Chapter 4 MAKING A GETAWAY

TELL a Teuton that he can't, and very likely he will show you that he can. It's in the blood. Between the prophecy of the snag-boat captain and my vainglorious answer at the Cheyenne crossing, I learned to respect the words of the man who invented the eccentric old river. In the face of heavy head winds, I quoted the words, "You'll never get down"-and they bit deep like whip lashes.

On many a sand-bar and gravel reef, with the channel far away, I heard the words, "Plenty of water, yes, but you won't find it!" And always something stronger than my muscles cried out within me: "The devil I won't, O, you inventor of rain-water creeks!" Hour by hour, day by day, against almost continual head winds and with the lowest water in years, that discouraging prophecy invaded me and was repulsed. And that is why we have pessimists in the world. A pessimist is merely a counter-irritant.

I stood on the bank for some time after the Atom I slid into the water, admiring her truly beautiful lines. Once I was captain of a trunk lid that sailed a frog-pond down in Kansas City; and at that time I thought I knew the meaning of pride. I did not. All three of us were a bit puffed up over that boat. Something of that ride that goes before a fall awoke in my captain's breast as I loved her with my eyes-that trim, slim speed-thing, tugging at her forward line, graceful and slender and strong and fleet as a Diana.

I said at last: "I will now get in her, drop down to the town landing, and proceed to put to shame a few of these local motor-tubs that make so much fuss and don't go anywhere!"

I loved her as a man should love all things that are swift and strong and honest, keen for marks and goals-a big, clean-limbed, thoroughbred horse that will break his heart to get under the wire first; a high-power rifle, slim of muzzle, thick of breech, with its wicked little throaty cry, doing its business over a flat trajectory a thousand yards away: I love her as a man should love those. Little did I dream that she would betray me.

I took in the line and went aboard. At that moment I almost understood the snag-boat captain's bearing. To be master of the Atom I seemed quite enough; but to be the really truly captain of a big red and white snag-boat-it must have been overwhelming!

I dropped out into the current that, fresh from its plunge of four hundred feet in sixteen miles, ran briskly. Everything was in readiness. I meant to put a crimp in the vanity of that free-information bureau.

I turned on the switch, opened the needle valve, swung the throttle over to the notch numbered with a big "2." I placed the crank on the wheel and gave it a vigorous turn.

"Poof!" said the engine sweetly, and the kind word encouraged me immensely. Again I cranked.

"Poof! Poof!"

It seemed that I had somehow misunderstood the former communication, and it was therefore repeated with emphasis. Like a model father who walks the floor with the weeping child, tenderly seeking the offending pin, I looked over the engine. "What have I neglected?" said I. I intended to be quite logical and fair in the matter.

I once presided over a country newspaper that ran its presses with a gasoline engine with a most decided artistic temperament. That engine used to have a way of communing silently with its own soul right in the middle of press day. I remembered this with forebodings. I remembered how firm but kind I was obliged to be with that old engine. I remembered how it always put its hands in its pockets and took an extended vacation every time I swore at it. I decided to be nothing but a perfect gentleman with this engine. I even endeavored to be a jovial good fellow.

"What is it, Little One?" said I mentally; "does its little carburetor hurt it? Or did the bad man strangle it with that horrid old gasoline?"

I tenderly jiggled its air valve, fiddled gently with its spark-control lever. I cranked it again. It barked at me like a dog! I had been kind to it, and it barked right in my face. I wanted to slap it. I lifted my eyes and saw that the rapid current would soon carry me past the town landing. I seized a paddle and shoved her in. Of course, a member of the free-information bureau was at the landing. He had with him a bland smile and a choice bit of information.

"Having trouble with your engine, aren't you?" he said as I leaped ashore with the line. "There must be something wrong with it!" The remark was indeed illuminating. It struck me with the force of an inspiration. It seemed so true.

"Strange that I hadn't thought of that!" I remarked. "That really must be the trouble-there's something wrong with it. Thanks!"

I tied the boat and went up-town, hoping to sidetrack the benevolent member of that ubiquitous bureau. When I returned, I found half a dozen other benevolent members at the landing. They were holding a consultation, evidently; and the very air felt gummy with latent advice.

"What's the matter with your engine?" they chorused.

"Why, there's something wrong with it!" I explained cheerfully, as I went aboard again. I began to crank, praying steadily for a miracle. Now and then I managed to coax forth a gaseous chortle or two. The convention on the landing understood every chortle in a truly marvellous way.

"It's the spark-plug, that's sure!" announced one with an air of finality. "When an engine has run for a while (!) the spark-plug gets all smutted up. Have you cleaned your spark-plug?"

"No, Jim!" contradicted another, "it's all in the oil feed! Look how she puffs! W'y it's in the oil feed-plain as day! Now if you'll take off that carburetor and--"

I cranked on heroically.

"It's in the timer," voluntered another. "You see that little brass lever back there? Well, you take and remove that and you'll find that--"

I cranked on shamelessly.

"The batteries ain't no good!" growled a man with a big voice that reminded me of a bass-drum booming up among the wind instruments in a medley. Like the barber who owned the white owl, I stuck to my business. I cranked on.

"It ain't in them batteries-them batteries is all right!" piped a weazened little man who had been grinning wisely at the lack of mechanical ability so shamelessly exposed by his fellows.

"Now in a jump-spark engine," he explained leisurely, with a knowing squint of his eyes and an uplifted explanatory forefinger: "in a jump-spark engine, gentlemen, there is a number of things to consider. Now if you'll take and remove that cylinder-head, pull out the piston, and--"

The voice of the expounder was suddenly drowned out by the earsplitting rapid-fire of the exhaust! The miracle had happened! Hooray!

I grasped the steering cords and jammed her rudder hard to port. Her fourteen-inch screw, suddenly started at full speed ahead, made the light, slim craft leap like a spike-spurred horse.

But the turn was too short. She thrust her sharp haughty nose into the air like an offended lady, and started up the bank after that information bureau. If a tree had been convenient, I think she would have climbed it.

I shut her down.

"She went that time!" chorused the information bureau. Coming from an information bureau, the statement was marvellously correct. But I had suddenly become too glad-hearted for a sharp retort.

"If you will please throw me the line, and push me off," I said confidently, "I'll drop out into the current."

I dropped out.

"Now for putting a crimp in some people's vanity!" I exulted.

I cranked. Nothing doing! I cranked some more. No news from the crimping department. I continued to crank; also, I continued to drift. Somehow the current seemed to have increased alarmingly in speed.

I thought I heard a sound of merriment. I looked up. The little weazened man was gesticulating wildly with that forefinger of his. He was explaining something. The information bureau, steadily dwindling into the distance, was not listening. It seemed to be enjoying itself immensely.

I swallowed a half-spoken word that tasted bitter as it went down. Then I cranked again. There seemed to be nothing else to do. It was a hot day; hot sweat blinded me, and trickled off the tip of my nose. My hands began to develop blisters. Finally, a deep disgust seized me. I once saw a tender-hearted lady on her knees in the dust before a balky auto. I remembered her half-sobbed words: "You mean thing, you! What is the matter with you, anyway! Oh, you mean, mean thing!"

I sat down in front of that engine and abandoned myself to a great feeling of tenderness and chivalry for that unfortunate lady. In that moment I believe I would have fought a bear for her! Oh that all the gasoline engines in the world could be concentrated somehow into one big woolly, scary black bear, how I could have set my teeth in its neck and died chewing!

I heard a roaring of waters that broke my vision of bear fights and gentle ladies in distress. A hundred yards ahead of me I saw rapids. The words of the information bureau came back to me with terrible distinctness: "Why, her light timbers will go to pieces on the first rock!"

Although I am no hero, I didn't get frightened. I got sore. "Go ahead, and smash yourself up, if you like!" I cried to the balky craft. And then I waited to see her do it. She swung 'round sharply with the first suck of the rapids, struck a rock, side-stepped, struck another, and went on down, grinding and dragging on a stony reef.

It suddenly came to me that this was what they called the Grocondunez Rapids. I remembered that they said the name meant "the big bridge of the nose." The name had a powerful fascination for me-I wanted to hit something good and hard somewhere in that region!

Finally she swung clear of the reef, caught the swirl of the main current, and started for New Orleans with the bit in her teeth. I wasn't ready to arrive in New Orleans at once; I had made other arrangements. So I grasped a paddle and drove her into shallow water. I leaped out, waist-deep in the cold stream, and threw my weight against her. Pantingly, I wondered what was the exact distance to the nearest axe. I resolved to crank her once more, and then for the axe hunt!

I leaned over the gunwale and began to grind. For the life of me, I don't know just what I did to her; but it seemed that she had taken some offence. Without the least warning, she leaped forward at three-quarter speed, and started up stream with that haughty head of her thrust skyward!

I clung desperately to her gunwale, and she dragged me insultingly in the drink! She made a soppy rag of me! I managed to scramble aboard-something after the fashion of a bronco-buster who mounts at a gallop.

But the way she traveled! I forgot the ducking and forgave her with all my heart. I held her nose well out into the channel where the current ran with swells, though no wind blew.

The "Atom I" under Construction.

The Cable Ferry Towed Us Out.

Laid Up with a Broken Rudder.

Bucking the rapids, she split the fast water over her nose and sent it aft in two clean-cut masses, that hissed about her like angry skirts. A light, V-shaped wake spread after, scarcely agitating the surface. She dragged no water. There was no churning at her stern. Only the dull, sub-aqueous drone, felt rather than heard beneath the rapid banging of her exhaust, told me how the honest little screw thrust hard.

I pushed the spark-lever close to the reversing point, and opened her throttle wide. This acted like a bottle-fly on the flank of a spirited mare. She shook herself, quivering through all her light, pliable construction, lifted her prow another inch or two, and flung the rapids behind her.

Slim, fleet, clean-heeled, and hungry for distance, she raced toward the Benton landing two miles up.

In my anxiety to show her to the benevolent ones, I left the current and took a crosscut over a rocky ford. Pebbles flung from her pounding heels showered down upon me. I climbed forward and let her hammer away. She cleared the gravel bar, and as she plunged past the now silent information bureau on the landing, condescendingly I waved a hand at them and went on splitting water.

We shot under the bridge, forged into the crossing current, passed the big brick hotel, where a considerable number came out to salute us. They dubbed her the fastest boat that had ever climbed that current, I learned afterward. Alas! I was getting my triumph early and in one big chunk! I figure that that one huge breakfast of triumph, if properly distributed, would have fed me through the whole two thousand miles of back-strain and muscle-cramp. And yet, through all the days of snail-paced toil that followed, I remained truly thankful for that early breakfast.

The Kid and the Cornishman, busy in camp with the packing for the voyage, had shared in the gloom of my temporary defeat. But now, as I plunged past them, I could see them leaping into the air and cracking their heels together with delight. They had wet every plank of her with their sweat, and they were as proud as I. In the light of the following days, their delight dwindled into a pathetic thing.

I held her on her course up-stream, reached the bend a mile above, swung round and-discovered that she had only then begun to lift her heels! With the rapid current to aid, her speed was truly wonderful. She could have kept pace with any respectable freight train at least.

I indulged in a little feverish mental calculation. She could make, with the minimum current, eighteen miles per hour. Every day meant fifteen hours of light. Sioux City was two thousand miles away. We could reach Sioux City easily in ten days of actual running!

While I was covering that fast mile back to camp I saw the Atom I passing Sioux City with an air of high-nosed contempt. I developed a sort of unreasoning hunger for New Orleans-a kind of violent thirst for the Gulf of Mexico! Nothing short of these, it seemed to me, could be worthy of so fleet a craft. When I shoved her nose into the landing, I found that my companions thoroughly agreed with me.

All that night in my restless sleep I drove speed boats at a terrific pace through impossible channels and rock-toothed Scyllas; and the little Cornishman fought angry seas and heard a dream-wind shrieking in the cordage, and felt the salt spume on his face. "I wonder why I am always dreaming that," he said. "Atavism," I ventured; and he regarded me narrowly, as though I might be maligning his character in some way.

At dawn we had already eaten and were loading the Atom for the voyage. With her cargo she drew eighteen inches of water. At full speed, she would squat four inches. It was the first of August and the water, which had reached in the spring its highest point for twenty years, had been falling rapidly, and now promised to go far below the average low-water mark. We had ahead of us a long voyage, every mile of which was strange water.

Once again I went over that feverish calculation. This time I was more generous. I decided upon fifteen days. The cable ferry towed us out beyond the gravel bars that, during the last week, had been slowly lifting their bleached masses higher. In mid-stream we cut loose.

At the first turn the engine started. We were going at a good half-speed clip, when suddenly the engine changed its mind. "Squash!" it said wearily. Then it let off a gasoline sigh and went into a peaceful sleep. We had reached the brick hotel. We pulled in with the paddles and tied up. The information bureau was there, and at once went into consultation.

"I'm looking for an engine doctor," I said. "How about Mr. Blank? They tell me he knows the unknowable."

"Best man with an engine in town," sad one.

"For gracious' sake, keep that man away from your engine if you don't want it ruined!" said others. A man who can arouse a diversity of opinions is at least a man of originality. I went after that man.

He came-with an air of mystery and a monkey wrench. He sat down in front of the patient (how that word does fit!) and after some time he said: "Hm!"

He unscrewed this-and whistled awhile; he unscrewed that-and whistled some more. Then he screwed up both this and that and cranked her.

"Phew-oo-oo-oo!" said the engine. Whereat the doctor smiled knowingly. It was plain that she was an open book to him.

"What is the trouble?" said I, with that tone of voice you use in a sick-room.

It appeared to be appendicitis.

"Spark-plug," muttered the doctor.

"Shall I get another?" I asked, half apologetically.

"Better," grunted the doctor.

I chased down an automobile owner, and a launch owner and a man who had a small pumping-engine. I was eloquent in my appeal for spark-plugs. I made a very fine collection of them1 and hastened back to the doctor. He didn't seem to appreciate my efforts. He had the patient on the operating table. Everything was either unscrewed or pulled out. He was carefully scrutinizing the wreck-for more things to screw out!

"Locate the trouble?" I ventured.

"Buzzer's out of whack," replied the Man of Awe. "Have to get another spark-coil!" In times of sickness even the sternest man submits to medical tyranny. I ran down a man who once owned a power boat, and he had a spark coil. He finally agreed to forgo the pleasure of possessing it for a suitable reward. Considering the size of that reward, he had undoubtedly become greatly attached to his spark-coil!

I returned in triumph to the doctor. He was now screwing up all that he had previously unscrewed.

"Think she'll go now?" I pleaded.

He screwed up several dozen things, and whistled a while. Then the oracle gave voice: "'Fraid the batteries won't do; they're awful weak!"

With a bitter heart, I turned on my heel and went forth once more. Electrical supplies were not on sale at any of the stores. But I found a number of gentlemen who were evidently connoisseurs in the battery business. They had batteries of which they were extremely fond. They parted with some of superior quality upon the consideration of a friendly regard for me-and a slight emolument on my part. I was evidently very popular.

At a breathless speed I returned to-not to the doctor. He had vanished. Rumor had it that he had gone home to lunch, for the sun was now high. So far as I know, he is still at lunch.

Several things were yet unscrewed. I fell to work. Wherever anything seemed to make a snug fit, I screwed it in. Other remaining things I drove into convenient holes. All the while I begged blind fate to guide me. Then I connected the batteries, supplied the new spark-coil, selected a new spark-plug at random, and screwed it in.

Having done various things, I carefully surveyed my environs for a lady. There were no ladies present, so I spoke out freely. "And now," said I, having exhausted my vocabulary, "I shall crank!"

Bill and the Kid sat on a pile of rocks looking very sullen. For some reason or other they seemed to doubt that engine. I don't know how long I cranked. I know only that the impossible happened. The boat started for the hotel piazza!

I didn't shut her down this time. I leaped out and took her by the nose. Putting our shoulders against the power of the screw, we walked her out into the current, headed her down stream, and scrambled in, wet to the ears.

My logbook speaks for that day as follows: "Left Benton at 2:30 p.m. Gypsied along under half gasoline for several hours, safely crossing the Shonkin and Grocondunez bars. Struck a rock in Fontenelle Rapids at 4:30, taking off rudder. Landed with difficulty on a gravel-bar and repaired damages. At 5:30 engine bucked. A heavy wind from the west beat us against a ragged shore for an hour and a half. Impossible to proceed without power, except by cordelling-which we did, walking waist-deep in the water much of the time. Paddles useless in such a head wind. The wind falling at sunset, we drifted, again losing our rudder while shooting Brule Rapids. Tied up at the head of Black Bluff Rapids at dusk, having made twenty miles out of two thousand for the first day's run. Have to extend that fifteen days! Just the same, that information bureau saw us leave under power!"

1 Dear Reader: Should you undertake the Missouri River trip, don't lay anything out on spark-plugs. I sowed them all along up there. Take a drag-net. You will scoop up several hundred dry batteries, but don't mind them; they are probably spoiled.

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