142 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Feb. 21, 1903. 
— » 
A Night with River Pirates. 
The Pittsburg coal that is sent to New Orleans now 
is all towed there by steamers, but years ago it was all 
ficated there. The first steamers to take coal below Louis- 
ville began towing it only about the time I made this trip, 
and more or less of it was still floated until the war put a 
stop to it. These coal boats were ver3' flimsy affairs, be- 
ing nothing more than large boxes made of inch and a 
half hemlock lumber. They h?.d square ends with no 
overhang, and when loaded had only one foot of a free- 
board. A high wind would be likely to sink one of them. 
The barges that part of this coal is taken in now are 
quite different affairs ; they are built stouter, but they 
only hold half as much as a coal boat does. 
When we floated the coal two of these boats that held 
^bout 25,000 bushels each were lashed together and a 
crew of eight or ten men were assigned to each pair. The 
boats were moved into the current and kept there by 
several long sweeps that were hung on pins in the sides 
and ends of each boat : and when once in the channel two 
or three men did the steering, letting the boats move with 
the current, but never tried to move faster than the 
current did. 
Each pair of boats was under charge of a captain who 
was the pilot; he knew every sandbar, island, riffle and 
toAvhead, and knew just where the channel ran long before 
getting to it. 
I started on a pair of these boats m April of 1S59 from 
Pittsburg, the boats being consigned to a coal dealer who 
had his landing at Bayou Sara, above New Orleans. 
We had a good coal boat stage of water to start in. 
These boats cannot be taken down under a stage of ir 
feet of water, they draw Q feet and the river at Pittsburg 
is only high enough to float them when a "coal boat rise" 
comes. Going down on the crest of this rise we went 
over the falls at Louisville, then on down to Cairo, and 
getting into the Mississippi here steered south. Our 
foubles should be all over now, all we had to do now 
would be to keep the channel, lake the right one when 
passing one of these islands and keep out of the swell of 
passing steamboats. Should a windstorm rise we would 
"go to the bank," tie up there and wait for the wind to 
fall, then go on again; but kept on in good weather day 
and night. 
Our captain was Pinky Morrison. I had known him 
for years and never knew his first name; he and everyone 
else called him Pinky. He was a tall, rough man who 
stood over six feet high and had red hair. He was one of 
the best tempered men I have ever seen. His friends 
might say or do what they pleased to him, but among 
strangers he was ready to fight at the drop of a hat; no 
one who knew him, though, cared to do any fighting with 
Pinky. 
He was a good poker player and on our way home from 
New Orleans by steamboat he would often get in a fight 
with one of the tin horn gamblers who traveled up and 
down the river to fleece passengers. Pinky would only 
use his fists ; the gamblers would want to use a knife, but 
not on us — there were too many of us there and the boat's 
jackstaff^ stood out in the bow quite handy with its hal- 
liards all ready to be decorated with one of the gamblers 
when we caught him stealing cards. 
I once saw one of these men with the rope around 
his neck ready to be sent up, when the captain begged 
us to let the man go ; we did it out of respect for this 
captain. Had he tried to use force with us we would 
have taken him and his boat in less than five minutes; he 
knew that. 
We had got below Natchez and were somewhere between 
it and the mouth of the Red River, when one morning, 
soon after sunrise, the wind came up strong and Morrison 
steered for the bank and tied up on the right or Louisiana 
side. The banks of the river here are low and a levee is 
built here to keep the river out, though just where we 
now were there was plenty of water behind it, the country 
back here being all a swamp or bayou ; there was no plan- 
tation here in sight nor any signs of a house in any direc- 
tion. 
These bayous extended for hundreds of miles back here 
in some places; the ducks, alligators and a few bears had 
them all to themselves, it seemed. Just after dinner that 
day, seeing that there were no signs of the wind going 
down soon, I got permission to go hunting. I had seen 
several flocks of ducks fly over the tree tops in there and 
wanted to go after them. 
I had an old muzzleloading double gun that had been 
a fine one in its day; it had lost most of its beauty now, 
but was a good gun yet. 
I picked it up in a lot of old junk in an auction room 
and had got it for a song. Since then I had been offered 
all sorts of trades for it. New guns and five times what I 
had paid for it in money, but I wanted this gun myself. 
I had read of English guns and their makers and this 
one of mine had the name of one of the most noted gun 
makers in England on its lock plate. It is going to have 
a prominent place in this narrative or else I should not 
take up so much time telling about it. I had brought 
the gun with me on this trip, thinking that I might find a 
chance to use it. I did. 
Climbing down behind the levee I struck out across the 
swamp. There were strips of dry ground here now that 
at times would be under water, and I could only travel 
by following these dry strips, all else was mud or water. 
Between these dry places were arms of the bayou, black 
and silent, except where an alligator stuck his head out 
of the water to watch me or plunged off the log he had 
been lying on into the water as I came in sight of him. 
I knew that these fellows were in here and kept a good 
lookout for them, a shotgun would not be of much use 
to me among them ; the}', however, were as much afraid 
of me as I was of them. 
I could find no ducks, they must have seen the alligators 
before I did and then had gone on ; if they did not I 
would not get many of them with these fellows here as 
thick as they were, and after I had gone several miles 
back in this swamp, nearly west all the time, I thought it 
about time to return, and started back, but had not gone 
far before I found that I was lost, or at least was not go- 
ing back the way I had come in. This part of the swamp 
was different from the part of it I had gone through 
coming in. It would be only a waste of time to hunt for 
the paths I had used before. I wanted to get out of this 
before dark. The trees in here, those of them that were 
not dead, were hung thickly with Spanish moss; the 
dead trees stood in the water, their naked branches 
hanging over it and it was impossible to see far in any 
direction. The river should be east of me; I wanted to 
get to it somewhere, then I could travel on the levee 
mitil I found the boats, if they were not in sight when I 
c.-ime out on the river. 
Getting into a clear place I at last got a sight of the 
sun, then placing my back to it started to go east now in 
Zi- direct a line as these swamps would 3II0W me to go, 
but every once in a while I would have to go clear- out 
of my way to get across one of them. 
I had been going over an hour on my way back and 
thought that I inust be near the river now, when, on 
coming around some bushes on the bank of one of these 
arms of the bayou I saw a cabin just across the end of 
the slough I was on now, and following around the bank 
went up to it. The cabin stood just back from the arm 
of the bayou in among some large trees ; it stood on posts 
that raised it two feet above the ground, and it was about 
30 feet long and half as wide. It was built of rough 
cypress boards and had a roof of them, out of which, 
at one end of it, a stovepipe stuck. There was smoke 
coming out of the pipe, the only sign that the cabin was 
occupied or that it had been used for a year. It had only 
one door, as far as I could see, and I afterwards found 
that this was all it had. 
Two square holes in the wall did duty as windows, and 
some short logs piled on top of each other answered for 
doorsteps. 
Going up I rapped on the door that stood partly open. A 
young woman dressed rather poorly in a calico wrapper 
and who was barefooted, came to the door. She was 
chewing on a snuff stick she held in her mouth. Jerking 
it out she began to smile and asked : "Are you lost, 
stranger ?" 
"Yes, Miss," I told her, lifting my hat. "I came in here 
Intnting and somehow have missed my way. Would you 
be kind enough to direct me to the river?" 
"Why, of course ; it is only a mile and a half from here. 
Come, and I'll show you how to go to it." 
"Martha !" a voice in the cabin called out, "Who is 
that?" 
"A stranger, pap; he wants to go to the river. I'll 
show him." 
"No, bring him in here." 
I followed the young woman into. the cabin and found 
myself in front of a man about 60 years old; his hair, 
which he had closely cropped, was partly gray, as were his 
whiskers ; he wore a full beard. He was dressed in a not 
bad looking suit of "store clothes;" he had stolen, them, 
probably. He was on the sick list now, being laid up 
v;ith a crippled leg, his left one was in bandages from 
the knee down; he had shot himself when hunting, he told 
me. He may have mistaken himself for a deer; some 
steamboat watchman may have mistaken him for a 
burglar, though ; that may have been how he got shot. 
From what I saw of this old gentleman later on I formed 
the opinion that he would rather lie than tell the truth, 
even if he were paid to tell it. But I have no right to 
criticise him for that: I told him a few lies myself. 
"Sit down, stranger," he told me, pointing to an old 
armchair. There were a number of them, no two of 
them alike ; they had all been broken and rudely mended 
again ; they were of the kind that is found on steamboats ; 
these had been thrown away, most likely, and had been 
picked up along shore. 
I glanced around the room ; the cabin had two. This 
one, the living room, had an old broken cook stove in one 
end of it, and a rude couch with a single mattress off 
some boat stood near it. In another corner next to the 
back room stood two old Yager or Mississippi rifles; their 
powder horns and pouches hung on the wall above them. 
Half a dozen of these single mattresses off boats lay in 
a pile ; they had probably been thrown off some steamer 
after someone had died on each one of them with the 
:yellow fever. I came within an inch of dying with it my- 
self the following 3'ear jtist below here; an old doctor and 
the Sisters of Mercy pulled me through it, though. 
About everything here had come off a steamboat at 
some time or other; even the water buckets, and there 
were half a dozen of them, were marked .S, B. — steam- 
boat this or that ; Martha's kitchen table had at one time 
done duty in a steamer's saloon as a card table. 
The old man began to question me, and I told him how 
I came to be here. 
"Well, you can't find the river yourself; it is all of four 
miles from here, through swamps all the way; there is 
no path to it from here." 
"The young lady told me it was only a mile and a half, 
sir." 
"Oh, what the devil does a vvoman know about it? 
Get us that supper, Martha. What in are you stand- 
ing around here for? I ain't going to hurt your young 
man. You will be clawing around him and kissing him 
next. Get to out of this." 
Martha had been standing looking on, with her hand 
on the arm of m.y chair ever since I had come. She 
walked off to her stove now, and I felt like knocking this 
old father of hers half-way over after her, but did not. 
"How many men are there in your crew?" he asked. 
I told him — ten men. 
"Have they all got guns like yours?" 
"Some of them have, some have rifles and some of us 
have both. I have." 
So I had, but my rifle was at home in Allegheny; I 
did not tell him so, though. 
"And the most of us have Colt's pistols, too," I added. 
I may as well spread it on thick while I am at it. You 
seem to be a past master at lying; I can do something in 
that line myself, I said to myself. 
"What did we want with all those arms?" 
"Well, I use mine to hunt with ; that, I suppose, is 
what most of us carry them for; we are never disturbed 
by anyone down here." This gun of mine was the only 
one on the boats, and it was not there now. 
"Well, when my son gets home I'll send him with you 
to the boats; he knows just where your boats lie; he saw 
them there to-d^y .he told me." • • 
"I hardly care to wait for him, sir. This wind may go 
down and if it does they will want to go on." 
"Well, they won't go on and leave you here, will they?" 
"Oh, no, sir; the captain would He here and hunt for 
me, but I don't want to put him to that trouble. We want 
to get down as soon as we can. We get paid by the trip, 
you know, and any time that is lost we lose." ; 
"Well, lie could not ,go on to-day is he had you. This 
wind is not going down in a hurry; you will be lucky if 
you leave here in a week." 
He did not intend that we should leave here at all. I 
did not know that then. 
"Put your gun over yonder," he tolsl me, pointing to 
where the rifles stood, and I put it along with them. 
'I hen he told me to get a flask that stood on a shelf and 
take a drink. 
"No, sir, thank you, I do not use it." 
I could use it, but I had begun to think that there was 
something wrong here. I might need to have all my wits 
about me. I might have to defend myself when his son 
came. 
"Most boys down here drink all the whisky they can 
get, but you are as well off without it." 
So would you be, I thought. He was half drunk now, 
arid Martha had to get him another drink soon after this. 
I had been here nearly an hour when a young man came 
in carrying a gallon jug. Only one look at him was 
needed to tell that he and Martha were brother and sister. 
He was about my age, 20, while she looked to be 25, but 
these southern women often look to be older than they 
really are. 
"Did you get it?" his father asked the young man. 
"Only half a gallon; he only had about a gallon and he 
would not let me have any_ more." 
"Did I not tell you to get me a gallon?" 
"Yes, you told me to get you a gallon. I have just 
got through telling you that he would not give it to me. 
Now what in the devil are you growling about? How in 
do you expect me to get what a man does not 
have?" 
Good enough for you, I thought; you are not afraid 
of the old man if your sister is. 
"If I were not crippled you would not give me that 
slack before strangers." 
"Well, use common sense, then, and you won't get any 
slack from me," his son told him. 
"Let us get supper," the old man said, and taking a 
pair of home-made crutches he hobbled across to the 
table then ready. "Come on, stranger, make yourself at 
home here ; sit up and eat." 
Martha had hot corn bread, fried bacon, boiled sweet 
potatoes and black coffee. I complimented her on her 
c coking. 
"Yes, sir," she said, "I can cook if I get any thing to 
cook, but we don't get much here ; we people in among 
these swamps don't live very well." 
"You don't?" her father asked. "What the devil is 
there wrong with what you have got just now?" 
"There is nothing wrong with it, sir," I told him. "I 
had far rather haA-e her hot corn bread than the bread I 
do get every day." 
"Yes, sir, and so would most of us ; but if you give a 
woman the earth she will want the moon. Next, the devil 
himself could not please them. I don't try." 
"You seem to have a poor opinion of them, sir. I don't 
know much about them." 
"Well, when you get to be as old as I am, if you live 
that long, you will know more about them." The old gen- 
tleman probably thought then that there was no danger of 
niy getting to be as old as he was, not if he could help 
it, but he "missed stays." I am still living. He is not 
to blame for it, though. 
After supper the old man hobbled outside of the cabin; 
then calling his son out the two held a long talk. The 
young man seemed not to want to go or do whatever his 
father wanted done. I could not hear what it was, of 
course, though I could see them through the doorway, 
but at last the son went off, not coming into the cabin 
again ; then his father came in, 
"How soon can your son start to '*he river with me, 
sir?" I asked. 
"Not before morning, now. I had to send him about 
seme business of mine that must be attended to. This 
~ — leg of mine prevents me from doing anything myself. 
You Avill get to your boats in plenty of time, sir. This 
wind is higher now than it has been to-day; it is not go- 
ing down in a hurry." 
It was blowing hard, that was true enough; but I 
wanted to get to the boats. Morrison would send the 
crew all over the country to hunt me if I did not get back 
by morning. 
"Fix a bed for the stranger, Martha," he told his 
daughter. "Let him lie down ; I am going to do it ; ther?. 
is nothing in this God-forsaken country to keep a man 
up after night here." 
Then he took another drink, out of the jug this time, and 
while Martha was fixing my bed he shoved his rough 
couch that stood here over across the door, then threw 
himself on it. He was doorkeeper to-night. 
I would not get out through that door, and there was 
no other one. 
Martha spread down one of the single mattresses nn 
the floor close to where my gun stood, then going into 
her room brought a pillow and blanket; she may have 
taken them off her own bed to make me comfortable. 
Taking off my coat and boots I lay down — but not to 
sleep. I did not mean to do any sleeping here to-night. 
I was busy thinking. 
What was this old fellow's object in keeping me here? 
He had asked me if my boats would go on without me. 
It was the boats he wanted, not me. He had :ne — that is. 
if I chose to stay here. I didn't have to, though, I told 
myself. The door is not the only means of egress here. 
Do you think we Yankees, as you call us, are fools ? But 
what do you want with those boats? These boats would 
be of no use to him and their crew would not have twenty 
dollars among them, if he meant to rob them. 
This class of men made a trip; then, coming home, 
turned the money they had left, after paying half of it for 
their fare home, over to their families, if they had a 
family; then, if there was a "coal boat stage of water," 
they went again. 
I only made these trips once in a while when Morrison 
was going down in charge; the men who had this coal 
v.ere friends of my mother and they let me take a man's 
place in this crew and paid me his wages. I earned them. 
Pinky would want me with him every trip, if I would go. 
