THE CAMP AT DEEP CREEK
When, of the eleven loads of wood, about three were still unpiled,
Ned began to feel need of a change of air. It seemed to him that the
climate of Deep Creek, sixteen miles down the river, would be just the
thing for him.
In short, he was stricken by his annual violent attack of the
camping-out-fever--a malady very popular during the summer, in Beaufort.
Hal, too, was taken at the same time. The symptoms were a burning
desire to get away from town, and into the woods; to lie around in old
clothes, regardless of time, and free from all fuss; to amuse oneself
as one pleased; to be lazy; to be uncivilized and unwashed; to row a
boat, which is fun, instead of to pile wood, which is work.
The two boys compared notes, and agreed, Bob voting "yea," that the
sooner they left, the better. Deep Creek appealed to both as the proper
locality; and Bob, it goes without comment, stood ready to follow them
any place.
Hal, whose father was less strict as to chores than was Ned's, was
used to dropping into the Miller back yard, once in a while, mornings,
and giving Ned the comfort of company at the wood-pile. This lightened
Ned's labors, but it did not hasten them, for there were moments when
the talk grew so interesting that he forgot to keep the slabs moving.
The camping-out fever now interfered seriously with the progress of the
piling. To make matters worse, these three remaining loads were the
most stubborn, closely packed loads conceivable. So stubborn were they,
that it was as if they grew each night, and thus made up what they had
lost during the day!
Camping details all had been discussed and settled, and finally Hal,
who had been impatiently awaiting the last hour of the heap, said
boldly:
"Why don't you ask your father to let you go anyway, Ned, and tell him
you'll pile the rest when you come home? It will have lots of time to
dry before winter!"
"He won't, I know," replied Ned, sadly.
"Oh, I bet he will," insisted Hal. "He doesn't care when the wood's
piled, if it's only dry in time."
"Well, I'll ask him," sighed Ned. "But he won't, I know."
He mustered his courage, and at the table that noon he hinted:
"Tom Pearce and Joe Cluny and a lot of other fellows went camping this
morning."
"Yes?" responded his father, politely.
"I wish Hal and I could go," continued Ned.
"But I thought you were going," remarked Mr. Miller. "I thought you had
arranged to go to Deep Creek."
"I mean, I wish we could go right away, when fishing's good," explained
Ned, squirming in his chair.
"What is hindering?" inquired his father, looking wondrous ignorant.
"The wood," faltered Ned. Then he blurted: "Say--can't I finish it when
I come back? It's just a little bit."
"Neddie!" reproved his mother. "The idea of addressing your father with
'say'!"
"Oh! The wood still hangs on, does it?" asked his father, innocently.
"Well, Ned, since it is 'just a little bit' you can finish it up
to-morrow, I should think, and have it off your hands. Besides, don't
you remember that I told you the wood must be piled, first, and the
camping could follow?"
"Y-y-yes," admitted Ned.
"If Hal is in such a hurry," added his mother, "why don't you suggest
to him that he might help you out by piling, instead of hindering you
by talking?"
Ned lapsed into silence. It was no use; the conversation had ended as
he had expected. He had only proved that he knew his father much better
than Hal did.
Yet, although Hal had failed on one tack, it was he who really brought
the rescue, after all. When, within an hour, Ned reported to him the
failure of plans for a truce, Hal thought an instant, and suddenly said:
"I tell you! I'll come down early to-morrow morning, and we'll jump
into that wood and not stop 'til it's finished!"
And to their great relief and no doubt to the surprise of the wood, the
last slab had been laid in place before noon of the next day!
They spent that afternoon collecting their camping outfit.
This consisted of blankets and provisions, mainly, although Mrs. Miller
made Ned, to his disgust, take a few extra articles of clothes. Mothers
seem unable to grasp how little a boy needs, in that line, when camping
in summer!
They gaily trundled a full wheelbarrow-load of stuff down to the
Diamond Jo warehouse; then they returned up-town to buy a lot of canned
goods, and coffee and sugar, with which to eke out the bread and
potatoes and onions, etc., furnished by the home larders.
These store things also having been wheeled to the warehouse, nothing
now was left to do but to wait until morning.
"Why, Ned--aren't you going to have a tent?" exclaimed his mother,
shocked.
"Of course not!" snorted Ned, in disdain. "There's a shed we can go
under if it rains."
Mrs. Miller, in dismay, broke the news to her husband, but he merely
laughed, and said, patting her shoulder:
"It won't hurt them any. When they get enough they can come home."
"It won't hurt them any," was a favorite remark of Mr. Miller's. He had
great faith in the happy-go-lucky ways of the average healthy boy, and
his theory rarely was at fault.
But Mrs. Miller, not yet at ease, continued to hover around Ned, and
ask him other anxious questions which seemed to him very foolish, but
which to her seemed quite natural.
"Neddie, I really don't believe you're going to have plenty to eat!"
she asserted.
"With two trot-lines? My, yes!" assured Ned. "Why, we can live on just
fish!"
His words had such a ring of confidence that his mother--although
"trot-lines" was a complete mystery to her--accepted them, and tried
not to worry.
At half-past six the next morning Ned and Hal and Bob were at the
warehouse, waiting for the steamer _Harriett_. The _Harriett_ was a
daily packet between Beaufort and Rapids City, forty miles below, and
not only stopped at the towns between, but also would take on and put
off passengers at points, wherever requested, along the shores.
At seven the _Harriett_ came down from North Beaufort, where she
was tied up at night, and thrust her nose upon the levee beside the
warehouse. The two boys and Bob gladly scampered aboard, over the
gangplank; the roustabouts carried on the two boxes containing the camp
stuff, and while its owners nervously watched, hauled the scull-boat
from the water, and stowed it, too, below deck. All the other freight
having been cleaned up, the _Harriett_ whistled for the bridge to open,
and at the same time backed out.
At last the boys were off.
Commodore Jones had just settled himself on his little platform, for a
morning smoke, and running up on the hurricane deck, they leaned out,
toward him, as they passed, and called:
"Good-bye, Mr. Jones. Want any fish?"
"Good-bye," he shouted, waving his pipe. "Yes; bring 'em--when you get
'em!"
Through the draw sped the _Harriett_, and on past the Mosher Lumber
Mill (disfigured but busy), past Eagle Island (Bob not deigning a
glance at his old homeplace), and on, with a stop or so, until soon the
Deep Creek landing was right ahead.
This landing was at a government light upon a small peninsular. A few
rods above, the Monga, a shallow but wide and swift stream, emptied
into the Mississippi, and to reach the Deep Creek grounds it was
necessary to cross. People who had no skiff with them signaled to Joe
and Sam, fishermen who lived beside the creek, to come and ferry them
over. Ned and Hal and Bob, however, had the scull-boat; and when they
and their traps and their craft had been dumped ashore, all at once,
and the _Harriett_ was fussily hurrying away, they lost no time in
loading up and pushing off.
Now, Deep Creek was not truly a creek. It was a narrow slough,
extending parallel with the Mississippi, between an island and the
shore. It was a popular resort for fishing parties, and a number
of Beaufort men had erected a little cabin beside it, for use as a
club-house.
Having passed the mouth of the Monga the boys entered the slough. Sam
and Joe, always upon the outlook for a job when the _Harriett_ was due,
were standing in front of their shanty, and opposite them Hal and Ned
rested on their oars, to ask:
"How's fishing?"
"Good," replied the brothers, together.
"Anybody else down here?" queried Ned.
Sam and Joe shook their heads, again together. They had this
peculiarity, possibly from being so much in each other's company, night
and day. One thought appeared to do for both, and when they spoke, or
laughed, or wagged their heads, they did so as one man! Considering
that they lived by themselves, summer and winter, in their shanty on
the bank of the slough, the wonder is, not that they grew to think
alike, but that they did not grow to _look_ alike, as well!
Sam had red hair and red whiskers and a red, freckled skin; Joe had
iron-gray hair and whiskers, and a skin tanned deep as mahogany. Sam
was quick-tempered; Joe was easy-going. Both were reserved in manner
and chary of words.
The boys proceeded up the slough a quarter of a mile, and landed. Here
they pitched their camp by tucking their boxes under a wild-grape arbor
at the water's edge, and sitting upon them. The sun was high, and the
thick shade of the arbor was an agreeable relief from the hot row along
the glassy bayou.
"This is better than any tent," declared Ned. "Isn't it!"
"Lots!" responded Hal, with enthusiasm. "Now let's set our trot-lines."
"All right," agreed Ned.
Bob took no part in this conversation. While yet the scull-boat
had been six feet from the bank he had leaped over the bows, and
half-swimming, half-wading, had scrambled ashore, to disappear in the
woods. Probably his doggy mind was bent upon discovering a nice camping
spot, in advance of his chums. But he must have missed the grape-arbor
and his chance, for here was the camp--and no Bob!
Fumbling in one of the boxes Ned pulled out the trot-lines, rolled in
two big balls, and the bunch of hooks to be attached, and a large slab
of liver for bait. Then he and Hal started off again in the scull-boat.
"Trot-lines" are long lines to which fish-hooks are hung, at near
intervals, by pieces of cord. Some trot-lines are strung with a hundred
or two hundred hooks. The boys' lines were only three hundred feet in
length, and they counted on hanging fifty hooks to each. The trot-lines
were the size of window-cord, or braided clothes-line, and had been
tarred so that they should not rot.
Ned and Hal slowly sculled up the slough, keeping their eyes open for
good places at which to set out their lines. Presently they came to an
old raft--or, rather, but a portion of a raft--lying along the island
side of the bayou. It must have been in Deep Creek for years, because
the logs were green with mossy growth. It was a peaceful old raft,
dozing here, forgotten, with one edge high and dry among the island
brush, and the other edge well out into the slough.
"Say--we can tie the lines to the raft!" proposed Ned, struck with the
idea.
"I should smile!" assented Hal, slangily.
"One above and one below," continued Ned. "Let's fix the upper one
first."
As they skirted the outer logs, on ahead of them turtles, sunning
themselves, slid hastily into the water, and the route of the boat was
thus marked by a succession of splashes.
The boys were nearing the head of the raft, when Ned stopped sculling,
and asked:
"What's the matter with this?"
"It's about right, I guess," replied Hal. "We can tie to that pin."
"Well," said Ned, "I'll hold the boat steady, and you fix the line."
He turned the boat in hard against a log from which jutted a stout
wooden pin almost touching the water. Hal, reaching over the bow,
securely tied the end of his line. Then with a shove he sent the boat
away, toward the middle of the slough, and Ned gently sculled until
they had gone at right angles about twenty yards, with the line
trailing between the boat and the raft.
Now Hal deftly attached the first hook by its two feet of cord, baited
it with a bit of liver, and let it slide overboard. Three feet farther
along the line he fastened another hook; and in this manner they went
edging across the slough, until the fifty hooks had been tied on and
baited.
The next step was to sink the line. Hal tied upon the free end two
heavy coupling links which had been stored in under the bows. Ned
sculled ahead, slightly up stream, to make allowance for the sluggish
current, until the line, with its dangling hooks and liver, was fairly
taut.
"There she goes!" remarked Hal; with a clink the coupling links
disappeared beneath the surface, and the line followed.
They were on their way to the foot of the raft, to set out their second
line, when a piercing howl from the main shore startled them. It was
Bob, lonesome, disgusted and impatient, demanding that they return to
land and to him. Where he had been, they did not know. But now he was
sitting at the water's brink, directly opposite them, and accusing them
of deserting him.
"Bob, be quiet!" ordered Ned.
However, Bob, hearing the voice, and judging that his howling was to be
in vain, decided that since they would not come to him he would go to
them; whereupon with a yelp of defiance he plunged into the slough,
and yapping at intervals laid a course for the boat.
"Go back, Bob! Go back, sir!" cried Ned.
"Let him come, Ned," pleaded Hal. "He won't do any harm."
"He'll only eat the liver, if he has half a chance, and hang himself on
a hook!" exclaimed Ned. "Help me make him go back."
Thus appealed to, Hal, understanding the situation, took sides with Ned
against Bob, and the two boys yelled commands, and splashed with the
oars.
Bob, wavering in the face of such a hostile reception, hesitated, swam
in a circle, and finally sought the shore again. Here he contented
himself with parading up and down, and venting his feelings by short,
indignant barks.
The second trot-line was put out, from a point near the foot of the
raft, by a method similar to that already told. Slanting athwart the
depths of the slough the two lines now extended, ready for business.
Satisfied, and also very hungry, the boys made for shore and the grape
arbor, where they were joyously welcomed by Bob.
According to the height of the sun, as well as to their stomachs,
it was ripe noon, and time for dinner. By common consent, in their
outings, Hal, who had a knack in that direction, was the cook. It was
Ned's duty to provide the wood, and to attend to camp affairs generally
outside of the meals.
Bob was watchman and sergeant-at-arms.
"What will we have?" inquired Hal.
"Oh, anything," answered Ned; "just so we have it quick!"
"Bacon and potatoes, fried together," proffered the cook.
And bacon and thin slices of potatoes, fried together in a skillet over
a brisk little fire of branches and driftwood, it was!
"I tell you there's nothing like bacon!" sighed Ned, scraping his tin
plate.
"And potatoes!" sighed Hal, also scraping. (Who says that cooking
spoils the appetite!)
Bob, having gobbled his share, was trying to lick the hot skillet!
"Do you know what we forgot?" exclaimed Ned, thunder-struck. "Coffee!"
"But if I'd had to make coffee you'd have had to wait a lot longer
for dinner. It takes an age to boil water over a fire like that one,"
explained Hal.
"Well, bacon and potatoes and slough water are good enough--in a
hurry," admitted Ned.
Bob cleaned the skillet and Ned the plates--the grease yielding before
a liberal rubbing with wet mud--and Hal, digging a hole at the water's
edge, buried the fruit-jar containing their supply of butter, so that
it should not melt too much.
This precaution having been taken, and the camp tidied, Hal mused,
looking up toward the raft:
"I wonder if we've caught any fish, yet."
"It's too soon to go and see," replied Ned, wistfully. "About four
o'clock will be time enough to try. Let's visit Sam and Joe."
"Come on," agreed Hal.
They found the Morgan brothers at home, and apparently glad to receive
company. A large brindle dog was much less hospitable, and during
the boys' stay he and Bob kept up a constant exchange of sneers and
threats. In fact, a pitched battle was only narrowly avoided--partly
through the efforts of the Morgans, and partly because Bob would not
stir from between Ned's legs.
The atmosphere about the shanty was quite fishy, and fish scales were
scattered everywhere. There also was another, much stronger odor, at
which the three newcomers wrinkled their noses in disgust.
Joe was occupying a bench, puffing at his pipe; and sitting on a second
bench, with a board across his lap, Sam, likewise puffing, was cutting
into small square cakes what seemed to be a mass of dough.
"Howdy," said the boys--Ned holding Bob by the collar.
The two men nodded gravely, and Joe, removing his pipe to knock out the
ashes, remarked:
"Got your lines set all right? See you fussin' 'long the logs a bit
ago."
"Yes, we thought we'd try a couple, just for fun," responded Ned. "Do
you think the raft is a good place?"
"W-w-well, I shouldn't wonder but what it is, for a short line," said
Joe, filling his pipe.
"Will we get any fish, Joe?" queried Hal.
"Mebbe," said Joe. "A few cats, like as not."
"Say--what's Sam doing?" questioned Ned, sniffing and frowning.
"He's--makin'--dough--balls," said Joe, between puffs of his freshly
lighted pipe.
"Dough-balls!" repeated Hal, quite in the dark.
"Yep," said Joe. "We take a lot o' cheese and let it lay outdoors 'til
it's real old an' then we mix it with flour, into a paste, an' when
it's good an' stiff we cut it into the right size for bait--like Sam's
doin' now. Them's dough-balls. Smell 'em?"
"Smell 'em!" cried both boys together.
"Well, the fish smell 'em, too," said Joe, tersely.
"What you boys usin'?" inquired Sam, speaking for the first time since
their appearance.
"Liver," stated Hal.
"That's better 'n dough-balls, I reckon," grunted Sam. "But if you had
four or five hunderd hooks to keep baited, you'd right soon run out o'
liver, I bet."
"You see, we've only fifty hooks on each line," explained Ned,
modestly. "When we haven't any liver we're going to use frogs, and
crawfish and things."
"How often ought we to run the lines?" asked Hal. "Every four or five
hours?"
"If you're a might to," replied Joe. "O' course, we run ours only
mornin' an' night, but it's kinder more of a job than _yours_ be! If
I was you I'd run 'em 'bout five o'clock, an' then 'long 'bout ten,
again, to bait 'em for the night, an' again arly in the mornin', an'
mebbe at noon."
"That'll keep 'em baited in good shape," put in Sam, "an' you ought to
get fish if there's any 'round."
"All right; much obliged," responded the boys.
"In case you get more'n you can eat at one haul," offered Joe, kindly,
"there's a fish-box, down in the water near that stake, that we ain't
using, and you can have it so's to keep 'em alive, if you want to."
"Sure; take it along," urged Sam.
"I should say we _would_ like it! It's just the thing!" exclaimed the
boys, delighted. "Much obliged."
They hung around for a short time, and then, haunted by that fish-box,
hastened back to camp--Bob growing braver and braver as they put
distance between them and the brindled dog--to bring down their boat
and get their prize.
Upon their return, with Joe's help they loaded the water-soaked box,
dripping from every slat, into their craft, and gleefully made off with
it.
Soon they had it sunk and anchored in front of their grape arbor.
"I don't suppose it's more than three, yet," hinted Hal, when,
uncertain as to what to do next, to make time fly, they paused and
wiped their hands on their trousers-legs.
"I suppose not," agreed Ned, noting the height of the sun. "But don't
let's wait till five, this time," he proposed. "Let's run the lines
now, just for the fun of it."
Hal needed no persuasion. Leaving Bob to be watchman over the camp,
they pushed out again from shore.