If you can furnish me with a light, I'll start this pipe of mine going." I watched the weather-beaten face of the old riverman, as he puffed away in evident satisfaction.

I had chanced to meet him only twice before, yet he was a well-known character between St.Louis and Prairie du Chien; rough enough to be sure, from the very nature of his calling, but generous and straightforward.
"Evidently all of your passengers are not miners, Captain," I ventured, for want of something better to say.

"Those two standing there at the stern, for instance." He turned and looked, shading his eyes, the smoking pipe in one hand.
"No," he said, "that big man is Judge Beaucaire, from Missouri.

He has a plantation just above St.Louis, an old French grant.

He went up with me about a month ago---my first trip this season--to look after some investment on the Fevre, which I judge hasn't turned out very well, and has been waiting to go back with me.