George at the Wheel

"I didn't recognise you when I first saw you," said the clerk, "but I knew you as soon as you spoke about that pocket-book. Most fellows would have taken the reward I offered you, and got themselves into trouble by it. I didn't know you were a cub. You were not attached to the Quitman, were you?"

"No; but I made a bargain with Mr. Black during the trip, and I have been with him ever since," replied George.

"Have a weed?" asked Murray, producing his cigar-case.

"I am obliged to you, but I don't smoke."

"You don't use tobacco or liquor in any form, do you?"

George replied that he never had and never would.

"I wish from the bottom of my heart that I could say the same thing," said Murray. "I am a total abstainer now so far as liquor is concerned, but tobacco gets me. It would be useless for me to make any pretensions to goodness in your presence, for you know more about my habits than I wish you did. You saw the company I kept on board the Quitman; and I don't mind telling you, confidentially, that I came pretty near getting myself into a row by it. If I could only keep away from the bar, I should soon be better off in the world than I am now."

"Then, why don't you do it?" asked George.

"Ah! That's just it. Why don't I? How shall I go to work?"

"Begin by throwing away that cigar," said George promptly.

"There she goes!" exclaimed Murray; and as he spoke, the cigar left his hand and went over into the barge among the coal.

"Now," continued George, "say that you will never go near the bar again, and stick to it. That's all there is of it."

"Yes; it's a very easy thing to say, but it's an almost impossible thing to do. You don't know how hard it is for a fellow who is bound down by the chains of habit, to keep a resolution like that. Why, bless you, I have made it a thousand times and broken it as often. I took my last pledge three months ago, and up to this time I have kept it; but I may go back on it before I am an hour older. If some old friend should come along and say: 'Murray, have something?' I'd go with him without thinking. It is a sort of second nature to me. I wish I could be thrown more into the society of such fellows as you are, and less into the company of rivermen. Nine out of ten of them spend their money as fast as they make it, and that's what keeps them on the river."

George leaned his elbows on the railing, rested his chin on his hands, and looked down at the men who were at work in the barge, but made no reply. The longer he listened to Mr. Murray, the less he liked him.

"Now, you can do me a great favor, if you will," continued the clerk, "one that I shall always remember, although I shall never be able to repay it. I wish you would stay by me as much as you can while you are off duty. Make the office your headquarters. Come in at any hour of the day or night – I shall not always be at work, you know – and if you hear anybody invite me to take a short walk with him, just tip me the wink. That will put me in mind of my pledge and help me to decline the invitation."

"But will you decline?" asked George. "Won't you go, anyhow?"

"Of course I'll not go; I'll decline every time. All I want is somebody close at my elbow to keep my pledge constantly in mind. If you will do that for me during this trip, I am sure that by the time it is ended I shall have fallen into the habit of saying 'No,' and then I shall be all right. To tell you the truth, there's a good deal depending upon your answer," added Murray, who thought by the expression on George's face that he did not much like the part he was expected to perform. "My bad habits have lost several very fine positions for me, and if I don't break them off, I shall lose this and every other one I get. But I have tried it often enough to know that I can't abandon them without help. What do you say?"

"I say that I will do anything I can to help you," was George's answer.

"Thank you!" exclaimed Murray. George's reply argued well for the success of certain plans upon which he had determined, and he could scarcely conceal his exultation. "By the way," he added, "are you on speaking terms with Mr. Richardson?"

"I am quite intimate with Tony, who steered this boat up here for me to-day, but I am not much acquainted with his father, although I have visited at his house by Tony's invitation."

"Well, you'll not say a word to him, or anybody else, about what happened on board the Quitman?" said Murray.

"Not a word."

"All right. I am done with tobacco, liquor and cards for ever," said the clerk, with great determination "I'll rub it all out, and begin over again; turn over a new leaf, and see if I can't make a clean record for myself."

The two sat there on the guards for a long time talking in this way, Mr. Murray apparently being very communicative and confidential, while George was exactly the reverse, and finally they bade each other good-night and separated to their rooms.

"The plan works very well so far," thought Murray, as he locked the door of the office behind him, and sat down to take another smoke. "Ackerman is rather suspicious of me, and I shall have hard work to gain his confidence. I am afraid that the greatest trouble will be to get him in the habit of loafing about the office. If I can do that, I'll see that he puts his foot into a very pretty trap. He got me into this scrape, and he must help me out."

"He doesn't seem to be a bad fellow at heart," thought George, as he tumbled into his bunk in Texas; "but I must say that he's mighty palavering, and that his face is almost too red and bloated for that of a man who has stuck to the pledge for three consecutive months, as he claims to have done. I hope he is in earnest in his desire to reform, and if I can help him by giving him a wink now and then, I shall be perfectly willing to do it."

It was not long after that before the officers of the boat began to tell one another that the chief clerk and Mr. Black's cub had taken a wonderful liking for each other. George was in the office almost all the time, and when the Telegraph left the coal-fleet on Monday morning, and went back to the city, Murray steered her down for him. As soon as she was made fast alongside the wharf-boat, George went ashore to make a few purchases, and when he came back, he found the clerk full of news.

"Ackerman," said he, as the young pilot entered the office and threw down a copy of a morning paper, which Murray had requested him to buy for him, "I am sorry to say that Tony Richardson has steered the Telegraph for you for the last time."

"Why, what do you mean?" exclaimed George. "Has he – has any misfortune befallen him?"

He was about to ask if Tony had run away, but checked himself just in time.

"I mean just what I say," answered Murray. "On Saturday morning the Armada took one of Vandegriff's barges down the river so that she could coal up while she was under way, and Tony went in charge of the barge to check the coal and bring back the money. The tug that Vandegriff sent down the river found the barge and brought it back yesterday morning, but there was no Tony with her."

"Yes, sir; he's run away," thought George, climbing upon the high stool and staring blankly at the clerk.

"I don't wonder that you are astonished," continued Murray. "So is everybody. Poor Tony is at the bottom of the river, beyond a doubt, but he gave a good account of himself before he went there, for both the mokes came back with broken heads."

"Great goodness!" exclaimed George, almost tumbling off the high stool in his excitement. "Then he didn't – do you mean to say that the negroes threw him overboard?'

"Certainly; they are in jail for it now; but the money can't be found. They acknowledge that they made an effort to rob Tony, but declare that they didn't hurt him at all. They say that he jumped into the skiff that was towing alongside the barge, and got away with the money; they couldn't swim a stroke, and therefore they were obliged to stay with the barge until the tug took them off. The general impression seems to be that they knocked Tony down with a chunk of coal and robbed him, and that he died from the effects of the blow. Becoming frightened at what they had done, they threw the body overboard, hid the money, and made up this story to lessen their punishment."

"If they did that, they didn't show much sense in staying with the barge," said George, as soon as he could speak. "Why didn't they get into the skiff and go ashore?"

"I can account for that only on the supposition that the skiff was lost while the Armada was towing the barge down the river," answered Murray. "If Tony ran off with it, as the darkies say he did where is he? If he had rode up the river, he would have met the tug, and if he had tied up to the bank, he would have seen her when she passed him. When the captain of the tug saw the negroes' heads and listened to their story, he was so certain that they had killed Tony, that he tied them hard and fast, and never wasted a minute in looking for the boy, although he kept up a constant whistling, which Tony would certainly have heard if he had been able to hear anything."

George was so deeply affected by this gloomy news that he could not eat any dinner. He visited the tug, which lay at a little distance down the levee, sought an interview with her captain, and after telling him that he was Tony's friend, questioned him closely in regard to his disappearance, but without learning anything more than Murray had already told him.

"It's my opinion," said he, as he walked slowly back to his boat, "that we shall hear more of this matter some day. If the money wasn't gone, I should feel certain that Tony had cleared out; but somehow I can't bring myself to believe that he would steal funds to help him along. I don't think he's that sort."

The missing boy was constantly in George's mind during the next few days. He and Murray talked about little besides the mystery attending his disappearance, and meanwhile their intimacy increased to such a degree that the officers of the boat began to speak of them as the "twins." Murray never lost sight of the object he had in view in working his way into the young pilot's good graces, and circumstances seemed to conspire to help him. He took particular pains to have it known among the officers that he had "sworn off" on everything that was bad, and that George was the one who had induced him to do it. As a consequence the invitations to visit the bar that he received were numerous and frequent. They were given principally in George's presence, but he was never obliged to tip Murray the wink, for the latter seemed to be always on his guard. This made George believe that he had wronged the clerk by thinking that his desire to reform was not sincere, and the result was that he gave him his entire confidence, and put implicit faith in everything he said. He spent almost all his time when off duty in the office, and whenever Murray could snatch a quarter of an hour from his work, he was always to be found in the pilot-house.

The Telegraph reached her journey's end in due time, her freight was discharged in good condition, her heavy bills were paid, and the money deposited in the safe, of which Mr. Murray carried the key. In a few days she was steaming back up the river, with a large passenger list and a lot of other freight stowed away on the main deck and in the hold. Now the chief clerk began to show signs of nervousness and excitement. Every turn of the paddle-wheels brought him nearer to St. Louis, and to the creditors whom he would have to face when he got there. His situation being a desperate one, he had determined upon desperate measures to get him out of it. If his plans failed, he was doomed.

"You say I look worried," remarked Murray, one day, when he and George and Walker, the second clerk, were alone in the office; "and so would you, Ackerman, if you had my responsibility resting on your shoulders. I don't mind telling you in Walker's presence, because it is all in the family, that there is money enough in this safe under my desk to start us all on the road to fortune."

"Who – whoop!" shouted the pilot through the trumpet. "Anything for Columbia?"

"Yes!" yelled Murray. "Walker, go out and warn the passengers who are to get off there, and I'll see to the freight."

Walker left the office, and Murray took possession of the stool he had just vacated.

"I shouldn't think you would like to have so much money in your charge," said George.

"Well, we do sometimes deposit it in the bank and take a check on St. Louis for it. That's the better plan, but I was too busy to do it, and besides I didn't know just how much I might want to use during the trip. Another thing, I never heard of money being stolen from the office of a steamboat. I don't suppose you could open the safe if I should give you the key, could you?"

"I am sure I couldn't," answered George. "I don't know the combination."

"I'll give it to you," said Murray.

"That wouldn't be right, would it?" asked George, doubtfully. "Suppose the safe should be robbed, and folks knew that I was acquainted with the combination. What would they think about it?"