Raftmates: A Story of the Great River

Now as Mr. Gilder led her aft and down into the living-room, he strove to banish that frightened look by gentle words and reassuring promises.

"But where is my Uncle Aleck? And where are Mr. Brackett and Winn? I can't find them anywhere. Solon said they were in the pilot-house."

"They are on the raft, and we are going to find them," was the answer.

"Oh, I'm so glad they've got the raft again! And I'm glad you gave it back to them, too. Now, Winn can't say you are a bad man any longer. But you've only borrowed the Whatnot for a little while, haven't you?"

"Yes, only for a little while."

"I don't think those others are very nice-looking men, and I was awfully afraid until I saw you. Then I knew it must be all right."

"It is all right, little one, and there is nothing for you to be afraid of. No harm shall come to you so long as I am here, and I promise to see you safe with your friends again before leaving you. You see, I am making believe that you are my own little girl, and I want you to feel just as safe and happy as she would if she were here in your place."

"Of course I feel safe now," answered Sabella, promptly. "I have, ever since I found out it was you who had borrowed the Whatnot. For a minute, though, I was afraid those disagreeable—" Here the child hesitated. She did not want to hurt her new friend's feelings. "I mean," she added, hastily, "that those other gentlemen had stolen it. And I will make believe I am your own little girl, for I haven't any papa, and only one uncle in the world. I wish you would tell me your name, though. I don't think I ever knew any one so well before without knowing his name."

The man hesitated, and looked curiously at the sweet face upturned to his. Then, as though arrived at a sudden conclusion, he said,

"My name is Gresham, William Gresham, but my little girl calls me 'Papa Billy.'"

"Then we'll make a bargain!" exclaimed Sabella, joyfully. "That's the very name of Winn's uncle; and if I make believe you are my uncle, I shall have an Uncle Billy as well as he. I think that's better, too, because you know a girl couldn't have but one own papa, but she might have a hundred uncles if she wanted. So we'll make that a bargain, and I'll give you a kiss if you like, because Uncle Aleck says that's always the other part of a bargain."

With the kiss of the innocent child warm on his lips, William Gresham returned to the upper deck. His heart was very tender at that moment, and though he did not express any resolve in words, he knew that a black page of his life had just been closed, never to be reopened. He met Plater coming to find him, for he was wanted to aid in keeping the sharp lookout that the fog rendered necessary.

With all their senses alert and strained, the "river-traders" kept on for two hours without discovering a trace of the raft. Then they knew they must have passed it, and so headed the Whatnot up-stream again, hoping to meet it. Now they barely held their own, without making any progress, for they knew the raft would drift in the channel with the strongest current, and therefore that where the water ran swiftest they must await its coming.

Solon, fully occupied with his duties as engineer and with preparations for dinner, paid little heed to Sabella when she looked in at the galley door to inform him that her Uncle Billy said everything was all right.

"I specs so, honey, I specs so, an' of co'se hit's all right ef yo' Unc' Billy say so. Him a mighty knowin' young gen'l'man, dat ar Unc' Billy am, fo' shuah."

As the day advanced, there were occasional rifts in the fog, and in one of these Mr. Gilder, as we will still call him, caught a momentary glimpse of the raft. It was drifting at some distance to the right of them, and in a few moments would be again out of sight. His first impulse was to announce this discovery to his companions, and his second was to remain silent. He acted upon the second, and was almost doubtful if he had really seen the raft at all, so quickly did it again disappear. Suddenly there came a sound of blows, as though some one were chopping wood on board the raft.

There was an exulting shout from the pilot-house, the steering-wheel was put hard over, and the boat began to swing slowly at right angles to the current. She was headed in the direction of the raft, and Mr. Gilder knew that, owing to those ill-timed blows, it had been discovered. Yes. Now he could see it again. There it was, not a hundred yards away, and the Whatnot was headed so as to intercept it as it came down. What should he do? It would be foolish to struggle for possession of the wheel against the two desperate men in the pilot-house. He could stop the machinery though, or, better still, reverse it, and so give the raft a chance to drift past and again disappear in the mist. For Sabella's sake he would make the attempt.

He had already started for the lower deck, when his steps were arrested by a second shout from the pilot-house, and another sound that smote on his ear like a death-knell. It was the hoarse note of a deep-toned whistle apparently at his side. There was a jangling of bells, a wild yelling, the roar of escaping steam, and then the dim form of a great up-river packet loomed above the little craft on which he stood like some awful fog monster intent upon its destruction.

The man stood at the head of the steps leading down into the living-room, where Sabella, unconscious of the impending peril, was singing a quaint old hymn as she set the table for dinner. He had heard his mother sing that hymn when he was a boy at home. So long ago, and so far away. A second more and this sweet young life would be blotted out, and the little body, crushed beyond recognition, would be buried deep beneath the waters of the great river, while he would be safe on the lower deck of that steamboat. He could easily spring to it from the upper deck of the Whatnot, as he saw Plater and Grimshaw were about to do.

"I promise to see you safe with your friends again." That was what he had said, and it was to that child he had said it. In another instant the man had entered the living-room, seized Sabella in his powerful arms, and had gained the outer door on the side farthest from the steamboat.

Then came the shock. There was a moment of horrible grinding, crashing, and splintering, a mad surging of brown waters, and then the little showboat passed beneath the monster that had crushed out its life. It was gone as utterly as the flame of a candle is extinguished by a puff of wind, and the great river was its grave, as it has been of thousands of other craft, and will be of thousands yet unbuilt.

CHAPTER XXVII.

IS THIS OUR RAFT OR NOT?

So anxious was Winn Caspar for the recovery of the raft lost through his carelessness and over-confidence in his own ability that, having found it again, he could not bear to lose sight of it, even though he had no idea of how he might regain its possession. Therefore, as he stepped ashore after his rebuff by Grimshaw, he only went so far up the trail through the timber as to be concealed from the man's view. Then he darted into the undergrowth and crept back to the river-bank. He reached it just in time to see Grimshaw lock the door of the "shanty," leave the raft, and start up the trail that he himself had taken but a minute before.

How long would the man be gone? Was there any one left on the raft? These were the questions that came into the boy's mind. There was no sign of life on the Venture, and by running a short distance up the trail Winn became convinced that the man had gone at least as far as the edge of the timber. Would he ever again have so good a chance of recovering his father's property? Besides, what a fine thing it would be for him to recapture the raft alone, without the aid of Billy Bracket! or any one else. This latter thought decided the boy, and caused him to hastily retrace his steps.

Never had Winn been so excited! As he sprang aboard the raft and tried to cast off its fastenings he momentarily expected to hear a shout from the bank or a gruff demand from the interior of the "shanty" as to what he was about. Perhaps the summons would take the form of a pistol-shot, for men who would steal a raft and destroy a thousand dollars' worth of wheat would not be likely to hesitate at anything. At this last thought Winn seemed to feel the deadly sting of a bullet, and in his nervousness only made more intricate the knot he was trying to untie. At length he whipped out his jack-knife and cut the rope.

Now to head the raft out into the stream. He picked up a long set-pole, thrust one end into the bank, braced himself, and began to push. Oh, how he strained and panted! How the veins stood out on his forehead! Still the great mass of timber seemed immovable. Again and again he tried, and at length felt a slight yield. A more desperate effort than before, and he could take a step; then another, and another, until he had walked half the length of the pole. The head of the raft was swinging off, at first so slowly that the motion was almost imperceptible, then faster, until finally it felt the full force of the current. Now for one more effort! If he could only work her out from the bank and into the friendly shelter of the fog without discovery, he would feel safe even from pistol-shots. For two minutes Winn labored as never before in all his life. But the minutes seemed hours, and he felt that he might as well attempt to push away the bank itself as the mass of timber on which he stood. Suddenly he heard that which he expected and dreaded, a shout, so loud that it seemed to be uttered on the raft. The set-polo fell from his nerveless grasp as he looked up, fully expecting to gaze into the black muzzle of a pistol.

At first he saw—nothing. He must be turned around. No; the view of the opposite direction was equally blank. Then, for an instant, he caught a glimpse of shadowy tree-tops just dissolving into formless mist. The blessed fog had folded its protecting arms about him, and he was safe.

Hurrah! he was once more in undisputed possession of the raft, and once more floating on it down the great river.

Wildly happy, the exhausted boy flung himself down on the wet planks, and yielded to pleasant reflections. It was only twenty miles to St. Louis. The current was carrying him at the rate of five miles an hour, so that he ought to reach the city soon after noon. There he would hail some steamboat or tug, and get it to tow his raft to a safe mooring-place. Then he would telegraph to both his father and his Uncle Billy. After that he would engage some stout man to help guard the raft until his friends arrived. Or perhaps he would buy a revolver and guard it himself, and when his father and Uncle Billy came along, he would challenge them before allowing them to step on board. Yes, that would be the scheme, and the boy became very proud of himself as he thought of the praises in store for him.

At length Winn rose from his moist resting-place, and began to examine his surroundings. How strange the raft did look, to be sure. He wouldn't have believed its appearance could have been so altered, and now wondered that he had ever recognized it. In fact, the only feature that seemed at all familiar, as he studied it, was the forward gable end of the "shanty." But somehow the building itself appeared much longer than when he last saw it. Still, there was that interior. He had seen the partition, with its door leading into his own little room, and he never heard of a raft "shanty" with a partition in it until this one was built. He must have another look at that interior.

The locked door baffled him. It was of such solid construction, and its lock was so well made, that it resisted all his efforts to force it. The windows were provided with heavy wooden shutters that were fastened on the inside. For an hour Winn busied himself with vain efforts to effect an entrance. At the end of that time he was discouraged. He was also uneasy. He had heard steamboats pass him, but could see nothing of them on account of the fog. The last one passed very close. The next might run him down. How he wished the raft were safely tied to some bank or levee. It was awful to be thus blindly drifting, right in the track of steamboats. The fog hung so low over the water that their pilots were lifted well above it, and could see the landmarks by which they were guided. They could also see other steamboats; but such things as scows and rafts had no business to be moving at such a time. They were supposed to be snugly tied up, and consequently no pilot would be on the lookout for them. Winn knew this as well as any one, and the knowledge did not tend to reassure him.

If he only had some one with him to help work the heavy sweeps by which the raft's course might be directed, or even to advise him what to do. It was dreadful to be alone. What a foolish thing he had done, after all, in attempting to manage this affair by himself. If he had only gone back for Billy Brackett. But his boyish pride in his own ability had again overcome his judgment, and now he must abide by the consequences.

"I only hope, if I do get run down and killed, they will find out who I am," thought the poor boy. "It would be horrid to disappear and have folks say I was a coward, who had run away for fear father would be angry with me for losing his raft. As if my father would ever do anything to make me afraid of him! And mother! How badly she would feel if I should disappear without ever giving her the comfort of knowing I was dead. There is Elta, too, and the very last time I saw her I was ugly to her. Oh dear! I wish—well, I wish, for one thing, that I could get inside that 'shanty,' and out of this miserable drizzle. I wonder if I can't pick the lock?"

Full of this new idea, Winn obtained a bit of stiff wire from the handle of a lantern that stood outside the "shanty." This he bent as well as he could into the rude form of a key, and thus equipped, he worked patiently at the lock for another hour. At length he threw away the useless implement in disgust.

"I was never cut out for a burglar, that's certain!" he exclaimed. "There's one thing I can do, though, and I will, too. I can smash down the door, and get inside that way."

An axe lay beside a pile of wood near the forward end of the raft; and armed with this, the boy began to rain vigorous blows upon the stout door. Before these it quickly yielded, and he thus gained the interior.

Once inside, he gazed about him blankly. Nothing looked familiar; nothing was as he had expected to find it. There was the partition, with a door in it, to be sure, and there was the small room beyond the main one; but there was also another partition, and another door beyond this. There had been but two rooms in the Venture's "shanty," while here were three. Then again the "shanty" that he had helped to build was only boarded up on the outside, while the interior had been left unceiled, with the frame exposed. The interior on which he now gazed was wholly ceiled, so as to make the walls of double thickness, and conceal every bit of the framing.

The perplexed boy noticed these details at a glance; and as he stood staring blankly about him, the uncomfortable suspicion began to force itself into his mind that perhaps this was not the Venture after all.

"If I have run off with some one else's raft, I declare I shall just want to disappear!" he exclaimed to himself. "I do believe I shall be too ashamed ever to go home again. Oh dear! There is another steamboat."

The notes of a deep-voiced whistle, evidently near at hand, caused the boy to hasten outside. He could see a huge confused mass dimly looming out of the fog ahead, and a little to one side of him. At the same moment he heard the wild jangling of bells, the terrified shoutings, and then the awful crash that denoted a collision. A big up-bound steamboat had run down and sunk a smaller boat of some kind. That much he could see, and he was filled with horror at the nearness and magnitude of the disaster.

He had heard agonized screams, and knew that lives had been sacrificed. One shrill cry that came to his ears with startling distinctness sounded as though uttered by a woman or a girl, and Winn shuddered at the thought of her fate.

The raft was drifting rapidly away from the scene of the catastrophe, and the dimly discerned steamboat was just disappearing from his view, when the boy thought he heard a gurgling cry from the water. Could some bold swimmer have escaped? He bent his head to the water's edge and listened. Again he heard the cry. And this time it seemed nearer. Some human being was struggling in the river. Now, if ever, was the time for his promptest action, and with Winn thought and action went hand in hand.

In another moment he was in the skiff belonging to the raft, and pulling with all the strength of his stout young arms in the direction of the cries.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE RESCUE OF SABELLA

Strongly as Winn pulled, the cries grew very faint and almost inaudible during the few seconds that elapsed before he discovered the struggling forms from which they proceeded. A glance over his shoulder showed him a man swimming with one arm, while the other supported a child—apparently a girl.

With a final powerful stroke the skiff shot alongside the drowning figures, the oars were jerked in, and Winn, leaning over the side, seized the girl's arm. At the same moment the man grasped the gunwale of the skiff. It was no slight task for Winn to get the girl into the boat, for she was unconscious, and formed a dead weight, that was made heavier by her soaked clothing. He finally succeeded; and as he laid the limp form in the bottom of the skiff and took his first good look at her face, he uttered a cry of amazement, and doubted the evidence of his senses. How was it possible that Sabella could be there, and in such a predicament? Could the boat that had just been run into be the Whatnot? If so, who was this man? He turned to look, and to help him into the skiff; but, to his horror, the man had disappeared.

William Gresham had redeemed his promise with his life. From a cruel wound, made by a splintered timber, he had bled so freely that his fast-failing strength was barely able to hold Sabella's head above the surface until Winn came to her rescue. He recognized the boy, and as the little girl was lifted from his arms, he closed his eyes with the peaceful expression of one who is weary and would sleep. Then his grasp of the skiff relaxed, and without a struggle he slipped across the invisible line dividing time from eternity. The hurrying waters closed about him as gently as a mother's arms, and who shall say that in his death the man had not atoned for his life, or that in the tawny flood of the great river his sin was not washed away as though it had never been?

As for Winn, he was overwhelmed and stunned. It was so sudden, so terrible, and so pitiful. At one moment the man was there, and in the next he was gone without a word. In vain did the boy look over both sides of the skiff and over its stern in the hope that the man might still be clinging to it. Only the swift-flowing waters met his gaze, and seemed to mock at his efforts to wrest their secret.

The man was gone; there was no doubt of that; and now came the harrowing question, who was he? Winn had not seen his face. It could not have been the owner of the Whatnot, because, with his wooden leg, he could not swim. It was not Solon, for the head had been that of a white man. Could it have been his mother's only brother, his Uncle Billy, the brave, merry young fellow who was to have been his raftmate? Winn had already learned to love as well as to admire Billy Brackett, though how much he had not known, until now that he believed him to be gone out of his life forever.

He tried to believe that it was some one else, but in vain. The girl whom he had just rescued was certainly Sabella, so of course the boat that he had seen crushed like an egg-shell must have been the Whatnot. Oh, if he had only been a little closer, or if the fog had not been so thick! The boat was almost certain to have been the Whatnot though, and in that case the brave swimmer, who had missed safety by a hair's-breadth must have been—

Here a moan diverted Winn's attention from his own unhappiness, and caused him to spring to the side of the little girl. She opened her eyes and looked at him. "Oh, Sabella!" he cried, "tell me who saved you? Was it Mr. Brackett—my Uncle Billy, you know?"

"My Uncle Billy," she murmured faintly; then she again closed her eyes wearily, and seemed to sleep.

"It was he, then; it was he!" And Winn, breaking down, sobbed aloud. "And all my fault that he came on this trip! My fault, my fault!" he repeated over and over again.

At length he became conscious of the selfishness of thus giving way to his feelings while Sabella was still in such urgent need of his aid.

"I must get her to the raft at once!" he exclaimed, starting up and looking about him. But there was no raft, nor was there any steamboat. There was nothing but the skiff with themselves in it, a small circle of brown water, and the fog. He had no idea of direction, not even whether his skiff was heading up-stream or down, or drifting broadside to the current. If the fog would only lift! It had been so kind to him, but now was so dreadful.

The boy took off his coat, folded it, and put it under Sabella's head. Then he sat beside her and rubbed her cold hands. He knew of nothing else that he could do for her, and so he waited—waited for the fog to lift or for help to come.

At length he began to hear sounds from every direction, the sound of whistles, bells, and hundreds of other noises. He must have reached St. Louis, and it would never do to drift past it. Besides, the danger of being run down was now greater than ever. So the boy took to his oars, and began to pull in the direction from which the loudest sound of whistles appeared to come.

Suddenly he was hailed. "Look out dar, boss!"

"Hold on!" shouted Winn. "I am in trouble, and will give you a dollar to pilot me ashore."

A skiff came alongside. It contained but a single occupant, a negro, who appeared nearly as old as Solon. He listened with open-mouthed wonder to the boy's hurriedly told story, and not only expressed a ready sympathy, but promised to have "de young gen'l'man an' der lilly lady lamb on de sho' in free minutes. Ole Clod, him know de way. De frog can't fool him on desh yer ribber."

With renewed hope Winn followed closely behind his dusky pilot, and in another minute caught sight of the welcome land. It was East St. Louis, on the Illinois side of the river, at that time a great railroad terminus, and Clod's little cabin stood at the edge of high-water-mark; for he was a boatman, and gained his living from the river.

"Now, young marse, you mus' come up to my house, whar my ole 'oman fixin' de lilly gal all right in no time." So saying, the negro lifted Sabella in his strong arms and started towards his cabin, to which Winn was only too glad to follow him. The boy had never felt so utterly helpless and forlorn.

He no longer thought of taking matters into his own hands, but was thankful to accept even the humble guidance of this negro. Under the circumstances he could not have fallen into better hands. Not only was Clod strong, willing, and possessed of a shrewd knowledge gained by rough experience, but his "ole 'oman," Aunt Viney, a motherly soul of ample proportions, was accounted the best all-round nurse of the neighborhood. She was never happier than when bustling about in a service like the present; and within five minutes Sabella was nestled in the snowy centre of a huge bed, with Aunt Viney crooning over her like a brooding tenderness, and rapidly restoring the color to the child's pallid cheeks.

At the same time Winn was sitting by the kitchen stove in a cloud of steam from his own wet clothing, absorbing warmth and comfort, and relating his adventures at length to the sympathetic old man.

Clod's interest and wonder at the boy's story were shown by uplifted hands, rolling eyes, and such ejaculations as "How yo' talk, chile!" "Well, I nebber!" "Dat's so, bress de Lawd!" "Ef dat ar ain't de beatenest!"

At length Aunt Viney tiptoed heavily into the kitchen with the joyful announcement that Sabella, fully restored to consciousness, was sleeping naturally and quietly.