The River and I Part 13

At Mondak, Luck stood bowing to receive us. The _Atom I_ had suffered more from contact with snags and rocks than we had supposed. For several hundred miles her intake of water had steadily increased. We had toiled at the paddles with the water halfway to our knees much of the time; though now and then--by spasms--we bailed her dry. She had become a floating lump of discouragement, and still fourteen hundred miles lay ahead.

But on the day previous to our sailing, a nervous little man with a wistful eye offered us a trade. He had a steel boat, eighteen feet long, forty inches beam, which he had built in the hours between work and sleep during the greater part of a year.

His boat was some miles up the Yellowstone, but he spoke of her in so artless and loving a manner--as a true workman might speak--and with such a wistful eye cast upon our boat, that I believed in him and his boat. He had no engine. It was the engine in our boat that attracted him, as he wished to make a hunting trip up river in the fall. He stated that his boat would float, that it was a dry boat, that it would row with considerable ease. "Then," said I, "paddle her down to the mouth of the Yellowstone, and the deal is made." After dark he returned to our camp with a motor boat, ready to take us to our new craft, _Atom II_.

Leaving all our impedimenta to be shipped by rail, that is, Bill, the tent, extra blankets, phonograph--everything but a few cooking-utensils, an ax, a tarp, and a pair of blankets--the Kid and I got in with the little man and dropped down to the Yellowstone. The new boat was moored under a mud bank. I climbed in, lit a match, and my heart leaped with joy. She was staunch and beautiful--a work of love, which means a work of honesty. Fore and aft were air-tight compartments. She had an oil tank, a water tank, engine housing, steering wheel, lockers. She was ready for the very engine I had ordered to be shipped to me at Bismarck.

She was dry as a bone, and broad enough to make a snug bed for two.

The little man and the motor boat dropped out into the gloom and left us gloating over our new possession, sending thankful rings of tobacco smoke at the stars. When the first flush of triumph had pa.s.sed, we rolled up in the bottom of the boat, lulled to sleep by the cooing of the fusing rivers, united under our gunwale. Such a sleep--a _dry_ sleep! and the sides of the boat protected us against the chill night wind.

And the dawn came--shouting merrily like a boy! I once had a chum who had a habit of whistling me out of bed now and then of a summer morning, when the birds were just awakening, and the dew looked like frost on the gra.s.s. And the sun that morning made me think of my old boy chum with his blithe, persistent whistling. For the first hard stage of the journey was done; all had left me but a brave lad who would take his share of the hardships with a light heart. (All boys are instinctively true sportsmen!) And before us lay the great winding stretch of a savage river that I had loved long--the real Missouri of my boyhood.

A new spirit had come upon us with the possession of the _Atom II_--the spirit of the forced march. For nearly a month we had floundered, trusting to a sick engine and inefficient paddles. Now we had a staunch, dry boat, and eight-foot oars. We trusted only ourselves, and we were one in the desire to push the crooked yellow miles behind us. During the entire fourteen hundred miles that desire increased, until our progress was little more than a retreat. We pitched no camps; we halted only when we could proceed no further owing to sandbars encountered in the dark; we ate as we found it convenient to do so. Regularly relieving each other at the oars, one sat at the steering wheel, feeling for the channel. And it was not long until I began to note a remarkable change in the muscles of the Kid, for we toiled naked to the waist most of the time. His muscles had shown little more than a girl's when we first swam together at Benton. Now they began to stand out, clearly defined, those of his chest sprawling rigidly downward to the lean ribs, and little eloquent knots developed on the bronzed surface of his once smooth arms.

He was at the age of change, and he was growing into a man before my eyes. It was good to see.

All the first day the G.o.ds breathed gently upon us, and we made fifty miles, pa.s.sing Trenton and Williston before dark. But the following day, our old enemy, the head wind, came with the dawn. We were now sailing a river more than twice the size of the Upper Missouri, and the waves were in proportion. Each at an oar, with the steering wheel lashed, we forged on slowly but steadily. In midstream we found it impossible to control the boat, and though we hugged the sh.o.r.e whenever possible, we were obliged to cross with the channel at every bend. When the waves caught us broadside, we were treated to many a compulsory bath, and our clothes were thoroughly washed without being removed. An ordinary skiff would have capsized early in the day, but the _Atom II_ could carry a full cargo of water and still float.

By sunset the wind fell, the river smoothed as a wrinkled brow at the touch of peace. Aided by a fair current, we skulled along in the hush of evening through a land of vast green pastures with "cattle upon a thousand hills." The great wind had spread the heavens with ever deepening clouds. The last reflected light of the sun fell red upon the burnished surface of the water. It seemed we were sailing a river of liquefied red flame; only for a short distance about us was the water of that peculiar Missouri hue which makes one think of bad coffee colored with condensed milk.

Slowly the colors changed, until we were in the midst of a stream of iridescent opal fires; and quite lost in the gorgeous spectacle, at length we found ourselves upon a bar.

We got out and waded around in water scarcely to our ankles, feeling for a channel. The sand was hard; the bar seemed to extend across the entire river; but a thin rippling line some fifty yards ahead told us where it ended. We found it impossible to push the heavy boat over the shallows.

The clouds were deepening, and the night was coming rapidly. Setting the Kid to work digging with an oar at the prow, I pushed and wriggled the stern until I saw galaxies. Thus alternately digging and pushing, we at last reached navigable depths.

It was now quiet and dark. Low thunder was rolling, and now and then vivid flashes of lightning discovered the moaning river to us--ghastly and forbidding in the momentary glare. We decided to pull in for the night; but in what direction should we pull? A drizzling rain had begun to fall, and the sheet lightning glaring through it only confused us--more than the sooty darkness that showered in upon us after the rapid flashes. We sat still and waited. In the intermittent silences, the rain hissed on the surface of the river like a shower of innumerable heated pebbles. Ahead of us we heard the dull booming of the cut banks, as the current undermined ponderous ledges of sand.

Now, a boat that happens under a falling cut bank, pa.s.ses at once into the region of forgotten things. The boat would follow the main current; the main current flows always under the cut banks. How long would it take us to get there? Which way should we pull? Put a simpler question: In which way were we moving? We hadn't the least conception of direction. For us the night had only one dimension--_out_!

Finally a great booming and splashing sounded to our left, and the boat rocked violently a moment after. We grasped the oars and pulled blindly in what we supposed to be the opposite direction, only to be met by another roar of falling sand from that quarter.

There seemed to be nothing to do but have faith in that divinity which is said to superintend the goings and coming of fools and drunkards.

Therefore we abandoned the oars, twiddled our thumbs, and let her drift.

We couldn't even smoke, for the rain was now coming down merrily. The Kid thought it a great lark, and laughed boisterously at our predicament. By flashes I saw the drenched grin under his dripping nose.

But for me, some lines written by that sinister genius, Wainwright, came back with a new force, and clamored to be spoken:

_"Darkness--sooty, portentous darkness--shrouds the whole scene; as if through a horrid rift in a murky ceiling, a rainy deluge--'sleety flaw, discolored water'--streams down amain, spreading a grisly spectral light, even more horrible than that palpable night."_

At length the sensation of sudden stopping dizzied us momentarily. We thrust out an oar and felt a slowly sloping bar. Driving the oar half-way into the soft sand, we wrapped the boat's chain about it and went to bed, flinging the tarp over us.

A raw dawn wind sprinkled a cheerless morning over us, and we got up with our joints grinding rustily. We were in the midst of a desolate waste of sand and water. The bar upon which we had lodged was utterly bare. Drinking a can of condensed milk between us, we pushed on.

That day we found ourselves in the country of red barns. It was like warming cold hands before an open grate to look upon them. At noon we saw the first wheat-field of the trip--an undulating golden flood, dimpled with the tripping feet of the wind. These were two joys--quite enough for one day. But in the afternoon the third came--the first golden-rod. My first impulse was to take off my hat to it, offer it my hand.

That evening we pulled up to a great bank, black-veined with outcrops of coal, and cooked supper over a civilized fire. For many miles along the river in North Dakota, as well as along the Yellowstone in Montana, these coal outcrops are in evidence. Doubtless, within another generation, vast mining operations will be opened up in these localities. Coal barges will be loaded at the mines and dropped down stream to the nearest railroad point.

We were in the midst of an idyllic country--green, sloping, lawn-like pastures, dotted spa.r.s.ely with grotesque scrub oaks. Far over these the distant hills lifted in filmy blue. The bluffs along the water's edge were streaked with black and red and yellow, their colors deepened by the recent rains. Lazy with a liberal supper, we drifted idly and gave ourselves over for a few minutes to the spell of this twilight dreamland. I stared hard upon this scene that would have delighted Theocritus; and with little effort, I placed a half-naked shepherd boy under the umbrella top of that scrub oak away up yonder on the lawny slope. With his knees huddled to his chin, I saw him, his fresh cheeks bulged with the breath of music. I heard his pipe--clear, dream-softened--the silent music of my own heart. Dream flocks sprawled tinkling up the hills.

With a wild burst of scarlet, the sunset flashed out. Black clouds darkened the visible idyll. A chill gust swept across the stream, showering rain and darkness. Each at an oar, we forged on, until we lost the channel in the gloom. At the first peep of day we were off again, after a breakfast of pancakes, bacon, and coffee.

We were gradually becoming accustomed to the strain of constant rowing.

For at least sixteen hours a day we fought the wind, during which time the oars were constantly dipping; and very often our day lengthened out to twenty hours. We had no time-piece, and a night of drifting was divided into two watches. These watches we determined either by the dropping of a star toward the horizon, or by the position of the moon when it shone. On dark nights, the sleeper trusted to the judgment of his friend to call when the watch seemed sufficiently long. Daily the water fell, and every inch of fall increased the difficulty of traveling.

We were now pa.s.sing through the country of the Mandans, Gros Ventres, and Ricarees, the country through which old Hugh Gla.s.s crawled his hundred miles with only hate to sustain him. To the west lay the barren lands of the Little Missouri, through which Sully pushed with his military expedition against the Sioux on the Yellowstone. An army flung boldly through a dead land--a land without forage, and waterless--a labyrinth of dry ravines and ghastly hills! Sully called it "h.e.l.l with the lights out." A magnificent, Quixotic expedition that succeeded! I compared it with the ancient expeditions--and I felt the eagle's wings strain within me. _Sully!_ There were trumpets and purple banners for me in the sound of the name!

Late in the evening we reached the mouth of the Little Missouri. There we found one of the few remaining mud lodges of the ancient type. We landed and found ourselves in the midst of a forsaken little frontier town. A shambling shack bore the legend, "Store," with the "S" looking backward--perhaps toward dead munic.i.p.al hopes. A few tumble-down frame and log shanties sprawled up the desultory gra.s.s-grown main street, at one end of which dwelt a Mandan Indian family in the mud lodge.

A dozen curs from the lodge resented our intrusion with canine vituperation. I thrust my head into the log-cased entrance of the circular house of mud, and was greeted with a sound of scolding in the Mandan jargon, delivered by a squaw of at least eighty years. She arose from the fire that burned in the center of the great circular room, and approached me with an "I-want-your-scalp" expression. One of her daughters, a girl dressed in a caricature of the white girl's garments, said to me: "She wants to know what you've got to trade." To this old woman of the prairie, all white men were traders.

"I want to buy," I said, "eggs, meat, bread, anything to eat."

[Ill.u.s.tration: BOATS LAID UP FOR THE WINTER AT WASHBURN, N.D.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: WASHBURN, N.D.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LANDING AT BISMARCK, N.D.]

The old woman looked me over with a whimper of amused superiority, and disappeared, soon reappearing with a dark brown object not wholly unlike a loaf of bread. "Wahtoo," she remarked, pointing to the dark brown substance.

I gave her a half-dollar. Very quietly she took it and went back to her fire. "But," said I, "do you sell your bread for fifty cents per loaf?"

The girl giggled, and the old woman gave me another piece of her Mandan mind. She had no change, it appeared. I then insisted upon taking the balance in eggs. The old woman said she had no eggs. I pointed to a flock of hens that was holding a sort of woman's club convention in the yard, discussing the esthetics of egg-laying, doubtless, while neglecting their nests.

The old lady arose majestically, disappeared again, and reappeared with three eggs. I protested. The Mandan lady forthwith explained (or at least it appeared so to me) all the execrable points in my character.

They seemed to be numerous, and she appeared to be very frank about the matter. My moral condition, apparently, was clearly defined in her own mind. I withdrew in haste, fearing that the daughter at any moment might begin to translate.

We dropped down river a few miles, prepared supper, and attacked the dark brown substance which the Indian lady had called "wahtoo." At the first bite, I began to learn the Mandan tongue. I swallowed a chunk whole, and then enlightened the Kid as to a portion of the Mandan language. "Wahtoo," said I, "means 'indigestible'; it is an evident fact." Then, being strengthened by our linguistic triumph, we fell upon the dark brown substance again. But almost anything has its good points; and I can conscientiously recommend Mandan bread for durability!

Once more we had a rainy night. The tarp, stretched across the boat, sagged with the water it caught, and poured little persistent streams upon us. The chief of these streams, from the point of size, seemed consciously aiming at my ear. Thirce I turned over, shifted my position; thrice I was awakened by the sound of a merry brooklet pouring into that persecuted member.

Somewhere in the world the white c.o.c.k was crowing sleepily when we put off, stiff and soaked and shivering.

Early in the day the fine sand from banks and bars began to lift in the wind. It smarted our faces like little whip lashes. Very often we could see no further than a hundred and fifty yards in any direction. Only by a constant, rapid dipping of the oars could the boat be held perpendicular to the choppy waves. One stroke missed meant hard work for both of us in getting out of the trough.

Fighting every foot of water, we wallowed through the swells--past Elbow Woods, past Fort Berthold, past the forlorn, raggedy little town, "Expansion." (We rechristened it "Contraction"!)

During the day the gale swept the sky clear. The evening air was crisp and invigorating. We cooked supper early and rowed on silently over the mirroring waters, between two vast sheets of stars, through a semilucent immensity. Far ahead of us a high cliff loomed black and huge against the spangled blue-black velvet of the sky. On its summit a dark ma.s.s soared higher. We thought it a tree, but surely a gigantic one.

Approaching it, the soaring ma.s.s became a medieval castle sitting haughtily with frowning crenellations upon an impregnable rock; and the Missouri became for the moment a larger Rhine. At last, rowing up under the sheer cliff, the castle resolved itself into a huge grain elevator, its base a hundred feet above the stream.

Although it was late, we tied our boat, clambered up a zigzag path, and found ourselves in one of the oddest little towns in the West--Manhaven--one of the few remaining steamboat towns.

The main street zigzagged carelessly through a jumble of little houses.

One light in all the street designated the social center of the town, so we went there. It was the grocery store--a general emporium of ideas and canned goods.

Entering, we found ourselves in the midst of "the rustic cackle of the burg." I am sure the munic.i.p.al convention was verbally reconstructing the universe; but upon our entrance, the matter was abruptly laid on the table. When we withdrew, the entire convention, including the grocery-man, adjourned, and accompanied us to the river where the general merits of our boat were thoroughly discussed by lantern light.

Also, various conflicting versions of the distance to Bismarck were given--each party being certain of his own infallibility.

There is something curious about the average man's conception of distance. During the entire trip we found no two men who agreed on this general subject. After acquiring a book of river distances, we created much amus.e.m.e.nt for ourselves by asking questions. The conversation very often proceeded in this manner:

"Will you please tell us how far it is to So-and-So?"