On the farther side of the river's wide flow, swollen by recent
heavy rains, Beverley saw a pirogue, in one end of which a dark
figure swayed to the strokes of a paddle. The slender and shallow
little craft was bobbing on the choppy waves and taking a zig-zag
course among floating logs and masses of lighter driftwood, while
making slow but certain headway toward the hither bank.
Beverley took a bit of punk and a flint and steel from his pocket,
relit his pipe and stood watching the skilful boatman conduct his
somewhat dangerous voyage diagonally against the rolling current.
It was a shifting, hide-and-seek scene, its features appearing and
disappearing with the action of the waves and the doubtful light
reflected from fading clouds and sky. Now and again the man stood
up in his skittish pirogue, balancing himself with care, to use a
short pole in shoving driftwood out of his way; and more than once
he looked to Beverley as if he had plunged head-long into the
dark water.
The spot, as nearly as it can be fixed, was about two hundred
yards below where the public road-bridge at present spans the
Wabash. The bluff was then far different from what it is now,
steeper and higher, with less silt and sand between it and the
water's edge. Indeed, swollen as the current was, a man could
stand on the top of the bank and easily leap into the deep water.
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