VOYAGE UP THE MISSISSIPPI. 29 



" The night was spent in making tugs of hides and shaving oars, 

 and at daylight we left the Creek, glad to be afloat once more 

 in broader water. oing down the stream to the mouth of the 

 Ohio was fine sport ; indeed, my partner considered the worst 

 of the journey over ; but, alas ! when we turned the point, and 

 met the mighty rush of the Mississippi, running three miles an 

 hour, and bringing shoals of ice to further impede our progress, 

 he looked on despairingly. The patrom ordered the lines 

 ashore, and it became the duty of every man 'to haul the 

 Cordelia,' which was a rope fastened to the bow of the boat ; 

 and one man being left on board to steer, the others, laying the 

 rope over their shoulders, slowly warped the heavy boat and 

 cargo against the current. We made seven miles that day up 

 the famous river. But while I was tugging with my back at 

 the Cordelia, I kept my eyes fixed on the forests or the ground, 

 looking for birds and curious shells. At night we camped on the 

 shores. Here we made fires, cooked supper, and setting one 

 sentinel, the rest went to bed and slept like men who had done 

 one good day's work. I slept myself as unconcerned as if I had 

 been in my own father's house. 



" The next day I was up early, and roused my partner two 

 hours before sunrise, and we began to move the boat at about 

 one mile an hour against the current. We had a sail on board, 

 but the wind was ahead, and we made ten miles that day. We 

 made our fires, and I lay down to sleep again in my buffalo 

 robes. Two more days of similar toil followed, when the weather 

 became severe, and our patrom ordered us to go into winter 

 quarters, in the great bend of the Tawapatee Bottom. 



"The sorrows of my partner at this dismal event were too 

 great to be described. Wrapped in his blanket, like a squirrel 

 in winter quarters with his tail about his nose, he slept and 

 dreamed away his time, being seldom seen except at meals. 



" There was not a white man's cabin within twenty miles, and 

 that over a river we could not cross. We cut down trees and 

 made a winter camp. But a new field was opened to me, and I 

 rambled through the deep forests, and soon became acquainted 

 with the Indian trails and the lakes in the neighbourhood. 



The Indians have the instinct or sagacity to discover an en- 

 campment of white men almost as quickly as vultures sight the 



