much over-estimated, considering that boats of thirty feet and under have been navigating it since before the beginning of this century. And they had no steam to help them, neither."

Uncle Joe appeared to be very preoccupied and took no part in the conversation.

"I have heard uncle and father speak many times about the great dangers attending the navigation of the Missouri," she responded, smiling enigmatically, and flashing her uncle a keen, swift glance. "They used to dwell on it a great deal before father went out to Santa Fe. So many of their friends were engaged in steamboat navigation that it was a subject of deep interest to them both, and they seemed to be very well informed about it." She laughed lightly and again glanced at her uncle. "Since uncle learned that I might have to make the trip he has talked in quite a different strain; but he did suggest, somewhat hopefully, that we put up with the discomforts of the overland route and make the trip in a wagon. Don't you believe, Mr. Boyd, that knowledge of possible dangers might be a good thing?"

Uncle Joe gulped the last of his watery coffee, pushed back, and arose. "Want to see the captain," he said. "Meet you two later on deck," and he lost no time in getting out of the cabin.

"Well," came the slow and careful answer from Tom, "so many of us pass numerous dangers in our daily lives, unknown, unsuspected, that we might have a much less pleasant existence if we knew of them. If they are dangers that we could guard against, knowledge of them certainly would be a good thing."

She nodded understandingly and looked out over the tawny, turbulent flood, then leaned forward quickly; and her companion did not lose this opportunity to admire her profile. Coming down the stream like an arrow, with a small square sail set well forward, was a keelboat, its hide-protected cargo rising a foot or more above the gunwale amidships. Standing near the mast was a lookout, holding fast to it, and crouched on top of the cargo, the long, extemporized addition to the tiller grasped firmly in both hands, was the patron, or captain. Sitting against the rear bulkhead of the hold and facing astern were several figures covered with canvas and hides, the best shift the crew could make against the weather. The French-Canadian at the mast waved his hand, stopping his exultant song long enough to shout a bon voyage to the steamboat as he shot past, and the little boat darted from their sight into the rain and the rolling vapor of the river like a hunted rabbit into a tangle of briars.

"That's splendid!" she exclaimed, an exultant lilt in her voice. "That's the spirit of this western country: direct, courageous, steadfast! Can't you feel it, Mr. Boyd?"

His eyes shone and he leaned forward over the table with a fierce eagerness. In that one moment he had caught a glimpse into the heart and soul of Patience Cooper that fanned fiercely the flame already lighted in his heart. His own feelings about the West, the almost tearful reverence which had possessed him at the sight of those pioneer women, many with babes at their breasts, that he daily had seen come into Independence from the East to leave it on the West, the hardships past great enough to give pause to men of strength, but not shaking their calm, quiet determination to face greater to the end of that testing trail, and suffer privations in a vast wilderness; his feelings, his hopes, his faith, had come back to him in those few words almost as though from some spirit mirror. He choked as he fought to master himself and to speak with a level voice.

"Feel it?" he answered, his voice shaking. "I feel it sometimes until the sheer joy of it hurts me! Wait until you stand on the outskirts of Independence facing the sunset, and see those wagons, great and small, plodding with the insistent determination of a wolverine to the distant rendezvous! Close your eyes and picture that rendezvous, the caravan slowly growing by the addition of straggling wagons from many feeding roads. Wait until you stand on the edge of that trail, facing the west, with rainbows in the mist of your eyes! Oh, Miss Cooper, I can't—but perhaps we'd better go on deck and see what the weather promises."

She did not look at him, but as she arose her hand for one brief instant rested lightly on his outflung arm, and set him aquiver with an ecstatic agony that hurt even while it glorified him. He shook his head savagely, rose and led the way to the door; and only the moral fiber and training passed on to him through generations of gentlemen kept him from taking her in his arms and smothering her with kisses; and in his tense struggle to hold himself in check he did not realize that such an indiscretion might have served him well and that such a moment might never come again. Holding open the door until she had passed through, he closed it behind them and stumbled into a whirling gust of rain that stung and chilled him to a better mastery of himself. Opportunity had knocked in vain.

"Our friends, the pilots, will not be good company on a day like this," he said, gripping the rail and interposing his body between her and the gusts. "The gangplank's out, but there seems to be a lack of warmth in its invitation. Suppose we go around on the other side?"

On the river side of the boat they found shelter against the slanting rain and were soon comfortably seated against the cabin wall, wrapped in the blankets he had coaxed from his friend, the purser.

"Just look at that fury of wind and water!" exclaimed Patience. "I wonder where that little keelboat is by now?"

"Oh, it's scooting along like a sled down an icy slope," he answered, hoping that it had escaped the hungry maw of the great whirlpool off Clay Point. "They must have urgent reasons for driving ahead like that. It must be an express from the upper Missouri posts to St. Louis. McKenzie probably wants to get word to Chouteau before the fur company's steamboat starts up the river. Or it may be the urging of the thrill that comes with gambling with death."

Behind them Uncle Joe poked his head out of the cabin door and regarded them curiously. Satisfied that troublesome topics no longer were being discussed he moved forward slowly.

"Oh, here you are," he said, as though making a discovery. "I thought I might find you out here. Captain Newell ain't fit company for a savage wolf this morning. Have you heard how long we're going to be tied up?"

Tom drew a chair toward him and looked up invitingly. "Sit down, Mr. Cooper. Why, I understand we will stay here all day and night." He understood the other man's restlessness and anxiety about the wait, but did not sympathize with him. The longer they were in making the river-run the better he would be suited.

Uncle Joe glanced out over the wild water. "Oh, well," he sighed. "If we must, then we must. That river's quite a sight; looks a lot worse than it is. Hello! What's our reverend friend doing down there? Living in the hold?" He chuckled. "If he is, it's a poor day to come up for air."

They followed his glance and beheld a tall, austere, long-faced clergyman emerging from the forward hatch, and behind him came the pilot with whom they had talked the evening before. When both had reached the deck and stepped out of the rain the clergyman shook his head stubbornly and continued his argument.

"I was told to come up on this packet and examine her carefully on the way," he asserted, doggedly. "Liquor in vast quantities has been getting past both Fort Leavenworth and Bellevue; and while the military inspectors may be lax, or worse, that is an accusation which cannot truthfully be brought against us at the upper agency. If I am not given honest assistance in the prosecution of my search, your captain may experience a delay at our levee that will not be to his liking. It's all the same to me, for if it isn't found on our way up, it will be found after we reach the agency."

"But, my reverend sir!" replied the pilot, in poorly hidden anger, "you've been from one end of th' hold to th' other! You've crawled 'round like a worm, stuck yore nose an' fingers inter everythin' thar war to stick 'em in; you've sounded th' flour barrels with a wipin'-stick, an' jabbed it inter bags an' bales. Bein' a government inspector we've had ter let ye do it, whether we liked it or not. I've got no doubts th' captain will be glad ter take down th' engines, rip open th' bilers, slit th' stacks an' mebby remove th' plankin' of th' hull; but—air ye listenin' close, my reverend sir? If ye try ter git me ter guide ye around in that thar hold ag'in, I'll prove ter ye that th' life o' a perfect Christian leads ter martyrdom. Jest ram that down yore skinny neck, an' be damned ter ye!"

"I will not tolerate such language!" exclaimed the indignant shepherd. "I shall report you, sir!"

"You kin report an' be damned!" retorted the angry pilot. "Yo're too cussed pious to be real. What's that a-stickin' outer yer pocket?"

The inspector felt quickly of the pocket indicated and pulled out a half-pint flask of liquor, and stared at it in stupefaction. "Why—I——"

"Yer a better actor than ye air a preacher," sneered the pilot, glancing knowingly from the