THE RED-HEADED BANDIT
Well, as soon as Jibby Jones got the map, we went down to the lower end
of the island, and we saw the Tough Customer’s shanty-boat floating out
of the slough and on down the river, and then we went back.
Orpheus Cadwallader and Wampus’s Uncle Oscar went back to the cottages,
and we boys began looking for dead fish where we had left off, and as we
looked we talked about the Tough Customer and the Rat and the land
pirate’s treasure. We did not study the map then, because it was soaking
wet. Jibby Jones pinned it inside his hat, so it could dry out there.
As we went along, Skippy and Tad and Wampus told me what they had heard
the Tough Customer say to the Rat, and what they had heard the Rat say
to the Tough Customer, and when they had told it all, Wampus said to me:
“George, I’ll bet the man the Tough Customer stole the map from was the
Red-Headed Bandit that tried to steal Rover last year. Because,
listen--the Red-Headed Bandit had a scar over his eye, didn’t he?”
“You bet he did!” I said. And all of a sudden I had a scared feeling, as
if there was danger and mystery all around me and I knew it, but
couldn’t see where or what it was exactly. You get the same feeling,
sometimes, when you are walking through a big patch of weeds, taller
than your head, and all of a sudden you hear a queer noise to the left
of you, and a queer noise to the right of you, and then a cobweb strikes
you across the face and sticks there, and you hear another queer noise
behind you. That’s how I felt now--as if there was queerness and mystery
all around our island. Because here was the Red-Headed Bandit in this
pirate’s treasure business, and I had never thought of the Red-Headed
Bandit as anything much.
The business of the Red-Headed Bandit was like this: A year ago, the
year before Jibby Jones came to our island, my sister May was going to
be married to Mr. Edwin Skreever, of Derlingport, Iowa, on September
11th, in the evening. They were going to be married at our house down in
town--in Riverbank--and from the way May and mother talked about it you
would think it was going to be grand and lovely and everything. So May
said to mother:
“Well, I suppose George and Wampus will have to be at the wedding, but I
tremble to think of it. I know they will do some awful thing and spoil
everything, but I suppose they will have to be there.”
May knew mighty well I wouldn’t go to her wedding or to anybody’s
wedding unless Wampus went, too. We always go together.
“We’ll just have to hope for the best,” mother said.
“Well, there is one thing certain,” May said, “I’m not going to have
those two boys down there until the last possible moment. When we go
down to make the preparations, I want them left up here on the island
where they will be out of mischief.”
That suited me, all right! I didn’t want to go down and have May nagging
at me with her “Do keep your hands off that, George!” and “Please don’t
touch that, George!”
We had been up there on Birch Island all summer--our family and Wampus
Smale’s family and a dozen other families--living in the cottages on
stilts and having a good time on the island and on the good old
Mississippi. So, about the 1st of September, most of the families went
back down to town, but our family and the Smales did not. They waited a
few days longer.
Just about then--about the 1st of September--Mr. Edwin Skreever came
down from Derlingport in his motor-boat to visit with us until the
wedding. I don’t say I liked him much; neither did Wampus. Maybe he was
all right, but he was no fun. He thought he was wonderful, I guess, and
May thought so, but he was too haughty to suit me. I guess he didn’t
like boys much and he thought he had to be severe and solemn with them.
He acted as if he thought he might die if the creases got out of his
trousers. He had no use for my dog, either. He was always saying: “Down!
Lie down! Get down! Get out!” to Rover. He did not like him.
You see, Rover is a pretty big dog and affectionate. He would rush up to
Mr. Edwin Skreever and jump up on him and try to kiss him on the face.
Sometimes he would get one paw on Mr. Edwin Skreever’s necktie and one
paw on his collar, and sometimes he would get one paw on Mr. Edwin
Skreever’s vest and the other sort of tangled in his watch-chain. Then
Mr. Edwin Skreever would whack at him and say: “Get down you beast!” But
not when May was handy.
Rover was my dog, because May had given him to me, but he was May’s dog,
too, because Mr. Jack Betts had given him to May. I never knew when
Rover was my dog and when he was May’s dog, because girls are mostly
Indian givers. When she wanted to pet Rover and take him walking, he was
May’s dog--so she claimed--but when Rover howled or needed to be fed,
May would say: “For goodness’ sake, George, attend to that dog of
yours!”
I guess one reason Mr. Edwin Skreever did not care much for Rover was
because Mr. Jack Betts had given him to May. I guess Mr. Edwin Skreever
was jealous, because when Mr. Jack Betts gave Rover to May everybody
thought Mr. Jack Betts was the one she was going to be married to.
Well, no matter! I only want to tell you the awful fix Wampus and I got
into on account of being left up there on the island where we would be
out of mischief.
On the 9th of September Parcell came up in his big motor-launch and took
May and mother and the Smales all down to town to get ready for May’s
wedding. So they left Mr. Edwin Skreever on the island with me and
Wampus, because we could go down in Mr. Edwin Skreever’s motor-boat on
the 11th, which was the wedding day. I guess they were almost as glad to
have Mr. Edwin Skreever out of the way as they were to have me and
Wampus out of the way.
That left nobody on the island but us three and Orpheus Cadwallader, who
is the caretaker and stays on the island all winter. He was to close up
our cottage when we left.
So that was all right. The last thing May said before she got aboard
Parcell’s launch was:
“Now, George, you be sure you don’t let Rover wander off somewhere so
you can’t bring him down when you come. You had better tie him up.”
I’ve told you about Rover, and how he would wander for miles around the
island, and even swim across to Oak Island and wander there, hunting a
dead fish to perfume himself with.
The only way to keep him from wandering after dead fish was to tie him
up, and then he howled all night. That was his second bad habit, and it
was almost worse than dead fish. He was the loudest and saddest howler I
ever heard. When you tied him up, he would sit down on his haunches and
put his nose up and open his mouth and just let loose all the agony of
all the dogs that ever suffered pain or sorrow from the days of Adam
right on to to-day. And loudly, too. When Rover really got interested in
howling, you could hear him five miles.
The only thing in Riverbank or anywhere near it that made as much noise
as Rover’s howl was Mr. Jack Betts’s motor-boat. His motor-boat was a
speed boat and was called the Skittery III, because Mr. Jack Betts had
run the Skittery I and the Skittery II onto snags and mashed them to
splinters. I guess that was one reason why May did not want to marry Mr.
Jack Betts--she was afraid he would mash himself to splinters some day.
A husband that is mashed to splinters is not much use around the house.
Mr. Edwin Skreever used to say:
“That’s Jack Betts all over! He uses a barrel of gasoline every time he
takes out that boat of his--fourteen dollars to risk his life for ten
miles of idiotic speed, and he hasn’t a dollar in the bank! Twenty-seven
years old and not a dollar to his name!”
Even father would not ride in the Skittery III. It was a much faster
boat than the others and could make thirty-five miles an hour upstream
on our old Mississippi, and that is some speed! When it was going full
tilt the Skittery III stood up on about three inches of the stern end of
its keel and simply skittered on the water, and all twelve cylinders
screamed. It made more noise than forty airplanes. It made more noise
than ten planing mills. I never knew anything that made such a noise.
And go? Mr. Jack Betts and his chauffeur had to wear leather helmets to
keep the wind from blowing the hair right off their heads. Father said
that if the boat ever took a nose dive it would ram itself so deep into
the bottom of the water that Jack Betts would have to go around to China
and pull it the rest of the way through--only there wouldn’t be any Jack
Betts to go to China.
Well, about four o’clock on September 10th we heard a noise down the
river that sounded like forty-seven sawmills and we knew Mr. Jack Betts
was starting the Skittery III. Town is four miles down river and in
about a minute the Skittery III came roaring up into our chute and Mr.
Jack Betts shut off the power and taxied in to the shore of our island.
He had a note for Mr. Edwin Skreever, and it was from May. Mr. Jack
Betts stood around and asked if there was any answer. Mr. Edwin Skreever
said there was not--that May only wanted him to go down a little earlier
the next day than she had told him before. He was rather stiff about it,
and Mr. Jack Betts was just as stiff, and after a minute or two Mr. Jack
Betts went down and got into the Skittery III and skittered back to
town.
Wampus and I sat on the rocks of the ripraps in front of our cottage and
watched the Skittery III skitter. Old Rover was there, piling all over
us, and we kept pushing him away and telling him to sit down. Every now
and then he would tangle us in the rope that was tied to his collar.
“You had better tie up that dog,” Mr. Edwin Skreever said. “If he
wanders off to-night, you may not have him to-morrow.”
Now, just notice how things happen in this world sometimes. Mr. Edwin
Skreever was on the porch of our cottage, behind the wire screens where
the mosquitoes could not get at him, and he was not very quiet. I guess
he was thinking of how he would have to be married the next day. Anyway,
he was walking up and down the porch, putting his hands into his pockets
and taking them out again. Every minute or so he would say something to
us, as a man does when he is nervous. First he would tell us to tie up
the dog, then he would say he hoped the dog did wander away, and that he
would be glad if he never saw the dog again.
“And just you let me tell you one thing!” he said. “I’m not going to
have that dog jumping all over me at my wedding. I’m not going to have
that dog clawing all over me and clawing all over May and making a
general nuisance of himself. And I won’t have him tied up and howling.
I’m not going to let that dog spoil my wedding. You understand that!”
I just said “Aw!” and went on talking with Wampus and wrestling with
Rover. So, in a little while, the Bright Star came along down the river
with a couple of Government barges loaded with willows. There are not
many boats on the river now, so Wampus and I looked at the Bright Star
as she went by, and when she reached the lower end of our island she
veered in and laid the two barges alongside the ripraps. The men ran a
couple of cables ashore and made the two barges fast by hitching the
cables to a couple of trees and then the Bright Star sheered off and
crossed the chute and went out of sight behind Buffalo Island, across
the chute. It was no fun sitting where we were listening to Mr. Edwin
Skreever scold, so Wampus and I got up and went down the path to take a
look at the two barges.
They were like plenty of other Government barges we had seen. These two
had their numbers painted on them--“U.S. 420” and “U.S. 426”--and they
were seventeen feet wide and eighty-two feet long. Wampus and I had been
in and over those very two barges more than once. We knew just how they
were made and all about them.
The two barges, as they lay along the shore there, were piled high with
cut willows. The Government men cut the willows where they grow at the
lower ends of islands and take them on the barges to places where they
are repairing dams or ripraps. They throw the willows on the dams, butt
end upstream, and dump rocks on them. Ripraps along the banks are made
that same way. It is not often you see two barges alone; the steamer
usually tows four or six at a time. All these barges are decked over.
The decks are made of four-inch planks, and at each end of this flooring
are two hatches, with lids. When nobody is around to order a fellow off
the barges, he can pull up these hatch covers and get inside the barges.
The inside of one of those barges is not much of a place to be in. When
you go down through the hatch, you see that the inside is damp, with
maybe three or four inches of water in it, and a smell of tar or oakum.
It is about five feet from the bottom boards to the floorboards, so a
fellow can stand up there, but he can’t run much because there are
criss-cross braces. Neither is the inside of a barge one big room. Two
great, thick bulkheads, or wooden walls, run lengthwise of the barge and
cut it into three narrow halls--as you might call them--eighty feet long
and about five feet wide.
These two barges were pretty well loaded with willows. One of them was
loaded from the tip of its bow to the end of its stern--willows piled
ten or twelve feet high. The other, the “U.S. 420,” was almost as well
loaded, but not quite.
So Wampus and I stood looking at the barges and we thought maybe we
would climb aboard and climb on the willows and have some fun, but, when
we were going to, a man we hadn’t seen sat up and looked at us. He had
red hair and a scar over one eye. And that was the first we saw of the
Red-Headed Bandit.