tive of the violent style of some of the people
down along here, During the early weeks of high water, A's fence rails
washed down on B's ground, and B's rails washed up in the eddy and
landed on A's ground. A said, 'Let the thing remain so; I will use your
rails, and you use mine.' But B objected--wouldn't have it so. One day,
A came down on B's ground to get his rails. B said, 'I'll kill you!' and
proceeded for him with his revolver. A said, 'I'm not armed.' So B, who
wished to do only what was right, threw down his revolver; then pulled
a knife, and cut A's throat all around, but gave his principal attention
to the front, and so failed to sever the jugular. Struggling around, A
managed to get his hands on the discarded revolver, and shot B dead with
it--and recovered from his own injuries.

Further gossip;--after which, everybody went below to get afternoon
coffee, and left me at the wheel, alone, Something presently reminded
me of our last hour in St. Louis, part of which I spent on this boat's
hurricane deck, aft. I was joined there by a stranger, who dropped into
conversation with me--a brisk young fellow, who said he was born in a
town in the interior of Wisconsin, and had never seen a steamboat until
a week before. Also said that on the way down from La Crosse he had
inspected and examined his boat so diligently and with such passionate
interest that he had mastered the whole thing from stem to rudder-blade.
Asked me where I was from. I answered, New England. 'Oh, a Yank!' said
he; and went chatting straight along, without waiting for assent or
denial. He immediately proposed to take me all over the boat and tell
me the names of her different parts, and teach me their uses. Before I
could enter protest or excuse, he was already rattling glibly away at
his benevolent work; and when I perceived that he was misnaming the
things, and inhospitably amusing himself at the expense of an innocent
stranger from a far country, I held my peace, and let him have his way.
He gave me a world of misinformation; and the further he went, the wider
his imagination expanded, and the more he enjoyed his cruel work of
deceit. Sometimes, after palming off a particularly fantastic and
outrageous lie upon me, he was so 'full of laugh' that he had to
step aside for a minute, upon one pretext or another, to keep me from
suspecting. I staid faithfully by him until his comedy was finished.
Then he remarked that he had undertaken to 'learn' m