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Having an abundance of time they went ashore at high noon, built a fire and had quite a healthy little lunch, washing it down with a pot of coffee, the delightful aroma of which must have reached the nostrils of the Cree paddlers who had drawn their boats ashore just below, for the wind lay in that quarter.
Of the two remaining men, one ran the gauntlet successfully, and afterwards escaped and reached home through the woods, while the other was ransomed by a French trader at Sandusky. Before thus disposing of their captives the Indians hung about the mouth of the Scioto for some time. They captured a pirogue going up-stream, and killed all six paddlers.
Steve grumbled more or less because some fellows never could "get a move on 'em," as he complained; but outside of making an occasional little spurt, and then resting, he stuck pretty well by his mates during the next hour or two. Then something happened, something that they had never once dreamed of, and which was at first utterly beyond the understanding of any of the paddlers.
These boats were either "ubas," canoes made from the trunk of a tree, hollowed out by fire, and finished with the ax, pointed and light in front, and heavy and broad in the stern, able to carry from one to a dozen paddlers, and of three or four tons burden: "egariteas," constructed on a larger scale, of broader design, and leaving on each side a gangway for the rowers: or "jangada," rafts of no particular shape, propelled by a triangular sail, and surmounted by a cabin of mud and straw, which served the Indian and his family for a floating home.
We had made camp early, because of rough water ahead, the passage of which it was not deemed best to attempt without careful exploration. So, while the three heavily laden canoes drew up against the bank, and prepared to spend the night, the leading canoe was stripped, and sent forward, manned only with the most expert of the Indian paddlers to make sure the perils of the current.
He told off four of the negroes as trimmers and stokers, and set Commandant Balliot over them to see that they pressed on with their work; he sent Clay with a huge gang of helpers overboard on the lee side to risk the crocodiles, and dig away the sand; and he himself, with a dozen paddlers, got into the dug-out canoe, which was his only boat, and set to carrying out a kedge and line astern.
It is like paddling a railroad canoe. This transportation freak is technically called a maculla. The strong-armed paddlers were able to develop an astonishing speed. I think that this is the only muscle-power railroad in the world. Light engines are employed for hauling the palm fruit trains.
We frequently employed more than a thousand people during harvest time. Many of these were Indians, some of whom would come for a thousand miles down the coast from British Columbia and even the confines of Alaska; they came in the great cedar-log canoes manned with twenty paddlers or more. For the most part I managed my Indian workers very easily.
If something of that sacred mystery, holy in the heart of the Father, which draws together the souls of man and woman, was at work between them, let those scoff at the mingling of love and religion who know nothing of either; but man or woman who, loving woman or man, has never in that love lifted the heart to the Father, and everyone whose divine love has not yet cast at least an arm round the human love, must take heed what they think of themselves, for they are yet but paddlers in the tide of the eternal ocean.
But, being a thorough sport, he shook himself out of his drowsiness and shouted the paddling commands lustily. "One, two! One, two! Click stroke! Ready, dip!" And the paddles clicked and dipped, as the paddlers began to feel the energy rising in their systems. "Water wheel!" shouted Uncle Teddy, and the paddles flashed backward in a wide circle between each dip. "Wasn't that fun?" said Sahwah.
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