We found that we were upon a little island, between two shallow arms

of the stream. The camp of the pearl fisher lay at the lower end; and

never have I seen or smelled so foul a place for human habitation. The

one large tent served as shelter, and a rude awning sheltered the

ruder table in the open air. But directly about the tent, and all

around it in every direction, lay heaps of clam shells, most of them

opened, some not yet ready for opening. I had smelled the same

odor--and had not learned to like it--in far-off Ceylon, at the great

pearl fisheries of the Orient. The "clammer" seemed immune.

Presently, he introduced to us a woman, very old, extraordinarily

forbidding of visage, and unspeakably profane of speech, who emerged

from the tent; his mother, he said. It seemed that they made their

living in this way, clamming, as they called it, all the way from

Arkansas to the upper waters of the Mississippi. They had made this

side expedition up a tributary, in search of country not so thoroughly

exploited; without much success in their venture, it seemed. The old

lady, her head wrapped in a dirty shawl, sat down on an empty box, and

stroked a large and dirty Angora cat, another member of the family,

the while she bitterly and profanely complained. It was now dusk, and

she did not notice anything out of the way in her son's rather swollen

nose and lips.

I explained to Lafitte and L'Olonnois that we were now come into the

neighborhood of possible treasure, and the sight of a few pearls, none

of very great worth, which the old crone produced from a cracker box,

was enough to set off Jimmy L'Olonnois, who was all for raiding the

place.

"What!" he hissed to me in an aside. "Did we not spare his life? Then

the treasure should be ours!"

"Wait, brother," said I. "We shall see what we shall see." And I

quieted Lafitte also, who was war-like at the very sound of the word

pearl. "Them's what they take from the Spanish ships," said he.

"Pearls is fitten for ladies fair. An' here is pearls."

"Wait, brother," I demanded of him. For I was revolving something in

my mind. I presently accosted the clammers.

"Listen," said I, "you say business is bad."

"It certainly and shorely is," assented the old dame, fishing a black

pipe out of her pocket, and proceeding to feed it from another pocket,

to the discomfort of the soiled Angora cat.

"Well, now, let me make you a proposition," said I, taking a glance at

the heap of fresh shell which lay beyond the racks of trolling lines

and their twisted wire hooks, by means of which dragging apparatus the

mussels are taken--shutting hard on the wire when it touches them as

they lie feeding with open mouths--"you've quite a lot of shell

there, now."




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