Mayne Reid

“ My eagle-shooting excursion was still fresh in my remembrance, and along with it the lagoon to which it had led me in the chase of the wounded bird, with the old dug-out I had seen under the cypress.
"How fortunate," I thought, "there is such a chance of getting off! Otherwise I might remain on this island heaven knows how long. It might be days before any boat would come past, near enough to be hailed, and with nothing to eat." ”

“ The chase after the wounded eagle, both tortuous and prolonged, had carried me out of sight of the deadwood as well as the light let down through its leafless branches. I was once more in the midst of a continuous twilight.
I looked for my tracks. Taking time and pains, I might have discovered and retraced them. But the spread-fans of the palmettoes quite covered the ground, and I had not the patience to put them aside for such exploration. I supposed the island to be of only some forty or fifty acres in extent; and, by keeping straight on in any direction, I must soon come to its edge. ”

“ Charles Hotel came under our eyes, rising high above the roofs of the Crescent City.
"We must not go there," suggested Henry Woodley, pointing to the conspicuous object.
"And why?" asked Walter. "It is the best hotel in New Orleans, is it not?"
"True," answered the elder brother, wiser in the ways of the great Southern city. "By all titles the best. But just for that reason must we shun it. We should not be twenty-four hours under its roof before finding for a fellow-guest the man we have no wish to encounter." ”

“ You are the brother of Miss Woodley then?"
"One of them. There are two of us. I am the youngest of the lot. Henry, who is the oldest, don't live with us here. He has a plantation in Mississippi, below Vicksburg. That's where my sister has been. She spends her winters with him, and only comes to Tennessee for the summer months."
I felt secretly glad that the summer months had not yet quite passed away.
We rode on; from this time calling each other by name, and conversing as if we had been old acquaintances. More than ever did I long to become initiated into the economy of a cotton plantation. ”

“ I had obtained also the tall American crane, the trumpeter swan, the curious snake-bird, the blue heron, the white egret, the scarlet ibis, and many other beautiful birds, obtainable on the banks and bayous of the lower Mississippi.
The king of all, however—the white-headed eagle—was still wanted to complete my museum. Several times I had seen this splendid bird soaring aloft, or winging his way across the river. But, like most of the falcon tribe, the white-headed eagle is shy of the approach of man; and I had never succeeded in getting a shot at one. ”

“ I was shown its glaucous wool-covered seeds, the mode of sowing it, the way by which its young shoots were kept clear of weeds—the plant as it appeared in its snow-white flower, and afterward, when the bursting capsule displays the equally white staple, giving still greater delight to the planter's eye—then the gathering, the "picking" of those seeds, so tenacious as to require the machinery of the "gin;" and, lastly, the packing and "pressing" of the bales, which makes them ready for the dray, the flat, the steamboat, or the ship—ready for transport to the remotest parts of the earth. ”

“ To charge the man with an attempt at murdering me, would seem so absurd. What motive could he have for such an atrocious act? We were perfect strangers to one another, with no quarrel between us, no circumstance to have given color to so serious an accusation. Supposing it proved to be Bradley's bullet, he would simply have to say that he fired it at a pigeon, and had not seen me. ”

“ The well-known migratory birds of America—the passenger-pigeons—had arrived among some beechwood that grew upon a ridge in the rear of the plantation. There making pause in their irregular flight, they were filling their crops with the scattered mast.
Small as was the game, and tame the sport of pigeon-shooting, it is one that can not be obtained every day, like the chase of the squirrel. The birds stay but a short time in any particular place—excepting in those grand roosts that are few and far between. Every one can not enjoy the sport of destroying them wholesale at their roosting-places ”

“ I knew that the cotton-boat was coming down from Tennessee, and was to call at the plantation. It was to bring barrels of apples, sacks of walnuts, and other etceteras that do not thrive in the semi-tropical lowlands of the Mississippi. Moreover it was to take thence some packages of skins—the spoils of bucks, bears and panthers, which the hunting planter was in the habit of sending annually to New Orleans.
A week or two might elapse before the flat could be expected; and if I insisted on carrying out my caprice I could take passage upon that. ”

“ Bidding an adieu to Miss Woodley, which was not designed to be the last, I walked toward the landing, my host going along with me.
On reaching the river-bank, we found the crew of the flat engaged in getting the peltries aboard. I was a little surprised, and more than a little chagrined, to discover that the captain of the craft was no other than Mr. Black, her builder, whose uncivil behavior in Tennessee had caused mean unpleasant reminiscence. Stinger, too, was there acting as his mate, the hands, four in number, being negroes from Squire Woodley's plantation. ”

“ Woodley?"
"Not the slightest," replied the Tennessee planter; "any press so long as I can recover it."
"Now, gentlemen," said Sawyer, "I want you all to go with me to the alderman's office; but let us scatter, and march two, two and one. Five such formidable people in the streets together might look as if we intended storming the municipality. Cheetham, you know the place; take Mr. Henry Woodley. And you, sir," continued the lawyer, addressing himself to me, "have not forgotten it. May I request you to become the guide of your friend Walter? ”

“ There are plenty of likely hands on Nat Bradley's plantation, though I've never known much of either it or them. Of course you can recover the full value of what you have lost; and, if it all prove true, you will have to proceed against Mr. Bradley's heirs instead of himself. There's not a moment to be lost. In my opinion, the best way would be for you, brother, to ride down to Natchez as fast as a horse can carry you, and see if you can get a boat there. ”

“ What a divine conception my thinking of the spy-glass—quite a new idea in detection. We're not only saved exposure to the hot sun, but my man will never suspect the presence of a spy. If he should see us looking out of the window, he'd be cunning to guess our object."
The lawyer continued to talk, but I paid only slight attention to what he was saying. I knew it was only to fill up the time. I had got the Yazoo City in the field-view of the telescope and was raking her fore and aft in search of our pirate passenger. ”

“ For nearly an hour I stood in my "stall," between the two broad buttresses of the cypress, considering what I should do. I was still irresolute about retreating. The whole surface of the island was beset with palmettoes, whose stiff, fan-like fronds made a loud rustling when touched. ”

“ There are not many chapters in my life's experience that I can look back upon with more satisfaction than that which records my stay upon a Tennessee cotton plantation. With me it has ever been a pleasure to study the ways and sources of production, more especially those relating to the great staples, that not only interest, but influence the conduct of mankind. ”

“ Been to Nashville?" was the speech he had addressed to my companion, as they reined up their horses in the middle of the road.
"Nat Bradley!" exclaimed the young planter, evidently under some surprise, which might be caused by an unexpected encounter.
"Yes, Nat Bradley it is."
"Who'd have looked for you here? Where have you been?"
"Only out to take a squint at the old place. Mighty glad I got shet of it. You're all a set of fools for staying in Tennessee. Talk of growin' cotton up here! Mississippi's the place for that. Why, the meanest nigger on my plant can make two bales to your one." ”

“ I prefer the valise, as you see. I acknowledge your saddle-bags may be more convenient; but they are also more heating to the horse, and for that reason I incline to stick to my valise."
"Ha! I perceive you are a true traveler; and since you say you are journeying only to see the country, you can not be much pressed for time. I have made you acquainted with the inside of a Tennessee prison. I hope you will permit me to introduce you to something not quite so gloomy—a Tennessee cotton plantation. Perhaps you have not yet visited one?" ”

“ The bayou, the boat, the crew, came under my eyes.
Not the crew as I had noted it when taking my departure from Henry Woodley's plantation, for the four negroes were not seen. I saw only white men.
There were three of them. Two were Black and his confederate, Stinger. The other, a man unknown to me, but whose physiognomy and general appearance rendered him a fit associate for the two already named.
All these appeared busy as bees, though not occupied in the same manner. I first saw Stinger, who was engaged on that end of the flat where the steps led down into the caboose. ”

“ Ten minutes' brisk walking brought us alongside that portion of the levee set apart for steamboats—those huge embarkations of the Mississippi, many of which are not inappropriately styled "floating palaces."
At least two score of them lay opposite the landing; some coming in, others going out; some taking cargo aboard, and others discharging it on the wharf.
It was a crowded and busy scene; but unlike as among the flats, we anticipated no difficulty in identifying the particular boat with which we had business. We were in search of the "Yazoo City." ”

“ For hundreds of miles on both banks of the river—more especially on the right—the bottom lands are scarred and seamed by a labyrinthine network of creeks, bayous, and lagoons, all old channels of the river, which the current in its caprice has long since forsaken, leaving them in deep, dark stagnation, or only moving sluggishly to and fro, during the season of floods. ”

“ The "chivalry" that had settled down on the late Choctaw lands was far from being without reproach. With it, riches, and a ready use of the revolver, were often the chief titles to respect; and Nat Bradley, bully as he was, would be just the man to "shine" in the society of Vicksburg and its environs—a town which only a few years before had actually been taken possession of by a score of ruffian "sportsmen." They had for weeks held carnival in its streets, insulting every citizen who dared to gainsay them. ”

“ With some additional instructions I dismissed him; and taking seat upon a log under cover of some underwood, I awaited the coming of Henry Woodley.
I little expected that before seeing him, I should shake hands with his brother Walter. Yet such was the reality!
While sitting upon the log reflecting how much of my story should be told to my late host, and how much for the time kept back, I heard the deep sonorous bark that announces the "high pressure" steamboat. Looking up the river I saw the boat itself, rounding a sharp bend a little way above the landing. ”

“ I had been several times down to the creek where the flat-boat was being built—that craft that was to carry the cotton crop more than a thousand miles to market. I could not help taking an interest in this native specimen of naval architecture—a sort of Noah's ark of the Western waters. It was being constructed under the superintendence of a white man, a flat-boat builder by profession. ”

“ He had gone there to meet Cornelia Woodley, and accompany her back in the boat. Nothing could be clearer.
He took his leave, borrowing a horse from my host, and promising to bring him back on the morrow. Before that time I too determined upon being gone.
It was easier to talk of such a determination than to carry it out. It is not often that the singed moth succeeds in escaping from the candle, nor the bird from the serpent that allures it. And with either of these might my case be compared.
My proposal of departure was met by surprise on the part of my planter host. So abrupt! So unexpected! ”

“ Soon after my arrival, my host commenced initiating me into the ways of a Southern sportsman's life; and ere long I was introduced to the different kinds of chase practiced upon the Mississippi.
In less than a month I had collected, on my own account, most of those trophies that fall to the lot of a Mississippi hunter. Among them were skins of the black bear, the red puma or "painter" of the backwoodsmen, the spotted lynx—better known by the name of "wild-cat"—wolves, black and gray, with raccoons, opossums, skunks, swamp rabbits, and other four-footed "varmints." ”

“ Once alongside the flat-boat-wharf on the New Orleans levee, it would not take much time to discharge the cargo, and remove it to some safe place of storage; and, as for the flat itself, it could be disposed of in a single night. We might reach New Orleans to find no trace either of boat or cotton, and as for the worthies composing the crew, it would be ten chances to one of our ever setting eyes on any of them again. ”