"I haven't any uncle in Baton Rouge, or anywhere else," chuckled Miss Blanche.
"Your father certainly said he should stay at his brother's in Baton Rouge," I added, puzzled by the statement.
"That was just as we girls used to say we were 'going to grandmother's' when we went to the seminary."
"Who is your father, Miss Hungerford?" I asked, repeating the question the planter had put to me.
"Colonel Hungerford," she answered, naïvely.
"The Governor of Louisiana," replied Miss Blanche, with a merry laugh.
"The governor!" I exclaimed, appalled to think I had been talking so familiarly to the chief magistrate of the state.
"But he won't let any one call him governor when he is not attending to his official duties, if he can help it. He likes to be a plain citizen when he is off duty," continued the young lady. "We went down to stay a few days at the plantation."
Miss Margie's father called her, and thought it was too damp for her to be out after dark. We all went below, and the colonel said he must smoke his cigar. I conducted him to the pilot-house, where Owen and Miss Edith were spending the evening. My father was there also; and I took the occasion to introduce our distinguished guest to him again, with his title in full.
"So you have found me out, Captain Alick," said his excellency, with a pleasant laugh, which did much to restore the equilibrium between us. "That puss of mine has been telling family secrets, and you must promise not to tell anybody what you have discovered."
"Everybody else will know the secret, so that I shall gain nothing. But we will not quarrel about trifles."
Everybody on board was tired enough to retire early, and before ten o'clock we had the deck and pilot-house to ourselves. The watches continued the same as before. Washburn gave up his berth in our room to Billy Bell, as we learned to call him, for the captain and mate never had their watch below at the same time, and we could both occupy the same bed at different times. The river is a mile wide, and at the present high stage of the water, there was no difficulty in steering, under the instructions of the pilot.
We had a sort of panorama, or diagram of the river, which I had obtained in New Orleans, arranged on the space between the windows of the pilot-house, so that we could tell where we were at all times. Ben Bowman had put the chart on rollers, and it could be wound up from one end to the other. The only things that were likely to bother us were the bayous and cut-offs; and the pilot was at hand at any moment he might be needed.