The boys had never seen anything like this before—such horrible heads and faces—or heard such a din. The tightly-muzzled “Napoleon” rose on his haunches, rolling his eyes wildly round. Accustomed to play with the arksmen, he was not much afraid of anybody; but now he attempted to bolt. The boys held him with difficulty.
They still thought that it was probably “fun.” But when those two “redskins” rushed toward them with tomahawks they were alarmed, the whoops were so ugly, the hatchets looked so wicked! Out came Moses’ old dueling pistol, which—like a
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boy—he had taken with him under his deerskin smock.
Lewis’ hands were so wound in the bear’s chain that he could not draw his; but Wistar, with his heavy bag of mammoth back-bones, gave one “Indian” a “smash” over the head that felled him.
Fortunately for Moses, trouble with the hair-trigger resulted in his discharging the pistol harmlessly into the ground.
But the fracas now began in earnest, and it might have ended badly for our young Kaintocks had not a loud laugh been heard and a high-pitched but powerful voice bawled in a queer mixture of Spanish and French: “Paz! Paz, mes enfants! Paz, mes petits!”—“Peace! Peace, my children!”
This timely outcry came from a veranda close at hand, where a stout old priest in a brown gown, and a tall, dark man, wearing a military cloak, stood watching
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the revelers. Immediately the former came through the throng, stretching out his arms, pushing them all aside as if they were in very truth his “children.” His big, kind face shone in the torchlight like a benevolent gargoyle, and his voice was as oil on angry waves.
“Paz! Paz!” he murmured, soothingly, in that odd jumble of French and Andalusian. “No sangre! Todos de bon coeur!”
With his hands he patted one after another, even Napoleon, who snuffed him thoughtfully through his muzzle.
Beyond doubt this was kind old “Pere Antoine,” who, for forty years, was so amiable and ubiquitous a figure in the New Orleans of those early days; “Pere Antoine cheri,” whom, although he was a Spaniard by birth, the Creoles loved to adoration; the brown-gowned old Capuchin who married all the young couples, white, black and
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yellow, and christened all their children as fast as they came into the world; who heard and sympathized with them in all their troubles, griefs and sins.
He was the unselfish, incorruptible guardian and lover of the city’s poor, who handled alms-money by the hundredweight, but lived in a little hut in the suburbs and slept on two bare boards; who used to have a great brown leather bag at his girdle for a purse, often so full by mid-week of voluntary silver and gold that, big as he was, he could hardly carry it, yet always quite empty—such was his charity—by Sunday evening; the “cher Daddy Antoine” of the street gamins, who tagged after him for his blessing and lagniappe—and never failed to get both.
The dark man in the military cloak, who laughed so heartily at the warlike attitude of the three youngsters in coonskin caps, was Señor Casa Calvo, the Spanish
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commissioner, who continued to live in New Orleans after the transfer of the territory to the United States.
Feeling sure, from his kindly face and the respect accorded him by the revelers, that they had made a friend worthy of confidence, the boys spoke to the priest of Doctor Buchat, and by signs gave him to understand that they were taking the bear to his house. Wistar also showed him the two huge vertebræ.
So greatly piqued was their curiosity, that both the priest and Señor Calvo accompanied the boys to Doctor Buchat’s house. So much animated talk ensued over the mammoth skeleton that it was not till late in the evening that the good doctor found quarters for Napoleon—so late, indeed, that the old naturalist kept his youthful visitors overnight and to breakfast on the following morning.
This was the boys’ last trip to the city,
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for that day Captain Royce had completed his preparations for the long voyage up the river, not forgetting numerous presents for the people at home. Wistar, Charlie Hoyt and Lewis, who had saved their profits from the venture, also bought similar gifts.
Of Kenton, MacAfee and Corson less kindly mention can be made. Like many other arksmen of those times, they had squandered much of their money at saloons and gaming-places in “The Swamp”; and becoming much dissatisfied, they determined to quit their more prosperous comrades, and go home on foot through the wilderness, by the “Natchez trail.”
Putting together what they had left from their dissipations, they bought a horse and set off, Corson first riding for two hours, then hitching the horse beside the path, and going on afoot. When Kenton and MacAfee came up, MacAfee mounted and rode for two hours, then left the horse
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hitched for Kenton, who was coming on behind. By the time Kenton had ridden two hours he usually overtook Corson, who then took his second turn. This was termed “whipsaw traveling”, and must have been hard for the poor horse.
They expected to reach home in thirty-eight days, and long in advance of their former comrades on the “horse-boat.” Captain Royce sent a message home by them, and also a letter to Milly Ayer.
He had previously sent word home by two Cincinnati boats; neither of which, however, had been able to forward the message. Nor did the word or letter sent by Corson and his companions come to hand, for the three arksmen never reached the settlement on the Ohio; what became of them is not known. Savages or outlaws may have murdered them; or, owing to dissatisfaction, they may have gone to “East Florida” or the Carolinas to live.
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The Milly Ayer, as her youthful captain had chivalrously christened their new keel-boat, was not ready to leave New Orleans for the homeward voyage until January 24th; and still another day was lost, waiting for a passenger who had offered Captain Royce a hundred and fifty dollars to be taken to St. Louis.
This passenger was none other than the waggish Lieutenant Charles Grimsby, who is supposed to have carried a despatch from General Wilkinson to Captain Amos Stoddard, the first American governor of St. Louis. Captain Stoddard, however, did not assume the duties of office until the 10th of March following.
The French settlers of St. Louis, indeed, were still in ignorance of the sale and transfer of the Mississippi Valley to the United States, and the horse-boat of our young arksmen was destined to bring them the first positive intelligence of this event. Like
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the Creoles at New Orleans, they were awaiting the arrival of a French army to take possession of the country in the mighty name of Napoleon Bonaparte.
On the morning of the arksmen’s departure—January 25th—an old acquaintance returned in great haste and jumped aboard the boat, resolutely bent on rejoining his former messmates. This was none other than Napoleon, the pet black bear, whom they had presented to Doctor Buchat.
When first seen by Lewis, the bear was coming back at a clumsy gallop up the levee, dragging his chain and pursued by a hundred young darkies, who were hastening his flight with stones and clods. Instinct, or keen scent, had brought him to the Milly Ayer. He leaped aboard, whimpering from mingled fear and gladness at recognizing his old friends of the ark.
But they, truth to say, did not want him.
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Word was at once sent to Doctor Buchat. It then transpired that the worthy savant of Good-Children Street was not desirous of recovering him; in fact, the doctor begged that Captain Royce would make some other disposition of the animal. He had turned cross in his new surroundings, and had been near devouring one of the doctor’s maid servants.
Shadwell Lincoln suggested a rifle-ball as offering an easy way out of the difficulty, but Moses and Lewis would not hear of this. They still retained an affection for their former pet.
Finally, since the bear was aboard and ............