“Quick,” says I.
“Push,” says Catty, and he got his shoulder against the cases on the
opposite side of the pile from the man. I didn’t stop to ask why,
because there are times when there’s nothing to do but what you’re
told—and to be mighty rapid about it. I shoved, and over went the boxes.
“Out,” says Catty.
I jumped over and was set to make a dash for the water and swim for it,
when Catty grabbed me. “Don’t run,” says he, “walk slow and act as if
you had a right to be here.”
“Walk where?” says I.
“Keep alongside of me,” says he. “This is where we pull the lion’s
whiskers.”
I don’t remember where we walked. My mind was on something else. You can
bet it was. So I just tagged Catty and we walked around aimless like—or
that’s the way it seemed to me—for about seven hours. I began to feel
for long whiskers on my chin, because it seemed as if I’d been inside
that barb wire long enough to be at least seventy years old. Another
night like the last one and Methuselah wouldn’t have a year on me.
Then, all of a sudden, a man came bearing down on us, and he looked
awful belligerent.
“Hey, you,” says he. “Where you think you’re goin’?”
“Who?... Us?” says Catty, kind of like he was about two-thirds of half
witted.
“Yes, you.”
“We’re lookin’ for somebody,” says Catty.
“Well, you’ve found him. I’m him....” He made a grab for our collars.
“How’d you git here?”
“Oh,” says Catty, “we just come.”
“Huh.... Well, now you’re goin’ to just go,” he says, and his voice was
mean. I didn’t like it at all. You could tell by it that his toe was
itching to get acquainted with the seat of somebody’s pants.
“You’re him?” says Catty. “Then we can deliver our message.”
“What message?”
“The one we came to bring.”
“Say, be you tryin’ to make fun of me?”
“No, sir,” says Catty, “we wouldn’t make fun of anybody. We wouldn’t
know how. Honest.... All we want to do is give our message and get paid
for it, and go back. We’re in a hurry, we are. We aim to go fishin’.”
“You’ll fish when I git through with you,” says the man.
“Yes, sir,” says Catty, as meek as Moses.
“How’d you git in here?”
“Jest walked.”
“Nobody try to stop you?”
“What ’ud anybody stop us for?” says Catty, all full of surprise. “We
come on business.”
“Who sent you?”
“I dunno his name. He said when we delivered the message we’d get paid a
dollar. And we’re goin’ to git paid, too. Yes, sir. We’ll get paid, or
else there’ll be a lawsuit.”
“Huh.... Say, who’s this message fer?”
“A feller by the name of Dunn. Jonah Dunn, or suthin like that. Know
such a feller?”
I could have melted and run right there. It looked to me like the last
man in the world we wanted to see was this Jonas P. Dunn, and here was
Catty fixing things so we’d be taken to him. I scowled and started in to
say something, but Catty grabbed my arm so hard he left marks on it, and
says, “My cousin here hain’t very bright. You got to make allowances for
him.”
“I wouldn’t say either one of ye was cut out to be college perfessors,”
says the man. “Did a Mr. House send ye?”
“Dunno if he was house or barn,” says Catty.
“Give me the message.”
“Be you Mr. Dunn?”
“No. But I’m mate of his yacht.”
“Mates wasn’t mentioned,” says Catty. “I was told to tell this message
to Mr. Dunn, and to nobody else. And that’s what I’m a-goin’ to do. Yes,
sir. And I’m goin’ to be paid my dollar—right on the spot—cash money.”
It was bad enough as it was, but then another man in a uniform came
along, and he scowled and stopped. It was everybody’s day to scowl, I
guess.
“What’s this?” says he.
“Boys. They say they came with a message, Cap’n.”
“For who?”
“Mr. Dunn.”
“How’d they get past the guard?”
“It beats me. They claim they jest walked in.”
The captain waggled his head, and then he reached for us and grabbed
each of us by the arm.
“Message, eh? Well, you come right along and deliver it. We’ll find out
about that message, and if there’s any funny work, why, you’ll wish you
never heard of any message.”
“Do we git our dollar?” says Catty.
“You’ll get a heap more’n a dollar,” says the captain.
“A dollar was the bargain,” says Catty, as stubborn as a mule, “and a
dollar’s what we want.”
“Come and git it, then,” says the captain, and off we went. I don’t
believe my feet touched the ground. He just kind of shoved me through
the air by the arm, and it wasn’t a comfortable way to travel.
“Don’t you go to hurt my cousin,” says Catty. “He ain’t very sharp, and
he’s apt to cry. Don’t you go makin’ him cry.”
“Shet up,” says the captain.
In a minute we stopped in front of a kind of a square tent and the
captain calls out kind of polite and obsequious, “Mr. Dunn.”
“What’s wanted?”
“Two boys who claim to have a message for you, sir.”
“Fetch them in,” says Mr. Dunn, and the captain all but threw us into
the tent.
We kind of sprawled on the floor in front of Jonas P. Dunn, and he
scowled. Never did I see so many men who could scowl so easy.
“What’s this? What’s this?” says he, kind of snappy.
“Sh-sssh,” says Catty.
“What d’ye mean? What’re you shishing about? What ails you?”
Catty stood up and looked Mr. Dunn straight in the eye. “We’ve got
something to tell you,” says he, “and it’s true. We know what we’re
talking about. I think you’d better send the captain away while we tell
you.”
“They said they had a message for you.”
“Is it a message?” says Jonas P.
“No,” says Catty.
“What you mean by tellin’ me you had a message for him, then?” says the
captain.
“If we hadn’t you wouldn’t have brought us here. Now, Mr. Dunn, this is
serious—and private.”
Mr. Dunn frowned right into Catty’s eyes, but Catty never moved a
muscle; then he turned to the captain. “Step outside,” he said. “I’ll
see what this is all about.”
“I ought to stay,” says the captain.
“I guess a couple of kids won’t eat me—even if you’re not here to
protect me,” says Mr. Dunn, and then the captain went out.
“Now, what’s it about?” he says.
“Have you got any guns?” says Catty.
“No.... Guns! What are you talking about?”
“Nobody,” says Catty, “has any business going treasure digging without
he’s armed to the teeth.”
“Treasure digging! Young man, where did you hear I was treasure
digging?”
“I know all about it,” says Catty. “I came to Nantucket on the
_Albatross_.”
“With Browning and Topper.” His teeth showed under his moustache, and
then he grinned. “Well, I don’t imagine they’re very happy.”
“That hasn’t anything to do with it. What I want to talk about is
mutiny. Have you made any preparations to quell a mutiny?”
“Say, kid, are you crazy? Mutiny?”
“Mr. Dunn, there’s always mutiny on a treasure hunt. Did you ever hear
of a ship going after buried treasure without the crew turning on the
owners? Why, it can’t be done. There—there wouldn’t be any story if
there wasn’t a mutiny.”
Mr. Dunn looked like he was going to lose his senses.
“Say, what are you talking about?”
Catty lowered his voice. “Mutiny. And you’ve got one on your hands.
Twenty men—maybe more. The plot’s all made. It’s apt to break any
minute.”
“Are you talking sense?”
“We are telling the truth, and you’ve got to believe it.”
“How did you come here?”
“We were the ghosts last night,” says Catty. “We sneaked through the
wire and hid under the tarpaulin that covered your pile of supplies.”
“What for?”
“We belong to the _Albatross_,” says Catty, “and we came to see what we
could do about lifting the treasure. We’ve a right to do that. You’re a
kind of a pirate, trying to get Mr. Topper’s treasure away from him, and
we’re helping.... But we couldn’t sit and let a lot of mutineers grab
it, and seize your yacht and go sailing off. Now, could we?”
“Go on.”
“While we were under the tarpaulin we heard the plot. The men are
organized, enough of them to do what they want to—if you aren’t armed.
Maybe they are. I don’t know that. One man is captain of the mutineers,
and they are waiting for him to give the signal. As soon as he gives it,
you will be seized, and they’ll take the treasure, if it’s been found,
or dig for it, if it hasn’t. Then they’re going to seize your yacht and
sail away to some place where it’s safe to land, and divide the
treasure, and be rich forever after.”
Now, I’ll give Jonas P. Dunn credit for one thing—he had nerve. The
first thing he did was to laugh, like he knew a joke, and then he got
good and mad.
“You’re sure of this?”
“I’m sure. I heard it all—and Wee-wee heard it.”
“Did you?” says Mr. Dunn to me.
“Every word,” says I.
“Um.... Serious. Never expected to be in a mutiny,” he says, and kind of
grins again. “Who’s the leader of it?”
“We couldn’t see, and no names were mentioned. It was dark.”
“Is the captain or the mate mixed up in it?”
“We don’t know, but I don’t think the captain is.... You don’t suppose
anybody can hear what we say in here, do you?”
“Hardly.... Now what’s to be done?”
“We ought to have all the arms. The owner and the captain and the
faithful hands always try to get all the arms and ammunition.”
“That would be a good idea. But we haven’t any arms. Never expected to
need a gun. Huh.... Somebody’ll smart for this. I don’t believe they’ve
got nerve to go through with it. Why, Nantucket is only a mile or so
over there. The island is alive with summer visitors. The bay out there
is speckled with boats. Mutiny can’t happen in such a place.”
“You wouldn’t say treasure hunting could go on here, either,” says
Catty, “but it is.”
“Humph,” says Mr. Dunn, and at that very minute we heard a man holler
outside and then a chorus of shouts and yells, and out we all dashed.
The first thing we saw was about nine men piling onto the captain, and
another crowd sitting on the mate.
“It’s busted,” says Catty, “and they’ve seized the officers.”
Mr. Dunn charged right out, bellowing at the top of his voice. “Hey,
what does this mean? What’s going on.”
A couple of men ran at him, and he knocked one galley west, but the
other two got him and held him, and then one fellow who seemed to be
bossing the job, came over and says, “Mr. Dunn, we don’t want to do you
no harm personal, but we mean business. We’re going to hog-tie these two
officers, and we’ll hog-tie you, if you get rambunctious.... Behave
yourself, and you won’t get hurt.”
“Somebody’ll get hurt for this,” says Mr. Dunn.
“That’s the chance we take,” says the boss mutineer. “Now shall we tie
you, or will you go back to your tent and keep quiet?” Then he squinted
at Catty and me.
“Hiding under the tarp, was you? Tattlin’ on me and the boys, eh?...
When we git time, we’ll tend to _your_ case.”
With that a man grabbed each of us, and two went along with Mr. Dunn and
chucked us into the tent. And there we were!