FOLLOWING THE TRAIL.
The next morning, when Winn opened his eyes after the first night of
undisturbed sleep he had enjoyed since leaving home, he was for a
moment greatly puzzled to account for his surroundings. His bed had
been made down in the exhibition hall on two benches drawn close
together, and as he awoke, he found himself staring at a most
marvellous painting that occupied the full height and nearly the entire
width of the stage at the farther end of the hall. It was a lurid
scene, but so filled with black shadows that to a vivid imagination it
might represent any one of many things. While the boy was wondering if
the young woman in yellow who appeared in the upper corner of the
picture, with outstretched arms and dishevelled hair, was about to
commit suicide by flinging herself from the second story of the
factory, and only hesitated for fear of crushing the badly frightened
young man in red who from the street below had evidently just
discovered his peril, a door opened, and his host of the evening before
tiptoed into the room.
The expression "tiptoed" is here used to indicate the extreme caution
of Cap'n Cod's entrance, and his evident desire to effect it as
noiselessly as possible. As he could only tiptoe on one foot, however,
and had neglected to muffle the iron-shod peg that served him in place
of the other, his progress was attended with more than its usual amount
of noise. He appeared relieved to find Winn awake, and advancing with
a cordial greeting, he laid the boy's own clothing, now cleaned and
dried, within his reach. "I should have sent Solon in with these," he
explained, "but for fear he might make a noise that would rouse you,
and I noticed last evening that you were sadly in need of sleep. So,
if you had not been awake, I should have stolen away as noiselessly as
I entered, and left you to have your nap out. Now, however, I think
you had better come to breakfast, for Sabella and I finished ours some
time ago."
"Thank you, sir," said Winn. "I will be out in half a minute; but will
you please explain that painting? I have been studying it ever since I
woke."
"That," replied the Captain, with an accent of honest pride, "is what I
consider one of my _chef-dovers_. I term it a 'Shakespearian
composite.' In order to please the tastes of certain audiences, I
shall describe it as the balcony scene between Romeo and Juliet. Yon
may note Romeo's mandolin lying at his feet, while over the whole falls
the melancholy light of a full moon rising behind the palace. To suit
a less-intelligent class, it would perhaps be described as the escape
of a Turkish captive by leaping from the upper floor of the Sultan's
seraglio into the arms of her gallant rescuer, who would be American,
British, French, German, or Spanish, according to the predominating
nationality of my audience. Or it might be called 'A Thrilling
Incident of the Great New York Fire,' in which case Juliet's moonlight
would be spoken of as 'devastating flames,' and Romeo's mandolin would
figure as a fireman's helmet. It is a painting of infinite
possibilities, any one of which may be impressed upon an audience by a
judiciously selected title and the skilful directing of their
imagination. Although I am proud of this picture, I have a number of
other 'composites' that are even more startling than this in the
variety of scenes that they can be made to illustrate. By studying
them you will learn that the whole secret of artistic success lies in
the selection of titles that appeal to and direct the imagination of
the critic, the spectator, or the would-be purchaser. I would gladly
exhibit and explain them to you now, but business before pleasure; so,
if you are dressed, let us to breakfast."
While Winn was eating his late breakfast, Billy Brackett, only a couple
of miles away, was gazing with an expression of the blankest amazement
at his nephew's note-book. "How in the name of all that is mysterious
and improbable did this book happen to be in that coat, that coat in
that skiff, that skiff on that raft, and that raft here? It certainly
seems as though I had brought the skiff from the raft--at least this
man says I did. You are certain that I came in that identical boat,
are you?"
"Certain, sir," replied the watchman to whom this question was
addressed.
"No one else could have come in this skiff, and then gone off in mine
by mistake?"
"Impossible, sir. I have been wide-awake all night, and there has not
been another soul aboard this wharf-boat until just now. Besides, I
took that coat from the skiff just after you left it last evening."
"Then," said Billy Brackett, "the chain of evidence seems to be
unbroken, incredible as it may appear, and it stretches from here
straight away down the river--book coat, coat skiff, skiff raft, raft
Winn. Now, in order to bring its ends together, and recover my
long-lost nephew, I must again overtake that raft. I must start as
soon as possible after breakfast, too. I don't know whether the game
Winn and I are playing is blind-man's-buff or hide-and-seek, but it
certainly resembles both."
Musing over this new aspect of the situation, the young engineer
hastened back to his hotel and breakfast. In the dining-room, a few
minutes later, a waiter was leaning over him, and asking, for the third
time, "Tea or coffee, sir, an' how'll you have your eggs?" when the
inattentive guest suddenly caused him to jump as though galvanized, by
bringing his fist down on the table with a crash, and exclaiming, "No,
by the great hornspoon, it can't be that way either! What's that you
say? Oh yes, of course. Coffee, soft-boiled, and as quick as you
can." Having delivered this order, the young man fixed his intent gaze
on a brown spot ornamenting the table-cloth, and resumed his thinking.
It had just occurred to him that, according to all accounts, the raft
from which he had taken that skiff had come down the river to this
point two days before. So how could Winn Caspar, who had only escaped
from the island a few minutes before he and Bim made good their own
retreat, have reached the same place and joined that raft without
attracting attention? Both the day and night watchmen at the
wharf-boat had assured him that no such boy as he described had been
seen on the water-front. They also said that the raft had been there
all the day before, and that when it left it held only the three men
who came with it. "Of course he might have been inside the 'shanty'
when I was aboard, though I can't see how he got there, nor why he
should join a strange raft anyway," argued the young man. "At any
rate, it's my business to find out whether or not he is aboard it now.
How about using the skiff, though? If it is the one Winn ran off with,
it belongs to that Sheriff fellow. Like as not, he has already sent
word down the river to have it picked up. In that case, if I was
picked up in it, I might be accused of stealing it, which would never
do in the world. No; to be on the safe side I must leave the skiff
here, and take the first down-river steamboat that stops at this
landing. First, though, I'll advertise for Winn in this town, and if I
don't find him on the raft, there may be news waiting for me here when
I come back."
This was the plan upon which the young engineer decided to act, and
immediately after breakfast he proceeded to put it into execution.
There was no paper published in the place, but it did contain a
makeshift sort of a printing-office, and towards this Billy Brackett
directed his steps, after learning at what hour the next down-river
boat was expected. Here he spent some time in composing a small
circular, of which he ordered five hundred copies to be struck off, and
distributed broadcast. His boat came along and he had to leave before
this was ready for press; but he had engaged the services of his new
acquaintance the night-watchman, who promised to place the bills
wherever they would do good.
Poor Bim, tied up on the wharf-boat, and nearly heart-broken at his
master's desertion, was also left in charge of this man. Billy
Brackett was desirous of establishing friendly relations with the
raftsmen when he should overtake them, and feared that would be
impossible in case they should recognize him. This they would
certainly do if he were accompanied by the bull-dog, whom one of them
at least had reason to remember so well.
At another small landing, nearly a hundred miles farther down the
river, Messrs. Gilder, Grimshaw, and Plater were rendered somewhat
uneasy, late on the following day, by the appearance on board their
raft of a young man who asked questions. Billy Brackett had
experienced considerable difficulty in finding this raft, and was
greatly disappointed that his search in this direction should prove
fruitless. The raftsmen had never heard of Major Caspar, nor of Winn
Caspar, his son. They were lumbermen from far up on the Wisconsin
River, and were taking this raft to New Orleans as a speculation. They
knew nothing of Sheriff Riley or his skiff. Yes, they had picked up an
empty skiff two days before, but it had been taken away and another
left in its place by a young fellow with a dog, who had boarded their
raft without invitation, set his dog on one of them, and then skipped.
They would like to meet that party again--yes, they would--and they'd
make things pretty lively for him.
Then they began asking questions in turn, and assuming such a hostile
tone that Billy Brackett concluded he might as well leave then as
later. So, after asking them to keep a sharp lookout for a raft with
three "shanties," two of which were filled with wheat, he bade them
good-evening, and started back up the river by rail.
In the mean time the _Whatnot_ had reached the town to which he was
returning, and was now tied up just below the wharf-boat. It had been
decided that the first exhibition of the "Floating Panoramic Show"
should be given here, and Cap'n Cod went up into the town as soon as
they arrived to have some bills printed. Winn, at the same time,
started along the water-front to search for traces of his lost raft;
and Sabella, who was very fond of dogs, went aboard the wharf-boat to
make the acquaintance of a fine bull-dog she had noticed there as they
passed.
At supper-time they all gathered again in the living-room of the
_Whatnot_, where Sabella reported her new friend to be the most
splendid bull-dog she had ever seen, and that his name was Bim.
This name at once attracted Winn's attention, and he said he had an
uncle somewhere out in California who owned a dog named Bim. Then the
boy reported that nothing had been seen or heard of his raft, though he
did not tell them he had discovered Sheriff Riley's skiff.
Cap'n Cod remarked that if he could only claim all the rewards he had
just seen offered, he could afford to run the _Whatnot_ by steam.
"There is one of a thousand dollars," he said, "for any information
that will lead to the capture of a gang of counterfeiters, supposed to
be operating in this vicinity. Then there is one of a hundred dollars
for the arrest of the fellow who ran off with Sheriff Riley's skiff,
and who is supposed to be a member of the same gang. There is still
another, of an equal amount, for any information as to the whereabouts,
if he is still living, or for the recovery of the body of a boy named
Caspar, the only son of my old friend, Major John Caspar, of Caspar's
Mill, in Wisconsin. He has disappeared most unaccountably, together
with a raft owned by his father. By-the-way, his first name is the
same as your last one, which is a little odd, for Winn is not a common
name. That's what it is, though, 'Winn Caspar.'"