CAPTAIN SAM PLAYS THE PART OF A SKIPPER.
The launching of the boat was easy enough, and she rode beautifully on
the water. To test her capacity to remain right side up, Sam put the
boys one by one on her gunwale, and found that their combined weight,
thrown as far as possible to one side, was barely sufficient to make
her take water.
The stores were stowed carefully in the bow and stern; rough seats
were fitted in after the manner of a boat's thwarts, but not fastened.
They were left moveable for the purpose of making it possible for
several of the boys to lie down in the bottom of the boat at once.
There was no rudder as yet, although it was Sam's purpose to fix one
to the stern as soon as possible, and also to make a mast when they
should get to Pensacola, where a sail could be procured. For the
present two long poles and some rough paddles were their propelling
power.
"When we get out into the river," said Sam, "she will float pretty
rapidly on the high water, and we need only use the paddles to give
her steerage, and to paddle her out of eddies."
"What are the poles for?" asked Tom.
"To push her in shoal water, for one thing," answered Sam, "and to
fend off of banks and trees."
A large quantity of the long gray moss of the swamps was stored in the
bottom for bedding purposes, and the boat was ready for her
passengers. One by one they took their places, Sam in the bow, and the
voyage down the creek began. This stream was very crooked, and many
fallen trees interrupted its course, so that it was very difficult to
navigate it with so long a boat. In addition to this, the river had
risen much faster than the creek, and the back water had entirely
destroyed the creek's current, so that the boat must be pushed and
paddled every inch of the way.
Nearly the entire day was consumed in getting to the river, five
miles away from the starting place, and as the afternoon waned the
boys grew tired, while Jake Elliott began to manifest his old
disposition to criticise Sam's plans.
"May be we'll make five mile a day, an' may be we wont," he said.
"We'll git to Pensacola in six or eight weeks, I s'pose, if we don't
starve by the way, an' _if_ this water runs that way."
"Very well," said Sam, "the longer we are on the route the better it
will please you, Jake."
"Why?"
"Because you don't want to get there at all. But we'll be there sooner
than you think?"
"How long do you reckon it will take us, Sam?" asked Billy.
"I don't know, because I don't know how long we'll be getting out of
this creek."
"Well, I mean after we get into the river."
"About a day and a half," replied Sam, "possibly less."
"You don't mean it?"
"Don't I? What do I mean, then?"
"How far is it?"
"Less than a hundred miles."
"Well, we can't go a hundred miles in a day and a half."
"Can't we? I think we can. We'll run day and night, you know, and the
current, at this stage of the water, can't be much less than five
miles an hour. Four miles an hour will take us ninety-six miles in
twenty-four hours."
"Hurrah for Captain Sam!" shouted Sid Russell, "Yonder's the river,
an' she's a runnin' like a mill tail, too."
Sid was standing up, and his great length lifted his head high enough
to permit him to see the rapidly running stream long before any one
else did. The rest strained their eyes, or rather their necks trying
to catch a glimpse of the stream, but the undergrowth of the swamp lay
between them and the sight. Sid's announcement put new energy into
them, however, and they plied their paddles vigorously for ten
minutes, when, with a sudden swing around a last curve of the creek,
Sam brought his boat fairly out into the river, and turned her head
down stream. The river was full to its banks, and in places it had
already overflowed. The current was so strong that the mouth of the
creek, out of which they had come, was out of sight in a very few
minutes. Work with the paddles was suspended, Sam only dipping his
into the water occasionally for the purpose of keeping the boat
straight in mid-channel. The river was full of drift-wood, some of it
consisting of large logs and uprooted trees, and night was already
falling. Jake Elliott now spoke again.
"We ain't a goin' to try to run in the dark in all this 'ere drift,
are we?" he asked.
"I can't say that we are," replied Sam.
"Why, you're not going to stop for the night, are you, Sam?" asked
Billy Bowlegs, who was enjoying the boat ride greatly.
"Certainly not," replied Sam.
"Why, you said you was, jist a minute ago," muttered Jake Elliott.
"Oh, no! I didn't," said Sam, whose patience had been sorely taxed
already by Jake's persistent disposition to find fault.
"What did you say, then?" asked that worthy.
"Merely that we're not going to try to run in the dark to-night."
"Well, you're a goin' to stop then?"
"No, I am not."
"I see how dat is," said Joe, suddenly catching an idea.
"Well, explain it to Jake, then," said Sam laughing.
"W'y, Mas' Jake, don't you see de moon's gwine to shine bright as day,
an' so dey ain't a gwine to be no dark to-night."
"That's it, Joe," replied Sam, "but if there was no moon I'd still go
on. The drift isn't in the least dangerous."
"Why not, Sam?" asked Tom.
"Well, in the first place, it wouldn't be very easy to knock a hole in
such a boat as this anyhow, and as we're only floating, we go exactly
with the drift nearest us; we go faster than the drift in by the shore
there, because we're in the strongest part of the current, but the
drift nearest us is in the same current, and moves as fast as we do,
or pretty nearly so. My paddling adds something to our speed, but not
much. I only paddle enough to keep the boat straight in the channel.
If we were to stop against the bank, and fasten the boat there, the
drift would bump us pretty badly, but it can do us no harm so long as
we float along with it."
[Illustration: SAM PLAYS THE PART OF SKIPPER.]
The moon, nearly at its full, was rising now, and very soon the river
became a picture. Running rapidly, bank full, with tall trees bending
over and throwing their shadows across it, with here and there a
fragment of a moon glade on the water, while the dense undergrowth of
the woods, lying in shadow, gave the stream a margin of inky blackness
on each side,--it was a scene to stimulate the imaginations of the
group of healthy boys who sat in the boat gliding silently but swiftly
down the river.
Hour after hour they sped on, not a boy among them in the least
disposed to avail himself of Sam's permission to lie down for a nap on
the moss in the bottom of the boat. Every bend of the river gave them
a new picture to look at, and finally Sam had to use authority to make
the boys lie down.
"We must all sleep some," he said, "for to-morrow the sun will shine
too strong for sleeping, and we've done a hard day's work. It will be
now about seven or eight hours until sunrise, and there are just
seven of us. It will take half an hour for the rest of you to get to
sleep, and so I'll run the boat for an hour and a half. Then I'll wake
Billy, and he can run it an hour. Then Joe must take the paddle,--his
name is Butler, you see,--and so on in alphabetical order, each of you
taking charge for an hour. If anything happens,--if you get into an
eddy, or for any other reason find yourselves in doubt about anything,
wake me at once. Now go to sleep."
Sam took the first watch, because he wished to see, before going to
sleep, that everything was likely to go well. Then he waked Billy
Bowlegs, and, surrendering the paddle to him, went to sleep.
There was no noise to disturb any one, and all the boys slept soundly,
none of them more soundly than Sam, who had worked especially hard
during the day, and had had a weight of responsibility upon him during
the difficult voyage down the creek. He was quietly sleeping some
hours later when suddenly the boat was sharply jarred, and turned very
nearly on her side, while the water could be heard surging around her
bow and stern.
Sam was on his feet in a moment, and the other boys sprang up quickly.
"Who's at the oar?" cried Sam, "and what's the matter?"
"We've got tangled in the drift, just as I told you we would,"
answered Jake Elliott from the bow, where he sat, paddle in hand, he
being on watch at the time.
"Just as you meant that we should," answered Sam. "You've deliberately
paddled us out of the current into a drift hammock, you sneaking
scoundrel," continued Sam, now thoroughly angry, seizing Jake by the
shoulders, and throwing him violently into the bottom of the boat. "I
have a notion to give you a good thrashing right here, or to set you
ashore and go on without you."
"Do it, Captain! Do it! He deserves it," cried the boys, but Sam had
made up his mind not to give way to his temper, however provoking
Jake's conduct might be, and as soon as he could master himself, he
renewed his resolution, which had been broken only in the moment of
sudden awakening.
The boat was not damaged in the least, but her position was a
difficult one from which to extricate her. She lay on the upper side
of a pile of drift which had lodged against some trees, and a floating
tree had swept down against her side, pinning her to the hammock, as
such drift piles are called in the South. The work of freeing her
required all of Sam's judgment, as well as all the boys' strength, but
within half an hour, or a little more, the boat was again in the
stream.
"Now," said Sam, speaking very calmly, "we've lost a good deal of
sleep and must make it up. Jake Elliott, you will take the paddle
again, and keep it till sunrise."
"Well, but what if he runs us into another snarl?" asked Sid Russell,
uneasily.
"He won't make any more mistakes," replied Sam.
"How can you be sure of that?" queried Tom.
"Because I have whispered in his ear," said Sam.
What Sam had whispered in Jake's ear was this:--
"_If any further accidents happen to-night, I'll put you ashore in
the swamp, and leave you there. I mean it._"
He did mean it, and Jake was convinced of the fact. He knew very well,
too, that if he should be left there in the swamp, with all the creeks
out of their banks, the chances were a thousand to one against his
success in getting back to civilization again. Sam's threat was a
harsh one, but nothing less harsh would have answered his purpose, and
he knew very well that Jake would not dare to incur the threatened
penalty.
The boys slept again, and soundly. The night waned and day dawned, and
still the current carried them forward. They breakfasted in the boat,
first stripping to the waist and sluicing their heads, necks, arms and
chests with water. Breakfast was scarcely over when the boat shot out
of the Nepalgah into the Connecuh river, whereat the boys gave a
cheer. About noon they entered the Escambia river, and their speed
slackened. Here they had met the influence of the tide which checked
the force of the current, and their progress grew steadily slower,
until Sam directed the use of the paddles. They had long since left
the drift wood behind, lodged along the banks, and they had now a
broader and straighter stream than before, although it was still not
very broad nor very straight. Two boys paddled at a time, one upon
each side, while a third steered, and by relieving each other
occasionally they maintained a very good rate of speed.
The moon was well up into the sky again when the river spread out into
Escambia bay, and the boat was moored with a grape vine, in a little
cove on one of the small islands in the upper end of the bay, about
fifteen miles above Pensacola. The boys leaped upon land again gladly.
Their voyage had been made successfully, and they were at last in the
neighborhood of the danger they had set out to encounter, and the duty
they had undertaken to do.