University of Virginia Library

17. CHAPTER XVII.

NOBODY dressed more like an engineer than Mr. Henry
Brierly. The completeness of his appointments was the
envy of the corps, and the gay fellow himself was the admiration
of the camp servants, axemen, teamsters and cooks.

“I reckon you didn't git them boots no wher's this side o'
Sent Louis?” queried the tall Missouri youth who acted as
commissariy's assistant.

“No, New York.”

“Yas, I've heern o' New York,” continued the butternut
lad, attentively studying each item of Harry's dress, and endeavoring
to cover his design with interesting conversation.
“'N there's Massachusetts.”

“It's not far off.”

“I've heern Massachusetts was a —— of a place. Les'
see, what state's Massachusetts in?”

“Massachusetts,” kindly replied Harry, “is in the state of
Boston.”

“Abolish'n wan't it? They must a cost right smart,” referring
to the boots.

Harry shouldered his rod and went to the field, tramped
over the prairie by day, and figured up results at night, with

the utmost cheerfulness and industry, and plotted the line on the
profile paper, without, however, the least idea of engineering
practical or theoretical. Perhaps there was not a great deal
of scientific knowledge in the entire corps, nor was very much
needed. They were making what is called a preliminary
survey, and the chief object of a preliminary survey was to
get up an excitement about the road, to interest every town
in that part of the state in it, under the belief that the road
would run through it, and to get the aid of every planter
upon the prospect that a station would be on his land.

Mr. Jeff Thompson was the most popular engineer who
could be found for this work. He did not bother himself
much about details or practicabilities of location, but ran
merrily along, sighting from the top of one divide to the top
of another, and striking “plumb” every town site and big
plantation within twenty or thirty miles of his route. In his
own language he “just went booming.”

This course gave Harry an opportunity, as he said, to learn
the practical details of engineering, and it gave Philip a chance
to see the country, and to judge for himself what prospect of
a fortune it offered. Both he and Harry got the “refusal”
of more than one plantation as they went along, and wrote
urgent letters to their eastern correspondents, upon the
beauty of the land and the certainty that it would quadruple
in value as soon as the road was finally located. It seemed
strange to them that capitalists did not flock out there and
secure this land.

They had not been in the field over two weeks when Harry
wrote to his friend Col. Sellers that he'd better be on the
move, for the line was certain to go to Stone's Landing. Any
one who looked at the line on the map, as it was laid down
from day to day, would have been uncertain which way it
was going; but Jeff had declared that in his judgment the
only practicable route from the point they then stood on was
to follow the divide to Stone's Landing, and it was generally
understood that that town would be the next one hit.

[ILLUSTRATION]

BOUND FOR STONE'S LANDING.

[Description: 499EAF. Page 161. In-line image of a group of men in a hot-air balloon, floating over the sea.]

“We'll make it, boys,” said the chief, “if we have to go
in a balloon.”

And make it they did. In less than a week, this indomitable
engineer had carried his moving caravan over slues and
branches, across bottoms and along divides, and pitched his
tents in the very heart of the city of Stone's Landing.

“Well, I'll be dashed,” was heard the cheery voice of Mr.
Thompson, as he stepped outside the tent door at sunrise
next morning. “If this don't get me. I say, you, Grayson,
get out your sighting iron and see if you can find old Sellers'
town. Blame me if we wouldn't have run plumb by it if
twilight had held on a little longer. Oh! Sterling, Brierly, get
up and see the city. There's a steamboat just coming round
the bend.” And Jeff roared with laughter. “The may or'll
be round here to breakfast.”

The fellows turned out of the tents, rubbing their eyes,
and stared about them. They were camped on the second
bench of the narrow bottom of a crooked, sluggish stream,
that was some five rods wide in the present good stage of
water. Before them were a dozen log cabins, with stick and

mud chimneys, irregularly disposed on either side of a not
very well defined road, which did not seem to know its own
mind exactly, and, after straggling through the town, wandered
off over the rolling prairie in an uncertain way, as if it
had started for nowhere and was quite likely to reach its
destination. Just as it left the town, however, it was cheered
and assisted by a guide-board, upon which was the legend
“10 Mils to Hawkeye.”

The road had never been made except by the travel over
it, and at this season—the rainy June—it was a way of ruts
cut in the black soil, and of fathomless mud-holes. In the
principal street of the city, it had received more attention;
for hogs, great and small, rooted about in it and wallowed in
it, turning the street into a liquid quagmire which could only
be crossed on pieces of plank thrown here and there.

About the chief cabin, which was the store and grocery of
this mart of trade, the mud was more liquid than elsewhere,
and the rude platform in front of it and the dry-goods boxes
mounted thereon were places of refuge for all the loafers of
the place. Down by the stream was a dilapidated building
which served for a hemp warehouse, and a shaky wharf extended
out from it into the water. In fact a flat-boat was
there moored by it, it's setting poles lying across the gunwales.
Above the town the stream was crossed by a crazy
wooden bridge, the supports of which leaned all ways in the
soggy soil; the absence of a plank here and there in the flooring
made the crossing of the bridge faster than a walk an
offense not necessary to be prohibited by law.

“This, gentlemen,” said Jeff, “is Columbus River, alias
Goose Run. If it was widened, and deepened, and straightened,
and made long enough, it would be one of the finest
rivers in the western country.”

As the sun rose and sent his level beams along the stream,
the thin stratum of mist, or malaria, rose also and dispersed,
but the light was not able to enliven the dull water nor give
any hint of its apparently fathomless depth. Venerable

[ILLUSTRATION]

STONE'S LANDING.

[Description: 499EAF. Illustration of a landscape including a small town with horse posts, and a couple of stores inside of the fence around the city.] [ILLUSTRATION]

WAITING FOR A RAILROAD.

[Description: 499EAF. Page 163. In-line image of a turtle on a log which is coming out of the river water.] mud-turtles crawled up and roosted upon the old logs in the
stream, their backs glistening in the sun, the first inhabitants
of the metropolis to begin the active business of the day.

It was not long, however, before smoke began to issue
from the city chimnies; and before the engineers had finished
their breakfast they were the object of the curious inspection
of six or eight boys and men, who lounged into the
camp and gazed about them with languid interest, their hands
in their pockets every one.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” called out the chief engineer,
from the table.

“Good mawning,” drawled out the spokesman of the party.
“I allow thish-yers the railroad, I heern it was a-comin'.”

“Yes, this is the railroad, all but the rails and the iron-horse.”

“I reckon you kin git all the rails you want outen my
white oak timber over thar,” replied the first speaker, who
appeared to be a man of property and willing to strike up a
trade.

“You'll have to negotiate with the contractors about the
rails, sir,” said Jeff; “here's Mr. Brierly, I've no doubt
would like to buy your rails when the time comes.”

“O,” said the man, “I thought maybe you'd fetch the

whole bilin along with you. But if you want rails, I've got
em, haint I Eph.”

“Heaps,” said Eph, without taking his eyes off the group
at the table.

“Well,” said Mr. Thompson, rising from his seat and moving
towards his tent, “the railroad has come to Stone's Landing,
sure; I move we take a drink on it all round.”

The proposal met with universal favor. Jeff gave prosperity
to Stone's Landing and navigation to Goose Run, and
the toast was washed down with gusto, in the simple fluid of
corn, and with the return compliment that a rail road was a
good thing, and that Jeff Thompson was no slouch.

About ten o'clock a horse and wagon was descried making
a slow approach to the camp over the prairie. As it drew
near, the wagon was seen to contain a portly gentleman, who
hitched impatiently forward on his seat, shook the reins and
gently touched up his horse, in the vain attempt to communicate
his own energy to that dull beast, and looked eagerly at
the tents. When the conveyance at length drew up to Mr.
Thompson's door, the gentleman descended with great deliberation,
straightened himself up, rubbed his hands, and beaming
satisfaction from every part of his radiant frame, advanced
to the group that was gathered to welcome him, and which
had saluted him by name as soon as he came within hearing.

“Welcome to Napoleon, gentlemen, welcome. I am proud
to see you here Mr. Thompson. You are looking well Mr.
Sterling. This is the country, sir. Right glad to see you
Mr. Brierly. You got that basket of champagne? No?
Those blasted river thieves! I'll never send anything more
by 'em. The best brand, Roederer. The last I had in my
cellar, from a lot sent me by Sir George Gore—took him out
on a buffalo hunt, when he visited our country. Is always
sending me some trifle. You haven't looked about any yet,
gentlemen? It's in the rough yet, in the rough. Those
buildings will all have to come down. That's the place for
the public square, Court House, hotels, churches, jail—all

[ILLUSTRATION]

"IT AIN'T THERE."

[Description: 499EAF. Page 165. In-line image of four men standing next to a wagon, and looking underneath the cloth which covers the back of the wagon.] that sort of thing. About where we stand, the deepo. How
does that strike your engineering eye, Mr. Thompson? Down
yonder the business streets, running to the wharves. The
University up there, on rising ground, sightly place, see the
river for miles. That's Columbus river, only forty-nine miles
to the Missouri. You see what it is, placid, steady, no current
to interfere with navigation, wants widening in places
and dredging, dredge out the harbor and raise a levee in front
of the town; made by nature on purpose for a mart. Look
at all this country, not another building within ten miles, no
other navigable stream, lay of the land points right here;
hemp, tobacco, corn, must come here. The railroad will do
it, Napoleon won't know itself in a year.”

“Don't now evidently,” said Philip aside to Harry. “Have
you breakfasted Colonel?”

“Hastily. Cup of coffee. Can't trust any coffee I don't import
myself. But I put up a basket of provisions, wife would
put in a few delicacies, women always will, and a half dozen

of that Burgundy, I was telling you of Mr. Brierly. By the
way, you never got to dine with me.” And the Colonel strode
away to the wagon and looked under the seat for the basket.

Apparently it was not there. For the Colonel raised up
the flap, looked in front and behind, and then exclaimed,

“Confound it. That comes of not doing a thing yourself.
I trusted to the women folks to set that basket in the wagon,
and it ain't there.”

The camp cook speedily prepared a savory breakfast for
the Colonel, broiled chicken, eggs, corn-bread, and coffee, to
which he did ample justice, and topped off with a drop of
Old Bourbon, from Mr. Thompson's private store, a brand
which he said he knew well, he should think it came from his
own side-board.

While the engineer corps went to the field, to run back a
couple of miles and ascertain, approximately, if a road could
ever get down to the Landing, and to sight ahead across the
Run, and see if it could ever get out again, Col. Sellers and
Harry sat down and began to roughly map out the city of
Napoleon on a large piece of drawing paper.

“I've got the refusal of a mile square here,” said the Colonel,
“in our names, for a year, with a quarter interest
reserved for the four owners.”

They laid out the town liberally, not lacking room, leaving
space for the railroad to come in, and for the river as it was
to be when improved.

The engineers reported that the railroad could come in, by
taking a little sweep and crossing the stream on a high bridge,
but the grades would be steep. Col. Sellers said he didn't
care so much about the grades, if the road could only be made
to reach the elevators on the river. The next day Mr.
Thompson made a hasty survey of the stream for a mile or
two, so that the Colonel and Harry were enabled to show on
their map how nobly that would accommodate the city. Jeff
took a little writing from the Colonel and Harry for a prospective
share. but Philip declined to join in, saying that he

had no money, and didn't want to make engagements she
couldn't fulfill.

The next morning the camp moved on, followed till it was
out of sight by the listless eyes of the group in front of the
store, one of whom remarked that, “he'd be doggoned if he
ever expected to see that railroad any mo'.”

Harry went with the Colonel to Hawkeye to complete
their arrangements, a part of which was the preparation of
a petition to congress for the improvement of the navigation
of Columbus River.