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Mapes paused long enough to gruffly indicate a coarse suit of clothes draped over a stool, and was about to retire without further words, when I recovered sufficiently from the shock to halt him with a question. "I suppose you saw those people picked up from the keel-boat?" "Sure; helped pull 'em aboard.
They had escaped from the fortifications, and they were satisfied. The tender in which Deck Lyon and his companion had embarked was a keel-boat such as is usually suspended by two ropes from either end to the upper extremity of a pole, like an ensign staff.
On a certain dark 4th of February, picture the village of Kaskaskia assembled on the river-bank in capote and hood. Ropes are cast off, the keel-boat pushes her blunt nose through the cold, muddy water, the oars churn up dirty, yellow foam, and cheers shake the sodden air.
The ferry-boat was thrown up into the wind, and while Lawry was waiting to ascertain what the matter was, his father leaped into the water. It was now evident to Lawry that something serious had happened, and he sprang into the small keel-boat, used for conveying foot-passengers across the lake, which was fastened to a stake on the shore.
Dey hunted all 'round fer ter git hol' her, cussin' an' threatenin', an' a haulin' me round; but 'twan't no sorter use. So finally dey took me 'long ter a boat in de crick a keel-boat, run by steam. Most de odder men disappeared; Ah never did know whar dey went, but dis yere Kurby, an' de man wif de chin-whiskers, dey done shut me up in de cabin.
Among all these west-bound travelers the savage and the half-civilized seemed to me to preponderate; this not to say that they were so much coarse and crude as they were fierce, absorbed, self-centered. Each man depended upon himself and needed to do so. The crew on the decks were relics from keel-boat days, surly and ugly of temper.
"No evidence of a guard anywhere?" "No the others must still be out in front waiting." "There were only the four of them then?" "So I understood. I was told they came up the river in a small keel-boat, operated by an engine, and that they anticipated no resistance. The engineer was left to watch the boat and be ready to depart down stream at any moment." "Good; that leaves us a clear passage.
This trader was no less a person than Francis Vigo, who had welcomed Clark when he took Kaskaskia, and who at that time rendered signal service to the Americans, advancing them peltries and goods. To the discredit of the nation be it said, he was never repaid what he had advanced. When Cutler joined him he was making his way up the Ohio in a big keel-boat, propelled by ten oars and a square sail.
The lieutenant was first to reach the foot of the path, and saw the four unfortunates whirling through the agitated current, directly towards the bluff where the keel-boat had been thrown on the flat. They were too far out for him to reach them, and he could do nothing.
The Adventurer rescued me about daylight the next morning, and I was no sooner on board than I was told how the keel-boat had been run down below on the river during the night and that your party had all been saved two white men and two negress slaves. Of course, I knew you must be one of them." "Then then we were actually together, on the same boat, all the way up here?"
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