CHAPTER X.

BORDER LIFE IN THE WEST.

AN ADVENTURE NEAR THE MOUTH OF THE OHIO RIVER.

THE neighborhood of that amphibious city known as Cairo, has never been remarkable for either the hospitable or any other virtues of its inhabitants, especially those on the Indiana side.

I had a most satisfactory opportunity of testing this on an occasion which I shall relate.

Some twelve or thirteen years since, while on my return to my native town in Kentucky, after a long sojourn amidst the wilds of the Texas border, I accidentally fell in, at Lexington, with the father of an old and intimate friend of my own, who had, too, been an adventurer through the same regions and scenes which I had just left, but had now settled down, for the time at least, in charge of a new plantation he was opening on the Kentucky side of the Ohio, some fifteen miles above Cairo.

The father, Mr. H

was now on his way to pay a visit to his son, and invited me as it would be but a slight deviation from a direct course home-to accompany him, and pay a passing visit to his son Dick, who would be anxious to hear all the news I could give him concerning the late field of his adventures. We took water at Louisville, expecting, as the new plantation was only a mile from the banks of the Ohio, that we would be put ashore by the steamboat on the Kentucky side, and have no difficulty in reaching the house.

But the river was falling fast when we left Louisville, and we found great difficulty on that account, in the way of our navigation; and indeed, when we reached the point of landing, just at the head of the rapids, which was not until eleven o'clock of a dark night, we found to our great dismay, that the captain could not be induced to land on the Kentucky side by any entreaties. He said that at such a stage of the water, landing on that side was entirely unsafe, and that he would not risk the safety of his boat and other passengers for the accommodation of one or two-but as he offered to land us on the Indiana side, where there was a small woodyard and cabin, in which we could take shelter until morning, we were bound to feel satisfied.

However great this obligation was, my elderly companion did not seem by any means to appreciate it with sufficient gratitude. When he found that the captain was brutally determined upon his course, he said nothing more, but seemed reconciled to put the best possible face upon the matter. I could see, though, from his manner, that there was something behind the studied coolness with which he accepted the alternative; what it meant I could not comprehend, for I had been too long absent from the country to be at all aware of the then infamous reputation of that portion of the Indiana. border. The boat stopped in the middle of the stream, and the yawl was manned to put us, with our baggage, on shore, when, as we were entering, we found ourselves about to be joined by a third party, whose "traps" had been handed forward, and had been passed down. First came four square boxes of cherry-wood, highly varnished, and ostentatiously mounted with silver-German silver, I suppose-and which proved very weighty; so much so, that the "hands" indulged in many mysterious jokes about them, enjoining each other to be careful not to let them fall, for if they "bust" open and "spilt anything," it might be too much "for a man. to stand," &c. Then came several large and heavy black trunks.

"In Heaven's name, man!" said Mr. H, turning up his eyes with a look in which the serio-comic horror seemed. struggling with pity; "do you know where you are taking all this baggage?"

The new passenger, as revealed to us for a moment in the torch-light, seemed a sturdy, thick-set, rosy cheeked, but rather greenish-looking Yankee. He sprang down into the boat, and took his place by our side, saying, with the greatest nonchalance, "Ya-es, I guess I do!”

"Well," growled my friend--for the boat was now in motion-"I should rather guess you don't-we'll see!"

The self-confident Yankee took no notice of this speech, but settled himself as coolly as possible for his own comfort, and with, of course, no regard to ours, upon the seat he had thus unceremoniously occupied, and stretching out his legs, seemed preparing for a snooze, while our boat shot out through the almost impenetrable darkness towards the distant shore. A light, which was now swinging to and fro at the woodyard, was our only guide and beacon, for the shore was entirely invisible. It had been raining through the day, and the night, which was now darkly clouded, promised to be still boisterous and stormy.

When we reached the shore, a rough-looking fellow met us with his pine-knot torch, and proved very obsequious in helping us land. When the hands had put our baggage ashore and the boat had pushed off, this accommodating gentleman with the torch proceeded complacently to assure us that the baggage would be entirely safe where it lay-that there was nobody here to trouble it for the very good reason that no person lived within ten miles, on this side of the river, of his solitary cabin-into which he pressed us to walk and "make ourselves at home." But innocent as this proposition seemed, I was too much of a traveller to leave anything at risk, even when only my own humble personalities -which, by the way, I believe were then contained in a pair of saddle-bags-were considered, so I resisted this philan

thropic proposition at once, and was instantly seconded by my friend II, who was himself a wary and experienced traveller. A comparative stranger to this whole region, I had no definite suspicion, and for all I knew to the contrary, this proposition might have been as unsophisticated and simply unmeaning as any expression of the security of property that might have fallen from the lips of a piping shepherd peasant of Arcadia. But of a sooth, I had somehow learned to distrust Arcadias in general, and river-shore Arcadias in particular. To be sure, my friend's manner had not been unnoted; but as he had not chosen to tender an explanation, I did not choose to ask one, and besides, there was in the manner of this man of the torch, whom I had closely watched, a something which I did not understand-in the way in which he tried the weight of those unfortunate silver-mounted boxes as they were passed on to him by the boat's crew, for him to keep in a convenient place upon the shore! Our Yankee, whom self-sufficiency had evidently—as we say in the West" struck with the blind staggers," could not help making the matter worse by joking with the fellow about them.

"Aint they very heavy?" asked he, with a shrewd wink at us. "They had oughter have somethin' in 'em, I guess!" Therewith he snapped his eyes, shrugged his shoulders, licked out his tongue and guffawed obstreperously. The fellow said "Yes, they is !"-and looking up with a furtive glance, he too laughed--but it was with a strange laugh"You seem to be all right!"

I noticed this incident and it threw me at once into the imperative mood, and seizing one end of the trunk of my friend, which I knew to contain a large amount of valuables, I ordered the fellow to take the other, and whispering to Has I passed him, said,

"Stay here; I will watch in the cabin !"

The cabin of our compulsory host was about fifty paces from the landing, and to reach it we had to pass through piles

of cord-wood, which left only a narrow alley between them and the hut which they partially obscured.

It was the usual square pen of logs, with only one room and a wide fire-place, in which now burned a dim blaze. When we sat the trunk down on the side nearest the door, the man commenced talking in what I thought a somewhat insolent tone, about how unnecessary it was for us to be troubled with lugging in all those heavy trunks, when they were perfectly safe on the bank. I very quietly answered that, as the night promised to be stormy, we preferred having our baggage under shelter, and directed him to go back and assist my friends in bringing the remainder in. The fellow went off sulkily, and very soon he and the Yankee returned, bending under the weight of one of that respectable proficient's mysterious black trunks. My friend had remained behind to guard the rest of the baggage. I felt uneasy that he should be left there in the dark alone, for I knew that he as well as myself was unarmed, and unable to restrain my impatience, I said to him, as coolly as possible, in an undertone"See here, my green one. You had better look out for yourself. You are not in old Connecticut now!" "Waal now, I guess I will. nothin'!"

They don't cheat me out of

Seeing that the fellow was incorrigible I left him, dragging the man of the wood-yard after me, as I hurried back to the side of my friend, fearing vaguely that something might have occurred. I found him, however, walking back and forth, with folded arms, before the baggage, and with an expression of uneasiness that so precisely corresponded with my own feelings as to assure me that there must surely be something wrong one way or another.

The baggage was now housed as quickly as possible by our united efforts. As my older friend had not yet said anything which implied the slightest distrust of our present position and relations, I, as the younger man, was compelled to take it for granted that he saw nothing which would justify