WHAT HAPPENED AT QUASI
THE STORY OF A CAROLINA CRUISE
BOOKS FOR BOYS
BY
GEORGE CARY EGGLESTON
Each Handsomely Illustrated. Price of Each Volume, $1.50
THE LAST OF THE FLATBOATS. A Story of the Mississippi and Its Interesting Family of Rivers.
CAMP VENTURE. A Story of the Virginia Mountains. Adventures among the “Moonshiners.”
THE BALE MARKED CIRCLE X. A Blockade-Running Adventure.
JACK SHELBY. A Story of the Indiana Backwoods.
LONG KNIVES. The Story of How They Won the West. A Tale of George Rogers Clark’s Expedition.
WHAT HAPPENED AT QUASI. The Story of a Carolina Cruise. A Tale of Sport and Adventure.
For Sale by All Booksellers, or Sent Postpaid on Receipt of Price by the Publishers
LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO., BOSTON
As Tom tugged hard at one of the larger roots, the keg suddenly fell to pieces.—Page 353.
WHAT HAPPENED AT QUASI
THE STORY OF A CAROLINA CRUISE
BY
GEORGE CARY EGGLESTON
ILLUSTRATED BY H. C. EDWARDS
BOSTON
LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.
Published, April, 1911
Copyright, 1911
By Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co.
All rights reserved
What Happened at Quasi
NORWOOD PRESS
BERWICK & SMITH CO.
NORWOOD, MASS.
U. S. A.
I INSCRIBE THIS STORY WITH AFFECTION TO
GEORGE DUNN EGGLESTON
MY GRANDSON, IN THE BELIEF THAT WHEN HE GROWS OLD ENOUGH HE WILL WANT TO KNOW “WHAT HAPPENED AT QUASI,” AND WILL READ THE BOOK BY WAY OF FINDING OUT
CONTENTS
| CHAPTER | PAGE | |
| I. | Interstate Chumming | 3 |
| II. | The Story of Quasi | 15 |
| III. | A Programme Subject to Circumstances | 25 |
| IV. | Tom Fights it Out | 30 |
| V. | A Rather Bad Night | 39 |
| VI. | A Little Sport by the Way | 54 |
| VII. | An Enemy in Camp | 67 |
| VIII. | Cal Begins to Do Things | 76 |
| IX. | A Fancy Shot | 89 |
| X. | Tom’s Discoveries | 97 |
| XI. | Perilous Spying | 108 |
| XII. | Tom’s Daring Venture | 119 |
| XIII. | Cal’s Experience as the Prodigal Son | 135 |
| XIV. | Cal Relates a Fable | 149 |
| XV. | Cal Gathers the Manna | 156 |
| XVI. | Fog-Bound | 164 |
| XVII. | The Obligation of a Gentleman | 174 |
| XVIII. | Fight or Fair Play | 182 |
| XIX. | Why Larry Was Ready for Battle | 191 |
| XX. | Aboard the Cutter | 197 |
| XXI. | Tom’s Scouting Scheme | 204 |
| XXII. | Tom Discovers Things | 212 |
| XXIII. | Tom and the Man With the Game Leg | 222 |
| XXIV. | The Lame Man’s Confession | 230 |
| XXV. | A Signal of Distress | 238 |
| XXVI.[x] | An Unexpected Interruption | 246 |
| XXVII. | The Hermit of Quasi | 258 |
| XXVIII. | Rudolf Dunbar’s Account of Himself | 265 |
| XXIX. | Tom Finds Things | 271 |
| XXX. | Dunbar Talks and Sleeps | 283 |
| XXXI. | Dunbar’s Strange Behavior | 295 |
| XXXII. | A Rainy Day With Dunbar | 306 |
| XXXIII. | A Great Catastrophe | 316 |
| XXXIV. | Marooned at Quasi | 331 |
| XXXV. | Again Tom Finds Something | 339 |
| XXXVI. | What the Earth Gave Up | 350 |
| XXXVII. | Tom’s Final “Find” | 360 |
ILLUSTRATIONS
| As Tom tugged hard at one of the larger roots, the keg suddenly fell to pieces (Page 353) | Frontispiece |
| FACING PAGE | |
| Dick, Cal, and Tom searched the man’s clothes | 72 |
| “In my haste I forgot to conceal my gun” | 126 |
| “Stand where you are or we’ll shoot” | 182 |
| “No, ’tain’t no use. I’ve got to take my medicine” | 226 |
| A minute more, it would have been too late | 320 |
WHAT HAPPENED AT QUASI
THE STORY OF A CAROLINA CRUISE
WHAT HAPPENED AT QUASI
THE STORY OF A CAROLINA CRUISE
I
INTERSTATE CHUMMING
It was hot in Charleston—intensely hot—with not a breath of air in motion anywhere. The glossy leaves of the magnolia trees in the grounds that surrounded the Rutledge house drooped despairingly in the withering, scorching, blistering sunlight of a summer afternoon in the year 1886. The cocker spaniel in the courtyard panted with tongue out, between the dips he took at brief intervals in the water-vat provided for his use. A glance down King Street showed no living creature, man or beast, astir in Charleston’s busiest thoroughfare.
In the upper verandah of the Rutledge mansion, four boys, as lightly dressed as propriety permitted, were doing their best to keep endurably cool and three of them were succeeding. The fourth was making a dismal failure of the attempt. He[4] was Richard Wentworth of Boston, and he naturally knew little of the arts by which the people of hot climates manage to endure torrid weather with tolerable comfort and satisfaction. He kept his blood excited by the exertion of violently fanning himself. While the others sat perfectly still in bamboo chairs, or lay motionless on joggling boards, Dick Wentworth was constantly stirring about in search of a cooler place which he did not find.
Presently he went for the fourth or fifth time to the end of the porch, where he could see a part of the street by peering through the great green jalousies or slatted shutters that barred out the fierce sunlight.
“What do you do that for, Dick?” asked Lawrence Rutledge in a languid tone and without lifting his head from the head-rest of the joggling board.
“What do I do what for?” asked Dick in return.
“Why run to the end of the verandah every five minutes? What do you do it for? Don’t you know it’s hot? Don’t you realize that violent exertion like that is unfit for weather like this? Why, I regard unnecessary winking as exercise altogether too strenuous at such a time, and so I don’t open my eyes except in little slits, and I do even that only[5] when I must. You see, I’m doing my best to keep cool, while you are stirring about all the time and fretting and fuming in a way that would set a kettle boiling. Why do you do it?”
“Oh, I’m only observing, in a strange land,” answered Dick, sinking into a wicker chair. “I’ll be quiet, now that I have found out the facts.”
“What are they, Dick?” asked Tom Garnett, otherwise known to his companions as “the Virginia delegation,” he being the only Virginian in the group. “What have you found out?”
“Only that the cobblestones, with which the street out there is paved, have been vulcanized, just as dentists treat rubber mouth plates. Otherwise they would melt.”
“I’d laugh at that joke, Dick, if I dared risk the exertion,” drawled Calhoun Rutledge, the fourth boy in the group, and Lawrence Rutledge’s twin brother. “Ah, there it comes!” he exclaimed, rolling off his joggling board and busying himself with turning the broad slats of the jalousies so as to admit the cool sea breeze that had set in with the turning of the tide.
Lawrence—or “Larry”—Rutledge did the same, and Tom Garnett slid out of his bamboo chair, stretched himself and exclaimed:
“Well, that is a relief!”
Dick Wentworth sat still, not realizing the sudden change until a stiff breeze streaming in through the blinds blew straight into his face, bearing with it a delicious odor from the cape jessamines that grew thickly about the house. Then he rose and hurried to an open lattice, quite as if he had expected to discover there some huge bellows or some gigantic electric fan stirring the air into rapid motion.
“What has happened?” he asked in astonishment.
“Nothing, except that the tide has turned,” answered Larry.
“But the breeze? Where does that come from?”
“From the sea. It always comes in with the flood-tide, and we’ve been waiting for it. Pull on your coat or stand out of the draught; the sudden change might give you a cold.”
“Then you don’t have to melt for whole days at a time, but get a little relief like this, now and then?”
“We don’t melt at all. We don’t suffer half as much from hot weather as the people of northern cities do—particularly New York.”
“But why not, if you have to undergo a grilling like this every day?”
“It doesn’t happen every day, or anything like every day. It never lasts long and we know how to endure it.”
“How? I’m anxious to learn. I may be put on the broiler again and I want to be prepared.”
“Well, we begin by recognizing facts and meeting them sensibly. It is always hot here in the sun, during the summer months, and so we don’t go out into the glare during the torrid hours. From about eleven till four o’clock nobody thinks of quitting the coolest, shadiest place he can find, while in northern cities those are the busiest hours of the day, even when the mercury is in the nineties. We do what we have to do in the early forenoon and the late afternoon. During the heat and burden of the day we keep still, avoiding exertion of every kind as we might shun pestilence or poison. The result is that sun strokes and heat prostrations are unknown here, while at the north during every hot spell your newspapers print long columns of the names of persons who have fallen victims.”
“Then again,” added Calhoun, “we build for hot weather while you build to meet arctic blasts. We set our houses separately in large plots of ground, while you pack yours as close together as possible. We provide ourselves with broad verandahs and bury ourselves in shade, while you are planning your[8] heating apparatus and doubling up your window sashes to keep the cold out.”
“It distresses me sorely,” broke in Larry, “to interrupt an interesting discussion to which I have contributed all the wisdom I care to spare, but the sun is more than half way down the western slope of the firmament, and if we are to get the dory into the water this afternoon it is high time for us to be wending our way through Spring Street to the neighborhood of Gadsden’s Green—so called, I believe, because some Gadsden of ancient times intended it to become green.”
The four boys had been classmates for several years in a noted preparatory school in Virginia. Dick Wentworth had been sent thither four years before for the sake of his threatened health. He had quickly grown strong again in the kindly climate of Virginia, but in the meanwhile he had learned to like his school and his schoolmates, particularly the two Rutledges and the Virginia boy, Tom Garnett. He had therefore remained at the school throughout the preparatory course.
Their school days were at an end now, all of them having passed their college entrance examinations; but they planned to be classmates still, all attending the same university at the North.
They were to spend the rest of the summer vacation[9] together, with the Charleston home of the Rutledge boys for their base of operations, while campaigning for sport and adventure far and wide on the coast.
That accounted for the dory. No boat of that type had ever been seen on the Carolina coast, but Larry and Cal Rutledge had learned to know its cruising qualities while on a visit to Dick Wentworth during the summer before, and this year their father had given them a dory, specially built to his order at Swampscott and shipped south by a coasting steamer.
When she arrived, she had only a priming coat of dirty-looking white paint upon her, and the boys promptly set to work painting her in a little boathouse of theirs on the Ashley river side of the city. The new paint was dry now and the boat was ready to take the water.
“She’s a beauty and no mistake,” said Cal as the group studied her lines and examined her rather elaborate lockers and other fittings.
“Yes, she’s all that,” responded his brother, “and we’ll try her paces to-morrow morning.”
“Not if she’s like all the other dories I’ve had anything to do with,” answered Dick. “She’s been out of water ever since she left her cradle, and it’ll take some time for her to soak up.”
“Oh, of course she’ll leak a little, even after a night in the water,” said Cal, with his peculiar drawl which always made whatever he said sound about equally like a mocking joke and the profoundest philosophy. “But who minds getting his feet wet in warm salt water?”
“Leak a little?” responded Dick; “leak a little? Why, she’ll fill herself half full within five minutes after we shove her in, and if we get into her to-morrow morning the other half will follow suit. It’ll take two days at least to make her seams tight.”
“Why didn’t the caulkers put more oakum into her seams, then?” queried Tom, whose acquaintance with boats was very scant. “I should think they’d jam and cram every seam so full that the boat would be water tight from the first.”
“Perhaps they would,” languidly drawled Cal, “if they knew no more about such things than you do, Tom.”
“How much do you know, Cal?” sharply asked the other.
“Oh, not much—not half or a quarter as much as Dick does. But a part of the little that I know is the fact that when you wet a dry, white cedar board it swells, and the further fact that when you soak dry oakum in water, it swells a great deal[11] more. It is my conviction that if a boat were caulked to water tightness while she was dry and then put into the water, the swelling would warp and split and twist her into a very fair imitation of a tall silk hat after a crazy mule has danced the highland fling upon it.”
“Oh, I see, of course. But will she be really tight after she swells up?”
“As tight as a drum. But we’ll take some oakum along, and a caulking tool or two, and a pot of white lead, so that if she gets a jolt of any kind and springs a leak we can haul her out and repair damages. We’ll take a little pot of paint, too, in one of the lockers.”
“There’ll be time enough after supper,” interrupted Larry, “to discuss everything like that, and we must be prompt at supper, too, for you know father is to leave for the North to-night to meet mother on Cape Cod and his ship sails at midnight. So get hold of the boat, every fellow of you, and let’s shove her in.”
The launching was done within a minute or two, and after that the dory rocked herself to sleep—that’s what Cal said.
“She’s certainly a beauty,” said Dick Wentworth. “And of course she’s better finished and finer every way than any dory I ever saw. You know, Tom,[12] dories up north are rough fishing boats. This one is finished like a yacht, and—”
“Oh, she’s hunky dory,” answered Tom, lapsing into slang.
“That’s what we’ll name her, then,” drawled Cal. “She’s certainly ‘hunky’ and she’s a dory, and if that doesn’t make her the Hunkydory, I’d very much like to know what s-o-x spells.”
There was a little laugh all round. As the incoming water floated the bottom boards, the name of the boat was unanimously adopted, and after another admiring look at her, the four hurried away to supper. On the way Dick explained to Tom that a dory is built for sailing or rowing in rough seas, and running ashore through the surf on shelving beaches.
“That accounts for the peculiar shape of her narrow, flat bottom, her heavy overhang at bow and stern, her widely sloping sides, and for the still odder shape and set of her centre board and rudder. She can come head-on to a beach, and as she glides up the sloping sand it shuts up her centre board and lifts her rudder out of its sockets without the least danger of injuring either. In the water a dory is as nervous as a schoolgirl in a thunder storm. The least wind pressure on her sails or the least shifting of her passengers or cargo, sends her heeling over almost[13] to her beam ends, but she is very hard to capsize, because her gunwales are so built out that they act as bilge keels.”
“I’d understand all that a good deal better,” answered Tom, laughing, “if I had the smallest notion what the words mean. I have a vague idea that I know what a rudder is, but when you talk of centre boards, overhangs, gunwales, and bilge keels, you tow me out beyond my depth.”
“Never mind,” said Cal. “Wait till we get you out on the water, you land lubber, and then Dick can give you a rudimentary course of instruction in nautical nomenclature. Just now there is neither time nor occasion to think about anything but the broiled spring chickens and plates full of rice that we’re to have for supper, with a casual reflection upon the okra, the green peas and the sliced tomatoes that will escort them into our presence.”
In an aside to Dick Wentworth—but spoken so that all could hear—Tom said:
“I don’t believe Cal can help talking that way. I think if he were drowning he’d put his cries of ‘help’ into elaborate sentences.”
“Certainly, I should do precisely that,” answered Cal. “Why not? Our thoughts are the children of our brains, and I think enough of my brain-children to dress them as well as I can.”
In part, Cal’s explanation was correct enough. But his habit of elaborate speech was, in fact, also meant to be mildly humorous. This was especially so when he deliberately overdressed his brain-children in ponderous words and stilted phrases.
They were at the Rutledge mansion by this time, however, and further chatter was cut off by a negro servant’s announcement that “Supper’s ready an’ yo’ fathah’s a waitin’.”
II
THE STORY OF QUASI
Major Rutledge entertained the boys at supper with accounts of his own experiences along the coast during the war, and incidentally gave them a good deal of detailed information likely to be useful to them in their journeyings. But he gave them no instructions and no cautions. He firmly believed that youths of their age and intelligence ought to know how to take care of themselves, and that if they did not it was high time for them to learn in the school of experience. He knew these to be courageous boys, manly, self-reliant, intelligent, and tactful. He was, therefore, disposed to leave them to their own devices, trusting to their wits to meet any emergencies that might arise.
One bit of assistance of great value he did give them, namely, a complete set of coast charts, prepared by the government officials at Washington.
“You see,” he explained to the two visitors, “this is a very low-lying coast, interlaced by a[16] tangled network of rivers, creeks, inlets, bayous, and the like, so that in many places it is difficult even for persons intimately familiar with its intricacies to find their way. My boys know the geography of it fairly well, but you’ll find they will have frequent need to consult the charts. I’ve had them encased in water-tight tin receptacles.”
“May I ask a question?” interjected Tom Garnett, as he minutely scanned one of the charts.
“Certainly, as many as you like.”
“What do those little figures mean that are dotted thickly all over the sheets?”
“They show the depth of water at every spot, at mean high tide. You’ll find them useful—particularly in making short cuts. You see, Tom, many of the narrowest of our creeks are very deep, and many broad bays very shallow in places. Besides, there are mud banks scattered all about, some of them under water all the time, others under it only at high tide. You boys don’t want to get stuck on them, and you won’t, if you study the figures on your charts closely. By the way, Larry, how much water does your boat draw?”
“Three feet, six inches, when loaded, with the centre board down—six inches, perhaps, when light, with the board up.”
“There, Tom, you see how easily the chart[17] soundings may save you a lot of trouble. There may be times when you can save miles of sailing by laying your course over sunken sandbars if sailing before the wind, though you couldn’t pass over them at all if sailing on the wind.”
“But what difference does the way of sailing make? You see, I am very ignorant, Major Rutledge.”
“You’ll learn fast enough, because you aren’t afraid to ask questions. Now to answer your last one; when you sail before the wind you’ll have no need of your centre board and can draw it up, making your draught only six or eight inches, while on the wind you must have the centre board down—my boys will explain that when you’re all afloat—so if you are sailing with the wind dead astern, or nearly so, it will be safe enough to lay a course that offers you only two or three feet of water in its shoalest parts, while if the wind is abeam, or in a beating direction, you must keep your centre board down and stick to deeper channels. However, the boys will soon teach you all that on the journey. They’re better sailors than I am.”
Then, turning to his own sons, he said:
“I have arranged with my bank to honor any checks either of you may draw. So if you have need of more money than you take with you, you’ll[18] know how to get it. Any planter or merchant down the coast will cash your checks for you. Now I must say good-bye to all of you, as I have many things to do before leaving. I wish all of you a very jolly time.”
With that he quitted the room, but a few minutes later he opened the door to say:
“If you get that far down the coast, boys, I wish you would take a look over Quasi and see that there are no squatters there.”
When he had gone, Cal said:
“Wonder if father hopes to win yet in that Quasi matter, after all these years?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” answered Larry. “Anyhow, we’ll go that far down, if only to gratify his wish.”
“Is Quasi a town?” asked Dick, whose curiosity was awakened by the oddity of the name.
“No. It’s a plantation, and one with a story.”
Dick asked no more questions, but presently Cal said to his brother:
“Why don’t you go on, Larry, and tell him all about it? I have always been taught by my pastors and masters, and most other people I have ever known, that it is exceedingly bad manners to talk in enigmas before guests. Besides, there’s no secret about this. Everybody in South Carolina who ever[19] heard the name Rutledge knows all about Quasi. Go on and tell the fellows, lest they think our family has a skeleton in some one or other of its closets, and is cherishing some dark, mysterious secret.”
“Why don’t you tell it yourself, Cal? You know the story as well as I do.”
“Because, oh my brother, it was your remark that aroused the curiosity which it is our hospitable duty to satisfy. I do not wish to trespass upon your privileges or take your obligations upon myself. Go on! There is harkening all about you. You have your audience and your theme. We hang upon your lips.”
“Oh, it isn’t much of a story, but I may as well tell it,” said Larry, smiling at his brother’s ponderous speech.
“Quasi is a very large plantation occupying the end of a peninsula. Except on the mainland side a dozen miles of salt water, mud banks and marsh islands, separate it from the nearest land. On the mainland side there is a marsh two or three miles wide and a thousand miles deep, I think. At any rate, it is utterly impassable—a mere mass of semi-liquid mud, though it looks solid enough with its growth of tall salt marsh grass covering its ugliness and hiding its treachery. The point might as well be an island, so far as possibilities of approach[20] to it are concerned, and in effect it is an island, or quasi an island. I suppose some humorous old owner of it had that in mind when he named it Quasi.
“It is sea island cotton land of the very finest and richest kind, and when it was cultivated it was better worth working than a gold mine. There are large tracts of original timber on it, and as it has been abandoned and running wild for more than twenty years, even the young tree growths are large and fine now.
“That is where the story begins. Quasi belonged to our grandfather Rutledge. He didn’t live there, but he had the place under thorough cultivation. When the war broke out my grandfather was one of the few men in the South who doubted our side’s ability to win, and as no man could foresee what financial disturbances might occur, he decided to secure his two daughters—our father’s sisters, who were then young girls—against all possibility of poverty, by giving Quasi to them in their own right. ‘Then,’ he thought, ‘they will be comfortably well off, no matter what happens.’ So he deeded Quasi to them.
“When the Federals succeeded, early in the war, in seizing upon the sea island defences, establishing themselves at Beaufort, Hilton Head, and other[21] places, it was necessary for my grandfather to remove all the negroes from Quasi, lest they be carried off by the enemy. The place was therefore abandoned, but my grandfather said that, at any rate, nobody could carry off the land, and that that would make my aunts easy in their finances, whenever peace should come again. As he was a hard-fighting officer, noted for his dare-devil recklessness of danger, he did not think it likely that he would live to see the end. But he believed he had made his daughters secure against poverty, and as for my father, he thought him man enough to take care of himself.”
“The which he abundantly proved himself to be when the time came,” interrupted Cal, with a note of pride in his tone.
“Oh, that was a matter of course,” answered Larry. “It’s a way the Rutledges have always had. But that is no part of the story I’m telling. During the last year of the war, when everything was going against the South, grandfather saw clearly what the result must be, and he understood the effect it would have upon his fortunes. He was a well-to-do man—I may even say a wealthy one—but he foresaw that with the negroes set free and the industries of the South paralyzed for the time, his estate would be hopelessly insolvent. But like[22] the brave man that he was, he did not let these things trouble him. Believing that his daughters were amply provided for, and that my father—who at the age of twenty-five had fought his way from private to major—could look out for himself, the grim old warrior went on with his soldierly work and bothered not at all as to results.
“In the last months of the war, when the Southern armies were being broken to pieces, the clerk’s office, in which his deeds of Quasi to my aunts were recorded, was burned with all its contents. As evidence of the gift to his daughters nothing remained except his original deeds, and these might easily be destroyed in the clearly impending collapse of everything. To put those deeds in some place of safety was now his most earnest purpose. He took two or three days’ leave of absence, hurried to Charleston, secured the precious papers and put them in a place of safety—so safe a place, indeed, that to this day nobody has ever found them. That was not his fault. For the moment he returned to his post of command he sat down to write a letter to my aunts, telling them what he had done and how to find the documents. He had not written more than twenty lines when the enemy fell upon his command, and during the fight that ensued, he was shot through the head and instantly[23] killed. His unfinished letter was sent to my aunts, but it threw no light upon the hiding place he had selected.
“When the war ended, a few weeks later, the estate was insolvent, as my grandfather had foreseen. In the eagerness to get hold of even a little money to live upon, which was general at that time, my grandfather’s creditors were ready to sell their claims upon the estate for any price they could get, and two of the carrion crows called money-lenders bought up all the outstanding obligations.
“When they brought suit for the possession of my grandfather’s property, they included Quasi in their claim. When my father protested that Quasi belonged to his sisters by deeds of gift executed years before, he could offer no satisfactory proof of his contention—nothing, indeed, except the testimony of certain persons who could swear that the transfer had been a matter of general understanding, often mentioned in their presence, and other evidence of a similarly vague character.
“Of course this was not enough, but my father is a born fighter and would not give up. He secured delay and set about searching everywhere for the missing papers. In the meanwhile he was energetically working to rebuild his own fortunes, and he succeeded. As soon as he had money of his[24] own to fight with, he employed the shrewdest and ablest lawyers he could find to keep up the contest in behalf of his sisters. He has kept that fight up until now, and will keep it up until he wins it or dies. Of course he has himself amply provided for my aunts, so that it isn’t the property but a principle he is fighting for.
“By the way, the shooting ought to be good at Quasi—the place has run wild for so long and is so inaccessible to casual sportsmen. If the rest of you agree, we’ll make our way down there with no long stops as we go. Then we can take our time coming back.”
The others agreed, and after a little Dick Wentworth, who had remained silent for a time, turned to Larry, saying:
“Why did you say it wasn’t much of a story, Larry?”
III
A PROGRAMME—SUBJECT TO CIRCUMSTANCES
The Hunkydory was an unusually large boat for a craft of that kind. She was about twenty-five feet long, very wide amidships—as dories always are—and capable of carrying a heavy load without much increase in her draught of water. She was built of white cedar with a stout oak frame, fastened with copper bolts and rivets, and fitted with capacious, water-tight lockers at bow and stern, with narrower lockers running along her sides at the bilge, for use in carrying tools and the like.
She carried a broad mainsail and a large jib, and had rowlocks for four pairs of oars. Sitting on the forward or after rowing thwart, where she was narrow enough for sculls, one person could row her at a fair rate of speed, so little resistance did her peculiar shape offer to the water. With two pairs of oars, or better still, with all the rowlocks in use, she seemed to offer no resistance at all.
It was the plan of the boys to depend upon the sails whenever there was wind enough to make any progress at all, and ply the oars only when a calm compelled them to do so.
“We’re in no sort of hurry,” explained Larry, “and it really makes no difference whether we run one mile an hour or ten. There aren’t any trains to catch down where we are going.”
“Just where are we going, Larry,” asked Dick. “We’ve never talked that over, except in the vaguest way.”
“Show the boys, Cal,” said Larry, turning to his brother. “You’re better at coast geography than I am.”
“Hydrography would be the more accurate word in this case,” slowly answered Cal, “but it makes no difference.”
With that he lighted three or four more gas burners, and spread a large map of the coast upon the table.
“Now let me invoke your earnest attention, young gentlemen,” he began. “That’s the way the lecturers always introduce their talks, isn’t it? You see before you a somewhat detailed map of the coast and its waterways from Charleston, south to Brunswick, Georgia. It is grossly inaccurate in some particulars and slightly but annoyingly so[27] in others! Fortunately your lecturer is possessed of a large and entirely trustworthy fund of information, the garnerings, as it were, of prolonged and repeated personal observation. He will be able to correct the errors of the cartographer as he proceeds.
“We will take the Rutledge boathouse on the Ashley River near the foot of Spring Street as our point of departure, if you please. Enteuthen exelauni—pardon the lapse into Xenophontic Greek—I mean thence we shall sail across the Ashley to the mouth of Wappoo Creek which, as you see by the map, extends from Charleston Harbor to Stono Inlet or river, separating James Island from the main. Thence we shall proceed up Stono River, past John’s Island, and having thus disposed of James and John—familiar characters in that well-remembered work of fiction, the First Reader—we shall enter the so called North Edisto River, which is, in fact, an inlet or estuary, and sail up until we reach the point where the real Edisto River empties itself. Thence we shall proceed down the inlet known as South Edisto River round Edisto Island, and, by a little detour into the outside sea, pass into St. Helena Sound. From that point on we shall have a tangled network of big and little waterways to choose among, and we’ll[28] run up and down as many of them as tempt us with the promise of sport or adventure. We shall pass our nights ashore, and most of our days also, for that matter. Wherever we camp we will remain as long as we like. That is the programme. Like the prices in a grocer’s catalogue and the schedules of a railway, it is ‘subject to change without notice.’ That is to say, accident and unforeseen circumstances may interfere with it at any time.”
“Yes, and we may ourselves change it,” said Larry. “Indeed, I propose one change in it to start with.”
“What is it?” asked the others in chorus.
“Simply that we sail down the harbor first to give Dick and Tom a glimpse of the points of interest there. We’ll load the boat first and then, when we’ve made the circuit of the bay, we needn’t come back to the boat house, but can go on down Wappoo cut.”
The plan commended itself and was adopted, and as soon as the Hunkydory’s seams were sufficiently soaked the boat was put in readiness. There was not much cargo to be carried, as the boys intended to depend mainly upon their guns and fishing tackle for food supplies. A side of bacon, a water-tight firkin of rice, a box of salt, another of coffee, a tin[29] coffee-pot, and a few other cooking utensils were about all. The tools and lanterns were snuggled into the places prepared for them, an abundance of rope was bestowed, and the guns, ammunition and fishing tackle completed the outfit. Each member of the little company carried a large, well-stocked, damp-proof box of matches in his pocket, and each had a large clasp knife. There were no forks or plates, but the boat herself was well supplied with agate iron drinking cups.
It was well after dark when the loading was finished and the boat in readiness to begin her voyage. It was planned to set sail at sunrise, and so the crew went early to the joggling boards for a night’s rest in the breezy veranda.
“We’ll start if there’s a wind,” said Cal.
“We’ll start anyhow, wind or no wind,” answered Larry.
“Of course we will,” said Cal. “But you used the term ‘set sail.’ I object to it as an attempt to describe or characterize the process of making a start with the oars.”
“Be quiet, Cal, will you?” interjected Dick. “I was just falling into a doze when you punched me in the ribs with that criticism.”
IV
TOM FIGHTS IT OUT
Fortunately there was a breeze, rather light but sufficient, when the sun rose next morning. The Hunkydory was cast off and, with Cal at the tiller, her sails filled, she heeled over and “slid on her side,” as Tom described it, out of the Ashley River and on down the harbor where the wind was so much fresher that all the ship’s company had to brace themselves up against the windward gunwale, making live ballast of themselves.
The course was a frequently changing one, because the Rutledge boys wanted their guests to pass near all the points of interest, and also because they wanted Dick Wentworth, who was the most expert sailor in the company, to study the boat’s sailing peculiarities. To that end Dick went to the helm as soon as the wind freshened, and while following in a general way the sight-seeing course suggested by the Rutledges, he made many brief departures from it in order to test this or that peculiarity of[31] the boat, for, as Larry explained to Tom, “Every sailing craft has ways of her own, and you want to know what they are.”
After an hour of experiment, Dick said:
“We’ll have to get some sand bags somewhere. We need more ballast, especially around the mast. As she is, she shakes her head too much and is inclined to slew off to leeward.”
“Let me take the tiller, then, and we’ll get what we need,” answered Larry, going to the helm.
“Where?”
“At Fort Sumter. I know the officer in command there—in fact, he’s an intimate friend of our family,—and he’ll provide us with what we need. How much do you think?”
“About three hundred pounds—in fifty pound bags for distribution. Two hundred might do, but three hundred won’t be too much, I think, and if it is we can empty out the surplus.”
“How on earth can you tell a thing like that by mere guess work, Dick?” queried Tom in astonishment.
“It isn’t mere guess work,” said Dick. “In fact, it isn’t guess work at all.”
“What is it, then?”
“Experience and observation. You see, I’ve sailed many dories, Tom, and I’ve studied the behavior[32] of boats under mighty good sea schoolmasters—the Gloucester fishermen—and so with a little feeling of a boat in a wind I can judge pretty accurately what she needs in the way of ballast, just as anybody who has sailed a boat much, can judge how much wind to take and how much to spill.”
“I’d like to learn something about sailing if I could,” said Tom.
“You can and you shall,” broke in Cal. “Dick will teach you on this trip, and Larry and I will act as his subordinate instructors, so that before we get back from our wanderings you shall know how to handle a boat as well as we do; that is to say, if you don’t manage to send us all to Davy Jones during your apprenticeship. There’s a chance of that, but we’ll take the risk.”
“Yes, and there’s no better time to begin than right now,” said Dick. “That’s a ticklish landing Larry is about to make at Fort Sumter. Watch it closely and see just how he does it. Making a landing is the most difficult and dangerous thing one has to do in sailing.”
“Yes,” said Cal; “it’s like leaving off when you find you’re talking too much. It’s hard to do.”
The little company tarried at the fort only long enough for the soldiers to make and fill six canvas[33] sand bags. When they were afloat again and Dick had tested the bestowal of the ballast, he suggested that Tom should take his first lesson at the tiller. Sitting close beside him, the more expert youth directed him minutely until, after perhaps an hour of instruction, during which Dick so chose his courses as to give the novice both windward work and running to do, Tom could really make a fair showing in handling the sails and the rudder. He was still a trifle clumsy at the work and often somewhat unready and uncertain in his movements, but Dick pronounced him an apt scholar, and predicted his quick success in learning the art.
They were nearing the mouth of the harbor when Dick deemed it best to suspend the lesson and handle the boat himself. The wind had freshened still further, and a lumpy sea was coming in over the bar, so that while there was no danger to a boat properly handled, a little clumsiness might easily work mischief.
The boys were delighted with the behavior of the craft and were gleefully commenting on it when Larry observed that Tom, instead of bracing himself against the gunwale, was sitting limply on the bottom, with a face as white as the newly made sail.
“I say, boys, Tom’s seasick,” he called out.[34] “We’d better put about and run in under the lee of Morris Island.”
“No, don’t,” answered Tom, feebly. “I’m not going to be a spoil-sport, and I’ll fight this thing out. If I could only throw up my boots, I’d be all right. I’m sure it’s my boots that sit so heavily on my stomach.”
“Good for you, Tom,” said Larry, “but we’ll run into stiller waters anyhow. We don’t want you to suffer. If you were rid of this, I’d—”
He hesitated, and didn’t finish his sentence.
“What is it you’d do if I weren’t playing the baby this way?”
“Oh, it’s all right.”
“No, it isn’t,” protested Tom, feeling his seasickness less because of his determination to contest the point. “What is it you’d do? You shall do it anyhow. If you don’t, I’ll jump overboard. I tell you I’m no spoil-sport and I’m no whining baby to be coddled either. Tell me what you had in mind.”
“Oh, it was only a sudden thought, and probably a foolish one. I was seized with an insane desire to give the Hunkydory a fair chance to show what stuff she’s made of by running outside down the coast to the mouth of Stono Inlet, instead of going back and making our way through Wappoo creek.”
“Do it! Do it!” cried Tom, dragging himself up to his former posture. “If you don’t do it I’ll quit the expedition and go home to be put into pinafores again.”
“You’re a brick, Tom, and you shan’t be humiliated. We’ll make the outside trip. It won’t take very long, and maybe you’ll get over the worst of your sickness when we get outside.”
“If I don’t I’ll just grin and bear it,” answered Tom resolutely.
As the boat cleared the harbor and headed south, the sea grew much calmer, though the breeze continued as before. It was the choking of the channel that had made the water so “lumpy” at the harbor’s mouth. Tom was the first to observe the relief, and before the dory slipped into the calm waters of Stono Inlet he had only a trifling nausea to remind him of his suffering.
“This is the fulfillment of prophecy number one,” he said to Cal, while they were yet outside.
“What is?”
“Why this way of getting into Stono Inlet. You said our programme was likely to be ‘changed without notice,’ and this is the first change. You know it’s nearly always so. People very rarely carry out their plans exactly.”
“I suppose not,” interrupted Larry as the Stono[36] entrance was made, “but I’ve a plan in mind that we’ll carry out just as I’ve made it, and that not very long hence, either.”
“What is it, Larry?”
“Why to pick out a fit place for landing, go ashore, build a fire, and have supper. Does it occur to you that we had breakfast at daylight and that we’ve not had a bite to eat since, though it is nearly sunset?”
As he spoke, a bend of the shore line cut off what little breeze there was, the sail flapped and the dory moved only with the tide.
“Lower away the sail,” he called to Cal and Dick, at the same time hauling the boom inboard. “We must use the oars in making a landing, and I see the place. We’ll camp for the night on the bluff just ahead.”
“Bluff?” asked Tom, scanning the shore. “I don’t see any bluff.”
“Why there—straight ahead, and not five hundred yards away.”
“Do you call that a bluff? Why, it isn’t three feet higher than the low-lying land all around it.”
“After you’ve been a month on this coast,” said Cal, pulling at an oar, “you’ll learn that after all, terms are purely relative as expressions of human[37] thought. We call that a bluff because it fronts the water and is three feet higher than the general lay of the land. There aren’t many places down here that can boast so great a superiority to their surroundings. An elevation of ten feet we’d call high. It is all comparative.”
“Well, my appetite isn’t comparative, at any rate,” said Tom. “It’s both positive and superlative.”
“The usual sequel to an attack of seasickness, and I assure you—”
Cal never finished his assurance, whatever it was, for at that moment the boat made her landing, and Larry, who acted as commander of the expedition, quickly had everybody at work. The boat was to be secured so that the rise and fall of the tide would do her no harm; wood was to be gathered, a fire built and coffee made.
“And I am going out to see if I can’t get a few squirrels for supper, while you fellows get some oysters and catch a few crabs if you can. Oh, no, that’s too slow work. Take the cast net, Cal, and get a gallon or so of shrimps, in case I don’t find any squirrels.”
“I can save you some trouble and disappointment on that score,” said Cal, “by telling you now that you’ll get no squirrels and no game of any[38] other kind, unless perhaps you sprain your ankle or something and get a game leg.”
“But why not? How do you know?”
“We’re too close to Charleston. The pot-hunters haven’t left so much as a ground squirrel in these woods. I have been all over them and so I know. Better take the cartridges out of your gun and try for some fish. The tide’s right and you’ve an hour to do it in.”
Larry accepted the suggestion, and rowing the dory to a promising spot, secured a dozen whiting within half the time at disposal.
Supper was eaten with that keen enjoyment which only a camping meal ever gives, and with a crackling fire to stir enthusiasm, the boys sat for hours telling stories and listening to Dick’s account of his fishing trips along the northern shores, and his one summer’s camping in the Maine woods.
V
A RATHER BAD NIGHT
During the next two or three days the expedition worked its way through the tangled maze of big and little waterways, stopping only at night, in order that they might the sooner reach a point where game was plentiful.
At last Cal, who knew more about the matter than any one else in the party, pointed out a vast forest-covered region that lay ahead, with a broad stretch of water between.
“We’ll camp there for a day or two,” he said, “and get something besides sea food to eat. There are deer there and wild turkeys, and game birds, while squirrels and the like literally abound. I’ve hunted there for a week at a time. It’s only about six miles from here, and there’s a good breeze. We can easily make the run before night.”
Tom, who had by that time learned to handle the boat fairly well for a novice, was at the tiller, and the others, a trifle too confident of his skill perhaps,[40] were paying scant attention to what he was doing. The stretch of water they had to cross was generally deep, as the chart showed, but there were a few shoals and mud banks to be avoided. While the boys were eagerly listening to Cal’s description of the hunting grounds ahead, the boat was speeding rapidly, with the sail trimmed nearly flat, when there came a sudden flaw in the wind and Tom, in his nervous anxiety to meet the difficulty managed to put the helm the wrong way. A second later the dory was pushing her way through mud and submerged marsh grass. Tom’s error had driven her, head on, upon one of the grass covered mud banks.
Dick was instantly at work. Without waiting to haul the boom inboard, he let go the throat and peak halyards, and the sails ran down while the outer end of the boom buried itself in the mud.
“Now haul in the boom,” he said.
“Why didn’t you wait and do that first?” asked Tom, who was half out of his wits with chagrin over his blunder.
“Because, with the centre board up, if we’d hauled it in against the wind the boat would have rolled over and we should all have been floundering.”
“But the centre board was down,” answered Tom.
“Look at it,” said Cal. “Doubtless it was down when we struck, but as we slid up into the grass it was shut up like a jackknife.”
“Stop talking,” commanded Larry, “and get to the oars. It’s now or never. If we don’t get clear of this within five minutes we’ll have to lie here all night. The tide is just past full flood and the depth will grow less every minute. Now then! All together and back her out of this!”
With all their might the four boys backed with the oars, but the boat refused to move. Dick shifted the ballast a little and they made another effort, with no result except that Tom, in his well-nigh insane eagerness to repair the damage done, managed to break an oar.
“It’s no use, fellows,” said Larry. “You might as well ship your oars. We’re stuck for all night and must make the best of the situation.”
“Can’t we get out and push her off?” asked Tom in desperation.
“No. We’ve no bottom to stand on. The mud is too soft.”
“That’s one disadvantage in a dory,” said Dick, settling himself on a thwart. “If we had a keel[42] under us, we could have worked her free with the oars.”
“If, yes, and perhaps,” broke in Cal, who was disposed to be cheerfully philosophical under all circumstances. “What’s the use in iffing, yessing and perhapsing? We’re unfortunate in being stuck on a mud bank for the night, but stuck we are and there’s an end of that. We can’t make the matter better by wishing, or regretting, or bemoaning our fate, or making ourselves miserable in any other of the many ways that evil ingenuity has devised for the needless chastisement of the spirit. Let us ‘look forward not back, up and not down, out and not in,’ as Dr. Hale puts it. Instead of thinking how much happier we might be if we were spinning along over the water, let us think how much happier we shall be when we get out of this and set sail again. By the way, what have we on board that we can eat before the shades of night begin falling fast?”
“Well, if you will ‘look forward,’ as you’ve advised us all to do,” said Dick Wentworth, “by which I mean if you will explore the forward locker, you’ll find there a ten-pound can of sea biscuit, and half a dozen gnarled and twisted bologna sausages of the imported variety, warranted to keep in any climate and entirely capable of putting a[43] strain upon the digestion of an ostrich accustomed to dine on tenpenny nails and the fragments of broken beer bottles.”
“Where on earth did they come from?” asked Larry. “I superintended the lading of the boat—”
“Yes, I know you did, and I watched you. I observed that you had made no provision for shipwreck and so I surreptitiously purchased and bestowed these provisions myself. The old tars at Gloucester deeply impressed it upon my mind that it is never safe to venture upon salt water without a reserve supply of imperishable provisions to fall back upon in case of accidents like this.”
“This isn’t an accident,” said Tom, who had been silent for an unusual time; “it isn’t an accident; it’s the result of my stupidity and nothing else, and I can never—”
“Now stop that, Tom!” commanded Cal; “stop it quick, or you’ll meet with the accident of being chucked overboard. This was a mishap that might occur to anyone, and if there was any fault in the case every one of us is as much to blame as you are. You don’t profess to be an expert sailor, and we know it. We ought some of us to have helped you by observing things. Now quit blaming yourself, quit worrying and get to work chewing bologna.”
“Thank you, Cal,” was all that Tom could say in reply, and all set to work on what Dick called their “frugal meal,” adding:
“That phrase used to fool me. I found it in Sunday School books, where some Scotch cotter and his interesting family sat down to eat scones or porridge, and I thought it suggestive of something particularly good to eat. Having the chronically unsatisfied appetite of a growing boy, the thing made me hungry.”
“This bologna isn’t a bit bad after you’ve chewed enough of the dry out of it to get the taste,” said Larry, cutting off several slices of the smoke-hardened sausage.
“No,” said Dick, “it isn’t bad; but I judge from results that the Dutchman who made it had rather an exalted opinion of garlic as a flavoring.”
“Yes,” Cal answered, speaking slowly after his habit, “the thing is thoroughly impregnated with the flavor and odor of the allium sativum, and I was just revolving—”
“What’s that, Cal?” asked Larry, interrupting.
“What’s what?”
“Why, allium something or other—the thing you mentioned.”
“Oh, you mean allium sativum? Why, that is[45] the botanical name of the cultivated garlic plant, you ignoramus.”
“Well, how did you come to know that? You never studied botany.”
“No, of course not. I’ll put myself to the trouble of explaining a matter which would be obvious enough to you if you gave it proper thought. I found the term in the dictionary a month or so ago when you and I had some discussion as to the relationship between the garlic and the onion. I may have been positive in such assertions as I found it necessary to make in maintaining my side of the argument; doubtless I was so; but I was not sufficiently confident of the soundness of my views to make an open appeal to the dictionary. I consulted it secretly, surreptitiously, meaning to fling it at your head if I found that it sustained my contentions. As I found that it was strongly prejudiced on your side, I refrained from dragging it into the discussion. But I learned from it that garlic is allium sativum, and I made up my mind to floor you with that morsel of erudition at the first opportunity. This is it.”
“This is what?”
“Why, the first opportunity, to be sure. I’m glad it came now instead of at some other time.”
“Why, Cal?”
“Why because we have about eleven hours of tedious waiting time before us and must get rid of it in the best way we can. I’ve managed to wear away several minutes of it by talking cheerful nonsense and spreading it out over as many words as I could. I’ve noticed that chatter helps mightily to pass away a tedious waiting time, and I’m profoundly convinced that the very worst thing one can do in a case like ours is to stretch the time out by grumbling and fretting. If ever I’m sentenced to be hanged, I shall pass my last night pouring forth drivelling idiocy, just by way of getting through what I suppose must be rather a trying time to a condemned man.”
“By the way, Cal, you were just beginning to say something else when Larry interrupted you to ask about the Latin name of garlic. You said you were ‘just revolving.’ As you paused without any downward inflection, and as you certainly were not turning around, I suppose you meant you were just revolving something or other in your mind.”
“Your sagacity was not at fault, Tom, but my memory is. I was revolving something in my mind, some nonsense I suppose, but what it was, I am wholly unable to remember. Never mind; I’ll think of a hundred other equally foolish things[47] to say between now and midnight, and by that time we’ll all be asleep, I suppose.”
It was entirely dark now, and Dick Wentworth lighted a lantern and hoisted it as an anchor light.
“What’s the use, Dick, away out here?” asked one of the others.
“There may be no use in it,” replied Dick, “but a good seaman never asks himself that question. He just does what the rules of navigation require, and carries a clear conscience. If a ship has to stop in mid ocean to repair her machinery even on the calmest and brightest of days when the whole horizon is clear, the captain orders the three discs set that mean ‘ship not under control.’ So we’ll let our anchor light do its duty whether there is need of it or not.”
“That’s right in principle,” said Larry, “and after all it makes no difference as that lantern hasn’t more than a spoonful of oil in it. But most accidents, as they are called—”
Larry was not permitted to say what happened to “most accidents,” for as he spoke Tom called out:
“Hello! it’s raining!”
“Yes—sprinkling,” answered Larry, holding out his hand to feel the drops, “but it’ll be pouring in five minutes. We must hurry into our oilskins.[48] There! the anchor light has burned out and we must fumble in the dark.”
With that he opened a receptacle and hurriedly dragged the yellow, oil-stiffened garments out, saying as he did so:
“It’s too dark to see which is whose, but we’re all about of a size and they don’t cut slickers to a very nice fit. So help yourselves and put ’em on as quickly as you can, for it’s beginning to pour down.”
The boys felt about in the dark until presently Cal called out:
“I say, fellows, I want to do some trading. I’ve got hold of three pairs of trousers and two squams, but no coat. Who wants to swap a coat for two pairs of trousers and a sou’wester?”
The exchanges were soon made and the waterproof garments donned, but not before everybody had got pretty wet, for the rain was coming down in torrents now, such as are never seen except in tropical or subtropical regions.
The hurried performance served to divert the boys’ minds and cheer their spirits for a while, but when the “slickers” were on and closely fastened up, there was nothing to do but sit down again in the dismal night and wait for the time to wear away.
“Now this is just what we needed,” said Cal, as soon as the others began to grow silent and moody.
“What, the rain?”
“Yes. It helps to occupy the mind. It gives us something to think about. It is a thing of interest. By adding to our wretchedness, it teaches us the lesson that—”
“Oh, we don’t want any lessons, Cal; school’s out,” said Dick. “What I want to know is whether you ever saw so heavy a rain before. I never did. Why, there are no longer any drops—nothing but steady streams. Did you ever see anything like it?”
“Often, and worse,” Larry answered. “This is only an ordinary summer rain for this coast.”
“Well now, I understand—”
“Permit me to interrupt,” broke in Cal, “long enough to suggest that the water in this boat is now half way between my ankles and my knees, and I doubt the propriety of suffering it to rise any higher. Suppose you pass the pump, Dick.”
Dick handed the pump to his companion, who was not long in clearing the boat of the water. Then Tom took it and fitfully renewed the pumping from time to time, by way of keeping her clear. After, perhaps, an hour, the rain slackened to a[50] drizzle far more depressing to the spirits than the heavy downpour had been. The worst of the matter was that the night was an intensely warm one, and the oilskin clothing in which the boys were closely encased, was oppressive almost beyond endurance. Presently Dick began unbuttoning his.
“What are you doing, Dick? “Tom asked as he heard the rustle.
“Opening the cerements that encase my person,” Dick answered.
“But what for?”
“Why, to keep from getting too wet. In these things the sweat that flows through my skin is distinctly more dampening than the drizzling rain.”
“I’d smile at that,” said Cal, “if it were worth while, as it isn’t. We’re in the situation Charles Lamb pityingly imagined all mankind to have been during the ages before candles were invented. If we crack a joke after nightfall we must feel of our neighbor’s cheek to see if he is smiling.”
The desire for sleep was strong upon all the company, and one by one they settled themselves in the least uncomfortable positions possible under the circumstances, and became silent in the hope of catching at least a cat nap now and then. There was very little to be done in that way, for the moment one part of the body was adjusted so that[51] nothing hurt it, a thwart or a rib, or the edge of the rail, or something else would begin “digging holes,” as Larry said, in some other part.
Cal was the first to give up the attempt to sleep. After suffering as much torture as he thought he was called upon to endure he undoubled himself and sat upright. The rest soon followed his example, and Cal thought it best to set conversation going again.
“After all,” he said meditatively, “this is precisely what we came to seek.”
“What? The wretchedness of this night? I confess I am unable to take that view of it,” answered Larry almost irritatedly.
“That is simply because your sunny temper is enshrouded in the murky gloom of the night, and your customary ardor dampened by the drizzle. You are not philosophical. You shouldn’t suffer external things to disturb your spiritual calm. It does you much harm and no manner of good. Besides, it is obvious that you judged and condemned my thought without analyzing it.”
“How is that, Cal? Tell us about it,” said Dick. “Your prosing may put us to sleep in spite of the angularity and intrusive impertinence of everything we try to rest ourselves upon. Do your own analyzing and let us have the benefit of it.”
“Oh, it’s simple enough. I indulged in the reflection that this sort of thing is precisely what we set out on this expedition to find, and it is so, if you’ll only think of it. We came in search of two things—adventure and game. Surely this mud-bank experience is an adventure, and I’m doing my best to persuade you fellows to be ‘game’ in its endurance.”
“That finishes us,” said Dick. “A pun is discouraging at all times; a poor, weak-kneed, anæmic pun like that is simply disheartening, and coming at a time of despondency like this, it reduces every fibre of character to a pulp. I feel that under its influence my back bone has been converted into guava jelly.”
“Your speech betrayeth you, Dick. I never heard you sling English more vigorously than now. And you have regained your cheerfulness too, and your capacity to take interest. Upon my word, I’ll think up another pun and hurl it at you if it is to have any such effect as that.”
“While you’re doing it,” said Larry, “I’m going to get myself out of the sweatbox I’ve been in all night. You may or may not have observed it, but the rain has ceased, and the tide has turned and if I may be permitted to quote Shakespeare, ‘The glow-worm shows the matin to be near.’ In[53] modern phrase, day is breaking, and within about two hours the Hunkydory will be afloat again.”
With the relief of doffing the oppressive oilskins, and the rapidly coming daylight, the spirits of the little company revived, and it was almost a jolly mood in which they made their second meal on hard ship biscuit and still harder smoked bolognas.
VI
A LITTLE SPORT BY THE WAY
The day had just asserted itself when Larry, looking out upon the broad waters of a sound that lay between the dory and the point at which the dory would have been if she had not gone aground, rather gleefully said:
“We’ll be out of our trouble sooner than we hoped. The Hunkydory will float well before the full flood.”
“Why do you think so, Larry?” asked Tom, who had not yet recovered from his depression and was still blaming himself for the mishap and doubting the possibility of an escape that morning.
“I don’t think it; I know,” answered Larry, beginning to shift ballast in a way that would make backing off the mud bank easier.
“But how do you know?”
“Because there’s a high wind outside and it’s blowing on shore. Look at the white caps out there where the water is open to the sea. We’re in[55] a sort of pocket here, and feel nothing more than a stiff breeze, but it’s blowing great guns outside, and when that happens on an incoming tide the water rises a good deal higher than usual. We’ll float before the tide is at the full.”
“In my judgment we’re afloat now,” said Dick, who had been scrutinizing the water just around them. “We’re resting on the marsh grass, that’s all.”
“So we are,” said Cal, after scanning things a bit. “Let’s get to the oars!”
“Better wait for five or ten minutes,” objected Dick. “We might foul the rudder in backing off. Then we’d be in worse trouble than we were before.”
“That’s so, Dick,” answered Cal, restraining his impatience and falling at once into his peculiarly deliberate utterance. “That is certainly so, and I have been pleased to observe, Dick, that many things you say are so.”
“Thank you for the compliment, Cal, and for what it implies to the contrary.”
“Pray don’t mention it. Take a look over the bow instead and see how she lies now.”
In spite of their banter, that last ten minutes of waiting seemed tediously long, especially to Tom, who wanted to feel the boat gliding through the[56] water again before forgiving himself for having run her aground. At last the bow caught the force of the incoming flood, and without help from anybody the dory lifted herself out of the grass and drifted clear of the mud bank.
The centre board was quickly lowered, the sails hoisted, the burgee run up to the masthead, and, as the Hunkydory heeled over and began plowing through the water with a swish, her crew set up a shout of glee that told of young hearts glad again.
A kindly, gentle thought occurred to Dick Wentworth at that moment. It was that by way of reassuring Tom and showing him that their confidence in him was in no way shaken, they should call him to the helm at once. Dick signalled his suggestion to Larry, by nodding and pointing to Tom, whose eyes were turned away. Larry was quick to understand.
“I say, Tom,” he called out, “come to the tiller and finish your job. It’s still your turn to navigate the craft.”
Tom hesitated for a second, but only for a second. Perhaps he understood the kindly, generous meaning of the summons. However that might be, he promptly responded, and taking the helm from Larry’s hand, said, “Thank you, Larry—and all of you.”
That was all he said; indeed, it was all that he could say just then.
Suspecting something of the sort and dreading every manifestation of emotion, as boys so often do, Larry quickly diverted all minds by calling out:
“See there! Look! There’s a school of skipjacks breaking water dead ahead. Let’s have some fun trolling for them. We haven’t any appointed hours and we’re in no hurry, and trolling for skipjacks is prime sport.”
“What are they, anyhow?” asked Dick, who had become a good deal interested in the strange varieties of fish he had seen for the first time on the southern coast.
“Why, fish, of course. Did you think they were humming birds?”
“Well, I don’t know that I should have been greatly astonished if I had found them to be something of that kind. Since you introduced me to flying fish the other day, I’m prepared for anything. But what I wanted to know was what sort of fish the skipjacks are.”
“Oh, that was it? Well, they’re what you call bluefish up north, I believe. They are variously named along the coast—bluefish, jack mackerel, horse mackerel, skipfish, skipjacks, and by some other names, I believe, and they’re about as good[58] fish to eat as any that swims in salt water, by whatever name you call them.”
“Yes, I’ve eaten them as bluefish,” answered Dick. “They’re considered a great dainty in Boston and up north generally.”
“They’re all that,” answered Larry, “and catching them is great sport besides, as you’ll agree after you’ve had an hour or so of it. We must have some bait first. Tom, run her in toward the mouth of the slough you see on her starboard bow about a mile away. See it? There, where the palmetto trees stand. That’s it. She’s heading straight at the point I mean. Run her in there and bring her head into the wind. Then we’ll find a good place and beach her, and I’ll go ashore with the cast net and get a supply of shrimps.”
“Is it a wallflower or a widow you’re talking about, Larry?” languidly asked Cal, while his brother was getting the cast net out and arranging it for use.
“What do you mean, Cal? Some pestilent nonsense, I’ll be bound.”
“Not at all,” drawled Cal. “I was chivalrously concerned for the unattached and unattended female of whom you’ve been speaking. You’ve mentioned her six times, and always without an escort.”
“Oh, I see,” answered Larry, who was always quick to catch Cal’s rather obscure jests. “Well, by the pronouns ‘she’ and ‘her,’ I meant the good ship Hunkydory. She is now nearing the shore and if you don’t busy yourself arranging trolling lines and have them ready by the time I get back on board of her with a supply of shrimps, I’ll see to it that you’re in no fit condition to get off another feeble-minded joke like that for hours to come. There, Tom, give her just a capful of wind and run her gently up that little scrap of sandy beach. No, no, don’t haul your sheet so far—ease it off a bit, or she’ll run too far up the shore. There! That’s better. The moment her nose touches let the sheet run free. Good! Dick himself couldn’t have done that better.”
With that he sprang ashore, and with the heavily leaded cast net over his arm and a galvanized iron bait pail in his hand, hurried along the bank to the mouth of the slough, where he knew there would be multitudes of shrimps gathered for purposes of feeding. After three or four casts of the net he spread it, folded, over the top of his bait bucket to keep the shrimps he had caught from jumping out. Within fifteen minutes after leaping ashore he was back on board again with a bucket full of the bait he wanted.
“Now, then,” he said to Dick and Tom, “Cal will show you how to do the thing. I’ll sail the boat back and forth through the schools, spilling wind so as to keep speed down. Oh, it’s great sport.”
“Well, you shall have your share of it then,” said Dick, carefully coiling his line. “After I’ve tried it a little, and seen what sort of sailing it needs, I’ll relieve you at the tiller and you shall take my line.”
“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” said Cal with a slower drawl than usual by way of giving emphasis to his words. “Not if I see you first. After Larry has run us through the school two or three times, missing it more than half the time, I’ll take the tiller myself and give you a real chance to hook a fish or two.”
Dick knew Cal well enough to understand that he was in earnest and that there would be no use in protesting or arguing the matter. Besides that, he hooked a big fish just at that moment, and was jerked nearly off his feet. The strength of the pull astonished him for a moment. He had never encountered a fish of any kind that could tug like that, and for the moment he forgot that the dory was doing most of the pulling. In the meanwhile[61] he had lost his fish by holding his line too firmly and dragging the hook out of its mouth.
“That’s your first lesson,” said Cal, as deliberately as if there had been no exciting sport on hand, and with like deliberation letting his own line slip slowly through his tightened fingers. “You must do it as I am doing it now,” he continued. “You see, I have a fish at the other end of my line and I want to bring him aboard. So instead of holding as hard as a check post, I yield a little to the exigencies of the situation, letting the line slip with difficulty through my fingers at first and long enough to transmit the momentum of the boat to the fish. Then, having got his finny excellency well started in the way he should go, I encourage persistency in well doing on his part by drawing in line. Never mind your own line now. We’ve run through the school and Larry is heaving-to to let Tom and me land our fish. You observe that Tom has so far profited by his close study of my performance that—yes, he has landed the first fish, and here comes mine into the boat. You can set her going again, Larry; I won’t drag a line this time, but devote all my abilities to the instruction of Dick.”
On the next dash and the next no fish were[62] hooked. Then, as the boat sailed through the school again, Dick landed two beauties, and Tom one.
“That ends it for to-day,” said Larry, laying the boat’s course toward the heavily wooded mainland at the point where Cal had suggested a stay of several days for shooting.
“But why not make one more try?” eagerly asked Tom, whose enthusiasm in the sport was thoroughly aroused; “haven’t we time enough?”
“Yes,” said Larry, “but we have fish enough also. The catch will last us as long as we can keep the fish fresh, which isn’t very long in this climate, and we never catch more fish or kill more game than we can dispose of. It is unsportsmanlike to do that, and it is wanton cruelty besides.”
“That’s sound, and sensible, and sportsmanlike,” said Dick, approvingly. “And besides, we really haven’t any time to spare if we’re going to stop on the island yonder for dinner, as we agreed, and—”
“And as at least one appetite aboard the Hunkydory insists that we shall,” interrupted Cal. “It’s after three o’clock now.”
“So say we all of us,” sang Tom to the familiar after-dinner tune, and Larry shifted the course so as to head for an island nearly a mile away.
There a hasty dinner was cooked and eaten, but hasty as it was, it occupied more time in preparation than had been reckoned upon, so that it was fully five o’clock when the dory was again cast off.
In the meanwhile the wind had sunk to a mere zephyr, scarcely sufficient to give the heavy boat steerage way, and, late in the day, as it was, the sun shone with a sweltering fervor that caused the boys to look forward with dread to the prospect of having to resort to the oars.
That time came quickly, and the sails, now useless in the hot, still air, were reluctantly lowered.
A stretch of water, more than half a dozen miles in width, lay before them, and the tide was strong against them. But they pluckily plied the oars and the heavy boat slowly but surely overcame the distance.
They had found no fresh water on the island, and there was very little in the water kegs when they left it for their far-away destination. The hard work of rowing against the tide in a hot atmosphere, made them all thirsty, so that long before they reached their chosen landing place, the last drop of the water was gone, with at least two more hours of rowing in prospect.
“There’s a spring where I propose to land,” said Cal, by way of reassuring his companions. “As[64] I remember it, the water’s a bit brackish, but it is drinkable at any rate.”
“Are you sure you can find the spot in the dark, Cal?” asked Larry, with some anxiety in his voice. “For it’ll be pitch dark before we get there.”
“Oh, yes, I can find it,” his brother answered.
“There’s a deep indentation in the coast there—an inlet, in fact, which runs several miles up through the woods. We’ll run in toward the shore presently and skirt along till we come to the mouth of the creek. I’ll find it easily enough.”
But in spite of his assurances, the boys, now severely suffering with thirst, had doubts, and to make sure, they approached the shore and insisted that Cal should place himself on the bow, where he could see the land as the boat skirted it.
This left three of them to handle four oars. One of them used a pair, in the stern rowlocks, where the width of the boat was not too great for sculls, while the other two plied each an oar amidships.
In their impatience, and tortured by thirst as they were, the three oarsmen put their backs into the rowing and maintained a stroke that sent the boat along at a greater speed than she had ever before made with the oars alone. Still it seemed to them that their progress was insufferably slow.
Presently Cal called to them: “Port—more to port—steady! there! we’re in the creek and have only to round one bend of it. Starboard! Steady! Way enough.”
A moment later the dory slid easily up a little sloping beach and rested there.
“Where’s your spring, Cal?” the whole company cried in chorus, leaping ashore.
“This way—here it is.”
The spring was a small pool, badly choked, but the boys threw themselves down and drank of it greedily. It was not until their thirst was considerably quenched that they began to observe how brackish the water was. When the matter was mentioned at last, Cal dismissed it with one of his profound discourses.
“I’ve drunk better water than that, I’ll admit; but I never drank any water that I enjoyed more.” Then he added:
“You fellows are ungrateful, illogical, unfair, altogether unreasonable. That water is so good that you never found out its badness till after it had done you a better service than any other water in the world ever did. Yet now you ungratefully revile its lately discovered badness, while omitting to remember its previously enjoyed and surpassing[66] goodness. I am so ashamed of you that I’m going to start a fire and get supper going. I for one want some coffee, and it is going to be made of water from that spring, too. Those who object to brackish coffee will simply have to go without.”
VII
AN ENEMY IN CAMP
No sooner was the camp fire started than Cal went to the boat and brought away a piece of tarpaulin, used to protect things against rain. With this and a lighted lantern he started off through the thicket toward the mouth of the little estuary, leaving Dick to make coffee and fry fish, while Larry mixed a paste of corn meal, water and a little salt, which he meant presently to spread into thin sheets and bake in the hot embers, as soon as the fire should burn down sufficiently to make a bed of coals.
As Cal was setting out, Tom, who had no particular duty to do at the moment, asked:
“Where are you off to, Cal?”
“Come along with me and see,” Cal responded without answering the direct question. “I may need your help. Suppose you bring the big bait bucket with you. Empty the shrimps somewhere. They’re all too dead to eat, but we may need ’em for bait.”
Tom accepted the invitation and the two were quickly beyond the bend in the creek and well out of sight of the camp. As they neared the open water, Cal stopped, held the lantern high above his head, and looked about him as if in search of something. Presently he lowered the lantern, cried out, “Ah, there it is,” and strode on rapidly through the dense undergrowth.
Tom had no time to ask questions. He had enough to do to follow his long-legged companion.
After a brief struggle with vines and undergrowths of every kind, the pair came out upon a little sandy beach with a large oyster bank behind it, and Tom had no further need to ask questions, for Cal spread the tarpaulin out flat upon the sands, and both boys began gathering oysters, not from the solid bank where thousands of them had their shells tightly welded together, but from the water’s edge, and even from the water itself wherever it did not exceed a foot or so in depth. Cal explained that these submerged oysters, being nearly all the time under salt water, and growing singly, or nearly so, were far fatter and better than those in the bank or near its foot.
It did not take long to gather quite as many of the fat bivalves as the two could conveniently carry in the tarpaulin and the bait pail, and as Cal was[69] tying up the corners of the cloth Tom began scrutinizing the sandy beach at a point which the ordinary tides did not reach. As he did so he observed a queer depression in the sand and asked Cal to come and see what it meant.
After a single glance at it, Cal exclaimed gleefully:
“Good for you, Tom. This is the luckiest find yet.”
With that he placed the lantern in a favorable position, emptied the bait pail, hurriedly knelt down, and with his hands began digging away the sand.
“But what is it, Cal? What are you digging for?”
“I’ll show you in half a minute,” said the other, continuing to dig diligently. Less than the half minute later he began drawing out of the sand a multitude of snow-white eggs about the size of a walnut. As Tom looked on in open-mouthed wonder, he thought there must be no end to the supply.
“What are they, Cal?” the boy asked.
“Turtle’s eggs, and there’s a bait bucket full of them. You’ve made the luckiest find of all, Tom,” he said again in congratulation.
“Are they good to eat?”
“Good to eat? Is anything you ever tasted good[70] to eat? Why, Tom, they’re about the rarest delicacy known to civilized man. In Charleston they sell at fabulous prices, when there happen to be any there to sell. Now we must hurry back to the fire, for the ash cakes must be about done and the coffee made.”
After a moment or two of silence, Tom asked:
“Why did you think there was an oyster bank down there, Cal?”
“I noticed it as we came into the creek and I took pains to remember its location. But here we are. See, fellows, what Tom has found! Now bring on your coffee and your ash cakes and your fish, and we’ll feast like a company of Homer’s warriors. It won’t take long to boil the eggs in salt water—ten minutes is the allotted time, I believe, in the case of turtle’s eggs, and during that time we can be eating the other things and filling up with fire-opened oysters.”
With that he threw three or four oysters upon the coals, removing them as soon as they opened and swallowing them from the shell. The others followed his example.
Of course it really was an excellent supper the boys were eating out there under the stars, but sharp-set hunger made it seem even better than it was, and the contrast between it and the supper[71] of bologna sausages and hardtack of the night before, added greatly to the zest of their feasting. They rejoiced, too, in being free, out there in the woodlands, with no dismal rain to depress their spirits and no restraint of any kind upon their liberty.
But they were all very tired after their sleepless night before and their hard-working day, and without argument or discussion, one by one of them stretched himself before the fire not long after supper, and fell asleep. Cal remained awake longer than the rest, though he, too, was lying flat upon his back, ready to welcome sleep as soon as it should come to his eyelids.
Before it came he was moved by jealousy or mischief to disturb the others with an admonition.
“You fellows are recklessly trifling with your health, every one of you, and it is my duty to warn you of the consequences. In allowing so brief a time to elapse between the consumption of food in generous quantities, and your retirement to your couches, you are inviting indigestion, courting bad dreams and recklessly risking the permanent organic and functional impairment of your constitutions—to say nothing of your by-laws, orders of business, rules of procedure and other things that should be equally precious to you.”
“Will you shut up, Cal?” muttered Dick, half awake. Tom remained unconscious and Larry responded only with a snore.
Presently even Cal’s wakefulness yielded, his thoughts wandered, and he fell into a sound slumber.
The woodlands were as still as woodlands at night ever are; the stars shone brilliantly in a perfectly clear sky; the brush wood fire died down to a mass of glowing coals and gray ashes, and still the weary ship’s company slept on without waking or even moving.
Then something happened, and Larry, who was always alert, even in his sleep, suddenly sat up, at the same time silently grasping the gun that lay by his side. He was sure he had heard a noise in his sleep, but now that he was wide awake, everything seemed profoundly still. Nevertheless he waited and watched. Then suddenly he brought his gun to his shoulder, and in sharp, ringing tones cried out:
“Drop that!”
Instantly all the boys were standing with their guns in hand, not knowing what had happened, but ready to meet whatever might come. A second or two later Larry, still sitting and aiming his gun over his bent knees, called out again:
“Drop that, I say! Drop it instantly or I’ll shoot. I’ve got a bead on you. Now throw up your hands! Quick, and no fooling.”
Dick, Cal, and Tom searched the man’s clothes.
Page 73.
As he gave this command he rose and slowly advanced toward the dory, keeping his gun levelled from his shoulder.
It was difficult to see anything, until Tom thought to throw a bunch of dry brush upon the coals. As it blazed up the boys saw the man whom Larry had held up. He was standing by the boat, his back toward them and his hands, held up in obedience to Larry’s command.
“Now, boys, see what shooting irons he has about him,” directed Larry, who stood with the muzzle of his shotgun less than three feet away from the prisoner.
Dick, Cal and Tom searched the man’s clothes, but found no weapons of any sort there. Tom was thoughtful enough to search his long-legged leather boots, and from each of them he presently drew a murderous-looking army revolver. Without saying a word, the boy sprung the pistols open and emptied them of their cartridges, which he tossed into the creek.
“Now you may let your hands down,” said Larry, at the same time lowering his piece, but continuing to hold it with both barrels at full cock.
“Cal, take care of that box of cartridges I made him drop, and take a lantern and look the boat over. He may have done some damage before trying to steal our ammunition.”
Up to this time the intruder, a huge man of evil countenance, had spoken no word. Now he suddenly took the initiative.
“Who are you fellers, anyhow, and what are you a-doing here?” he asked.
“Curiously enough,” responded Cal, “those are precisely the questions I was going to ask you. Suppose you answer first. Who are you and what are you doing here?”
“That’s for me to know and you to find out,” the intruder replied, truculently.
“Perhaps you’d better reconsider that,” said Cal. “You’re a prisoner, you know, caught in the act of stealing our ammunition, and we are armed. We can chuck you into our boat and take you to a magistrate, who will provide you with jail accommodations for a while. Give an account of yourself. What did you come to our camp for?”
“I come,” he replied with somewhat less assurance in his tone, “to find out who you fellers was, and what you’re a-doin’ here where you don’t belong, and to give you fair warnin’ to git away from[75] here jest as quick as you know how. Ef you don’t, it’ll be a good deal the worse for you.”
“We’ll do nothing of the kind,” broke in Larry. “We’re on land that belongs to Mr. Hayward, a friend of ours, and we’re going to stay here as long as we like.”
“You’ll do it at your own resk, then. You’ve got me hard and fast, but they’s others besides me.”
“Now listen to me,” said Larry, rising and speaking sharply. “We’ve got you hard and fast, as you say, and we could take you to jail or we could hold you as a hostage, if you know what that means; but we’ll do neither. We’re not afraid of you or the ‘others’ you mentioned. We are going to turn you loose and dare you to do your worst. We’ve a right to be where we are, and we’re going to stay here till we’re ready to go. We’re armed, and we know how to shoot. But there’ll be no holding up of hands the next time any of you invade our camp, and there’ll be no challenging. It’ll be quick triggers. Now go! We expect to stay here for three or four days. Go!”
The man moved off through the woods, with a peculiar limp in his left leg, turning about when at a little distance, and shouting:
“It’ll be the worse for you! I’ve give you fair warnin’.”
VIII
CAL BEGINS TO DO THINGS
“Wonder what it all means,” said Tom, when the man had limped away through the undergrowth and out of hearing.
“It means, for one thing,” said Cal, “that we’re practically in a state of siege here. We must all be on the alert and never all sleep at once.”
“Yes,” said Larry, “and that isn’t enough. We must guard ourselves against surprise by day as well as by night. As soon as it grows light enough in the morning I’ll explore our surroundings and see what may best be done. It is now a trifle after four o’clock, and we shan’t go to sleep again. Why not have breakfast and make a long day of it. I want to get some game, for one thing. I wonder if that fellow’s gang, whoever they are, have cleaned all the wild things out of these woods.”
“You can rest easy as to that,” said Cal. “We’ll have something fit to eat for dinner to-day, and I’ll have it here in time to cook it properly for[77] that meal. What I am wondering about is who those fellows are, and what they are doing around here, and why they don’t want us around.”
“Then you believe what that fellow said?” asked Dick. “You believe in the existence of those others’ with whose vengeance he threatened us?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Well, I don’t. There may be another man down here with that one, fishing or hunting, but I don’t believe in the presence of a company of them.”
“But why not, Dick?”
“Simply because it is unlikely. On its face it seems to me more likely that, as we had caught that fellow stealing, he invented the formidable and vengeful force theory just to scare us into letting him go. What would there be for such a band as he suggests to do down here in these lonely woods? What is there here to attract such a band?”
“I am not prepared to answer those questions,” said Cal. “I can’t imagine what a gang of that sort could be doing here, or why they are here, or anything about it. But it is my firm conviction that we have need to keep cartridges in our guns and about our persons.”
“Oh, that’s of course,” answered Dick; “though if there is any such gang and they don’t attack us[78] early this morning, we needn’t look for them before night, so we’ll have plenty of time for getting a good supply of game.”
“All right,” said Cal. “And by way of making sure, as it’s coming on daylight now, I’ll go and get that turkey gobbler I was speaking of. I’ll be back to breakfast.”
With that Cal started off, gun in hand, leaving the rest to wonder.
“How can he be so confident of finding game?” Dick asked, with a note of incredulity in his voice.
“I don’t know,” answered Larry, “but it’s nine chances in ten that he’ll do it. He’s the wiliest hunter I ever knew, and with all his chatter, he never says a thing of that kind without meaning it; especially he never gives a positive promise unless he is confident of his ability to fulfill it. So I expect to see him back here before we have breakfast ready, with a turkey gobbler slung over his shoulders.”
“Why ‘gobbler,’ Larry?” Dick asked, looking up from the mortar in which he was pounding the coffee.
“How do you mean, Dick?”
“Why, it wasn’t just a turkey that Cal promised us, but specifically a gobbler, and now when you speak of it you also assume that the bird he is to[79] kill will be of the male sex. Why may it not be a turkey hen?”
“Why, he wouldn’t think of shooting a turkey hen at this time of year. They’re bringing up their chicks now and they won’t be fit to eat for a month yet. So if he brings any turkey with him it’ll be a bearded old gobbler as fat as butter.”
At that moment a shot was heard at some distance. The next instant there was another, after which all was still.
“I say, Larry, I don’t like that,” said Tom uneasily.
“Don’t like what?”
“Why, those two shots in quick succession. Maybe Cal has met some of that gang and they’ve shot him. Hadn’t we better go to his assistance?”
“You may go if you are uneasy, Tom,” answered Larry; “but it isn’t at all necessary I think. Cal knows how to take care of himself.”
“But how do you account for the two shots in such quick succession?”
“By the fact that Cal usually hunts with cartridges in both barrels of his gun just as other people do. He may have missed at the first fire. In that case he would take a second shot if he could get it.”
Tom was somewhat reassured by this suggestion,[80] but he was not entirely free from anxiety until ten minutes later when he heard the crackling of dry branches under Cal’s big boots. A moment afterwards Cal himself appeared, with two huge gobblers slung over his neck.
“So you got one with each barrel,” quietly commented Larry, feeling of the birds to test their fatness.
“Yes, of course. That’s what I fired twice for. Did you imagine I’d shoot the second barrel just for fun? By the way, isn’t breakfast nearly ready? I’m pretty sharp set in this crisp morning air.”
“I must say, Cal,” said Dick, as the little company sat on the ground to eat their breakfast, “you’re the very coolest hand I ever saw. Why, if I had shot two big gobblers out of one flock of turkeys I’d be tiring the rest of you with minute descriptions—more or less inaccurate, perhaps—of just how I did it, and just how I felt while doing it, and just how the turkeys behaved, and all the rest of it.”
“What’s the use?” asked Cal between sips of coffee. “The facts are simple enough. We wanted some turkeys and I went out to get them. I knew where they were roosting and I got there before time for them to quit the roost. I shot one from the limb on which he had passed the night.[81] The others flew, of course, and I shot one of them on the wing. That’s absolutely all there is to tell. I like to get my game when I go for it but I never could see the use of holding a coroner’s inquest over it.”
“What puzzles me,” said Tom, “is how on earth you knew just where those turkeys were roosting. Did you just guess it?”
“No, of course not. If I had, I shouldn’t have been so ready to promise you a gobbler as I was.”
“Then how did you know?”
“I saw the roost last night.”
“When, and how?”
“When you and I were out after the oysters. Do you remember that just before we came out of the woods and upon the beach, I stopped and held up the lantern and looked all around?”
“Yes, but you were looking for the oyster bed and you found it.”
“I was looking for the oyster bed, of course. But I was looking for anything else there might be to see, too. I always do that. When I was at the bow last night looking for the mouth of this creek I saw the oyster bed, and marked its locality in my mind. In the same way, when I was looking for the oyster bed with the lantern above my head, I saw the turkey-roost and carefully made mental[82] note of its surroundings so that I might go straight to it this morning. Is there any other gentleman in the company who would like to ask me questions with a view to the satisfaction of his curiosity or the improvement of his mind?”
“I for one would like to ask you what else you saw this morning while you were out after the turkeys,” answered Tom. “Apparently you never look for one thing without finding some others of equal or superior importance. Did you do anything of that sort this morning?”
“Yes, I think so. I made two observations, in fact, and both of them seem to me to possess a certain measure of interest.”
Cal paused in his speech at this point and proceeded to eat his breakfast quite as if the others had not been waiting for him to go on with whatever it was that he had to tell.
“You’re the most provoking fellow I ever saw, Cal,” said Tom, impatiently. “When you have nothing to say that is in the least worth saying, you grind out words like a water mill, till you bury yourself and the rest of us in the chaffy nonsense. But when you have something to tell that we’re all eager to hear, you shut up like a clam at low tide. Go on, can’t you?”
“I have always heard,” replied Cal, in leisurely[83] fashion, as if his only purpose had been to prevent the conversation from flagging, “that one of the most necessary arts of the orator is that of getting his audience into a condition of anxious waiting for his words before he really says the thing they want to hear. I cannot myself claim the title of orator, but I’m practicing and—”
“Will you stop that nonsense, Cal, and tell us what you have in mind? If not we’ll duck you in the creek.”
It was Larry who uttered this threat.
“I’ve had worse things than that happen to me,” answered Cal, imperturbably. “The morning is sunny and the sea water on this coast closely approximates tepidity. By the way, Dick, our higher water temperature seems to mar the edibility of some fish that are deemed good at the North. There’s what you call the weak fish—”
He stopped suddenly, for the reason that Dick had approached him from behind, seized his shoulders and toppled him over upon the ground.
“Now tell us what we’re waiting to hear!” Dick commanded, still holding his comrade down upon his back.
“My mouth’s full of sand,” Cal managed to say; “let me up and I’ll make a clean breast of it, on honor.”
Dick loosed his hold, and as soon as Cal had rinsed his mouth, he redeemed his promise.
“Well, the first thing I discovered was that there’s a promising young deer at present haunting this neck of the woods, and we’re all going out to involve it in controversy with us to-day, and then shoot it as its just due for defying us in such impudent fashion.”
“Venison!” exclaimed Tom enthusiastically; “how my mouth waters for a taste of its juiciness! But how do you know about it, Cal?”
“It isn’t venison yet,” slowly answered the other. “You are much too hasty in jumping at conclusions. That deer will not be venison until we find it and convert it into meat of that justly esteemed sort. Now to answer your question; I discovered its tracks and followed them far enough to know whither it was wending its way and about where to look for it when you fellows quit your ceaseless talking and are ready for the chase. There’s no great hurry, however, as the tracks were made this morning and—”
“How do you know that?” interrupted Tom.
“I smelt them.”
“But how? I don’t understand.”
“It oughtn’t to be difficult for even you, Tom, to make out that if I smelt the tracks, I employed my[85] nose for that purpose. I usually smell things in just that way.”
“Oh, pshaw, you know what I mean. I didn’t imagine any creature but a well-trained hound could discover a scent in a deer’s track.”
“Obviously your imagination is in need of a reinforcement of facts then. I’ll furnish them. In the middle of a deer’s foot there is a little spot that bears an odor sweeter than that of attar of roses and quite as pronounced. For that reason many young ladies, and some who are not so young perhaps, like to keep a deer’s foot among their daintiest lingerie. Now, when a deer puts his foot down it spreads sufficiently to bring that perfumed spot in contact with the earth and the track is delicately perfumed. When the odor is pronounced it indicates that the track is newly made.
“Now that I have fully answered your intruded, if not intrusive question, Tom, perhaps I may be permitted to finish the sentence you interrupted.”
“Certainly, go on. Really, Cal, I didn’t mean—”
“I know you didn’t. I was saying that there is no need of haste in going after that deer, because the tracks were made this morning, and the marshy thicket toward which the deer was making his way is sufficiently rich in succulent grasses and juicy[86] young cane to occupy his mind for the entire day, and several days. A little later we’ll cut off his retreat on the land side of the point, and if we don’t get him the fault will be with our inexpertness with our guns.”
“That’s all right, Cal,” broke in Larry, “and I’m glad you’ve marked down the deer; but just now I must be off to plan our defense. You’ve taken so long to tell us about your first discovery that I can’t wait to hear about the second.”
“Oh, yes, you can,” replied Cal. “It will save you a lot of trouble, and I can tell it in about half a dozen words.”
“Go ahead and tell it, then.”
“It is simply that I have solved the whole problem of defense.”
“How? Tell us about it!”
“Why, just above our camp—up the creek a few hundred yards, there’s a big gum tree, with an easily accessible crotch, comfortable to sit in, from which the one playing sentinel can see everything we want to see. He can look clear across this point and half a mile or more up the creek, and by turning his head he can see the camp itself and the Hunkydory and even the soiled spots on your coats. All we’ve got to do is to keep a sentinel in that gum tree, and nobody can approach our[87] camp unseen, whether he comes by land or by water. Come on and I’ll show you.”
The whole company followed Cal, and after a minute inspection found the lookout to be quite as satisfactory as he had represented it to be. But Tom, who had made up his mind to acquire Cal’s habit of observation, noticed some things about the place that aroused his curiosity. He said nothing about them at the time, but resolved to read the riddle of their meaning if he could. To that end he asked to be the first to serve as sentinel.
“All right,” said Larry. “You can stay here till we’re ready to go after that deer. Then I’ll take your place.”
“But why?”
“Oh, so that you may have your share in the deer hunt.”
“You needn’t either of you bother about that,” said Cal. “Our camp can be seen all the way to the cane brake where the deer is browsing, and also from one of the points at which a man must stand with his gun when we drive the deer. So we shan’t need any other sentinel and we’ll all go. With all of us together over there we’ll be ready to repel any attack on ourselves, and if anybody invades the camp we’ll swoop down upon him and exterminate him.”
There was a good deal to be done at the camp before going after the deer. The turkeys were to be picked and dressed and one of them to be roasted. Some fishing was to be done and it was necessary to put up some sort of bush shelter for use in case of rain. So, leaving Tom as sentinel, the other boys went back to the anchorage, and Tom began his scrutiny of the things he had observed.
As a last injunction Larry said: “You can come in to dinner, Tom, when I whistle through my fingers. If there’s nobody in sight then, we can risk the dinner hour without a sentry.”
IX
A FANCY SHOT
The things that had attracted Tom’s attention were so trifling in themselves that only a person alertly observing would have noticed them at all. Yet Tom thought they might have significance, and he was bent upon finding out what that significance was.
First of all, he had observed that a little blind trail seemed to lead westward from the tree, and in no other direction, as if it had been made by someone who visited the tree and then returned by the way he had come, going no farther in any direction. The trail was so blind that Tom could not be sure it was a trail at all. If so, it had been traversed very infrequently, and at rather long intervals. If it had been the only suggestive thing seen, the boy would probably not have given it a thought. But he observed also that the bark of the gum tree was a trifle scarred at two points, suggesting that some one with heavy boots on had recently climbed it.
As soon as the other boys had gone back to camp, Tom set to work to make a closer inspection of his surroundings. He climbed the tree to the crotch and looked about him. There was nothing there, but from that height he could trace the little trail through the bushes for perhaps fifty or a hundred yards. He satisfied himself in that way that it was really a trail, made by the passage of some living thing, man or beast, through the dense undergrowth.
“I’ll follow that trail after a while,” he resolved, “but I’ll say nothing about it now. I might be laughed at for my pains. Not that I mind that, of course. We fellows are well used to being laughed at among ourselves. But when I say anything about this, I want to have something to tell that is worth telling. After all, it may be only the path of a deer or of one of the queer little wild horses—tackeys, they call them—that live in the swamps. Or a wild hog may have made it. I don’t know, and I’m not going to talk about the thing till I can talk to some purpose.”
As he wriggled around in the crotch, he dropped his knife from his pocket.
“That’s a reminder,” he reflected, “that people sometimes drop things when they don’t intend to. If anybody else has been roosting up here he may[91] have dropped things, too. I’ll recover my knife and then I’ll search around the tree.”
He was on the ground now, and having replaced his knife he began a minute search of the space for ten or twenty feet around the tree. It was thickly carpeted with the densely-growing vegetation that is always quick to take possession of every unoccupied inch of ground in the far southern swamps and woodlands. Searching such a space for small objects was almost a hopeless task, and finding nothing, Tom was on the point of giving up the attempt, when he trod upon something. Examining it, he found it to be an old corncob pipe with a short cane stem. It was blackened by long smoking, and that side of it which had lain next to the ground had begun to decay. But there was half-burned tobacco in it still.
From all these facts Tom thought it likely that the pipe, while still alight, had been dropped from the tree, and that its owner had failed to find it upon his descent.
“That means that somebody was using this tree for a lookout a good while ago. I can’t imagine why or wherefore, but I mean to find out if I can. Just now I hear Larry’s whistle calling me to dinner. I wonder how he manages to make that shrill shrieking noise by putting two fingers into his[92] mouth and blowing between them. I must get him to teach me the trick.”
It was decided at dinner that the deer hunt should occur as soon as that meal was finished.
“The deer will be lying down, chewing the cud, at this time of day,” explained Larry to his two guests, who had never shared a deer hunt, “and so we shan’t disturb him in placing ourselves. What’s the nature of the ground, Cal? Can three of us cover it while the fourth drives?”
“We must,” Cal answered. “It may give some one of us a very long shot, but with nitro-powder cartridges these modern guns of ours will pitch buckshot a long way. The marsh in which the deer is feeding is on a sort of peninsula which is surrounded by water except on one side. That land side is a rather narrow neck, narrow enough for three guns to cover it, I think, if the guns are well handled. Fortunately the marsh itself is small. If it weren’t we might drive all day, as we have no dogs, without routing the deer out. As it is, I think I can start him, and I’ll do the driving after I post you three at the three best points of observation.”
“How do you ‘drive,’ as you call it, Cal?” Dick asked.
“Well, if we had dogs and horses, as we always[93] do in a regular deer hunt, the man appointed to drive would ride around to the farther side of the swamp, and put the dogs into it. The dogs would scatter out into an irregular line and zigzag to one side and the other in search of the quarry. In that way they would advance till they found the deer and set him running toward the line of men on the posts. Every one of these would be intently looking and listening till the deer should come running at top speed in an effort to dash past his enemies and escape. The man on the post nearest where he breaks through is expected to bring him down with a quick shot aimed at his side, just behind the shoulder.”
“But what if he misses?”
“In that case the deer has won the game. As we have no dogs and there are only four of us, I mean to post you three at the points I find best suited, and then I’ll play hounds myself. I’ll go round to the farther side of the little swamp, invade it as noisily as I can, whooping and hallooing in the hope of getting the deer up. If I do, he’ll make a dash to get out of the swamp, and if no one of you manages to shoot him in the act, we’ll have none of that juicy venison that you, Tom, thought you had almost in your mouth when I first told you that the deer was here. Now let us be[94] off. We’re burning daylight. Load with buckshot cartridges.”
When the neck of the little peninsula was reached, Cal bade his comrades wait at the point from which their camp could be seen, while he should go over the ground and pick out the places to be occupied as posts.
On his return he placed the others each at the point he had chosen for him, taking care that Tom and Dick should have the places near which the quarry was most likely to make his effort to break through.
“Now, you must keep perfectly still,” he admonished the two inexperienced ones, “and keep both eyes and three ears, if you have so many, wide open. You may see the deer without hearing him, or you may hear him tearing through the bushes before you see him. That will give you notice of his coming, but don’t let him fool you. He may not come straight on from the spot at which you hear him. If he catches sight, sound or smell of you, he’ll veer off in some other direction. So if you hear him coming don’t move a muscle except those of your eyes.
“Now I’m off to drive. If I can, I’ll get him up and away. After that everything will depend upon you.”
It was nearly half an hour before the boys heard Cal’s shoutings in the distance, but slowly coming nearer. After that, in the eager watching and waiting, the seconds seemed minutes, and the minutes dragged themselves out into what seemed hours.
At last, however, Dick heard the deer breaking through bushes just ahead of him. In another second the frightened creature burst into view and Dick fired, missing the game, which instantly changed its course and ran away toward its left, with the speed of the wind. Dick, in his excited disappointment, fired his second barrel at a hopelessly long range.
Almost immediately he heard a shot from Tom’s gun, and after that all was still. Cal struggled out of the swamp, while Larry and Dick made their way toward Tom’s post, “to hear,” Cal said, “just what excuses the novices have invented on the spur of the moment by way of accounting for their bad marksmanship.”
“I have none to offer,” said Dick, manfully. “I missed my shot, that’s all.”
“How is it with you, Tom? What plea have you to offer?”
“None whatever,” answered Tom. “Yonder lies the deer by the side of the fallen tree. He[96] was taking a flying leap over it when I shot him—on the wing, as it were.”
The congratulations that followed this complete surprise may be imagined. Cal fairly “wreaked himself upon expression” in sounding his praises of Tom’s superb marksmanship, and better still, his coolness and calmness under circumstances, as Cal phrased it, “that might have disturbed the equipoise of an Egyptian mummy’s nerve centres.”
Tom took all this congratulation and extravagance of praise modestly and with as little show of emotion as he had manifested while making his difficult shot.
Perhaps this was even more to his credit than the other. For this was the first time Tom Garnett had ever seen a deer hunt, or a live deer, either, for that matter.
X
TOM’S DISCOVERIES
As no attack had been made upon the camp the boys gradually relaxed the vigilance of their guard duty; but they still maintained a sentry at the lookout tree at night and made occasional visits of observation during the day, going to the tree sufficiently often to avoid being taken by surprise.
“And what if they should attack us in daytime?” argued Dick. “We’d be here, armed and ready for them.”
There was fishing to be done, and a game of chess or backgammon was usually in progress. Moreover, like any other company of bright youths accustomed to think, they had enough to talk about, many things to explain to each other, many stories to tell, and many questions to discuss. Thus the daytime sentry duty was reduced to nearly no activity, except upon Tom’s part. He was apparently fond of going to the lookout and remaining there sometimes for hours at a time.
The others did not know why he should care for that as for an amusement. Tom did, but he said nothing. Tom was finding out something that the others knew nothing about.
On the next morning but one after the deer hunt he had climbed to the crotch of the tree to make a further study of the trail he had discovered. After a little while he decided to climb farther up the tree, in order to secure a better view.
From that loftier perch he saw something at a distance that deeply interested him. It was a sort of hovel, so buried in undergrowth that it would have been scarcely visible at all except to one looking from a high place as he was.
But what interested him most was that presently he saw the lame intruder of two nights before come out of the hovel and limp down toward the shore, where, as Tom easily made out, there was a small, crooked little cove running into the woods, not from the creek, but from the broader water outside.
Tom lost sight of the man when he reached the cove, and so did not make out what he was doing there, but after a time he saw him limp away again and go back to the neighborhood of the hovel, which, however, he did not enter or approach very nearly.
He loitered around for awhile, like one who must remain where he is, but who has nothing to do there during an indefinitely long and tedious waiting time. At last he stretched himself out on a log in the shadow of the trees, as if to pass away the time in sleep.
Tom’s curiosity was by this time master of him. Having seen so much, he was eager to see more. Accordingly he clambered down the tree, and, with gun in hand, set out to follow the blind trail.
He moved silently from the first, and very cautiously toward the end of his half-mile journey. He was careful not to tread upon any of the dry sticks that might make a noise in breaking, and to permit no bush to swish as he let it go.
At last he reached the neighborhood of the hovel, and, securing a good hiding place in the dense undergrowth, minutely studied his surroundings. The lame man lay still on his log and apparently asleep, until after awhile the sun’s changing position brought his face into the strong glare. Then he rose lazily, rubbing his eyes as if the sleep were not yet out of them. Rising at last, with muttered maledictions upon the heat, he limped over to a clump of palmetes and from among them lifted a stone jug, from which he took a prolonged draught.
“That’s the stuff to brace a man up!” he muttered as he replaced the jug in its hiding place.
Tom observed that there were nowhere any traces of a camp fire, present or past, a fact that puzzled him at first, for obviously the man lived there in the thicket, or at least remained there for prolonged periods at a time, and, as Tom reflected, “he must eat.”
The man himself solved the riddle for him presently by going to another of his hiding places and bringing thence a great handful of coarse ship biscuit and a huge piece of cold pickled beef of the kind that sailors call “salt-horse,” which he proceeded to devour.
“Obviously,” reflected Tom, “his food, such as it is, is brought to him here already cooked. He makes no fire, probably because he fears its light by night or the smoke of it by day might reveal his presence here. But why does he stay here? What is he here for? Who are they who bring him food, and when or how often do they come, and for what purpose? It’s a Chinese puzzle, but I mean to work it out.”
Having made his observation of the place as minute as he could Tom silently crept away, not walking in the trail, but through the bushes near enough to let him see it and follow its winding course. He[101] did this lest by walking too often in the trail he should leave signs of its recent use.
When he reached the lookout tree, to his surprise he found his three comrades there.
“Hello! What are you fellows doing here?” he asked, breaking out of the bushes and thus giving the first sign his comrades had had of his approach, for even to the end of his little journey he had been at pains to travel in absolute silence as an Indian on the war path does.
“Why, Tom, where have you been?” was the first greeting the others gave him.
“We’ve been dreadfully uneasy about you,” Larry explained, “and when I whistled through my fingers to call you to dinner and you didn’t come, we hurried out here to look for you. Where have you been and what have you been doing?”
“I say, Larry, that reminds me that I want you to teach me the trick of whistling through my fingers in that way. Will you?”
“I’ll teach you some things that are easier to learn than that,” answered his companion, “if you try any more of Cal’s tricks of beating round the bush. Why don’t you tell us where you’ve been and why, and all the rest of it? Don’t you understand that we’ve been on tenterhooks of anxiety about you for an hour?”
“Well, as I’m here, safe and sound, there is no further need of anxiety, and as for your curiosity to hear what I have to tell, I’ll relieve that while we’re at dinner. Come on! I’m hungry and I reckon the rest of you are, too. Anyhow, what I’ve got to tell you is well worth hearing, and I shall not tell you a word till we sit down on our haunches and begin to enjoy again the flavor of that venison, broiled on the live coals. You haven’t cooked it yet, have you?”
“No. We got the chops ready for the fire, and then I whistled for you, so that we might all have them fresh from the coals. As you didn’t come, we got uneasy and went to look for you. So come on and we’ll have a late dinner and sharp appetites.”
No sooner were the juicy venison chops taken from the fire and served upon a piece of bark that did duty as a platter than the demand for the story of Tom’s morning adventure became clamorous.
With a chop in one hand and half an ash cake in the other, Tom told all that he had done and seen, giving the details as the reader already knows them. Then, after finishing the meal and washing his hands, face and head in the salt water of the creek, he set forth the conclusions and conjectures he had formed.
“In the first place,” he said, “I am certain that our late visitor—he with the game leg—is the only person anywhere around. We are in no danger of an attack, either by night or by day, until his comrades, whoever they may be, come here and join him. We have no need of doing sentry duty out there at the gum tree, except to keep a sufficient lookout to make sure that we know when they do come. In my opinion that will be at night sometime.”
“Why do you think so, Tom?”
“Simply because it is evident that they don’t come here for any good or lawful purpose. If that lame fellow with the whisky jug is a fair sample of the crew, they are the sort that prefer darkness to light because their deeds are evil.”
“Who do you think they are, Tom?” asked Cal, “and what, in your opinion, are they up to?”
“I don’t know, but I mean to find out.”
“How, Tom?”
“By watching, and, if I don’t find out sooner, by being within sight when they do come. I’m going to reconnoiter the place again to-night to see what that fellow does down there. Perhaps I may make out something from that. At any rate, it’s worth trying.”
“Why shouldn’t we all go with you?” Dick asked eagerly. “Then if by any accident that evil-visaged person with the lame leg should discover you, we’ll be there in force enough to handle him and the situation. I’ve heard that one of your southern generals during the Civil War once said that strategy is ‘getting there first with the most men.’ Why shouldn’t we practice strategy?”
“Why, of course, I counted on that,” Tom answered. “I knew all you fellows would want to go, and I reckon that’s our best plan. Anyhow, we’ll try it.”
“Now,” said Cal, “I have something to report which I regard as of some little importance, particularly as it means that the Hunkydory will have to leave this port pretty soon—probably within the next forty-eight hours, and possibly sooner.”
“Why, what’s the matter, Cal?” asked all the others together.
“Only that our spring is rapidly drying up, and as there is no other fresh water supply within reach, we shall simply be obliged to quit these parts as soon as we can get ourselves in shape to risk it.”
“To risk what?”
“Why, putting off in a boat on salt water. We can’t do that without some fresh water on board.[105] I’ve already begun the filling of the kegs by thimblefuls. It promises to be a slow process, as the spring seems unable to yield more than a gill or so at a time.”
“But, Cal,” interrupted Tom, “we can get all the water we want by digging a little anywhere around here. It doesn’t lie three feet below the surface.”
“Neither does the fever,” answered Cal.
“How do you mean?”
“Why, I mean that the milky-looking water you find by digging a few feet into the soil of these low-lying lands is poisonous. It is surface water, an exudation from the mass of decaying vegetable matter that constitutes the soil of the swamps. To drink it is to issue a pressing invitation to fever, dysentery and other dangerous and deadly diseases, to take up their permanent residence in our intestinal tracts.”
“But why isn’t the water of our spring just as bad?”
“Because it isn’t surface water at all, but spring water that comes from a source very different from that of the swamp soil. You have perhaps observed that the bottom of our spring is composed of clean, white sand, through which the water rises. That[106] sand was brought up by that water from strata that lie far below the soil.”
“What makes it brackish, then?”
“It is brackish because a certain measure of sea water from the creek there sipes into it. The sea water is filtered through the sand, losing most of its salt in the process. You’ve noticed, perhaps, that the spring water is more brackish at high than at low tide. That’s because—”
“Oh, I see all that now. I hadn’t thought of it before. But really, Cal, it seems rather hard that we must sail away from here just when we’ve run up against something mysterious and interesting. Now, doesn’t it?”
“Let me remind you,” answered Cal in his most elaborate manner of mock-serious speaking, “that I am in nowise called upon to assume responsibility for the vagaries of a casually encountered spring. I did not bring up that spring. I had no part in its early education or training. Presumably it is even my superior in age and experience. In any case, I feel myself powerless to control or even to influence its behavior. Moreover, I feel as keen a disappointment as you can in the fact that we shall have to abandon our search for knowledge of the purposes of our neighbor with the game leg. But it is not certain that we shall have to[107] sail away with that inquiry unfinished. It will take a considerable time to fill our water kegs, and in the meanwhile we may penetrate the mystery sooner than we expect. Anyhow, we’ll see what we shall see to-night.”
XI
PERILOUS SPYING
At Dick’s suggestion the boys cut a number of larger logs than usual and placed them on their camp fire that evening before setting out on their expedition.
“It will avert suspicion of what we are at,” Dick said in explanation of his proposal. “So long as the camp fire burns up brightly nobody seeing it from a distance will doubt that we are here. It isn’t much trouble, anyhow.”
The night proved to be an unusually dark one, with an overcast sky, threatening rain, and on the chance of that Cal rigged up the largest tarpaulin the company owned and so arranged it as to conduct all the water that might fall upon it into the bait pail and such other receptacles as would hold it. “If it rains hard,” he explained, “we’ll catch enough water before morning to fill both the kegs.”
Going to the big gum tree, Tom climbed to the top of it to see if he could discover anything the[109] little company might want to know. After a careful scrutiny of the landscape to the west he came down again, reporting that everything was quiet “in the region of our late visitor’s country seat.”
Then the party set out on their exploring expedition. Tom, acting as guide, followed the little blind trail, while the rest made their way through the undergrowth on either side, keeping near enough to the trail to hear even a whispered warning or direction if Tom should have need to give any such.
Slowly, carefully, and in profound silence, they made their way to the point from which Tom had watched the place during the day. Then, as had been arranged in advance, the four stretched out their little line, so as to see the place from different points of view.
At first there was not much to see, and on so dark a night even that little could be seen only indistinctly and with difficulty. The “man with the game leg,” as the boys called him, was moving about the place in a leisurely fashion, but what he was doing none of the investigating party could make out in the darkness, though they had crept very close to the camp and were watching intently.
At last their watching and waiting were rewarded by a happening which interested them, though they[110] did not understand it. The man with the game leg went into the hovel Tom had seen, and after remaining there for a considerable time, came out again. As he did so the boys were easily able to make out that he carried a dark lantern in his hand. It was carefully closed, but there were little leaks of light from its fastenings, as there always are from such contrivances when they are of the common, cheap variety as this one obviously was.
Carrying it in his hand and still closed, the man limped off down the trail that led toward the cove.
No sooner had he got well clear of the camp than the four watchers began scrambling up the trees nearest to them for the sake of a better view. There was nobody to hear them, but under the impulse of that caution which their presence in such a place required of them, they were careful to climb as silently as possible.
Very dimly, but with certainty, they could see the glow of the closed dark lantern and in that way trace the man carrying it throughout his brief journey.
When at last he reached the mouth of the cove where the view opened out toward the broad inlet, he opened his lamp for a brief second, holding it so that its gleam should show down the inlet to his right. A moment later he flashed it again, this[111] time straight across the broad inlet. Presently he opened it for the third time, sending the flash up the inlet.
The whole proceeding did not occupy half a minute, and after that all remained in darkness except that the boys could still locate the dark lantern by the dim halo of light that surrounded it.
For half an hour or more there were no further developments. The man with the game leg seemed to be sitting still, waiting for time to pass or for something to happen. At last he opened the lamp again, sending its flash down the inlet as before. Then he showed his gleam straight out upon the water.
This time the boys in the tree tops saw a brief answering gleam from the open water half a mile or more from shore.
It was safe for the boys to speak now, and Tom thought it best for all of them to come down out of the trees before the man with the game leg, who had started slowly back toward the camp, should reach their neighborhood.
“Come down off your roosts, fellows,” he directed, “and secrete yourselves well in the bushes. The ‘others’ are coming to-night, sure enough. Be careful to hide yourselves so that a flash from that dark lantern won’t search you out. By the[112] way, after they come and we see all we can, we must get out of here. I can’t speak then, but notice when you see me moving away, and follow my example. Now, no more talking, even in a whisper.”
The man with the game leg did not return immediately, as Tom had expected. Instead, he made his way up the bank of the cove and around its bend, to a point only two or three hundred yards away. Obviously that was to be the landing place, hidden as it was by the bend and the dense forest growth from all possible observation on the part of boats in the sound outside. The man with the game leg had gone to the mouth of the cove only to send his signals to his companions outside. Now that they had been seen and answered, he had gone to the landing-place, there to await their coming.
Fortunately for the purposes of the boys, the landing was in full view from their hiding place, and after the man with the game leg had gone thither they had only that one point to watch while they waited.
The wait was a long one, and perhaps it seemed longer because a drizzling rain had set in, soaking them to the skin. After a long time, however, the[113] man with the game leg turned his dark lantern and flashed it once down the cove.
By its light the watchers made out three large boats slowly moving up the cove, apparently with carefully muffled oars, as their strokes could not be heard even at the short distance that now separated them from their destination. As they approached the landing with obvious care, there were frequent flashes from the dark lanterns that all of them seemed to be carrying, and by these flashes Tom and his companions saw that the boats were piled high with freight of some kind, so bestowed as to occupy every inch of space except what was necessary for the use of the men at the oars. Of these there were only two in each boat, each plying a single oar, while a third, perched upon a freight pile at the stern, was steering. Thus there were nine men in the three boats, who, with the man on shore, constituted a rather formidable company for four boys to face if they should decide to attack the Hunkydory’s camp, as the man with the game leg had threatened.
Whence the boats had come, Tom could not in any wise guess, and of course he could not discuss the matter with his comrades while hiding there in the bushes under a life-and-death necessity of keeping[114] perfectly silent. Two things he was sure of: the boats could not have come very far, with only two oarsmen to each of them, and they could not have traversed any but smooth waters, with their freight piled high above their gunwales, as it was.
As soon as the boats were landed, the men began unloading them and carrying their freight to the camp, which was evidently to be its hiding place for a time at least. In the main it seemed to consist of light boxes or packages, many of them bound together into single large bundles which one man could carry. There were also some kegs, which seemed pretty heavy, as the men carried them on their shoulders. But it was difficult to make out anything more definite than this, as the darkness was dispelled infrequently by flashes from a dark lantern, and then only for a fraction of a second at a time.
When the greater part of the freight had been brought to the camp the man who seemed to be in authority over the rest set some of them to work bestowing it in the hovels, of which there appeared to be several, each securely hidden in the thick undergrowth so that a person casually passing that way would never have suspected their existence.[115] Even while this work was in progress the man in charge permitted as little show of light as possible. When all was done a hamper of provisions was brought from one of the boats, together with a demijohn, and the whole crew assembled around the midnight spread, eating and drinking in the dark, except when now and then it became necessary to permit a little show of light for a moment.
At first they feasted in silence, too, but after awhile the liquor they were drinking seemed to go to their heads and they quarreled among themselves a good deal. Some of them wandered about now and then as if searching the bushes jealously.
It was clearly time for the boys to leave the place and they watched and listened for Tom’s beginning of the retreat. At last they heard him moving and, assuming that he had begun the withdrawal, they all cautiously crept away to the rear. As each was following a separate trail there was no word spoken among them until Larry, Dick and Cal came out of the bushes and joined each other at the gum tree.
“But where is Tom?” one of them asked.
Nobody knew. Nobody had seen or known anything about him since his first stirring of the[116] bushes had set the retreat in motion. They had all heard a commotion in what they called “the scoundrels’ camp,” with sounds as of angry quarreling and fighting; but they had heard nothing of Tom.
The boys were in consternation.
“Do you suppose those scoundrels can have caught him?” asked Dick, with horror in his tones.
“I don’t know,” Larry answered through his set teeth. “But there’s only one thing to do.”
“Only one thing,” answered Dick. “We must go to his assistance, and if they have him prisoner we must rescue him or all die trying. I for one will never come back alive unless we bring him with us.”
“That’s of course,” said Cal, who for once spoke crisply, wasting no words. “Wait a second, Larry! How many cartridges have you—each of you?”
When they answered, Cal said:
“Here, take six more apiece. You may need ’em.”
As he spoke he took the extra cartridges from his pockets and hurriedly distributed them. It was Cal’s rule in hunting never to be without abundant ammunition.
“Now then, Larry,” he said, when the others[117] had pocketed the cartridges, “give your orders; you’re the captain.”
“All right! Come on at a run, but don’t trip and fall. There’s no time to lose.”
Down the trail they went, not at a run, for running was impossible in such a tangle of vines and bushes, but at as fast a trot as they could manage. Suddenly there was a collision. Larry had met Tom “head on,” as he afterwards said. Tom was making his way as fast as he could to the gum tree, knowing that his friends would be in terror when they missed him, while they were hurrying to his rescue. In the darkness and the heavy downpour of rain he and Larry had failed to see or hear each other till they came into actual collision.
“Where on earth have you been, Tom?”
“Why did you fellows retreat before the time?”
These were questions instantly exchanged.
“Why, you gave the signal, Tom. You began moving off and we followed as agreed.”
“I understand now,” Tom answered, resuming the journey, “but it was a mistake of signal. Come on out of here. Let’s go to camp and talk it all over there. I’ve found out all about this thing and it’s interesting.”
“What does it mean? Tell us!”
“Not here in the downpour. We’ll go to camp first and get under the shelter and put on some dry clothes. My teeth are chattering and I don’t care to imitate them. Come on!”
XII
TOM’S DARING VENTURE
Tom’s teeth were indeed chattering when the company reached their camp. He was chilled “clear through,” he said, and his companions were very uneasy. They feared, and not without reason, that he had contracted a swamp fever, which always begins with a chill. To avoid that, the Rutledge boys, who knew the coast and its dangers, had carefully kept on or very near the salt water, and had chosen for their camp a spot where there were no live oaks, no gray moss and no black sand. Still Tom might have caught a fever.
Cal piled wood on the fire with a lavish hand, so that an abundance of heat might be reflected into their dry bush shelter, the open side of which faced the fire, and Dick busied himself searching out dry clothes from the lockers, while Larry helped Tom to strip himself as speedily as possible.
“Now run and jump into the creek,” he directed, as soon as the last of Tom’s clothes were[120] off. “The salt water is luke-warm or even warmer than that. I’ll wring out your clothes while your bath is warming you, and when you come out we’ll give you a rub down that would stimulate circulation in a bronze statue. Hurry into the water, and don’t hurry out too soon.”
By the time Tom had been rubbed down and had got into dry clothes, he declared himself to be “as warm as a toast, as hungry as a schoolgirl, and ready to stand a rigid examination as to the character and purposes of our scoundrel friends down there.”
“Good!” exclaimed Larry. “That’s proof positive that you haven’t caught the fever. I was afraid you might.”
“Fever? Why, I was as cold as the Arctic circle—but then perhaps you keep your fevers on ice down here and serve ’em cold. You have so many queer ways that nothing surprises me.”
Larry explained, and Tom laughed at him for his pains, for of course Tom knew what he had meant.
It was well past midnight, and the others shared Tom’s hunger in full measure, so they were not greatly disappointed when, in response to their eager demands for the story he had to tell, he answered:
“I’ll tell you all about it when we get something to eat. Till then my loquacity will closely resemble that of a clam.”
One of the party had killed some fat black squirrels during the preceding day, and as these were already “dressed for the banquet,” in Dick’s phrase, they were spread upon a mass of coals, and within a brief while the meal—supper or breakfast, or post-midnight luncheon, or whatever else it might be called—was ready to receive their attention.
“Now, Tom, tell us!” demanded Larry, when their hunger was partially appeased.
“Wait a minute,” interposed Dick. “Isn’t this rather risky?”
“What?”
“Why, sitting here on our haunches, rejoicing in the genial warmth of the fire—over-genial, I should call it, as it’s blistering my knees—and having no sentry out to see that the scoundrels don’t pounce down on us by surprise.”
“There’s no more risk in it,” answered Tom, confidently, “than in wearing socks, or playing dominoes, or trying to trace out the features of the man in the moon.”
“But why not, Tom?”
“Because the scoundrels down there are all dead—dead[122] drunk, I mean—and they have all they can do just now in sleeping it off.”
“Are you sure of that?”
“Yes, entirely sure. You saw how they were drinking—half a pint of rum at a dose, repeated every five minutes. Well, they kept that up as long as they could find the way to their mouths. They had emptied the demijohn before you fellows left, and not being satisfied, they got out a keg of the fiery stuff, had a rough and tumble fight over some question relating to it, beat each others’ faces into something very much like Hamburger steaks, and then decided to let the keg arbitrate the dispute. Four or five of them had been arbitrated into a comatose state before I left, another was trying to sing something about ‘Melinda,’ setting forth that he had ‘seen her at the windah,’ and was prepared to give his hat and boots if he could ‘only have been dah.’ The rest were drunkenly silent as they sat there by an open dark lantern which they had forgotten to close, I suppose, and drinking rum from tin cups whenever they could remember to do so. They will give nobody any trouble to-night.”
“But, Tom,” interposed Dick, “how do you know it was rum they were drinking?”
“Now, see here,” said Tom, “I’d like to know[123] who’s telling this story. If I’m the one the rest of you had better let me tell it in my own way. I was going to begin at the beginning and tell it straight through, but your intrusive questions have switched me off the track. Now listen, and I’ll tell you all I know and how I know it, and what I think of it, and what I think you think of it, and all the rest of it.”
“Go ahead, Tom!” said Cal; “I’ll keep the peace for you; you’ll bear me witness that I haven’t spoken a word since you began. Go on!”
“All right,” said Tom. “I thought you were about to give us a disquisition when you began to say that, but you didn’t, so I’ll forgive you. Well, you see when you fellows heard me moving out there in the thicket and thought I was instituting a retreat, I was only changing my base, as the military men say. I had seen something that aroused my curiosity, and my curiosity is like a baby after midnight—if you once rouse it, you simply can’t coax it to go to sleep again.”
“What was it you had seen, Tom?” Larry began.
“Silence!” commanded Cal. “Tom has the floor.”
“Oh, I beg pardon—” Larry began apologetically.
“No, don’t do even that. Go on, Tom.”
“I will as soon as you two twin brothers cease your quarreling. As I was saying, I had seen something that aroused my curiosity. As I was peering through the bushes, looking toward the main body of the roisterers, I saw the limping one slip away from the general company and sneak off. He went very cautiously through the undergrowth to the hovel nearest me and entered it, closing the door after him. I could see a little pencil of light streaming out through a crack, so I knew he had opened his lamp in there. After a little fumbling he came out again, but he was so drunk he forgot to take his lamp with him, as I discovered by the continued streaming out of that little pencil of light.
“That was what aroused my curiosity. I wanted to know what was in that hovel, and as the lame gentleman with the ‘load’ on had obligingly left his lamp there for my accommodation, I resolved to embrace the opportunity offered. I moved cautiously upon the enemy’s works. That is to say, I crept forward toward the hovel. That’s what you fellows mistook for the signal to retreat.
“Now I am convinced that our temporary neighbors, the scoundrels, are disposed to be in[125] all ways obliging. At any rate they had considerately placed the door of the hovel so that it fronted my side of the structure and not theirs. Thus, when I opened the door the light from the burning lamp did not shine toward them and thus give the alarm.
“I entered the place and rather minutely examined its contents.”
“What was in there?” asked Cal, forgetting in his eagerness that he had himself undertaken to prevent the interruption of Tom’s narrative by questions from any source.
“I’ll tell you about that when I come to it. Story first, Cal.
“I had just finished my inspection when I heard footsteps of rather uncertain purpose passing round the hovel toward the door, which of course I had closed behind me. As there is only one door to that hovel and it has no windows by which ‘lovers might enter or burglars elope’—that’s wrong end first but it’s no matter—I realized that there was no time to lose. I hurriedly settled down behind a pile of cigar boxes—”
“Their plunder is cigars, then?” asked Dick, forgetting.
“I did not say so,” Tom answered teasingly. “I made no mention of cigars, so far as I can remember.[126] I spoke only of cigar boxes. They might be filled with anything, you know. At any rate your interruption has spoiled the most thrilling part of my narrative, which must now be continued prosaically and without the dramatic fire and fervor I had planned to put into it.
“My concealment was hasty and at best very imperfect. In my haste I forgot to conceal my gun, which stuck up a foot or two above the barrier of boxes that imperfectly hid my person. Fortunately, however, the lame gentleman was too blind drunk even to see double and, as he made no mention of the matter, I refrained from alluding to it.
“Apparently he had entered the hovel with a single purpose, namely, to close his lantern and take it away. With what I cannot help regarding as praiseworthy persistence, he carried out that purpose, giving heed to nothing else. He omitted even to close the door after him, and as the place was without heating apparatus of any kind—except rum for internal combustion—I took my leave as soon as I felt confident that the lame gentleman had either rejoined his comrades or had fallen into dreamless slumber on his way to do so. My next adventure was the head-on collision with Larry in the trail.”
“In my haste I forgot to conceal my gun.”
Page 126.
Tom paused, took another bite at the squirrel’s leg he had been eating between sentences, and it seemed necessary to set him going again by means of questions.
“Why don’t you go on, Tom? You haven’t told us yet what you found in the hut.”
“I’m thirsty,” answered the boy. “Speaking is dry work, as you know, if you ever read Hawthorn’s ‘A Rill from the Town Pump!’ Have we enough water in the spring, Cal, for me to waste it in slaking my thirst?”
“We’ve caught all our things full, I reckon. I’ll see.”
When Cal returned he brought with him a small supply of rain water.
“What made you so long about it, Cal?” asked Larry. “We’re all waiting for you.”
“So I see,” answered Cal. “I make all required apologies for having kept this distinguished company waiting while I attended to some matters that are even more vitally interesting to all of us than is Tom’s promised inventory of the things discovered by him in the tents of the wicked, if I may so designate a slab hovel in a cane brake.”
“What have you been doing, Cal? And why didn’t you call the rest of us to help you?” asked Dick, whose New England conscience was apt to[128] scourge his spirit if he thought he had been doing less than his share of whatever there was to do.
“I’ll reply to your questions in inverse order,” Cal replied. “I did not call for help because I did not need help. In what I had to do one person was as good as a dozen. I may have been a trifle slow about it, but that is chiefly because water won’t run through a hole faster than nature intended it to do. As for your other question, I’ve been engaged in a job of water-supply engineering. All the receptacles I set to catch water were nearly full, and as it still rains—a fact that you may have observed for yourselves—I thought it best to empty their contents into the water kegs and set them to catch more. As nobody thought to bring a funnel along, I have had to resort to simpler methods, and I have found that it is by no means easy to pour water from a four-gallon bait pail into a one-inch bung hole without spilling it. For the rest, Captain Larry, I beg to report that one of our water kegs is now full and the other perhaps one-third full. I hope to catch enough more water before the rain ceases to finish filling that keg and to serve all camp purposes during the few hours that we shall probably remain here.”
“Why, I should think we might stay as long as[129] we like, now,” said Tom; “this rain must have filled up our spring.”
“It has, and it has spoiled it for use for many days to come.”
“But how?” persisted Tom.
“Let me remind you, Tom, that we are all eagerly waiting for you to tell us some things that are distinctly more interesting to us than the condition and prospects of a swamp spring can be when we’ve enough water for our present and immediate future need. Go on with your story.”
“Oh, the story is finished,” Tom replied, “but you want to hear about the contents of the hovel. They consist in part of little kegs—three or five gallon kegs, I should think—of Santa Cruz Rum. At least that’s what I made out the letters branded on them to mean. These kegs are lying on the ground in rows that impressed me as far more orderly than the scoundrels themselves ever think of being. I should say there are fifteen or twenty of the kegs in that hovel.
“The rest of the stuff consists of cigars in boxes, and the boxes are carefully tied together in parcels—thirty boxes to the parcel. That’s the way we all saw them carry them up from their boats.”
“Where on earth can they have got all that rum and all those cigars, anyhow? And what do they[130] bring them away down here in the woods for, I wonder?” speculated Dick. “What’s your guess, Tom?”
“Pirates,” answered Tom; “and those things are their plunder.”
“Curious sort of pirates,” said Cal, scoffingly. “Unlike any pirates I ever heard of. Why, Tom, did you ever hear of pirates contenting themselves with taking the rum and cigars they found on the ships they overhauled? You’ve got to guess two or three times more if you’re going to guess right.”
“Well, what do you think they are?” asked Tom, a trifle disappointed to find his theory bowled over so easily.
“Smugglers,” answered Cal. “And I don’t just think it either—I know.”
“But, Cal,” interrupted Larry, “smugglers must bring their goods from foreign ports, and we all know enough about boats to know that those flat-bottomed tubs of theirs wouldn’t live five minutes in a little blow on blue water.”
“No, nor five seconds either, and those precious rascals know all that quite as well as we do. For that reason, among others, they refrain from risking their valuable lives by venturing upon blue water.”
“Then how do they carry on their traffic?”
“I have often remonstrated with you, Larry, for your neglect to read the newspapers. But for that you might have been as well informed on this and other subjects as I am. About a month ago I read in a New York newspaper that fell in my way a somewhat detailed account of the way in which certain kinds of smuggling is carried on along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts wherever the conditions are favorable, and the conditions are nowhere so favorable as right here on this South Carolina coast, where deep, but often very narrow and crooked, inlets and creeks open from the broader waters of the sounds directly into densely wooded regions that are often wholly unpeopled for many miles in every direction.
“This is the way they do it: Schooners and other small sea-going craft load at West Indian ports and take out clearance papers for New York or Halifax or some other big port which can be best reached by skirting this coast. Under pretense of stress of weather, or shortness of water or provisions, they put into some harbor of refuge like that sound out there. They make no effort to land anything, and if questioned by the revenue officers they can show perfectly regular papers. Then when opportunity offers,[132] their shore gangs—like the one over there—slip out in the darkness, take on full loads of freight, and land it in some secluded spot like the one down there, and the schooner sails away to her destination.”
“But how do they get their goods from the woods to market?” Tom asked.
“By wagons, I suppose, and a little at a time. That doesn’t concern us very deeply. What does concern us, is that we’ve got to get away from here as soon as this rain stops. The clouds seem to be breaking, by the way, and the wind has shifted to the northwest,” said Cal, stepping out of the shelter to observe the weather. “It will clear pretty early in the morning, I think, and in the meantime I for one want to get a little sleep.”
“But what’s the hurry, Cal?” asked Tom. “Why can’t we stay here a day or two longer? I’d like to see what the smugglers do when they come to.”
“There are several reasons for getting away at once,” answered Cal. “For one thing, we’re running short of some necessary supplies and must go to Beaufort to replenish our stores. Then there’s the question of water supply. After I finish filling the kegs we’ll have barely enough left to get through the day on.”
“But how has the rain put the spring out of commission, Cal?” asked Tom. “You promised to explain that.”
“By filling it full of surface water. It will be a week or more before the water there is fit to drink, at least as a steady diet.”
“There’s a much better reason than that,” said Larry.
“What is it?”
“Why, we must hurry to put ourselves in communication with the authorities, so that they can come down on that place before the scoundrels get away, or get their plunder away.”
“Yes,” said Tom, who was reluctant to leave the place and give up the adventure, “I suppose we ought to do that.”
“Ought to? Why, we simply must. Every decent citizen owes it as a duty to give notice of crime when he discovers it, and to aid the officers of the law in stopping it. Civilized life would come to an end if men generally refused to support the authorities in their efforts to enforce the law. We’ve discovered a den of thieves, engaged in robbing the Government—that is to say, robbing all of us. So we’ll get away from here just as early in the morning as we can. Now let’s get some sleep.”
It was easy to say, “Let’s get some sleep,” but not easy to get it in the excited condition of mind that had come upon every member of the little party. But, by keeping silence and lying still, the weary fellows did manage to sleep a little after awhile, and it was the sun shining full in their faces that at last aroused them to a busy day.
XIII
CAL’S EXPERIENCE AS THE PRODIGAL SON
Breakfast next morning was not a very satisfactory meal. There was plenty of fish and game, of course, but there was little else. The coffee supply had been used up, but the boys regarded that as a matter of no consequence.
“Coffee is a mere luxury anyhow,” Dick said, “and we can go without it as well as not. It isn’t like being without bread or substitutes for bread. If we had some sweet potatoes now, or some rice—”
“The which we haven’t,” interrupted Cal. “No more can we get any here. As for corn meal, we have enough for one more ash cake, but it is full of weevil and, therefore, when we consume it we shall be eating the bread of bitterness in an entirely literal sense. For quinine biscuit would taste like cookies as compared with weevely corn bread. You were wise in your generation, Dick, when you surreptitiously placed that tin of ship biscuit on board,[136] but your imagination lacked breadth and comprehensiveness. It was not commensurate with our appetites, and so the ship bread is all consumed and would have been if you’d brought a barrel of it on board instead of that little tin box full. You neglected that, however, and we must endure the consequences as best we may.”
“For the present, yes,” said Larry; “but not for long. We must make all the haste we can till we get to Beaufort and stock up again.”
“I know a trick worth two of that,” Cal said apart to Dick, but he did not explain himself. Dick had found out, however, that Cal’s knowledge of the region round about them and of the tortuous waterways that interlaced the coast in every direction was singularly minute and accurate. It was not until that morning, however, that Cal explained to him how he had come to be so well versed in the geography and hydrography of the region. It had been decided by Captain Larry that before leaving their present camp that day the company should cook enough food to last for a day or two, so that they might not have to waste any time hunting or fishing while making as quick a trip to Beaufort as they could. As there was very little game left after breakfast, Cal and Dick set out with their guns to secure a supply of squirrels and whatever else they[137] could find, while Larry and Tom should load the boat and catch some fish.
During this little shooting expedition some small manifestation of Cal’s minute information prompted a question from Dick.
“How on earth, Cal, can you remember every little detail like that? And how did you learn so much about things around here, anyhow?”
“I got that part of my education,” Cal answered, “partly by being a very good boy and partly by being a very bad one. I’m inclined to think the bad-boy influence contributed even more than the good-boy experience to my store of information. As for remembering things, that is a habit of mind easily cultivated, though the great majority of people neglect it. It consists mainly in careful observation. When people tell you they don’t remember things they have seen, or remember them only vaguely, it usually means that they did not observe the things seen. For example, I remembered where that spring of ours was when we were all parched with thirst, and I knew how to go to it in the dark. That was simply because when I first saw that spring and quenched a very lively thirst there, I decided to remember it and its surroundings in case I should ever have occasion to find it again. So I looked carefully at everything round about from[138] every point of view. I observed that the spring lay just beyond the first bend of the creek and that there was a cluster of big cypress trees very near it. I noticed that the mouth of the creek lay between a little stretch of beach on one side and a dense cane thicket on the other. In short, I carefully observed all the bearings, and having done that, of course I could never forget how to find the spring.”
“Do you always do that sort of thing when you think you may want to find a place again?”
“Yes, of course. Indeed, I do it anyhow, whether there is any occasion or not. For example, when I was visiting you in Boston last year I noticed that there was a little dent in the silver cap over the speaking tube in the dining-room, as if somebody had hit it a little blow. The dent was triangular, I remember.”
“That’s because the thing I hit it with had a triangular face, for I made that dent when I was a little fellow with a curious-looking tool that a repairer of old furniture had in use there. It’s curious that you should have noticed the dent, as it is very small and your back was toward it as you sat at table.”
“Yes, but not as I entered the room. It was then that I saw it.”
“Then that sort of close observation is a habit of mind with you?”
“Yes. I suppose it is partly natural and partly cultivated. I don’t know.”
The two had come by this time to that part of the woods that Tom had named the “squirrel pasture,” and they were soon busy with their guns. But as they walked back toward the camp, loaded with black and gray squirrels, Dick came back to the subject, which seemed deeply to interest him.
“I wonder, Cal,” he said, “if you would mind telling me about those two epochs in your young life—the good-boy and the bad-boy periods?”
Cal laughed, half under his breath.
“It isn’t much to tell,” he replied; “but if you’re interested I’ll tell you about it. You see the old families down here are a good deal mixed up in their relationships, just as the old families in Massachusetts are, because of frequent intermarriages. The Rutledges and the Calhouns, and the Hugers, and the Huguenins, and Barnwells, and Haywards, and the rest, are all more or less related to each other. Indeed, there is such a tangle of relationships that I long ago gave up trying to work out the puzzle. It is enough for you to know that the particular Mr. Hayward who owns all this wild land around[140] here and half a dozen plantations besides is my kinsman—my mother’s uncle, I believe. Anyhow, from my earliest childhood there was never anything that I liked so well as visiting at Uncle Hayward’s. Perfect candor compels me to say that I was not particularly fond of Uncle Hayward or of any member of the family, for that matter. Uncle Hayward used to take me for long rides on a marsh tackey by way of entertaining me in the way he thought I liked best, and I resented that whenever I wanted to do something else instead. He is one of the best and kindliest men alive and I am very fond of him now, but when I was a little fellow I thought he interfered with my own plans too much, and so I made up my mind that I didn’t like him. As for the ladies of the family, I detested them because they were always combing my hair and ‘dressing me up’ when I didn’t want to be dressed up.
“Nevertheless, nothing delighted me like a prolonged visit at Uncle Hayward’s. That was because I particularly appreciated an intimate association with Sam. Sam was a black boy—or young man, rather—who seemed to me to be the most delightfully accomplished person I had ever known. He could roll his eyes up until only the white below the iris was visible. He could stand on his head, walk[141] on his hands, turn handsprings, and disjoint himself in the most astonishing fashion imaginable. He could move his scalp and wiggle his ears. His gifts and accomplishments in such ways as these seemed to me without limit.
“As Uncle Hayward could never keep Sam out of the woods, he made up his mind to assign him to duty in the woods as a sort of ranger. There was plenty for Sam to do there, for besides all these vast tracts of wild land, Uncle Hayward had a deer park consisting of many thousand acres of woodland under a single fence. To watch for fires, to keep poachers out, to catch and tame half a dozen marsh tackeys every now and then, and a score of similar duties were assigned to Sam.
“When I was a little fellow my customary reward for being a particularly ‘good boy’ for a season was permission to go into the woods with Sam and live like a wild creature for weeks at a time. In that way, and under Sam’s tuition, I learned much about these regions and about the waterways, for Sam seemed always to know where a boat of some kind lay hidden, and he and I became tireless navigators and explorers.
“That, in brief, is the history of the ‘good-boy’ epoch. The story of the other is a trifle more dramatic, perhaps. It occurred three or four years[142] ago when Larry and I were planning to go to Virginia to prepare for college. I was fourteen or fifteen years old then and I had continued to spend a part of every year down here in the woods with Sam for guide, servant, and hunting factotum. At the time I speak of I had some rather ‘lame ducks’ in my studies. The fact is, I had idled a good deal, while Larry had mastered all the tasks set him. Accordingly, when my father and mother went North that year—they go every summer on account of mother’s health—Larry went up country to visit some of our relatives there, while I decided to stay at home and work with a tutor whom my father had hired for me.
“He and I lived alone in the house with only the servants, and I found him to be in many ways disagreeable. He was an Englishman, for one thing, and at that period of my life I had not yet got over the detestation of Englishmen which the school histories and revolutionary legends had instilled into my mind. He was brusque and even unmannerly at times, judged by the standards of courtesy that we Carolinians accept. More important than all else, he and I entertained irreconcilable views as to our relations with each other. He thought he was employed to be my master, while I held that he was hired only as my tutor. This led to some friction,[143] but we managed to get on together for a time until I found that the difference of opinion between him and me extended to other things than our personal relations. He seemed to think himself not only my master but master of the house also in my father’s absence. He did not know how to treat the servants. He gave them orders in a harsh, peremptory way to which house servants in Carolina are not accustomed. His manner with them was rather that of an ox-driver toward his cattle than that of a gentleman dealing with well-mannered and well-meaning servants.
“This grated on me, and I suppose I have a pretty well-defined temper when occasion arouses it. The Rutledges generally have. At any rate I one day remonstrated with the tutor on the subject, intending the remonstrance to be all there was of the incident, but he answered me in that tone of a master which I more and more resented. High words followed, from which he learned my opinion of his character and manners much more definitely than I had cared to express it before.
“At last he threatened me with a flogging, and picked up a cane with which to administer it. I was mad all over and clear through by that time. I had never had a flogging and I certainly would not submit to one at his hands. But my anger had[144] passed beyond expression in words by that time. I did not feel the flush of it—I felt deathly pale instead. I was no longer hot; on the contrary I was never cooler in my life. I did not threaten my antagonist or give him warning as he advanced toward me with the cane uplifted. I simply selected a certain plank in the floor which I made up my mind should be his Rubicon. I stood perfectly still, waiting for him to cross it.
“Presently he stepped across the line I had fixed upon. The instant he did so I sprang upon him, delivering my blows so fast and furiously that in two or three seconds he went down in a heap. He claimed to be an expert boxer, and I suppose he was, but my attack was so sudden and so unexpected that his science seemed to have no chance. At any rate, he was so nearly ‘knocked out’ that he had no disposition to renew the contest. He went to his room, washed himself, packed his trunk, leaving it to be called for later, and left the house.
“Before leaving he wrote me a curt note, saying that he would immediately get a warrant for my arrest on a charge of assault and battery.
“That rather staggered me. I wouldn’t have given one inch in fear of that man. No power on earth could have made me run away from him or apologize to him or in any other way flinch from[145] anything he might do to me. But I had a terrifying misconception of the law and its processes. I was only a fifteen-year-old boy, you know, and I knew nothing whatever of legal proceedings; or rather, I knew just enough about them to mislead my mind. I knew that a warrant meant arrest, and as I lay abed worrying that night I convinced myself that if I should be arrested when my father was not in Charleston to furnish bail for me, I must lie in a loathsome jail until his return, forbidden to communicate with anybody and compelled to live on a diet of bread and water.
“I saw no way out except to keep out of reach of that warrant till my father’s return, and the only secure way of doing that, I thought, was to run away and live down here in the woods. So after lying awake all night I got up at daybreak, got one of the servants to give me breakfast and put up a luncheon for me. Then I took a little, flat-bottomed skiff that I owned and made my way down here. I had some money with me, but I did not dare go to any town, or village, or country store, to buy anything lest the man with the warrant should find out where I was. I learned where all the little negro settlements were, however, and there I bought sweet potatoes and the like as I needed them. I had my shotgun and fish lines with[146] me, of course, and so I had no difficulty in feeding myself. For amusement I wandered about in every direction by land and water, and in that way greatly improved my education in coast country geography.
“After a while I found myself running short of ammunition, and I didn’t know how to procure a fresh supply. I was afraid to go to Beaufort, or up to Grahamville, or Coosawhatchie, or anywhere else where there were stores, and besides that I was in no fit condition to go anywhere. I had forgotten to bring any clothes with me and what I had on were worn literally to rags.
“Fortunately I had got acquainted with a negro boy who often brought me vegetables and fruit and sold them to me for low prices. I suppose now that he stole them, although that didn’t occur to me then.
“One day I hit upon the plan of sending him to Beaufort for ammunition. He expressed doubt that anybody there would sell it to him, and I shared the doubt. But it was my only chance, so I gave him some money and sent him. He was gone for two days, during which I fired my last cartridge at a deer and missed him. I had begun to think the negro boy had simply pocketed the money and disappeared, never to return again, but I consoled myself with the thought that there were plenty of fish[147] and oysters to be had, and that I could buy sweet potatoes and vegetables.
“That night the negro boy returned, bringing me rather more ammunition than I had sent for, and when I questioned him about the matter his reply was that that was what the storekeeper had given him for the money. Later, however, he confessed to me that finding nobody willing to sell cartridges to him, he had simply stolen them and, being prepared to bring me the goods I had sent for, he thought the money he had saved in that way justly belonged to him. He had squandered it for candy and in satisfaction of such other desires as possessed him. Of course I paid the merchant afterwards, and equally of course it was impossible to collect the amount from the boy.
“All that is an episode. One day by some chance I encountered Sam in my wanderings, and he told me people were looking for me—that my father had heard of my disappearance and had hurried back to Charleston.
“I went to Beaufort, bought some sort of clothes, and like the other prodigal son, returned to my father. But he utterly failed to play his part according to the story. Instead of falling on my neck, he laughed at the clothes I wore. Instead of killing the fatted calf, he told me to take a bath and put[148] on something fit to wear. All that evening I heard him chuckling under his breath as I related my experiences in answer to his questions. Finally he said to me:
“‘You’ll do, Cal. I’ll never feel uneasy about you again. You know how to take care of yourself.’
“There, Dick, you’ve heard the whole story, both of my righteousness and of my wickedness.”
“And a mighty interesting story it has been to me,” Dick replied. “Thank you for telling it.”
XIV
CAL RELATES A FABLE
The Hunkydory was completely loaded when Cal and Dick returned, and there was nothing further to do except cook the fish and game, so that there might be no need to stop anywhere to get dinner.
There was a fairly stiff breeze blowing when the anchors were weighed, but sailing was impracticable until the boat should be well out of the narrow creek, so all hands went to the oars.
When the land was cleared, Larry ordered that the oars be stowed in their fastenings and the sails raised. Without discussion or arrangement of any kind, Cal went to the helm. It seemed the proper thing to do in view of his superior knowledge of the surroundings, but Cal was not thinking of that. He had a plan and purpose of his own to carry out, though he said nothing about the matter.
There was quite an hour of sailing necessary before the course could be laid in the direction of the waterway that led toward Beaufort, and when the[150] time came for heading in that direction, Cal laid quite a different course, heading for a shore that lay several miles away.
Larry was dozing in the forepeak and did not at first observe on what course his brother was sailing. When at last he did notice it, he assumed that something in the direction of the wind made Cal’s course desirable, but after a glance at the sails he changed his mind.
“Why are you heading in that direction, Cal?” he asked, looking about him. “Your course will take us several miles out of our way. Head her toward the point of land over there where the palmettos are.”
Cal made no change and he waited a full minute before he answered. When he did so it was in his most languid drawl.
“Larry,” he said, quite as if he had not heard a word that his brother had uttered, “there was a schooner sailing down the Hudson River one day. The captain of that craft was a Dutchman of phlegmatic temperament and extreme obstinacy. The mate was a Yankee, noted for his alert readiness of resource. The schooner was loaded with brick. The captain was loaded with beer. The mate wasn’t loaded at all. It was the captain’s business to steer and manage things in the after half of the[151] ship. It was the function of the mate to manage things forward. But when the mate saw that the schooner’s course was carrying her straight upon the rocks, he went aft and remonstrated with the captain. For reply the captain said:
“‘Mate, you go forward and run your end of the schooner and leave me to run my end.’
“The mate went forward and ordered the anchor heaved overboard. Then going aft again, he said:
“‘Captain, I have anchored my end of the schooner; you can do what you please with your end.’”
Cal ceased, as if he had finished speaking. The others laughed at the story, and Larry said:
“What’s the moral of that yarn, Cal?”
“Haec fabula docet,” replied Cal, “that I’m sailing the Hunkydory just now; that I know where we are going and why.”
“Would you mind telling us, then?” demanded Larry.
“Not in the least. We are heading for the shore, on our lee; as for why, there are several reasons: One is that the tide will turn pretty soon, and when it does it will run out of the creek you want me to enter as fast as it does out of the Bay of Fundy. Another is, that the wind is falling and[152] we shall have to take to the oars presently. Another is, that I am persuaded it will be easier rowing across the small current out here than against a tide that rushes out of the creek like a mill tail. There are other and controlling reasons, but I have already given you as many as your intellectual digestion can assimilate. The rest will keep till we’re comfortably ashore. There, that’s the last puff of the wind.”
With that he hauled the boom inboard, let go the halyards and left the rudder-bar.
“It is now after three o’clock,” he said, while the others were unstepping the mast, “and the distance is about three miles or a trifle less. Rowing easily we shall have time after we get there to settle ourselves comfortably before nightfall.”
“I suppose you’re right, of course,” Larry answered, “but it means several more meals on meat and fish alone.”
“Better not cross that bridge till you come to it, Larry. You see we might find manna over there, or some bread-fruit trees newly imported from Tahiti—who knows?”
The others shared Larry’s regret as to the food prospect, but they all recognized Cal’s superior knowledge of conditions as a controlling consideration; so all rowed on in silence.
When at last they reached the neighborhood of the shore, Cal began scrutinizing it closely as if searching for the landing place he had selected in his mind. He was in fact looking for the very narrow and cane-hidden entrance to a land-locked bay that he remembered very well. Presently he turned into it and shot the boat through a channel that one might have passed a dozen times without seeing it. It wound about among the dense growths for a little way and then opened out into a considerable little bay.
Here Cal directed the landing, but instead of arranging to anchor the boat a little way from shore he put on all speed with the oars and ran her hard and fast upon a gently sloping beach.
“What’s that for, Cal?” asked Dick, whose nautical instincts were offended by the manœuvre.
“To save trouble,” Cal answered. “You see this is a considerable little bay, and the entrance to it is so very narrow that before much of a flood tide can run into the broad basin the time comes for it to turn and run out again, so there is never a rise and fall of more than six or eight inches in here. The boat will lie comfortably where she is so long as we choose to stay here. We can reach her without much if any wading, and we can shove her off into deep water whenever we like.”
“Is there a spring about here?” asked Tom, whose concern about water supply had become specially active.
“No, but we can make one in fifteen minutes.”
Then selecting a sort of depression in the sandy beach about sixty yards from the water’s edge, Cal said:
“We have only to scoop out a basin in the sand here—about three feet deep as I reckon it, and we’ll have all the water we want.”
“But will it be good water?”
“Perfectly good. You see, Tom, this beach is composed of clean white sand. The water in the bay sipes through it at a uniform level, and we’ve only to dig down to that level in order to get at it.”
“But won’t it be salt water?”
“Slightly brackish, perhaps, or possibly not at all so. You see before reaching this point it is filtered through sixty or seventy yards of closely packed sand, which takes up all the salt and would take up all other impurities if there were any, as there are not. Suppose you dig for the water, Tom, while the other fellows make camp and pick up wood. It’s very easy digging and it won’t take long. I’m going off a little way to see what there is to see—and to look for the manna I spoke of a while ago.”
So saying, Cal took up his gun and set out inland. It was more than an hour before he returned and the dusk was falling. But to the astonishment of the others a string of young negroes followed close upon his heels, all carrying burdens of some sort, mostly poised upon their heads.
XV
CAL GATHERS THE MANNA
When Cal appeared at the head of his dusky little caravan the others advanced to meet him and bombard him with a rapid fire of questions as to where he had been, and what the negro boys were carrying, and where he had discovered the source of supply, and whatever else their curiosity suggested.
Instead of replying at once he asked.
“Did you find the water, Tom?”
“Yes, easily, and it isn’t brackish at all.”
“That’s excellent, and now let us eat, drink and be merry. I couldn’t give you that injunction till I learned that we had the water for the drinking part.”
Without waiting for him to finish his sentence the others busied themselves in examining what the negroes had brought. As they did so, Cal catalogued the supplies orally with comments:
“That bag contains a half bushel of rice—enough[157] to serve us as a breadstuff for a long time to come, as we require only three teacupfuls—measured by guess—for a meal; the bag by the side of it is badly out at elbows and knees, but it holds a fine supply of new sweet potatoes which will help the endurance of the rice. What’s that? Oh, that’s a little okra, and the red-turbaned old darky woman who sold it to me carefully explained how to cook the mucilaginous vegetable. As she delivered her instructions in the language of the Upper Congo, I cannot say that my conception of the way in which okra should be prepared for the table is especially clear, but we’ll find some way out of that difficulty. Yes, the big bag on the right contains a few dozen ears of green corn, and the one next to it is full of well-ripened tomatoes, smooth of surface, shapely of contour and tempting to the appetite. Finally, we have here half a dozen cantaloupes, or ‘mush millions,’ as the colored youth who supplied them called his merchandise. Now scamper, you little vagabonds. I’ve paid you once for toting the things and it is a matter of principle with me never to pay twice for a single service.”
“Where on earth, Cal, did you find all these things?” asked Larry, the others looking the same question out of their eyes as it were.
“I found them in the garden patches where they were grown,” he replied. “That’s what I went out to do. They are the ‘manna,’ the finding of which somewhere in this neighborhood I foreshadowed in answer to your querulous predictions of an exclusively meat diet for some days to come.”
As he spoke, Cal was throwing sweet potatoes into the fire and covering them with red-hot ashes with glowing coals on top.
“You’re a most unsatisfactory fellow, Cal,” said Dick. “Why don’t you tell us where you got the provender and how you happened to find so rich a source of supply. Anybody else would be eager to talk about such an exploit.”
“I’ll tell you,” Cal answered, “as soon as I get the potato roast properly going. I’m hungry. Suppose you cut some cantaloupes for us to eat while the potatoes are cooking.”
Not until he had half a melon in hand did Cal begin.
“There’s one of the finest rice plantations on all this coast about a mile above here. Or rather, the plantation house is there. As for the plantation itself, we’re sitting on it now. It belongs to Colonel Huguenin, and of course the house is closed in summer.”
“Why?” interrupted Dick, whose thirst for information concerning southern customs was insatiable.
“Do you really want me to interrupt my story of ‘How Cal Went Foraging’ in order to answer your interjected inquiry? If I must talk it’s all one to me what I talk about. So make your choice.”
“Go on and tell us of the foraging. The other thing can wait.”
“Well, then; I happened to know of this plantation. I’ve bivouacked on the shores of this bay before, and when I turned the Hunkydory’s nose in this direction I was impelled by an intelligent purpose. I had alluring visions of the things I could buy from the negroes up there at the quarters.”
“Why didn’t you tell us then instead of getting off all that rigmarole about rowing against the tide and the rest of it?” asked Larry, not with irritation, but with a laugh, for the cantaloupe he was eating and the smell of the sweet potatoes roasting in the ashes had put him and the others into an entirely peaceful and contented frame of mind.
“I never like to raise hopes,” answered Cal, “that I cannot certainly fulfill. Performance is better than promises—as much better as the supper we are about to eat is better than a printed[160] bill of fare. Wonder how the potatoes are coming on?”
With that he dug one of the yams out of the ashes, examined it, and put it back, saying:
“Five or six minutes more will do the business. I picked out the smallest ones on purpose to hurry supper. Let’s set the table. Tom, if your kettle of water is boiling, suppose you shuck some corn and plunge it in it. It must boil from five to six minutes—just long enough to get it thoroughly hot through. If it boils longer the sweetness all goes out of it. Dick, won’t you wash some of the tomatoes while Larry and I arrange the dishes?”
Arranging the dishes consisted in cutting a number of broad palmete leaves, some to hold the supplies of food and others to serve as plates.
“I’m sorry I cannot offer you young gentlemen some fresh butter for your corn and potatoes,” said Cal, as they sat down to supper, “but to be perfectly candid with you, our cows seem to have deserted us and we haven’t churned for several days past. After all, the corn and potatoes will be very palatable with a little salt sprinkled upon them, and we have plenty of salt. Don’t hesitate to help yourselves freely to it.”
“To my mind,” said Dick, “this is as good a supper as I ever ate.”
“That’s because of our sharp appetites,” answered Larry. “We’re hungry enough to relish anything.”
“Appetite helps, of course,” said Dick, thoughtfully; “but so does contrast. An hour ago we had all made up our minds to content ourselves for many meals to come with the exclusive diet of fish and game, which has been our lot for many meals past. To find ourselves eating a supper like this instead is like waking from a bad dream and finding it only a nightmare.”
“It would be better still not to have the nightmare,” answered Cal, speaking more seriously than he usually did. “When you have a nightmare it is usually your own fault, and pessimism is always so. You fellows were pessimistic over the prospect of a supper you could not enjoy. As you have a supper that you can enjoy, the suffering you inflicted upon yourselves was wholly needless.”
“Yes, I know,” interposed Tom; “but we couldn’t know that you were going to get all these good things for us.”
“No, of course not. But if you hadn’t allowed your pessimistic forebodings to make you unhappy, you needn’t have been unhappy at all. If things had turned out as you expected you’d have been unhappy twice—once in lamenting your lot and[162] once in suffering it. As it is, you’ve been needlessly unhappy once and unexpectedly happy once, instead of being happy all the while. I tell you optimism is the only true philosophy.”
“I suppose it is,” Dick admitted, “but it leads to disappointment very often.”
“Of course. But in that case you suffer the ill, whatever it is, only once; while the pessimist suffers it both before it befalls and when it comes. That involves a sheer waste of the power of endurance.”
Larry had forgotten to eat while his brother delivered this little discourse, for he had never heard Cal talk in so serious a fashion. Indeed, he had come to think of his brother as a trifler who could never be persuaded to seriousness.
“Where on earth did you get that thought, Cal?” he asked, when Cal ceased to speak.
“It is perfectly sound, isn’t it?” was the boy’s reply.
“I think it is. But where did you get it?”
“If it is sound, it doesn’t matter where I got it, or how. But to satisfy your curiosity, I’ll tell you that I thought it out down here in the woods when I was a runaway. I was so often in trouble as to what was going to happen, and it so often happened that it didn’t happen after all, that I got to wondering one day what was the use of worrying about[163] things that might never happen. I was alone in the woods, you know, and I had plenty of time to think. So little by little I thought out the optimistic philosophy and adopted it as the rule of my life. Of course I could not formulate it then as I do now. I didn’t know what the words ‘optimism’ and ‘pessimism’ meant, but my mind got a good grasp upon the ideas underlying them. There! My sermon is done. I have only to announce that there will be no more preaching at this camp-meeting. I’m going to take a look at your well, Tom, and if the water is as good as you say, I’m going to empty the rain water out of the kegs and refill them. Rain water, you know, goes bad a good deal sooner than other water—especially sand-filtered water.”
“I reckon Cal is right, Dick,” said Tom, when their companion was out of earshot.
“Yes, of course he is, but did you ever stub your toe? It’s a little bit hard to be optimistic on occasions like that.”
“I reckon that’s hardly what Cal meant—”
“Of course it isn’t. I was jesting.”
XVI
FOG BOUND
The boys were not tired that evening, and after their abundant supper they sat late talking and telling stories and “just being happy,” Dick said. The day had been a torrid one, but in the evening there was a chill in the air which made a crackling camp-fire welcome. When at last they grew sleepy they simply rolled themselves in their blankets and lay down upon the sand and under the stars. They had built no shelter, as it was not their purpose to remain where they were except for a single night.
It was not long after daylight when Tom, shivering, sprang up, saying:
“I’m cold—hello! What’s this? Fog?”
“Yes,” said Larry, “a visitor from the gulf stream. And it is almost thick enough to cut, too. What shall we do?”
“Do? Why, make the best of it and be happy, of course,” answered Cal, piling wood upon the embers to set the camp-fire going again. “The first[165] step in that direction is to get your blood circulating. Stir around. Bring a bucket of water and set the kettle to boil—that is to say, if you can open a trail through this fog and find the water hole without falling into it. Whew! but this is a marrow-searching atmosphere.”
The fog was indeed so dense that nothing could be seen at more than twenty paces away, while the damp, penetrating chill set all teeth chattering and kept them at it until rapid exercise set pulses going again. Then came breakfast to “confirm the cure,” Dick suggested, and the little company was comfortable again. That is to say, all of them but Larry. He was obviously uneasy in his mind, so much so that he had little relish for his breakfast.
“What’s the matter, Larry,” asked Tom, presently; “aren’t you warm yet?”
“Oh, yes, I’m warm enough, but there isn’t a breath of air stirring, and this fog may last all day. What do you think, Cal?”
“I think that very likely. I’ve seen fogs like this that lasted two or three days.”
“How on earth are we to get to Beaufort while it lasts?”
The question revealed the nature of Larry’s trouble.
“Why, of course we can’t do anything of the[166] kind,” Cal answered. “We should get lost in the fog and go butting into mud banks and unexpected shoals. No. Till this fog clears away we can’t think of leaving the altogether agreeable shore upon which a kindly fate has cast us. But we can be happy while we stay, unless we make ourselves unhappy by worrying. I know what is troubling you, Larry, and it’s nonsense to worry about it. I often think I wouldn’t carry your conscience about with me for thirty cents a month.”
“But, Cal, you see it is our duty to notify the revenue officers of our discovery before those smugglers get away.”
“It may relieve your mind,” Cal answered in his usual roundabout fashion, “to reflect that they can’t get away. If they were still there when this fog came in from the sea, they will stay there till it clears away again. So we are really losing no time. In addition to that consolation, you should take comfort to yourself in the thought that even if the revenue officers were in possession of the information we have, they could do nothing till the fog lifts. So far as I know, at least, they can see no farther through fog than other people can, and shoals and mud banks are unlikely to respect their authority by keeping out of the way of such craft as they may navigate.”
Suddenly Cal put aside his playful manner of speech, and became thoroughly earnest.
“Think a minute, Larry. We have absolutely no official duty to do in this matter. We are doing our best as good citizens to notify the authorities. At present we can’t do it. There’s an end of that. We have a pleasant bivouac here, with plenty of food and more where it came from. Why shouldn’t we make the best of things and be happy? Why should you go brooding around, making the rest of us miserable? I tell you it’s nonsense. Cheer up, and give the rest of us a chance to enjoy ourselves.”
“You are right, Cal,” Larry answered; “and I won’t spoil sport. I didn’t mean to, and my worrying was foolish. By the way, what shall we do to pass the time to-day?”
“Well, for one thing, we ought to put up a shelter. A fog like this is very apt to end in soaking rain, and if it does that to-night, we’ll sleep more comfortably under a roof of palmete leaves than out in the open. However, there’s no hurry about that, and you can let Dick wallop you at chess for an hour or so while Tom and I go foraging. You see I’ve thought of a good many things that I ought to have bought last night, but didn’t. Do you want to go along, Tom?”
Tom did, and as they started away, Cal called back:
“I say, Larry, suppose you put on a kettle of rice to boil for dinner when the time comes. I think I’ll bring back something to eat with it.”
Then walking on with Tom by his side, he fell into his customary drawling, half-frivolous mode of speech. Tom had expressed his pleasure in the prospect of rice for dinner—rice cooked in the Carolina way, a dish he had never tasted before his present visit began.
“Yes,” answered Cal, “I was tenderly and affectionately thinking of you when I suggested the dish. And I had it in mind to make the occasion memorable in another way. I remember very vividly how greatly—I will not say greedily—you enjoyed the combination of rice and broiled spring chicken while we were in Charleston. I remember that at first you seemed disposed to scorn the rice under the mistaken impression that rice must always be the pasty, mush-like mess that they made of it at school. I remember how when I insisted upon filling your plate with it you contemplated it with surprise, and, contemplating, tasted the dainty result of proper cooking. After that all was plain sailing. I had only to place half a broiled chicken[169] upon the rice foundation in your plate—half a chicken at a time I mean—and observe the gustatory delight with which you devoted yourself to our favorite Carolina dish.”
“Oh, well, your Carolina way of cooking it makes rice good even when you have no chicken to go with it. If the fog would thin itself down a bit—”
“Which it won’t do in time for you to kill the squirrels you were thinking of as a possible substitute for chicken. Perish the thought. It is utterly unworthy. You and I are out after spring chickens, Tom.”
“Good! Do you think we can find any?”
“With the aid of the currency of our country as an excitant of the negro imagination, we can.”
“You saw chickens at the negro quarters last night, then?”
“No, I did not. But I observed a large pan on a shelf in front of one of the cabins, and with more curiosity than politeness I stood up on my tiptoes and looked into it. Tom, that pan was more than half full of chicken feed, and it was fresh at that. Knowing the habits of persons of the colored persuasion, I am entirely certain that no one of them would have taken the trouble to prepare that chicken[170] feed unless he was the happy possessor of chickens. I’m going to call upon the dusky proprietor of that pan this morning.”
“That’s another case of noticing, Cal, and another proof of its value. We are likely to have broiled spring chickens for dinner to-day just because you observed that pan of chicken feed. What else did you notice up there? I ask solely out of curiosity.”
“There wasn’t much else to observe. I saw some fig bushes but they’ve been stripped. Otherwise we should have had some figs for breakfast this morning. Just now I observe that the fog is manifesting a decided tendency to resolve itself into rain, and if it does, that we must satisfy Larry’s conscience by getting away from our present camp this afternoon—or as soon as the fog is sufficiently cleared away. So you and I must hurry on if we’re to have those broiled chickens.”
As results proved, Cal was mistaken in his reckoning of the time necessary to dissipate the fog. It was merely taking the form of what is known as a “Scotch mist,” which does not form itself into rain drops and fall, but collects in drops upon whatever it touches, saturating clothing even more speedily than actual rain does and making all but the sunniest dispositions uncomfortable.
But even a Scotch mist condition served to thin the fog a little, though by no means enough to make navigation possible. Larry watched conditions anxiously, as Cal expected him to do, and his first question when Cal and Tom returned with their chickens revealed his state of mind.
“What do you think of it, Cal?” he asked.
“Of what? If you refer to the moon, I am satisfied in my own mind—”
“Pshaw! You know what I mean. Do be serious for once and tell me what you think of the prospect?”
“Conscience bothering you again?”
“Yes. We must get away from here to-day if possible—and as soon as possible.”
“Can’t you give us time to have dinner and cook some extra food for consumption when we get hopelessly lost out there in the fog banks that are still rolling in from the sea?”
“Oh, of course we can’t leave here till the fog clears away. But do you think it ever will clear away?”
“It always has,” answered Cal, determined to laugh his brother out of his brooding if he could not reason him out of it. “In such experience as I have had with fogs I never yet encountered one that didn’t ultimately disappear, did you?”
“But what do you think of the prospect?” persisted Larry.
“I can see so little of it through the fog,” Cal provokingly replied, “that I am really unable to form an intelligent opinion of it. What I do see is that you haven’t begun to make our shelter yet. In my opinion it would be well to do so, if only to keep the chess board dry while a game is in progress. Moreover, I have an interesting book or two wrapped up in my oilskins, and if we are doomed to remain here over night—”
“You don’t think then that—”
“Frankly, Larry, I don’t know anything about it. Neither do you, and neither does anybody else. We’re in a very wet fog bank. We’ve got to stay where we are till the weather changes. Don’t you think our wisest course is to make ourselves as comfortable and keep ourselves as cheerful as we can while it lasts.”
“Yes, of course, but it’s pretty hard you know to—”
“Not half as hard as chopping wood and ‘toting’ it in from the woods over there, and that is what Tom and I are going to do after dinner as our contribution to the general comfort. You’ll find yourself feeling a great deal better if you busy yourself making a really comfortable shelter[173] while we’re at the other job. It may come on to rain torrents this afternoon, and of course we won’t leave here in the boat if it does.”
“That will do, Cal. I’m convinced, and I’m a trifle ashamed of myself besides. I promise not to worry any more. I decree that we shall not leave port in a rain storm, and unless the weather conditions become favorable before four o’clock this afternoon we’ll not leave here any how until to-morrow.”
XVII
THE OBLIGATION OF A GENTLEMAN
The fog held throughout the day, changing to a deluge of rain about nightfall, but Cal and Tom had provided an abundance of firewood, the palmete shelter was waterproof, the long gray moss with which it was carpeted was soft to loll upon, and the book from which they read aloud by turns proved to be an amusing one. Larry kept his promise and indulged in no further impatience.
When morning came the rain was still coming down in torrents, and it was unanimously agreed that no attempt should be made to quit the place until it should cease.
“An open rowboat in a heavy rain is about the wettest place imaginable,” Dick said, and the experience of the rest had been such as to confirm the judgment.
When at last a brisk westerly wind began to tear the clouds to pieces, all agreed that Larry’s patience had fairly earned its reward, and all hands[175] worked hard to get as early a start as possible. It was two o’clock in fact when they finally set sail, with Cal again at the helm because he knew of a narrow but navigable passage which would enable them to avoid the heavy ebb tide of the channel that Larry had selected two days before. The tide would not begin to ebb for two or three hours to come, and by taking this short cut Cal hoped to reach broad waters before that time.
He did so in fact, but upon running out of the little creek he was disappointed to find that a shift had given him a headwind to contend with. There was nothing for it but to beat to windward, and the breeze was so light that their progress was slow. Cal made the best of conditions as he found them, according to his custom, but about sunset the tide turned against him, and worse than that, the wind went down with the sun, leaving not a breath to fill the sails.
Then Cal asked for orders.
“What is your wish, Captain Larry?” he asked. “Shall we take to the oars and push on against the tide, or land for the night? Without a favoring wind we can’t possibly make Beaufort to-night.”
“What do the rest of you say?” asked Larry, in some perplexity.
“Never mind what anybody else says,” broke[176] in Cal, before the others could answer. “This isn’t a debating club or an advisory council of ancients, or anything else of the kind. We’re a ship’s company and you are the captain; so give your orders.”
“Very well, we’ll run ashore. Do you know of a suitable place, Cal?”
“No, not from personal experience in these parts, but I’ve been watching the coast-line over there to starboard, and I think I make out the mouth of a small creek or inlet. The chart doesn’t show it very distinctly, but it roughly indicates a number of small indentations in the land, and the soundings given for all that shore seem satisfactory.”
“To the oars then,” said Larry, “and we’ll look for a landing place somewhere over there. The whole shore seems to be heavily wooded. Pull away.”
It was fully dark when Cal’s keen eyes found what he was looking for, namely, the sheltered mouth of a small creek or inlet, heavily overshadowed by woods and a tangled undergrowth.
Running into it the company landed on a small bluff-like bit of shore and made things snug for the night. The heavy dew, so prevalent on that coast, was already dripping from the trees, and[177] the air was very chill. To avoid the dew drippings the camp-fire was built close to the margin of the inlet at a point where a little patch of star-studded sky showed clear overhead.
The little company sat with their backs against a large fallen tree as they ate their supper and planned an early start for the morrow. All were eager to make the visit to Beaufort and have it over with as soon as possible, for a reason which Dick put into words:
“I’m anxious to go to Quasi. The very name of the place appeals to my imagination; the story of it fascinates me. How long will it take us to get there, Cal, after we finish what we have to do at Beaufort?”
“The wind bloweth where it listeth, you know,” Cal answered; “and worse still, it doesn’t blow at all unless it is doing a little ‘listing’; the tides are subservient to the will of the sun and moon, and we must reckon upon them as a frequently opposing force; then too, there are fogs sometimes, as recent experience has taught us, to say nothing of possible encounters with smugglers, from which we may not escape so easily next time as we did before. How, then, shall I presume to set a time for our arrival at Quasi, particularly when I do not know how long we shall be detained at Beaufort.”
“Oh, not long,” broke in Larry. “We have nothing to do there but report to the customs authorities and spend an hour or so buying coffee, ship biscuit, some hams—for we’re out of bacon—and such other supplies of a non-perishable sort as we need. Two hours ought to cover our stay there.”
“Well, I’m not so certain of that,” said Cal. “As likely as not our detention will last for two days, or possibly two weeks, and if—”
“But how, Cal?” Tom interrupted with a look almost of consternation on his face, for he, too, was impatient to reach Quasi and try the hunting there.
“Let Cal finish, Tom,” said Larry. “He has something in mind.”
“Something on my mind,” Cal replied; “and it weighs heavily too. I’ve been thinking of it ever since we turned our prow toward Beaufort.”
“You must have thought it out by this time, then; so go on and tell us about it,” said Dick, impatiently.
“I wonder the rest of you haven’t thought of it for yourselves,” resumed Cal; “but it isn’t worth while to speculate about that. I was going to say that we four fellows have the misfortune to be eye-witnesses in the case of those smugglers. We[179] saw them bring their goods ashore. Now I don’t know what the revenue officers do with smugglers when they catch them. I suppose they take them to a United States Court somewhere, though where I don’t know. Charleston is the most likely place in the case of men caught along this coast. In any case I suppose they need witnesses to testify to the smuggling, and unfortunately we are the witnesses in this case. Is it really necessary to set the matter forth more fully? It all comes to this, that we may be detained for an indefinite length of time at Beaufort, or we may even be taken back to Charleston as witnesses. For that reason I am reluctant to go to Beaufort at all—at least until we’ve had our trip out.”
“You’re quite right, Cal,” answered Dick; “it would be a shame to have our jolly outing spoiled. As for supplies, I suppose we might run down to Bluffton and pick up the absolutely necessary things—”
“Yes, or we can do without them,” interposed Tom, to whom every hour of their sporting trip seemed a precious thing not to be lost on any account.
“Oh, yes, we could get them by going a little out of our way,” said Cal, “or we could go without. I spent two or three months alone down[180] among these woods and waters without such things, and I can’t remember that I was the worse for it—though I confess my breeches and my shirt and shoes suffered. Anyhow, Larry is our captain this time, and he must decide. He hasn’t spoken a word yet.”
“It has not seemed necessary,” Larry answered. “Of course we shall go to Beaufort just as fast as we can.”
“But why, Larry?” asked Tom.
“Simply because it is our duty.”
“But why can’t we wait till we’re on our way back?”
“It would be too late then.”
“But I say, Larry,” interposed Dick, “do you really think we are under so imperative an obligation as that?”
“To do one’s duty is always an imperative obligation. We are all of us the sons of gentlemen. We have been trained to think—and truly so—that a gentleman must do his duty regardless of consequences to himself. So we are going to start for Beaufort at daylight, no matter what annoyances it may bring upon us.”
“Of course you are right,” said Dick and Tom in a breath. Cal said nothing until one of them asked him why he remained silent.
“I’m a Rutledge,” he answered, “and what Larry has said is the gospel in which I have been bred. I hadn’t thought it out till Larry spoke, that’s all.”
“Neither had I,” said Dick.
“Nor I,” said Tom. “Of course we’ve all been bred in the same creed, and I for one shall never again wait to be reminded of it when a duty presents itself.”
“Your decision is unanimously sustained and approved, Larry,” added Dick, by way of relaxing the seriousness of the talk. “The Rutledges, the Garnetts and the Wentworths echo your thought, if not your words—for Echo insists upon pronouncing them—‘Bully for you!’”
At that moment something happened which brought all four of the boys to their feet and prompted Cal to slip the cartridges out of his gun and substitute others carrying buckshot in their stead. The others, observing his act, quickly imitated it.
XVIII
FIGHT OR FAIR PLAY
As the exchange of cartridges was in progress, five men, all armed, approached the bivouac. They had landed from a boat a hundred yards or so further down the creek, and attempted to creep upon the camp and take it by surprise.
Fortunately Larry’s quick ears had caught sound of them, and by the time the exchange of bird for buckshot was completed they were in plain view and not more than a dozen or twenty yards away.
“Halt!” Larry cried out to them, and as they seemed indisposed to obey the command, he called again:
“Stand where you are or we’ll shoot!”
There was no doubt in Larry’s mind that these men were a band of smugglers, or that they were trying to spring upon his party unawares. He had no mind to be taken by surprise by murderous ruffians. Fortunately for all concerned, his command was obeyed.
“Stand where you are or we’ll shoot.”
Pag. 182.
“Who are you and what do you want?”
“That we decline to say,” said the spokesman of the party.
“Then stand off,” said Larry, “or go back to your own place, wherever it is, or take the consequences.”
Larry was quick to observe that neither the words nor the tone of the one who had spoken were such as the drunken, degraded, ignorant men he had seen in the smugglers’ camp would have used, and the fact puzzled him. After a moment’s reflection he called out:
“If you have any business with us you may come ahead a few paces into the full light of the fire and say what you have to say. But if one of you raises a gun we’ll give you a volley of buckshot straight at your breasts. Come on out of the bushes and tell us what you want.”
As the advance was made and the full firelight fell upon the five men, Larry saw that they were in the uniform of the revenue cutter service, with which he was familiar.
“I beg your pardon, Boatswain,” he said, but without relaxing his watchfulness; “I couldn’t see your uniforms until now, and mistook your party for one of a very different sort. Come to the fire and tell us what you want; your men can stay[184] where they are till we understand each other better.”
This last was said because of an apparent purpose on the part of the men to move forward in a body.
“Now then, Boatswain, what have you to say to us?” Larry asked, while the other three boys stood watchfully by the huge trunk of the fallen tree with their shotguns held precisely as they would have been had their owners been alertly waiting for a pointer to flush a flock of birds for them to shoot on the wing.
“We are men in the revenue service,” the boatswain answered. “We were sent ashore from the cutter that lies just off the mouth of the creek to ask who you are and what you are doing here—in short, to give an account of yourselves. It will save trouble if you answer us.”
“Coming from an agent of the revenue,” answered Larry, with dignity, “your questions are entirely proper. It was not necessary to couple an implied threat with them. However, that was nothing worse than a bit of ill manners, and I’ll overlook it. To answer your questions: My name is Lawrence Rutledge; one of the others is my brother. We live in Charleston, and with our two guests we are down here for a little sporting[185] trip. Is there anything else you’d like to know about us?”
“That’s a queer sort of boat you’ve got,” answered the other.
“I asked if there was anything else you wanted to know,” said Larry, ignoring the comment on the dory’s appearance as an impertinent one.
“I guess you’ll have to talk with the lieutenant about that. You see I’m only a warrant officer.”
“Very well. Where is he?”
“On board the cutter.”
“Send for him then. We’ll give him any information we can.”
“I think I see myself sending for him! I’ll have to take you on board.”
“But we won’t go,” answered Larry, with eyes snapping.
“You’ll have to go.”
“But we won’t. We are American citizens, attending to our honest business. If your lieutenant or any other officer of the Government wishes to ask us any legitimate question, we’re ready to answer. But we will not endure insult or wrong. If you have a warrant for our arrest we’ll not resist, but we’ll not submit to arrest without authority.”
“We don’t have to bother about warrants when we’ve got smugglers dead to rights.”
“But we are not smugglers.”
“That’s for you to settle with the lieutenant. It’s my business to arrest all of you and take you on board the cutter.”
In a low voice, before the boatswain had finished his sentence, Larry said to his comrades:
“Jump over the log—we’ll make a breastwork of it,” and instantly they obeyed, leaving him on the side next the revenue men. Then to the boatswain he said:
“You’ve no right to arrest without a warrant. I tell you once for all we’ll not submit to arrest.”
“What’ll you do then?”
“We’ll fight first,” answered Larry, delivering the words like shots from a pistol, and leaping to the farther side of the fallen tree as he spoke.
The boatswain was bewildered. He knew, in a vague way, that no one can legally make an arrest without a warrant, except when he sees a person in the act of committing crime or running away from officers; but he had never before had an experience of determined resistance. He was accustomed to the summary ways of brute force that prevail in military life, and to him it seemed absurd for anybody to resist the only kind of constituted authority with which he was familiar.
He was sorely perplexed. He was by no means[187] sure that the boys were the smugglers he had been sent to arrest. On the contrary, their manner, their speech and all other appearances were in their favor. Nevertheless his superior officers had been watching the dory’s movements for several days and had sent him ashore in full assurance that they had their quarry at bay. He was convinced that he ought to arrest the party, but he had only four men and himself for the work, and there stood four stalwart young fellows behind the fallen tree trunk with four double-barreled shotguns bristling across the barrier. The creek, with a sharp bend, lay upon their left and completely covered their rear, while on their right was a swamp so densely grown up in cane and entangled vines, to say nothing of the treacherous mud below, that passage across it would have been nearly impossible in the broadest light of day. Clearly Larry’s party must be assailed in front if assailed at all, and the boatswain was not to blame for hesitating to make an assault which would almost certainly cost the lives of himself and all his men. Add to this his uncertainty as to his right to make any assault at all, and what he did is easily understood.
He ordered his men to fall back to their boat, and as they did so he stood alone where he had[188] been. When the men were well away, he said to Larry:
“You don’t think me a coward, do you?”
“Certainly not,” Larry answered.
“Well, this thing may get me into trouble you know, and if you’re the man you say you are, I may want you to help me out as a witness. Will you do it?”
“Yes, certainly. But what’s the use of getting into trouble? I’m willing to trust your word as an honorable fellow; if you’ll trust mine in the same way you and I can settle this whole matter in ten minutes in a way that will bring you praise instead of blame. Don’t go aboard the cutter and report a failure and be blamed for it; stay here and talk the matter over and then go aboard with a report that will do you honor. What do you say to that?”
“What are your terms?”
“Only that you meet me in the same spirit in which I meet you. Give up your notion that we are a gang of smugglers—you must see how absurd it is—and give up your claim of a right to arrest us without a warrant; meet me half way and I’ll show you how to get out of a scrape that you wouldn’t have got into but for those two mistaken guesses. We have no feeling of enmity toward[189] you and no wish to injure you. If we were ready to fight you to the death, it was only in defense of our rights. Give up your attempt to invade those rights and there will be no quarrel between us. Is it a bargain?”
“Well, you speak fair anyhow. I don’t see what else I can do than meet you half way. I’m ready.”
“Very well, then,” said Larry, emptying his gun of its cartridges and signing to his comrades to do likewise. “As you have sent your men away, we’ll make things even by disarming ourselves.”
With instinctive recognition of the manly generosity thus shown the boatswain tossed his own gun to the ground and, advancing, held out his hand, saying:
“You wouldn’t have done that if you hadn’t been what you say you are. I’m ready to sit down now and talk things over.”
Larry sprang over the log that separated them and took the proffered hand. Then all sat down, and Larry said:
“I’m willing to tell you now what I never would have told you under a threat. We have seen the smugglers you are looking for; we know where they are, or at any rate where they were two days ago; we know where their plunder is hidden, and[190] we are prepared to go with you to the place. We were on our way to Beaufort to report all this to the revenue authorities when you came to arrest us.”
The two had risen and were standing now, and the boatswain was continually shaking Larry’s hand. He tried to say what was in his mind but couldn’t. His wits were bewildered for the moment, and Larry came to their rescue.
“Pull yourself together, Boatswain,” he said, “and listen to me. Hurry back to your boat, go aboard the cutter at once, and report that you haven’t found a smuggler’s camp but that you’ve found somebody who can and will show your commanding officer where one is. Tell him Lawrence Rutledge and his companions offer their services as guides who know where to go. Be off, quick. We’ll wait here for his answer.”
The boatswain’s wits were all in his control now and he hurried away. He had achieved victory where only defeat had seemed possible. He had met with success where a few minutes before he had hoped for nothing better than failure. He was going on board to receive commendation instead of the censure he had expected. Honor was his in lieu of dreaded disgrace.
XIX
WHY LARRY WAS READY FOR BATTLE
“Larry, you ought to be a major-general,” said Dick, with enthusiasm, as soon as the boatswain was well out of earshot. “I never saw anything better managed than that was. From the moment you put us behind the log, the fight—if there was to be a fight—was all ours.”
“Yes,” said Tom, “we’d have had no difficulty in cleaning those fellows out if it had come to that, and the boatswain saw it as clearly as we did. But I don’t yet understand why you did it, Larry.”
“Why, simply to make sure of success in self-defense. That seems simple enough,” responded Larry.
“Oh, yes, that’s simple enough, but I wasn’t thinking about that. I meant I don’t see why you made any objection to going aboard at first and telling the officers there all you’re going to tell them now. You are going of your own accord now; why didn’t you go when he wanted you to?”
“Because there was a principle at stake,” answered Larry, setting his teeth together as he recalled the controversy. “We are going aboard now of our own accord, as you say. That’s very different from going aboard as prisoners, under compulsion.”
“But I don’t see what difference it would have made when you knew the officers there would make guests instead of prisoners of us as soon as they heard what you had to say. It seems to me it would have come to the same thing in the end.”
“Not by a long shot,” answered Larry, speaking with particular earnestness. “Think a minute, Tom. We are free men, living under a free government that exists for the express purpose of securing liberty to all its people and protecting them in the enjoyment of that liberty. If one man, or one set of men, could arrest others without a warrant from a court, there would be no security for liberty and no liberty in fact. Whenever the people of any country are ready to submit to any infringement of their rights as free men, liberty in that country is dead, and tyranny is free to work its evil will. And in a free country it is the most sacred duty of every man to resist the smallest as well as the largest trespass upon his rights as a man. Usually he can do this by appealing to the[193] courts of law, but in a case like ours to-night, where there is no possibility of making such an appeal, every man must be ready to fight for his rights—yes, to fight to the death for them if necessary.”
“But the matter was so small in this case—”
“What possible difference does that make? A principle is never small; liberty is always of supreme consequence, and it makes no difference how trifling the trespass upon one’s liberty is in itself, the duty to resist it at all costs and all hazards is just the same. Convenience and comfort do not count in any way. The difficulty is that men are not always ready to take trouble and endure inconvenience in defense of their rights where the matter in question seems to them of small moment. They forget that ‘eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,’ or if they remember it, they are too self-indulgent to undertake a troublesome resistance. It was not so that the men of the Revolutionary time looked at the matter. Webster said that the Americans ‘went to war against a preamble,’ and perhaps they did, but the preamble involved a fundamental principle. It was for the principle, not for the preamble, that they fought for seven long years. The colonists could easily have submitted to the impositions of a half crazy king and his tyrannical[194] prime minister. It would have saved them a vast deal of inconvenience, expense and danger to do so. It would have been far more comfortable for them if they had done so. But if they had, this great, free nation of ours would never have existed, and the people in other civilized countries would not have enjoyed anything like the liberty they do now. In the same way it would have saved a lot of trouble if we had let those people arrest us to-night, but we had no right to submit to that. It was our duty to stand upon our rights and defend the principle by defending them.
“There! The lecture is over, and I promise not to let it happen again,” said Larry, by way of indirect apology for his seriousness.
“Well,” said Tom, “I for one am glad I heard the lecture as you call it. I needed it badly, for I had never thought of these things in that way. How did you come to have all that on the tip of your tongue, Larry?”
“I don’t know, or, yes I do. I was born and brought up on that gospel, and I have heard it preached all my life. My father has taught Cal and me from childhood that ‘the only legitimate function of government is to maintain the conditions of liberty,’ and that the highest duty of every citizen is to insist that the government under which[195] he lives shall do precisely that. Now let’s talk of something else, or you fellows talk, rather, for I’ve talked more than my share already.”
“Before we do,” broke in Dick, “there’s just one thing I’d like to ask.”
“All right. Go ahead. Ask anything you please if it isn’t a conundrum.”
“Well, it isn’t a conundrum. It is only that I wonder how you know there isn’t some law authorizing the revenue officers to make arrests without warrants?”
“I know it simply because such a law is impossible.”
“How so?”
“Because there is no power on earth that can make such a law for this country.”
“Couldn’t Congress make it?”
“No. Congress has no more power to make it than a flock of crows has.”
“I don’t understand. If Congress should pass an act to that effect and the President should sign it, what then?”
“What then? Why just nothing at all. It wouldn’t be a law. It would have no more force or effect than the decree of a company of lunatics that the sun shall hereafter rise in the west and set in the east.”
“But why not?”
“Why, simply because Congress has no power to make any law that violates the Constitution. The Constitution expressly secures certain rights to every citizen. If Congress passes an act in violation of the Constitution, or even an act that the Constitution does not authorize it to pass, the courts refuse to enforce it or in any way to recognize it as a law. Now we’ve simply got to stop all this discussion, for I hear the revenue officers coming.”
XX
ABOARD THE CUTTER
When the boatswain made his report to the lieutenant on board he did not confine himself to the points Larry had suggested. It had been his first thought to do so, reporting only that he had found no smugglers but had discovered a law-abiding company of youths who knew where the smugglers were and were willing to act as guides to the point indicated.
But on his way it occurred to him that the lieutenant might ask him questions—how he knew the character of the boys, and why he had not placed them under arrest, and other things relating to the conduct of his expedition.
It would be humiliating to have the story thus drawn out of him, and it would be awkward for him to explain why he had not reported the whole thing in the first place. So, upon reflection, he told the story in full, though briefly.
When he mentioned Larry’s name the lieutenant[198] gave a little start and leaning forward as if to make sure he heard aright, asked:
“What did you say his name is?”
“Lawrence Rutledge is the name he gave me, sir.”
“Of Charleston?”
“That’s where he said he lived, sir,” answered the boatswain, wondering why his superior was so closely questioning him on these points.
The lieutenant resumed his upright position and with a half laugh said:
“It’s lucky for you that you chose discretion as the better part of valor this time. If Lawrence Rutledge is any way akin to his father, you’d have had the tidiest little fight you ever heard of on your hands if you’d charged him.”
“I don’t think there would have been any fight at all, sir, if you’ll pardon me.”
“Why not?”
“Only that I think every man of us would have bitten dust before we could have fired a gun. Those fellows were ready with guns cocked and leveled.”
“The moral of that is that you too should always be ready and have your men ready. Order the gig alongside—men unarmed.”
When the gig was ready, which was almost instantly,[199] the lieutenant ran down the ladder, dropped into her, took the helm, and gave the orders:
“Oars!” “Let fall!” “Give way!” and the boat shot away toward the plainly visible camp-fire.
Landing, he introduced himself to Larry, who received him cordially and in turn presented his comrades.
“I have the pleasure of knowing your father very well, Mr. Rutledge,” he began.
“Then, please,” Larry interrupted, “call me ‘Lawrence,’ or ‘Larry,’ and not ‘Mr. Rutledge,’ Lieutenant. I’m only a boy yet, and I’ll never be ‘Mister’ to any of my father’s friends.”
“Very well. ‘Larry’ it shall be then, the more gladly because that is what I called you years ago when, as I remember, I was telling a lot of sea stories to you and your brother Calhoun—”
“Make it Cal, Lieutenant,” said the youth mentioned. “Larry and I are twins, you know, and always share things evenly between us. We did so with your stories, you know. I remember it very well, though we were a pair of very small youngsters then.”
“So you were—so young that I didn’t think you would remember the matter. But we’re losing[200] time, and time may be precious in this case. My petty officer tells me you young gentlemen have seen the miscreants I’ve been hunting for and can tell me where they are.”
“We’ve seen them, and our friend Tom Garnett here has been inside one of their caches and inspected their goods. We can tell you where they were two nights or so ago, and perhaps they are there yet.”
“Almost certainly they are,” broke in the lieutenant. “It is calm weather outside, and not a craft of any kind has put in here under plea of weather stress since the Senorita sailed two or three days ago.”
“The Senorita?” Tom repeated; “why, that’s the ship’s name I saw marked on some of the cigar cases and rum kegs they had.”
“Good, good, good!” said the officer enthusiastically. “If we can get to that hiding place before they remove the goods, I’ll telegraph to Baltimore to nab the ship also when she comes in. We must get there in time. My officer understood that you and your party were willing to go with us. Was his understanding correct?”
“Yes,” Larry answered, “we’ll be glad to do that, but we must make some provision for the safety of our boat while we are gone.”
“She’ll be safe enough when she rests on the cutter’s deck. I’ll send a crew to take her alongside and we’ll hoist her on board. When all’s over I’ll put you in the water again at any point you choose. Is that satisfactory?”
“I should say so,” answered Larry. “We’re ready, Lieutenant.”
“Come on then, and I’ll take you aboard. I’ll leave a man with your craft till a boat’s crew can come and tow her alongside. Then we’ll weigh anchor and be off.”
It was less than fifteen minutes later when the boys saw the Hunkydory carefully braced upon the little steamer’s deck and closely covered with a tarpaulin.
But it was nearly midnight and the lieutenant invited the boys to sleep in the comfortable berths provided for them until the cutter should reach the neighborhood of the smugglers’ camp. He thought he sufficiently recognized the locality from Cal’s description, and probably he could have steamed to it without further guidance. But there was no sleep in the eyes of the boys after their adventurous night, and they all heartily echoed Cal’s sentiment when he answered:
“What good is there in the frazzled end of a ragged night for sleeping purposes. I for one will[202] stay up till we see this thing through, if it is going through to-night.”
The little cutter was a fleet-winged craft, built for speed, and carrying greatly more horse power than ordinary steamers of twice her size. Her navigator and all her officers, indeed, knew every detail of the waters they were traversing, and so the lieutenant hoped that he might reach his destination in time to descend upon the smugglers before morning.
In this he was disappointed. Some accident to the cutter’s machinery compelled a delay of two or three hours in a narrow strait where, to add to the annoyance of delay, a swarm of sand flies descended upon the ship’s company. These are minute insects, so minute that no screen or netting, however finely woven, interferes in the least with their free passage in or out of any opening. Their bite or sting is even more painful than that of a mosquito, and they come in myriads.
Under the advice of the commanding officer the boys retreated to a closed cabin below and remained there until the ship was under way again—otherwise for two or three hours, during which they lolled about and managed to get some sleep in spite of their impatience over the delay and the otherwise excited condition of their minds.
By way of making themselves more comfortable, they all drew off their boots, but they could not be persuaded to go to the bunks assigned to their use, because the ship might start again at any moment and they were determined to be ready for that whenever it should occur.
Cal, as usual, was the most wakeful of the party, and at first he was disposed to talk, but his impulse in that way was promptly checked when Tom and Larry each threw a boot at him and Dick, half asleep, muttered:
“I second the motion.”
As a consequence of this drastic treatment Cal closed his lips and his eyes at the same moment and was presently breathing as only a sleeper does. The others, tired and worn out with an excitement that had by this time passed away, were soon in a profound slumber which lasted until the engines began to throb again and the ship to jar and tremble with the rapid revolutions of the screw.
The sun was well up by that time, and after going on deck, where a sailor doused bucketfuls of salt water over them as an eye-opener, they were invited to breakfast with the commanding officer.
XXI
TOM’S SCOUTING SCHEME
During breakfast the talk was, of course, about the smugglers and the chances of capturing them. In the course of it the lieutenant manifested some confusion or uncertainty of mind as to the exact position of the smugglers’ rendezvous and of the approaches to it.
“Won’t you please clear that up a little for me?” he asked Larry, after a vain attempt to clear it up for himself. “I don’t quite understand. Perhaps you can make it plain to my dullness.”
“Cal can do that better than any other member of our party,” Larry answered. “He was all about there three or four years ago, while the rest of us have been there only once. Besides, Cal has a nose for geographical detail, and he observes everything and remembers it. Explain the thing, Cal.”
“After such an introduction,” Cal replied, smiling, “I fear I shall not be able to live up to the character so generously attributed to me. Still, I[205] think I can explain the thing; it is simple enough. May I have paper and a pencil?”
These were promptly furnished, and Cal made a hasty diagram.
“You see, Lieutenant, there is a little creek or estuary here. It is very narrow, especially at the mouth, and it runs inland for only a few miles. I can’t find it on the chart. Probably it is too insignificant to be noted there. You observe that it runs in a tortuous course, ‘slantwise’ to the shore, and keeping always within a comparatively short distance of the broad water, thus forming a sort of tongue of land.
“A little further along the shore of the broader water is another little estuary or cove, only a few hundred yards in its total length, but that length extends toward the creek on the other side, so that only about half a mile or less of swamp and thicket separates the two.
“Right there, about midway between the two, those thieves have their den. They can approach it in their boats from either side, coming up the creek or entering the cove, and in either case landing within less than a quarter of a mile of their thicket-hidden rendezvous. As both the creek and the smaller estuary make a sharp bend near their mouths, a boat slipping into either of them is at[206] once lost to view. I wonder if I have made the geography clear?”
“Perfectly so, and I thank you. Our plan will be to send boats up both the little waterways at once. Can we find their mouths, think you?”
“I can, and Tom knows both of them. He and I will be your pilots.”
“Thank you. But you know you may get shot in the mêlée and you are under no sort of obligation to take that risk.”
“Oh, we want to see the fun,” said Tom. “We’ll be with you, you may depend.”
“Is it your plan,” Larry asked after dinner that day, “to attack by daylight?”
“I think we must make the descent as promptly as possible. So I intend to make it to-day, as soon as we get to that neighborhood.”
Larry made no reply and the officer observed the fact.
“What is it you have on your mind, Larry?” he asked. “Have you any suggestion to offer?”
“No, I would not presume to do that. I was only thinking that in a daylight descent you might miss the game.”
“Go on, please. Tell me all you had in mind.”
“Well, for one thing, those rascals have a lookout tree from which they can see for miles in every[207] direction. We used it for purposes of observation when we were there. It is true that they seem to visit it very seldom, but they might happen to climb it just in time to see this cutter hovering around. In that case they would probably go into hiding somewhere. If not, they would at least keep a sharp lookout for your boats. If you kept entirely away from there until night you would probably take them by surprise. But of course you know best.”
“I’m not so sure of that. What you suggest is a matter to be considered. But I’m afraid to wait until night lest in the meantime the rascals leave the place.”
“That is possible,” said Cal, joining in the conversation for the first time, “but it seems to me exceedingly unlikely.”
“Why so, Cal?”
“Well, we’ve pretty closely observed those gentry, and they seem to me of that variety that does most of its comings and goings under cover of darkness. If they were in their camp this morning they are pretty sure to remain there until to-night. There is another point that Larry didn’t suggest. If you attack the camp in daylight the ruffians can easily save themselves by scattering and making their escape through the well-nigh impenetrable[208] swamp. They would have the advantage over your men in that, as of course they know every little blind trail and could avoid tangles in which your men would become hopelessly involved.”
“But wouldn’t they be at still greater advantage in a night attack?”
“I think not. They will probably get blind drunk by night, for one thing. They’re apt to sleep profoundly. We can land without being seen, and once ashore, we can creep clear up to their lair without alarming them. Then we’ll be on them with our boot heels as it were.”
“Why do you think they won’t be on the alert at night, with pickets out and all that?”
“Because we’ve experimented,” answered Cal. “We’ve crept up to the very edge of their camp and watched them there by the hour. Tom here even entered one of the hovels where they bestow the smuggled goods.”
The officer was much impressed with these suggestions. He meditated for a while, and then exclaimed:
“If I could only know whether they are still there or not! I’d give ten dollars to know that!”
“You can get the job done for less, Lieutenant,” said Tom, who was always eager for perilous adventure and almost insanely reckless in his pursuit[209] of it. “If you’ll bring the cutter to anchor somewhere around here and let me go ashore, I’ll find out all about it and not charge you a cent either.”
“What’s your plan?”
“It isn’t much of a plan. It is only to go to the smugglers’ den, see if they are there, and then come back and tell you.”
“But—”
“Oh, it’s easy enough. The smugglers can’t see the cutter so long as she’s in this bay, even if they climb to the top of their lookout tree. I’m sure of that, because I’ve tried to see the bay from there and couldn’t, although I knew just where it lay.”
At this point the lieutenant interrupted:
“Pardon me a moment. I’ll bring her to anchor.”
Before he returned to the company a minute or so later, the engines stopped, and as he sat down the boys heard the chains rattle as the anchor was cast overboard.
“Now go ahead, please, and tell me all about your plan,” the officer said with eager interest.
“Well, it isn’t more than three or four miles, I should say, from this point to the mouth of our creek, and the tide is with me all the way. If you’ll set our dory in the water and Cal will go with me to help row—”
“We’ll all four go, of course,” said Larry.
“In that case, we can put ourselves back at our old camp in about an hour with such a tide as this to help us. When we land there I’ll go at once to the lookout tree, climb to the very top of it and see what is going on. Then, if there’s anything more to be found out, I’ll creep down to the neighborhood of the rascals’ place and take a closer look. When the dory gets back here I can tell you all you want to know.”
“Excellent!” exclaimed the officer. “Only, instead of having you boys row the dory all that way, I’ll have you taken to the place you want to reach in a ship’s boat.”
“They might see that,” objected Tom, “and take the alarm, while if they see the dory returning to her old anchorage they’ll think nothing about it. Besides, we don’t mind a little rowing. The tide’s with us going, and if necessary, we can stay up there in the creek till it turns and is ready to help us come back.”
“There won’t be any waiting,” said Cal. “It’ll turn just about the time we get there—or even before that if we don’t get away from here pretty quick.”
“Very well,” said the lieutenant. “The plan is[211] yours, Tom, and you shall have your own way in carrying it out.”
A hurried order from the commanding officer, a little well-directed scurrying on the part of the seamen, and the Hunkydory lay alongside, ready for her crew to drop from a rope ladder into her.
They nimbly did so, and as they bent to their oars they passed around a point and out of sight of the cutter.
XXII
TOM DISCOVERS THINGS
By advice of the lieutenant, the boys left their shotguns on board the cutter and carried instead the short, hard-shooting repeating rifles that he furnished them. Armed in this way, each could fire many shots in rapid succession, instead of the two which alone their shotguns permitted.
“We can defend ourselves now if the gang discovers and assails us,” said Larry, with a satisfied smile. “With these guns we’re a good deal more than a match for those ten smugglers armed as they are with nothing better than pistols. By the way, Tom, what’s the plan of campaign?”
“That’s for you to say,” Tom answered. “You’re the captain.”
“Not a bit of it this time,” responded Larry. “This is your expedition and you must manage it in your own way.”
“That’s only fair,” said Dick. “Tom has undertaken to go ashore, find out certain facts and report[213] them. We’re here to help him in any way he wishes, but he is responsible for results and must choose his own methods.”
“I congratulate you, Dick, on having another lucid interval,” broke in Cal, who could never endure seriousness for long. “‘Pon my word, they’re growing more and more frequent and by the time we get back to Charleston we’ll have to discharge you as ‘cured.’”
“Stop your nonsense, Cal,” said Larry, “and let Tom give us our instructions.”
“Fortunately, I’m under no sort of obligation to stop my nonsense at your command, Larry, as by your own voluntary declaration you’re not captain of this special trip ashore, and Tom is.”
“All right,” said Tom, laughing. “I’ll give the order myself. Stop your nonsense till I get through mine—for I dare say you’ll all think my plan is nonsensical.”
“All right as to that,” said Larry, “but what is your plan? It doesn’t matter what we think of it.”
“Well, then, my notion is not to pull the Hunkydory up on shore, but to anchor her at our old landing, so that we can handle her quickly in case of need. Two of you are to stay by her—that will be you and Dick, Larry. If we should be discovered, and those rascals should want to catch us,[214] their first effort would be to get possession of our boat and put us into a trap. So you two will stay with the dory, and if you are in trouble, Cal and I will come to your assistance as fast as our legs can carry us. Cal will go with me to the lookout tree and stay there while I creep down to the lair of the thieves. If I get into trouble he’ll know it and signal you by firing one shot. Then, of course, you’ll all come to my support. How does that strike you as a plan, Larry?”
“A Lee or a Grant couldn’t make a better one. Here we are at the mouth of the creek.”
“Isn’t it ridiculous?” asked Cal, as they turned into the inlet.
“Isn’t what ridiculous—the creek, or its mouth, or what?” Tom responded.
“Why, the way things keep turning themselves around. First, the gentleman with the impaired walking apparatus, representing the smugglers, mistook us for officers or agents of the revenue, and sought to make prisoners of us by getting possession of our boat, so that we had to disarm him in self-defense. Next, the officers of the revenue mistook us for the smugglers and we had to defend ourselves against them. Now we are helping our later assailants to capture our foes of an earlier date. Wonder if we shall presently have to join the smugglers[215] and assist them against the revenue people?”
“That last question answers itself, Cal,” said Tom; “and if it didn’t, there’s no time to discuss it now, for here we are at the landing. Run her head to the shore, fellows, and let Cal and me jump out. Then back her out a little way and anchor her. I leave you in charge of the ship in my absence, Lieutenant Larry. You have your instructions; see that you obey them to the letter.”
With footsteps quickened by eager interest, Tom and Cal were not long in making the journey to the lookout tree. Tom climbed it to the top and very carefully studied what lay before him. Cal, who was watching him, observed that he seemed specially interested by something over to the left where the creek lay, and perhaps a little puzzled by it. But he asked no questions as Tom hurried from the tree-top and set off down the blind trail.
He was gone for so long a time—nearly two hours—that Cal became very uneasy about him, but at last he came out of the thicket and set off toward the dory’s anchorage at as rapid a trot as the nature of the ground would permit. He said nothing to Cal except the three words: “We must hurry,” and as he neared the landing, he called out:
“Up anchor, quick.”
Then as the boat was moved toward the shore[216] he impatiently waded out to meet her in water leg-length deep. Cal followed, though he did not know the cause of Tom’s hurry.
“Are they after us?” asked Larry and Dick, both speaking at once.
“No. But we must hurry or it’ll be too late.”
In response Larry shipped his oars as the mouth of the creek was passed and, with Dick’s assistance, stepped the mast, hoisted sail and let the sheet run out until the boom was almost at right angles with the keel.
“There’s a stiff wind,” he said by way of explanation, “and it’s almost exactly astern. We can make better time with the sails. Here, Dick, you’re the best sailor; take the helm and get all you can out of the breeze.”
“Don’t hug the port rail so close,” Dick ordered; “trim toward the kelson and let her heel over to starboard; there, that will do; she makes her best running with the rail awash.”
As they sped on, nobody asked Tom what the occasion for his hurry was. He seemed still out of breath for one thing, and for another the rush of the dory’s rail through the water made it difficult to hear words spoken in an ordinary tone, for though the wind was steadily freshening, Dick refused to spill even a capful of it. He was sailing[217] now for speed, and he wanted to get all he could out of the wind. But chief among the reasons for not asking questions was the instinctive courtesy of Tom’s comrades. They realized that he had discovered something of importance, and they felt that he ought to have the pleasure of himself reporting it to the commanding officer of the cutter before telling anybody else about it.
In the same spirit, when the dory was laid along the cutter’s side, they held back to let Tom be the first to climb to the deck, where the lieutenant was awaiting him.
Tom’s excitement was gone, now that he had accomplished his purpose of reaching the cutter before dark—a thing he had feared he might not do. His report was made calmly, therefore, and with smiles rippling over his face—smiles of rejoicing over his success, and other smiles, prompted by recollections of what seemed to him the humorous aspects of what he had seen and done.
The report was utterly informal, of course; Tom was not used to military methods.
“They are all there, Lieutenant,” he began, “but they won’t be there long after it grows dark. They’re preparing to leave to-night, as early as they can get the drunken ones among them sober enough to sit on a thwart and hold an oar.”
“How do you know that, Tom?”
“Why, I heard the boss brute say so while he was rousing one of the drunkest of them into semi-consciousness by kicking him in the ribs with force enough to break the whole basket I should think. I won’t repeat his language—it wasn’t fit for publication—but the substance of it was that the victim of his boot blows had ‘got to git a move onto him’ because ‘them boats has got to git away from here jest as soon as it’s good and dark.’”
“Why, were you near enough to hear?”
“Oh, yes. I wasn’t more than ten paces away from the pair at the time that interesting conversation occurred.”
“Tell us all about it, Tom—the whole story. There’s plenty of time. It won’t be ‘good and dark,’ as criminals reckon such things, for nearly two hours yet. Begin at the beginning.”
“There isn’t any story in it,” said Tom, “but I’ll tell you what I did. When I climbed to the top of the lookout tree, I saw first of all that our game was still there. But I noticed that some of them—all that weren’t drunk, I suppose—were busy. I couldn’t make out at that distance what they were doing, but I thought they seemed to be carrying things, not down to the cove where we saw them land the other night, but over toward our creek, as[219] we call it. I tried to see their landing place there, but couldn’t.
“Of course I had already found out all you wanted to know, but I wanted to know something more. My curiosity was aroused, and I determined to gratify it. So, sliding down, I made my way to my old hiding place in the thicket near their camp. Then I saw what they were at. They were taking the cigars and rum out of the little hovels they use as caches, and carrying them over to their landing on the creek. I wondered why, but I could not see the landing, so I had to let that remain as an ‘unexplored region,’ for the time being at least.
“Presently the gentleman of the impaired locomotor attachments made a final visit to the hut that stood nearest me—the one I had myself entered on a previous occasion. As he came out and passed the boss bully, he said:
“‘That’s all they is in there.’
“‘Well, I’ll look and see for myself,’ said the boss, seeming to doubt the veracity of his follower. He went into the hut and presently came out, muttering:
“‘Well, he told the truth for once—I didn’t ’spose he knew how.’
“As he walked away from the empty hovel it occurred to me that I might find it a safer point[220] of observation than the one I had. So I slipped into it, and dug out one of the chinks in the log wall, to make a peep hole. It was then that I saw the boss making a football of his follower and heard him say what he did about getting the boats away.
“That still further stimulated my curiosity. I wanted to see how nearly the boats were loaded, and the sort of landing place they had, and all the rest of it. So I determined to go over that way. It was slow work, of course. The undergrowth was terribly tangled, and then the smugglers were passing back and forth with their loads. As their path was often very near me, I had to stop and lie down whenever I saw any of them approaching.
“I got down there at last and saw the boats. They were partly loaded, but most of the freight was still on the bank. I suppose that was because they wanted to get all the things there before bestowing them. All the rum kegs that had been brought down were in the boats, while all the cigars were piled on the banks.
“I noticed one thing that puzzled me; instead of anchoring the boats and loading them afloat, they had pulled them up on shore. As the tide had begun to ebb, I wondered how they were to get them into the water again after putting their cargoes aboard. However, that was their business and not[221] mine. I had seen all there was to see, so I slowly crept back again till I reached the trail. Then I hurried for fear the quarry would escape before we could get there with your boats.
“That’s all there is to tell.”
The lieutenant smiled his satisfaction as he commended Tom’s exploit, adding:
“We can let it ‘get good and dark’ before pouncing upon them. They won’t get away in a hurry. They’ll have trouble getting their boats afloat again. Indeed, they’ll probably wait for the next flood tide. Anyhow, we won’t leave here till it is thoroughly dark. You’re sure you can find your way into the creeks in the dark? It’s cloudy, and the night promises to be very black.”
“Oh, there’ll be no trouble about that,” answered Cal.
XXIII
TOM AND THE MAN WITH THE GAME LEG
It was very dark indeed when the ship’s boats, well manned and with carefully muffled oars, set out for the capture.
Tom was at the bow of one of them and Cal at that of the other, to act as pilots. It was planned that these two boats should lead the way into the two entrances, the others closely following.
Silently the two fleets made their way to the two points of landing. The one which passed up the creek halted as soon as it came within sight of the landing where the smugglers were busily and noisily trying to get their loaded boats afloat, a task in which they were encountering much difficulty, as the lieutenant had foreseen that they must. It was the lieutenant’s plan that his boats should lie there, hidden by the darkness, until the men entering by the cove should land, march across the neck of swamp, and take the smugglers in the rear, thus cutting off all possibility of their escape into the bushes.
As soon as he saw the signal light that Tom showed to announce the readiness of the party he accompanied, the lieutenant rushed his boats ashore, and the two revenue parties, without firing a shot, seized and disarmed their foes, who, until their captors were actually upon them, had had no dream of their coming.
In the meanwhile, under the lieutenant’s previously given orders, the cutter had slowly steamed up toward the mouth of the creek, where, at a signal, she came to anchor.
Hurriedly the captured booty was loaded into the ship’s boats and carried to the revenue vessel. Then the smugglers’ camp was minutely searched to see if any goods remained there, and the hovels were set on fire.
While all this was going on that curiosity on Tom’s part, which had done so much already, was again at work. Tom wanted to know something that was not yet clear to him, and he set to work to find out. Detaching the lame smuggler from his companions, Tom entered into conversation with him. Fortunately the man was sober now, and had been so long enough to render him despondent.
“You’re not fit for this sort of thing,” Tom said to him after he had broken through the man’s moody surliness and silence. “With your game[224] leg and the brutal way the others treat you, I should think you’d have got out of it long ago.”
“They’d ’a’ killed me if I’d tried,” the man answered.
“Well, they can’t do that now,” said Tom, “for they’re in for a term in prison.”
“But they’s others, jest as I told you that night you fellers caught me at your boat. There’s the fellers up the creek what’s a-waitin’ this minute for us to come up with the goods.”
This was what Tom wanted to find out.
“Yes, of course,” he replied; “they’ll be disappointed, won’t they? I suppose they expect to get the goods well inland before morning?”
“No, not exactly; but they’d ’a’ got ’em hid into a little store they’ve got up there, so’s they could work ’em off up to Charleston or down to Savannah, little at a time, like. Howsomever, the game’s up now, and them what’s got all the profits out’n it’ll play pious an’ go scot free, while us fellers what’s done all the work an’ took all the risks has got to go to jail.”
A new thought suddenly struck Tom.
“You needn’t, if I’m not mistaken. Anyhow, there’s a chance for you that’s worth working for.”
“What’s the good o’ talkin’ that away? Ain’t I ketched long o’ the rest?”
“Yes, of course. I was only thinking—”
“What was you a-thinkin’?”
“Oh, only that the revenue people would a good deal rather have the ‘others’ you speak of—the men further up the creek and the men behind them—than to have you.”
“I reckon they would, but what’s that got to do with it?”
“Only that if you made up your mind to turn Government’s witness and give the whole snap away; they’d be pretty apt to let you off easily.”
The man sat silent for a time. At last he muttered:
“First place, I don’t know enough. Them fellers ain’t no fools an’ they ain’t a-lettin’ fellers like me into their secrets. I ain’t never seed any of ’em, ‘ceptin’ the storekeeper up that away what takes the stuff from us, an’ pays us little enough for gittin’ it there. ’Sides that, them fellers has got money an’ lots o’ sense. Even ef I know’d all about it an’ ef I give it away, ’twould be only the wuss for me. They’d have me follered to the furdest corner o’ the earth an’ killed like a dog at last. No, ’tain’t no use. I’ve got to take my medicine. Time for runnin’ away is past, an’ I ain’t got but one good leg to run with, you see.”
“What made you lame, anyhow?” asked Tom,[226] by way of keeping up the conversation without seeming too insistent on his suggestion that the man should confess.
“That bully with the red face—our captain, as he calls hisself. He kicked my hip out’n jint one day when I was drunk, an’ seein’s they wa’nt no doctor anywheres about, he sot it hisself, an’ sot it wrong somehow. Anyhow, I’d like to do him up if I could.”
Tom noted the remark and the vindictive tone in which it was made, but he did not reply to it at once. Instead, he said:
“They must pay him better than they do the rest of you?”
“Him? You bet! He gits a lot out’n the business, an’ he’s got dead oodles and scads o’ money put away in the bank. He’s close in with the big ones what’s backin’ the game. It was him what set it up fust off—leastways him an’ Pedro Mendez.”
“Who is Pedro Mendez?”
“Oh, he’s—never you mind who he is. See here, young feller, you’s a axin’ too many questions.”
“No, ’tain’t no use. I’ve got to take my medicine.”
Page 225.
“Not too many for your good if you have sense enough to take my advice. Listen to me! You know a great deal more about this lawless business than you pretend. You know enough to make you a very valuable witness. If you choose to help the revenue people in getting at the bottom of it and breaking it up, they’re sure to let you off very easily, and as for killing you, the people in the thing will have enough to do in looking out for themselves without bothering about that after they get out of jail.”
Tom explained and elaborated this point, and at last the lame man began to see hope ahead for himself.
“Will they make a certain sure promise to let me off if I tell all I know?” he asked.
“No. They can’t do that, for if they did your testimony would be worthless. But they always do let state’s witnesses off easily, and in such a case as this they’re sure to do so. You can be very easy about that.”
“An’ they’d bear down all the harder on the cap’n when they found out he was one o’ the big managers o’ the game, wouldn’t they?”
“I should say they would give him the largest dose the law allows.”
“I’ll do it then, jest to git even with him. I’ll do it even if they don’t reckon it up much to my credit. How’ll I go about it?”
“I’ll arrange that for you. I’ll tell the lieutenant who is in command here that you’re ready to ‘give[228] the snap away,’ and he’ll take your statement. Then, when the time comes you’ll only have to go into court and tell your story over again.”
“But if them fellers finds out I’ve been chinnin’ with the lieutenant they’ll kill me right there on board the ship.”
“The lieutenant will take care of that. He’ll see that they have no chance to get at you.”
“Is that certain—sure—hard an’ fast?”
“Yes—certain, sure, hard and fast,” answered Tom, with a gleefulness that he found it difficult to keep out of his voice and manner.
Going to the lieutenant and interrupting him in the directions he was busily giving, Tom said under his breath:
“Separate the lame man from the rest. He’ll confess, and it’s a big story. The others will kill him if they suspect.”
The lieutenant was quick to catch Tom’s meaning and to act upon it. Turning to a petty officer he gave the order:
“Take the prisoners aboard under a strong guard. The rest of the freight can wait. Put the lame man in my boat and leave him behind under a guard.”
As the boats containing the prisoners moved off[229] down the creek, Tom’s curiosity again got the best of him. Turning to Larry he said:
“They’re arresting these men without a warrant, Larry, and we’ve helped them to do the very thing you said we ought to fight to prevent.”
“No warrant is needed in this case. The gang has been ‘caught in the act’ of committing crime, and caught with the goods on them.”
“Oh, I see,” said Tom. “That makes all the difference in the world.”
XXIV
THE LAME MAN’S CONFESSION
“Come, Tom, let’s go aboard,” said the lieutenant, as soon as the boat that carried the prisoners was well away down the creek. “A quartermaster can finish up what there is to do here, and I’m anxious to let you boys get away on your sporting trip as soon as possible; but I simply can’t let you go till—till we finish the matter you spoke of just now. If we can manage that to-night I’ll send you on your way rejoicing as early to-morrow morning as you please.”
“Thank you for all of us,” said Tom, as the two, with the lame man and his guards, seated themselves in the waiting boat; “but you mustn’t think this thing has interfered with us. It has been right in our line and strictly according to the programme.”
“How is that?” the lieutenant asked, enjoying Tom’s evident relish for the experience he had just gone through.
“Why, you see we set out not merely for sport, but with the declared purpose of seeking ‘sport and adventure.’ This thing has been sport to us, and you’ll not deny that it has had a distinct flavor of adventure in it.”
“Tom, you ought to be a sailor or a soldier,” was the officer’s only reply.
As soon as they went aboard the lieutenant ordered the lame man taken to his own cabin and the rest of the prisoners to the forehold under a strong guard. When the other boys, who were closely following, came over the side, he invited the four to go with him to his quarters.
“Stop a minute, though. Tell me just what you’ve arranged, Tom, so that I may know how to proceed.”
“Well, I’ve drawn a little information out of the lame man and got him to promise more—all he knows in fact, and that seems to be a good deal. These outlaws are only the agents of conspirators ‘higher up,’ as the phrase goes—ruffians hired by the conspirators to do the work and take the risks, while the men higher up pocket all the proceeds except the pittance allowed to their hired outlaws. The red-faced bully down there, who acts as captain of the band, seems to be an exception to all this. According to the lame man, that burly brute[232] was the originator of the conspiracy, he and some man named Pedro Mendez.”
“What? Pedro Mendez?” interrupted the lieutenant.
“That’s the name the lame man mentioned. Do you know Pedro, or know who he is?”
“I should say I do. He’s—by the way, he’s the owner of the good ship Senorita, from whose cargo some of the smuggled goods came! Wait a minute.”
The officer pressed a button and a subordinate promptly appeared to receive orders.
“Tell Mr. Chisolm to get the ship under way as soon as all the boats are aboard, and steam at full speed for Beaufort.”
When the orderly had disappeared, the lieutenant exclaimed:
“I must get to a telegraph office before morning, and we’ll have the smiling Pedro under arrest in Baltimore before another night comes. Go on, Tom! This is the biggest haul made in ten years and we have you boys to thank for it. Go on, please.”
“There isn’t much more for me to tell. The lame man will tell the rest. He has a grudge against the red-faced captain—a life and death enmity—I should say—and it is chiefly to get his foe[233] into all possible trouble that he is willing to tell all he knows. I’ve assured him that if he gives the information necessary to secure the capture of the whole gang and the breaking up the business, the authorities are pretty sure to let him off easily.”
“That’s all right. Now we’ll go to the cabin and see how much our man can tell.”
What the lame man told the lieutenant has no place in this story. He knew, as Tom had supposed, practically all that was needed, and once started in his story he told it all.
It was taken down in shorthand as he told it, and after some difficulties with the pen the man signed it, the four boys signing as witnesses. A few days later the newspapers were filled with news of a “stupendous Revenue capture” and the arrest of a number of highly respectable men caught in a conspiracy to defraud the Government.
When the confessing prisoner had been removed to secure quarters for the night the officer shook hands warmly with the boys, saying:
“You young men have rendered a much greater service to the Government than you can well imagine, and as an officer commissioned by the Government I want to thank you for it as adequately as I can. It is not only that some smugglers have been captured as a result of what you have done,[234] and a lot of smuggled goods seized. That, indeed, is the smallest part of it. This capture will make an end to this sort of smuggling for all time. I was sent here six weeks ago expressly to accomplish this purpose, and but for you young men and the assistance you have given me I doubt that I should ever have accomplished it at all, although, as you know, a half company of marines was furnished me in addition to the ship’s own force, in order that I might be strong enough for any emergency.
“Now if I talked all night I couldn’t thank you enough. Let me turn to another matter. I promised you to set you afloat at any point you wish, and I’ll do it. But I’m taking you to Beaufort now because I must get to a telegraph office. As soon as I possibly can in the morning I’ll steam to the point you choose.”
“Beaufort suits us very well, indeed,” Larry answered. “You see we’re short of stores and when we’re afloat again we’ll lay our course for a region where no stores can be had except such as we can secure with our shotguns.”
“What stores do you need?” asked the officer.
“Coffee, a side of bacon to fry fish with, two hams, and as many boxes of ship biscuit as we can manage to stow away in our boat. That’s all,[235] except some salt, I think. I suppose we can buy all such things at Beaufort. If not, we can go without them.”
“No, you can’t buy them at Beaufort or anywhere else,” the lieutenant answered; “because I’m going to furnish them from my own ship’s stores.”
“But, Lieutenant,” said Larry, flushing, “your stores belong to the Government, don’t they?”
“Yes, certainly. What of that?”
“Why, we can’t let you give us goods that belong to the Government.”
“Oh, I see your scruple, but you’re wrong about the facts. It is a part of every revenue cutter’s duty to provision craft in distress, and—”
“But pardon me, we are not in distress. It is only that for our comfort we need certain supplies that we are perfectly well able to buy, and when we get to Beaufort a market will be open to us. We’ll provision ourselves, if you don’t mind.”
“I wish you’d let me do it. It is little enough, in all conscience, considering the service you’ve rendered the Government.”
“We didn’t do that for pay,” Larry answered.
“I quite understand that. Still I have full authority to issue the stores to you, and the disposition made of them will of course be set forth in my official report.”
“Thank you, very much, for your good will in the matter,” Larry said, in a tone that left no chance for further argument, “but we prefer to buy for ourselves. Then if you’ll have your men lower our boat, we’ll say ‘Good-bye and good luck’ to you and take ourselves off your hands.”
“That is final?”
“Yes—final.”
“Very well. It shall be as you say. But I’m sorry you won’t let me do even so small a thing as that by way of showing you my gratitude.”
A little later Larry sought out the lieutenant on deck.
“I’ll tell you what you may do for us, Lieutenant, if you are still so minded.”
“Of course I am. I’ll do whatever you suggest. What is it?”
“Why, write a brief letter to Tom and let me have it for delivery after we get away from Beaufort. He’ll cherish that as long as he lives, and you see after all it was Tom who did it all. He first found the smugglers’ camp and investigated it; he made the later reconnoissance on which you acted, and he led the—”
“Say no more,” the lieutenant answered. “I’ll write the letter and give it to you.”
The lieutenant had another thought in mind;[237] he did not mention it; but when at last the boys got back to Charleston, they found a letter awaiting each of them, a letter of thanks and commendation. Those letters were not from the commanding officer of a revenue cutter, but from the Secretary of the Treasury himself, and they were signed by his own hand.
All that occurred later, however. At present the story has to do only with what further adventures the boys encountered in their coast wanderings.
XXV
A SIGNAL OF DISTRESS
The Hunkydory was loaded to the point of inconvenience when, about noon, she set sail again. For it was the purpose of the boys to make their way to Quasi quickly now, stopping only long enough here and there to replenish their supply of game and fish, and they wanted to be free to stay as long as they pleased at Quasi, when at last they should reach that place, without being compelled to hurry away in search of supplies. Accordingly they bought at Beaufort all the hard bread, coffee and other such things that they could in any wise induce the dory to make room for.
“Never mind, Dory dear,” Cal said to the boat as he squeezed in a dozen cans of condensed milk for which it was hard to find a place. “Never mind, Dory dear; with four such appetites as ours to help you out, your load will rapidly grow lighter, and when we get to Quasi we’ll relieve you of it altogether.”
It was planned to establish a comfortable little camp at Quasi, to hunt and fish at will, to rest when that seemed the best thing to do, and to indulge in that limitless talk which intelligent boys rejoice in when freed for a time from all obligation to do anything else. In short, a considerable period of camping at Quasi had come to be regarded as the main purpose of the voyage. With their guns and their fishing tackle, the boys had no concern for their meat supply, but, as Cal said:
“We can’t expect to flush coveys of ship biscuit or catch coffee on tight lines, so we must take as much as we can of that sort of provender.”
About two o’clock on the afternoon of the third day of their voyage from Beaufort the boat was lazily edging her way through an almost perfectly smooth sea, with just a sufficient suggestion of breeze to give her steerage way. Tom was at the tiller, with next to nothing to do there. Larry and Dick were dozing in the shadow of the mainsail, while Cal, after his custom, was watching the porpoises at play and the gulls circling about overhead and everything else that could be watched whether there was any apparent reason for watching it or not.
Presently he turned to Tom and, indicating his meaning by an inclination of the head toward a[240] peninsula five or six miles away, which had just come into view as the boat cleared a marsh island, said:
“That’s it.”
“What’s it? and what is it?” asked Tom, too indolent now to disentangle his sentences.
“Quasi,” said Cal.
“Where?”
“Over the port bow. Change your course a little to starboard—there’s a mud bank just under water ahead and we must sail round it.”
“Quasi at last!” exclaimed Tom gleefully, as he pushed the helm to port and hauled in the sheet a trifle in order to spill none of the all too scanty breeze.
Instantly Dick and Larry were wide awake, and for a time conversation quickened as Cal pointed out the salient features of the land ahead.
“How far away do you reckon it, Cal?” asked Dick.
“About five miles.”
“Is it clear water? Can we lay a straight course?”
“Yes, after we clear this mud bank. A little more to starboard, Tom, or you’ll go aground.”
“We ought to make it by nightfall then,” said[241] Larry—“unless this plaything of a breeze fails us entirely.”
“We’ll make it sooner than that,” said Dick, standing up and steadying himself by the mast. “Look, Cal. There’s business in that.”
Dick had seen white caps coming in between two islands ahead, and had rightly judged that in her present position the dory was temporarily blanketed by a great island that lay between it and the sea.
“I don’t need to stand up,” answered Cal, “and it’s hot. I saw the sea running in ahead. I’d have suggested a resort to the oars if I hadn’t. As it is, we’ll toy with this infantile zephyr for half an hour more. By that time we’ll clear the land here and set our caps on a little tighter or have them carried away. That’s a stiff blow out there, and by the way, we’re catching the ragged edges of it already. A little more to starboard, Tom, and jibe the boom over.”
“It’ll be windward work all the way,” said Larry, as he looked out ahead.
“So much the better,” said Cal, who found something to rejoice in in every situation. “It’ll blow the ‘hot’ off us before we make Quasi, and besides, there’s nothing like sailing on the wind if the wind happens to be stiff enough.”
“It’ll be stiff enough presently,” said Larry; then after looking about for a moment, he added: “I only hope we sha’n’t ship enough water to dampen down our clothes. The dory is very heavily loaded.”
“Don’t worry,” said Dick. “She’s built to carry a heavy load in a rough sea and a high wind. In fact, she points up better and foots better, carries herself better every way when she has a load on than when she hasn’t.”
“H’m!” muttered Cal, going to the helm where Tom was manifesting some distrust of his own skill in the freshening wind and the “lumpy” seaway they were beginning to meet. “I’ve known men to think they were like the Hunkydory in that.”
“Diagram it, Cal,” said Larry.
“Oh, I’ve seen men who thought they could do things better with a ‘load on’ than without. Trim ship! I’m going to take the other tack.”
Then, as the boat heeled over to starboard, her rail fairly making the water boil, Cal completed his sentence. “But they were mistaken.”
“It’s different with boats,” Dick answered; “and besides, the dory’s ‘load’ is of quite another sort.”
Sailing on the wind with a skittish boat of the[243] dory type is about as exhilarating a thing, when the wind pipes high and the sea surges white with foam, as can be imagined. In order that the pleasure of it might not all be his, Cal presently surrendered the tiller to Dick, who in his turn gave it over to Larry after his own pulses were set a-tingle. Larry offered Tom his turn, but Tom modestly refused, doubting the sufficiency of his skill for such work as this.
“The tools to those who can use them, is sound philosophy, I think,” he said in refusing. “Besides, I don’t want to be responsible if we turn turtle before we reach Quasi, after all our trouble.”
After half an hour or so of speedy windward work the Hunkydory drew near enough to Quasi for Cal to study details of the shore line somewhat. Lying in the bow, just under the jib, he was silently but diligently engaged in scrutinizing every feature he could make out in a shore that lay half a mile or a trifle more away. The others asked him questions now and then, but he made no answer. Under his general instructions the dory was skirting along the shore, making short legs, so as to maintain her half mile distance until Cal should find the place he was looking for as a landing.
Presently he turned and spoke to Dick, who was now at the tiller again.
“Run in a quarter of a mile, Dick, and bring us nearer shore,” he said.
Dick obeyed, while Cal seemed to be studying something on shore with more than ordinary interest. Presently he said:
“There’s something wrong over there. As soon as we round the point ahead, Dick, you’ll have fairly sheltered water and sloping sands. Beach her there.”
“What is it, Cal? What’s the matter? Why do you say there’s something wrong?” These questions were promptly hurled at Cal’s head by his companions.
“Look!” he answered. “Do you see the little flag up there on top of the bluff? It is flying union down—a signal of distress. But I can’t make out anybody there. Can any of you?”
All eyes were strained now, but no living thing could be seen anywhere along the shore. Tom ventured a suggestion:
“The flag is badly faded and a good deal whipped out, as if it had been flying there for a long time. Perhaps the people who put it up have all died since.”
“No, they haven’t,” answered Cal.
“Why, do you see anybody?”
“No. But I see a little curling smoke that probably rises from a half burned-out camp-fire.”
“It’s all right then?” half asked, half declared Tom.
“You forget the flag flying union down, Tom. That isn’t suggestive of all-rightness. Bring her around quick, Dick, and beach her there just under the bluff!”
Half a minute more and the dory lay with her head well up on the sloping sand. The boys all leaped ashore except Larry, who busied himself housing the mast and sails and making things snug. The rest scrambled up the bluff, which was an earth bank about twenty feet high and protected at its base by a closely welded oyster bank.
XXVI
AN UNEXPECTED INTERRUPTION
There was nobody near the half burned-out camp-fire, but there were evidences in plenty of the fact that somebody had cooked and eaten there that day. There were no cooking utensils lying about, but there was a structure of green sticks upon which somebody had evidently been roasting meat; there were freshly opened oyster shells scattered around—“the beginnings of a kitchen midden,” Dick observed—and many other small indications of recent human presence. Especially, Cal noticed, that some smouldering brands of the fire had been carefully buried in ashes—manifestly to serve as the kindlers of a fresh fire when one should be needed. Finally, Tom discovered a hunting knife with its point stuck into the bark of a tree, as if its owner had planned to secure it in that way until it should be needed again, just as a house-wife hangs up her gridiron when done with it for the time being.
As the three were discovering these things and interpreting their meaning, Larry joined them and suggested a search of the woods and thickets round about.
“Why not try nature’s own method first?” Tom asked.
“How’s that?”
“Yelling. That’s the way a baby does when it wants to attract attention, and it generally accomplishes its purpose. That’s why I call it nature’s own method. Besides, it covers more ground than looking can, especially in an undergrowth as thick as that around this little open spot.”
“It is rather thick,” said Larry, looking round him.
“Thick? Why, a cane brake is wind-swept prairie land in comparison. Let’s yell all together and see if we can’t make the hermit of Quasi hear.”
The experiment was tried, not once, but many times, with no effect, and a search of the immediate vicinity proved equally futile.
“There seems to be nothing to do but wait,” Larry declared, at last. “The man in distress must have gone away in search of food. He is starving perhaps, and—”
“Not quite that,” said Cal. “He may be craving[248] a tapioca pudding or some other particular article of diet, but he isn’t starving.”
“How do you know, Cal?”
“Oh, it is only that he has a haunch of venison—sun-crusted for purposes of preservation—hanging in that tree there”—pointing—“and unless he is more different kinds of a lunatic than the chief engineer of any insane asylum ever heard of, he wouldn’t starve with that on hand.”
“Perhaps it is spoiled,” said Tom, looking up the tree where the venison hung and where Cal alone had seen it.
“It isn’t spoiled, either,” answered Cal, with assurance.
“But how can you tell when you’re ten or twenty feet away from it?” Tom stopped to ask.
“The carrion crows can tell at almost any distance,” Cal returned, “and if it were even tainted, they’d be quarreling over it.”
Tom was not satisfied, and so he climbed the tree to inspect. Sliding down again, he gave judgment:
“Why, the thing’s as black as ink and as hard as the bark of a white oak tree. It’s dried beef—or dried venison, rather.”
“You’re mistaken, Tom,” said Larry. “It is sun-crusted, as Cal said, but that’s very different.[249] Inside it is probably as juicy as a steak from a stall-fed ox.”
“What do you mean by ‘sun-crusted,’” asked Dick.
“Oh, I see,” Larry answered. “You and Tom are not familiar with our way of preserving meat in emergencies. When we are out hunting and have a joint of fresh red meat that we want to keep fresh, we don’t salt it or smoke it or do anything of that sort to it. We just hang it out in the very strongest sunlight we can find. In a brief while the surface of the meat is dried into a thin black crust as hard as wood, and after that it will keep for days in any cool, shady place. Flies cannot bore through the hard crust, and the air itself is shut out from the meat below the surface.”
“How long will it keep in that way?”
“How long, Cal?” asked Larry, referring the question to his brother’s larger experience.
“That depends on several things,” Cal answered. “I’ve kept meat in that way for a week or ten days, and at other times I’ve eaten my whole supply at the first meal. But I say, fellows, we’re wasting precious time. The night cometh when no man can work, and we have a good deal to do before it comes. We must find a safe anchorage for the Hunkydory and set up a camp for ourselves.[250] In aid of that we must find fresh water, and I have an idea we’ll find that somewhere along under the line of bluffs—at some point where they trend well back from the shore with a sandy beach between. The hermit must get water from somewhere near, and there’s no sign of any around here.”
Cal’s conjecture proved to be right. A little spring at the foot of the bluff had been dug out and framed around with sticks to keep the margin from crumbling.
Obviously this was the hermit’s source of water supply.
“But why in the name of common sense,” said Larry, “didn’t he set up his Lares and Penates somewhere near the spring?”
“I can think of two reasons,” Cal answered, “either of which is sufficient to answer your question.”
“Go ahead—what are they?”
“One is, that he may be a crank, and another is, that he may be a prudent, sensible person, preferring comfort with inconvenience, to convenience with discomfort.”
“Now, then, Sphinx, unravel your riddle.”
“Its meaning ought to be obvious,” Cal drawled, “but as it isn’t, I’ll explain it. The man[251] is probably a crank. If not, he wouldn’t have set up a signal of distress and then have gone away and hidden himself so that if rescuers came they couldn’t find him. To a crank like that any foolishness is easily possible. On the other hand, if he happens to be a man of practical common sense—as there is equally good reason to believe—he would very naturally pitch his camp up where it is, rather than here where you fellows are already fighting the sand flies that will be heavily reinforced toward nightfall.”
“That’s so!” said the others.
“Of course it’s so. Anybody would know that, after slapping his cheeks till they feel as if they had been cured with mustard plasters, and weren’t half well yet.”
“What shall we do, Cal?” Tom asked.
“Why, imitate the hermit and improve upon his ideas.”
“You mean—” began Larry.
“I mean we must go up on the bluff and pitch our camp a hundred yards or so back from the beach. Otherwise we shall all be bored as full of holes as a colander before we stretch our weary limbs upon mother earth for sleep.”
“That’s all right,” said Tom, “but you haven’t told us about the improvement upon the hermit’s[252] ideas. Do you mean we should go farther back from the water?”
“No, I didn’t mean that, though we’ll do it. I meant that instead of carrying water from this brackish spring we’ll dig a well where we pitch our tent of palmete leaves.”
“But you said—”
“I know I did; but that was in swampy land where the only water to be had by digging was an exudation from muck. It is very different here. These bluffs and all the high ground that lies back of them are composed of clean clay and clean sand. Look at the bank and see for yourself. Now all we’ve got to do to get sweet, wholesome water anywhere on the higher land—which isn’t as high a little way back as it is here at the face of the bluff—is to dig down to the level of the sea. There we’ll find sea water that has been freed from salt and all other impurities by siping through a mixture of clay and sand that is as perfect a filter as can be imagined.”
“Now if you’ve finished that cataract of words, Cal,” said Larry, “we must get to work or night will be on us before we’re ready for it. You go and pick out a camping place, and the rest of us will follow you with things from the boat. We can dig the well and build a shelter to-morrow.”
But Tom and Dick were full of enthusiasm, now that they had at last got to Quasi, and they had both tasted the water of the spring. Its flavor strongly stimulated their eagerness for something more palatable.
“Why not begin the well now—as soon as we get the things up from the boat?” asked Dick. “There’ll be a moon nearly full, and the sea breeze here is cool. I for one am ready to dig till midnight.”
“I’ll dig all night,” said Tom, “rather than take another swig of that stuff. If we work hard we can get the well in commission before we use all the water left in the kegs.”
“We sha’n’t have to dig all night,” said Cal. “I’ll pick out a place where we needn’t go down more than eight or nine feet, and this sandy earth is easily handled. If we’re really industrious and don’t waste more time over supper than we must, we’ll strike water within a few hours, and it’ll be settled and clear by morning. But we must hustle if we’re to do that. So load yourselves up while I pick out a camp and I’ll join the caravan of carriers in the next load.”
It was necessary, of course, to remove everything from the boat to the bivouac, as it was the purpose of the company to make this their headquarters[254] for several weeks to come, or at least for as long as they liked.
It was nearly sunset, therefore, when that part of the work was done, and it was decreed that Larry should get supper while the rest worked at well-digging.
As there remained no fresh meat among their stores, Larry’s first task was to go out with his gun in search of game. Squirrels were abundant all about the place, and very easily shot, as they had never been hunted. As the time was short, Larry contented himself with the killing of a dozen or so of the fat rodents, suppressing for the time being his strong impulse to go after game of a more elusive and therefore more aristocratic sort. He did indeed take one shot at a flock of rice birds, killing a good many of them, but mutilating their tender little butter-balls of bodies because he used bird shot instead of the “mustard seed” size, which alone is fit for rice-bird shooting.
On his return to the bivouac to cook his game, he found the well already sunk to nearly half the required depth, and by the time he was ready to bid his comrades cease their work and come to supper, at least another foot had been added to its depth.
The work was easy, not only because the sandy soil was easily shoveled out without the use of[255] picks or spades, but because of the form Cal’s observation of other temporary well digging had taught him to give to the excavation.
“We’re not really digging a well,” he explained at the outset. “We’re only scooping out a basin in order to get to water. So instead of working in a narrow hole, we’ll take a bowl for our model—a bowl eight or ten feet across at the top and growing rapidly narrower as we go down. Working in that way, we’ll not only get on faster and with less labor, but we’ll spare ourselves the necessity of cribbing up the sides of our water hole to keep them from falling in. Besides, the farther down we get the less work each additional foot of digging will cost us.”
When Larry announced supper, all the company admitted that they “had their appetites with them”; but Cal did not at once “fall to” as the others did. Instead, he went into the woods a little way, secured a dry, dead and barkless stick about five feet long, and drove it into the bottom of the excavation. Pulling it out again after waiting for twenty or thirty seconds, he closely scrutinized its end. Then, measuring off a part of it with his hands so placed as to cover approximately a foot of space at each application, he tossed the stick aside and joined the others at their meal.
Nobody interrupted the beginning of his supper by asking him questions, but after he had devoured two or three rice birds the size of marbles and had begun on the hind leg of a broiled squirrel which lay upon an open baked sweet potato, he volunteered a hint of what he had been doing.
“As nearly as I can measure it with my hands, we’ll come to water about three feet further down, boys. We’ve acquitted ourselves nobly as sappers and miners, and are entitled to take plenty of time for supper and a good little rest afterwards—say till the moon, which is just now coming up out of its bath in the sea out there, rises high enough to shine into our hole. That will be an hour hence, perhaps, and then we’ll shovel sand like plasterers making mortar. It won’t take us more than an hour or so to finish the job, and we’ll get to sleep long before midnight.”
“How did you find out how far down the water was, Cal,” asked Tom, who was always as hungry for information as a school boy is for green apples or any other thing that carries a threat of stomach ache with it.
“Why, I drove a dry stick down—one that would show a wetting if it got it—till it moved easily up and down. I knew then that it had reached the water-saturated sand. I pushed it on[257] down till the upper end was level with our present bottom. Then I drew it out and measured the dry part and six inches or so of the wet. That told me how far down we must go for the water.”
“It’s very simple,” said Tom.
“I’ve noticed that most things are so when one understands them,” said Dick. “For example—”
What Dick’s example was there is now no way of finding out, for at that point in his little speech the conversation was interrupted by a rather oddly-dressed man who broke through the barrier of bushes and presented himself, bowing and smiling, to the company.
XXVII
THE HERMIT OF QUASI
The newcomer was a man of fifty or fifty-five years of age. He was slender, but rather with the slenderness of the red Indian than with that suggestive of weakness. Indeed, the boys observed that his muscles seemed to be developed out of proportion to his frame, as if he had been intended by nature for a scholar and had made an athlete of himself instead.
There was not an ounce of unnecessary fat upon his person, and yet he gave no sign of being underfed. Instead his flesh had the peculiar hardness of the frontiersman’s who eats meat largely in excess of other foods.
A little strip across the upper part of his forehead, which showed as he stood there with his hat removed, suggested that his complexion had once been fair, but that exposure had tanned it to the color of a saddle.
His costume was an odd one, but it was made of[259] the best of materials, now somewhat worn, but fit still to hold their own in comparison with far newer garments of cheaper quality. Perhaps they were aided in this by the fact that they had evidently been made for him by some tailor who knew how to make clothes set upon their wearer as if they were a part of him.
Yet his dress was perfectly simple. He wore a sort of Norfolk jacket of silk corduroy—a cloth well nigh as durable as sole leather—with breeches of the same, buttoned at and below the knee, and covered at bottom with close-fitting calf-skin leggings of the kind that grooms and dandy horsemen affect.
The hat he held in his hand, as he addressed the company that had courteously risen to receive him, was an exceedingly limp felt affair, soft to the head, light in weight and capable of assuming any shape its wearer might choose to give it. His shoes were Indian moccasins.
No sign of linen appeared anywhere about his person, but just above the top button of his jacket a bit of gray flannel shirt showed in color harmony with his other garments.
“Good evening, young gentlemen,” he said; “I trust I do not intrude, and if I do so it shall not be for long. My name is Rudolf Dunbar. May I[260] ask if you young gentlemen are the rescuers I have been hoping to see during the three or four weeks that I have been marooned on this peninsula which nobody seems ever to visit?”
“We are here to rescue you if you so desire,” answered Larry, “but we set out with no such purpose. We were on our way here to fish, hunt, live in the open air and be happy in natural ways for a time. We caught sight of your signal of distress and hurried ourselves as much as possible, fearing that your distress might be extreme. As we found your camp showing no signs of starvation or illness, and could not find you, we set to work to establish ourselves for a prolonged stay here and wait for you to return. It seemed the only thing to do under the circumstances.”
“Quite right! Quite right! and I thank you for your kindly impulse. But you should have taken possession of my camp, making it your own—at least until you could establish yourselves more to your liking. I don’t know, though—my camp is bare of everything, so that you’re better off as you are.”
As he paused, Larry introduced himself and his comrades by name, and offered the stranger the hospitality of their camp, inviting him especially to sit down and share their supper.
He accepted the invitation, and after a little Larry said to him:
“May I ask the nature of your distress here, and how pressing it is? We are ready, of course, to take you to the village over yonder, ten or a dozen miles away, at any time you like. From there you can go anywhere you please.”
“Thank you very much. My distress is quite over now. Indeed, I am not accustomed to let circumstances distress me overmuch. I found myself marooned here, and naturally I wanted to establish communication with the mainland again—or the possibility of such communication. But if it had been necessary I could have remained here for a year in fair contentment. Long experience has taught me how to reconcile myself with my surroundings, whatever they may be, and game and fish are plentiful here. May I ask how long you young gentlemen have planned to remain here?”
“Three or four weeks, probably,” answered Larry. “But as I said before, we’ll set you ashore on the mainland at any time you like.”
“Thank you very much. But if it will be quite agreeable to you, I’ll remain here as long as you do. I haven’t finished my work here, and the place is extremely favorable for my business. If my presence is in any way annoying—”
“Oh, not at all. We shall build a comfortable shelter to-morrow, and we’ll be glad to have you for our guest. As you see, we’re digging a well, and we’ll have good sweet water by morning.”
“That is very wise. I should have dug one myself if I had had any sort of implement to dig with, but I have none.”
“And so you’ve had to get on with the rather repulsive water from the spring down there?”
“Yes, and no. I have used that water, but I distil it first. You see, in my peculiar business, I must wander in all sorts of places, wholesome and unwholesome, and it is often impossible to find good water to drink. So for years past I have always carried a little distilling apparatus of my own devising with me. It is very small and very light, and, of course, when I have to depend upon it for a water supply, I must use water very sparingly. I think I must bid you good evening now, as I did not sleep at all last night. I will see you in the morning.”
“We’ll expect you to join us at breakfast,” said Larry.
“It will give me great pleasure to do so. Good night.”
With that he nimbly tripped away, leaving the boys to wonder who and what he was, and especially[263] what the “business” was that he had not yet finished at Quasi. Cal interrupted the chatter presently, saying:
“We’ve annexed a riddle, and you’re wasting time trying to guess it out. Nobody ever did guess the answer to a riddle. Let’s get to work and finish the well.”
The boys set to work, of course, but they did not cease to speculate concerning the stranger. Even after the well was finished and when they should all have been asleep they could not drive the subject from their minds.
“I wonder how he got here, anyhow,” said Tom, after all the other subjects of wonder had been discussed to no purpose. “He has no boat and he couldn’t have got here without one.”
“What I wonder,” said Dick, “is why and how his ‘business’ has compelled him to wander in out-of-the-way places, as he says he has.”
“I am wondering,” said Cal, sleepily, “when you fellows will stop talking and let me go to sleep. You can’t find out anything by wondering and chattering. The enigma will read itself to us very soon.”
“Do you mean he’ll tell us his story?” asked Tom.
“Yes, of course.”
“Why do you think he’ll do that?”
“He can’t possibly help it. When a man lives alone for so long as he has done, he must talk about himself. It’s the only thing he knows, and the only thing that seems to him interesting.”
“There’s a better reason than that,” said Larry.
“What is it?”
“Why, that he is obviously a gentleman. A gentleman wouldn’t think of coming here to remain indefinitely as our guest without letting us know who and what he is and all the rest of it.”
“Finis!” said Cal.
Silence followed, and soon the little company was dreaming of queerly dressed marooners carrying flags union down.
XXVIII
RUDOLF DUNBAR’S ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF
Cal and Larry were right. Both out of a sense of duty to his entertainers and because of a not unnatural impulse to tell of his unusual mode of life, Dunbar began the very next morning to talk freely of his experiences.
“It is proper that I explain to you how I came to be here without the means of getting away again,” he said at breakfast. “Indeed, I was a little troubled in my mind last night when I remembered that I had received your kindly offer of rescue without telling you that. But in my anxiety to get away from your bivouac and let you sleep, I forgot it.
“You see my entire life is spent in the woods or upon the water. I go wherever there is promise of anything to reward the labors of a naturalist, and when I heard of this long-abandoned plantation, where for twenty-five years or so Nature has had things all her own way, I knew a visit would[266] be richly worth while. So I purchased a little rowboat and came over here about three or four weeks ago. I cannot fix the time more definitely because I never can keep accurate account of the days or weeks, living alone in the woods as I do and having no engagements to fulfill. I pulled my boat up on the beach a little way, selected a place in which to live, and proceeded to remove my things from the boat to the place chosen. Unfortunately, just as I had finished doing so, a peculiar moth attracted my attention—a moth not mentioned or described in any of the books, and quite unknown to science, I think. I went at once in chase of it, but it led me a merry dance through the thickets, and it was two hours, I should say—though I carry no timepiece—before I caught the creature. In the meanwhile I had forgotten all about my boat, and when I got back I saw it drifting out to sea with quite a strong breeze to aid the tide in carrying it away. It seems the tide had reached the flood during my absence, setting the boat afloat, and had then begun to ebb, carrying her away.
“There was nothing to be done, of course, but hoist my little flag, union down, and go on with the very interesting task of studying the habits of my new moth, of which I have since found several specimens, besides three cocoons which I am hatching[267] in the hope that they will prove to belong to the species. I’ve been hard at work at that task ever since, and I have made some very interesting discoveries with regard to that moth’s choice of habitat. I made the most important one the night before you arrived. That is why I got no sleep that night.”
“Let us hope,” said Cal, “that the excitement of it did not interfere with your rest last night.”
“Oh, not at all. I am never excited, and I can sleep whenever I choose. I have only to lie down and close my eyes in order to accomplish that.”
“Then you have a shelter or hut up there somewhere—though we saw none?”
“Oh, no. I never sleep under shelter of any kind; I haven’t done so for more than twenty years past. Indeed, that is one of the conditions upon which I live at all. My health is good now, but it would fail me rapidly if I slept anywhere under a roof.”
“But when these heavy subtropical rains come?” asked Dick.
“Ah, I am prepared for them. I have only to spread one rubber cloth on the ground and a much thinner one over my blanket, and I take no harm.”
“Your specialty then is the study of butterflies and moths?” asked Dick.
“No, not at all. Indeed I have no specialty. When I was teaching I held the chair of Natural History, with several specialists as tutors under my general direction. When my health broke down—pray, don’t suppose I am going to weary you with a profitless catalogue of symptoms—I simply had to take to the woods. I had nobody dependent upon me—nobody for whom it was my duty to provide then or later. I had a little money, very little, but living as I do I need very little, and my work yields me a good deal more than I need or want. The little rifle I always have with me provides me with all the food I want, so that I am rarely under expense on that account.”
“But you must have bread or some substitute,” said Tom.
“I do not find it necessary. When I have access to starchy foods—of which there are many in tropical and subtropical forests if one knows how to find and utilize them—I eat them with relish, but when they are not to be had I get on very well without them. You see man is an omnivorous animal, and can live in health upon either starchy or flesh foods. It is best to have both, of course, unless the starchy foods are perverted as they so often are in civilized life, and made ministers to depraved appetites.”
“May I ask just how you mean that?” asked Dick.
“Yes, certainly. The starch we consumed last night in the form of sweet potatoes was altogether good for us; so is that we are taking now in these ship biscuits. But if the flour we are eating had been mixed with lard, sugar, eggs, milk and the like, and made into pastry, we should be greatly the better without it.
“However, I’m not a physician, equipped to deliver a lecture on food stuffs and their preparation. I was betrayed into that by your question. I was explaining the extreme smallness of my personal needs. After food, which costs me nothing, comes clothing, which costs me very little.”
“Why certainly you are expensively dressed for woodland wandering,” said Dick. Then instantly he began an apology for the reference to so purely personal a matter, but Rudolf Dunbar interrupted him.
“No apology is due. I was voluntarily talking of my own personal affairs, and your remark was entirely pertinent. My garments are made of very costly fabrics, but as such materials endure all sorts of hard usage and last for a very long time, I find it cheaper in the end to buy only such; more important still is the convenience of it, to one leading[270] the sort of life I do. Instead of having to visit a tailor three or four times a year, I have need of his services only at long intervals. The garments I now have on were made for me in London three years or so ago, and I have worn no others since. In the meanwhile I have been up the Amazon for thousands of miles, besides visiting Labrador and the southern coast of Greenland.
“That brings me to my principal item of expense, which is the passage money I must pay in order to get to the regions I wish to explore. That costs me a good deal at each considerable removal, but in the meanwhile I have earned greatly more by my work.
“But pardon me for prosing so about myself. I’ll say not another word now, so that you young gentlemen may be free to make whatever use you wish of this superb day. I shall spend the greater part of it in figuring some specimens with my colored crayons. Good morning!”
XXIX
TOM FINDS THINGS
As soon as the visitor disappeared through a tangled growth of bushes, Larry began marking out the duties of the day.
“First of all we must make ourselves comfortable,” he said, as if reflecting.
“That means a bush shelter of some sort,” interrupted Tom.
“No, it doesn’t either,” Larry answered, in a tone of playfulness like Tom’s own.
“What does it mean, then?”
“It means a shelter—not ‘of some sort’ as you say, but of a good sort. The wind blows hard here sometimes as the place is so exposed to a broad passage leading to the sea outside. So we must build something that isn’t easily carried away by a squall.”
“It would mean a good many other things,” said Cal, “if I were the architect selected to make designs, with front elevations, floor plans, estimates[272] and all the other things they do before beginning to put up a building.”
“Why, of course, Cal, you are to direct the work,” answered Larry. “You know more about such things than all the rest of us combined.”
“Well, then, first of all, our palatial country residence must face directly away from the sea,” said Cal. “If it had its wide open side in any other direction we’d be drenched inside of it every time a rain came in from the sea, and that is where nearly all the hard rains come from here. Then, again, if the hovel faced the wrong way it would be filled full of smoke every time a sea breeze blew, and in this exposed place that is nearly all the time. There are seventeen other good and sufficient reasons for fronting the structure in the way I have decreed, but the two I have mentioned are sufficient to occupy and divert your young minds as we go on with the work. Now let all hands except Larry busy themselves chopping crotched poles of the several dimensions that I’ll mark here in the sand, for lack of other and more civilized stationery.”
With a sharpened stick Cal began writing in the sand.
“Four poles, 12 feet long, and three or four inches thick.”
“But what do you want me to do, Cal?” asked Larry.
“Go fishing,” said Cal. “We must have some dinner after awhile. See if you can’t bring in a sheepshead or some other fish weighing five or six pounds and fit for roasting.”
In an instant Larry was off with cast net, shrimp bucket and some fish lines.
Cal resumed his sand writing, cataloguing the various sorts and sizes of poles wanted. Presently he stopped short, muttering:
“But then we’re not lumbermen, and the only tool we have to chop with is our one poor little hand ax. It won’t take three of us to wield that toy. Say, Tom, suppose you take your gun and see if you can’t get us some game. We’ll do well enough with fish for dinner, but we must have some meat for to-night. So go and get some. I know you’re half crazy to be off in the woods shooting. Dick and I will work at the poles and palmetes—that’s apt alliteration, but it was quite accidental, I assure you. One can use the ax and the other cut palmete leaves with his jackknife, exchanging jobs now and then. We’ll need a great stack of the palmetes with which to cover the roof and three sides of our mansion.”
“Yes, of course, and fortunately they grow very[274] thick just out there in the woods,” said Dick. “I saw them early this morning.”
“Yes, I know. I saw them yesterday when I picked out a place for the camp. Our need of them was one of the considerations I had in mind. By the way, Dick”—the two were busily at work now—“what do you think of the professor’s plan of sleeping?”
“It saves him a lot of trouble,” Dick answered.
“Yes, in one way. But if he had anything with him that water would spoil, it would make more trouble than it saves. As he has nothing of the kind—”
“How about his reserve ammunition? A man who depends upon his gun for all his food must have a lot of cartridges somewhere.”
“That’s so, but his rifle is probably of very small calibre, so that a good many cartridges can be packed in a small space. Of course we can’t ask him.”
At that moment “the professor,” as Cal had called him, appeared, with profuse apologies.
“It was really inexcusable,” he protested, “for me to go away as I did when you young gentlemen had a shelter to build. I should have stayed to help in the work, as I am to share in its advantages. But I am so unused to providing shelter for myself[275] that I quite forgot your larger necessities. Fortunately I heard the blows of your ax and was reminded of my duty. I have come at once to assist you.”
“Oh, you mustn’t think of that, Professor,” answered Cal. “We really need no assistance. My brother and Tom have gone off for supplies of meat and fish, but they’ll be back presently, and meanwhile we two can use the only tools we have for this kind of work. Besides, you have something of your own to do.”
“Nothing that may not be as well done at another time. I must insist upon bearing my share of the work of constructing a camp which you have been courteous enough to invite me to share.”
“But you don’t sleep under a roof—even a flimsy one of palmete leaves,” objected Dick. “We invited you to join us here only because we like good company.”
“Thank you for the compliment. No, I do not sleep under a roof, but your roof will be a great convenience and comfort to me in other ways.”
“I don’t see—” Cal began, but Dunbar broke in.
“You don’t see how? No, of course not. How should you? But that is only because you know so little of my tasks. I must write my scientific reports[276] and articles carefully and voluminously, and I must make accurate color drawings of my specimens to accompany my text. I am badly behind with my work in these ways, and the very best time to bring up the arrears is of long, rainy days, when the living things I must study—all of them except the fishes—are hidden away in such shelters as they can find. But I cannot sit in the rain and write or draw. That would only be to spoil materials of which I have all too little already. So the rainy days are lost to me, or have been, hitherto. Now that I am to enjoy your hospitality, I shall sit in your shelter when it rains, and get a world of writing and drawing done.”
“Well, at any rate, we shall not need your help in this work, and we have no tool for you to work with if we did. As to our little hospitality, it mustn’t and doesn’t involve any obligation on your part. If it did it wouldn’t be hospitality at all, but something very different. Why not put in your time on your own work?”
“I would, if my head didn’t object,” the man of science answered rather dejectedly, Cal thought, but with a smile.
“Have you a headache, then?” the youth asked, putting as much sympathy into his tone as was possible to a robust specimen of young manhood who[277] had never had a headache in his life. “It must be very distressing.”
“No, I haven’t a headache,” the professor answered. “I wish it was only that. No, my head isn’t clear to-day, and when I try to work it gets things jumbled up a bit. I tried this morning to write a scientific account of the habits of a certain fish that these waters bear, and somehow I got him out into the bushes using wings that I had never observed before. Now I must go and catch another specimen of that fish and examine it carefully to see if the wings are really there or not. You see in cases of doubt a scientist dares not trust anything to conjecture or memory. He must examine and make sure.”
So saying, the professor started off to catch the fish he wanted. He had spoken in a half jocular tone and with a mischievous smile playing about his lips, though his words were serious enough.
“What do you think, Dick?” Cal asked as soon as the man was well beyond earshot; “is he a trifle ‘off’? has he lost some of his buttons?”
“Possibly, but I doubt it.”
“But what nonsense he talked!”
“Yes, I know. But did you observe his smile? He was only doing in his way what you so often do in yours. Your smile often contradicts your[278] words—making its bow, as it were, to the nonsense you are uttering. Yet we don’t suspect you of having slipped your cable.”
“I suppose that’s it,” said Cal, “but allow me to suggest that our chatter cuts no palmetes, and we’re in need of a great number.”
By the time the needed poles and crotch sticks were cut and sharpened for driving into the ground, Larry returned, bringing with him one huge fish and a bucket full of croakers and whiting, all of which he had dressed on the shore.
He wrapped the large fish in a mass of wet sea weed and buried it in the hot ashes and coals to bake. After setting such other things to cook as he thought necessary, he joined the others in the work of setting up the poles and fastening their ends securely together with vines as flexible as hempen rope. The wetter parts of the woodlands yielded such vines in abundance, and as somewhat experienced sailors the boys all knew how to tie knots that no strain could loosen.
By the time that the dinner was cooked the framework of the shelter was more than half done.
“We’ll knock off for dinner now,” Larry suggested, “and after dinner the whole force will set to work finishing the framework and covering it. There are bunks to be made, too, and filled with[279] long gray moss, so we’ll have a very full afternoon.”
“By the way, Professor,” asked Cal, as the man of science rejoined the group, “are you quite sure you won’t let us make a bunk for you?”
“Oh, yes—quite sure.”
“Did you catch the fish you wanted to examine, or did he take to his wings and fly away?”
“Oh, that was only my poor little jest. You didn’t take it seriously, did you?”
Then, interrupting the reply that Cal had begun to make, he said rapidly:
“But I did want to make another examination of the fish in question. You see, when I examined a specimen a few days ago, my attention was concentrated upon certain definite points, and when I casually observed something that suggested the possibility of its having a sense of taste, I went on with the other questions in my mind and quite forgot to satisfy myself on this point. But when I sat down this morning to write notes of my observations, the point came back to my mind, and I saw that I must examine another specimen before writing at all. That is what I meant by saying, in figurative speech, that my fish went flying away among the bushes, or whatever else it was that I said.”
“But, Professor,” said Larry, “something you said about a fish’s sense of taste just now awakens my curiosity. May I ask you—”
“Not now,” said Dick. “Let’s reserve all that for this evening after supper. You see Tom isn’t here now, and he will want to hear it all. Maybe the professor will let us turn loose our tongues to-night and ask him the dozen questions we have in our minds.”
“Yes—a thousand, if you wish,” Dunbar answered. “I have studied fish with more interest, perhaps, than I ever felt in investigating any other subject, and naturally I like to air the results of my inquiries.”
Larry busied himself taking the dinner from the fire, and as he did so Tom returned.
“Hello, Tom!” called out Cal as the boy was struggling through the bushes back of the camp. “Just in time for dinner. Did you get anything worth while?”
“Judge for yourself,” he replied, entering the open space and dropping a huge turkey gobbler on the ground. “Isn’t that a beauty? Got him on the wing, too. But I forgot, Cal, you don’t approve of post-mortem chatter over game. One thing I must tell you, anyhow. I found a patch of these and brought home some samples in my[281] pockets to see if it’s worth while to go after more.”
As he spoke he drew out a number of sweet potatoes and cast them down.
“Are there more to be had?” Larry asked eagerly.
“Yes, bushels of them—growing wild.”
“Good! Tom, you’ve a positive genius for finding precisely what we want. Our supply of bread and bread substitutes is very scant, or was before you made this discovery, and with all due respect for your opinion, Professor, I am satisfied that we need a considerable proportion of starchy foods to go with our meat.”
“Oh, I agree with you as to that,” quickly answered the professor. “I have never doubted it. I only said that man, being an omnivorous animal, can live upon an exclusive diet of meat just as he can live on the starchy foods alone. I think I stated distinctly that he is better off with both than with either alone.”
“You certainly did say that, Professor,” said Dick; “it is only that Larry was inattentive at the time of your lecture. But I say, Tom, is it far to your potato patch?”
“Only about half a mile or a little less.”
They were all busily eating dinner now, and for[282] a minute there was nothing more said. Presently Tom spoke:
“I say, Larry, which of you fellows can best be spared to go with me after dinner, and help me bring in the deer?”
“What deer?” asked all in a breath.
“Why, the one I shot an hour or so ago. I managed to hang him up in a tree out of reach of other animals, I think, but I suppose he ought to be brought to camp pretty soon.”
Cal rose threateningly.
“I am strongly tempted to throw things at you, Tom Garnett,” he began. “But there isn’t anything to throw except the ax, and if I threw that I might incapacitate you for walking, and without your assistance we might not be able to find that deer. What do you mean, sir, by interrupting us at dinner with a surprise like that? Don’t you realize that it is bad for the digestion? In plain language that even your intelligence can perhaps grasp, why in the name of all that is sensible, didn’t you tell us about the thing when you first came?”
“I’ve associated with you, Cal, too long and too intimately to retain a just appreciation of what is sensible. Anyhow, I wanted the fun of springing the thing on you in that way. If you’ve finished your dinner, we’ll be off after the venison. It isn’t half a mile away.”
XXX
DUNBAR TALKS AND SLEEPS
It required nearly all the afternoon for Tom and Cal to bring the deer to camp and dress it. In the meantime Larry, Dick and Dunbar—who insisted upon helping and did his part very cleverly—worked upon the shelter and the bunks inside. As a result the hut was ready for use that night, though not quite finished in certain details.
By Larry’s orders no further work was to be done after supper, but supper was to be late, as there was the turkey to be roasted, and he wanted to roast it right. While he was preparing the bird for the fire, Dick was rigging up a vine contrivance to serve in lieu of a spit, and Tom and Cal employed the time in bringing a bushel or two of Tom’s wild sweet potatoes to camp.
The turkey was suspended by a long vine from the limb of a tree, so hung as to bring the fowl immediately in front of a fire built at that point especially for this roasting. Dick had bethought him[284] to go to the dory and bring away a square of sheet copper, carried for boat-repairing purposes. This he scoured to brightness with sand, after which he fashioned it into a rude dripping pan, and placed it under the turkey to catch the juices for basting purposes. There was nothing remotely resembling a spoon in the camp or the boat, but Dick was handy with his jackknife, and it did not take him long to whittle out a long-handled wooden ladle with which to do the basting.
By another device of his the roasting fowl was kept turning as fast or as slowly as might seem desirable. This device consisted of two very slender vines attached to the supporting vine at a point several feet above the fire. One of the “twirlers,” as Dick called the slender vines, was wrapped several times around the supporting vine in one direction and the other in the opposite way.
Sitting on opposite sides of the fire, and each grasping a “twirler,” Dick and Larry kept the turkey turning first one way and then the other.
While they were engaged in this, an abundant supply of Tom’s sweet potatoes were roasting in the ashes.
“Now we are at Quasi,” said Cal, just before the turkey was declared “done to a turn”—“at Quasi, the object of all our hopes, the goal of our[285] endeavors, and the guiding star of all our aspirations during a period of buffetings, trials and sore afflictions. We are securely at Quasi, and our residence—which prosaic people might call a hut, hovel or shanty, but which is to us a mansion—is practically finished. It is only meet and fit, and in accordance with Homeric custom, that we should celebrate the occasion and the toilsome achievements that have made it possible, by all possible lavishness of feasting. All of which means that I am going to make a pot of robust and red-hot coffee to drink with the turkey and ‘taters.’”
It was a hungry company that sat down on the ground to eat that supper, and if there was anything lacking in the bill of fare, such appetites as theirs did not permit the boys to find out the fact.
“It is an inflexible rule of good housewives,” drawled Cal, when the dinner was done, “that the ‘things’ as they call the dishes, pots, pans, and the like, shall be cleared away and cleansed. So here goes,” gathering up the palmete leaves that had served for plates and tossing them, together with the bones and fragments of the feast, upon the fire, where they quickly crackled into nothingness. “There aren’t any cooking utensils, and as for these exquisitely shaped agate iron cups, it is the[286] function of each fellow to rinse the coffee out of his own. Oh, yes, there’s the coffee pot I forgot it, and by way of impressing the enormity of my fault upon a dull intelligence I’ll clean that myself. A hurried scouring with some sand and water, followed by a thorough rinsing, ought to do the business finely.”
“I say, Cal,” said Dick, “I wish you would remember that this is your off night.”
“I confess I don’t understand. Do you mean that I shall leave the coffee pot for some other member of the company to scour?”
“No. I mean this is your off night for word-slinging. The professor is going to tell us some things and we want to hear him. So, ‘dry up.’”
“I bow my head in contriteness and deep humiliation. You have the floor, Professor.”
“May I ask you young gentlemen not to call me ‘professor’?” Dunbar asked very earnestly.
“Why, of course, we will do as you like about that,” answered Larry; “we have been calling you ‘professor’ merely out of respect, and you told us you were or had been a professor in a college.”
“Yes, I know, and I thank you for your impulse of courtesy. I used the word descriptively when I told you I had been a ‘professor’ of Natural[287] History. Used in that way it is inoffensive enough, but when employed as a title—well, you know every tight-rope walker and every trapeze performer calls himself ‘professor.’”
“Well, you must at least have a doctorate of some kind,” said Dick, “and so you are entitled to be addressed as ‘Dr. Dunbar.’”
“No, not at all. Of course a number of colleges have offered me baubles of that cheap sort—asking to make me ‘LL.D.,’ or ‘Ph. D.,’ or ‘L. H. D.,’ or some other sham sort of a doctor, but I have always refused upon principle. I hate shams, and as to these things, they seem to me to work a grievous injustice. No man ought to be called ‘Doctor’ unless he has earned the degree by a prescribed course of study and examinations. Honorary degrees are an affront to the men who have won real degrees by years of hard study. With two or three hundred colleges in this country, each scattering honorary degrees around and multiplying them every year, all degrees have lost something of their value and significance.”
“How shall we address you then?” asked Larry.
“Simply as ‘Mr. Dunbar.’ The President of the United States is entitled to no other address than ‘Mr. President.’ In a republic certainly[288] ‘Mr.’ ought to be title enough for any man. Call me ‘Mr. Dunbar,’ please.”
“Well, now, Mr. Dunbar, won’t you go on and tell us what you promised?”
“What was it? I have quite forgotten.”
“Why, you said you had been led to suspect that your fish—the kind that takes wing and flies away into the bushes—had a sense of taste. Did you mean to imply that fishes generally have no such sense?”
“Yes, certainly. There are very few fishes that have capacity of taste. They have no need of it, as they bolt their food whole, and usually alive. There are curious exceptions, and—”
“But, Mr. Dunbar,” interrupted Tom, “is it only because they swallow their food whole that you think they have no sense of taste? Is there any more certain way of finding out?”
“Yes, of course. The sense of taste is located in certain nerves, called for that reason ‘gustatory nerves,’ or ‘taste goblets.’ Now, as the fishes generally have no gustatory nerves or taste goblets, we know positively that they do not and cannot taste their food. That is definite; but the other reason I gave is sufficient in itself to settle the matter. The gustatory nerves cannot taste any substance until it is partially dissolved and brought[289] into contact with them in its dissolved state. You can test that for yourself by placing a dry lump of sugar in your mouth. Until the saliva begins to dissolve it you can no more recognize any taste in it than in a similar lump of marble.”
“But why do they eat so voraciously then? What pleasure do they find in it?” asked Dick.
“Chiefly the pleasure of distending the stomach, but there is also the natural craving of every living organism for sustenance, without which it must suffer and die. That craving for sustenance is ordinarily satisfied only by eating, but it may be satisfied in other ways. Sometimes a man cannot swallow because of an obstruction in the canal by which food reaches the stomach. In such cases the surgeons insert a tube through the walls of the body and introduce food directly into the stomach. That satisfies the desire for sustenance, though the patient has not tasted anything. When a fish takes a run and jump at a minnow and swallows it whole at a gulp, he is doing for himself much the same thing that the surgeon does for his patient.”
“But, Mr. Dunbar,” Tom asked, “why is it then that the same species of fish will take a particular kind of bait at one time of year and won’t touch it at other times? In the very early spring I’ve caught[290] lots of perch on worms, while a little later they would take nothing but live bait, and still later, when they were feeding on insects on the surface, I’ve known them to nose even live bait out of their way, refusing to take anything but the insects. If they don’t taste their food, why do they behave in that way?”
“Frankly, I don’t know,” Dunbar answered. “I have formed many conjectures on the subject, but all of them are unsatisfactory. Perhaps somebody will solve the riddle some day, but at present I confess I can’t answer it.”
Dunbar stopped as if he meant to say no more, and Tom became apologetic.
“Won’t you please go on, Mr. Dunbar? I’m sorry I interrupted.”
“Oh, but you must interrupt. If you don’t interpose with questions, how am I to know whether I’ve made my meaning clear or not? And how am I to know what else you wish to hear? No, no, no. Don’t withhold any question that comes into your mind, or I shall feel that I’m making a bore of myself by talking too much.”
“You spoke,” said Dick, “of certain fishes that are exceptions to the rule.”
“Oh, yes; thank you. I meant to come back to that but forgot it. The chief exception I know[291] of is the bullhead, a small species of catfish that abounds in northern waters, particularly in the Adirondack lakes. The bullhead has gustatory nerves all over him. He can taste with his tail, or his side, or his head, as well as with his mouth. Of course there’s a good reason for the difference.”
“I suppose so, but I can’t imagine what it is,” said Larry.
“Neither can I,” echoed Tom and Dick. Cal continued the silence he had not broken by a word since Dunbar had begun. Observing the fact, Dick was troubled lest his playful suppression of Cal at the beginning had wounded him. So, rising, he went over to Cal’s side, passed his arm around him in warm friendly fashion, and said under his breath:
“Did you take me seriously, Cal? Are you hurt or offended?”
“No, you sympathetically sublimated idiot, of course not. It is only that I want to hear all I can of Mr. Dunbar’s talk. You know I’ve always been interested in fish—even when they refuse to take bait. Hush. He’s about to begin again.”
“Oh, it is obvious enough when you think about it,” said Dunbar. “It is a fundamental law of nature that every living thing, animal or vegetable,[292] shall tend to develop whatever organs or functions it has need of, for defense against enemies or for securing the food it needs. You see that everywhere, in the coloring of animals and in a thousand other ways. The upper side of a flounder is exactly the color of the sand on which he lies. That is to prevent the shark and other enemies from seeing him and eating him up. But his under side, which cannot be seen at all by his enemies, is white, because there is no need of color in it. I could give you a hundred illustrations, but there is no need. Your own daily observation will supply them.”
Again Dunbar paused, as if his mind had wandered far away and was occupying itself with other subjects. After waiting for a minute or two Cal ventured to jog his memory:
“As we are not familiar with the bullhead—we who live down South—we don’t quite see the application of what you’ve been saying, Mr. Dunbar. Would you mind explaining?”
“Oh, certainly not,” quickly answered the man of science, rousing himself as if from sleep. “I was saying—it’s very ridiculous, but I’ve quite forgotten what I was saying. Tell me.”
“You were telling us about the bullhead’s possession—”
“Oh, yes, I remember now. You see fishes generally hunt their prey by sight, in the clear upper water and in broad daylight. They quit feeding as soon as it becomes too dark to see the minnows or other things they want to eat. As they hunt only by sight, they have no need of the senses of smell and taste, and so those senses are not developed in them. With the bullhead the thing is exactly turned around. He never swims or feeds in the upper waters. He lives always on or very near the bottom of comparatively deep water, in thick growths of grass, where sight would be of little use to him for want of light. He feeds almost entirely at night, so that those who fish for him rarely begin their sport before the dusk falls. In such conditions Mr. Bullhead finds it exceedingly convenient to be able to taste anything he may happen to touch in his gropings. So with him the sense of taste is the food-finding sense, and in the long ages since his species came into being that sense has been developed out of all proportion to the others. He has very little feeling and his nervous system is so rudimentary that if you leave him in a pail without water and packed in with a hundred others of his species, he seems to find very little to distress him in the experience. You may keep him in the waterless pail for twenty-four[294] hours or more, and yet if you put him back into the pond or lake he will swim away as unconcernedly as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. But then all species of fish are among the very lowest forms of vertebrate creatures, so that they feel neither pain nor pleasure at all keenly.”
Suddenly Dunbar ceased speaking for a minute. Then he seemed to speak with some effort, saying:
“There are many other things I could tell you about fish, and if you’re interested, I’ll do so at another time. I’m very sleepy now. May I pass the night here?”
“Certainly. I’ll bring you some moss—”
“It isn’t at all necessary,” he answered, as he threw himself flat upon the earth and fell instantly into a slumber so profound that it lasted until Cal called him to breakfast next morning.
XXXI
DUNBAR’S STRANGE BEHAVIOR
Dunbar was very silent during breakfast. He answered courteously when spoken to, as he always did, and there was no suggestion of surliness in his silence. In response to inquiries he declared that he had slept well and hoped the boys had done the same. But he added no unnecessary word to anything he said, and made no inquiries as to plans for the day. His manner was that of a person suffering under grief or apprehension or both.
As soon as breakfast was over he started off into the woods in a direction opposite to that in which his camp lay. He took neither his rifle nor his butterfly net with him. He simply walked into the woodlands and disappeared.
At dinner time he was nowhere to be found. As evening drew near the boys agreed to postpone their supper to a later hour than usual in anticipation of his return. But late as it was when at last they sat down to their evening meal, he was still missing.
The boys were beginning to be alarmed about him, for they had already learned to like the man and regard him as a friend.
“We must do something at once,” suggested Dick.
“But what can we do?” asked Larry. “I confess I can think of few possibilities in the way of searching for him at this time of a very dark night—for the clouds completely shut out the moonlight. Has anybody a suggestion to offer? What say you, Cal?”
“First of all,” was the reply, “we must carefully consider all the possibilities of the situation. Then we shall be better able to lay plans of rescue that may result in something. Let’s see. To begin with, he hasn’t left Quasi. He hasn’t any boat and there is absolutely no land communication with the main. So he is somewhere on Quasi plantation.
“Secondly, what can have happened to him? Not many things that I can think of. Old woods wanderer that he is, it isn’t likely that he has succumbed to any woodland danger, if there are any such dangers here, as there aren’t. There isn’t any wild beast here more threatening than a deer or a ’possum. He had no gun with him, so he cannot have shot himself by accident. He may have got[297] lost, but that is exceedingly unlikely. He is used to finding his way in the woods, and it is certain that he thoroughly explored Quasi during the time he was marooned here and flying his distress signal. If by any possible chance he is lost, he’ll soon find himself again. The only other thing I think of is that he may have tripped and fallen, breaking something.”
“I should doubt his doing that,” said Larry, “for he’s as nimble as any cat I ever saw. Still, there’s the chance. What shall we do to meet it?”
“We can’t scatter out and search the woods and thickets in the dark,” suggested Dick.
“No,” said Tom; “if we did he would have to go in search of four other lost fellows if he should happen to turn up. But we can keep up a big fire and we can go out a little way into the woods, fire our shotguns, give all the college yells we know, and then listen.”
“Good suggestion, that about shooting and yelling,” said Cal. “Besides, I like to yell on general principles. But we shan’t need to keep up a bonfire, and the night is very hot.”
“But he might see the bonfire,” answered Tom in defense of his plan, “and he’d come straight to it, of course, if he’s lost.”
“We’ll put up something else that he can see farther and better.”
“What?”
“A fat pine torch.”
“Where?”
“Did you observe a catalpa tree that stands all alone over there on the highest part of the bluff, which is also the highest point in the whole land of Quasi?”
“Of course, if you mean over there, near the Hunkydory’s anchorage.”
“Yes, I mean that. There isn’t another tree anywhere near it. I can’t imagine how it came to grow out there on that bald bluff, unless somebody planted it. However, that’s no matter. The tree is there and a torch fixed in the top of it could be seen from almost every nook and corner of Quasi, while here we are in a pocket of trees and thick growths of every kind. A bonfire here could be seen a very little way off.”
Cal’s modification of Tom’s plan was promptly approved as the best possible for that night. The company went into the woods, pausing at several points to fire their guns and to yell like demons.
No results following, they returned and set to work making huge torches of fat pine, one of which was kept burning in the tree-top throughout the[299] night, a fresh one being lighted whenever an old one burned out.
It was all to no purpose. Morning came and still there was no sign of Dunbar.
Breakfast was cooked and eaten, together with a reserve supply of food for the boys to carry with them on the search of the plantation, which they had decided to make that day. Still no sign of the missing man!
“Now, Cal,” said Larry, “this thing is becoming serious. We must find poor Mr. Dunbar to-day whatever else happens. We must scour the place till we accomplish that. We must scatter, but we must see to it that we get together again. Suppose you suggest a plan of procedure. You’re better than any of us at that.”
“I will,” said Cal, who had lost all disposition to be facetious. “He may be along the shore somewhere, so two of us had better follow the sealine, one going one way and the other in the opposite direction. They can cover double ground by going through the woods and open glades, only keeping near enough the shore to see it well. The other two will need no directions. Their duty will be to search the woods and thickets. Where the woods are open they can cover the ground rapidly, and also in the old fields wherever they haven’t[300] grown up too thickly. But the denser woods and canebrakes must be searched. Look particularly for trails. No one can possibly pass into or through such growths without leaving a trail behind. Look for trails and follow them; don’t bother about the unbroken growths. Now as to getting back here. We must all come back well before nightfall. No matter where we may be on Quasi, it will be easy to find some point near from which the lone catalpa tree can be seen. Make for that all of you and nobody will get lost. Finally, if any of you find Mr. Dunbar and need help, fire three shots about half a minute apart and we’ll all go to the point of firing. Now let’s be off.”
It was nearly sunset when Tom reached the catalpa tree on his return. He had not found Dunbar, but for reasons of his own he waited rather impatiently for the coming of his comrades. They were not long delayed, but the blank, anxious face of each as he appeared was a sufficient report to the others.
“The search is a failure!” said Larry, dejectedly.
“Absolutely,” answered Cal.
“No, not absolutely,” said Tom, feeling in his pocket. “I found something, and I’ve waited till you should all be here before speaking of it.”
“What is it? Tell us quick.”
“This,” answered Tom, drawing forth a letter, “and this,” producing a pruning knife with a curved blade, which they had all seen Dunbar use. “The letter was pinned to a tree with the point of the knife blade.”
“Never mind that,” said Larry, impatiently; “read the letter.”
Tom read as follows:
“I expect to be with you young gentlemen very soon. But in case I never see you again, please don’t think me ungrateful for all your kindnesses. There are times when I cannot endure a human presence—even the—”
Tom stopped reading, and explained:
“It breaks off right there, and there is no signature, or address, or anything else.”
The boys stared at each other in amazement, and for a time uttered no word. When they begun talking again it was only to wonder and offer conjectures, and the conjectures seemed so futile that at last the little company ceased to try to read the riddle. Then Larry said:
“Come on. There’s nothing more to be done to-night and we’re all half famished. We must have a good hearty supper, and then perhaps we’ll think of something more that we can do.”
“I doubt that,” said Cal; “but I say, Tom, you[302] have a positive genius for finding things—turtles’ eggs, smugglers’ camps, sweet potato patches, letters hidden in the woods, and everything else. Perhaps you’ll find poor Mr. Dunbar yet.”
“I was just thinking of some other things that we ought to find, and that right away.”
“What things?”
“Why, Mr. Dunbar’s. You know he has never brought any of them to our camp, and we know he writes and draws and all that. He must have some place up near his old bivouac where he can keep his papers and drawings and specimens dry. It seems to me we ought—”
“Of course we ought,” broke in Cal. “There may be something there to give us a clue. What do you say, Larry?”
“It is a good suggestion of Tom’s, and we’ll act upon it at once.”
Turning in a direction opposite to that which led to their own camp the boys visited the spot where Dunbar had lived before they came to Quasi. They searched in every direction, but found no trace of any of the man’s belongings. It was rapidly growing dark when at last they gave up the work of exploring, and decided to resume it again in the morning.
As they approached their camp through the woods[303] and thickets, they were surprised to see their camp-fire blazing up briskly, though none of them had been near it since the early morning. As they came out of the bushes, they were still more astonished to see Dunbar busying himself with supper preparations. Larry had just time enough before Dunbar saw them to say to the others in an undertone:
“Not a word about this, boys, until he asks.”
“Good evening, young gentlemen,” was Dunbar’s greeting, delivered in a cheery voice; “I have taken the liberty of getting supper under way in anticipation of your coming. I am sure you must be tired and hungry after a hard day’s shooting. By the way, a cup of tea is always refreshing when one is tired, and fortunately I have a little packet of the fragrant herb among my things. I’ll run up there and fetch it.”
As he spoke he started off briskly and nimbly.
“Evidently he isn’t tired, anyhow,” suggested Dick.
“And evidently he has some dry place in which to keep his things,” added Cal, “and I mean to ask him about it.”
“Don’t,” said Larry, earnestly. “That would be grossly impertinent.”
“Not at all, if it’s done in the proper way,” Cal replied, “and I’ll do it in that way.”
And he did. When Dunbar returned, he carried the tea, closely sealed up in tin foil.
“Is that thin tin foil sufficient to keep tea dry?” Cal asked.
“If you keep the packet in a dry place it is,” Dunbar answered. “The tin-foil prevents the delicate aroma of the tea from escaping, and at the same time forbids the leaves to absorb moisture from the air. When I’m moving about in a boat I carefully wrap any tea I may have in my waterproof sheets, but that is apt to give it an undesirable flavor, so my first care upon landing is to provide a dry storage place for my tea, my ammunition, my papers and whatever else I may have that needs protection. By the way, I’ve never shown you my locker up there. I’ll do so to-morrow morning. I’ll not forget, as I must go there for writing and drawing materials. I have some things in my mind that I simply must put down on paper at once.”
At that moment he thrust his hand into his pocket and felt there for some seconds. Then he said:
“That’s very unfortunate. I’ve managed to lose my knife.”
“I think I must have found it, then,” said Tom, holding it out; “isn’t that it?”
“Yes, thank you. I’m particularly glad to get it again, as it is the only one I have at Quasi. I[305] usually buy half a dozen at a time, and so the loss of one doesn’t annoy me. But just now I have only this one.”
He did not ask where or when Tom had found the knife, nor did he seem in the least surprised that it was found. The circumstance did not seem to remind him of his letter or of anything else.
The boys were full of wonder and curiosity, but they asked no questions.
XXXII
A RAINY DAY WITH DUNBAR
Dunbar was in excellent spirits that evening. He seemed indeed like one who has had some specially good fortune happen to him, or one suddenly relieved of some distress or sore annoyance.
Throughout the evening he talked with the boys in a way that greatly interested them. He made no display of learning, but they easily discovered that his information was both vast and varied, and better still, that his thinking was sound, and that he was a master of the art of so presenting his thought that others easily grasped and appreciated it.
When at last the evening was completely gone, he bade his companions a cheery good night, saying that he would go over to the bluff and sleep near the catalpa tree.
“You see there are no sand flies to-night,” he explained, “and I like to smell the salt water as I sleep.”
“What do you make of him, Larry?” Dick asked as soon as their guest was beyond hearing.
“I don’t know. I’m puzzled. What’s your opinion?”
“Put it in the plural, for I’ve a different opinion every time I think about it at all.”
“Anyhow,” said Tom, “he must be crazy. Just think—”
“Yes,” interrupted Cal, “but just think also how soundly he thinks. Let’s just call him eccentric and let it go at that. And who wouldn’t be eccentric, after living alone in the woods for so long?”
“After all,” Dick responded, “we’re not a commission in lunacy, and we’re not under the smallest necessity of defining his mental condition.”
“No,” Cal assented; “it’s a good deal better to enjoy his company and his talk than to bother our heads about the condition of his. He’s one of the most agreeable men I ever met—bright, cheerful, good natured, scrupulously courteous, and about the most interesting talker I ever listened to. So I for one give up trying to answer conundrums, and I’m going to bed. I wouldn’t if he were here to go on talking, but after an evening with him to lead the conversation, I find you fellows dull and uninteresting. Good night. Oh, by the way, I’ll slip away[308] from here about daylight and get some pan fish for breakfast.”
Early as Cal was in setting out, he found Dunbar on the shore ready to go with him.
“I hope to get a shark,” the naturalist said, “one big enough to show a well-developed jaw, and they’re apt to bite at this early hour. I’ve a line in the boat there with a copper wire snell.”
“Are you specially interested in sharks?”
“Oh, no, not ordinarily. It is only that I must make a careful drawing or two, illustrative of the mechanical structure and action of a shark’s jaw and teeth, to go with an article I’m writing on the general subject of teeth in fishes, and I wish to draw the illustrations from life rather than from memory. It will rain to-day, and I’m going to avail myself of your hospitality and make the drawings under your shelter.”
“Then perhaps you’ll let us see them?”
“Yes, of course, and all the other drawings I have in my portfolio, if they interest you.”
“They will, if you will explain and expound a little.”
Dunbar gave a pleased little chuckle as he answered:
“I’ll do that to your heart’s content. You know,[309] I really think I like to hear myself talk sometimes.”
“Why shouldn’t you? Your talk would delight anybody else.”
“Here’s my shark,” excitedly cried Dunbar, as he played the fish. “He’s nearly three feet long, too—a bigger one than I hoped for. Now if I can only land him.”
“I’ll help you,” said Cal, leaning over the rail with a barbed gaff hook in his hand. “Play him over this way—there, now once more around—here he is safe and sound.”
As he spoke he lifted the savage-looking creature into the boat and Dunbar managed, with some little difficulty, to free the hook from his jaws without himself having a thumb or finger bitten off.
“Not a tooth broken!” he exclaimed with delight. “I’ll dissect out the entire bony structure of the head to-day and make a drawing of it. Then I’m going to pack it carefully in a little box that I’ll whittle out, and present it—if you don’t mind—to young Wentworth. He may perhaps value it as a souvenir of his visit to Quasi.”
Cal assented more than gladly, and the two busied themselves during the next half hour completing their catch of whiting and croakers for breakfast.[310] When they reached the camp the rain Dunbar had predicted had set in.
As soon as breakfast was over Dunbar redeemed his promise to show the boys his lockers.
“I’m going over there now,” he said, “to get some paper, pencils and drawing board. Suppose you go with me, if you want to see some of my woodland devices.”
They assented gladly. They were very curious to see where and how their guest cared for his perishable properties, the more because their own search for the lockers had completely failed.
The matter proved simple enough. Dunbar led them a little way into the woods and then, falling upon his knees, crawled into the end of a huge hollow log. After he had reached the farther end of the hollow part he lighted a little bunch of fat pine splinters to serve as a torch, and invited his companions to look in. They saw that he had scraped away all the decaying wood inside the log, leaving its hard shell as a bare wall. In this he had fitted a number of little wooden hooks, to each of which some of his belongings were suspended.
It was a curious collection. There were cards covered with butterflies, moths and beetles, each impaled upon a large pin. There were the beaks and talons of various birds of prey, each carefully labeled.[311] There were bunches of feathers of various hues, some dried botanical specimens and much else of similar sorts.
From the farther end of the hollow he brought forth several compact little portfolios, each so arranged that no rain could penetrate it when all were bound together and carried like a knapsack.
“I’ll take two of these portfolios with me to your shelter,” he said, taking them under his arm. “One of them contains the writing and drawing materials that I shall need to-day. The other is filled with my drawings of various interesting objects. Some of them may be interesting to you during this rainy day, and each has a description appended which will enable you to understand the meaning of it.”
But the boys had a rather brief time over the drawings that day. They ran through a part of the portfolio while Dunbar was writing, but after an hour he put his writing aside and began dissecting the shark’s head, stopping now and then to make a little sketch of some detail. After that the boys had no eyes but for the work he was doing and no ears but for the things he said.
“You see there are comparatively few species of fish that have any teeth at all. They have no need of teeth and therefore have never developed them.”
“But why is that,” asked Tom; “I should think[312] some of the toothless varieties of fish would have developed teeth accidentally, as it were.”
“Development is never accidental in that sense, Tom. It is Nature’s uniform law that every species of living thing, animal or vegetable, shall tend to develop whatever is useful to it, and nothing else. That is Nature’s plan for the perpetuation of life and the improvement of species.”
After pausing in close attention to some detail of his work, Dunbar went on:
“You can see the same dominant principle at work in the varying forms of teeth developed by different species. The sheepshead needs teeth only for the purpose of crushing the shells of barnacles and the like, and in that way getting at its food. So in a sheepshead’s mouth you find none but crushing teeth. The shark, as you see, has pointed teeth so arranged in rows that one row closes down between two other rows in the opposite jaw, and by a muscular arrangement the shark can work one jaw to right and left with lightning-like rapidity, making the saw-like row of teeth cut through almost anything after the manner of a reaping machine. Then there is the pike. He has teeth altogether different from either of the others. The pike swallows very large fish in proportion to his own size, and his need is of teeth that will prevent[313] his prey from wriggling out of his mouth and escaping while he is slowly trying to swallow it. Accordingly his teeth are as small and as sharp as cambric needles. Moreover, he has them everywhere in his mouth—on his lips, on his tongue, and even in his throat. However, this is no time for a lecture. If you are interested in the subject you can study it better by looking into fishes’ mouths than by listening to anybody talk or by reading books on the subject.”
Again Dunbar paused in order that his attention might be closely concentrated upon some delicate detail of his work.
When the strain upon his attention seemed at last to relax, Cal ventured to say something—and it was startling to his comrades.
“Of course you’re right about the books on such subjects,” he said. “For example, the most interesting of all facts about fish isn’t so much as mentioned in any book I can find, though I’ve searched through several libraries for it.”
“What is your fact?” asked Dunbar, suspending his work to listen.
“Why that fish do not die natural deaths. Not one of them in a million ever does that.”
“But why do you think that, Cal? What proof is there—”
“Why, the thing’s obvious on its face. A dead fish floats, doesn’t it? Well, in any good fishing water, such as the Adirondack lakes, where I fished with my father one summer, there are millions of fish—big and little—scores of millions, even hundreds of millions, if you count shiners and the other minnows, that of a clear day lie in banks from the bottom of the water to its surface. Now, if fish died natural deaths in anything like the proportion that all other living things do, the surface of such lakes would be constantly covered with dead fish. Right here at Quasi and in all these coast waters the same thing is true. Every creek mouth is full of fish and every shoal is alive with them, so that we know in advance when we go fishing that we can catch them as fast as we can take them off the hook. If any reasonable rate of natural mortality prevailed among them every flood tide would strew the shores with tons of dead fish. As nothing of the kind happens, it seems to me certain that as a rule fish do not die a natural death. In fact, most of them have no chance to do that, as they spend pretty nearly their entire time in swallowing each other alive.”
“You are a close observer, Cal. You ought to become a man of science,” said Dunbar with enthusiasm. “Science needs men of your kind.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” answered Cal. “I imagine Science can get on very comfortably without any help of mine.”
“How did you come to notice all that, anyhow, Cal?” asked Dick.
“Oh, it didn’t take much to suggest that sort of thing, when the facts were staring me in the face. Besides, I may be all wrong. What do you think of my wild guess, Mr. Dunbar?”
“It isn’t a wild guess. Your conclusion may be right or wrong—I must think of the subject carefully before I can form any opinion as to that. But at any rate it is a conclusion reasoned out from a careful observation of facts, and that is nothing like a wild guess.”
Thus the conversation drifted on throughout the long rainy day, and when night came the boys were agreed that they had learned to know Dunbar and appreciate him more than they could have done in weeks of ordinary intercourse.
XXXIII
A GREAT CATASTROPHE
During the next fortnight or so the association between Dunbar and the boys was intimate and constant. When it rained, so that outdoor expeditions were not inviting, he toiled diligently at his writing and drawing, keeping up an interesting conversation in the meanwhile on all manner of subjects. In the evenings especially the talk around the fire was entertaining to the boys and Dunbar seemed to enjoy it as much as they. He was fond of “drawing them out” and listening to such revelations of personal character and capacity as their unrestrained discussions gave.
On fine days he made himself one of them, joining heartily in every task and enthusiastically sharing every sport afloat or afield. He was a good, strong oarsman and he could sail a boat as well as even Dick could. In hunting, his woodcraft was wonderfully ingenious, and among other things he taught the boys a dozen ways of securing game by trapping and snaring.
“You see,” he explained, “one is liable sometimes to be caught in the woods without his gun or without ammunition, and when that happens it is handy to know how to get game enough to eat in other ways than by shooting.”
During all this time he had no more of his strange moods. He never once fell into the peculiar slumber the boys had observed before, and he never absented himself from the company. Indeed, his enjoyment of human association seemed to be more than ordinarily keen.
Little by little his comrades let the memory of his former eccentricity fade out of their minds, or if they thought of it at all they dismissed it as a thing of no significance, due, doubtless, to habitual living in solitude.
One rainy afternoon he suddenly turned to the boys and asked:
“Does any one of you happen to know what day of the month this is? By my count it must be somewhere about the twenty-fifth of August.”
“My little calendar,” said Cal, drawing the card from a pocket and looking at it attentively for a moment, “takes the liberty of differing with you in opinion, Mr. Dunbar. It insists that this is the thirty-first day of August, of the year eighteen hundred and eighty-six.”
Dunbar almost leaped to his feet in surprise. After a brief period of thought he turned to Larry and asked:
“I wonder if you boys would mind sailing with me over to the nearest postoffice town early to-morrow morning.”
“Why, you know, Mr. Dunbar,” Larry answered, “to-morrow morning is mortgaged. We’re all going out after that deer you’ve located. Won’t the next day answer just as well for your trip?”
“Unfortunately, no. I gave my word that I would post certain writings and drawings to the publisher not later than noon on September 1, and the printers simply must not be kept waiting. Of course, if you can’t—”
“But we can and will,” answered Larry. “Your business is important—the deer hunt is of no consequence. But you’ll come back with us, will you not?”
“I shall be delighted to do so if I may,” he answered. “I’m enjoying it here with you, and my work never before got on so well with so little toil over it. I shall like to come back with you and stay at Quasi as long as you boys do.”
“That’s good news—altogether good. How long are you likely to be detained at the village?”
“Only long enough to post my letter and the[319] manuscript—not more than half an hour at the most.”
“Very well, then. We shall want to buy all the bread and that sort of thing there is to be had over there, but we can easily do that within your half hour. We’ll start about sunrise, and if the wind favors us we’ll be back by noon or a little later, and even if we have no wind, the oars will bring us back before nightfall.”
Dunbar at once set to work to arrange and pack the drawings he wished to send by mail, and as there were titles to write and explanatory paragraphs to revise, the work occupied him until supper time. In the meanwhile the boys prepared the boat, filled the water kegs, bestowed a supply of fishing tackle, and overhauled the rigging to see that every rope was clear and every pulley in free running order.
After supper there was not a very long evening for talk around the fire, for, with an early morning start in view, they must go early to their bunks.
They all rolled themselves in their blankets about nine o’clock and soon were sleeping soundly—the boys under the shelter and Dunbar under the starry sky—for the rain had passed away—by that side of the fire which was opposite the camp hut.
Their slumber had not lasted for an hour when[320] suddenly they were awakened by a combination of disturbances amply sufficient, as Dick afterwards said, “to waken the denizens of a cemetery.”
The very earth was swaying under them and rocking back and forth like a boat lying side on to a swell. Deep down—miles beneath the surface it seemed, there was a roar which sounded to Cal like “forty thousand loose-jointed wagons pulled by runaway horses across a rheumatic bridge.”
As the boys sprang to their feet they found difficulty in standing erect, and before they could run out of their shelter, it plunged forward and fell into the fire, where the now dried palmete leaves which constituted its roof and walls, and the resinous pine poles of its framework, instantly blazed up in a fierce, crackling flame.
“Quick!” cried Dunbar, as Larry, Dick and Cal extricated themselves from the mass, “quick—help here! Tom is entangled in the ruins.”
The response was instantaneous, and before the rapidly-spreading flames could reach him, the other four had literally dragged their comrade from the confused mass of poles and vines in which he had been imprisoned. If the work of rescue had been prolonged for even a minute more, it would have been too late, and Tom would have been burned to a crisp. As it was, he was choking with smoke, coughing with a violence that threatened the rupture of his breathing apparatus somewhere, and so nearly smothered for want of air as to be only half conscious.
A minute more, it would have been too late.
Page 320.
A bucket of water which Dunbar had dashed over him “set him going again,” as he afterwards described the process of recovering breath and consciousness, and as the paroxysms of coughing slowly ceased he stood erect by way of announcing a recovery which he was still unable to proclaim in words.
At that moment a second shock of earthquake occurred, a shock less violent than the first, but sufficient to topple Tom and Larry off their feet again.
It did no harm, chiefly because there was no further harm to do, and the little company busied themselves saving what they could of their belongings from the burning ruins.
After they had worked at this for ten minutes, a third shock came. It was feebler than either of the others, but just as the boys felt the earth swaying again there was an explosion under the burning mass, followed by a rapid succession of smaller explosions which scattered shot about in a way so dangerous that at Cal’s command all the company threw themselves prone upon the ground.
This lasted for perhaps a minute, and fortunately[322] nobody received a charge of shot in his person from the bursting cartridges that had made the racket. Fortunately, too, the box of cartridges thus caught in the flames and destroyed was the only one involved in the catastrophe. The rest had been kept, not in the hut, but in the Hunkydory’s lockers.
But when they came to take account of their losses, which they did as soon as the first excitement had passed away, they found that the damage done had been considerable.
For one thing, their entire supply of meat was destroyed; so was their bread and their coffee.
“We shall not starve, anyhow,” Cal decided. “We can kill as much game as we need and as the bottom doesn’t seem to have dropped out of the sea, we can still catch fish, oysters, shrimps and crabs. As for bread, we still have Tom’s sweet potato patch to draw upon. There wasn’t more than a pound of coffee left, so that’s no great loss.”
For the rest, the very few clothes the boys had brought with them in addition to what they wore, were all lost, but they decided that they could get on without them—“Mr. Dunbar’s fashion.” Tom was the worst sufferer in that respect, as the garments he wore had been badly torn in his rescue from the fire, but he cheerfully announced:
“I can manage very well. I’ll decline all dinner,[323] dance and other invitations that require a change from every-day dress. I’ll have some cards engraved announcing that ‘Mr. Thomas Garnett is detained at the South and will not be at home to receive his friends until further notice.’ Then I’ll borrow some of your beetle-detaining pins, Mr. Dunbar, and pin up the worst of the rents in my trousers.”
“We’ll do better than that, Tom,” the naturalist answered. “I’ve quite a little sewing kit tucked away in my log locker. You shall have needles, thread and a thimble whenever you wish to use them.”
“Thank you, Mr. Dunbar; but please spare me the thimble. I never could use a contrivance of that kind. Every time I have tried I have succeeded only in driving the needle into my hand and breaking it off well beneath the skin.”
“Boy like,” answered Dunbar. “You’re the victim of a traditional defect in our system of education.”
“Would you mind explaining?” asked Cal.
“Certainly not. I hold that the education of every human being ought to include a reasonable mastery of all the simple arts that one is likely to find useful in emergencies. We do not expect girls to become accountants, as a rule, but we do not on[324] that account leave the multiplication table out of a girl’s school studies. In the same way we do not expect boys generally to do much sewing when they grow to manhood, but as every man is liable to meet emergencies in which a little skill in the use of needle, thread and scissors may make all the difference between comfort and discomfort, every boy ought to be taught plain sewing. However, we have other things to think of just now.”
“Indeed we have,” answered Cal, “and the most pressing one of those other things is to-morrow morning’s breakfast. Does it occur to any of you that, except the salt in the dory’s locker, we haven’t an ounce of food of any kind in our possession?”
“That is so,” “I hadn’t thought of that;” “and we’ll all be hungry, too, for of course we shall not sleep”—these were the responses that came quickly in answer to Cal’s suggestion.
“We’ll manage the matter in this way,” said Cal, quite as if no one else had spoken. “When ’yon grey streaks that fret the clouds give indication of the dawn,’ Mr. Dunbar will go fishing. As soon as it grows light enough for you to walk through the woods without breaking more than two or three necks apiece, the rest of you can take that big piece of tarpaulin, go out to Tom’s potato patch, and bring back a large supply of sweet potatoes. After[325] breakfast one or two of us can go for some game, while the rest repair damages here. It will take two or three days to do that.”
As he spoke he looked about him as if to estimate the extent of the harm done.
“Hello!” he cried out a moment later. “That’s bad, very bad.”
“What is it, Cal?”
“Why, our well has completely disappeared—filled up to the level by the surrounding earth, which seems to have lost its head and in that way got itself ‘into a hole,’ just as people do when they forget discretion. That means that we’ve got to dig out the well to-day, and in the meantime drink that stuff from the spring down under the bluff. Our day’s work is cut out for us, sure enough.”
Tom had disappeared in the darkness while Cal was speaking, and as Cal continued to speak for a considerable time afterwards, marking out what Dick called a “programme of convenience,” he had not finished when Tom returned and in breathless excitement announced that the spring under the bluff was no more.
“The whole of that part of the bluff has slumped down to the beach,” he said, “and even the big catalpa tree is uprooted and overturned. Of course the spring is completely filled up, and we’ll all be[326] half famished for water before we get the well dug out again.”
“Don’t indulge in too hopeless a grief over the loss of the spring, Tom,” said Cal in his most confidently optimistic tone. “We can make another just as good anywhere down there in half an hour or less. That puddle held nothing but sea water that had leaked through the sand, partly filtering itself in doing so. We can dig a little hole anywhere down that way, and if we choose the right sort of place we’ll get better water than the spring ever yielded. I’ll look after that when Mr. Dunbar and I go fishing. We’ll have the sand out of this well by noon, too—it’s very loose and easily handled.”
“But, Cal,” interrupted Tom; “we haven’t a thing to dig with. The two shovels we had were in the hut.”
The others stood aghast; Cal faced the situation with hopeful confidence.
“That’s bad,” he commented. “Of course the handles are burned up, but the iron part remains, and even with the meagre supply of cutting tools we have—which is to say our jackknives and the little ax—we can fashion new ones. It will take valuable time, but we must reconcile ourselves to that.”
“Well, we must get to work at something—it’s hard to know where to begin,” said Larry in a despondent tone. “What’s the first thing to be done, Cal?”
“The first thing to be done is to cheer up; the next thing is to stay cheered up. You fellows are in the dumps worse than the well is, and you’ve got to get out of them if you have to lift yourselves out by the straps of your own boots. What’s the matter with you, anyhow? Have we lived a life of easy luxury here at Quasi for so long that you’ve forgotten that this is an expedition in search of sport and adventure? Isn’t this earthquake overthrow an adventure of the liveliest sort? Isn’t the loss of our belongings by fire a particularly adventurous happening?”
“After all,” broke in Tom, who had a genuine relish for danger, difficulty and hardship, “after all, we’re not in half as bad a situation as we were when we faced the revenue officers from behind our log breastwork. Our lives were really in danger then, while now we have nothing worse than difficulty to face.”
“Yes, and a few months hence we’ll all remember this thing with joy and talk of it with glee.”
“You’re right about that,” said Dunbar, “and it is always so. I have gone through many trying[328] experiences, and as I recall them the most severely trying of them are the ones I remember with the greatest pleasure. Besides, in this case the way of escape, even from such difficulties as lie before you, is wide open. The dory is at anchor down there and if you are so minded you can sail away from it all.”
“What! Turn tail and run!” exclaimed Tom, almost indignantly.
“No, we’re not thinking of that,” said Cal. “We’ll see the thing out, and, by the way, it’s growing daylight. Come, Mr. Dunbar! We have a pressing engagement with the fish and we must have an early breakfast this morning on all accounts. We have a lot to do, and you mustn’t be later than noon in reaching the postoffice, you know.”
“Oh, I’ve abandoned that,” responded Dunbar.
“But why?” asked Larry. “Of course we can’t go with you as we planned, but you can take the dory and make the trip for yourself. And perhaps you won’t mind taking some money along and buying out whatever food supplies the country store over there can furnish. We need bread especially, and coffee and—”
“And a few pounds of cheese won’t come amiss,” added Dick.
“But I tell you I am not going,” said Dunbar. “I have accepted and enjoyed your hospitality when all was going well with you; do you suppose I’m going to abandon you even for a day, now that you’re in trouble and need all the help you can get?”
“Your reasoning is excellent,” said Cal, purposely lapsing into his old habit of elaborate speech, by way of relieving the tension that had made his comrades feel hurried and harassed; “your reasoning is excellent, but your premises are utterly wrong. You can help us mightily by sailing up to that postoffice town and bringing back the supplies we need, while you cannot help us at all by remaining here. We four are more than enough to keep the few tools we have left constantly busy. With a fifth person included in the construction gang, there would always be one of us who must idly hold his hands for want of anything to work with. No, Mr. Dunbar, the best service you can render to the common cause is to sail up to the village, redeem your promise by mailing your papers, and bring back all you can of provisions adapted to our use. So that’s settled, isn’t it, boys?”
Their answer left no room for further argument, and as the daylight was steadily growing stronger,[330] the party separated, Cal and Dunbar going in quest of fish for breakfast, and the others struggling through tangled thickets toward the wild sweet potato field.
XXXIV
MAROONED AT QUASI
It was a bright, sunny day that followed—a day offering no suggestion of the convulsion of the night before. There was a good sailing breeze blowing in from the sea. It gave Dunbar the wind over the starboard quarter for his voyage to the village, and promised to be nearly abeam for his return.
“The dory will take me there and back by noon or a little later,” he called to the others as the sails filled and the boat heeled over to port.
The Rutledge boys had urged him to take the money they offered him for the purchase of supplies, but he had declined.
“I have a plenty of my own,” was his answer, “and whatever I can buy up there I’ll bring back as my contribution to the general welfare.”
It was idle to argue the matter, and not very safe either, Dick thought, for in their intercourse with him the boys had learned that with all his[332] kindly good-nature, Dunbar was exceedingly proud and very sensitive.
When the dory had gone, the boys set to work with a will upon the task of re-establishing Camp Quasi. Tom was sent out after game. Dick, who was the cleverest of them all in using tools, and especially his jackknife, busied himself in fitting new handles into their two shovels. With these and the bait pails for excavating tools, the three who remained in camp toiled diligently in removing the sand from their well.
Tom returned a little before noon, bringing in game enough of one kind and another to keep the company in meat for two days to come.
There was no sign of Dunbar and the dory as yet, and as the rest were hungry, it was decided that Cal should cook dinner at once, while Tom worked at the well in his stead. The cooking occupied a considerable time, and it was two o’clock in the afternoon when the tired boys finished eating. They had not slept since the earthquake at ten o’clock the night before; they had worked hard during the night in an endeavor to save what they could of their belongings, and they had worked still harder ever since dawn. Moreover, the excitement had been even more wearying than the work. Now that it had passed away and its victims[333] had eaten a hearty dinner, the desire for rest and sleep became irresistible.
Cal had made measurements and reported that two hours more of digging, or perhaps even less than that, would give them a water supply once more. At Larry’s suggestion, therefore, the worn-out fellows decided to sleep for an hour or two.
“We’ll do the rest of the well-digging in the cool of the late afternoon,” he said between a succession of yawns.
“Let’s hope,” said Tom, “that Mr. Dunbar won’t get here and wake us up before we’re ready.”
“There’s not much danger of that,” answered Cal.
“Why not, Cal?”
“You’d know without asking if you were as observant to-day as you usually are. I suppose you didn’t notice that the wind died out before noon, and there hasn’t been a sailing breath since.”
“That’s so,” said Tom, “and he’ll have to row the whole way. I ought to have thought of that.”
“Well, please don’t apologize now. It would only keep us awake when every moment is precious for slumber. I give notice now that I’m asleep and you can’t pull another word out of me with a corkscrew.”
When the weary fellows waked the afternoon[334] was nearly gone, but before resuming their work, and by way of refreshing themselves for it, they went down to the beach and took a plunge into the sea.
“No sign of Mr. Dunbar yet,” said Tom, who was beginning to be uneasy.
“No,” answered Larry, “but we needn’t bother about him. He’ll turn up quite unexpectedly when he gets ready. He always does that you know. What we’ve got to do is to finish our well in the shortest possible time. So, on with your duds, and let’s get to work.”
“You’re ‘mighty right,’ Larry,” said Dick. “I’ve quenched my thirst with sour wild grapes till my teeth have an edge like those of a buck-saw, and I begin to crave some unseasoned water.”
“I imagine we’re all in the same condition,” said Cal, as they hurried back to the ruins of the camp, “and it is altogether well that we are so.”
“How’s that, Cal?”
“Why, stimulated by thirst and encouraged by a sure prospect of reward, we’ll stop fooling away our time and do a little real work.”
Two hours later there was an abundant water supply in the well, and it had so far “settled” that the boys drank it freely with their late supper.
When the meal was over they all strolled down[335] to the shore again and listened for the sound of oars in the direction from which Dunbar was expected. Nobody had suggested this. No word of uneasiness had been uttered, but every member of the company was in fact uneasy about the missing member of the group. After their return to camp this feeling was recognized as something in the minds of all. Presently Tom offered a suggestion:
“What do you think, Larry? Won’t it be just as well to show a light down that way, in case he should have trouble in finding the landing during the night?”
“That’s a good idea, Tom, but we’re so nearly out of oil now—indeed, we haven’t any except what is in the lanterns—that it must be a torch—”
“Or a camp-fire,” suggested Cal. “There are no sand flies to-night, and there’s nothing to keep us here. Why not move down to the bluffs and build a camp-fire there? Then we can sleep by it and keep it going all night.”
This plan was carried out, but it resulted in nothing. When the boys returned to their work of rebuilding the shelter the next morning, Dunbar had not yet made his appearance, nor was anything to be seen of the dory in such of the waterways as[336] were open to view between the mud marshes that dotted the great bay or inlet in every direction.
But as the boys busied themselves with their work on the hut, their minds were occupied and their anxiety as to Dunbar was less than during the night before.
When another day had passed, however, and still Dunbar did not return, that anxiety became very keen indeed. They built their fire again on the bluff, and they tried hard to sleep by it, but with little success. They would resolve to stop talking and go to sleep, and for a few minutes all would be quiet. Then one after another would grow restless and sit up, or walk about, or say something that set the talk going again.
Presently, when all had given up the attempt to sleep, Larry made a final end of all efforts in that direction by saying:
“You see, boys, this thing is really very serious. We are all anxious about Mr. Dunbar’s safety, but we’ve got our own to think about also.”
Every one of the company had thought of that, but until now all of them had avoided mentioning it.
“You see it isn’t Mr. Dunbar alone that is missing; the dory is gone too, and if he doesn’t return the dory won’t.”
“No, and in that case,” commented Dick, “our situation will be really very serious. We are here on what is practically an island that nobody ever visits; we are without a boat, and there is no possible way of escape from here without one.”
“Can’t we build some sort of craft that will answer our purpose?” asked Tom, hopefully.
“What with?” Larry responded. “We have no materials and no tools except the one little ax. There isn’t so much as a nail anywhere on Quasi plantation, and if there were kegs full, we haven’t a hammer to hit them with.”
“We might drive nails with stones,” suggested Dick.
“We might if we had one of your Massachusetts quarries to furnish the stones. But on all this coast there isn’t a rock or a stone as big as a filbert. No, we have no tools and no substitutes for tools.”
“Yes,” growled Cal, who alone was lying down with closed eyes in an endeavor to get to sleep, “and you fellows are doing all you can to wear out the strength we need for the emergency by profitless chatter, when we ought to be sleeping and refreshing ourselves to meet conditions as they arise. Don’t you see the folly of that? Don’t you realize that you aren’t bettering things, but making them worse?
“The very worst preparation for meeting difficulties is to fall into a panic about them. Besides, there’s no occasion for panic or for melancholy brooding; Dunbar may turn up with the dory safe and sound. If he doesn’t, I grant you we’ll have some problems to wrestle with and we’ll need the clearest heads we can keep on our shoulders. You’re doing all you can to muddle them.”
“But, Cal, it is necessary to face this situation and think of ways in which—”
“That’s precisely what you’re not doing. Not one of you has offered a single suggestion that is worth while. Besides, this isn’t the time for that. Troubles always look worse at night than by daylight. The best we can do now is to make up our minds to two things.”
“What are they, Cal?”
“First, that if we’re in a hole, we’ll find some way of getting out of it, and, second, that it is high time to go to sleep.”
“Have you thought of any plans, Cal?”
“Not exactly; but I have some ideas that may be worthy of attention on the part of this distinguished company, if this distinguished company will individually and collectively stop gabbing and let sleep respond to the wooing of closed eyelids. Silence in camp!”
XXXV
AGAIN TOM FINDS SOMETHING
When morning came all the boys admitted that Cal had been right in saying that troubles exaggerate themselves at night and seem far less hopeless when faced by daylight. The situation was the same that morning that it had been at midnight, but it did not seem so bad. Dunbar had not appeared and every hour that passed made it less probable that he ever would return. But somehow even that prospect did not altogether appal the boys when they thought of it by daylight.
Nevertheless, their minds were greatly disturbed as they waited throughout that day for Cal to unbosom himself of the ideas and suggestions he had promised to offer. They hoped he would do so at breakfast, but he talked instead of plans for that day’s work in rebuilding the hut. While they were engaged in building it there was no opportunity for him to set forth his views; they could not get together to hear his plans without delaying the work, and they were agreed that nothing must[340] be permitted to interrupt that. They looked forward to dinner as the opportunity he would probably seize upon for explaining, but when during that meal some one threw out a hint that that was as good a time as any, Cal replied:
“We’ll wait till evening; we must give Mr. Dunbar till then to return. If he doesn’t put in an appearance by sunset to-day we may as well give up looking for him. Then will be the time for discussing the situation and planning ways out of it. Now we’ll all get to work again.”
There was something in Cal’s manner and in his general cheerfulness which comforted his comrades, though it would have puzzled them to say how or why. It was evident at any rate that Cal had not lost hope. It was obvious that he saw nothing in the situation that should suggest despair, and his manifest confidence was in some degree contagious.
The sun was still an hour high when suddenly Cal called out:
“Suppose we let it go at that, boys. The thing’s good enough as it stands and we can get on with it for the few weeks that remain of our stay at Quasi.”
“Then you really see a way out?” asked Larry. “What is it?”
“Come on over to the bluff and we’ll have a last[341] look for Mr. Dunbar. If he isn’t within sight we’ll give him up and make up our minds that we shall never see the Hunkydory again. Then we’ll talk the thing over and see what is to be done.”
They set out for the bluff, restraining their impatience to hear what Cal might have to say with a good deal of difficulty, and only because they must. They knew he would say nothing until he should be ready, and that if they hurried him he would remain silent the longer.
No sign appearing of Dunbar or the dory, Cal sat down with the others and seemed ready to say what was in his mind.
“This is a situation that we didn’t reckon upon, but it is by no means hopeless, and we shall enjoy talking about it as the crowning event in our trip to Quasi when we come to think of it only as a memory.”
“But we’re not out of it yet,” interrupted Larry, “and I for one see no prospect of getting out.”
“There speaks despair, born of pessimism,” Cal smilingly said. “‘Hope springs eternal in the human breast,’ you know, and my breast is altogether human and hopeful. But let us suppose your despair is well founded, and see what then. At worst we shall not starve to death. There is plenty of game—”
“Yes, and fish too,” Tom interjected.
“Yes, and fish too. It won’t be easy to get them without a boat, but we’ll manage in some way.”
“We can easily make a raft to fish from,” suggested Dick.
“I had thought of that,” resumed Cal, “but it’s impracticable.”
“Why so?”
“Because we have no anchor and nothing that will serve as a substitute for one. Of course the tide would quickly sweep our raft away from any bar we might try to fish upon. No, what fish we get will have to be caught with the castnet at low tide, and in the mouths of sloughs where mullets feed, particularly at night. But there is game, and there are oysters, and no end of crabs. We shall not starve to death. We have no bread left, and Tom’s sweet potato patch is about exhausted, but we can live on the other things for the two or three weeks that we must stay here.”
“You’ve said something like that several times, Cal,” said Larry, with a touch of impatience. “What do you mean by it?”
“I mean that this is the beginning of September; that the college session will begin on the first of October—less than a month hence; that our honored[343] parents expect us to be in attendance at that time; and that if we don’t get home in time to pack our trunks they will send out and search for us; and finally, that as Major Rutledge, of Charleston, whom I have the honor to call father, knew in advance that we intended to visit Quasi on this trip, Quasi will be the place at which he will first look for us. So we’ll have our little frolic out and it will be great fun to tell the fellows at college about it after we get acquainted with them.”
The spirits of the boys responded promptly to Cal’s confident prophecy, which indeed was not so much a prophecy as a statement of simple facts known to all of them, though in their half panic-stricken mood they had not thought of them before.
Presently Dick had something to say that added a new impulse to activity.
“Of course, Cal is right, and we’ll be rescued from Quasi before the end of the month, but I for one would like us to get away without being rescued. Think of the alarm and distress our mothers will suffer if we do not turn up in time, especially as this earthquake has happened. They will think we’ve come to grief in some way and—I say, boys, we simply must get away from here before they take the alarm.”
“We certainly ought to if there was any way,” said Cal, “but of course there isn’t.”
“Yes, there is,” answered Dick, confidently. “You’re the pessimist this time, Cal.”
“Go ahead and tell us your plan,” responded Cal. “I’m always ready for the hopeful prospect if I can find it. What do you propose, Dick?”
“To build a sort of catamaran. It can’t be much of a craft because we have no tools and no fit materials, but these waters are so closely land-locked that all we need is to make something that will float. We can paddle it to the village up there, ten miles or so away, and from there we can walk to the railroad.”
“So far, so good,” said Cal, when Dick ceased to speak. “Go on and tell us the rest.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why the ‘how’ of it all. What is the plan of your catamaran, and how are we to make it?”
“Don’t be sceptical, Cal, till you’ve—”
“I’m not sceptical—not a bit. I’m only asking what we are to do and how, so that we may get to work at it early in the morning, or to-night, for that matter, if there’s anything that can be done by fire light. You spoke of our parents awhile ago, and of the alarm they must feel if we don’t get back on time. I’ve been thinking of my mother[345] ever since. She’s an invalid, you know, and a shock of that sort might kill her. So I’m ready to work by night or by day, or both, if it will help to spare her. Go on and tell us your plan.”
“I will. You know, of course, what a catamaran is, so I need not explain that. We will cut two logs, about twelve or fourteen feet long, one of them eight or ten inches thick and the other a mere pole. We’ll hew their ends sharp—boat-fashion—and lay them parallel to each other, seven feet or so apart. We’ll fasten them securely in place with stout poles at the bow and stern and amidships, binding the poles in place with limber vines. That will complete our framework. Then we’ll place a light pole longitudinally on the cross braces and about three feet inside the larger of our two logs. From the log to this pole we’ll construct a light deck of cane on which to stand as we paddle and push the craft along. Of course it will be a rude thing, very hard to manage, but as no part of it will be in the water except the two logs—one a mere pole—it will offer very little resistance, not half as much as a raft would.”
“No, not a tenth,” answered Larry.
“Come on,” said Cal. “We’re burning daylight. This job is yours, Dick, and you are to boss it, but I’ll be foreman of the gang and keep[346] myself and the rest of you at work. We’ll let supper go till after dark, and utilize what’s left of the daylight in cutting cane, vines, poles and whatever else you need. Then we’ll be ready in the morning to cut the logs and begin the work of construction. Hoop la! We’ll be afloat again before the week’s up! Dick, you’re a dandy, and I’ll never accuse you of pessimism again. ‘Look up and not down, forward and not back, out and not in, and lend a hand.’ Dr. Hale put all there is of sound philosophy into that one sentence.”
After the darkness made an end of work for that day the boys sat down gleefully to their supper, and hopefully laid plans for the morrow. Presently Larry jestingly turned to Tom:
“It’s your turn now, Tom. You are credited in this company with something like a genius for finding things at the critical moment when we need them most. Why don’t you bring your abilities to bear on the present situation and find something—a chest of tools or a keg of nails, or something else useful?”
“Perhaps I will,” answered Tom. “Anyhow, I’m going out now to see what I can find in three traps I set yesterday. There have been coon tracks over that way every morning recently, and the gentleman[347] who made them may have walked into one of my traps.”
The boys kept a number of torches ready for lighting, now that the lack of oil rendered the lanterns useless, and taking one of these with him, Tom set out to inspect his traps. He was gone for so long that his comrades were wondering what had become of him, when suddenly he appeared, coming from the direction of the bluff, though he had gone quite the opposite way.
“Did you get your coon?” asked Larry.
“No,” said Tom; “but I found something.”
“What was it, and where is it?”
“Be patient and I’ll tell you about it. After I had looked at my traps it occurred to me that I might as well come back by way of the bluffs, on the chance—”
“Ah, I guess it all,” interrupted Cal. “You found the dory at anchor there and Mr. Dunbar busy polishing his finger nails preparatory to his return to camp. Or perhaps you found a—”
“Stop your nonsense, Cal,” commanded Larry. “Don’t you see that Tom really has something to tell us!”
“Go ahead, Tom; I’m as mum as the Sphinx,” answered Cal, who found it difficult to keep his[348] jubilant spirits within bounds now that he had something to do which promised results.
Tom resumed:
“I don’t know whether it means anything or not, but it’s interesting at any rate and I may as well tell you about it. As I was passing the uprooted catalpa tree, my foot sank into wet sand, and as the sand there had always been as dry as powder, I looked about to see what it meant. To my surprise I saw water trickling out from under the roots of the tree, and I went close up to inspect. As I was looking at the new-born spring my eye was caught by something curiously entangled among the upturned roots of the tree. It was so wound about by the roots and so buried in sand that I could make out its shape only in part, and that with difficulty. To make matters worse my torch was burned out by that time, so that I had only my fingers to explore with. I felt of the thing carefully, and made out that it is a keg of the kind that people sell gunpowder in. But I could get at only a small part of the chine, so I could learn no more about it. We can cut the roots away and dig it out to-morrow.”
“We’ll cut the roots away and dig it out to-night,” answered Cal, rising and lighting a torch.[349] “We have work to do to-morrow and can’t spare time. Besides, this is a mystery and we sha’n’t sleep till we solve it; grab a cold torch each of you and come on. I’ll carry the little ax.”
XXXVI
WHAT THE EARTH GAVE UP
Tom’s account of the way in which the powderkeg was entangled in the roots of the catalpa tree was more than borne out by the fact as the boys found it. It seemed to them a wonder that Tom had discovered it at all, so completely was it wrapped up in the knotted mass of root growths.
After digging away the earth until the whole root entanglement was exposed to view, the boys set Dick Wentworth at work cutting away the roots with his jackknife, a thing at which only one person could work at a time. When Dick’s hand grew tired, another of the boys relieved him at the task and the work was hurried as much as possible, not so much because it was growing late as because the little company’s curiosity was intense.
“Wonder how on earth anybody ever got the thing under the roots of a tree that way?” ventured Tom, as he toiled with his knife.
“Simple enough,” answered Cal. “He didn’t do it.”
“How did it get there, then?”
“Why, the tree grew there after the keg was buried, of course. Somebody stuck a catalpa bean in the ground directly over the keg. Probably the man who buried the thing did that; he wanted to provide a landmark by which to find the spot again, and probably he knew there wasn’t another catalpa tree on all Quasi plantation.”
“But that tree has been standing here a long time—twenty or twenty-five years I should say.”
“That only means that the keg was buried here twenty or twenty-five years ago at the least, and ’pon my word, it looks it.”
“What I’m wondering about,” interposed Larry, “is what the keg contains. It must be something important or nobody would have taken the pains to bury it and plant a tree over it.”
“And yet,” argued Dick, “if it is anything important, why did anybody bury it away out here and never come back for it?”
“It all depends,” answered Cal, “on just what you mean by ‘important.’ Things are important sometimes and utterly unimportant at others; important to one person and of no consequence to anybody else. At this moment I feel that my breakfast in the morning is becoming a thing of very great importance to me; but I don’t suppose[352] poor Dunbar, wherever he is, cares a fig about it.”
“By the way, what can have become of the poor fellow? I wonder if he managed to fall out of the dory and get drowned?”
It was Tom who asked the question. Cal, who had thought a great deal about the matter, answered it promptly:
“That isn’t likely,” he said. “Indeed, it is scarcely possible. Dunbar was too good a boatman to fall overboard, and too good a swimmer to drown if he did. He would have climbed back into the dory with no worse consequence than a ducking in warm sea water.”
“What’s your theory then, Cal?”
“Why, that he has had one of his peculiar ‘spells.’ You remember that when he was missing from camp the last time he wrote us a letter, but when his lost knife was returned to him he seemed to remember nothing about it. More than that, he seemed to think the day he returned was the same as the day he went away. In other words, his memory was a blank as to the time he was away. Then, too, you remember that when we first found him here he couldn’t remember whether he had come three weeks or four weeks before. Still again, you remember how badly he was mixed up about the date just before he went[353] away this time, and that too in spite of the fact that he had important papers to post before a given time.”
“Then you think he’s crazy?”
“I don’t know about that, because I’m not a doctor or an alienist, or anything else of the kind. But I think he has a way of losing himself now and then, though at ordinary times his head is a remarkably clear one.”
“I have read of such cases,” said Dick. “They call it ‘double consciousness,’ I believe. I don’t know whether it is regarded as a kind of insanity or not. Then you think, Cal—”
“I hardly know what I think. You see I don’t know the facts in this case. We know absolutely nothing of what Dunbar did or what happened to him after he passed out of sight behind the marsh island over there. So we haven’t enough facts to base any thinking at all upon. But it has occurred to me that after he left us one of his fits of self-forgetfulness may have come on, and it may have lasted ever since.”
At this point the discussion of Dunbar’s case was brought to an end by an unexpected happening. As Tom tugged hard at one of the larger roots in an effort to loosen its hold, the keg suddenly fell to pieces. The oaken staves and headings seemed still[354] to be fairly sound, but the iron hoops that had held the keg together had been so eaten with rust that they fell into fragments under the strain and the staves tumbled together in a loose pile.
From among them Tom drew forth something, and all the boys held their torches close while examining it.
“What is it, anyhow?” was the question on every lip.
“It’s very heavy for its size,” said Tom, poising it in his hand.
“Of course it is,” answered Cal. “Lead usually is heavy for its size. But that’s a box, made of lead. If it were solid it would be a good deal heavier. Open it, Tom.”
“I can’t. It doesn’t seem to have any opening or any seams of any kind. Look at it for yourself, Cal.”
As he spoke he handed the thing to his comrade. It was an oblong mass, seemingly hollow, but showing no sign of an opening anywhere. It was about ten or eleven inches in length, a little more than four inches wide, and about two inches thick from top to bottom. The surface was much corroded, but Larry thought he discovered a partly obliterated inscription of some kind upon it.
“We must stop handling the thing carelessly,” he[355] said. “Corroded as the surface is we might rub the inscription off, and in that way rob ourselves of the means of making out the meaning of the thing. We’ll carry it carefully to camp, quicken up the fire with plenty of light wood, and then make a minute examination of the curious find. Tom, you may have found a fortune for yourself this time, who knows?”
“Or a misfortune,” suggested Dick, who in his childhood had been a firm believer in all the mysteries and wonder workings recorded in the Arabian Night’s Entertainments, and still recalled them upon the smallest suggestion. “Shut up as it is, with no sign of an opening, who knows but that it bears Solomon’s seal on it? The inscription may be Solomon’s autograph, put there to hold captive some malicious genie. We all know what happened to the fisherman who let the smoke out of the copper vase.”
“Oh, I’ll take my chances on that sort of thing,” laughingly answered Tom, who, as the discoverer, was recognized by his comrades as the rightful owner of the box and the person entitled to say what should be done with it.
“Of course,” said Cal. “Genii don’t play tricks in our time and country. They’re afraid of the constable.”
The boys had reached the camp now, and a few minutes later a pile of blazing fat pine made the space around it as light as day. For an hour, perhaps, the boys minutely examined the queer casket. There was, or had been, an inscription cut upon its upper surface with the point of a penknife, but the corroding of the surface had so far obliterated it that the boys succeeded only in doubtfully guessing at a half-effaced letter here and there and in making out the figures 865 at the end of the writing.
“That’s the date,” said Larry—“1865, the figure one obliterated. Obviously the inscription tells us nothing. What next, Tom?”
Tom was minutely examining the sides of the case, scraping off the rust with his thumb nail. Presently, instead of answering Larry’s question, he cried out:
“Eureka! See here, boys! This box was made in two pieces exactly alike, one top and the other bottom. The two have been fitted together and then a hot iron has been drawn over the seam, completely obliterating it. It’s the nicest job of sealing a thing up water tight and air tight that I ever saw, but I’m going to spoil it.”
With that he opened his jackknife and very carefully drew its point along the line where the[357] upper and lower halves of the casket had been joined. After he had traced the line twice with the knife point the two halves suddenly fell apart, and some neatly folded and endorsed papers were found within.
Tom began reading the endorsements, but before he had run half through the first one he leaped up, waving the documents over his head and shouting “hurrah!” in a way that Cal said was “like the howling of a demon accidentally involved with the accentuations of a buzz saw.”
After a moment the excited boy so far calmed his enthusiasm as to throw the bundle of papers into Larry’s face, shouting:
“I’ve found the Quasi deeds! I’ve saved Quasi to its rightful owners! Why don’t you all hurrah with me, you snails, you dormice or dormouses, whichever is the proper plural of dormouse? There are the papers and it was Tom Garnett who found them! For once prying curiosity has served a good turn. Now, all together! Hip, hip, hip, hurrah!”
The others joined heartily in the cheering that seemed necessary for the relief of Tom’s excitement, and half-spoken, half-ejaculated congratulations occupied the next five minutes.
After that the whole party sat down to hear the results of the more thorough examination of the papers, which Larry was delegated to make.
“Yes, these are the deeds,” he reported, “uninjured by time or damp or anything else, thanks to our grandfather’s care in sealing that leaden box. They were executed in May, 1861, and see, down in a corner of each is written:
“‘Recorded in the clerk’s office of Beaufort District, liber 211, pp. 371, 372, 373. J. S., Clerk.’
“And here’s a memorandum in our grandfather’s handwriting and signed by him. It is on a separate sheet, dated in February, 1865, and—”
“Read it!” suggested Cal.
“I will,” and he read as follows:
“‘The clerk’s office in which these deeds were recorded at the time of their execution has been destroyed, together with all the books of record. It is vitally necessary therefore that these original deeds shall be preserved. In these troublous times there is no place of deposit for them which can be deemed reasonably safe. I am sealing them in this leaden box, therefore, and will bury them upon the abandoned plantation of Quasi, to which they give title. I shall plant a catalpa bean above them as a sure means of identifying the spot, there being no other catalpa on the plantation. I shall send my[359] daughters a detailed statement of what I have done, with instructions as to the way of finding the papers. I place this memorandum in the box with the deeds themselves, so that if anyone finds it he may know to whom its contents belong. The address of my daughters will be found endorsed upon the deeds themselves.’”
XXXVII
TOM’S FINAL “FIND”
“Tom,” said Cal, taking the Virginia boy by the hand and warmly greeting him, “you have crowned this expedition—”
“Oh, bother!” interrupted Tom. “You fellows are daffy. I’ve had the good luck to find the deeds, but it was by sheer accident, and anybody else might have—”
“But ‘anybody else’ didn’t, and that makes all the difference. Now listen. I have the floor. I have restrained my natural impulse to do all the talking lately until I’ve had to let out two holes in my belt. I was going to hurl my best speech at your head, but you interrupted, and now the graceful periods have slipped from memory’s grasp. I’ll leave the task of adequate expression to my father. He’ll do it quite as well as I can. But there’s one thing to which I must ask the attention of the company here assembled.”
“What is it, Cal?” Dick asked.
“Why, simply that Tom has added another to the purposes with which this expedition was undertaken. Our objects were sport and adventure. We have had both, and now Tom has added a third—achievement.”
“That’s all very well,” answered Tom, “but we haven’t made the achievement yet. That will be when we deliver the deeds to your father, and not till then. And we’ll never, never do that unless you stop your nonsense and let us get to work on the catamaran, or raft, or whatever else you call it. Our present job is to get away from Quasi with the golden fleece. I suppose we ought to sleep now, but—”
“But glue wouldn’t stick our eyelids together,” broke in Dick. “Work’s the thing for us now. Let’s get at it. Oh, I say, Cal, what of the tides? When will they set in strongly toward that little town up there?”
Cal reckoned the matter up and named the hours at which the young flood tides would begin to run. Then Dick thought a little and asked:
“Is it all land-locked water from here to the town, or are there openings to the sea?”
“All closely land-locked—all creeks,” Cal answered.
“Then if we work hard we can have the catamaran[362] ready by to-morrow noon—she won’t need to be much of a craft for such waters—and we can make our start when the tide turns, about that time. Let’s see; the distance is only ten or twelve miles, and the tide will run up for six hours. That ought to take us there with no paddling or poling except enough to keep the craft headed in the right direction.”
“We’ll do it,” declared Cal. “Now to work, all of us. Tell us what to do, Dick.”
“Let one fellow make a lot of fresh torches,” the Boston boy answered. “The rest of us can keep busy till daylight dragging bamboos, big cane stalks and the cross braces down to the shore. As soon as it is light enough in the morning we’ll fashion the two larger timbers, and get them into the water. After that two or three hours’ work will finish the job.”
“An excellent programme, so far as it goes,” muttered Cal, as if only thinking aloud.
“Go ahead, Cal, what’s lacking?”
“Seems to me,” Cal responded, “that every member of this company is in the habit of carrying a digestive apparatus somewhere about his person. That’s all.”
“Right, Cal!” Larry broke in. “We must have breakfast and dinner, and I think I remember hearing[363] that experienced navigator, Richard Wentworth, say, once upon a time, that one should never venture upon salt water without carrying a supply of provisions along.”
“I humbly submit to the rebuke,” answered Dick, with a laugh. “It was forgetfulness, but forgetfulness is never quite pardonable. Some one must go for game immediately after breakfast. We have enough on hand for that meal.”
“I delegate you to that task, Tom,” said Larry. “Your habit of finding things may hasten the job.”
| ✶ | ✶ | ✶ | ✶ | ✶ | ✶ |
It was a little past noon when the company pushed away from Quasi on the rude raft that served them for a ship, and were driven by the strong flood tide through the maze of broad and narrow passages among the marsh islands that lay between them and the town on the mainland.
There was some discussion before they left Quasi as to what they should do with the rifle and other things in Dunbar’s log lockup.
Larry settled the matter, saying:
“We’ll leave his belongings just where he placed them. We are not likely to find him now, and—”
“And if he finds himself,” Tom broke in, “he’ll[364] come to Quasi after them. Wonder where the poor fellow is, anyhow, and what’s the matter with him.”
Nobody could offer a conjecture that had not been discussed before, and so the subject was dropped in favor of more immediate concerns.
| ✶ | ✶ | ✶ | ✶ | ✶ | ✶ |
The tide ran strong, and Dick’s “palatial passenger craft,” as Tom called the raft, proved to be cork-like in its ability to float almost as fast as the tide itself flowed. About five o’clock the last of the marsh islands was passed, and the little town, perched upon high bluffs, appeared. As the raft neared it, Tom suddenly called out:
“I’ve found something else! There’s the Hunkydory riding at anchor in that little bay over yonder! Now, maybe the next find will be Mr. Dunbar.”
While Larry was sending a telegram to his father, the others went to the boat and with permission of the man in charge, examined it. No accident had happened to it and nothing about it gave the least hint that Dunbar had merely abandoned it. The sail was neatly lashed to the boom; the mast and the rudder had been unshipped and bestowed in the bilge. Every rope was coiled and every pulley block ran free.
More significant still was the fact that the lockers were all filled with food stuffs.
“Obviously he intended to return to Quasi,” Cal argued, “and laid in supplies for us as he had promised. Whatever happened to him must have occurred after that and just before the time he had set for sailing. Let’s go up into the town and see what we can learn about him.” Then pausing, he turned to the man in charge of the boat and asked:
“Has she been lying at anchor and taking the chance of rain all this time?”
“No,” the man answered. “She’s been in that there boat house, but to-day the squire tole me to anchor her out in the sun for an hour or two, an’ that’s what I’m a doin’.”
On their way they met Larry, who had telegraphed his father both at the North and at Charleston, uncertain whether or not the earthquake had hurried his home-coming. In his dispatches Larry had said:
“Quasi deeds found by Tom Garnett, now in my possession and in perfect order. Dory sails for Charleston immediately.”
Two hours later there came two telegrams from Major Rutledge in Charleston, one of them addressed to Larry and the other to Tom Garnett. The one to Larry sent congratulations and asked[366] him to hurry home as fast as he could. What was in Tom’s none of the boys ever knew. Tom’s eyes were full of tears as he read it, though his face was a gladly smiling one as he replaced the paper in its envelope and carefully bestowed it in his pocket.
While waiting for these dispatches the boys made diligent inquiries concerning Dunbar. He had arrived at the town about three o’clock on the day of his leaving Quasi. He had intelligently addressed and posted his manuscript and drawings. After that he had bought camping supplies of every kind that the town could furnish, and had loaded them very carefully into the dory. An hour later he had been found sitting under a big tree and seemingly in distress of some kind. He was unable to tell who he was, in answer to inquiries. His mind seemed an absolute blank. Papers found on his person gave a sufficient clue to his identity and the addresses of his nearest friends. Telegrams were sent to them, and as soon as possible they came and took the poor fellow away with them, a magistrate meanwhile setting a deputy constable to care for the boat and cargo till its owners should appear.
The young doctor whom Dunbar’s friends brought with them explained to the old doctor of the town that for many years past Dunbar had been[367] the victim of a rather rare mental malady, causing occasional complete lapses of memory.
“This present attack,” he added, “is lasting longer than usual. He has hitherto been allowed to roam at will, to live in the woods and pursue his investigations. Now, however, I shall strongly advise his friends to keep him under some small restraint for the sake of his own safety.”
“That ends the Dunbar incident,” said Larry when the old doctor finished his relation of the facts. “Now we must be off for Charleston. What do you say, boys? There’s a moon to-night and we might as well get a little start before it sets.”
“My own judgment,” ventured Dick, “is that as we worked all of last night, we’d better stay here till morning and get some sleep. But ‘I’m in the hands of my friends’ as the politicians say.”
Dick’s suggestion was approved, and the sun was just rising the next morning when the Hunkydory set sail. When the boys stepped ashore at the Rutledge boathouse on the Ashley River, Major Rutledge was there to greet them.
“We feared you boys might be in serious difficulty down at Quasi,” he said, warmly shaking hands all round for the second time, “and I was[368] about setting out to rescue you, when Larry’s telegram came.”
“We rescued ourselves, instead,” Cal replied; “and to us that is more satisfactory.”
“It is very much better,” answered the father, catching Cal’s meaning and heartily sympathizing with the proud sense of personal achievement that lay behind.
“Come on home now, and over a proper dinner tell your mother and me all about what happened at Quasi.”
THE END
George Cary Eggleston’s Juveniles
The Bale Marked Circle X
A Blockade Running Adventure
Illustrated by C. Chase Emerson. 12mo, red cloth, illustrated cover, $1.50.-
Another of Mr. Eggleston’s stirring books for youth. In it are told the adventures of three boy soldiers in the Confederate Service who are sent in a sloop on a secret voyage from Charleston to the Bahamas, conveying a strange bale of cotton which holds important documents. The boys pass through startling adventures: they run the blockade, suffer shipwreck, and finally reach their destination after the pluckiest kind of effort.
Camp Venture
A Story of the Virginia Mountains
Illustrated by W. A. McCullough. 12mo, dark red cloth, illustrated cover, $1.50.
The Louisville Courier Journal says: “George Cary Eggleston has written a decidedly good tale of pluck and adventure in ‘Camp Venture.’ It will be of interest to young and old who enjoy an exciting story, but there is also a great deal of instruction and information in the book.”
The Last of the Flatboats
A Story of the Mississippi
Illustrated by Charlotte Harding. 12mo, green cloth, illustrated cover, $1.50.
The Brooklyn Eagle says: “Mr. George Cary Eggleston, the veteran editor and author, has scored a double success in his new book, ‘The Last of the Flatboats,’ which has just been published. Written primarily as a story for young readers, it contains many things that are of interest to older people. Altogether, it is a mighty good story, and well worth reading.”
Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co., Boston.
DAVE PORTER SERIES
By EDWARD STRATEMEYER
VOLUME FIVE
DAVE PORTER AND HIS CLASSMATES
Or For the Honor of Oak Hall
Illustrated by Charles Nuttall 12mo Cloth Price, $1.25
IN this volume Dave is back at Oak Hall and he brings about the complete reformation of a former bully, who was rapidly going to the bad. Athletic events and jolly fun are constantly mingled, and as evidence that the boys are not at school entirely for that, many take high honors at the close of the year, Dave being prize essayist, to the great delight of his friends.
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VOLUME SIX
DAVE PORTER AT STAR RANCH
Or The Cowboy’s Secret
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FROM his home, Dave, in company with his sister and some chums, journeys to the boundless west. At the ranch the lads fall in with both good and bad cowboys, and the hero has a thrilling time of it riding a “busting bronco.” Some horses disappear in a mysterious manner, and while trying to get back to the ranch on foot two of the lads are caught in a furious storm, that blows down a big tree on top of them. There are many scenes of hunting and rounding-up of cattle, and once a stampede adds to the excitement. Mr. Stratemeyer has traveled through the country he describes and gives a picture as accurate as it is entertaining.
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THE BOYS OF BROOKFIELD ACADEMY
By WARREN L. ELDRED
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THIS story tells of a boys’ school, with a glorious past, but an uncertain future, largely due to the wrong kind of a secret society, a vital problem in hundreds of schools to-day.
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THE LOOKOUT ISLAND CAMPERS
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THIS is a story of active boys of fifteen or so. They are very fortunate in the friendship of the principal of their school and his friend, an athletic young doctor. Under the care of these two they go into camp on an island well suited to the purpose, and within easy distance of a thronged summer resort. A series of exciting ball games and athletic contests with the boys at the hotel naturally follows, and the boys display as many varieties of human nature as could their elders.
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Illustrations from photographs taken in work for U. S. Government
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THE BOY WITH THE U. S. SURVEY
APPEALING to the boy’s love of excitement, this series gives actual experiences in the different branches of United States Government work little known to the general public. This story describes the thrilling adventures of members of the U. S. Geological Survey, graphically woven into a stirring narrative that both pleases and instructs. The author enjoys an intimate acquaintance with the chiefs of the various bureaus in Washington, and is able to obtain at first hand the material for the books.
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FIVE CHUMS SERIES
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Winning His Shoulder Straps
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THE hero not only works his way at Chatham Military School after his father’s financial misfortune, but has the pluck to try for a prize which means a scholarship in college. It is very hard for a lad of his make-up to do the requisite studying, besides working and taking a prominent part in athletics, and he is often in trouble, for, unlike some others, who are naturally antagonistic to the frank, impulsive Billy, he scorns to evade responsibility. His four friends are loyal to the fullest extent, and all comes right in the end.
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Larry Burke, Freshman
By FRANK I. ODELL
Illustrated by H. C. Edwards $1.25
THIS book bristles with activity: baseball, football, ice-hockey, basketball, track and field events, and a regatta appearing, and each sport brought in with expert accuracy of detail, and realism that makes one live over his own most thrilling athletic experiences. Along with this is a charming narrative of student life and comradeship—the golden days that have no others like them. Every boy and man who ever heard of a college can take delight in this book.
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Tim and Roy in Camp
By FRANK PENDLETON
Illustrated by J. W. Kennedy Large 12mo $1.50
IN this book is crowded a wealth of sport, adventure, Indian stories, hunting and camping, facts about animals encountered, and all that will please a boy’s heart. A skilful hunter and trapper takes his son, nephew, and two close friends on such a hunting and camping trip as their most vivid imagination could not have improved upon. They are supremely happy in their enjoyment in all that pertains to the woods, and his camp-fire stories of experiences with Indians. Each of the boys has a chance to show his bravery and resourcefulness, and each is equal to the occasion.
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For sale by all booksellers or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers
LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO., BOSTON
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:
—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.