to wrestle round for a living. New Orleans
is pretty bad now, but it was a sight worse then; and St. Louis was a
pretty hard place. Then, too, thar war runaway slaves. So you see, one
way or the other, a fellow who wanted to get together a band up to any
mischief had not to look far for men.

"Well, as I said, thar war two sorts. Thar war the men who lived away
from the river, say in the low country between the Arkansas and the main
stream, which was then pretty nigh all swamp and forest; perhaps they
had hosses, perhaps not, but mostly they had. Well, one fine morning a
dozen of them would ride into one of the villages on the river. Thar
wasn't much to take thar, you know, onless it war fever, and they had
enough of that in thar own swamps. They would wait, may be, for a day or
two, till a boat came in, and as soon as it had made fast they would
cover the men with thar rifles, and just empty it of all it had
got--powder, blankets, groceries, and dry goods, and what not--and make
off again. I got my cargo lifted, I should say, a dozen times that way.
It war onpleasant, but thar was nothing for it; and it warn't no use
making a fuss when you saw half a dozen rifles pinted at you. Why, in
the early days of steamers, more than once they got held up, and the
fellows went through the passengers and cargo and took what they
fancied.

"Well, that was one sort of pirate. The other was what you may call the
regular water pirate. They lived on the islands, in among the
back-waters, or where-ever thar might be a patch of raised ground among
the swamps, and had boats; and they would attack you at night as you war
dropping down the stream or poling up the backs. They war wuss nor the
others. A sight more nor half of 'em war blacks; and good reason why,
for the fevers carried off the whites as joined them before they had
been thar long. They was a powerful bad lot, and those who fell into
thar hands hadn't much chance of thar lives. The runaway slaves war down
on a white man, and he had no marcy to expect at thar hands; besides,
they didn't want no tales told which might scare boats from going near
the places where they war hiding. So in general they fust emptied the
boats, and then scuttled and sunk them, and cut the throats of all on
board. Hundreds of boats war missed in those days, and none ever knew
for sartin what had become of them.

"I tell you one had to keep one's eyes open in those days. We had strong
crews, and every