Dawn found me clad in my buckskins, ready for the start. All my articles of finery lay again in their retreat, and with those nightmares of beaudom disposed of in a way to give me most comfort, I was once more at my ease. Of all costumes suitable to action, there is none to equal our old-time forest ranger's dress of fur cap, buckskin shirt, leggings, and good or moccasins.
To my surprise, the Spanish woman came aboard while I was toasting my bacon, with word that her mistress and Don Pedro would follow as soon as they had risen from the breakfast table. Alisanda had sent her down to prepare food for me. The announcement of this brought a glow to my face which I saw did not pass unnoticed by the woman. But she masked all expression under her hard , and when I declined her services, set about arranging her mistress's evening and returning it to its box.
Shortly afterwards Mr. Blennerhasset and his wife made their appearance, escorting my fellow travellers to the river bank and down to the boat itself. I hastened to add my adieus to the others, and the tactful couple, seeing that I was impatient to be under way, cut short what had threatened to be a parting.
With repeated last calls of farewell and wavings of hat and handkerchief, we swung out into the current and drifted swiftly away from our over-hospitable host and hostess. A few minutes carried us below the cultivated upper portion of the island, and I noticed Don Pedro eying the wooded remainder with a intentness. Afterwards I was told that certain of the huge shadowed a bayou, in which at the time we passed there were already being collected boats and for the flotilla that was to form the of Colonel Burr's ill-starred expedition.
Of this and the plans since charged to that great dreamer, I then had not the remotest suspicion, and soon turned my attention from the pondering señor.
up and down the midchannel for three miles or more was a string of , flats, and keelboats, with flour, , and other up-river products, for the market at New Orleans. Like ourselves, they were coming down from the higher shipping-ports with the Spring fresh.
At my request, Alisanda kept within the house, until, by a vigorous bit of sculling, I had sent our craft beyond earshot of the nearest of these barges. The huge, clumsy craft, which must have been of four hundred tons burden, was manned by the usual crew of twenty-five or thirty rowdy, drunken rivermen, whose ribaldry and rude jests were unfitted for the ears of a gentlewoman.
By and an occasional return to my sculling, we were fortunate enough to keep our distance from these other boats, and for the greater part of the day I had the pleasure of pointing out to Alisanda the beauties of the river scenery. Rightful in fact, and most appropriate in truth, is the which tells us that "Ohio" means "the beautiful river."
A day of clear, warm sunshine, by only one shower, gave us our first chance to share the ever-shifting views of headlands and rolling, wooded hills. Though the forest was as yet only half in leaf, and the height of the flood covered all other than the highest of the bottoms, the nature of the scene was an unending wonder to my companions, who in turn compared it with the mountains of Old Spain and the deserts of New Spain. They could not liken it to the tamed woodlands of England; for, notwithstanding a generation of settlement, with the river long since the main of a great commerce, these banks were as yet in many places unbroken , the of elk and deer and wolf, of tigerish panther and bear.
High above us soared eagles and turkey buzzards, spying for and live , each according to his nature, as they had soared and spied in the late sixties and early seventies, when and Boone and the great Washington first threaded the untraced wilderness and skimmed downstream in their bark canoes to the dark and hunting-grounds of the hostile tribes. Since then what vast changes had come over the land! What thousands of homesteads hewn out of the gloomy depths of and oak, and forest! What scores of settlements and towns, ranging in size up to Cincinnati, with its three hundred and more houses, many of brick and stone, its fifteen hundred whites and thousand slaves, its genteel coaches and chariots, and its educational institutions!
Yet, aside from the buffalo and the backward-driven , how small the change in the forest life! Along the rocky banks the deadly rattlesnake and copperhead still lay coiled in wait; the deer came timidly down to the water along old game traces where the panther still ; and flocks of screaming, paroquets still flew up river from the southwest, their emerald plumage contrasting with the bright of the redbirds and woodpeckers, the orioles and kingfishers.
The following day, below the mouth of the Scioto River, we had view of one of the strangest sights of the West,—a flight of passenger pigeons. The flock passed upstream above the left shore in a column and with a tremendous roaring sound of their millions of wings. Though we were going in a contrary direction, hours passed before we saw the last stragglers of their amazing multitude, and this despite the fact that they are among the swiftest of birds. While making a southward bend of the stream, we came beneath them, the lowermost flying so near overhead that I was able to kill a number simply by flinging fagots among them. As their flesh, though dark, is choice eating, we enjoyed a most pie at the evening meal.
During the night the boat caught me nodding and gave itself into the grasp of an , which held it fast for two hours or more. My regret over the delay was short-lived, since at dawn I made the welcome discovery that it had caused us to part company with the last of the flotilla. The rivermen were well supplied with skiffs, and as some of them are not above theft and even , I had spent most of these two nights in watch, with my rifle and Don Pedro's pistols charged and primed against a night attack.
Less welcome than the absence of such was the cold rain which set in before dawn and lasted well along toward noon, with now and then a drive of . I spent the hours fast asleep in my , for Don Pedro insisted upon his right to share the hardships of our voyage.
When I turned out, the sun had burst through, and the leaden clouds were rolling away to the . My first act was to sweep the Ohio shore with an anxious glance. The swiftly changing of river and pleasant hills that undulated beneath their cloak of budding green, told me that we had entered upon the run of the Great Bend. By good fortune, I was just in time to sight the well-remembered hills of my childhood home. Another twist of the channel brought us in view of the Little Miami.
Cap in hand, I stepped to the side of the flat, and stood quiet and apart, gazing at the rough, white stone that rose clear against the sky-line on the first below the stream's mouth. What memories of childhood rushed in upon me! what bitterness and grief!
At last the river swept us around a masking hill. I turned slowly about, with all my heaviness plainly written in my look. Less than three paces behind me stood the señorita, her dark eyes upon me with a soft pity far different from their usual mockery.
"You grieve!" she murmured.
"It is the grave of my mother."
Don Pedro dropped the handle of the steer-oar and turned to me with a courtesy that went far deeper than outer form. "Your mother? May the bless her!"
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