DON GORDON’S SHOOTING-BOX.
“Well, what did the chief say about the prisoners?” asked Captain
Pomeroy, after a moment’s pause.
“O, he went through the usual formula,” answered Lieutenant Perkins. “He
said he would be happy to surrender his captives if the white chief
would give him and his warriors presents enough to make it an object for
him to do so. The superintendent said he wouldn’t do that, but if the
chief would give up the prisoners and come into camp to-morrow afternoon
and dance for us, he would furnish him and his warriors with all the
grub they could eat. The chief finally accepted the offer, and those two
Indians who went out a little while ago are to bring in the captives.”
“Who comes there?” shouted the sentry at the bridge.
“There they are now,” exclaimed the lieutenant. “Corporal, go out
there.”
The corporal went, and presently returned accompanied by the two Indians
and ten prisoners instead of eight. Bert and his companions moved up
close to the gate to see who the prisoners were, and the former was
astonished beyond measure to find that his brother and Sergeant Egan
were marching with the squad. The boys wanted to laugh at them, but they
were on duty, and they knew that such a breach of discipline would not
be allowed. Led by Lieutenant Perkins and his squad, they were marched
to the big tent, where the ceremony of surrendering them was gone
through with; after which the Indian delegation was escorted out of the
camp, Captain Pomeroy and his men were ordered to their quarters, the
sentries were posted, the ranks broken, and all the young soldiers who
were off duty flocked into the big tent to talk over the incidents of
the fight with their guests. Bert quickly found his way to a merry group
consisting of his father, mother and brother, and Egan, Hopkins and
Curtis, with their fathers and mothers, all of whom were listening with
interest to what the deserters had to say regarding their experience
among the Indians. When they had finished their story General Gordon
said:—
“You missed it, boys. The members of your company covered themselves
with glory and you have no share in it. The first company was so badly
demoralized by the very first charge the Indians made that they couldn’t
be rallied; while Pomeroy, with his raw recruits, as you might call
them, drove the enemy from the field and saved the tents from capture.”
“It was really thrilling, Mr. Gordon,” said Egan’s pretty sister, to
whom Don had just been introduced, “and I never before was so badly
frightened. We were not expecting anything of the kind, you know, and I
could not imagine what the matter was.”
“I wouldn’t have had those Indians get their hands on us for anything,”
exclaimed Egan, who seemed to take the matter very much to heart. “I
knew the fight was coming, and I wanted very much to take part in it.
Well, it serves me right for deserting when I ought to have stayed in
camp.”
It was growing late now—so late that the dancing was not resumed. The
carriages, which had been ordered for eleven o’clock, began to arrive
and the guests to take their departure for Bridgeport, whose two hotels
and numerous boarding-houses were taxed to the utmost to find room for
them.
The next morning passes were granted by wholesale, and every boy who was
able to secure one started at once for the Indian camp, which was
located in a deep ravine about a mile away. The young braves drove a
thriving trade in bows and arrows, and earned a snug sum of pocket money
by shooting dimes and quarters out of split sticks; while the squaws
sold moccasins, beaded purses and miniature birch-bark canoes by the
bushel. At one o’clock the big tent was again crowded with guests, and
an hour later the Indian warriors, who were all armed and freshly
painted, filed silently into the works. The entertainment that followed,
and which was much better than some the boys had paid twenty-five cents
to witness, included the corn-dance, hunting-dance, war-dance and a
scalping scene. By the time it was ended dinner had been served in the
big tent. After the dancers had done full justice to it, and had
exchanged courtesies with their late antagonists by giving an
ear-splitting war-whoop in return for their three cheers and a tiger,
they filed out of the works as silently as they had come into them, and
the students once more settled down to business.
There were no more desertions after that. Some of their friends came to
see them every day, and as there were many veterans among them who
watched their movements with a critical eye, of course the boys were
careful to perform all their duties in a prompt and soldier-like manner.
In due time the camp was broken and the students marched back to the
academy, which during their absence had been thoroughly renovated. The
examination was held, the members of the first class received their
degrees and new officers were appointed for the coming year. Among the
latter were Bert Gordon and Sam Arkwright—the former being made first
sergeant of the fourth company, which was yet to be organized, and the
other receiving a warrant as second corporal. Don Gordon stood head and
shoulders above everybody in his class, and the only thing that
prevented him from being commissioned lieutenant of the new company was
his record as a soldier, which, as we know, was by no means perfect.
Contrary to Dick Henderson’s prediction, the school had not been
disgraced by the presence of the New York boot-black. Its popularity
seemed to be increasing, for the number of those who applied for
admission was greater than it had ever been before; and when the
examination was over, Bert found that he had a hundred and ten names on
his company roster. Dick would not have made such a prediction now, for
he was different in every way from the boy we introduced to the reader
at the beginning of this story. Having got out from under Clarence
Duncan’s baneful influence, and having Don Gordon’s example and Tom
Fisher’s to encourage him, he was in a fair way to make a man of
himself.
At length the exercises were all ended, and one bright morning Hopkins,
Egan and Curtis took leave of their friends, and in company with Don and
Bert Gordon and their parents, set out for Rochdale. They went fully
prepared to enjoy themselves. As soon as it was settled that they were
to go home with the Gordons, they had written for their hunting rigs,
which were duly forwarded to them. Walter Curtis’s favorite, in fact his
only, weapon, was a light Stevens rifle, with which he had broken
twenty-three out of twenty-five feather-filled glass balls thrown from a
revolving trap. Hopkins took pride in a short double-barrel shotgun, of
large calibre, that he had often used on horseback while following deer
and foxes to the music of the hounds; while Egan, who lived on the
Eastern Shore of Maryland, where canvas-backs and red-heads abound, put
all his faith in a ponderous ten-gauge Parker, which was so heavy that
Don Gordon, strong and enduring as he was, declared that he wouldn’t
carry it all day through the woods if his friend Egan would make him a
present of it.
“Neither would I,” chimed in Hopkins.
“You!” exclaimed Egan, standing off and looking at the speaker’s rotund
figure. “You’d look nice starting out for an all-day tramp, you would.
Your legs are too short, and you carry too much weight around with you.
You would get out of breath before you had gone half a mile. But as I am
not going to Mississippi after squirrels, I don’t intend to tramp about
the woods. Gordon promised me some duck-shooting.”
“As for myself,” Curtis remarked, “I always did despise a scatter-gun. A
blind man ought to be able to hit a duck by sending a pound or two of
shot at him——”
“Well, it’s not so easy, either,” interrupted Egan. “A duck, when flying
down wind, moves at the rate of ninety miles an hour, old fellow, and it
takes the best kind of a marksman to make a good bag.”
“A true sportsman never prides himself upon the number of birds he
kills, but upon the superiority of his shots,” said Curtis. “When you
can strike a rapidly moving object with a single ball from a rifle, then
you can boast of your skill.”
During the journey down the Mississippi the boys were on deck almost all
the time, listening to Don, who pointed out the various places of
interest along the route, adding some entertaining scraps of the history
of each. Over there, on the right bank, he said, was the battle-field of
Belmont; and on the opposite shore was Columbus, from which came the
Confederate reinforcements that had turned the Union victory into
defeat. This was Island No. 10, where the gunboat Cincinnati
distinguished herself by running the batteries, and a young master’s
mate, afterward the brave commander of the Champion, won his
shoulder-straps by going ashore with a boat’s crew, spiking some of the
guns, and bringing off the wipers and spongers that belonged to them.
Over there on the bluff was Fort Pillow, where that terrible massacre
took place under Forrest; and this was Memphis, the scene of the fight
between the Union and Confederate fleets, which resulted in the utter
defeat of the latter, and in the capture of the Bragg, Price, and Little
Rebel. This was Yazoo river. It was here that the Confederate ram
Arkansas, after eluding the Cincinnati and whipping the Tyler, ran the
fire of the whole Union fleet and took refuge under the guns of
Vicksburg. Having been repaired she started down the river to raise the
siege of Port Hudson, but was met and destroyed by a single Union
gunboat, the Essex, under command of Captain Porter. And here was
Rochdale at last. It had a history too, Don said, and he promised that
he would relate it when they reached the shooting-box.
Egan and Hopkins were Southern boys, and consequently life on a
plantation was not new to them; but Curtis, who was from New England,
found much to interest him, and showed himself to be a true Yankee by
asking a thousand and one questions about everything he saw. Hopkins’s
first exploit was riding a kicking mule that Fred and Joe Packard
brought out for him to try his skill upon. To the surprise of everybody
Hopkins mounted in regular Texas style, placing his left hand on the
mule’s shoulder and throwing his right leg over his back. The moment he
was firmly settled, his appearance changed as if by magic. His seat was
easy and graceful, and he kept his place on that mule’s back with as
little trouble as he would have kept his place in a rocking chair. The
animal could not move him an inch with all his kicking and plunging. The
performance effectually silenced Egan, who was himself a fine horseman,
and he never had anything to say about Hopkins’s riding after that.
The ducks, geese, swans, and brant were already beginning to come into
the lake, and on the morning of the third day following their arrival at
the plantation, the young hunters, Fred and Joe Packard being included
among the number, made ready to take up their abode at the shooting-box.
The canoe and sail-boat, both of which had been securely housed during
the absence of their owners, were put into the water and loaded to their
utmost capacity with bedding, provisions, and camp furniture. There was
just room enough left in the canoe to accommodate old Cuff, the negro
who was to act as cook and camp-keeper during their sojourn at the
shooting-box; and when all the boys and Don’s two pointers had crowded
into the sail-boat, the little craft seemed on the point of sinking. As
an Irishman would have remarked, if the water in the lake had been two
inches higher, she would have gone to the bottom beyond a doubt.
“We’ve got about three hundred pounds too much cargo aboard,” said
Curtis, in his quiet way. “Hop, suppose you get out and go afoot;
there’s a good fellow.”
“Make Egan throw his artillery overboard and we shall get on well
enough,” retorted Hopkins. “That’s what makes the boat sink so deep in
the water.”
With much fun and chaffing the boys pulled toward the point on which the
shooting-box was located, and by handling their heavily loaded craft in
the most careful manner, they succeeded in beaching her in safety. As
her bow touched the shore, old Cuff, who landed at the same moment,
uttered an exclamation indicative of the greatest astonishment. Don
looked up and saw that the shooting-box was already occupied. A smoke
was curling out of the stove-pipe that served for a chimney, and a
rough-looking man, dressed in a tattered suit of brown jeans, stood in
front of the open door, leaning on his axe. From the cabin there came
the sound of voices mingled with another sound that made old Cuff almost
ready to boil over with indignation.
“’Fore Moses, Mr. Don,” he exclaimed. “Somebody in dar crackin’ all de
nuts dat I done pick up for you an’ your frien’s.”
“We’ll soon put a stop to that,” answered Don. “Those people, whoever
they are, have no business in there, and they must get out at once.”
“Did you ever hear of such impudence?” exclaimed Bert, angrily. “Where
did they come from, anyhow? They don’t belong in this part of the
country.”
The man with the axe seemed as much surprised to see Don and his party
as the latter were to see him. He too uttered an exclamation which
brought to the door the other occupants of the cabin, seven of them in
all, including two more men and three women; and very disreputable
looking persons the most of them were. The other two, one of whom seemed
to be entirely out of place there, did not show themselves at the door
as openly as their companions did, and consequently Don and Bert did not
see them. They thrust their heads out very cautiously, and as soon as
they saw who the new-comers were, they drew back and made all haste to
effect their escape through the window on the other side of the cabin.
By keeping the building between themselves and the beach they managed to
reach the cover of the woods without being observed, Don and Bert would
have been very much surprised if they had seen them, for they were our
old acquaintances Lester Brigham and Dan Evans. They were now almost
constant companions; and how they came to be so shall be told further
on.
[Illustration: SQUATTER SOVEREIGNTY.]
“What do you want here?” demanded the man with the axe, as Don walked up
the bank followed by his companions.
“I think that is a proper question for me to ask you,” replied Don, who
did not at all like the surly tone in which he had been addressed. “This
house belongs to my brother and myself, and we would thank you to vacate
it without the loss of a moment.”
“Wal, I reckon we shall do as we please about that,” drawled one of the
men who stood in the door.
“Well, I reckon you won’t. You’ll do as I please about it. I want
possession here, and I want it now. I see you broke the lock in order to
gain admittance, and you had no business to do that.”
“Do you live here?” asked the man with the axe.
“I’m going to live here.”
“Wal, thar’s two rooms in the shantee, an’ why can’t you-uns take one of
’em an’ let we-uns——”
“We don’t want company,” exclaimed Don, who was fairly staggered by the
proposition. “We want you to clear out bag and baggage, and to be quick
about it, too. My father is a magistrate, and this shooting-box is on
his land.”
The word “magistrate” had a magical effect upon the members of the dirty
group in the door-way. It put life into them, and at the same time set
the women’s tongues in motion. They began packing up their scanty
belongings, declaring, with much vociferation, that it was a sin and a
shame that they should be turned out of such snug quarters just to
accommodate the whims of a party of young aristocrats who wanted to come
there and shoot a few ducks. Why couldn’t they go elsewhere for their
ducks and leave honest people alone? That was always the way with rich
folks. They didn’t care how others suffered so long as they had their
own pleasure. But it was a great comfort to know that it wouldn’t always
be so. There was a time coming, and it wasn’t so very far distant
either, when rich folks would be required to give up some of their
ill-gotten gains.
“That sounds like communism, doesn’t it?” said Curtis.
“Yes; and _that_ sounds very much like incendiarism,” answered Hopkins;
and so it did, for just then one of the men in the cabin was heard to
say:—
“Never mind, Luke. The old shantee is dry an’ fire’ll burn it.”
“Let them burn it if they dare,” said Bert, his slight form swelling
with indignation. “I wouldn’t give a picayune for the life of the person
who attempts it. Cuff,” he added, turning to the negro, “as soon as we
get things straightened up here, I want you to go back to the plantation
after Don’s hounds. It looks now as though we should need them.”
The tramps, if such they were, seemed to be in no hurry to leave the
shooting-box. They bundled up their goods with great deliberation,
abusing the boys roundly all the while, and finally came out and turned
their faces toward the river. As soon as they were out of sight Don and
Bert began an investigation of the premises. The cabin looked as though
it had been occupied for a long time. The wood which they had provided
for their own use was all gone, the stove had been copiously bedewed
with tobacco juice, the floor was littered with nut-shells, and
everything was dingy and smoky.
“We can’t live in any such looking hole as this,” said Don, in deep
disgust. “Cuff, build up a good fire, put on the kettle and scrub out.
Let’s have things neat and clean, as they used to be. Bert, suppose you
take somebody with you and watch those people and see where they go”
Bert at once started off with Hopkins for a companion, and while they
were gone the others employed themselves in setting things to rights.
The bones, squirrel skins and turkey feathers that were scattered about
in front of the door were raked into a pile and set on fire; a fresh
supply of stove-wood was cut; and the boats were unloaded and their
cargoes piled up outside of the cabin in readiness to be transferred to
the interior as soon as the purifying process had been completed. By the
time this work was done Bert and Hopkins came back.
“They’re n. g. on the books—no good,” said the former. “They have a
little house-boat in the river——”
“That’s all we want to know,” interrupted Don. “They are thieves and
vagabonds of the first water.”
“What makes you say that?” asked Curtis.
“What’s a house-boat?” inquired Egan.
“I will answer the last question first,” said Don. “A house-boat is
simply a scow twenty-five or thirty feet long and six or eight feet wide
with a cabin amidships. This cabin takes up the whole of the boat with
the exception of two or three feet at each end, where the crew stand
when they are handling the lines and the steering oar. These boats are
generally the property of fishermen and hunters, who float about looking
for a suitable place to ply their occupation. For example, there is a
house-boat in the bayou above Mound City—that’s in Illinois, you
know—which has been there four or five years, its solitary occupant
making a good living by trapping minks and raccoons in the winter, and
catching buffalo and catfish the rest of the year.”
“Buffalo!” repeated Egan.
“Yes. I didn’t say bison.”
“What’s the difference?” asked Hopkins, who, although he was a splendid
fox-hunter, was not very well posted in natural history.
“There’s a good deal of difference, the first thing you know. A buffalo
is a fish, somewhat resembling a black-bass in shape, but possessing
none of his game qualities, while a bison is an animal.”
“But there are such animals as buffaloes,” said Egan.
“Yes, in Africa and Asia, but not in this country. There are no
partridges, pheasants, or wild rabbits here, either. As I was going on
to say, this man will probably stay at Mound City until the fish and
game begin to grow scarce, and then he will paddle his boat out into the
current and float down the river until he finds another place that suits
him. If he gets hard up for grub, he will not hesitate to visit
anybody’s corn-field, potato-patch, or hen-roost.”
“No honest, industrious man ever lives in that way,” said Bert. “The
planters along the river are suspicious of these house-boats, and when
they find one tied up on their premises, they always order it off.”
“If these people had a shelter of their own, why did they take
possession of your shooting-box?” asked Egan.
“O, for the sake of variety, probably,” answered Don. “Perhaps their
house was too small for them; or it may be that the roof leaked, or that
the scow was full of water. They always like to live ashore when they
have the chance.”
There was much to be done about the shooting-box, and the boys were kept
busy all the forenoon. Old Cuff grumbled lustily while he scrubbed,
declaring over and over again that Don ought to set fire to the cabin
and destroy it, for it never could be made fit for white folks to live
in again. After eating a substantial lunch, which was served under the
trees, Egan, Hopkins, and Curtis took their guns, and, accompanied by
Bert and Fred Packard, strolled along the shore of the lake to see if
they could find anything for supper, while Don and Joe remained behind
to assist Cuff at his work. When Egan and Curtis returned at dark, they
declared that they were more than satisfied with their prospects for
sport. The lower end of the lake was full of ducks, they said, and Egan
had astonished his companions by bringing fourteen of them down with a
single discharge of his heavy double-barrel, while Curtis had showed his
skill with the rifle by shooting four ducks on the wing, and killing a
swan at the distance of more than two hundred yards. They were tired as
well as hungry, and glad to see the inside of the shooting-box, which
did not look now as it did when they first came there in the morning. A
cheerful fire was burning in the stove, which had been blacked and
polished until one could almost see his face in it; the room was
brilliantly lighted by two lamps that were suspended from the ceiling;
the floor was covered with rugs; pictures of hunting and fishing scenes
adorned the walls, and camp chairs and stools were scattered about.
In the next apartment, which was used principally as a sleeping and
sitting-room, the same scene of neatness and order was presented. The
wide fire-place, which occupied nearly the whole of one end of it, was
piled high with blazing logs, and comfortable beds were made up in the
bunks. There were pictures on the walls of this room also, rugs on the
floor (some of these rugs at once attracted the attention of Egan and
his friends, for they were made of the skins of bears and deer that had
fallen to Don’s rifle), and there were camp-chairs enough to accommodate
all the boys that could crowd about the fire-place. The room looked
cosey and comfortable, and the visitors no longer wondered why it was
that Don thought so much of his shooting-box.
“I am going to have one of my own,” said Curtis, “and it shall be
modeled after this one. I shall build it this fall, so as to have it in
readiness to receive you fellows when you go home with me next vacation.
Now, then, where are those quails that Hop brought in? Can your darkey
serve them up on toast in good shape?”
“Of course he can,” answered Don. “No one can do it better; but Hop
hasn’t brought in any quails yet. Where did you leave him? I wondered
why he didn’t come home with you.”
“Hasn’t he returned?” exclaimed Egan. “Then he’s lost. We haven’t seen
him since two o’clock, when he coaxed your pointers away from us—we owe
him a grudge for that, for we wanted the dogs to stay by us and retrieve
the ducks we shot—and went over into a field after a flock of quails he
had marked down there. We heard him shoot several times after that, and
as he is a good marksman, we made up our minds that we were to have
quails for supper. There he is now,” added Egan, as an impatient yelp
sounded at the door.
“I am afraid you are mistaken,” replied Don, and the sequel proved that
he was; for just then the door was thrown open, and Don’s hounds, which
Cuff, in obedience to Bert’s orders, had brought up to guard the
shooting-box, came bounding in. There were six of them, and the one
which held the foremost place in Don’s estimation was Carlo, the dog
that had been the first to respond to his whistle when he was tied up in
Godfrey Evans’s potato-hole. He was an immense brute, as well as a
savage one, and when he raised himself on his hind feet and placed his
paws on Don’s shoulders, his head was higher than his master’s.
“We will keep them in here with us until Hop comes; for as they are not
very well acquainted with him, they might object to his coming to the
house,” said Bert. “Now, Cuff, dish up a couple of those ducks in your
very best style. Be in a hurry, for we are hungry.”
Curtis and Egan, having exchanged their high-top boots for easy-fitting
shoes, and their heavy shooting-coats for others of lighter material,
set to work to clean their guns, while the rest of the boys drew their
chairs up in front of the fire, and asked one another what it was that
was detaining Hopkins. He couldn’t get lost; they were sure of that, for
all he had to do when he wanted to come home, was to follow the shore of
the lake, and he would find the shooting-box without the least trouble.
“Do you suppose he would be in any danger from those vagabond friends of
ours, if he should chance to stumble upon them in the woods?” said
Curtis, as he pointed his breech-loader toward the lamp and looked
through the barrel to make sure that it was perfectly clean. “I must
confess that I didn’t quite like the looks of them.”
“I never thought of them,” said Don, jumping up and taking his
double-barrel down from the antlers on which it rested. “I believe he
would be in danger if he should meet one of those fellows in the woods,
for he wears a splendid gold watch and chain, and I noticed that the man
who was chopping wood when we came here this morning, looked at the
chain very frequently. I think it would be a good plan to signal to
him.”
“Better let me do it,” said Egan. “He can hear my gun farther than he
can yours.”
Accompanied by all the boys Egan went out on the shore of the lake and
fired both barrels of his heavy piece in quick succession; but there was
no response. Again and again the duck-gun roared, awaking a thousand
echoes along the shore, but still the missing boy did not reply. When
Egan had fired away all the cartridges he had brought out with him, the
boys went back into the cabin and sat down and looked at one another.
They began to fear that their friend’s ill-luck had followed him from
Bridgeport to Rochdale, and that he had got himself into some kind of a
scrape.