LOST IN THE MARSHES.
We left Don and his party grumbling over the ill luck that had attended
their efforts to entice the big flock of ducks they found off Powell’s
Island within range of their double-barrels; and Bogus, ole Eph’s
stump-tailed yellow dog, which had so faithfully performed his allotted
task, trying to make them understand that it was through no fault of his
that the wild fowl had gone off without giving them a chance for a shot.
Egan accused his friends of showing the tops of their hats above the
grass, but recalled the words when he discovered the Firefly coming
around the head of the island. Egan was not aware that her crew had come
down there on purpose to keep an eye on him and his party, but such we
know to be the fact.
There being no more ducks in sight for Bogus to try his arts upon, Egan
proposed that they should take a short sail, and then go back to Eph’s
cabin and dine upon the terrapins which the old negro had been
instructed to have ready for them; but just then a flock of shore birds
flew over, and at the suggestion of Hopkins, who thought a few willets
would make an acceptable addition to their dinner, they shouldered their
guns and set out in pursuit of them. It was while they were walking
along the beach that they found Barr’s big gun, which lay at the foot of
a tree, covered with bushes and calamus grass. In the effort he made to
step over it, Curtis kicked away some of the grass, thus exposing the
stock of the gun to his astonished gaze.
“What in the name of all that’s wonderful is this?” he exclaimed,
backing away from the weapon as if he were afraid of it. “Why, Egan, I
believe it is one of those big guns you told us about last night.”
It did not take Egan long to kick away the rest of the grass, and then
he and Curtis got under the gun and raised it to a perpendicular, so
that everybody in the party could have a good look at it. They examined
it with the liveliest curiosity, walking around it and viewing it from
all sides; and there was the crew of the Firefly, watching their
movements through a spy-glass, and eager to report them to the owner of
the gun, who was in his sink-box a few miles above.
“What are you going to do with it?” asked Bert, after he and the rest
had looked the ponderous weapon over so closely that they were sure they
would know a big gun the next time they saw one.
“I’d like to sink it so deep in the bay that nobody would ever find it
again,” replied Egan. “But not being an officer, I have no right to
touch it.”
“Is that steamer signaling to us?” asked Don.
Egan looked up and saw the Magpie approaching. Near the pilot-house
stood a boy, who would flourish his handkerchief in the air for a minute
or two, and then raise a pair of binoculars to his eyes to see if his
motions had attracted the attention of the boys on shore.
“Hop, that’s Bob Hart,” said he, after he had taken a good look at the
boy; and then he and Hopkins took off their hats and waved them over
their heads. “He’s a Baltimore lad,” added Egan, by way of explanation,
“and his father is captain of that boat.”
It would seem, from this, that Egan did not wave his hat to draw the
Magpie’s attention to Barr’s big gun, but simply to return the salute
that had been given him by his friend, Bob Hart; but still the
police-boat came in and took charge of the gun, because Bob, or somebody
else, told the officer in command what it was that Egan and Curtis were
holding in their hands. We may add, too, that Egan did not say one word
to arouse suspicion against Enoch. The latter had done that long ago, by
allowing himself to be so often seen in Barr’s company.
After the big gun had been taken on board the Magpie, and Enoch had gone
back to report the matter to the man in the sink-boat, Egan and his
guests resumed their search for the shore birds. They found them at
last, and they proved so tame that Don wouldn’t fire at them at all,
declaring that he would just as soon go into Mr. Egan’s barn-yard and
shoot chickens. He would find quite as much sport in it; but Hopkins,
who wasn’t thinking of sport, but of a good dinner, banged away as often
as the opportunity was presented, and at the end of half an hour had
filled his game-bag.
When Enoch made his unsuccessful attempt to give the Sallie up to the
mercy of the elements, Egan and his friends, having passed an hour or
two very pleasantly in the parlor with music and social converse, were
assembled in their room, listening to the roaring of the wind and the
beating of the sleet against the windows, while they discussed various
plans for the following day. The report of Sam’s musket brought them to
their feet and sent them down stairs at headlong speed. In the yard they
found Mr. Egan, who was looking anxiously around, half expecting to see
some of his buildings in flames.
“Barr is at work already,” said he, as the boys came out. “He is going
to pay you off for meddling with that big gun of his.”
“Well, if he will only settle with me and let your property alone, I
don’t care,” replied Gus. “Sam was the fellow who gave the alarm. Let’s
go down and see what he shot at.”
The boys were much relieved to find that Sam’s vigilance had saved the
cutter from harm, but they did not sleep very soundly that night. The
Sallie was the first thing that came into their minds when they awoke in
the morning. They went aboard of her as soon as they were dressed, but
could find nothing to indicate that any one had been near her during the
night.
“I say, Sam,” shouted Egan to the sentinel, who was getting ready to go
ashore after his breakfast, “you must have been dreaming last night.”
“Look a yer, Marse Gus,” replied the negro, “if I dream dat I see a yarl
go pas’ yer las’ night with three men in yer, de dogs done dream de
same, kase dey growl, an’ dat’s what make me look ober de rail—yes, sah.
Somebody was da’ suah, kase I done seed ’em.”
This was the day that Enoch and his party spent at the duck-shooter’s
cabin, but Egan and his party devoted it to glass-ball shooting in the
forenoon, and to quail-shooting in the afternoon. This was done at the
request of Walter Curtis, who had developed a remarkable fondness for
quail on toast. The next day was to be given up to Hopkins, who was
eager to secure a white swan, like the one which had led Egan that long
race in his cutter, and that was why the latter suggested a week’s
encampment on Spesutia Island. It would be little or no trouble for such
a rifle-shot as Curtis to bring down a specimen now, Egan said, but if
they waited until the upper end of the bay and its estuaries were frozen
over, and the birds driven into the open water, it would be next to an
impossibility to get a shot at one. Like all the wild fowl in Chesapeake
Bay, they had learned how to calculate the range of a duck-gun, and knew
enough to keep just beyond reach of it. When Enoch, Jones, and Lester
sailed by on their way home from the duck-shooter’s cabin, Egan’s party
was getting ready to start for the island. If Barr had stayed at home,
or if the Sallie had kept away from Conesus Creek, Don Gordon would not
have been shanghaied; but Barr was so anxious to put in another good
night’s work among the ducks before he received a second visit from the
police, and so very much afraid that the Magpie might intercept him
while he was on his way to the creek, that he thought it best to get as
close to his shooting-ground as he could before dark. The boys reached
the creek before he did, and frightened away the ducks. Although he was
at least three miles distant when it happened, Barr saw the flock as it
arose from the water, and the way he stamped about the deck of his
sloop, and threatened vengeance upon those who had spoiled his night’s
work for him, was fearful. Half an hour later he picked up Pete, who,
now that there was nothing to keep him longer in the creek, had started
for home.
“Who done it?” demanded Barr, as he assisted his partner to haul his
canoe aboard the sloop.
“Who do you ’spose?” growled Pete, in reply. “It was nobody but that
oneasy Gus Egan and the fellers what’s stopping at his house. They tried
to make me believe that they didn’t go for to skeer the ducks, but that
they was after some swans they had seen a little furder up the bay.”
Barr was furious when he learned that Egan had been prowling around
again just at the wrong time, and without knowing what he was going to
do when he got there, he filled away for the creek, declaring, with much
flourishing of his fists, that he would square yards with Egan before he
saw the sun rise again.
About the time Barr left his cabin, Egan and his party were running into
trouble without knowing it. They were going to spend a week in camp, as
we have said, their first object, of course, being to see all the sport
they could; and the second, to shoot swans enough so that each one of
Egan’s guests could take a specimen or two home with him. The cutter had
not been under way more than half an hour, when Egan, whose eyes were
everywhere, suddenly called out:
“There’s a whiteness!”
“What’s a whiteness?” inquired Curtis, after he had looked all around
without seeing anything.
“I should think you ought to know,” replied Hopkins, as he reached for
the binoculars, which lay on the cushions near him. “Have you forgotten
that once upon a time you told me that I was not much of a sportsman,
because I spoke of a ‘flock’ of quails, when I should have said ‘covey’?
I have since learned that you were wrong, as well as I. The word ‘covey’
is applied only to partridges; and as there are no partridges in this
country, it cannot properly be used.”
“What is the word, then?” asked Curtis.
“Bevy,” answered Hopkins.
“Now, what’s the use of splitting hairs?” exclaimed Egan. “You seldom
hear those terms used, even by our best educated sportsmen.”
“I am not ignorant of that fact; but I insist that Curtis shall be right
himself, before he sets himself up for a teacher. A ‘whiteness,’ my dear
fellow,” said Hopkins, blandly, “is a flock of swans. Just cast your eye
about two points off the starboard bow, and you will see them.”
The boys looked in the direction indicated, and saw a large flock of
birds about two or three miles away; and, what was very singular, they
appeared to be floating in the air, a few feet above the surface of the
water, and not in the water itself. The clear, pure atmosphere must have
served as a magnifying glass, for they looked larger than the huge
retriever which Egan had brought with him.
“How big would an ostrich look at that distance, and under the same
conditions?” asked Bert, after they had all taken a survey of the flock
through the binoculars.
“As big as an elephant,” answered Hopkins. “Now, the next thing is
something else. How are we going to get a shot at them?”
“That’s the hardest part of it,” replied Egan. “They are the shyest
birds in the world, and they can tell the difference between a rifle and
a gun-shot as well as you can; at least that is what you will say after
you have hunted them a few times. We can’t get within range of them with
a boat—they are much too smart to allow that—so we will hide the cutter
in a creek I know of, a little distance above here, and take to the
marshes on foot. The one who is the best at creeping through cold water
that is anywhere from six inches to two feet deep, is the one who will
stand the best chance of getting a shot at them.”
It was while he was trying to find a hiding-place for his cutter that
Egan, to his no small amazement, ran into and frightened away Barr’s
ducks. We say he ran into them, and that is what any one living in that
country would have said; but the words must not be taken literally. The
mouth of the creek was in reality a bay, about two miles wide and half
as deep, and the middle of this bay was black with ducks. With a great
splashing of water and fluttering of wings they took flight the instant
the Sallie showed her nose around the point, so that the boys did not
really come within rifle-shot of them. Egan and his companions watched
them as they winged their way toward the open water, and finally Don
said:
“What a chance that would have been for Barr to-night, if he had known
they were here!”
“Don’t you suppose he knew it?” inquired Egan. “Of course he did. He
makes it his business to keep posted on such matters, and unless I am
very much mistaken, we shall hear from him or his partner before we get
a pop at those swans. What did I tell you?” he added, an hour later, as
the cutter was running down the shore of the bay toward the creek.
“There’s Pete, now.”
The others looked in the direction toward which Egan inclined his head,
and saw a man pushing a canoe out of the marsh. He shook his paddle at
them as they passed, and called out, in angry tones:
“Are you ever going to learn to mind your own business, Gus Egan? You
are always around when you are not wanted.”
“That’s what Barr told me the other day,” replied Egan, pleasantly. “But
if the ducks will persist in bunching where I want to go, I don’t see
how I can keep from scaring them away.”
“I was just getting ready to set out my decoys, and you have cheated me
out of a day’s wages,” continued Pete.
“I am sorry for that, but I didn’t know they were here,” said Egan. “I
ran in to get a shot at some swans we saw up the bay. That story about
the decoys is too thin, altogether,” he added, in a lower tone. “Ducks
don’t decoy when they are bunched, but only when they are flying. If we
hadn’t run in here Barr would have come up to-night with his big gun,
and there would have been another slaughter of the innocents.”
The presence of the duck-shooter was a warning to Egan that he had
better make sure work in hiding his cutter, or else leave a strong force
to guard her; and as he did not want to forego the pleasure of a shot at
the swans himself, or ask any of his friends to do it, he ran as far
into the creek as the wind would carry him, and made the Sallie fast to
a couple of trees that grew close to the water’s edge. This being done,
the canoe was brought into requisition. It was pushed through the heavy
grass until solid ground was reached, and then the young wild fowlers
began their weary work of stalking the swans. After Egan had warned them
that they would surely get lost if they were not careful to keep their
bearings, they separated, and in less than two minutes after leaving the
canoe they were out of sight and hearing of one another. Each one
decided for himself which way he ought to go to find the game, and made
the best speed he could in that direction, regardless of any obstacles
that lay in his path. Don made exceedingly bad work of it. His knowledge
of wood-craft was by no means insignificant, but he had never before
traveled through a wilderness of reeds and grass; and as there was
literally nothing by which he could direct his course, he became
bewildered, and, like every one else in a similar predicament, he began
grumbling at the sun for being in the wrong quarter of the heavens.
“The sun was just about at meridian when we tied up in the creek,” he
soliloquized, “and he ought, by rights, to be setting towards the west;
but instead of that, he is going north. I’ll not trust him, for I am
sure that Chesapeake Bay lies off in this direction.”
So saying, he turned and went as straight away from it as he could go.
He plunged headlong through the thick grass and reeds, paying no heed to
the severe scratches his hands and face received, floundered through
water that was waist deep, and at the end of half an hour drew up before
a little negro cabin, his advent being welcomed by two fierce dogs,
which would certainly have laid hold of him had it not been for his
double-barrel. They knew there was death in the black muzzles he turned
toward them, and so kept at a respectful distance. Their angry barks and
growls brought the owner of the cabin to the door. He was a thick-set,
ruffianly-looking man, and when Don’s gaze rested on him he told himself
that it was a lucky thing for him that he had not come in there without
a gun.
“Hallo, uncle,” said he, cheerfully. “Where am I?”
“Whar is you?” repeated the negro, in sullen tones.
“Yes. I want to find my way to the bay; in which direction shall I go?
There’s a dollar for you. Perhaps that will loosen your tongue,” said
Don, who saw that the negro didn’t care to talk to him. He did not even
thank him for the coin which fell at his feet; but he picked it up and
said, as he pointed to a well-beaten path that led into the reeds:
“Go dat a way, an’ hit’ll take you plumb to de bay. Don’t turn to de
right han’ nor to de lef’, kase if you do, you’ll get los’ suah. Au’
don’t come hyar no mo’, nudder.”
“I won’t,” replied Don. “That man has been up to something,” he said to
himself, as he shouldered his gun and hurried along the path. “If he is
hiding there to escape arrest, I am glad that I am in no danger of being
called upon to serve a warrant on him, for he looks to me like a bad
darkey.”
While Don was trying hard to convince himself that the path he was
following led toward the bay, and not directly away from it, he was
hurrying forward at his best pace. The path was very crooked, for it
kept to the high ground all the way, and the turns in it were many and
abrupt. As he ran around one of these turns, he came face to face with a
couple of men who were making equally good time in the opposite
direction; that is, they were going toward the cabin Don had just left.
He was so close upon them that if they had not stopped on the instant,
as he did, he and the foremost man would have run against each other.
The surprise on both sides was great. One of the men turned part way
around, as if he had a good mind to take to his heels, while the other,
quickly recovering himself, laid hold of Don’s gun with both hands. Then
the boy began to believe that he was going to see trouble. He took a
second look at the repulsive face that was scarcely more than a foot
away from his own, and recognized in it the features of Barr, the
professional big-gunner.
Did the latter recognize him also, and did he mean to punish him for
being on board the cutter when she frightened away the ducks?
“Look here,” said Don, without the least tremor in his voice, “I’ll
trouble you to let go my gun. What do you intend to do? I know who you
are, and——”
“And I know who you are, too,” interrupted Barr; and there was something
in the way he uttered the words which made Don see very plainly that he
might as well prepare for the worst. “You are one of the chaps who runs
around with Gus Egan, taking the bread out of poor men’s mouths—dog-gone
you; that’s who you be. Your name’s Gordon, ain’t it?”
“What’s that to you?” replied Don. “Let go my gun!”
“Yes, I reckon you’re the feller I’ve been looking for,” continued Barr,
“and I’m going to put you where you won’t never bother hard-working men
who are trying to make an honest living.”
[Illustration: DON IN THE HANDS OF THE DUCK-SHOOTERS.]
The duck-shooter had been a little uncertain as to the boy’s identity,
but the way Don answered his question, set all his fears at rest. When
he seized the gun he did not know who it was that was confronting him.
Like all guilty men, he was easily startled, and Don’s sudden and wholly
unexpected appearance frightened him almost out of his wits; but when he
found that his path had been blocked by a boy and not by a
police-officer, his courage came back to him, and he was about to let go
his hold upon the double-barrel, when Lester Brigham’s hasty words came
into his mind. When he told Don that he was about to put him where he
would never again trouble hard-working men who were trying to make an
honest living, he made a sudden effort to twist the gun out of his
grasp; but, to his intense amazement, he found himself jerked clear off
the ground and thrown headlong into the reeds and out of the path, where
the water was two feet deep. Turning the butt of his weapon to the
front, Don rushed upon Pete, intending to knock him out of his way and
take to his heels; but that move was fatal to him. Pete was quicker than
Barr, and besides, he was on the alert. Like a flash he dodged the
vicious blow which Don aimed at his face, and springing up again under
his guard, struck him, with stunning force, on the head, felling him to
the ground. His gun dropped from his hands, and he lay so still where he
had fallen that Barr, who was in a towering rage when he crawled out of
the water, grew frightened while he looked at him.
“I’ll jest tell you what’s a fact, Pete,” said he. “You whacked him too
hard.”
“No, I reckon not,” answered the other. “Ketch hold of him, and we’ll
souse him in the water and bring him to life again. Them thousand
dollars are our’n.”
Barr was a coward as well as a professional lawbreaker, and if he had
been alone he would have fled at the top of his speed, leaving Don to
recover or to remain insensible, as the fates might decree; but Peter
wasn’t that sort. Barr had told him of the money that Lester Brigham was
willing to give to any one who would send Don so far out of the country
that he would never come back again; and Pete didn’t see why they should
not earn it, now that it was in their power to do so. In accordance with
his suggestion, Barr took hold of one foot while Pete held fast to the
other, and by their united efforts, Don was pushed out of the path and
churned up and down in the cold water, until he began to show signs of
returning consciousness. Then he was hauled up again, feet first, Pete
threw him over his shoulder as if he had been an infant, and the worthy
pair retraced their steps toward the beach.
Don had a dim idea of what was going on, but he was powerless to resist.
His head felt as if it were about to burst, his strength was all gone;
but in courage he was as undaunted as ever. He knew when he was put into
Barr’s canoe and taken off to the sloop, which lay at anchor a short
distance from the shore; and he heard, as in a dream, his abductors talk
about shipping him off for Cuba on a coaster that was to sail from Havre
de Grace that night; but for reasons of their own, which Don could not
understand, owing to the fuddled state of his brain, they were going to
make Brigham believe that they had sent him off to China. This gave the
prisoner a vague idea that he was the victim of a plot, but he did not
try to get at the bottom of it. On the contrary, he fell asleep while
his captors were lifting him over the side of the sloop.
When Don awoke it was dark, and he was lying on a rough bunk in the
sloop’s cabin. Barr was standing at the top of the companion-ladder in
such a position that he could keep an eye on Don, and at the same time
listen to the conversation that was carried on between Pete and a man
whom Don could not see.
“It’s a business that I don’t like to meddle with,” Don heard the
invisible man say.
“’Tain’t no wuss than other things that you’ve done more’n a hundred
times,” answered Pete. “He’s a teetotal stranger in these parts, and not
one of his friends knows where he is. You can sign the articles for him,
and sw’ar that he was shipped all squ’ar and reg’lar, can’t you? If you
don’t want to bring him back from Havanny, why, you needn’t to.”
“But my bunks in the forecastle are all full,” said the voice. “Where
can I stow him?”
“Put him in the cabin till you call him up for duty, and arterwards let
him stow himself o’ nights,” said Pete. “If you don’t do it, who’ll
ketch your cigars for this trip?”
“Well, I suppose I shall have to do it,” replied the voice, which
belonged to the captain of a coaster, who now and then turned a penny in
the line of smuggling. “Bring him aboard.”
Pete at once came down the ladder, and Don, who, during his sleep, had
been bound so tightly with ropes that he could not move hand or foot,
was carried to the deck and hoisted aboard the coaster. The mate, who
came to the side at that moment, was informed, in response to his
inquiries, that Don was a sailor-man, who had signed the articles all
right and square, but had made up his mind, at the last moment, that he
didn’t want to go to Havana.
“Tried to desert, did he?” said the mate, with a grim smile. “I’ll make
him wish he hadn’t before this run is over. You didn’t knock him dead,
did you? I see he’s got a fearful bump over his eye.”
Pete hastened to assure the mate that Don would be all right by the time
his services were required on deck, and then he and Barr carried him
into the cabin and tumbled him into one of the bunks.