Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1911-10-26

rington had appeared on horseback as
wooer, but had walked on foot as a
married man, each shift OF residence
he made having represented q descent
to q lower social level. On the death OF
his wife he had embarked in the river
trade with all that enthusiasm and
hope he had brought to half-a-dOzen
other occupations, for he was gentle
man Of prodiglous energy.
Bruce's first memories had to do
with long nights when he perched be-
side his father on the cabin roof of
their keelboat and watched the stars,
or the blurred line of the shore where
lit lay against the sky, or the lights on
other barges and RATS drifting as they
were drifting, with their wheat and
corn and whiskey to that common mar.
ket at the rivers mouth. WI
Sometimes they dragged their boat
hack upstream, painfully, laboriously;
three or four months of unremitting
toll sufficed for this, when the crew
sweated at the towing ropes from
dawn until dark, that the rich planters
In Kentucky or Tennessee might have
tea and wine for their tables. and silks
and laces for their womenfolk. More
often they abandoned their boat and
tramped north, armed and watchful,
since cutthroats and robbers haunted
the roads, and rivermen, II they had
not drunk away their last dollar In
New Orleans, we're worth spelling.
Or, II 1t offered, they took passage on
some fast sailing slipper bound for
Baltimore or Philadelphia. and crossed
the mountains to the Ohio and were
within a week or two of home.
Bruce Darlington had seen the day
OF the barge and raft reach its zenith,
had heard the first steam packets
|shrieking whistle which sounded the
death-knell of the ancient order,
though the shifting of the trade was a
slow matter and the glory Of the old
did not pass over to the new at once,
but fingered still in mighty fleets Of
RATS and keelboats and in the
Home eric carousals of some ten thou
sand Of the half-horse, half-alligator
breed that nightly gathered in New
Orleans. Broadhorns and mud-sills
they were called In derision. A strange
race of aquatic pioneers, jeans and
leather clad, the rifle and the setting
pole equally theirs, they came out OF
every stream down which a scow could
be thrust at flood-time from tiny set
Elements far back among the hills;
from those bustling sinks OF iniqliity,
the river towns. But now. surely. yet
almost imperceptibly. their commerce
was slipping from them. At all thu
landings they were being elbowed by
the new-cOmers-men who wore brass
buttons and gold braid, and shiny
leather shoes instead of moccasins;
men with white hands and gold rings
on their fingers and diamonds in their
shirts-men whose hair and clothing
kept the rancid smell of oil and ma
chinery.
After the reading of the warrant
that morning, Charley Balaam had
shown Darlington the road to the
Forks, assuring him when they separ-
ated that with little care and decent
use of his eyes 1t would be possible to
fetch up there and not pass plumb
through the settlement without know
| ing where he was. But Darlington had
found the Forks without difficulty
He had seen the old mill his grand
father had built almost hundred
years before, and in the churchyard he
had found the graves and read the in.
scriptions that recorded the virtues Of
certain dead and gone Carringtons. 1t
had all seemed very respectable link
with the past,
He was on his way to Fayetteville.
where he intended to spend the night,
and perhaps a day or two In looking
around. When the meeting with Betty
and Muir I'll occurred. AS Murrell dis
appeared in the direction of Balaam's
Darlington took a spiteful kick at the
unoffending coin, and strobe off down
the Fayetteville pike. But the girls
face remained with him. 1t was face
he would like to see again. He won
dered who she was, and il che lived
in the big house on the other road, the
house beyond the red gate which
Charley Balaam had told him was
called the Barony.
He was still thinking Of the girl
when he ate his supper that night at
Cleggett's Tavern. Later, in the bar,
he engaged his host in idle gossip. Mr..
Cleggett knew all about the Barony
and it's owner, Nat Ferris. Ferris was
a youngish man, Just married. Car
Irington experienced quick sinking Of
the heart. A fleeting sense Of humor
SuCCeeueQ--Hdu 10 lHLeTIeTeu UelWSSIl
man and wife? But surely il this had
been the case the girl would not have
| spoken as she had.
He wound Mr.. Cleggett up with
sundry pegs OF strong New England
rum. He had met gentleman and
lady on the roaS that day; he won.
dered, as he tc s Gas glass, If It
could have the Ferrises?
Mounted? Yes, mounted. Then it was
Ferris and his wife-or 1t might have
1 been Captain Murrell and Miss Malroy
the captain was a strapping, black.
haired chap who rode big bay horse.
Miss Malroy did not live in that part
Of the country; she was a friend OF
Mrs. Ferris, belonged in Kentucky or
Tennessee, or somewhere out yonder
at any rate she was bringing her
visit to an end, for Ferris had in
structed him to reserve place for her
in the north-bound stage on the NOR
row.
Darlington suddenly remembered
that he had some thought of starting
north in the morning himself-but he
was still undecided. How about it ii