Читать книгу With Sam Houston in Texas онлайн

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But it did not look as though they were to get much farther, by steamboat!

“By gracious!” fidgeted the lieutenant, mopping his brow under his stiff-visored forage-cap. “This is bad, to be held up so, when we’re almost there. I could better have gone overland from Smith. How far is it to Gibson now, captain?”

The captain was tired and hot and cross.

“Less’n fifty miles by land, if you know the trail. Those who are in a tearing hurry can get out and walk. I’d no business trying this end of the river. I told all you fellows I probably couldn’t make it. Little Rock is as high as a boat should go, after July; and here we are, 300 miles beyond. Pretty soon we’ll be navigating in dew.” And the captain stalked indignantly away.

Not a breath of air was stirring. The sun shone hotly down from the clear sky, and was reflected, almost as hotly, from the glassy surface of the smoothly flowing river. On the right hand, up stream, a gently rolling prairie of high grass, dotted with clumps of trees, sloped to the water’s edge; on the left hand, which was the nearer of the two shores, yellow banks had been cut and rose ten feet and more until crowned by brush and trees. Both shores looked deserted, although it was said that the Choctaw and Cherokee Indians, who had been removed from east of the Mississippi, inhabited the country.