THE ARK IS STOLEN.
The next morning, after eating the very last of their provisions, which
they shared impartially with Rusty, they cast the Ark loose from its
moorings, and allowed it to drift a mile or two down past the city water
front. At length they reached a place of comparative quiet, amid the
bewildering number of steamboats, tugs, and barges, by which they were
now surrounded. It was just below a great bridge that spanned the river
at this point, and here, after half an hour of anxiety and hard work,
they finally succeeded in making their boat fast to the levee.
Then, not knowing what else to do, they waited patiently for some hours,
in the hope that a customer would appear, and make them an offer for the
Ark. But of all the hurrying throngs who passed the place, no one paid
the slightest attention to them. Uncle Phin had just decided that it
would be necessary for him to go ashore, and in some way make it known
that he had a boat for sale, when a stranger came walking briskly toward
them, and sprang aboard.
Growling savagely, Rusty would have flown at the man, whom he recognized
as the one who had looked into the cabin window the evening before, had
not Arthur seized and held him.
“Good-morning,” said the stranger, politely. “Fine watch dog you’ve got
there.”
“Yes,” replied Arthur, “he is; but I never knew him to want to bite
anybody before.”
“Oh, well,” said the man, “he probably isn’t used to city folks; but he
will get over that. I came to ask if this boat is for sale.”
“Of course it is,” replied the boy, delightedly. “We have been hoping
somebody would come along who wanted to buy it.”
Then they showed the stranger all over the boat, explaining to him what
an unusually fine craft it was, and, before long, had told him all he
wanted to know of their history and plans.
He was a shabbily-dressed man; but they were accustomed to seeing such
people, and never for a moment mistrusted him when he said that he was
looking for just that kind of a boat, in which to take his family to New
Orleans for the winter. They only congratulated each other, on securing
a customer so readily, by exchanging sundry significant looks and smiles
behind his back.
At length he asked their price for the boat, and Uncle Phin, emboldened
by his praise of the craft and evident desire to possess her, answered
that, as boats seemed to be in pretty good demand, he thought this one
ought to be worth twenty dollars.
“Nonsense!” exclaimed the stranger. “Twenty dollars! why, she is worth
fifty, if she is worth a cent, and I couldn’t think of offering any less
for her. Say fifty and we’ll call it a bargain.”
Was there ever such a generous and honest man? Both Arthur and Uncle
Phin thought there never was, as they gladly accepted this magnificent
offer, and thanked him for it besides.
“Now,” said the stranger, “business is business, and I should like to
take possession of the boat at once; while I presume you are anxious to
pursue your journey. If you will just step up-town with me to my bank, I
will pay you the fifty dollars, and on the way I will show you the
station of the railroad that goes to Virginia. Then we’ll get a team to
come down here for your baggage, and you’ll be all right.”
Neither Arthur nor the old negro could think of any particular baggage
that they wished to carry with them, unless it was their bedding, and
Uncle Phin’s axe, and they told the stranger so. He said they might
think of something else after they had got their money, and that at any
rate they had better go up-town with him and secure it at once.
Arthur suggested that it might not be safe to leave the boat all alone,
and proposed that Uncle Phin go for the money, while he and Rusty stayed
behind to guard it.
“Oh, that’s all right,” said the stranger. “You never knew such honest
folks as live round here. They wouldn’t touch anything that didn’t
belong to them for the world. Besides I want you both to sign the bill
of sale, and the receipt for the money.”
So, after carefully closing the cabin doors and windows, the trusting
old man, and the boy, ignorant as yet of the world’s wickedness,
accompanied the plausible stranger up-town. Arthur led Rusty by a bit of
rope fastened to the leathern collar Uncle Phin had made for him, and
had some difficulty in keeping him at a safe distance from the stranger,
toward whom the dog seemed to have taken the greatest dislike. Moved by
some impulse that he could not have explained, the boy had also taken
his precious book from its shelf, at the last moment, and now carried it
under his arm.
The stranger continued to be very polite and entertaining, as they
walked through the crowded streets, and pointed out several places of
interest, among others the railway station from which they were to take
the train for Virginia.
They walked so far that Arthur began to grow tired, and was very glad
when they at length entered a fine building, above the doorway of which
he read the word “Bank” in large letters. Here both the old man and the
boy were awed and bewildered by the imposing appearance of the interior
into which they were ushered. They wondered at the number of desks, at
which busy clerks sat writing behind a high and strong iron grating, and
at the crowds of people who stood in long lines before the little
windows in it, or passed hurriedly to and fro. Leading them to a retired
corner, out of the throng, their guide bade them wait there for a few
minutes, while he prepared the papers that it would be necessary for
them to sign, and procured the fifty dollars. Then he mingled with the
crowd of men about them, and disappeared.
For fifteen minutes or so, the attention of the old man and the boy was
fully occupied by the novel scenes about them, and in keeping Rusty
quiet. Then they began to watch anxiously for the stranger’s return, and
to grow somewhat uneasy over his nonappearance. When half an hour had
passed, they were thoroughly alarmed, and began to walk up and down the
crowded space, in front of the iron grating, peering wistfully into the
faces of those who filled it, but without seeing him whom they sought.
At last a man, who had been closely watching their movements for some
time, stepped briskly up to them, and laying a hand on Uncle Phin’s
shoulder said:
“Come, get out of here, old man. I’ve had my eye on you ever since you
came in, and it’s evident that you have no business here.”
“But, boss, we’se a lookin fer——”
“Yes, I know you are looking for something you won’t find here, so clear
out, or else I’ll have to put you out.”
There was no use offering a further resistance to the detective, and so
the next minute our two friends found themselves in the street, utterly
bewildered, and not knowing which way to turn.
“What do you suppose it all means, Uncle Phin?” asked Arthur.
“Don know, Honey. Hit beat de ole man’s ’sperience, and he don pear to
know nuffin about hit.”
“There is something wrong any way,” said the boy, decidedly, “and I
think the best thing we can do is to get back to the boat as quick as
possible.”
By inquiring they found out in which direction the river lay, and
started to make their way to it as fast as they could. It was a long,
weary walk, and when they finally reached the river, they spent nearly
an hour searching and inquiring before they discovered the bridge near
which the Ark had been left.
Now the boat was nowhere to be seen. In vain did they gaze up and down
the river. They saw other house-boats, and many strange craft of all
descriptions, but nothing that looked in the least like the one that had
sheltered them for so long that it seemed like a very home. Then the
truth began to dawn upon them. Their boat had been stolen, probably by
the very man who had persuaded them to accompany him up-town, and then
deserted them.
This belief was finally confirmed by a good-natured boatman of whom they
made some inquiries, and who told them that the craft for which they
were looking had been boarded and taken away by a couple of men more
than two hours before. They had of course floated off down the river,
and the boatman said the only thing for them to do was to hire a tug and
go after her.
As this would have cost at least twenty dollars, and as they did not
have a cent, it was of course out of the question. What were they to do?
And what was to become of them?
It was now late in the afternoon, and in addition to being very tired
they were very hungry. This latter unpleasant sensation was evidently
shared by poor Rusty, who began to whine and look pleadingly up into his
young master’s face. To add to their misery, the dense smoke clouds that
had been hanging lower and lower over the city now enveloped it entirely
in damp, sooty folds, and a cold, drizzling rain began to fall.
Poor Arthur felt so utterly wretched that he would have cried, but for
the remembrance that he was a Dale.