e wind chanced to be fair. But in
the very nature of the case, this aid could never be more than
temporary, since the windings of the river were bound, sooner or later,
to make a headwind of what had been a fair breeze.

So, for the most part, our voyage all the way from Natchez to St. Louis
meant one continuous round, from morning till night, of setting our
poles at the boat's prow, each in his turn, and tramping to the stern
along the side gangways, or walking-boards,--there to raise our poles
and return to the prow, to repeat the laborious proceeding. I can say
that keelboat poling is a splendid method of developing the muscles of
the back and lower limbs, provided the man who attempts it begins with a
sufficient stock of strength and endurance to carry him over the first
week.

This does not mean that I enjoyed the trip. Softened by my Winter in
Washington, the first few days out of Natchez were as trying to me as to
the regular members of the crew after their carousals and excesses in
New Orleans and Natchez. Our boat, which had come down with a cargo of
lead from the mines about St. Louis, was returning with a consignment of
the cheap calicos and the coarse broadcloth called strouding, which form
the basis of the Indian barter in the fur trade; and cloth in bolts,
closely stowed, is not the lightest of cargoes.

But, once we had worked ourselves into condition, we shoved our craft
upstream from daylight till nightfall at an average speed of over three
miles an hour. Whenever the bank and channel permitted, we eased our
labor at the poles by passing a towline ashore and cordelling the boat,
while our captain, one of the best on the river, was ever alert to hoist
sail with every favorable breeze.

If I did not enjoy the voyage, I nevertheless had cause to feel thankful
for the hard work which held my melancholy thoughts in check and sent me
to my bunk at night so outspent that I slept as soundly as any man
aboard. A man treading the walking-boards, bowed over his pole, may
brood on his troubles for a week or two, but none could do so longer
unless his system were full of malaria. For the constant, vigorous
exercise in the open air is bound to send the good red blood coursing
through every vein of the body, until even the most clouded brain must
throw off its vapors.

Once free from the melancholy which had oppressed me the first few days,
I gave most of my thought to the problem of how I should fulfil my vow
t