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Updated: June 25, 2025
Nevertheless he was very glad when the last had found its place on the pile amidship. "Good boy!" said Mr. Kincaid. "Now it's all over." It was somewhat after twilight; although objects about were still to be made out in the unearthly half-illumination that precedes starlight. Mr. Kincaid lifted his punt-pole and allowed the duck-boat to be carried down wind to the other side of the pond.
Four miles from Jug Island the wide debouchure of Blue Creek came into view, with an unoccupied fishing- shanty on each side of its mouth. Crossing at dusk to the east shore of the creek, I landed in shoal water on a sandy strand, when the wind arose to a tempest, driving the water on to the land; and had it not been for my watch-tackle, the little duck-boat must have sought other quarters.
Two years later her successor, the Paper Canoe, one of the most happy efforts of the Messrs. Waters, of Troy, was quietly moored beside her; and soon after there was added to the little fleet a cedar duck-boat, which had carried me on a second voyage to the great southern sea.
About ten o'clock A. M. the duck-boat crossed the mouth of the Big Sandy River, the limit of Virginia, and I floated along the shores of the grand old state of Kentucky on the left, while the immense state of Ohio still skirted the right bank of the river. The agricultural features of the Ohio valley had been increasing in attractiveness with the descent of the stream.
A pleasant hail now greeted me, and the duck-boat was soon moored to the side of the flat. As we floated along with the current, sipping our coffee, the captain told me his history.
Towards night some channel-ways opened in the pack, and, seizing upon the opportunity, I rowed along the ice-bound lanes until dusk, when happily a chance was offered for leaving the frosty surroundings, and the duck-boat was soon resting on a shelving, pebbly strand on the left bank of the river, two miles above the little village of Freedom.
From right and left, in mysterious side lagoons and pockets, came the low quacking and chattering of wildfowl, now close at hand. They were, of course, quite invisible; but their proximity was exciting. Twice the duck-boat approached so close as to alarm them into flight. They arose, then, with a mighty quacking.
They waved and bent before the wind, and the reeds across the pond bowed and recovered; and over the low, flat landscape seemed to hover a brown, untamed spirit of wildness. But, though the wind blew a gale, the duck-boat was so snugly hidden that hardly a breath reached its occupants.
At four o'clock in the morning the duck-boat was under way, her captain cheered by the hope of arriving in Cincinnati, the great city of the Ohio valley, by sunset. I plied my oars vigorously all day, and when darkness settled upon the land, was rewarded for my exertions by having my little craft shoot under the first bridge that connects Cincinnati with Kentucky.
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