“Back her up,” the pilot’s bell would sound as he tried to round one of the countless points or bends. But it was impossible to back the heavy boat against the current. The engineers could not even stop her. The best they could do was to check her speed and let her drift flanking around the wooded points, where trees and boughs raked her whole length, tearing down stanchions, guards, and gingerbread work with a deafening crash.
At other times, she would plunge straight into the timber, bending the smaller willows and other brush like so many reeds and tearing good-sized trees by the roots out of the soft mud, but before she could be again gotten into clear water, a big cottonwood bough had torn away another joint of her chimneys and smashed another part of her pilot-house.
But all this time, Colonel Lantry, who had been in supreme command ever since the boat had left Fort Snelling, stood on deck with the captain, or at the wheel with the pilots.
“Keep her going, keep her going! Keep your wheel turning!” were the only orders he gave to captain or pilot as he dodged trees and falling timbers.
“We must get to Washington, before the Rebels get there!”
“We’ll never get there,” vowed an old artilleryman who had been through the Mexican war with this same battery. “This is worse than a battle. We’ll never get there. We’ll be swimming around with the muskrats and roosting on the drift-wood and haystacks with them.
“I’d rather be in a battle where I can use my piece, than sail through the timber in this blooming tub on this beastly twisted river!”
Toward evening the steamer again crashed into the timber and a willow tree, springing back as the side of the boat had passed it, tore away several planks or buckets from the wheel.
“Boys, it’s for the rat-houses now,” called out the old gunner as the boat stopped with a crash.
But Colonel Lantry coolly repeated his usual: “Keep her going, Captain; keep her going! The Government will build you a new boat!” However, with a broken wheel she could not keep going.
“Take the anchor over to the other shore,” Captain Faucette ordered three men. “Then pass the line around the capstan and we’ll pull her back into open water. Well tie up here for the night and repair the wheel.”