United States or Isle of Man ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Singly, or in pairs, men of this type have wandered all over this vast country: preceding the government surveys, preceding the professional explorer, settling down for a winter on some creek that caught their fancy, building a cabin, thawing down a few holes to bed-rock, sometimes taking out a little gold, more often finding nothing, going in the summer to some old-established camp to work for wages, or finding employment as deck-hand on a steamboat.
But it was an outsetting, and a better one than I had expected, for I had been prepared to work my passage as a deck-hand or steward.
They seem to be from various members of his family, most of them from a brother, who purports to have been a deck-hand in the coasting and steamboat trade between Charleston and other ports; others from female relations; one from his father, in which he inquires how long his son has been in jail, and when the trial is to come on, the offence, however, of which he was accused, not being indicated.
Lodloe's common sense was capable of considerable tension without giving way, even under a strain like this, and, although pale with anger, he would not engage in a personal contest with a deck-hand on a crowded steamboat; but to bear the insult was almost impossible. Never before had he been subjected to such violent abuse.
The mate of a Mississippi boat is always a bully and every now and then he came along with a deck-hand carrying a lamp, and requested us to come down. He said it was "agen the rules of the boat to sleep on oats"; but we kept on breaking the rules as much as possible. Above the mouth of the Ohio the river bank on the Missouri side is high, rocky, and picturesque.
"No kick coming from me," said the captain, "though we are short-handed in the fire-room and the boy has been doing a man's work there. I don't believe he will accept your offer, for he's an independent little cub and, as I have put him to work, I can't insist upon it." The captain sent a deck-hand for Dick, and the boy appeared on deck in overalls and jumper, cap in hand.
Thorough deck-hand as he was, there might have been reason to fear that he would repent of the transfer; but no, he quickly became life and soul an engineer. This did not prevent our seeing him on deck again many a time during the passage through the west wind belt, when there was need of a good man during a gale.
The train had not gathered headway before a man bent beside me, and Abrams' voice spoke softly in my ear. "There are two of 'em aboard." "Yes? Where did you find them?" I asked. "In the stoke hole. I hid behind a bench till every one had gone and saw 'em crawl out. They bribed a fireman or deck-hand or some one to keep 'em under cover.
"I'm willing to do what's fair and right; but I shall not have any captain over me in this boat," replied Lawry. "Lawry, you are my brother," said Ben angrily; "but I don't care for that. You set yourself up above me; you make me a nobody. I won't stand it!" "I don't set myself up above you, Ben." "Yes, you do. You offered me the place of deck-hand!" "I didn't ask you to take any place.
But at last, off to starboard and well astern in our new position, riding at anchor, we raised a faint white line of broken water which seemed a constant feature; and now and then caught the low boom of the surf. "She ain't a half mile, over yonder," I heard Willy, the deck-hand, say. "An' we could almost walk it if it wasn't for the sea."
Word Of The Day