The River and I

he bluff rim and, to all appearances, dissolve

We flung ourselves down in the bunch-grass that whispered dryly in a cool wind fresh from

them. How far away it was then! Reach after reach, bend after bend, grunting, snoring, toiling, sparring over bars, bucking the currents, dodging the snags, went the snub-nosed s

You could stand on the very tallest building in Kansas City, and you could look and look and never see a

ng of cables; eyes that had that way of looking through and far beyond things. (Seamen and plainsmen have it.) And they had such romantic, crinkly, wrinkly, leathery faces. They got

anner! I could shut my eyes and see it all very plainly, away off there half-way to the moon. And I used to wonder how my father could be such a strong man and never have any hankering to go up there at all! The two facts were quite incomp

ions, stern with portholes, sitting like bulldogs at the opposite corners ready to bark at intruders. And in and out at the big gate went the trappers-sturdy, rough-necked, hirsute fellows in buckskins, with Northwes

back to the States; and the keel-boats, looking very fat and lazy, unloaded supplies in the late fall that were loaded at St. Louis in the early spring. And these had come all the way without the stroke of a piston

to the work like honest oxen. What males those cordelle men were-what stayers! Fed on wild, red meat, lean and round of waist, thick of chest, thewed for going on to the finish. Ten or fifteen miles a day and every inch a fig

e men will come around for the job, I'm sure. But when you speak enthusiastically of the old Greek doers of t

ckets rushing fresh cargoes ashore-mates bawling commands down the gangplanks where the roustabouts came and went at a trot. Gold-mad hundreds thronged the wagon-rutted streets of this raw little village, the commercial center of a vast new empire. Six-horse freighters trundled away toward the gold

real that I had to get up and take my first look, half

quiet little village, winking with scattered lights in the gloaming. Past it

well. And yet, once upon a time, it had filled my day-drea

of modernity. This boisterous, bustling, smoke-breathing thing, plunging through the night with flame in its throat, had made the change, dragged old B

could only come back for a while from their Walhalla, how they would crowd about that wind-splitting, fire-eating, iron beast, panting from its long run, and catching its breath for another plunge into the waste p

ry. Not a steamboat's stacks, blackening in the gloom, broke the peaceful glitter of the river under the stars. But along the sidewalk where the electric-lighted bar-r

till for me the Benton of the fur trade and the steamboats and the gold

phy was plainly indicated as the proper thing. And, after all, a steaming plate of lamp chops in a Chinese chuck-house of a substantial though dis

are no more, was of no avail. The rapid music of knife and fork drowned out the asthmatic sno

f my bronze-faced neighbor across the wreck of supper. He looked bored and stiffened a hor

e. We are indeed a headlong race. We keep our ruins behind us. Perhaps that is why we get somewhere. And yet, what beauty blooms flowerlike to the backward gaze! Music and po

An odd, pathetic little ruin it is, to be sure. Nothing imposing about it. It doesn'

ttle turret

e pla

"bastion" in the old days-the little square adobe blockhouse that won't stand much longer. One crumblin

n by which to see ruins-a moon for backward looking and re

d log fires still clings inside. The man who sat before that hearth was an American king. A simple word of command spoken in that room was the thunder of the law

ng. How clearly I could hear that squawking, squeaking, good-natured fiddle and the din of dancing feet! Only the sound got mixed up with the dim, w

his one attracts practically none at all. How they do dig after old Troy-poor old long-buried, much-abused Troy! And nobody even cares to steal a b

the history of a narrow strip of land along the Atlantic coast. The statement is si

ed about it-the movement that brought about the settlement of the

dern B

ugh the real West in the night. They are getting Eastern out there at the rim of the big sea. Benton i

boy and the bronco and the steer. Not the average story-book West, to be sure. Perhaps that West never existed. But it is the West that has bred and

wagons trundling after; whips popping over the sweating teams; a hundred or more saddle ponies trailing after in rolling clouds of glinting dust; a score of b

y column wheels at the word of command, or when a regiment swings past with even tread, or when you stand on a dock and watch a liner d

trong capable fellows-proud as

was Be

Old For

of the B

n the dusty, poorly lighted, front street came the little band-a shirt-sleeved squad. Halting under the dingy glow of a corner street-lamp, they struck up the best-intentioned, noisiest noise I ever heard

of Benton. At last the mad race was ended. I think it was the cornet that won, with the clarinet a close second. The tub

hirt-sleeved band swung off down the street in the direction of the little cottage where the Great Man lived. All Benton fell in behind-clerks and bar-keeps and sheepmen

ey were; big lovers, big haters, good laughers, eaters,

again, not one of the sun-bronzed faces was strange to me, but every one was the face of a brother. Choteau's Congressman was my Congressman! Benton's Great Man was my Great Man! I fell into line al

thmic snarling and booming of the drums, with now and then the shrill savage cry of

ut us-far and faint, but haughty with command. It took very little imagination for me to feel the whirlwind of battles I may never know, to hear the harsh metallic snarl of high-power bullets I may never face. For, marching there in the dusty, torch-painted night, with that ragged procession of Westerners, a deep sense of

d Bill and Frank and Kid something or other. We called him Charlie. And he wasn't the least bit stiff or p

wl of his: "Boys, while I was back there trying to do a little something for you in Congress, I heard a lot of swell bands; but I didn't he

going to send Charlie back East again. May we all di

y-wranglers" and "night-hawks" and "war-bags" and "round-ups"; showed me how to tie a "bull-noose" and a "sheep-shank" and a "Mexican hacamore"; put me onto the twist-of-the-wrist and the quick

ellow, and so I said playfully: "Say, Joe, come

eyes: "Now you look here, Shorty," he drawled; "you're a friend of mine, and whatever you say goes, as long as I ain't all c

good poetry had been written about sheep and sheepmen and crooks and lam

wled. "There ain't any cattle ranges there, you know. Do you know

id

shepherd with his fleecy flock!' That's poetry. Now in Montana, that same feller says, when he sees the same feller coming over a rid

t over the breaks through that strange purple moonlight, such as I had always believed to e

, went the sheepman with his staff in his hand and a war-bag over his arm, while at his heels a wise collie followed. It wa

an is the case with cattle. I think I couldn't write very good verses about a flock of sheep, unless I were at least five hundred yards away from them. I haven't figured the exact distance as yet. But when you have a large flo

d our navy-yard. There we proceeded to set up the keel of the Atom I-a twenty-foot can

very evening the cable ferry brought over a contingent of well-wishers, who were ardent in their desire to encour

uri. Now the Upper River (hanging out that bleached rag of a sympathetic smile), the Upper River was not the Lower River, you know. (That really did seem remarkably true, and we became alarmed.) The Upper River, mind you, was terriffic. Why, those frail ribs and that impossible planking would go to pieces on the first rock-like an egshell! Of course, we were free to do as we pleased-they would not discourage us for the world. And the engine! Gracious! Such a boat would never stand the vibration of a four

ob in the clutches of good advice. I used to accuse him of rabbit blood. In the light of experience, I wish to record the fact that I beg h

, the engine installed. The trim, slim little craft with her admirable speed l

nishman knelt at the prow. He was not bowed in prayer. He was holding a bucket under the soon-to-be-broken bottle. "For," sai

nt was ind

of which I am particularly proud, "be a good girl! Deliver me n

ke-directly ab

Benton. The first steamboat for sixteen years tied up there one evening. She was a government snag-boat. Now a government snag-boat may be defined as a boat maintained by the government for the sole purpose of sailing the

something almost pathetic about the public demonstration when you thought of the g

Outfit on

o

ana

a Wool-F

: "The personage before me is more than a snag-boat captain. This is none other than the gent

eh?" he growled, regarding me critic

, endeavoring to swa

you w

ost pleadingly; "isn't there-u

e longest river in the world and therefore knew what he w

of the captain's words. Since that time the rive

slowly against a head wind at the mouth of the Cheyenne, sixteen hundred miles below the head of navigation. A big white and red steamer was

nd drifting past her slowly, I stood up a

speak to th

still stiff and proud, but a swift smile crossed his face as he looked do

there was the least vainglory in

s,

ave found