It was well for us that the Colonel and Monsieur Gratiot took the escapade with such good nature.  And so we walked along through the summer night, talking gayly, until at length the lights of the village twinkled ahead of us, and in the streets we met many parties making merry on their homeward way.  We came to Monsieur Gratiot’s, bade our farewells to Madame, picked up our saddle-bags, the two gentlemen escorting us down to the river bank where the keel boat was tugging at the ropes that held her, impatient to be off.  Her captain, a picturesque Canadian by the name of Xavier Paret, was presented to us; we bade our friends farewell, and stepped across the plank to the deck.  As we were casting off, Monsieur Gratiot called to us that he would take the first occasion to send our horses back to Kentucky.  The oars were manned, the heavy hulk moved, and we were shot out into the mighty current of the river on our way to New Orleans.

Nick and I stood for a long time on the deck, and the windows of the little village gleamed like stars among the trees.  We passed the last of its houses that nestled against the hill, and below that the forest lay like velvet under the moon.  The song of our boatmen broke the silence of the night:—­

       “Voici le temps et la saison,
        Voici le temps et la saison,
        Ah! vrai, que les journees sont longues,
        Ah! vrai, que les journees sont longues!”

CHAPTER X

THE KEEL BOAT

We were embarked on a strange river, in a strange boat, and bound for a strange city.  To us Westerners a halo of romance, of unreality, hung over New Orleans.  To us it had an Old World, almost Oriental flavor of mystery and luxury and pleasure, and we imagined it swathed in the moisture of the Delta, built of quaint houses, with courts of shining orange trees and magnolias, and surrounded by flowering plantations of unimagined beauty.  It was most fitting that such a place should be the seat of dark intrigues against material progress, and this notion lent added zest to my errand thither.  As for Nick, it took no great sagacity on my part to predict that he would forget Suzanne and begin to look forward to the Creole beauties of the Mysterious City.

First, there was the fur-laden keel boat in which we travelled, gone forever now from Western navigation.  It had its rude square sail to take advantage of the river winds, its mast strongly braced to hold the long tow-ropes.  But tow-ropes were for the endless up-river journey, when a numerous crew strained day after day along the bank, chanting the voyageurs’ songs.  Now we were light-manned, two half-breeds and two Canadians to handle the oars in time of peril, and Captain Xavier, who stood aft on the cabin roof, leaning against the heavy beam of the long, curved tiller, watching hawklike for snag and eddy and bar.  Within the cabin was a great fireplace of stones, where our cooking was done, and bunks set round for the men in cold weather and rainy.  But in these fair nights we chose to sleep on deck.