reappeared
close by, looking back down the steamer's wake with military comments on
the First Chickasaw Bluff, just left behind, he addressed them all as
one. Hayle's Point, he persisted, was miles away yet and comparatively
unimportant "considerin' its name," but the small cluster of houses on
the Arkansas side up in the next bend was Osceola, where Plum Point Bars
made the "wickedest" bit of river between Saint Louis and the Gulf; a
bit that "killed" at least one steamboat every year. He said they were
then passing a sand-bar, under water at this stage, which had been
Island Thirty-two until "swallered whole" by the "big earthquake" of
1811.

"Better'n forty year' ago, that was. Only quake ever felt in these
parts, but so big that, right in the middle of all the b'ilin' an'
staggerin' an' sinkin' down to Chiny, the Mis'sippi River give birth to
her fust steamboat--an' saved it!" So he continued, egged on by the
conviction that, over and above the intrinsic value of the facts, these
conversational eddies outside the current of incident "a-happ'min' to
'em yit" helped forward his two most deeply interested hearers on that
course erroneously supposed never to run smooth.

Be that as it may, the two pilots' joint theory of maxims working as
well backward as forward worked here; deep waters ran still. Love, that
is, having broken intolerable bounds in one short fierce "chute" of
declaration, was content to run deep and still and to give broad
precedence to duties, sorrows, and courtesies. The pair noticeably
drifted apart and conversed with others when others were quite willing
they should drift together. Madame Hayle needed but a glance or so to
perceive that something beautiful had happened in the spiritual
experience of her daughter. By and by when the commodore and the
Californian rejoined the group, Hugh and his grandfather spent a still
moment looking into each other's eyes and when both gazes relaxed at
once the story had been told and understood.

They turned to hear what was passing between the general, senator, and
Californian. Said the soldier:

"Sssirs, I only insssist that _if_ this region ever sees war Port
Hudson, Grand Gulf, Vvvicksburg, these fffour Chickasaw Bluffs, and
Island Ten up here above us will be imp-regnably fffortified."

Ramsey turned to the actor's wife as she came from the texas.

"How's the captain?" asked both she and her mother. But Mrs. Gilmore was
too overcome to reply.

Ramse