CHAPTER X. 



BOEDER LIFE IN THE "WEST. 



AN ADVENTURE NEAR THE MOUTH OF THE OHIO RIVER. 



THE neighborhood of that amphibious city known as Cairo, 

 has never been remarkable for either the hospitable or anj 

 other virtues of its inhabitants, especially those on the Indi- 

 ana side. 



I had a most satisfactory opportunity of testing this on an 

 occasion which I shall relate. 



Some twelve or thirteen years since, while on my return 

 to my native town in Kentucky, after a long sojourn amidst 

 the wilds of the Texas border, I accidentally fell in, at Lex- 

 ington, with the father of an old and intimate friend of my 

 own, who had, too, been an adventurer through the same 

 regions and scenes which I had just left, but had now settled 

 down, for the time at least, in charge of a new plantation he 

 was opening on the Kentucky side of the Ohio, some fifteen 

 miles above Cairo. 



The father, Mr. H , was now on his way to pay a visit 



to his son, and invited me as it would be but a slight de- 

 viation from a direct course home to accompany him, and 

 pay a passing visit to his son Dick, who would be anxious to 

 hear all the news I could give him concerning the late field 

 of his adventures. We took water at Louisville, expecting, 

 as the new plantation was only a mile from the banks of the 

 Ohio, that we would be put ashore by the steamboat on the 

 Kentucky side, and have no difficulty in reaching the house. 



