“I’LL TROUBLE YOU FOR THEM THOUSAND.”
When the police-boat disappeared around the point the boys drew a long
breath of relief, and the duck-shooter arose from his seat on the bench
and put away his bag and stick. The satisfied grin they saw on his face
kept back the words of sympathy and condolence that arose to their lips.
“I’ve kinder been looking for this ever since you-uns told me that they
had found that big gun on Powell’s Island,” said Barr. “Now it’s over
with, and I’m glad on’t. I’ll have them things they took away from me
back agin. They can’t tell me to hand over my license until they prove
that I’ve been going agin the law, and that’s something they can’t do.
Nobody ain’t seen me shoot a big gun this season, and nobody won’t see
me, nuther.”
“Does he mean to say that we can’t go with him to-night?” whispered
Lester, as the duck-shooter walked down to the beach and pulled his
canoe out of the water.
“Oh, no,” replied Enoch. “He will let us go, but still we won’t see him
fire the big gun, because it will be so dark that we can’t see
anything.”
“Did that officer have any right to take those boats in the way he did?”
asked Jones. “To me it looked like a very high-handed proceeding.”
“Well, it wasn’t. They knew what they were about. City policemen very
often arrest people on what they call ‘general principles’; that is,
because they look suspicious or act so. These officers have the same
authority. If Barr had been an unlicensed gunner, they would have
arrested him for having that sink-boat in his possession; but as he has
a permit to use it on certain days of the week, they could only take it
away from him because they suspected him of big-gunning. If they fail to
make out a case against him, Barr will get his boat back. He’s going to
put a block in his canoe and use that to-night, in place of the skiff he
lost.”
Enoch and his friends, who had come prepared to stay all day, sat on the
bench and watched Barr while he was at work on his canoe, and when
dinner-time came they gave him a liberal portion of their lunch, in
return for the terrapin which he roasted for them on the coals. They
spent the afternoon in lounging on the beach and listening to Barr, who
would tell a thrilling story of the dangers he had seen, and the narrow
escapes he had had from destruction by the elements and capture by the
police-boats, and then stop to rail at Gus Egan and his party, for
finding his big gun and giving it up to the officers of the Magpie. He
repeatedly declared that he would make them sorry for that, and the
boys, especially Lester Brigham, would have been very badly frightened
if they had known how deeply in earnest he was when he said it. Enoch
knew that the duck-shooter was a man who never made idle threats. He was
suspected of many dark deeds, any one of which would have landed him in
the penitentiary if it could have been fastened upon him, but he never
dreamed that Barr had resolved to turn his hand to something besides
incendiarism this time, and that the idea had been suggested to him by
the spiteful words that Lester Brigham had spoken against Don Gordon.
The hours of day-light passed slowly away, and finally darkness and a
thick fog settled down over the bay. That suited Barr, who, like an owl,
was lazy and slothful while the sun shone, and full of life and activity
when it was out of sight. The first thing he did was to bring out his
big gun, which he proceeded to charge with a load that made Lester and
Jones open their eyes, and caused the former to predict that there
wouldn’t be anything left of the canoe after that ponderous weapon had
been fired in it. Then they went out to the sloop, and after the canoe
had been hauled aboard, and the big gun placed close beside the rail, so
that it could be quickly thrown overboard, in case the Magpie or one of
her consorts should chance to be hovering about, the sails were hoisted
and the little craft moved slowly out of the creek.
Bush River, the place at which Barr expected to load his sloop with a
single discharge of his big gun, was ten miles away, and if they had
been obliged to depend solely upon the wind, they would not have reached
it before day-light; but the tide was in their favor, and carried them
ahead at such a rate that at the end of two hours Barr began looking out
for his “partner.”
“He’s around here somewhere,” said the duck-shooter, who seemed to know
right where he was, although the fog and the darkness were so dense that
he could not see more than twenty feet ahead of the sloop’s bow. “You
see, he has been here all day watching them ducks, to keep other fellers
away, and to make sure that they were going to stay long enough for me
to have a pop at them.”
“I don’t see how he could keep other fellows away,” observed Lester.
“Oh, he couldn’t keep a party of ‘gentlemen sportsmen’ from firing into
them, if they should happen along,” answered Enoch. “He isn’t expected
to do that; but Barr isn’t the only big-gunner on the bay, and if one of
that class should discover the flock, the watcher would say: ‘Those are
my ducks,’ and the other fellow, would sheer off and let them alone.
There’s honor even among duck-shooters, you know.”
“Enoch, give one of your low, shrill whistles,” said Barr, “and mebbe
that’ll make him show up.”
The boy complied with the request, and presently an answering whistle
came through the fog. Pete—that was the “partner’s” name—was on the
alert, but he did not know which way to go to find the sloop. Enoch
replied to all his signals, which were given at short intervals, and in
a few minutes his canoe shot out of the fog and came alongside. Its
occupant seemed surprised to find so large a crew aboard the sloop, but
he made no remark. He knew that Barr was much too suspicious to bring
any outsiders with him on an expedition like this unless he was sure
they could be trusted.
“Well,” said Barr, as his partner sprang over the rail and motioned to
Enoch to lend a hand in hauling his canoe aboard, “how is everything in
the river?”
“Everything is all right,” was the encouraging response. “The bed is
still there, but the wind is changing, and as soon as the fog begins to
lift and the tide to turn, they’ll be off.”
“Not all of ’em, I reckon,” answered Barr, with a laugh. “Seen anything
of the Magpie?”
Pete replied that he had seen her go toward Havre de Grace about eleven
o’clock that morning; and then Barr went on to tell how the officers had
searched his cabin and ground for the big gun he was to use that night,
interlarding his sentences with so many frightful imprecations and
threats against the boys who had been the cause of all his trouble, that
Lester shuddered while he listened. Still he wished it had been Don
Gordon, instead of Gus Egan, who had incurred the duck-shooter’s enmity.
“I shouldn’t care much what happened to him, so long as he wasn’t hurt,”
thought Lester. “I simply wish that his path and mine might never cross
each other again. I can’t bear the sight of him. I don’t want to see him
strutting around with those silver leaves on his shoulders, while I
haven’t so much as a corporal’s stripes to be happy over.”
As soon as Pete’s canoe had been hauled aboard, the sloop filled away on
her course. She had but a short distance farther to run, and at the end
of another half hour the sails were quietly lowered, and the
preparations for the coming slaughter were quickly completed. Barr’s
canoe was put into the water, the big gun lowered into it, and then the
duck-shooter stretched himself out flat on the bottom, and with a short
paddle, somewhat resembling a pudding-stick, in each hand, moved
silently away into the darkness.
“I don’t see any ducks,” whispered Lester, after he had tried in vain to
locate the flock.
“Neither do I; neither does Barr, yet,” replied Enoch. “But they are out
there somewhere. Now keep perfectly still, and stand by to lend a hand
with the sails the minute you hear the gun speak. After the ducks are
killed, we can’t pick them up and get away from here any too quick.”
“Why not?” asked Lester, who was trembling with excitement.
“How do we know but there may be a police-boat within hailing distance
of us?” asked Enoch, in reply. “If there is, she will come at us like a
hawk at a June bug, and we want to hold ourselves in readiness to run.”
“But if it should chance to be the Magpie, she could easily overhaul
us,” Jones remarked. “She goes by steam, while we have nothing but this
very light breeze to depend on.”
“She might catch us, and then again she might not,” said Enoch, who did
not seem to be at all uneasy. “This little sloop can be pushed ahead at
a pretty fair rate of speed with a pair of long sweeps, and this fog is
in our favor. The Magpie might have hard work to find us. We could hear
her exhaust, and that would make it easy for us to keep out of her way;
but we should move so silently that she couldn’t follow us.”
Enoch, who knew just what ought to be done and how to do it, assisted
Pete to get his canoe overboard, and then the boys leaned against the
rail and waited in silence to see what was going to happen. Barr had
been gone fully a quarter of an hour, and nothing had been heard of him;
but now a light shot up through the darkness, glowed brightly for a
moment and then disappeared. The boys could not tell where it came
from—they could only see its reflection in the fog.
“What was it?” whispered Jones.
“The flash of a dark-lantern,” answered Enoch. “Barr is trying to find
the ducks. Some hunters ignite a pinch of gun-powder, but a lantern is
much better because——”
Just then the air was rent by a terrific concussion, followed almost
instantly by a roar, which sounded so much like the noise made by an
approaching storm, that Lester could scarcely refrain from crying out,
so frightened was he. The first was the report of the big gun, and the
second was the tumult made by the survivors of the flock, as they arose
in the air and sought safety in flight. Jones and Lester were full of
questions, but Enoch and Pete could not stop to answer them. The latter
sprang into his canoe and paddled away with all speed, to assist in
picking up the ducks that had fallen before the murderous fire of Barr’s
blunderbuss, while Enoch ran forward and seized the jib halliards.
“Lend a hand here,” said he, in low but excited tones. “This is a
dangerous moment, and we must be ready to show our heels at an instant’s
warning. We have given notice over a wide stretch of country that we are
here, and if there are any police about, they will be along directly.
No, there were not millions in the flock, but there were thousands,
undoubtedly. I never heard such a roar of wings before.”
“What will Barr do with his ducks after he has picked them up?” inquired
Jones, as he gave a pull at the port sheet, while Enoch belayed the
halliard. “I should think he would be afraid to take them to market.”
“Oh, no, he won’t. He’ll take them up to Havre de Grace and sell them to
a man who will ship them north, or to Baltimore. Shall we go with him,
or go back to the Firefly and turn in for the night?”
“Didn’t you tell me that the detectives who are sent down here to break
up this night-shooting make their headquarters at Havre de Grace?” asked
Lester.
Enoch believed he had made some such remark.
“Then I say, let’s go back to the Firefly!” exclaimed Lester, who,
having seen one detective that day, did not want to see another, for
fear that he might ask some questions that he would not care to answer.
Enoch laughed at his fears, but agreed to go back, because there wasn’t
any fun to be seen in sailing twenty miles before a light breeze on a
dark night, just to see a boatload of ducks sold.
When the mainsail had been hoisted, Enoch went to the wheel, and the
sloop moved into the river to pick up the canoes, whose positions were
pointed out by occasional flashes of light from Barr’s lantern. Pete,
who was the first to come alongside, said, in response to Enoch’s
inquiries, that they had secured seven dozen and three birds. How many
had escaped to die of their wounds in the marshes, or to be eaten by
seagulls, weasels or foxes, Pete didn’t state. The “gentlemen
sportsmen,” of whom Enoch had so lightly spoken, always made it a point
to allow no injured bird to get away if they could help it; but these
two professionals did not belong to that class. They took care of the
dead, and left the wounded to look out for themselves.
“Eighty-seven birds at one fire!” exclaimed Lester, who was profoundly
astonished.
“That’s nothing,” replied Enoch. “The big gun I told you of this morning
has been known to knock over more than a hundred at one shot. Where’s
Barr?”
“Gone ashore to hide the gun,” answered Pete. “If you and your pardners
will help with these ducks, we’ll pick him up and get out of this as
quick as we know how.”
Enoch and his companions, who were quite as anxious to put a safe
distance between themselves and Bush River as Pete was, willingly
assisted him in unloading his canoe and stowing the ducks on board the
sloop. This work being done, they set out in search of Barr, who, having
concealed his gun so that he could easily find it again when he returned
from Havre de Grace, pulled the slide of his lantern now and then to
show them where he was. He was glad to let Enoch have his canoe to go
back to the Firefly, for it saved him the trouble of hiding it in the
marshes. Bold as he was, Barr would have thought twice before taking it
to Havre de Grace on board the sloop. If the officers who visited his
cabin that morning should happen to get a glimpse of it, they would know
what he had been doing, for the recoil-block, which was not there when
they saw the canoe, would condemn him at once.
When Barr sprang aboard his sloop, the boys dropped down into the canoe,
and the two crafts moved away in opposite directions, both reaching
their destinations without any mishap, but not without some exertion.
Barr spent a good deal of time in dodging the Magpie, whose familiar
exhaust betrayed her presence, and the boys were obliged to paddle
almost twice ten miles, following, as they did, all the windings of the
shore in order to keep their bearings. They were tired enough when they
climbed over the Firefly’s rail, and too sleepy to make up the bunks, so
they threw themselves down on the floor of the cabin, and with their
hats and boots for pillows, slept soundly until Barr’s hoarse voice
aroused them. They woke up long enough to hear him tell of his adventure
with the Magpie, and then went off into dream-land again, where they
stayed until nearly eight o’clock. By that time they were hungry, and
the remains of their lunch, supplemented by a “diamond back,” which Barr
roasted for them, only served to give them a sharper appetite for their
dinner. The duck-shooter was in excellent spirits. He and his partner
had made twenty dollars apiece by their night’s work. During the run
from Havre de Grace they had spied another big bed, and Pete had
remained behind to watch it. But this announcement did not tempt the
boys to stay and go out on another night expedition. They were all tired
and hungry, and two of them had seen as much of law-breakers and their
ways as they cared to see for some time to come; so they filled away for
home, passing close enough to the Sallie to see that she was still above
water, and that Egan and his guests were making ready to go somewhere in
her.
Enoch and his friends spent the rest of the day in doing nothing, and
very hard work they found it; but the day following brought excitement
with it, and much more than they wanted, too. As they could think of no
better way of passing the time, they set sail in the Firefly at an early
hour, intending to spend the day in camp on Powell’s Island, and to
knock over any ducks that might happen to come in their way; but their
hearts were not in the work, and the bag they took home with them was
not worth bragging about. Enoch and Jones, who were very fine shots,
managed to kill half a dozen birds between them, but Lester missed every
one he fired at. The day was raw and windy, and Lester, who did the most
of his shooting and fishing with his mouth, found much more pleasure in
hugging the camp-fire than he did in exposing himself to the keen
blasts, which could not have been a great deal colder if they had come
off an iceberg. He was glad when Enoch announced that it was time to go
home, but when he got there, he wished that he had gone as straight as
he could to Havre de Grace and taken the first train for Cairo. The
schooner had hardly stopped at her moorings when Barr appeared as if by
magic. The first hint they had of his presence was a low “how dy, boys,”
and, upon looking up, they saw him peering over the rail, to which he
held fast with both hands, in order to keep his canoe in position.
“Hallo!” exclaimed Enoch. “Where did you drop down from, and what do you
want here in broad day-light?”
“I have been in that there cove waiting for you, and I want to see
Brigham,” was the reply.
“What do you want to see me for?” demanded Lester, who was not a little
nettled by the man’s familiarity.
“Come over here, and I’ll tell you,” said the duck-shooter; and the way
he said it aroused the boys’ curiosity to the highest pitch. They moved
to the side, and Barr continued, as he nodded his head toward Enoch and
Jones: “You don’t mind if these fellers hear it, I suppose?”
“Certainly not,” answered Lester, whose surprise began to give way to
alarm. “I am perfectly willing they should hear anything you have to say
to me.”
“Well, then,” said Barr, and the boys afterward told one another that
there was something like a defiant ring in his voice as he uttered the
words, “I’ll trouble you for them thousand.”
“That thousand!” repeated Lester, with no suspicion of the truth in his
mind. “What thousand?”
“Have you forgot all about it so soon?” exclaimed Barr, angrily. “I
ain’t, if you have. I mean them thousand dollars you said you would give
if somebody would send that Don Gordon so far out’n the country that you
wouldn’t never see him no more. Remember it now, I reckon, don’t you?”
Lester was thunder-struck. He tried to speak, but the words he would
have uttered seemed to stick fast in his throat. He reeled as if Barr
had dealt him a stunning blow, and would have fallen to the deck if he
had not clung to the rail for support.
“Great Scott! what have you done?” cried Enoch, who was the first to
recover the use of his tongue.
“I’ve give Gus Egan something to busy himself with, so that he will have
no time to spend in running around and skeering away my ducks,” said
Barr, savagely. “He didn’t seem to know how to spend his vacation, but
he won’t be troubled that way no more.”
“But what have you done?” repeated Enoch. “And if you have been guilty
of any rascality, why do you come here to tell us of it? I am sure that
we are in no way interested in your affairs.”
“Ain’t you, now?” cried Barr, who seemed to be so sure of his ground
that even Enoch began to be frightened. “If you ain’t interested in the
matter, Brigham is, for a fact. He said he would be willing to pay
liberal if that Gordon boy was sent away, so’t he wouldn’t never see him
no more, and I——”
“And did you think I was in earnest when I said it?” Lester almost
shouted. He began to understand what the duck-shooter was trying to get
at, and his intense alarm took away all his strength and pretty near all
his wits. He sat down on the Firefly’s deck and looked about him as if
he were trying to make up his mind which way he could run first.
“Did I think you was in ’arnest?” repeated Barr. “Of course I did. If
you wasn’t, you had no business to say what you did. I have done the
work, and I want my money.”
“But what have you done?” said Enoch, again. “Where is Don Gordon now?”
“He’s on his way to Chiny,” was the astounding reply, “and he won’t come
back to trouble none of you for three long years, at least.”
“Then you kidnapped him and put him aboard a vessel?” said Enoch.
“I did, for a fact.”
“You didn’t hurt him?”
“Well, as to that, I can’t say for certain,” answered Barr,
reflectively. “He fought so uncommon hard that for a time it looked as
though he was going to whop the pair of us, and Pete had to quiet him
with a rap on the head. Pete afterward said he was sorry he teched him,
for he was pluck to the back-bone, and he’d bet he was a good feller.”
“Then why didn’t you let him go?” demanded Enoch, who did the most of
the talking. Jones and Lester were so nearly stunned by the startling
piece of news Barr had brought them, that they hardly knew what they
were doing.
“We couldn’t let him go, kase we’d gone too far,” replied the
duck-shooter. “He’d have taken the law on us the minute he got loose.
Now, Brigham, what are you going to do about it?”
“He won’t do anything about it,” said Enoch, who saw that Lester could
not speak for himself. “He didn’t tell you that he wanted Don Gordon
shanghaied and sent off to China, and if you have done any such mad work
as that, which I don’t believe, you need not expect him to pay you for
it.”
“That’s it,” cried Lester, who was quick to catch at the idea Enoch had
thrown out. “You never did it. You took advantage of some thoughtless
words we uttered yesterday, and have cooked up this story to extort
money from me. But you have reckoned without your host. I haven’t got a
thousand cents; so there, now.”
The duck-shooter’s eye had a dangerous look in it, but he answered very
calmly:
“You can’t creep out of no little hole like that. I done the work you
said you wanted done, and it won’t be long before you will hear somebody
else say so. After you have had time to find out that I have told you
the truth, I shall come for my money, and I expect to get it, too. I do,
for a fact.”
So saying, Barr sat down in his canoe and paddled away, leaving three
badly frightened boys behind him. They were so bewildered that they
could not think clearly. The only facts they could grasp were that Don
Gordon had been kidnapped and shipped off to China, and that Barr wanted
a thousand dollars for it. Enoch, as before, was the first to speak.
“Lester,” said he, “if that man told the truth, I wouldn’t be in your
boots for all the money there is in America.”
“Neither would I,” Jones managed to articulate.
“I never said ‘thousand dollars’ to him once,” exclaimed Lester, with a
little show of spirit. “I don’t believe he would dare do such a thing,
any way.”
“You don’t know that man. There’s nothing he dare not do if he thinks
there is money in it. But we shall soon know the truth,” said Enoch, in
a trembling voice. “Here comes the Sallie!”
Jones and Lester looked up, and sure enough there was Egan’s cutter
coming down before a brisk breeze, with all her canvas spread. There was
something aggressive in the way she cut through the water, headed
directly for the schooner, and Lester’s heart sank within him, while his
head sank below the rail.
“I think myself that the best thing you can do is to keep out of sight,”
said Enoch. “Egan wants to speak to us, and one glimpse of your face
would betray you, as sure as you’re a foot high.”
Enoch’s face was a good deal whiter than it usually was, but he had the
nerve to carry him through an ordeal that Lester could not have braved
to save his life. He pretended to be at work at something about the
windlass, and when the expected hail came he was ready to answer it.