far to the northward to be a safe hiding place for slave-hunters, and
Kirby must be fully aware--knowing the characteristics of the river as
he did--that his only security lay in keeping this woman in seclusion,
carefully hidden away under lock and key, until he held her completely
in his power, in a land where slavery was king. Then he could play the
brute, but not here. I was convinced the man possessed brains and
caution enough to deliberately choose this course--to do otherwise
would mark him a fool, and that was not to be thought of. Even his
reckless bravado would never drive him into an utterly unnecessary
peril. All that he planned to accomplish later, could wait; but now
his only purpose was to protect her from observation; to encourage his
fellow-travelers to even forget that he had any slaves on board. There
was a game of cards going on in the salon, in which he was
participating, but Tim, not concerned in it, was wandering back and
forth, up and down the ladder, watchful of every movement about the two
decks, and making it extremely difficult for anyone to pass his guard.
Satisfied as to this, and being intensely weary from my night without
rest, and the hard work of the day, before I even realized the
possibility, I fell sound asleep.

It was about the middle of the following afternoon when the
_Adventurer_ poked her blunt nose around a point of land, and came into
full view of the squalid hamlet of Yellow Banks. A half-hour later we
lay snuggled up against the shore, holding position amid several other
boats made fast to stout trees, busily unloading, and their broad
gangplanks stretching from forward deck to bank. All about was a scene
of confusion and bustle, mud, and frontier desolation. Inspired by the
ceaseless profanity of both mates, the roustabouts began unloading
cargo at once, a steady stream of men, black and white, burdened with
whatever load they could snatch up, moving on an endless run across the
stiff plank, and up the low bank to the drier summit. It chanced to be
my good fortune to escape this labor, having been detailed by Mapes to
drag boxes, bales and barrels forward to where the hurrying bearers
could grasp them more readily. This brought me close to the forward
stairs, down which the departing passengers trooped, threading their
insecure way among the trotting laborers, in an effort to get ashore.

All this deck was sufficiently unobstructed so as to afford me glimpses
w