ade a landing at a wood
station, about twenty miles above St. Joseph, Mo. It was a lonely
place in the woods, with nothing but long wood-piles to make it a
desirable place to stop over night at. There had been some trouble
between the deck-hands, who were mostly Irishmen, and some of the
officers of the boat. So the former chose this lonely spot to
settle the matter. After loading the wood they all armed themselves
with clubs and bowlders, and took possession of the stairway,
swearing that no man should come down on deck or let go the line
until their wrongs were righted. Captain Blunt was a brave man,
and did not like to be forced to do anything against his own free
will; but he did not know just how to manage those fellows, for
they were a bad crowd, and had the advantage of him in numbers;
besides he had no arms on board except a few pistols, and he knew
that an Irishman did not fear gunpowder. Finally I said to the
Captain:

"If you will take my advice, we can soon run those fellows ashore,
and then we can cut the line and leave them."

He asked me what I would do, so I told him to get all the butcher
knives in the kitchen, and everything else on board that would cut,
or looked like it would, and arm the officers and passengers, and
we would charge down the steps on to the fellows.

He thought it a good plan, so we were soon ready. I wanted the
largest knife, telling the Captain I would lead if he would let me
have it. He wanted the glory of leading the attack himself, so I
had hard work to get the largest one; but I did get one about
fifteen inches long. We all rushed out of the cabin and down the
steps with a war-whoop, and before the deck-hands had time to rally,
we were onto them, cutting right and left. We did not want to
kill; we only wanted to scare them. I got a lick on the head; it
did not hurt, but it made me mad, and I cut two or three fellows
across the part that they sit down on, and they began to yell cold
steel, and made a rush for the plank. The others followed, and
were in such a hurry they did not take time to find the plank, but
jumped overboard and waded out. Some one cut the line, and we were
soon away from shore. The Captain told the pilot to hold the boat,
and then he told the deck-hands if they would come on board and
behave themselves he would take them to St. Joseph. They promised
they would not raise any more disturbance, so he took them on board
and we started on our w