The Mystery on the Mississippi

directed them. “Your cabins are down this corridor. The girls are here, and this four-bunk room is for the boys. Officers’ quarters are on either side of you. I hope the new cook and her husband don’t snore, for they’re right next to you girls.”
    Trixie stood at the door of the stateroom, amazed at its snowy whiteness and comfort. “It’s super! See, Honey, isn’t it perfectly perfect?”
    “There’s a lounge around the corner,” the maid continued, “and there are magazines there.”
    “Thanks again, but, jeepers, we want to go out on deck and watch the river!” Trixie and Honey lifted their bag to the bunk. “We’ll just get out of your way,” Trixie told the maid.
    The wide river stretched all around them. It swarmed with craft of every description—speedboats on their way to Alton Dam; rowboats; and puffing, protesting tugs. Across the river lay Illinois and busy East St. Louis. Ahead of them, as the tow assembled length after length of grain barges, the deckhands swarmed. They were checking and tying and carrying rope lines, wire, and steel chains.
    The visitors watched, wide-eyed. “It’s delirious!” Trixie called. “All this running around, all that loading machinery at the dock, all those deckhands out there swarming like ants....”
    “All the loads they carry—heavy ropes and chains! There’s a kid out there no older than I toting a ton of chain. I saw him on shore before we came out here. His name is Paul. Look at him!” Mart leaned over the rail to watch a curly-haired, deeply tanned boy lower his load. He looked up, grinned, and waved his hand in salute.
    “His uncle is a pilot. Paul wants to be a towboat pilot, too.”
    “It didn’t take you long to get his life history. I didn’t even see you talking to him,” Trixie said.
    “You were too busy stalking that Frenchman. Paul’s been working on this boat for over a year. He said he nearly died at first, because the work was so hard. His uncle got his start as a roustabout on the levee, then worked as a deckhand, and years later got his license. That’s what Paul wants most in all the world. Come to think of it, I may want to be a river pilot myself one of these days, instead of a farmer.” Mart sighed blissfully. “All this commotion! All this excitement!”
    “All that hard work!” Brian added. “You can hear those men groan, even above the noise of the diesel engines. It takes muscle and sweat to clamp steel cables to timberheads and lock the barges together. Look at them turning those ratchets. Boy! They have to chain them so close you can’t get a dime in the crevices.”
    “That’s so they won’t break loose. They leave a cable they call a ‘stern line’ running from each side of the after barges back to the boat,” Mart said learnedly. “It holds the barges in line; it keeps them from spreading out like a fan when they have to back up.”
    “Heavens, Mart, did you learn all that from Paul?”
    “Partly. That kid knows everything there is to know about the river, Trix. I asked some other men, too, while we were waiting on the levee. The only way you can find out anything is to ask.”
    “I thought Trixie was our official interviewer,” Jim said.
    “I just pick other people’s brains and take credit for being smart,” Trixie said. “I don’t know what I’d ever do without any one of the Bob-Whites to help me out.”
    Mart put his hand on his hip and spun around with dancing steps.

    “Oh, I am the cook and the captain bold
    An’ the mate of the Nancy brig,
    An’ a bo’sun tight, and a midshipmite,
    An’ the crew of the captain’s gig.”

    The other Bob-Whites joined Mart in a sailor’s hornpipe. The maid rested her dust mop and stood openmouthed. Down below, on the gunwales, the hands, sweating and straining, heard the singing and looked up, grinning. The beat of the powerful twin-screw diesel engines seemed to accent the rhythm.
    “Cheese it!” Mart shouted suddenly. “Here comes Captain Martin. He’ll think we’ve lost our marbles. The boat must be about to take off. Paul and the other hands down there are standing ready to hitch the tow to the front of the Catfish Princess. Golly, look at the acres of barges up ahead!”
    The captain waved to the Bob-Whites, then went up a few steps into the pilothouse. There he talked with the pilot on duty and took his seat at the controls. Accurately, slowly, he eased the big boat till its snub nose touched the rear of the long chain of