The Golden Pears

Front matter

The Golden Pears A Story of the Dark Bend Swamps

by

Raymond S. Spears Complete in This Issue

Chapter 1

I

DURM CLINCHELL sat on the high bank of the St. Francis River, in the Dark Bend swamps, opposite a little rippling shoal between two long, curving stillwaters. Across from him was a wide, white sand-bar, along the back of which was a growth of willow-trees, and beyond which was the dark brake timber. His feet dangled down the steep, caving bank, and his eyes turned restlessly up and down the river.

Across his lap rested a repeating rifle. On his head was a broad-brimmed black hat. His upper lip was smooth-shaven, while his chin carried a gray rope six inches long and two inches in circumference. His bushy eyebrows were heavier than many a mustache. His eyes were of a stern, pale brown—paler and grimmer than ever just now.

His business there was to kill a man. The man to be killed was Lunmer Andrest, an impudent young pup of a swamp-angel who didn't take Durm Clinchell as seriously as some others did, in spite of all that the old man had done and been in the Dark Bend swamps.

"Now if I hadn't never killed anybody, he would have been excused," Clinchell swore to himself; "but I'd killed fellers before. Men that don't mind their own business has naturally got to be killed up—he knows that!"

"Hands up, Mr. Clinchell!" a stern voice hailed the thinker from behind. "Don't you touch that gun, Mr. Clinchell, or I'll just naturally plumb you through the liver an' lights!"

The old man's hands went up. Andrest had failed to come down the Stillwater in his canoe, to be shot at seventy yards, according to program. He had landed up-stream, around the bend, and crept down a dry bayou. Taking advantage of the soft, swampy ground, he had obtained the bushwhack advantage and caught his enemy unawares.

"Get up!" Andrest ordered. "Let that gun slip onto the bank, or into the river, I don't care which, only don't touch it—no, sir!"

Clinchell did as ordered. He left the rifle lying on the bank and halted ten yards away. Andrest picked it up, and then marched his prisoner along the bank to where a canoe was tied by a bit of trot-line to a snag root in the eddy of the sand-bar at the head of the Stillwater up-stream.

"I 'low I'll take you for a canoe-ride, Mr. Clinchell," the young man observed politely. "You hadn't any call to layway me, and—"

"I told you to keep clear and shet of my gal Sue Belle!" the old man exploded wrathfully. "Didn't I fair-warn ye, and didn't—"

"Sue Belle 'lowed if I didn't get to see her, somebody else would, an' so I just naturally 'lowed I'd get to see her, Mr. Clinchell. You've been disturbin' things round here enough. I'm going to take you down to Deerport and have you bound to keep the peace. Then, if you 'low to shoot me, or kill me up, it 'll be illegal. Get into that canoe, now!"

Old Clinchell choked, but he sat down in the bow of the canoe with his hands clasped across his shins. This was a new experience. He had always surrendered honorably after killing his man, but now he was captured before he could carry out his threat to shoot young Lunmer Andrest.

"Yes, sir!" Andrest continued. "I 'low I'll bond you to keep the peace!"

Accordingly the canoe started down the St. Francis, paddled by Andrest, who had a rifle on each side of him. It was fourteen miles to Deerport, but the trip was made quickly. Durm Clinchell's only possible chance to escape was to upset the canoe, dive deep, and thus elude his captor. The prisoner would have tried it but for a statement made by Andrest at the very start.

"You keep those hip-boots on, Mr. Clinchell!" he had said. "I've took mine off. If you upsot this canoe, with those hip-boots on, they'll suck you right down into the mud, sure. I'm barefooted, an' I'll float. I'll go back up an' marry Sue Belle, an' we'll spend good cotton and gum-log money—yes, sir!"

At that boast old Clinchell's ears turned bright red, and his neck looked sunburnt, for he believed that it was true. He believed a good many things that weren't so, that old St. Francis River plantation-owner. On the other hand, he didn't believe some things that were true. For instance, he never would have credited Sue Belle with saving him from the wrath of Lunmer Andrest.

"Lunmer," she.had declared, "if you git killed, it's your fault; but if my daddy—dear old daddy!—gits shot up, I'll see that you git hung, shore as you're borned! Course I like you, Lunmer, but you mustn't kill my old daddy—no, indeedy!"

"But he's threatening to kill me!" Lunmer protested.

"Suttinly—ain't you tryin' to steal his gal?" she asked blandly. "Wouldn't you want to kill anybody in the world that tried to steal me?"

"Course I would!"

"Then why shouldn't my old daddy want to kill you?" she demanded triumphantly.

"Well, then, I'll—I'll—"

"I don't cyar what you do, s'long's you don't kill my old daddy," she smiled. "And s'long's you don't get killed yourself," she added.

All these things, and more, had led up to the scene when Andrest bushwhacked old Clinchell and started him down to Deerport to put him under bonds to keep the peace.

They went ashore at the Deerport steamboat-landing, and Andrest marched his captive up the clay bank into the main street. Clinchell marched with his hands in the air, for Andrest feared there might be sixshooters and long knives among the old man's garments. He carried the two rifles, one in each hand, ready to drop one and throw the other to his shoulder at the first hostile motion. He would have shot, then, and Clinchell knew it.

On the court-house steps sat Sheriff Ferris, two or three deputies, and County Judge Darkin. Old Clinchell had been tried four times before Judge Darkin, twice on the charge of homicide and twice for disturbing the peace by killing people. All four times Clinchell had been acquitted, his attorney having produced evidence that he had acted in self-defense.

"Well, 'fore the Lord o' gumption, what's this?" Sheriff Ferris demanded. "What has happened?"

"That young ras—"

"Hold on, Mr. Clinchell!" Andrest ordered. "You're my prisoner. If you run and try to escape, I'll shoot the living sunlight through you! Same way if you talk, and try to escape thataway! You understand just what I mean. I won't have no nonsense! That tongue of yourn has let you escape hanging four times, and you cayn't escape me thataway. No, sir! You try to talk yourself leg-loose, an' I'll plug you right through, jes' the same's if you tried to run. You try either way, and I shoot!"

A slow smile spread across Judge Darkin's countenance. He was used to subtle arguments, and he keenly appreciated a distinction that was no difference. Leg-bail it or tongue-bail it—for the first time in his life he saw that point clearly demonstrated. He turned a keen eye on the young man, who stood grimly silent, giving the old planter all the chance in the world to get himself out of the scrape by talking—if he wanted to take that chance.

Old Clinchell blinked. His eyes stared large in surprise. This day was a novel one in his years of experience. He heard the calm voice of Andrest take up the subject of the visit to Deerport.

"Judge Darkin," Andrest began, "I brought this man down here to have him put under the bonds to keep the peace. I hated to kill him. He sure 'lowed to kill me; he's been telling all around that he'd kill me fust chance he had. He hasn't had that chance, not yet. He was sitting on the caving bank, up St. Francis, 'cross from that shell sandbar, waiting, to-day. Like's not he'll lie and say—"

"You mean to say I'd lie?" Old Clinchell turned and burst out with wrath.

"Yes, sir—lie like a coon, like a cottonmouth snake—and I'll shoot you, same's I would a possum, if you don't shet your mouth. He'd lie and say he was watching for a deer. He warn't. He heard say I'd come down St. Francis, 'round Dark Bend, to-day. He was there to git me. I set a trap for him, and there's his rifle. I come to get him put under bonds—"

Judge Darkin shook his head.

"Mr. Clinchell is a very important citizen. Accusations against him must be supported by evidence."

"Yes, sir, o' course, an' I ain't nobody but Lun Andrest. But Mr. Clinchell's anxious to be put under bonds—he sure is! He's going to beg you to put him under bonds—sit down there, Mr. Deputy! Don't try to shuffle around behind me! Understand that? Yes, sir, Mr. Clinchell wants to be put under bonds—don't you, Mr. Clinchell?"

"What? Me want to be put under bonds? Why, you—"

"Hold on, Mr. Clinchell! Let me explain my position. Sit down, Mr. Sheriff! Don't you move around thataway. If you're a friend of Mr. Clinchell's, don't try to get around behind me, for I'm going to kill him fust!"

The young man was grim and angry. His eyes shone with hate. These county officials were Clinchell's friends. Clinchell owned fifty thousand acres of gum and cypress land, and picked a thousand acres of cotton every year. He could kill a man, and no one would say a word beyond seeing that he was tried for homicide and properly acquitted. Andrest was just a poor boy, with few friends and no relatives. He knew what to expect there in the county court of Cypress County.

"Yes, sir," Andrest continued, biting his words into square chunks, "Mr. Clinchell wants to be put under bonds to keep the peace. The reason is, if he don't go under bonds to keep the peace with me, I sure got to kill him, right here in the co't-house square! Then I'll have to shoot the sheriff and the county judge, so's I'll get a fair trial come next court. I'm tellin' you, not makin' no threats, understand. It's ag'in' the law to make threats. If Mr. Clinchell don't want to go under bonds, o' course, I got to protect my life. That's self-defense. Sheriff Ferris heard him say he'd kill me—heard him say it over his dinner-table last Saturday evening. Now didn't you, sheriff?"

The sheriff blinked unhappily. Clinchell was glaring at him, and the county judge was assuming a calmly judicial air.

"You wouldn't say a lady lied, would you, sheriff?" Andrest continued harshly. "I don't allow any man to say a lady lied, Mr. Ferris!"

A look of astonishment supplanted the anger in Clinchell's expression.

"Mr. Clinchell's interested in your not saying a lady lied!" Andrest warned the sheriff. "You heard this man say he'd kill Lunmer Andrest last Saturday, didn't you, sheriff?"

"Yes, sir!" Sheriff Ferris popped out, while old Clinchell turned and looked longingly toward the swamp north of the bayou beyond the town limits.

"There, judge! There, Judge Darkin! There's a plumb honorable witness, sayin' this man threatened to kill me!" Andrest remarked evenly. "I'm not blamin' the sheriff now for not telling this gentleman he was a prisoner, right there, and bringin' him down himself to put him under bonds. I'm just suggestin', though I'm no lawyer, judge, that no common, ornery hundred-dollar bond will restrain this old scoundrel here. You know his record. He's a skinflint, but he never was mean about his lawyer fees or his politics money. He'll be plumb keerful how he vi'lates a real bond, sir!"

"Perhaps you think you can tell this court its duty?" Judge Darkin demanded with real anger.

"No, sir!" Andrest shook his head. "Sit still there, sheriff! I don't tell no judge his duty. But I'd sure hate the name of killin' up a county court for self-defense. You see, a man can protect himself from gettin' killed. If it's one man shootin' at him, all right. If it's one man shootin' and another man tryin' to distract the principles of the affair and mixin' in—same way. If I got to protect myself from the Cypress County gov'ment, after havin' appealed to it for protection, all right, I'm not responsible. I got a case, now, that I could fight right plumb up to the United States Constitution. Government is government, but a gang of murderers is a gang, if one side of it jes' sets the other side, that does the killin', free. That's law. You make that bond respectable and according to what is!"

"Yes, sir," Judge Darkin said. "Deputy, go get the county clerk; tell him to bring peace bonds with him."

By this time a little crowd had gathered around, staring at the scene. They were mostly no-account swamp and bottom-lands people—malaria,l, mosquito-bitten, gallinipper-harassed, and dyspepsia-depressed. They grinned at the predicament of the county government and several of its leading citizens. The leading citizens blushed and tried to be oblivious.

County Clerk Farl appeared with an old-fashioned secretary. The deputy had warned him of the condition of affairs, and he was ready to do his duty, impersonally and according to the court's directions.

"Fill in that bond," Darkin ordered harshly. "Make it—make it for fifty thousand dollars. Killing is murder, and murder has got to stop in this county!"

A gasp of astonishment sounded from the spectators. Clinchell started up.

"Why, who'll go my bond fo' that much?" he demanded.

"I don't know, sir," Judge Darkin replied indifferently. "You let yourself into this thing; now you got to find your way out. If you 'tended to things up there in Dark Bend swamps, it 'd be all right. When they get down here into civilization, the law takes its course!"

Clinchell looked from side to side. He was wealthy—he had hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of property; but at first flush he could think of no way of providing a fifty-thousand-dollar bond to keep the peace.

"It 'll be all right!" he exclaimed hopefully. "I'll sign it!"

"No, sir! You'll go into jail, sir, till there's sureties to satisfy this court!" Judge Darkin replied.

The judge signed the paper and handed it to the sheriff.

"I surrender this man to you, Mr. Sheriff," Andrest said. "Thank you, judge! A man gets desperate when an old scoundrel like this one sets out to shoot him, 'specially when a man knows that there's no court to punish him if he does meanness. I 'lowed the only way to do was get him peace-bonded 'fore we got to shootin'. If that don't do no good, I'll do some bushwhacking—yes, sir! That ain't no threat, sir; it's a promise. Good day, sir!"

"Good day, sir!"

The judge rose to bow. Andrest backed away, wiping the sweat from his forehead. He left Clinchell's rifle on the sidewalk and returned to his canoe. Five minutes later he was paddling up the St. Francis again.

Sheriff Ferris went around to various law-offices with Clinchell who felt that he needed legal advice, hut his requests were not for ways of breaking the force of the peace bond. If that peace bond were set aside by judicial action of any kind, a determined young man with a first-class rifle would be turned loose, too.

What Clinchell wanted was a proper surety for the bond, and this he obtained at last by making out a mortgage on certain timber, which he offered to Danton Lesgar, president of a local bank. With this mortgage for security, the banker went over to the court and signed the paper.

"Say, judge!" Clinchell said, when the formalities had been finished. "Suppose I violate that bond—suppose I shoot that young scoundrel?"

"You forfeit fifty thousand dollars."

"That all?"

"No; it's a serious crime to kill any one when you are under peace bond, especially as you are particularly enjoined in this bond to keep the peace with Lunmer Andrest. If you kill him, you'll sure hang!

"What?"

"Yes, sir. If I'm the judge, you'll be hung!"

"S-s-say—how long is that bond for?"

"One year."

"Then—then it—"

"Expires."

"Then killing wouldn't be so—so—"

"So serious? As an officer of the court, I might suggest to you that what you are talking now will be very strongly corroborative of premeditation, if you kill young Andrest after the bond expires. As a friend, I might urge on you that the young man seems to know what he is about, and if I were a betting man I'd like to put down something on his not being killed by any one."

Clinchell turned and strode away angrily. He picked up the rifle from where Andrest had dropped it and took the trace, his short cut for home in the Dark Bend swamps. As he strode he kicked up dust, and the dust curled up behind him.

When he was far out of hearing, Judge Darkin turned to Sheriff Ferris and asked casually:

"By the way, sheriff, the complainant referred to some lady in the case—said that it would not be discreet to accuse her of prevarication. Might I ask, as a friend, you know, what ladies were present at that dinner where old Clinchell uttered his—indiscretions?"

"I've been trying to remember." Sheriff Ferris shook his head. "There was a yellow girl waiting on the table, and an old mammy sorting out the hot bread and pones and chicken and beef and so on in the fireplace, so's we'd have enough to eat. You see, we were mostly talking business and politics—sho!"

"What's the idea, sheriff?"

"Sue Belle Clinchell—sure as you're borned, judge! That was the only lady there was, and she's pretty! Yes, sir!"

"It occurred to me that perhaps she was the lady." Judge Darkin nodded, pleased with his own powers of deduction. "I was wondering why young Andrest didn't kill the old cuss and be done with it. Now I understand—old man Clinchell's the father of his sweetheart. Um-m!"

"It 'd be mean if you'd killed your wife's daddy." The sheriff shook his head. "She'd be always throwing it in your face!"

"That's so. Wonder what Andrest does to live!"

"He's a trapper—hunter—he don't amount to much."

"No-o, not yet." Judge Darkin nodded. "He had a smart way of talking, though. You know, I'm glad he made us put that peace bond the way we done. Course, old Clinchell would have honored a hundred-dollar bond same's a big one—to save his neck. But fifty thousand—sho! When he thinks it over, he'll sure be plumb proud!"

Chapter 2

II

Lunmer Andrest, as soon as he was around the bend up the St. Francis, sank his paddle deep in the pale-green Stillwater and drove his sassafras-log canoe swiftly upstream. It was a long, beautiful canoe. The outside and bottom were as smooth as polished oak, and the inside was cut out as accurately and smoothly as it could be planed. There had been a bend in the log that enabled the adz-man and chiseler to give the bow and stern a pointed rise of beautiful shape.

From the head of Lake Nicormy to the foot of Crowley Ridge, at Helena, where the St. Francis empties into the Mississippi, there was not a prettier canoe than Lunmer Andrest's.

"Lunmer jes' natcherly has an eye for pretty tricks!" some one had said.

"No man ever was wuth shucks who run to posies an' red birds an' pretty tricks!" old Clinchell had growled in reply.

"Course some men that's real practical sets store by pretty women," Si Hed Jesnie suggested slyly.

"Sho!" grunted Clinchell angrily, and yet feeling a kind of compliment at that. Old Clinchell did have a hard time trying to keep all kinds of men from bothering his girl, Sue Belle.

A man with an eye for pretty tricks had no business with the daughter of an eminently practical citizen like old Durm Clinchell. If Andrest had only been able to see himself as other people saw him, he would have understood the condition; but he told himself that of all the pretty tricks in the Dark Bend bottoms, Sue Belle Clinchell was the finest. On her side, for reason or whimsy of her own. Sue Belle Clinchell seemed to favor the trapper and fisherman who lived in a little yellow shanty-boat in one of the long, half-moon eddies of the St. Francis River.

Andrest drove his fine canoe up-stream to his home stillwater. As he rounded the last turn on the way, he saw his little yellow house-boat resting under the huge, outswung branches of a monster gum-tree. The leaves of the gum were pale yellow, too. Fat red squirrels were romping in the neighboring trees, and back in the woods young wild gobblers were trying to give weight to their gobbling practise.

High overhead, a flock of wild geese lettered the sky as they flew southward. The tree-tops, the mid-height branches, the shrubs next to the ground, were alive with migrating birds—warblers, wrens, thrushes, and such like. A swarm of robins left a narrow sand-bar with a roar like a tornado, their wings beat the air so swiftly and there were so many thousands of them.

With his eye for beautiful things, Lunmer Andrest lost few details of the scene of his home eddy. He had dropped down Little River out of the back country of New Madrid several years before. He had floated with spring and winter tides till he found the Dark Bend swamps, and they satisfied his need for fish, game, and fur. He could find beauty anywhere, except in the great city country up on the Ohio, from which he had fled.

Now, having run his canoe to the stern of his cabin-boat, he walked the length of the craft, caught the trot-line at the bow, made it fast to a timber-head of the houseboat, and stepped upon the deck. The fact that he could walk fifteen feet along a polished bottom sassafras canoe without upsetting it, without even thinking that he was doing anything unusual, indicated his skill and long practise in such craft.

He stopped on the house-boat deck and looked at the scene for which he had such fond regard—the unspoiled swamp wilderness with its birds and beasts, the river with its limestone green, the sky with its soft radiance.

"If men would only leave a man alone!" Andrest sighed. "I'm peaceable; I mean harm to no one; but they just won't leave a man alone!"

With an angry gesture, he flung open the door of his cabin and entered. The day had been a trying one. He had looked forward to it for sixty hours or so with distaste amounting almost to dread; but old Clinchell had become unbearable, and it had been necessary to bring the questions at issue to a head.

"I got out of it better'n I had any right to expect." Andrest shook his head doubtfully. "I 'lowed I'd sure have to kill him or somebody, but the politicians down to Deerport seemed to understand. They was real reasonable. Like as not they knowed I meant what I said. Perhaps they're tired of old Clinchell's meanness theirselves. I got him under bond, anyhow. Now, if he kills me, there ain't no self-defense or legality to it nohow, and it 'll cost the old scoundrel fifty thousand dollars. He'd just as soon pay two-three thousand dollars in lawyers' fees and court troubles for killin' a man, but fifty thousand's different. I bet it wouldn't be any satisfaction killin' a no-'count shanty-boater if you forfeit fifty thousand dollars. It wouldn't be to me, I know that!"

"Wu-hoo!"

A voice sounded from up the bank. The morose depression vanished from Andrest's countenance. That voice was sweeter than any bird's to his ear, and he knew some lovely singing birds. He sprang to the bow deck and up the bank. His face was alight with smiles. His eyes were shining with happiness.

At the top of the bank he looked the half-circle around, but saw no one. He laughed aloud.

"Hoo-wu!" he replied and then ran out in a half-circle to accept the challenge.

Sure enough, he found tracks, and following these in the soft wood loam he traced their maker into a crevice in a cottonwood-tree that was seven feet in diameter. He went right into the hollow, and immediately there was a shrill squeal.

Backing out, Andrest was followed by a young woman, hardly more than a girl. She looked him fairly in his blue eyes and demanded:

"Well, sir?"

"He's bonded!"

"Then he cayn't kill you!" she exclaimed. "And you didn't get to shoot him?"

"I just got the drop on him, and I took him down to Deerport—"

"And Judge Darkin bonded him?"

"He sure did."

"But he's friendly to daddy!"

"He bonded him," Andrest insisted. "Course the sheriff 'lowed he'd heard old—your daddy say he'd kill me."

"Why didn't he he? He never let on but lie before!" she demanded.

"I asked him did he want to tell me a lady lied. Then he said your daddy 'lowed to get me."

"You—you asked him that?" she demanded, her face blank with surprise. "Sho! And there's folks that 'lowed you—you warn't quite bright!"

Andrest grinned sheepishly.

"I just wanted to know!" she exclaimed. "Good day, sir!"

She turned and fled into the big timber. Unhitching a mule, she mounted and soon disappeared.

Andrest looked after her long after she had been lost to his view in the dark woods. It was friendly of her to come and see him there. She always had been friendly to him. Sometimes he wondered at that—the daughter of a rich old planter, who might have been friendly with any young man in the St. Francis bottoms, where there were young men of the quality kind.

He was under no illusions regarding his position. Clinchell had been bested personally, but the old man would now work his schemes indirectly. Andrest knew that his troubles had but just begun.

Only one sure escape was open to him, and that was flight. He could drop down St. Francis into old Mississip', and there would be slight chance of old Clinchell chasing him farther. That meant abandoning the beautiful forest river, fleeing from the wonderful Dark Bend swamps, and leaving Sue Belle Clinchell for some other young man to get. If he went, she would properly despise him; if he remained, he must fight—fight bushwhacking enemies and bought assailants.

Lunmer Andrest could have cried for vexation—could have shed tears, the evidence of the poetry in his soul. Practical people do not weep, but those who love things of beauty know the welling of tears into their eyes. The sign of emotion is no sign of weakness, however; and if he would have preferred peace, he did not flinch from fighting through lack of courage.

He entered his cabin-boat and cleaned his firearms. He had several, each according to certain needs. He had a little twenty-two-caliber repeater, which served to kill squirrels, rabbits, and similar small game. He had a heavy small-bore rifle, good for wild turkeys, wild geese, deer, and other large swamp game. He had a repeating shotgun which brought down wild fowl in full flight—ducks of many kinds, as well as feather birds. In addition to these was a pair of automatic pistols, which he now cleaned and worked with extra pains.

The side-arms were a sign of the jeopardy of the swamps. Many people could get along without them. Men who minded their own business, who courted no women and troubled no neighbor's hogs, who kept far within the bounds of peace and good nature, need carry no pocket or holster guns. But the moment there was a chance of trouble, only the foolhardy would refrain from packing a pocket-shooter night and day.

Andrest put on his wide belt and slipped the automatics into the holsters. The holsters were hidden by his coat. The weight was troublesome, but that was one of the penalties of being prepared for emergency.

What would old Clinchell do? That was the question uppermost in Andrest's mind. He could think of a good many ways in which an attack might be made, but he could not guess from what direction it was likely to come, and he spent a wakeful and uneasy night.

In the morning he set forth in his skiff to pull his hoop-nets. He had the traps in pools in several river stillwaters, and in two deep-water lakes which he discovered back in the brake. When he had raised the nets, he had more than a hundred pounds of fish. He rowed them up to River Bridge, to ship them in a coffee-bag to a Memphis commission merchant. The station-agent handed him an envelope containing payment for the fish shipped two days before—six dollars and a few cents.

"I hear you met up with old Clinchell?" the agent questioned covertly.

"Oh, yes!" Andrest nodded, smiling. "We 'lowed to go to Deerport. It's all right now."

"You say it is?" The agent looked wonderingly. "No, sir; don't you believe it! Old Clinchell's jes' bound to be mean and trifling. Course he won't do anything hisself; but you watch out, Mr. Man! If I had that old man rearing down on me, you know what I'd do? I'd light out'n this Dark Bend district so quick I'd make dust o' mud; I would indeedy!"

"It's a free country!" said Andrest, but he shook his head as he returned down the embankment to his skiff.

As he rowed down-stream he reckoned up his money. An idea had come into his head. Sue Belle was fond of him, and he wondered if he could persuade her to elope with him. He doubted if she would go with a shanty-boater down the Mississippi to live. She was the daughter of a rich old planter—an only child.