The River and I Part 4

"You're talkin' about sheepmen in the old country, Shorty," he drawled.

"There ain't any cattle ranges there, you know. Do you know the difference between a sheepman in Scotland, say, and in Montana?"

I did not.

"Well," he proceeded, "over in Scotland when a feller sees a sheepman coming down the road with his sheep, he says: 'Behold the gentle shepherd with his fleecy flock!' That's poetry. Now in Montana, that same feller says, when he sees the same feller coming over a ridge with the same sheep: '_Look at that crazy blankety-blank with his woolies!_'

That's fact. You mind what I say, or you'll get spurred."

I don't quite agree with Joe, however. Once, lying in my tent across the river, I looked out over the breaks through that strange purple moonlight, such as I had always believed to exist only in the staging of a melodrama, and saw four thousand sheep descending to the ferry.

Like lava from a crater they poured over the slope above me; and above them, seeming prodigiously big against the weird sky, went the sheepman with his staff in his hand and a war-bag over his arm, while at his heels a wise collie followed. It was a picture done by chance very much as Millet could have done it. And somehow Joe's _mot_ couldn't stand before that picture.

There is indeed a big Pindaric sort of poetry about a plunging ma.s.s of cattle. And just as truly there is a sort of Theocritus poetry about sheep. Only in the latter case, the poetical vanis.h.i.+ng point is farther away for me than is the case with cattle. I think I couldn't write very good verses about a flock of sheep, unless I were at least five hundred yards away from them. I haven't figured the exact distance as yet. But when you have a large flock of sheep camping about you all night, making you eat fine sand and driving you mad with that most idiotic of all noises (which happened once to me), you don't get up in the morning quoting Theocritus. You remember Joe's _mot_!

We found a convenient gravel bar on the farther side of the river, where we established our navy-yard. There we proceeded to set up the keel of the _Atom I_--a twenty-foot canoe with forty-inch beam, lightly ribbed with oak and planked with quarter-inch cypress.

No sooner had we screwed up the bolts in the keel, than our s.h.i.+p-yard became a sort of free information bureau. Every evening the cable ferry brought over a contingent of well-wishers, who were ardent in their desire to encourage us in our undertaking, which was no less than that of making a toboggan slide down the roof of the continent.

The salient weakness of the _genus h.o.m.o_, it has always seemed to me, is an overwhelming desire to give advice. Through several weeks of toil, we were treated to a most liberal education on marine matters. It appeared that we had been laboring under a fatal misunderstanding regarding the general subject of navigation. Our style of boat was indeed admirable--for a lake, if you please, _but_--well, of course, they did not wish to discourage us. It was quite possible that we were unacquainted with the Upper Missouri. Now the Upper River (hanging out that bleached rag of a sympathetic smile), the Upper River was _not_ the Lower River, you know. (That really _did_ seem remarkably true, and we became alarmed.) The Upper River, mind you, was terriffic. Why, those frail ribs and that impossible planking would go to pieces on the first rock--like an egsh.e.l.l! Of course, we were free to do as we pleased--they would not discourage us for the world. And the engine! Gracious! Such a boat would never stand the vibration of a four-horse, high-speed engine driving a fourteen-inch screw! It appeared plainly that we were almost criminally wrong in all our calculations. Shamefacedly we continued to drive nails into the impossible hull, knowing full well--poor misguided heroes--that we were only fas.h.i.+oning a death trap! There could be no doubt about it. The free information bureau was unanimous. It was all very pathetic. Nothing but the tonic of an habitual morning swim in the clear cold river kept us game in the face of the inevitable!

We saw it all. With a sort of forlorn cannon-torn-cavalry-column hope we pushed on with the fatal work. Never before did I appreciate old Job in the clutches of good advice. I used to accuse him of rabbit blood. In the light of experience, I wish to record the fact that I beg his pardon. He was in the house of his friends. I think Job and I understand each other better now. It was not the boils, but the free advice!

At last the final nail was driven and clenched, the canvas glued on and ironed, the engine installed. The trim, slim little craft with her admirable speed lines, tapering fore and aft like a fish, lay on the ways ready for the plunge.

We had arranged to christen her with beer. The Kid stood at the prow with the bottle poised, awaiting his cue. The little Cornishman knelt at the prow. He was _not_ bowed in prayer. He was holding a bucket under the soon-to-be-broken bottle. "For," said he, "in a country where beer is so dear and advice so cheap, let us save the beer that we may be strong to stand the advice!"

The argument was inded Socratic.

"And now, little boat," said I, in that dark brown tone of voice of which I am particularly proud, "be a good girl! Deliver me not unto the laughter of my good advisers. I christen thee _Atom_!"

The bottle broke--directly above that bucket.

And now before us lay the impossible as plainly pointed out, not only by local talent, but by no less a man that the august captain of a government snag-boat. Several weeks before the launching, an event had taken place at Benton. The first steamboat for sixteen years tied up there one evening. She was a government snag-boat. Now a government snag-boat may be defined as a boat maintained by the government for the sole purpose of sailing the river _and dodging snags_. This particular snag-boat, I learned afterward in the course of a long cruise behind her, holds the snag-boat record. I consider her pilot a truly remarkable man. He seemed to have dodged them all.

All Benton turned out to view the big red and white government steamer.

There was something almost pathetic about the public demonstration when you thought of the good old steamboat days. During her one day's visit to the town, I met the captain.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A ROUND-UP OUTFIT ON THE MARCH.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MONTANA SHEEP.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A MONTANA WOOL-FREIGHTER.]

He was very stiff and proud. He awed me. I stood before him fumbling my hat. Said I to myself: "The personage before me is more than a snag-boat captain. This is none other than the gentleman who invented the Missouri River. No doubt even now he carries the patent in his pocket!"

"Going down river in a power canoe, eh?" he growled, regarding me critically. "Well, you'll never get down!"

"That so?" croaked I, endeavoring to swallow my Adam's apple.

"No, you won't!"

"Why?" ventured I timidly, almost pleadingly; "isn't there--uh--isn't there--uh--_water enough_?"

"Water enough--yes!" growled the personage who invented the longest river in the world and therefore knew what he was talking about. "Plenty of water--_but you won't find it_!"

Now as the _Atom_ slid into the stream, I thought of the captain's words. Since that time the river had fallen three feet. We drew eighteen inches.

Sixty-five days after that oraculous utterance of the captain, the Kid and I, half stripped, sun-burned, sweating at the oars, were forging slowly against a head wind at the mouth of the Cheyenne, sixteen hundred miles below the head of navigation. A big white and red steamer was creeping up stream over the shallow crossing of the Cheyenne's bar, sounding every foot of the water fallen far below the usual summer level.

It was the snag-boat. Crossing her bows and drifting past her slowly, I stood up and shouted to the party in the pilot house:

"I want to speak to the captain."

He came out on the hurricane deck--the man who invented the river. He was still stiff and proud, but a swift smile crossed his face as he looked down upon us, half-naked and sun-blackened there in our d.i.n.ky little craft.

"Captain," I cried, and perhaps there was the least vainglory in me; "I talked to you at Benton."

"Yes, sir."

"Well, _I have found that water!_"

CHAPTER IV

MAKING A GETAWAY

Tell a Teuton that he can't, and very likely he will show you that he can. It's in the blood. Between the prophecy of the snag-boat captain and my vainglorious answer at the Cheyenne crossing, I learned to respect the words of the man who invented the eccentric old river. In the face of heavy head winds, I quoted the words, "You'll never get down"--and they bit deep like whip lashes. On many a sand-bar and gravel reef, with the channel far away, I heard the words, "Plenty of water, yes, but you won't find it!" And always something stronger than my muscles cried out within me: "The devil I won't, O, you inventor of rain-water creeks!" Hour by hour, day by day, against almost continual head winds and with the lowest water in years, that discouraging prophecy invaded me and was repulsed. And that is why we have pessimists in the world. A pessimist is merely a counter-irritant.

I stood on the bank for some time after the _Atom I_ slid into the water, admiring her truly beautiful lines. Once I was captain of a trunk lid that sailed a frog-pond down in Kansas City; and at that time I thought I knew the meaning of pride. I did not. All three of us were a bit puffed up over that boat. Something of that ride that goes before a fall awoke in my captain's breast as I loved her with my eyes--that trim, slim speed-thing, tugging at her forward line, graceful and slender and strong and fleet as a Diana.

I said at last: "I will now get in her, drop down to the town landing, and proceed to put to shame a few of these local motor-tubs that make so much fuss and don't go anywhere!"

I loved her as a man should love all things that are swift and strong and honest, keen for marks and goals--a big, clean-limbed, thoroughbred horse that will break his heart to get under the wire first; a high-power rifle, slim of muzzle, thick of breech, with its wicked little throaty cry, doing its business over a flat trajectory a thousand yards away: I love her as a man should love those. Little did I dream that she would betray me.

I took in the line and went aboard. At that moment I almost understood the snag-boat captain's bearing. To be master of the _Atom I_ seemed quite enough; but to be the really truly captain of a big red and white snag-boat--it must have been overwhelming!

I dropped out into the current that, fresh from its plunge of four hundred feet in sixteen miles, ran briskly. Everything was in readiness.

I meant to put a crimp in the vanity of that free-information bureau.

I turned on the switch, opened the needle valve, swung the throttle over to the notch numbered with a big "2." I placed the crank on the wheel and gave it a vigorous turn.

"Poof!" said the engine sweetly, and the kind word encouraged me immensely. Again I cranked.