THE STORY OF DUCIEHURST [Illustration: colophon] THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO DALLAS · ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO THE STORY OF DUCIEHURST _A Tale of the Mississippi_ BY CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK AUTHOR OF “THE FAIR MISSISSIPPIAN,” “THE AMULET,” “THE STORM CENTRE,” “THE STORY OF OLD FORT LOUDON,” “A SPECTRE OF POWER,” “THE ORDEAL,” “THE PROPHET OF THE GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS,” ETC. New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1914 COPYRIGHT, 1914 BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Set up and electrotyped. Published July, 1914. THE STORY OF DUCIEHURST CHAPTER I Dead low water and there the steamboat lay on the sand-bar, stranded and helpless. The surging swirls of the swift current raced impetuously on either side. Scarcely a furlong distant on that corrugated, rippling surface the leadsman had heaved the plummet of the sounding-line at “deep four.” Nevertheless the craft had grounded here on a submerged projection of a “tow-head” built of silt and detritus by the ever shifting Mississippi, attaining dangerous proportions since the last run of the boat. All unknown and unsuspected it lurked till “quarter less twain” was sung out, but the next cry of the leadsman smote the air like the sound of doom. Before the engines could be reversed the steamer was in shoal water, ploughing into the sand with the full momentum of her speed, the shock of the impact shattering the equilibrium of all on board. Straight ensued the contortions of mechanical energy common to such occasions; the steamboat repeatedly sought to back off from the sand; failing in this she went forward on one wheel and then on the other, finally on both, trying to force her way across the barrier to her progress, in technical phrase “to jump the bar.” At length the Captain confessedly relinquished the attempt to effect the release of the craft under her own steam. The fires sank down in the furnaces; the water cooled in the boilers; and the passengers of the still and silent boat resigned themselves to await with such patience as they could muster the rescue which might be furnished by a passing packet, none due for twenty-four hours, or which a rise in the river might compass, for the clouds of the dull October afternoon were heavy and sullen and intimated the near probability of rain.