THE CAPTAIN’S ORDERS
Maybe it wasn’t a very good speech, but anyway, he was nicer than he was
before and he had an awful funny twinkle in his eye.
Then he said, “So you know how to dive, huh, sonny? Can you keep your
mouth shut?”
“Sure, you have to keep your mouth shut when you dive,” Pee-wee yelled
up from the rowboat, and then the old man just had to laugh.
“I mean when you’re on land, sonny,” he said.
“Sure I can,” I told him.
“Well, then,” he said, “if any of you scout kids goes about sayin’ as
how Uncle Jimmy went away to the convention, and I ever meet you in your
old skiff, by the Big Dipper I’ll run you down and cut you in half,
that’s what I’ll do! Do you hear?” he shouted. “If you ever run afoul o’
the _Gineral Grant_ in the bay or anywheres else, by thunder, I’m Cap’n
Savage, I am, and onct upon a time I was Major Savage, and I should be
at that there convention myself, instead of standing here blowing away
at a better soldier than me!”
“Don’t you care, we’ll forgive you,” Pee-wee shouted up.
“Keep him quiet, will you?” I called down to Westy.
“Ask me something easy,” Westy said.
“And so you think you can dive,” old Captain Savage said, “or is that
just boy scout talk? Do I stand a chance of getting upstream and down
ag’in to-night, or not. Where do you say that key-bar is?”
You can bet I knew just exactly where it was. It was under the east span
of the bridge and just underneath about the fifth or sixth plank from
the centre. I knew it was hard bottom down there, too. So Captain Savage
and the other man he had gave me a thin rope and we fastened one end on
the deck. I tied the other end of it around my waist in a loose French
sailor’s knot, so I could pull it off without any trouble under water.
Then I dived. I had to come up a couple of times without it, but the
third time I got hold of it lying on the rocks, and quick as a flash I
loosened the rope from my waist and tied it onto the key-bar. Then I
came up, sputtering.
[Illustration: ROY DIVED AFTER THE KEY-BAR]
“Pull,” I sputtered, “you’ve got it; only pull easy.” Then I scrambled
up on the deck.
Believe me in less than a minute the tug-man and Westy and Pee-wee were
on the bridge and had the key-bar fixed in its socket. Then we started
to push and around she went—slow at first, then faster.
Oh, boy, wasn’t I glad to see old _General Grant_ march through. Just as
I was going to get in the rowboat, Captain Savage stuck his head out of
the window and shouted, “Here you, youngster; you come in here. We have
to overhaul accounts.”
“Scouts don’t accept anything for a service,” Westy shouted.
“I ain’t a-talking to you,” Captain Savage shouted; “you other feller,
scramble aboard and come up here! Don’t they learn you nothin’ about
obedience in them thar scouts—huh? You scramble up on board here like I
tell you!”
Oh, boy, I knew he meant me.