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The Big Brother Series.
CAPTAIN SAM
Or
The Boy Scouts of 1814
by
GEORGE CARY EGGLESTON
Author of "The Big Brother," etc., etc.
New York:
G. P. Putnam's Sons,
182 Fifth Avenue.
1876.
Copyright.
G. P. Putnam's Sons.
1876.
TO MY BOY-FRIEND
MONTAGUE DOUGLAS,
IN RECOGNITION OF HIS MANLY CHARACTER, AND IN MEMORY
OF THE FOOT-JOURNEYS WE MADE TOGETHER A YEAR AGO,
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK.
CAPTAIN SAM.
CHAPTER I.
A MUTINY.
"If you open your mouth again, I'll drive my fist down your throat!"
The young man, or boy rather,--for he was not yet eighteen years
old,--who made this very emphatic remark, was a stalwart, well-built
youth, lithe of limb, elastic in movement, slender, straight, tall,
with a rather thin face, upon which there was as yet no trace of
coming beard, high cheek bones, and eyes that seemed almost to emit
sparks of fire as their lids snapped rapidly together. He spoke in a
low tone, without a sign of anger in his voice, but with a look of
earnestness which must have convinced the person to whom he addressed
his not very suave remark, that he really meant to do precisely what
he threatened.
As he spoke he laid his left hand upon the other's shoulder, and
placed his face as near to his companion's as was possible without
bringing their noses into actual contact; but he neither clenched nor
shook his fist. Persons who mention weapons which they really have
made up their minds to use, do not display them in a threatening
manner. That is the device of bullies who think to frighten their
adversaries by the threatening exhibition as they do by their
threatening words. Sam Hardwicke was not a bully, and he did not wish
to frighten anybody. He merely wished to make the boy hold his tongue,
and he meant to do that in any case, using whatever measure of
violence he might find necessary to that end. He mentioned his fist
merely because he meant to use that weapon if it should be necessary.
His companion saw his determination, and remained silent.
"Now," resumed Sam, "I wish to say something to all of you, and I will
say it to you as an officer should talk to soldiers on a subject of
this sort. Fall into line! Right dress! steady, front!"
The boys were drawn up in line, and their commander stood at six paces
from them.
"Attention!" he cried, "I wish you to know and remember that we are
engaged in no child's play. We are soldiers. You have not yet been
mustered into service, it is true, but you are soldiers, nevertheless,
and you shall obey as such. Listen. When it became known in the
neighborhood that I had determined to join General Jackson and serve
as a soldier you boys proposed to go with me. I agreed, with a
condition, and that condition was that we should organize ourselves
into a company, elect a captain, and march to Camp Jackson under his
command, not go there like a parcel of school-boys or a flock of sheep
and be sent home again for our pains. You liked the notion, and we
made a fair bargain. I was ready to serve under anybody you might
choose for captain. I didn't ask you to elect me, but you did it. You
voted for me, ever one of you, and made me Captain. From that moment I
have been responsible for everything.
"I lead you and provide necessary food. I plan everything and am
responsible for everything. If you misbehave as you go through the
country I shall be held to blame and I shall be to blame. But not a
man of you shall misbehave. I am your commander, you made me that, and
you can't undo it. Until we get to Camp Jackson I mean to command this
company, and I'll find means of enforcing what I order. That is all.
Right face! Break ranks!"
A shout went up, in reply.
"Good for Captain Sam!" cried the boys. "Three cheers for our
captain!"
"Huzza! Huzza! Huzza!"
All the boys,--there were about a dozen of them--joined in this shout,
except Jake Elliott, the mutineer, who had provoked the young
captain's anger by insisting upon quitting the camp without
permission, and had even threatened Sam when the young commander bade
him remain where he was.
The revolt was effectually quelled. The mutineer had found a master in
his former school-mate, and forebore to provoke the threatened
corporal punishment further.
The camp was in the edge of a strip of woods on the bank of the
Alabama river, the time, afternoon, in the autumn of the year 1814.
The boys had marched for three days through canebrakes, and swamps,
and had still a long march before them. Sam had called a halt earlier
than usual that day for reasons of his own, which he did not explain
to his fellows. Jake Elliott had objected, and his objection being
peremptorily overruled by Sam, he had undertaken to go on alone to the
point at which he wished to pass the remainder of the day, and the
night. Sam had ordered him to remain within the lines of the camp. He
had replied insolently with a threat that he would himself take charge
of the camp, as the oldest person there, when Sam quelled the mutiny
after the manner already set forth.
Now that he was effectually put down, he brooded sulkily, meditating
revenge.
As night came on, the camp fire of pitch pine threw a ruddy glow over
the trees, and the boys, weary as they were with marching, gathered
around the blazing logs, and laughed and sang merrily, Jake Elliott
was silent and sullen through it all, and when at last Sam ordered
all to their rest for the night, Jake crept off to a tree near the
edge of the prescribed camp limits and threw himself down there.
Presently a companion joined him, a boy not more than fourteen years
of age, who was greatly awed by Sam's sternness, and who naturally
sought to draw Jake into conversation on the subject.
"You're as big as Sam is," he said after a while, "and I wonder you
let him talk so sharp to you. You're afraid o' him, aint you?"
"No, but you are."
"Yes I am. I'm afraid o' the lightning too, and he's got it in him, or
I'm mistaken."
"Yes 'n' you fellows hurrahed for him, 'cause you was afraid to stand
up for yourselves."
"To stand up for you, you mean, Jake. It wasn't our quarrel. We like
Sam, if we are afraid o' him, an' between him an' you there wa'nt no
call for us to take sides against him. Besides we're soldiers, you
know, an' he's capt'n."
"A purty capt'n he is, aint he, an' you're a purty soldier, aint you.
A soldier owning up that he's afraid," said Jake tauntingly.
"Well, you're afraid too, you know you are, else you wouldn't 'a' shut
up that way like a turtle when he told you to."
"No, I aint afraid, neither, and you'll find it out 'fore you're done
with it. I didn't choose to say anything then, but _I'll get even with
Sam Hardwicke yet_, you see if I don't."
"Mas' Jake," said a lump of something which had been lying quietly a
little way off all this time, but which now raised itself up and
became a black boy by the name of Joe, who had insisted upon
accompanying Sam in his campaigns; "Mas' Jake, I'se dun know'd Mas'
Sam a good deal better'n you know him, an' I'se dun seed a good many
things try to git even wid him, 'fore now; Injuns, water, fire,
sunshine, fever 'n ager, bullets an' starvation all dun try it right
under my eyes, an' bless my soul none on 'em ever managed it yit."
"You shut up, you black rascal," was the only reply vouchsafed the
colored boy.
"Me?" he asked, "oh, I'll shut up, of course, but I jist thought I'd
tell you 'cause you might make a sort o' 'zastrous mistake you know.
Other folks dun dun it fore now, tryin' to git even wid Mas' Sam."
"Go to sleep, you rascal," replied Jake, "or I'll skin you alive."
Joe snored immediately and Jake's companion laughed as he crept away
toward the fire. An hour later the camp was slumbering quietly in the
starlight, Sam sleeping by himself under a clump of bushes on the side
of the camp opposite that chosen by Jake Elliott for his
resting-place.