"When the news came down to St. Louis there was a good deal of talk about it; but it got about that these fellows had been taking up trash, and the general verdict was that it sarved 'em right. All the traders on the frontier set their faces agin men who cheated the Indians, not because they cared for the Indians, mark you, but because anything that made bad blood did harm to the trade all over. However, it gave me a bad scare, and it was a good many years before I came up the Upper Missouri again. There's some men as seems to me to be downright fond of fighting; but I don't feel like that, anyway. If I get into a hard corner, and have got to fight, then I fights, but I had rather go round the other way if I could. Thar are dangers enough on this river for me; what with snags, and shoals, and storms, they are enough for any reasonable man. Then there are the river pirates; they are worse than all, though it's some years since we had much trouble with 'em." "River pirates, Hiram? I have not heard you say anything about them before. I did not know there were any pirates on these rivers." "Thar used to be, lad, years back, lots of them, and a pretty lively time we used to have on the river." "But what sort of pirates, Hiram?" "Well, thar war two sorts, you see, at that time. Five-and-twenty years ago the settlements on the river war a long way apart. You might go fifty miles without seeing a village when you once got past the plantations on the lower river; you may say as this region then was like what Kansas is now. Chaps who had made it too hot for them in the east came out here, and just had to wrestle round for a living. New Orleans is pretty bad now, but it was a sight worse then; and St. Louis was a pretty hard place. Then, too, thar war runaway slaves. So you see, one way or the other, a fellow who wanted to get together a band up to any mischief had not to look far for men. "Well, as I said, thar war two sorts. Thar war the men who lived away from the river, say in the low country between the Arkansas and the main stream, which was then pretty nigh all swamp and forest; perhaps they had hosses, perhaps not, but mostly they had. Well, one fine morning a dozen of them would ride into one of the villages on the river. Thar wasn't much to take thar, you know, onless it war fever, and they had enough of that in thar own swamps. They would wait, may be, for a day or two, till a boat came in, and as soon as it had made fast they would cover the men with thar rifles, and just empty it of all it had got--powder, blankets, groceries, and dry goods, and what not--and make off again. I got my cargo lifted, I should say, a dozen times that way. It war onpleasant, but thar was nothing for it; and it warn't no use making a fuss when you saw half a dozen rifles pinted at you. Why, in the early days of steamers, more than once they got held up, and the fellows went through the passengers and cargo and took what they fancied.