Munroe Kirk
Raftmates: A Story of the Great River
CHAPTER XXXI.
CAMPMATES TURN RAFTMATES
"Wow wow w-o-w-w!" howled Bim, with his ridiculous nose uplifted and a most melancholy expression of countenance. He felt in duty bound to accompany his master's singing, but on this occasion, at least, he brought it to a sudden conclusion, for no one could possibly sing in face of the uproarious laughter that greeted his outburst.
"That's always the way," remarked Billy Brackett, with a comical expression. "I never am allowed to prove what I am really capable of in the vocal line. But what are you boys doing here? Where did you come from, where are you going, and how in the name of all that is obscure and remarkable do you happen to be on board our raft?"
"Your raft?" echoed Glen Elting. "What do you mean by your raft? We called it our raft until a few minutes ago, and now we call it Mr. Caspar's raft."
"Yes, I know. Major Caspar's raft. But it's all the same as ours, for I am his brother-in-law, and have his written authority to dispose of it as I see fit. Besides, this is his son, and we have been hunting this raft for the best part of a month. By-the-way, Winn, these are two old, or rather two young, campmates of mine, Mr. Glen Eddy—I mean Matherson; no, I beg pardon—Elting is the name at present, I believe."
"Do you know him intimately?" interrupted Winn, slyly.
Billy Brackett made a dive at the boy, but as the latter leaped nimbly aside, he continued: "And Mr. Binney Gibbs, popularly known as 'Grip.' Gentlemen, this impudent young vil-ly-an is my nephew, Mr. Winn Caspar."
Instead of acknowledging this introduction, Glen and Binney looked curiously at each other. Then the former said, "There seems to be something wrong here, Billy, for we have just turned this raft over to its owner, Mr. Winn Caspar, and he is in the house here at this moment."
"That's all right," replied Billy Brackett. "I rather expected to find that gentleman here, and now we will go inside for an interview with him." So saying, he tried to open the door, but found it fastened. In spite of its splintered condition, it was secured so firmly that it took them several minutes to force it open. When this was accomplished, and an entrance was effected, the four gazed blankly about them and at each other. The large room was empty. So were the two smaller ones beyond, while an open window in the last showed the manner in which Messrs. Plater and Grimshaw had effected their escape.
"It's too bad," said Billy Brackett; "for having had several interesting interviews with those gentlemen, I should have been glad of another. I think Winn would have been pleased to meet his namesake too."
"Indeed I should," replied the boy. "I'd like to collect rent for the use of my signature, and find out where he learned to copy it so perfectly."
"But I don't understand all this at all," said Glen Elting. "If this raft isn't theirs, why did they want it badly enough to pay three hundred dollars reward for its recovery?"
"Whom did they pay it to?" asked Billy Brackett.
"A hundred to the City Marshal, and a hundred each to Binney and me. We didn't want to take it, but they insisted, and said they should feel hurt if we refused. So, of course, rather than hurt their feelings— But really, Billy, they are most gentlemanly fellows, and I think behaved very handsomely."
"Will you let me see the hundred dollars they gave you?" asked the young engineer.
"Certainly," replied Glen, with an air of surprise, and adding, rather stiffly, "though I didn't think, Billy, that you would require proof of my truthfulness."
"I don't, my dear boy, I don't!" exclaimed Billy Brackett. "I would believe your unsupported word quicker than the sworn statement of most men. I want to look at that money for a very different purpose."
So a roll of brand-new bills was handed to him, and he examined them one by one with the utmost care.
"There are two hundred dollars here," he said at length. "Is this Binney's share of the reward as well as your own?"
"No. I had a hundred-dollar bill, and Mr. Caspar seeing it, asked if I would mind taking small bills for it, as he wanted one of that amount to send off by mail; so, of course, I let him have it."
"Oh, my children! my children!" murmured Billy Brackett, "why will you persist in attempting to travel through this wicked world without a guardian? Of all the scrapes from which I have been called to rescue you, this might have proved the most serious."
"I don't see how," said both Glen and Binney.
Winn knew, and he smiled a little self-complacent smile as he reflected, "This is a little worse than any mess I ever got into."
"You would have seen quickly enough if you had tried to spend this money," said Billy Brackett, "for you would undoubtedly have been arrested on the charge of counterfeiting. Those same fellows put Winn here in that fix a short time since, besides getting away with a thousand dollars' worth of wheat that he had in charge, and now they have come very near serving you the same trick."
Here Winn's smile faded away rather suddenly, while Glen exclaimed,
"Do you mean to say that these bills are counterfeit?"
"I do," replied Billy Brackett; "and if you doubt it, take them to the first bank you come across and ask the cashier."
"But the City Marshal took some just like them," argued Glen, catching at the only straw of hope in sight.
"So much the worse for the City Marshal, and I for one shall let him suffer the consequences. He had no business to accept a reward for performing a simple act of duty, in the first place; and in the second, the readiness with which he delivered this raft to the first claimants who came along makes it look very much as though he could be bribed."
"Well," said Glen, in a despairing tone, "if what you say is true, and I know it must be, we are in a fix. That hundred dollars was to pay our expenses to New Orleans; now I don't know how we shall get there."
"New Orleans! Are you bound for New Orleans?"
"Yes, and that's how we happened to be here, and to find this raft. You see, my father, General Elting, you know, is going to Central America to make a survey for the Nicaragua Canal, and Binney and I are to go with him. The party is to sail from New Orleans some time in January, but he had to go to New York first. As there were a lot of instruments and heavy things to be sent to New Orleans, he thought it best to ship them by boat; and as we wanted to take the river trip, he let us come in charge of them. We knew we should have to transfer from the Ohio River boat at this point, but we didn't know until we got here that we must wait three days for the New Orleans packet. As there wasn't anything else to do, we have put in the time hunting and fishing, and last evening we ran across this abandoned raft about a mile up the Mississippi. We had a time getting it in here, I can tell you. When we did, and reported it to the City Marshal, he showed us a telegram from a Mr. Winn Caspar, asking him to look out for just such a raft. We knew this must be the one, for we had found this book lying on the table, with the name 'Winn Caspar' written all over the fly-leaf, as though some one had been practising the signature. Sure enough, a man who said his name was 'Winn Caspar' turned up this morning, bringing a friend with him. They told a straight enough story of how their raft had been stolen near St. Louis, and described it perfectly. They even described the interior of this 'shanty' and everything in it, including this identical book, as though they had lived here all their lives. So, of course, both the Marshal and we thought it was all right; and I don't see even now, if this is your raft, how those fellows knew all about it as they did. The only thing they slipped up on was the broken door, and they owned they couldn't account for that. It seems as if some one must have boarded the raft before we did and broken into the 'shanty.' The men said there wasn't anything missing, though. Perhaps you can tell us what has been stolen."
"No," replied Billy Brackett, "I can't tell that, but I can tell who broke in that door. I can also relate a tale of adventure and misadventure in connection with this raft that would excite the envy of any member of the Second Division, including even the Baldheads, and you, who were the most reckless young scapegrace of the lot."
Whereupon the young engineer told these interested listeners the whole history of the Venture from the time the raft was put together down to the present moment. In it he included the Whatnot, Cap'n Cod, Sabella, Solon, Reward, and Don Blossom, Sheriff Riley, the "river-traders," Clod, Aunt Viney, and, above all, Bim, who barked loudly, and rushed wildly about the room at this honorable mention of his name.
When the story was finished, Glen Elting heaved a deep sigh, and said to Winn, "Well, you have had a good time. I thought we had about the best times any fellows could have when we crossed the plains with Billy Brackett last year, but it seems to me that you are having just about as much fun right here on this muddy old river as we had out there. I only wish we had a raft." Then turning to Billy Brackett, he asked, "What are you going to do next?"
"I don't know," was the reply. "What are you going to do?"
"I'm sure I don't know."
"Then lend me your ears. You want to get to New Orleans, and so do we."
"Do we?" interrupted Winn, in surprise, looking up from the book of travels on the title-page of which his name was written so many times, and which was the very one he had been reading the last evening he had spent on this raft.
"You do!" exclaimed both Glen and Binney.
"Certainly," was the calm reply. "It is the only market for timber rafts that I know of south of St. Louis, and as we can't go back, we are bound to go ahead. So, as I was saying when rudely interrupted, both you and we want to go to New Orleans. You have no money—real money, I mean—with which to get there, and we need at least two extra pair of hands to help us get this raft there. So why not ship your stuff on board here, and help us navigate this craft to our common destination?"
"Do you truly mean it, Billy Brackett?"
"I truly mean it. And if you are willing to go as raftmates with us—"
"Are we willing? Well, I should smile! Are we willing? Why, Billy Brackett, we'd rather go to New Orleans as raftmates with you and Winn Caspar than to do anything else in the whole world just at present. Eh, 'Grip'?"
"Well, rather!" answered Binney Gibbs.
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE "RIVER-TRADERS" ATTEMPT TO REGAIN POSSESSION
So it was settled that the three who had been campmates together on the plains should now, with Winn Caspar to complete the quartet, become raftmates on a voyage of nearly a thousand miles down the great river. It is hard to say which of the four was happiest during the busy day that followed the making of this arrangement. Winn was overjoyed at recovering the raft lost through his over-confidence in his own wisdom, and at the prospect of taking a trip so much longer than he had anticipated at the outset. He had also conceived a great fancy for the two manly young fellows whose fortunes had become so strangely connected with those of the Venture, and was glad they were to be his companions on the voyage.
Billy Brackett was not only rejoiced that he had at length been successful in finding both Winn and the raft, but was delighted to meet again those with whom he had already shared so much of peril and pleasure. That they had again become his mates in such a peculiar manner, and amid such different scenes, was proof, as he quaintly expressed it, that "Truth can give the most expert fiction points, and still beat it at its own game."
Glen and Binney were raised from a depth of dismay, caused by the loss of their money and the resulting predicament into which they were thrown, to a height of felicity at the prospect of a raft voyage down the Mississippi, under the leadership of their beloved campmate, Billy Brackett. They also liked Winn; and, judging from what had already happened to him, regarded him as a boy in whose company a variety of adventures might reasonably be hoped for.
Owing to their past experience with the "river-traders," Billy Brackett and Winn were somewhat uneasy at the presence of Grimshaw and Plater in town, and their manifest desire to regain possession of the raft. They were puzzled by this, and wondered what reason the men could still have for wanting the raft. Certainly their connection with it was now too well known for them to hope to make any further use of it in pursuing their unlawful business. Nor did it seem likely that they would choose it merely as a conveyance down the river. No; it must be that they had hoped to sell the Venture, and realize a considerable sum by the transaction. This was the conclusion finally reached by our raftmates, though it was not one with which they were entirely satisfied.
Still, they felt that, as they were now four to two, they might reasonably hope to be left in undisturbed possession of the raft for the future, and so did not allow thought of the "river-traders" to trouble them to any great extent. They decided that two of them should stay constantly on board the raft, at least so long as they remained in that locality, and that Bim should also be added to the protective force.
To begin with, Binney and Winn remained on guard while Billy Brackett and Glen went into the town to telegraph for Solon, send down the instruments, and make other arrangements for the voyage. It had been decided that as their crew was incomplete without a cook, Solon should be sent for, and that they could not make a start until he arrived, which would probably be early the next morning.
Winn and Binney found plenty to occupy them during the absence of the others in becoming acquainted, learning each other's history, and arranging the interior of the "shanty." From Binney, Winn learned what a splendid fellow his young uncle was, and how much he was respected as well as admired by all who were so fortunate as to be counted among his friends. "He is a fellow," concluded Binney, "who couldn't do a mean thing if he tried. One thing I like especially about him is that he is just as careful in his attention to trifles, if they come in the line of his duty, as he is to big things, and Billy has already had some pretty important positions too, I can tell you. He is full of fun, and was the life and soul of the Second Division all the time they were crossing the plains. Glen knows him better than I do, though, because they were 'bunkies' together, and from what he has told me I regard myself as mighty lucky to have the chance of taking a trip in his company."
"He has told me a good deal about you and Glen on that trip," said Winn, "but I don't remember hearing anything about his own adventures."
"That's just what makes fellows like him. He is always ready to listen to what they have to say, or to tell of anything they have done, if it is worth telling; but he never puts himself forward as one who knows it all or has done it all and can't be taught anything."
This conversation set Winn to thinking, with the result that in one instance, at least, he had been too hasty in his conclusions. He had been somewhat ashamed that his uncle should act the part of showman with a river panorama, and had supposed that it was done from a desire to display his own accomplishments. Now he wondered if, after all, this was not the one delicate and unobtrusive way in which Cap'n Cod's poor little undertaking could have been saved from a ridiculous and mortifying failure. He had been inclined to regard his young relative as rather frivolous; but perhaps there were depths to Billy Brackett's character that he was not yet wise enough to fathom. He would study it more carefully hereafter, and how doubly thankful he now was that his chance to do so had not been lost with the wreck of the Whatnot.
Although the interior of the Venture's "shanty" still seemed unfamiliar to Winn, he could no longer doubt that the raft was his father's. In the small room that he was to have occupied he now found most of his own possessions just where he had left them. Among the things that he was particularly glad thus to find were several changes of clothing, of which he stood greatly in need.
The "shanty" was in great disorder; but the two boys worked so faithfully at sweeping, cleaning, and putting things to rights, that by the time the others returned with a dray-load of freight the interior was thoroughly clean and inviting. The afternoon was spent in laying in a store of provisions for the voyage, repairing the splintered door, and mending one of the sweeps, which was on the point of breaking.
By sunset everything was in readiness for a start, and all hands were gathered about the galley stove, each superintending the cooking of his specialty for supper. Billy Brackett could make griddle-cakes, or "nip-naps," as he called them. He fried them in an iron spider, and the deftness with which he turned them, by tossing them in the air, so excited the admiration of his raftmates that they immediately wished to engage him as regular cook for the trip.
"This isn't a circumstance to what I can do in the culinary line," remarked Billy Brackett, modestly. "To know me at my best, you ought to be around when I make biscuit. My heavy biscuit are simply monuments of the baker's art. They are warranted to withstand any climate, and defy the ravaging tooth of time. They can turn the edge of sarcasm, and have that quality of mercy which endureth forever. A quartz-crusher turns pale at sight of them, and they supply a permanent filling for aching voids or long-felt wants. In fact, gentlemen, it is universally acknowledged that my biscuit can't be beat."
"Neither can a bad egg," said Glen, who was trying to make an omelet.
"Let us defer the biscuit for this time, and have a smoking dish of corn-meal mush instead," suggested Winn. "It is one of the hardest things in the world to cook, but I know the trick to perfection."
"Mush, mush, mush, tooral-i-addy," sang Binney. At that moment Bim began to growl, and to sniff at the bottom of the door. They opened it and looked out. No one was there, nor did they hear a sound. Darkness had already set in, and they could see nothing. Bim ran to the edge of the raft, barked once or twice, and then returned to his place near the stove.
"It must have been your singing that excited him, Grip," remarked Billy Brackett. "He generally acts that way when a person sings, and I have heretofore attributed it to envy, though I don't see how it could have been in this case."
After supper Billy Brackett went into town to call on the telegraph operator, with whom he had established friendly relations, and to receive some despatches that he was expecting. He had not been gone long before Bim, who had been left behind, again began to show signs of uneasiness, and intimate a desire to be let out.
Again the door was opened for him, and again he rushed out into the darkness. This time retreating footsteps and the rustling of bushes on the bank were distinctly heard. With a low growl Bim sprang ashore and disappeared. The next instant the boys saw a flash of lantern-light a few rods below the raft, heard a smothered yelp, the sounds of a confused struggle, and a moment later a loud splash in the water. Then all was again buried in darkness and silence.
"Something has happened to Bim!" exclaimed Winn, in a low but excited tone, "and I am going to find out what it is." With this the boy leaped ashore, and hurried in the direction from which the sounds had come.
"It's a mighty foolish thing to do, but you sha'n't go alone," said Glen Elting, quietly, as he started after Winn, adding, as he left the raft, "You stay behind and stand guard, Binney."
The boy, thus suddenly left alone, stood guard for about fifteen seconds, when all at once two dark figures sprang aboard the raft from the bank, and he had barely time to utter a single cry of warning before he was engaged in a furious struggle with one of them, who had seized him from behind.
"Drop him overboard!"
Although the command was given in a low tone, Binney heard and understood it. Then the strong arms in which he was struggling lifted him as they would a child, and bore him towards the edge of the raft.
