What Happened at Quasi: The Story of a Carolina Cruise

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, 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.”

“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 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 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 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 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, 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, 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; 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 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 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 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.