The Screechers put on more wood, and place more weight on the safety-valve; she bounds ahead.  Slowly, but surely, the “Burster” draws nearer.  The captain of the “Screecher” looks wistfully at the fires, for the boilers are well-nigh worn out.  The “Burster” is almost abreast.  The enraged Kentuckians gather round the captain, and, in fury, ask—­“Why don’t you put more weight on?”

CAPTAIN—­“Boilers are done; can’t bear it nohow.”

KENTUCKIANS—­“Can’t bear it?  You chicken-hearted coward—­”

Knives are drawn, pistols click, a hundred voices exclaim, “Get on it yourself, or I’ll bury this knife below your outer skin.”  Their eyes gleam—­their hands are raised for the deadly blow.  Wild boys, these Kentuckians; the captain knows it too well.  A choice of deaths is before him; excitement decides—­he mounts the breach.  The “Screecher” shoots through the waters, quivering from head to stern.  The Kentucky boys yell with delight and defiance.  Again the “Burster” closes on her rival.  Kentuckians brandish their knives, and call to the negroes, who are already half-roasted, “Pile on the wood; pile like agony; I’ll ram a nigger into the fire for every foot the ‘Burster’ gains.”  Soon a cry of exultation is heard on board the “Burster,” as she shoots up close to her rival.  The enraged Kentuckians shout out, “Oil, I swear!—­oil, by all creation!” “I smell it!” exclaims the old lady with the store of bacon.  Her eyes flash fire; a few words to her slaves Pompey and Caesar, and casks of bacon, smashed quick as thought, lay before the furnace.  In it all goes; the “Screecher” is wild; the captain bounds up and down like a parched pea on a filing-pan; once more she flies ahead of her rival “like a streak of greased lightning.”  Suddenly—­horror of horrors!—­the river throbs beneath; the forest trees quake like aspen leaves; the voice of many thunders rends the air; clouds of splinters and human limbs darken the sky.  The “Burster” is blown to atoms!  The captain jumps down, and joins the wild Kentucky boys in a yell of victory, through the bass notes of which may be heard the shrill voice of the old lady, crying, “I did it, I did it—­it’s all my bacon!”

The struggle over, and the excitement passed, they return and pick up such portions of the human frame as may be found worth preserving.—­To resume.

Our captain was overtaken by a telegraphic message, requiring his appearance on a certain day to answer a charge of libel.  From what I could glean, it seems that the captain, considering himself cheated by a person with whom he had been transacting business, took the liberty of saying to him, “Well, you’re a darned infernal rascal, fix it anyhow you will!” The insulted person sued for 2500 dollars damages, and the captain was obliged to leave us, that he might go and defend his cause.  He was a good type of a “hard-a-weather-bird,” and I was sorry to see him obliged to quit the ship.  I told him so, adding, that if he deserted us, we should be sure to get snagged, or something worse.  He replied,—­“Oh, no, sir; I guess you’ll be safe enough; I shall leave my clerk in charge; he’s been a captain of these boats; you’ll be right enough, sir.”  And away he went ashore at Memphis, leaving us to continue our course to New Orleans.