“It was while we were here at Randall that I was subpœnaed by a United States marshal to appear at the trial of the murderer of Captain Spear. I had the greatest difficulty in getting permission to continue my trip, although the trial was not to come off for several months. I had to give $20,000 bonds for my appearance. [Sidenote: DISASTROUS CONTRACT.] “After my return to St. Louis that fall I made several Mississippi River trips and laid the boat up late in the season. In the summer of 1871 I ran in what is called the Omaha line all the season. In the fall I sold the boat for $30,000. She had paid me just about what she cost. I remained at home all the winter of 1871–72, when I again got tired of doing nothing; and being bred to the steamboat business, and not daring to turn my hand to anything else, commenced building another boat. She was completed by the middle of the summer, and named _De Smet_, in honor of the distinguished Jesuit missionary. I at once took a contract to transport freight from St. Louis to Shreveport, La., for the construction of the Southern Pacific railroad. This enterprise was disastrous in the extreme. I found the Red River without water enough at the mouth for me to enter, all of it going down the Bayou Atchafalaya. I did not get away from there until January, having had to import one hundred mules at my own expense to get the freight through. The enterprise was so disastrous that I was released from the contract. I secured fifteen hundred bales of cotton for my return trip to St. Louis, but the winter was severe and I was stopped by ice at Helena, Ark., and had to send the freight on by rail. Take it all in all, the season’s venture was a most ruinous one.” [Sidenote: AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE.]