Raftmates: A Story of the Great River

It was quite dark as he approached the lights marking the town he was seeking; but as he drew near he discovered what appeared like a part of the levee slowly moving out from shore. Above it rose dimly a white object that he had taken for a house, and still above this shown a lantern. In a moment he saw that it was a raft resuming its voyage down the river, and he determined to make an inquiry from its crew before landing.

Pulling his skiff alongside, the young man sprang aboard. As he did so he noticed that the white object was a tent, and that there was a single "shanty" amidship. It was the very raft that had been described to him as being the only one to pass down the river the day before. These details so occupied his attention that he did not notice a skiff made fast to the side of the raft just forward of where he tied his own. Not seeing it, he did not, of course, ask any questions concerning it. If he had, he might have learned that the raftsmen had just picked it up, floating, empty and ownerless, down the river. There had been no oars in it, but they had rowed it to the raft with an extra pair from their own skiff. In their preparations for departure they had not yet found time to examine it, and knew nothing of its contents.

As Billy Brackett walked towards the "shanty," there was a sudden commotion at its entrance. A gruff voice exclaimed,

"Get out of here, you cur!"

This command was evidently accompanied by a savage kick, which was immediately followed by a yell and a heavy fall as Bim's white teeth sank deep in the calf of one of Mr. Plater's legs.

The dog, tired of his long confinement in the skiff, had eagerly leaped aboard the raft, and with friendly inquisitiveness had poked his nose into the open doorway of the "shanty" just as Plater was emerging from it.

Bim's master realized in a moment what had happened, and sprang to the scene just as two other figures came running in the same direction from the forward end of the raft.

Mr. Plater, though on his back, had nearly succeeded in drawing a pistol from his hip pocket. In a few seconds more poor Bim's earthly career would have been ended, but his owner's movements were quick enough to save him, and before the pistol could be drawn, Billy Brackett had seized the dog's collar.

"Let go, sir!" he ordered, sternly, and Bim instantly obeyed the command. Then realizing that discretion is the better part of valor when the odds are three to one, the young engineer, with the dog in his arms, ran to the side of the raft, sprang into the skiff, and shoved off. He was followed by a storm of threats and angry imprecations, at which he only smiled, as he took to his oars and pulled through the friendly darkness towards the landing from which the raft had already drifted quite a distance.

Making his way to the wharf-boat, and giving the watchman a quarter to look out for his skiff until morning, Billy Brackett, weary and disheartened, sought such accommodation as the only hotel of the little town afforded. All night he tossed sleeplessly on his uncomfortable bed, striving in vain to unravel the mystery in which the fate of his nephew and of Major Caspar's raft had become enshrouded.

In the morning he strolled undecidedly down to the wharf-boat, and, missing his skiff, asked the watchman, who was just going off duty, what he had done with it.

"Why, there it is, sir, just where you left it," answered the man, in a surprised tone, pointing to a skiff that Billy Brackett was certain he had never seen before.

"That is not my boat," he said.

"It is the one you came in last night," answered the watchman. "And here is the coat you left in it. I took the liberty of bringing it in out of the dew."

The young engineer looked at the coat the man was holding towards him, and shook his head.

"That is not mine, either," he said.

"Whose is it, then?"

"I'm sure I don't know. You'd better look in the pockets. They may contain some clew."

Acting upon this suggestion the watchman thrust his hand into a breast-pocket of the coat and drew forth a note-book. He opened it.

"Here's something writ in it," he said; "but as I'm not quick at making out strange writing, maybe you'll read it, sir."

Taking the book from the man's hand, and glancing carelessly at its title-page, Billy Brackett uttered a cry of amazement. There, written in a clear boyish hand, was the inscription:

"Winn Caspar. His Book."

CHAPTER XVII.

THE TRUTH, BUT NOT THE WHOLE TRUTH

Winn was greatly perturbed by hearing from the Whatnot's engine-room the inquiries concerning Sheriff Riley's skiff, and Cap'n Cod's replies. He had not meant to steal the boat, of course, but it now seemed that he was regarded as having done so, and was being hotly pursued by some one interested in its recovery. It was not the Sheriff himself, for the voice was a strange one; so it was probably one of his men, who undoubtedly had one or more companions. Winn was too ignorant of the world to know whether escaping from a sheriff who had unjustly arrested him, and running off with his boat, would be considered a serious offence or not. He only knew that while perfectly conscious of his own innocence, he yet felt very much as though he were fleeing from justice. He had not even known until that minute that his late captor was a sheriff, nor could he imagine why he had been arrested. What he did know was that some one well acquainted with the fact that he had taken a skiff not his own was now searching for it and for him. This was sufficient to alarm him and fill his mind with visions of arrest, imprisonment, and fines which his father would be compelled to pay.

Then, too, the Captain of this strange craft on which he had just found an asylum, but from which he would already be glad to escape, had declared himself to be a friend of Sheriff Riley, and well acquainted with his boat. Of course, then, he would gladly aid his friend in recovering his property, and would not hesitate to make a prisoner of the person who had run off with it. In that case he would be taken back to Dubuque in disgrace, his father would have to be sent for—and who knew where he might be by this time?—and there would be a long delay that he would probably have to endure in prison. In the mean time what would become of the raft lost through his carelessness and self-conceit?

Decidedly all this must be prevented if possible; and though the boy would have scorned to tell a lie even to save his life, he determined to tell as little of the truth as would be necessary to answer the questions that he knew would shortly be put to him.

While Winn was puzzling over this situation, and trying to frame a plausible story that would account for his presence on the tow-head without overstepping the bounds of truth, the door of the engine-room opened, and Cap'n Cod stumped in. He brought an armful of dry clothing, and was beaming with the satisfaction that he always felt when engaged in helping any one out of trouble.

"Well, my muddy young friend," he exclaimed, good-naturedly, "how are you getting on? Has Solon taken good care of you? Here are some clothes that, I guess, you will have to make the best of until your own can be dried. They probably won't come within a mile of fitting, but clothing does not make the man, you know, and we are not very critical as to appearances aboard the Whatnot. By-the-way, my name is Fifield—Aleck Fifield. What did you say yours was?"

"I don't think I said," answered the boy, slipping into a woollen shirt many sizes too large for him; "but it is Winn."

"Winn, eh? Good name. Belong to the Massachusetts Winns?"

"My parents came from there, but I was born in Wisconsin."

"Yes, yes. Just so. But, there! I musn't hinder you. Supper is ready, and if you haven't any better place to go to, we should be most happy to have you join us."

"Thank you, sir," replied Winn. "I shall be only too glad to do so, for I haven't had any supper, and the raft to which I belong has probably gone off down the river without me."

"So you belong to a raft, eh? And what happened? Did you tumble overboard from it?"

"No, sir. I came to this island in the skiff, and was trying to make a line fast, when the skiff got away from me."

"And they didn't notice it through the gloom until it was too late to do anything, and so you got left! Yes, yes. I see just how it all happened! Such accidents are of common occurrence on the river, and you were very fortunate to find us here. I shall be delighted to have you for a guest tonight, and in the morning your friends will undoubtedly return to look for you."

As he thus rattled on in cheery fashion, Cap'n Cod gathered up Winn's wet clothing, preparatory to taking them to the galley to be dried. Not finding either coat or shoes in the water-soaked pile, he inquired if the boy had left the raft without them.

"No, sir," replied Winn; "but I took them off, and left them in the skiff."

"You did! That's bad; for when your friends find the skiff with your clothes in it, they will be apt to imagine you are drowned. Then they'll search the river below here for your body, instead of coming back to look for you. Never mind, though," he added quickly, mistaking the expression of relief which this suggestion brought to Winn's face for one of dismay, "we'll soon relieve their anxiety. We'll get a mule, and put him in here as quick as our show earns his price. Then we'll go humming down the river faster than any raft that ever drifted. We may be several days in overtaking them, but I shall be only too happy to have you remain with us for that length of time, and longer, too, if you will. I am greatly in need of an assistant to help me run the show. So if you are willing to take hold and work with us, the obligation will be wholly on my side."

"Of course I will, sir!" exclaimed Winn, whose spirits were rising as the difficulties of his situation began to disappear. "I will do anything I can, only I didn't know this was a show-boat, and I'm afraid I am pretty ignorant about shows anyway."

"That will be all right," replied the Captain. "My own experience in the dramatic line has been so extensive that I shall have no difficulty in posting you. I am surprised, though, that you did not recognize this boat as having been built by one of the profession, and especially adapted to its requirements. There are certain features about the Whatnot—which, by the way, I consider a most original and attractive name—that are intended to indicate—"

"Suppah, sah! An' Missy Sabel awaitin'," interrupted Solon, thrusting his woolly head into the doorway at that moment.

Glad as Winn was of this diversion, and though he was as thankful as only a famished boy can be that a bountiful meal awaited him, he would willingly have gone hungry a little longer rather than enter that dining-room just then. Although the engine-room did not afford a mirror, he was conscious that he must present about as absurd a figure as can well be conceived. He was bare-footed, and the left leg of his trousers was turned up to keep it from the floor, while the right, owing to the Captain's misfortune, barely reached his ankle. A checkered woolen shirt hung about him in folds, and over it he wore a garment that Cap'n Cod was pleased to style his "professional coat." It was a blue swallow-tail, with bright brass buttons. As worn by Winn the tails hung nearly to the floor, the cuffs were turned back over his wrists, and the collar rubbed against his ears.

"A pretty costume in which to appear before a strange girl," thought poor Winn, who was noted at home for being fastidious concerning his dress and personal appearance. "I know I must look like a guy, and she can't help laughing, of course; but if she does, I'll never speak to her as long as I live, and I'll leave this craft the very first chance I get."

While these thoughts were crowding fast upon one another, the boy was being dragged into the dining-room by Cap'n Cod, and formally presented as "Mr. Winn, of Massachusetts," to "my grand-niece Sabella, sir."

Winn will never know whether the girl laughed or not, for at that moment Don Blossom, who had been seated on the floor daintily nibbling a sweet biscuit, sprang chattering to her shoulder and buried his face in her hair, as he had done upon the boy's first appearance. This episode formed such a seasonable diversion that by the time the girl succeeded in freeing herself from the clutches of her pet, Winn was seated at the table with the most conspicuous portion of his absurd costume concealed beneath its friendly shelter.

During the meal Winn and Sabella exchanged furtive glances, which each hoped the other would not notice, and the boy, at least, blushed furiously whenever one of his was detected. Although neither of them said much, the meal was by no means a silent one; for the Captain maintained a steady and cheerful flow of conversation from its beginning to its end. He told Sabella a thrilling tale of Winn's narrow escape from drowning, and how his friends were at that moment drifting far away down the river, anxiously speculating as to his fate. Then he told Winn of the painting of the panorama, the building of the Whatnot, and of his plans for the future.

When the meal finally came to an end, on account of Winn's inability to eat any more, the boy was surprised to find how much at home he had been made to feel by the unaffected simplicity and unobtrusive kindness of these strangers.

While Sabella and Solon cleared the table, the Captain lighted a lantern and showed him over the boat. Thus the boy discovered that while its after-part was devoted to the engine-room and quarters for an animated, one-mule-power engine, a galley, and the general living-room, the remainder of the house was arranged as an entertainment hall, with a small curtained stage at one end, and seats for one hundred spectators. Cap'n Cod informed him that this was to be his sleeping apartment so long as he remained with them. The Captain slept in the pilot-house, while Sabella's dainty little room was in the after-house on the upper deck, and was connected with the living-room by a flight of inside stairs.

CHAPTER XVIII.

FOLLOWING THE TRAIL

The next morning, when Winn opened his eyes after the first night of undisturbed sleep he had enjoyed since leaving home, he was for a moment greatly puzzled to account for his surroundings. His bed had been made down in the exhibition hall on two benches drawn close together, and as he awoke, he found himself staring at a most marvellous painting that occupied the full height and nearly the entire width of the stage at the farther end of the hall. It was a lurid scene, but so filled with black shadows that to a vivid imagination it might represent any one of many things. While the boy was wondering if the young woman in yellow who appeared in the upper corner of the picture, with outstretched arms and dishevelled hair, was about to commit suicide by flinging herself from the second story of the factory, and only hesitated for fear of crushing the badly frightened young man in red who from the street below had evidently just discovered his peril, a door opened, and his host of the evening before tiptoed into the room.

The expression "tiptoed" is here used to indicate the extreme caution of Cap'n Cod's entrance, and his evident desire to effect it as noiselessly as possible. As he could only tiptoe on one foot, however, and had neglected to muffle the iron-shod peg that served him in place of the other, his progress was attended with more than its usual amount of noise. He appeared relieved to find Winn awake, and advancing with a cordial greeting, he laid the boy's own clothing, now cleaned and dried, within his reach. "I should have sent Solon in with these," he explained, "but for fear he might make a noise that would rouse you, and I noticed last evening that you were sadly in need of sleep. So, if you had not been awake, I should have stolen away as noiselessly as I entered, and left you to have your nap out. Now, however, I think you had better come to breakfast, for Sabella and I finished ours some time ago."

"Thank you, sir," said Winn. "I will be out in half a minute; but will you please explain that painting? I have been studying it ever since I woke."

"That," replied the Captain, with an accent of honest pride, "is what I consider one of my chef-dovers. I term it a 'Shakespearian composite.' In order to please the tastes of certain audiences, I shall describe it as the balcony scene between Romeo and Juliet. Yon may note Romeo's mandolin lying at his feet, while over the whole falls the melancholy light of a full moon rising behind the palace. To suit a less-intelligent class, it would perhaps be described as the escape of a Turkish captive by leaping from the upper floor of the Sultan's seraglio into the arms of her gallant rescuer, who would be American, British, French, German, or Spanish, according to the predominating nationality of my audience. Or it might be called 'A Thrilling Incident of the Great New York Fire,' in which case Juliet's moonlight would be spoken of as 'devastating flames,' and Romeo's mandolin would figure as a fireman's helmet. It is a painting of infinite possibilities, any one of which may be impressed upon an audience by a judiciously selected title and the skilful directing of their imagination. Although I am proud of this picture, I have a number of other 'composites' that are even more startling than this in the variety of scenes that they can be made to illustrate. By studying them you will learn that the whole secret of artistic success lies in the selection of titles that appeal to and direct the imagination of the critic, the spectator, or the would-be purchaser. I would gladly exhibit and explain them to you now, but business before pleasure; so, if you are dressed, let us to breakfast."

While Winn was eating his late breakfast, Billy Brackett, only a couple of miles away, was gazing with an expression of the blankest amazement at his nephew's note-book. "How in the name of all that is mysterious and improbable did this book happen to be in that coat, that coat in that skiff, that skiff on that raft, and that raft here? It certainly seems as though I had brought the skiff from the raft—at least this man says I did. You are certain that I came in that identical boat, are you?"

"Certain, sir," replied the watchman to whom this question was addressed.

"No one else could have come in this skiff, and then gone off in mine by mistake?"

"Impossible, sir. I have been wide-awake all night, and there has not been another soul aboard this wharf-boat until just now. Besides, I took that coat from the skiff just after you left it last evening."

"Then," said Billy Brackett, "the chain of evidence seems to be unbroken, incredible as it may appear, and it stretches from here straight away down the river—book coat, coat skiff, skiff raft, raft Winn. Now, in order to bring its ends together, and recover my long-lost nephew, I must again overtake that raft. I must start as soon as possible after breakfast, too. I don't know whether the game Winn and I are playing is blind-man's-buff or hide-and-seek, but it certainly resembles both."

Musing over this new aspect of the situation, the young engineer hastened back to his hotel and breakfast. In the dining-room, a few minutes later, a waiter was leaning over him, and asking, for the third time, "Tea or coffee, sir, an' how'll you have your eggs?" when the inattentive guest suddenly caused him to jump as though galvanized, by bringing his fist down on the table with a crash, and exclaiming, "No, by the great hornspoon, it can't be that way either! What's that you say? Oh yes, of course. Coffee, soft-boiled, and as quick as you can." Having delivered this order, the young man fixed his intent gaze on a brown spot ornamenting the table-cloth, and resumed his thinking.

It had just occurred to him that, according to all accounts, the raft from which he had taken that skiff had come down the river to this point two days before. So how could Winn Caspar, who had only escaped from the island a few minutes before he and Bim made good their own retreat, have reached the same place and joined that raft without attracting attention? Both the day and night watchmen at the wharf-boat had assured him that no such boy as he described had been seen on the water-front. They also said that the raft had been there all the day before, and that when it left it held only the three men who came with it. "Of course he might have been inside the 'shanty' when I was aboard, though I can't see how he got there, nor why he should join a strange raft anyway," argued the young man. "At any rate, it's my business to find out whether or not he is aboard it now. How about using the skiff, though? If it is the one Winn ran off with, it belongs to that Sheriff fellow. Like as not, he has already sent word down the river to have it picked up. In that case, if I was picked up in it, I might be accused of stealing it, which would never do in the world. No; to be on the safe side I must leave the skiff here, and take the first down-river steamboat that stops at this landing. First, though, I'll advertise for Winn in this town, and if I don't find him on the raft, there may be news waiting for me here when I come back."

This was the plan upon which the young engineer decided to act, and immediately after breakfast he proceeded to put it into execution.

There was no paper published in the place, but it did contain a makeshift sort of a printing-office, and towards this Billy Brackett directed his steps, after learning at what hour the next down-river boat was expected. Here he spent some time in composing a small circular, of which he ordered five hundred copies to be struck off, and distributed broadcast. His boat came along and he had to leave before this was ready for press; but he had engaged the services of his new acquaintance the night-watchman, who promised to place the bills wherever they would do good.

Poor Bim, tied up on the wharf-boat, and nearly heart-broken at his master's desertion, was also left in charge of this man. Billy Brackett was desirous of establishing friendly relations with the raftsmen when he should overtake them, and feared that would be impossible in case they should recognize him. This they would certainly do if he were accompanied by the bull-dog, whom one of them at least had reason to remember so well.

At another small landing, nearly a hundred miles farther down the river, Messrs. Gilder, Grimshaw, and Plater were rendered somewhat uneasy, late on the following day, by the appearance on board their raft of a young man who asked questions. Billy Brackett had experienced considerable difficulty in finding this raft, and was greatly disappointed that his search in this direction should prove fruitless. The raftsmen had never heard of Major Caspar, nor of Winn Caspar, his son. They were lumbermen from far up on the Wisconsin River, and were taking this raft to New Orleans as a speculation. They knew nothing of Sheriff Riley or his skiff. Yes, they had picked up an empty skiff two days before, but it had been taken away and another left in its place by a young fellow with a dog, who had boarded their raft without invitation, set his dog on one of them, and then skipped. They would like to meet that party again—yes, they would—and they'd make things pretty lively for him.

Then they began asking questions in turn, and assuming such a hostile tone that Billy Brackett concluded he might as well leave then as later. So, after asking them to keep a sharp lookout for a raft with three "shanties," two of which were filled with wheat, he bade them good-evening, and started back up the river by rail.

In the mean time the Whatnot had reached the town to which he was returning, and was now tied up just below the wharf-boat. It had been decided that the first exhibition of the "Floating Panoramic Show" should be given here, and Cap'n Cod went up into the town as soon as they arrived to have some bills printed. Winn, at the same time, started along the water-front to search for traces of his lost raft; and Sabella, who was very fond of dogs, went aboard the wharf-boat to make the acquaintance of a fine bull-dog she had noticed there as they passed.

At supper-time they all gathered again in the living-room of the Whatnot, where Sabella reported her new friend to be the most splendid bull-dog she had ever seen, and that his name was Bim.