The Master of the Mississippi

The Master of the Mississippi is a Scrooge McDuck comic by Don Rosa. It is the second of the original 12 chapters in the series The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. The story takes place from 1880 to 1882.

Plot
In 1880, young Scrooge McDuck has travelled to America to seek his fortune. He finds his long lost uncle Pothole, and helps him on his riverboat alongside Ratchet Gearloose, trying to be first at a site where a ship sunk 30 years earlier, carrying government gold. The Beagle Boys are also in pursuit of the gold, in Scrooge's first meeting with them.

After being caught by the Beagle Boys, Scrooge tricks them, and their riverboat is destroyed. In the end no one gets the gold, as the government takes it back. Scrooge then takes full employment on Pothole's riverboat, and after a few years, when Pothole retires, buys it for himself. However, this is just as the railroad is being laid across the land, making riverboats somewhat obsolete.

During one ride, Scrooge carries more government gold, when he comes across a lady giving away free firewood - a deal that Scrooge simply can not resist. However, the lady turns out to be a Beagle Boy dressed up. The Beagle Boys take the gold and lock Scrooge and Ratchet in the boiler room, after having stuffed one of the boilers full of pine knots and pitch - so that it will explode due to pressure. Scrooge and Ratchet hide in the other boiler, which they stuff with cotton. In the mean time, the riverboat, only running on one boiler, makes a turn in the water and runs ashore, violently following the Beagle Boys across land. Upon reaching their hideout, the boiler - and with it, the riverboat - explodes. Scrooge and Ratchet, having hidden in the other boiler, are all right, and the Beagle Boys are taken to jail. Since he no longer has a riverboat, Scrooge decides to move west, along the railroad and so he takes a job as a fireman on the Wabash Cannonball.