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Page 47
The Professor was powerless, but lay in Tim's arms biting, kicking, and
curled up like a yellow-jacket interested with an enemy.
"Let him go," said the laughing Doctor. "He will stay with me now. He is
not dangerous when I am about. Set him on his feet."
No sooner was the Professor deposited on the pavement than he dealt Tim
a stinging blow which staggered him, and stood ready with trained
muscles set for defence.
"Look yere, leetle un," said Tim, coolly and with great self-restraint,
"'tain't fer the likes uv me to hit you, bein's you're a bit out in your
top, but I'll gin you another hug ef you do that ag'in; I will,
p'intedly."
In the good humor of the crowd, the mirth of the Doctor, and the
latter's possession of the camera the Professor scented a joke, and at
once saw his friend's hand in it. He joined in the laugh at his expense,
and lengthened his friend's face by saying, "The Doctor having had his
fun, he will now pay the bill at the bar for all of you: he pays all my
expenses: so walk in, gentlemen."
The laws of hospitality west of the Alleghanies do not permit any one to
decline an invitation, so the Doctor settled for the whole procession
and paid Tim Price his well-earned dollar.
"Captain," said Tim to the hotel-proprietor, who had joined the crowd,
"ef two fellers comes here from the East, one uv 'em ez round ez a
punkin an' red ez a flannel shirt an' bald ez a land-tortle, an' t'other
ez brown ez a mud-catty an' poor ez a razor-back hog, tell 'em I'm yere
to pilot 'em up Elk to Colonel Bangem's caliker tents. He said they were
ez green ez frogs, an' didn't know nothin' noway, an' fer me to take
keer uv 'em. He don't reckon they'll come tell to-morrow. One uv 'em's a
hoss-doctor, an' t'other's a perfessor uv religion, Colonel Bangem
telled me. I dunno whether the feller's a circuit-rider er a rale
preacher."
"That's the highly-illuminated pumpkin, my good man," said the
Professor, pointing to the Doctor, "and I am Colonel Bangem's spiritual
adviser. We got here a day sooner than we expected to."
"You don't say? May I never! An' the colonel never telled me nothin'
nohow 'bout any one uv you bein' crazy. Howdee? How do you like these
parts? Right smart town we've got yere, hain't it? I'll take keer uv
you. There hain't no man on Elk River kin take keer uv you better nor
Tim Price, ary time. I hain't much up to moon men, though. Thar's one
feller up my way thet gits kinder skeery at the full uv the moon; but I
hain't never tended him. I reckon I kin l'arn the job,--ez the ole boy
said when his marm set him to mindin' fleas off the cat."
Tim Price was the hunter, boatman, fisherman, yarn-spinner, and
character of his region, and Colonel Bangem's faithful ally in all his
sports: the latter had therefore sent him to meet his friends on their
arrival at Charleston, and he at once proceeded to take command of the
whole party as a matter of course.
"I footed it over the mountains, and sent my boat the river way. Hit
oughter be yere now: so we'll pack you men's tricks to the boats an'
p'int 'em up-stream. It 'ill be sundown afore we git thar."
The party started from the hotel, the procession followed to see them
off, and they were soon down the Kanawha and into the mouth of Elk at
the point of the town. Log rafts, huge barges, miles of railroad-ties,
laid-up steamers, peddling-boats, with their highly-colored storehouses,
fishermen's scows, floating homely cabins alive with bare-legged
children and idlers of the water-side, push-boats loaded to the edge of
the narrow gunwales with merchandise for delivery to stores and dwellers
far up the river, boats loaded with hoop-poles, grist, chickens, and the
"home-plunder" of some mover to civilization, coming down the river from
the mountain-clearing, and samples of every conceivable kind of the
river's outpour, were tied to the banks or lazily floating on the
currentless back-water from the Kanawha.
An old steamboat-captain once said of Elk that "it was the all-firedest
river God ever made,--fer it rises at both ends and runs both ways to
wunst." This is true, and is caused by the Kanawha, when rising, pouring
its water into the mouth of Elk and reversing its current for many
miles, while at the same time rain falls in the mountains, increasing
the latter river's depth and velocity. Flour-mills, iron-foundries,
saw-mills, woollen-mills, and barrel-factories extend their long wooden
slides down to the river's edge, to gather material for their
consumption. A railroad spans it with an iron trussed bridge, and the
demands of wagon and foot-travel are met by an airy one suspended by
cables from tower-like abutments on either side, both bridges swung high
in the air, out of reach of flood and of the smoke-stacks of passing
steam-craft.
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