breakfast table. “This damn onion-skinner’s got sump’n else in ’is head
’sides jools. He wouldn’t want to go up there an’ stick ’round jest to
watch us clam-fish’n’. We’ll find out wot’s bit’n’ ’im. We’r’ goin’
to tell ’im to come on with us, an’ we want you to go too. We’ll go
up there an’ start the camp an’ do some jool-fish’n’, an’ have a good
time, an’ mebbe we’ll git some. That cuss bilked us on that deal last
year, an’ you bet we’r’ goin’ to git square somehow. We’r’ goin’ to
give ’im the third degree, an’ you jest watch us fondle ’im. All such
fellers as him oughta be exported.”
Bascom was received with faultless urbanity when he came again. It was
agreed that he should be simply a guest, and that operations should
be resumed on the old basis. Sipes assured him that he would be made
comfortable.
“You’ll have a fine time up there in them woods. You c’n fish an’ loaf
’round an’ pick posy flowers, an’ us fellers’ll find out wot’s left in
the river. Cookie’s goin’ to fix up a lot o’ stuff, an’ we’ll have a
fine trip. You go an’ fetch wot you want to take ’long, an’ come early
tomorrer.”
The necessary preparations were made. Mike wound the _Crawfish_ into
the lake. Bascom had brought some seedy old clothes, a soft gray hat,
and some high boots. His baggage was light and he appeared quite well
prepared for an outing. He had some interesting maps with him, which
he said would enable us to keep posted as to exactly where we were.
He brought a pocket compass, some light fishing tackle, a leather gun
case, and I noticed, when his coat was off, that the handle of a small
revolver protruded from his left hip pocket.
John was to remain in charge of the place.
“Now don’t you take in no bad money, an’ don’t you pay out none o’ no
kind w’ile we’r’ gone,” cautioned Sipes, as we climbed into the boat.
“You take care o’ yerself, an’ don’t fall in the water.” He bestowed a
solemn wink on the old man as the motor began to hum, and we departed,
waving farewells to our faithful custodian.
The voyage to the mouth of the river was uneventful. We tied up at
the old pier, and Sipes and Narcissus left us for an hour to do some
errands in the village. A former experience of Narcissus in that town
was disastrous, and the old man thought “somebody’d better be ’long to
help Cookie carry things, fer ’e got overloaded ’ere once’t.”
Saunders and I found my small boat and tent where they had been stored
during the winter, and got them out to take with us.
“That feller that Sipes is talk’n’ to up there on the hill’s the game
warden,” remarked Saunders. “Wot d’ye s’pose ’e wants with ’im?”
We reëmbarked, made our way up through the marsh, and saw our old
camping ground in the distance.
Out in the middle of the river we beheld Captain Peppers on the
flatboat, which we had left on the bank the year before. He had been
dragging the stream, but had stopped work when he heard our motor in
the marsh.
“Look at that ol’ pussyfoot up there fish’n fer jools!” exclaimed
Sipes. “He looks like a bug float’n on a chip. You c’n see ’is ol’
beak from ’ere! Listen at me josh ’im w’en we git up to ’im. He gives
me pains. I’d like to know wot ’e was ever cap’n of. It’s prob’ly one
o’ them demijohn titles. They’s slews of ’em. Fellers that drinks a
lot gits to be called Colonel an’ Major an’ Cap’n, that ain’t never
c’mmanded nothin’ er fit nothin’ but demijohns all their lives, an’ I
bet ’e’s one of ’em. The redder their noses gits the higher up their
titles goes, an’ some of ’em gits to be gen’rals ’fore they’r laid
away, an’ they’s some s’loon jedges over to the county seat that ain’t
never been in no court ’cept to be fined fer bein’ drunk. Don’t you
start nothin’ ’bout that ol’ motor, Bill, ’cause it won’t do now.”
“Hello, Cap’n!” shouted the old man, as we came up. “Fine day, ain’t
it? Cetchin’ any mudturkles?”
The Captain, ill at ease, began poling the flatboat toward the bank.
“I didn’t know you expected to use this outfit again, an’ I thought
I’d see if they was any loose pearls layin’ ’round ’ere. Of course now
you’re here you c’n go ahead. I don’t want to interfere with you in no
way.”
“You won’t,” replied Sipes. “We didn’t know you was clam-fish’n w’en
we fust seen you. We thought you’d mosied up ’ere so’s to be near that
spring, an’ was jest out cruisin’ on the river fer fun.”
The Captain’s nose was a little redder than when we last saw him, but
otherwise he appeared unchanged. He was invited to land and have lunch
with us. Saunders introduced him to the onion-skinner, liquid cheer was
produced, and an _entente cordiale_ soon prevailed.
The big sail was again rigged as a shelter tent in its old place, and
my tent was put where it was before. The Captain kindly helped to get
our camp in order. He showed us a few pearls of moderate value, that he
had found during the two weeks he had been at work on the river, and
they were purchased by Bascom, at what seemed to be a fair price. Late
in the afternoon he partook of more liquid cheer, and rowed away down
the river in his little boat.
That night we assembled around the fire, but the circle was not as
of old. Something was missing and something had been added. The
atmosphere was unsympathetic. There is a certain psychology that
pervades gatherings, both great and small, that is subtly sensitive to
influences that are often indefinable. In this instance the “repellent
aura” was obviously the onion-skinner. He exerted himself to be
agreeable, but his _bonhomie_ was about as infectious as that of a
crocodile trying to be playful. His personality did not harmonize with
the little amenities of life, and he was a misfit anywhere but in a
financial transaction.
Sipes’s habitual effervescence seemed to have a false note. Saunders
and I kept rather quiet, and the melodies that dwelt in the volatile
soul of Narcissus were hushed.
The arboreal katydids were abroad in the woods. These insects are
exquisitely beautiful in their green gowns. Like many human creatures,
they would be fascinating if they kept still, but they stridulate
boisterously and persistently. Their scientific name--_Cyrtophyllus
perspicillatus_--is only one of the things against them. The insects
seldom move after they have established themselves in a tree for the
night, and they often stay in one spot from early August, when they
usually mature, until the fall frosts silence their penetrating clamor.
The green foliage provides a camouflage that renders them practically
undiscoverable, except by accident. We hunted for one particular
offender with an electric flashlight and murderous intent nearly half
of one night, without finding him. We hurled many sticks and clods of
earth into the tree, but failed even to disturb his meter.
It is the male katydid that proclaims the troubles of his kind to the
forest world. He begins soon after dark, and continues his work until
morning. Curiously, the female is silent.
The loud dissonant sounds are produced by friction of the wings, which
have hard, drumlike membranes and edges like curved files. He shuffles
them with a continuity that is nerve-racking. Often I would suddenly
start from sound sleep, with an indistinct apprehension of some
impending peril.
One morning, after a haunted and vexatious night in the little tent, I
found that the following impressions had crept over white paper during
the hours of darkness, and lay beside the burned-out candle. They are
the lines of one who suffered and should be read with reverence.
A DIABOLIC CADENCE
_Into the choirs of the trees there has come a rasping, strident, and
unholy sound. A fiend in green is mocking the transient year with mad
threnody from his eyrie among the boughs._
_In that suspended half consciousness that hovers along the margin
of a dream, there seems to echo, out of some vast and awful chasm, a
rumbling roar of rocks--from some abysmal smithy of the gods within the
hidden caverns of the earth where huge boulders are being fashioned
by giant hands, to be hurled up into space, to descend with frightful
crash, and extinguish the life upon the globe._
_In the agonized recoil of frenzied fancy from the borders of the
dream, the demonic ceaseless sawing, of the arboreal fiend in green,
arrests the fleeting phantoms of the brain, and, like a doleful
tuneless tolling of a fractured funeral bell--like a barbaric song
of sorrow over fallen warriors--the ripping, rasping, resonant notes
mingle with the night wind, and drown the harmonious hum of drowsy
insects, that kindly nature has sent into the world to lull somnolent
fancy into paths of dreams._
_After the gentle prelude of the crickets--and the lullabies of forest
folk--like a mad discordant piper, he starts a strain of dismal dole,
and files away the seconds from the onward hours. Mercilessly across
the tender human nerves, that seem to span the taut bridge of a
swaying violin, he sweeps a berosined and excruciating bow._
_Prolonged wailing for a “lost or stolen” love may have disintegrated
his vocal chords. His agonized and shattered heart may have sunk
into hopeless depths, and all his articulate forces may have been
transmitted to his foliated wings, when his belovéd was lured away by
some unknown marauder--mayhap of darker green or lovely pink._
_The errant pair may be hidden in a distant glade--or dingly
dell--gazing upward through the leaves, wondering “what star should be
their home when love becomes immortal,” and listening to him, as he
scrapes the melodies out of the night with that infernal, insistent,
and slang-infected song:_
“_She’s beat it--she’s beat it--she’s beat it--_
_Come back--come back--come back--_
_You skate--you skate--_
_You’ve swiped--you’ve swiped_
_My mate--my mate--my mate!_”
_Intermittently he seems to muffle the ragged rhyme, and merge into
virulent_ vers libre--_imagistic muse and amputated prose--containing
sound projectiles, of low trajectory, that winnow the aisles of the
forest for an erring spouse who has fled beyond the range of common
rhyme_.
_Perhaps it’s all wrong--about this insect having loved--for love is
a holy thing, and it may be that it abides not among the things that
have wings and stings. It would seem that he who could trill this
nerve-destroying song could know no love, or that it was ever in the
world._
_It may be that this emerald villain has been outlawed by his kind,
and he’s filing, up there in the dark, on some terrible iron thing,
that he’s sharpening to annihilate the tribe that banned him. He may be
sawing of a branch, and, if so, I hope he’s straddling the part that’ll
fall off when he’s through. Maybe he’s got some ex-friend up there,
pinioned to the bark, and he’s boring him to death, by telling him the
same thing--the same thing--the same thing--o’er and o’er and o’er._
_I wish that some gliding fluffy owl, or other rover of the darkened
woods, would only pause a moment, and divest the bough of this
green-mantled wretch, and then that some mighty ravenous bird would
collect the people we know, who come and scrape on something that’s
inside of them--lay a sound barrage before us--fret the air with
piffle, and with sorrows all their own--and chant a woeful ceaseless
cadence, like the green arboreal fiend, whose sonorous and satanic
notes assail us from the bough. Miscreated, malignant, and hellish
though they and the fiend may be, they all revel in that rare joy that
comes only to him who has found his life work._
_For our sins must we be scourged, else, why are these people?_
_And,_
_Pourquoi--pourquoi--pourquoi--_
_Is this_
_Katydid--Katydid--Katydid?_
After listening patiently to the reading of the production, my
unfeeling prosaic friend Sipes remarked, “Gosh, we gotta git that
insect ’fore it gits dark ag’in!”
The Ancient called the third day after our arrival, and spent the
afternoon with us. Bascom seemed much interested in helping to
entertain him, and got out his maps. On one of them was indicated
the names of the owners of the different tracts of land, and we were
surprised to learn that the old man was the possessor of the woods we
were in, practically all of the land around the marsh, and a long strip
of frontage on the lake. Captain Peppers was also a large owner of
property along the lake.
The veiled motive of Bascom’s trip with us was now apparent. He wanted
options for a year on a large part of these holdings, and was willing
to pay what he considered a good price. It seemed that on the day we
came, he had had some talk with the Captain on the subject, and they
were to take the matter up again.
He wanted options only on the tracts with marsh and lake frontage, and
argued that if they were improved the rest of the land would be made
much more valuable. He had skilfully arranged his stage setting for the
object of his trip, and claimed that the idea had just occurred to him
while he was taking this little outing. He said that he accidentally
happened to have the maps, and had brought them along to familiarize
himself with the country he was in.
He made the Ancient a substantial offer for an option on most of
his holdings, at a price that the old man did not seem inclined to
consider, but he was open to negotiation.
“I been livin’ ’ere most all my life, an’ I’ve ranged ’round this ol’
marsh an’ them sand-hills so much that I wouldn’t know how to act if
they wasn’t mine, but if you’ll git yer figgers up whar I c’n see ’em,
mebbe we’ll talk about it some more.”
“You see,” said Bascom to Saunders, after the old settler had left,
“this land idea is a sort of a side issue with me. I think that perhaps
a little money might be made here, but I would have to take some big
chances. You and Sipes talk with those fellows a little, and see if
you can’t bring them around to business, and I’ll pay you something
for it if they sign up. You might have some influence with them. Tell
them that I mentioned to you that it was just a gamble with me, and
probably there isn’t a chance in a hundred that I will exercise the
options at all, and they will be ahead whatever they get out of me now.”
The old shipmates agreed to do what they could and the subject was
dropped for the time being.
The accidental exposure of the contents of a long fat wallet that
Bascom carried inside his vest revealed the fact that he had a large
amount of money with him, much larger than could possibly be required
for ordinary use. Evidently he was prepared to close the business with
the owners of the land the moment their minds met.
“Holy Mike! Did ye see that wad?” whispered Sipes, who was awed by the
magic of the gold certificates. “I’d like to know some way to git that
wad,” he remarked later. “I’d play some seven-up with ’im fer some of
it, but they’s sump’n ’bout ’im that makes me think it wouldn’t do.”
I realized that the despoiler was at the gates of the Dune Country. The
foot of the Philistine was on holy ground. This man with a withered
soul was an invader of sanctuary. He would tear the dream temples down
that the centuries had builded. With steam shovels and freight cars he
would level the undulating hills, and haul away their shining sands to
a world of greed, where man does not discriminate. The wild life would
flee from steam whistles that shrieked through the forests, and from
smoke that defiled the quiet places. Belching chimneys and unsightly
signs would befoul and deface the fair domain. With the beauty of the
dunes he would feed a Moloch in the sordid town.
The peaceful marsh, and the river with its channel of silver light,
would be invaded with dredges. Abbatoirs, tanneries, factories,
and blast furnaces might come. The Winding River, with its halo of
memories, would flow away with receding years, and a foul stream would
carry the stain of desecration and filth out to pollute the crystal
depths of the lake.
“Improvements” were contemplated in Duneland, and the spectre of
hopeless ugliness hovered along its borders. The altar of Mammon
awaited a sacrifice, for “money might be made here” if certain
manufacturing interests, to which Bascom vaguely alluded, “could be
induced to utilize these now practically worthless wastes of sand.”
In years to come the wild geese may look down from their paths through
the soiled skies, to the earth carpet below them, and wonder at the
creatures that have changed it from a fabric of beauty to a source of
evil odors and terrifying sounds.
The clam-fishing was unsatisfactory. The mollusks seemed to be about
exhausted. Sipes and Saunders worked faithfully for several days, but
only found a dozen or so, and none of them contained pearls.
“We gotta wait fer a new crop,” declared Saunders, who was disgusted
with the whole trip and wanted to go home.
Bascom persuaded the old sailors to remain a few days, to give the
Ancient a chance to come back, and to impress the Captain at the
village with the idea that he was in no hurry to see him. They had no
love for that red-nosed worthy and acquiesced.
The flatboat was restored to its berth on the bank, and in the
early morning Sipes and Saunders made a trip to the village in the
_Crawfish_. On their return at lunch time they reported that they had
seen nothing of the Captain.
[Illustration: The Troopers of the Sky
(_From the Author’s Etching_)]
I spent the afternoon up the river and heard a great many shots echoing
through the woods. When I returned to camp I found that Bascom had been
out shooting robins. There were thirty-seven of the innocent little
redbreasts in his bloody bag, and the game warden was with him when he
returned from his shameful expedition.
It seemed that Sipes, when he arrived from the village, had pictured
to Bascom the glories of a certain robin pie, “with little dumplins,”
that he said Narcissus had once compounded, and the fascinated
onion-skinner, although knowing that it was illegal to kill songsters,
had taken the risk of going out with his gun to obtain material for
another one. He was mad all the way through, but was a much subdued man.
“Them robins is song birds, an’ it’s ag’in the law to kill ’em at any
time,” said the warden. “They’re wuth ten dollars apiece an’ costs
to the state, an’ you’ve got to go to the county seat with me. Mebbe
you’ll be jugged too, fer they’re pretty severe with fellers that shoot
little birds.”
Bascom offered to fix up the matter privately, on a liberal financial
basis, but the minion of the law was inexorable. The culprit must have
regarded that part of the country as most peculiar and inhospitable.
Erskine Douglas Potts, the game warden, was a lengthy loose-jointed
individual. One eye drooped in a peculiar way, and seemed to rove
independently of the other. Sipes declared that “Doug’ c’n look up in
a tree with one eye, an’ down a hole with the other lamp at the same
time.” Odd humor radiated from him and he had a deep sense of his
dignity as an upholder of the “revised stat-toots.” Two printed copies
of the state game laws protruded from the top of his trousers, where
they were secured by a safety pin. “Casey,” his small yellow dog, was
his inseparable companion. They were a devoted pair of chums and Potts
refused to allow a “pitcher” to be made of him unless the dog was
included.
Casey was an animal of rare acumen. He had once taken the prize at a
village dog-show, where intelligence and not breeding was considered,
and his laurels were regarded as imperishable by his proud master.
“They didn’t put me up, but if they had I’d ’a’ lost out ’side o’ him,”
he remarked. “The dogs is the smartest things in that town, an’ they
couldn’t be no kind of a brain show thar without ’em. This dog’s a
wonder. He knows the time o’ day, an’ all the short cuts through the
woods an’ sand-hills. We ain’t neither of us got no pedigrees, but we
seem to navigate ’round pretty well without ’em.
“W’en we hear any shoot’n off in the woods we go out on a still-hunt.
Casey finds the foot trails an’ follers ’em up. ’Tain’t long ’fore we
spot the feller with the gun. Then we foregather with ’im an’ ask fer
’is shoot’n license, an’ inspect wot ’e’s got. If it’s song birds, er
game out o’ season, we form in line an’ perceed to whar the scales o’
justice hang, an’ the feller has to loosen up.
“Casey hikes down to the depot w’en they’s anybody that with baggage er
packages, an’ sniffs ’em over. If ’e scents any birds ’e alw’ys lets me
know. I git half o’ the fines that’s levied, an’ this ’ere bag we’ve
jest brought in looks like pretty good pickin’. It’s durn poor shoot’n
that don’t shake down sump’n fer somebody. Casey an’ me lives alone,
an’ we have lots o’ long talks together. He knows more’n most lawyers.
He’s my depity, an’ I couldn’t git along without ’im. A feller that
owns a nice new breech loadin’ gun offered to trade me a horse fer ’im
last week, but they was nothin’ doin’.
“Me an’ Casey don’t miss much that goes on ’round ’ere. After them
robins is took off o’ the bar o’ justice, we’ll fetch ’em back, if the
jedge don’t cop ’em, an’ we’ll let yer dark-spot cook ’em, an’ we’ll
have a pie that’s all our own. Yer moneyed friend c’n think about it
while ’e’s in the county jail countin’ the change ’e’s got left.”
It was arranged that the prisoner and his marble-hearted captor should
be taken to the village that night in the _Crawfish_, and the journey
to the county seat made the next day.
The evening meal was far from festive. The boat was poled out into the
current and started away down stream in the moonlight, with Saunders at
the helm. Sipes and the warden smoked complacently on the roof of the
cabin, and the moody Bascom sat between them. Casey was in charge of
the evidence near the bow, where he jealously guarded the bag of robins
and kept his eye on the evil doer.
Sipes had remarked to me before they left that “things has been pretty
dull ’round this ’ere camp, but now they’s sump’n doin’.”
“Ah tole Mr. Bascom that ’e bettah not go shoot’n’ much ’round heah,”
said Narcissus, with a quiet chuckle, after the party had left, “but ’e
said ’e wanted one o’ them robin pies that Mr. Sipes tole ’im ’bout.
Ah don’t remembah ’bout no robin pie, but it might be awful good. The
wa’den has ’fiscated all them robins, an’ Ah guess we got to fix up
sump’n else fo’ dinnah tomorrow.”
I asked no questions when the old shipmates returned, and they
volunteered no information as to any part that they might or might not
have played in the little drama of the afternoon, but I suspected that
the “third degree” that Sipes had mentioned before we started was now
in process of application.
Justice was dealt out to Bascom with unsparing hand when he reached
the county seat, and he was compelled to pay the full penalty of his
wrongdoing. After liquidating his fines, and incidentally himself, in a
moderate way, to drown his troubles, he had spent an hour or so about
town, and was just taking the train, when he was again arrested for
carrying a concealed weapon. He had neglected to leave his revolver at
the camp, and was assessed accordingly.
He came back to us after three days, with a crestfallen air, and said
that he was ready to break camp if we were. Nothing had been seen of
the Ancient or the Captain, and he regarded it as poor strategy to stay
longer, with no particular excuse for doing so. He would devise some
other way of getting at the coy landowners.
We packed up our things and departed. The engine stopped just before
we reached the village, and we found that our gasoline was exhausted.
Unfortunately the oars had been forgotten when we left Shipmates’ Rest,
but as the new motor had worked perfectly, there had been no occasion
for them. We poled the _Crawfish_ to the old pier, landed, and stowed
my little boat and tent where we had found them. We then took the
gasoline can and walked up to the village, leaving Bascom in charge of
the _Crawfish_.
He was anxious for us to run across the Captain accidentally, and if
possible get him down to the boat on some pretence. In effect, we were
to shoo the wary Captain to the ambush, where the onion-skinner lay in
wait with his tempting yellowbacks. We did not look very hard for him,
but I happened to see him down the road talking to a man in a buggy. I
was not inclined to do any shooing, and did not disturb him.