[Illustration: THE BATTLE WITH THE STRIKERS.]
_ROD AND GUN SERIES._
THE
ROD AND GUN CLUB.
BY HARRY CASTLEMON,
AUTHOR OF “THE GUNBOAT SERIES,” “BOY TRAPPER SERIES,”
“ROUGHING IT SERIES,” ETC.
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COPYRIGHT, 1883, BY PORTER & COATES.
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
SOME DISGUSTED BOYS 5
CHAPTER II.
BIRDS OF A FEATHER 25
CHAPTER III.
LESTER BRIGHAM’S IDEA 45
CHAPTER IV.
FLIGHT AND PURSUIT 66
CHAPTER V.
DON’S ENCOUNTER WITH THE TRAMP 87
CHAPTER VI.
ABOUT VARIOUS THINGS 108
CHAPTER VII.
A TEST OF COURAGE 130
CHAPTER VIII.
THE FIGHT AS REPORTED 152
CHAPTER IX.
IN THE HANDS OF THE MOB 172
CHAPTER X.
WELCOME HOME 194
CHAPTER XI.
HOPKINS’ EXPERIENCE 217
CHAPTER XII.
PLANS AND ARRANGEMENTS 239
CHAPTER XIII.
THE DESERTERS AFLOAT 261
CHAPTER XIV.
DON OBTAINS A CLUE 284
CHAPTER XV.
ANOTHER TEST AND THE RESULT 307
CHAPTER XVI.
THE ROD AND GUN CLUB 324
CHAPTER XVII.
CASTING THE FLY 344
CHAPTER XVIII.
CONCLUSION 360
THE ROD AND GUN CLUB.
CHAPTER I.
SOME DISGUSTED BOYS.
“Well, young man, I will tell you, for your satisfaction, that I have got
you provided, for, for four long years to come.”
The speaker was Mr. Brigham. As he uttered these words he placed his hat
and gloves on the table, and looked down at his son Lester, who had just
entered the library in obedience to the summons he had received, and
who sat on the edge of the sofa, twirling his cap in his hands. The boy
looked frightened, while the expression on his father’s face told very
plainly that he was angry about something.
“I have had quite enough of your nonsense,” continued Mr. Brigham, in
very decided tones. “Since we came to Mississippi you have done nothing
but roam about the woods and fields with your gun on your shoulder, and
get yourself into trouble. You made yourself so very disagreeable that
none of the decent boys in the settlement would have anything to do with
you, and consequently you had to take up with such fellows as Bob Owens
and Dan Evans. After setting fire to Don Gordon’s shooting-box, and being
caught in the act of stealing David Evans’s quails, you had to go and mix
yourself up in that mail robbery. Why, Lester, have you any idea where
you will bring up if you do not at once begin to mend your ways?”
“Why, father, I had nothing to do with that,” exclaimed Lester, trying
to look surprised and innocent; “nothing whatever. You know, as well as
I do, that I was at home when those men who lived in that house-boat
waylaid and robbed the mail-carrier.”
“I am aware that you took no active part in the work,” said his father.
“If you had, you would now be confined in the calaboose. But you told Dan
Evans about those checks for five thousand dollars that my agent sends me
every month.”
“I didn’t,” interrupted Lester.
“Everything goes to prove that you did,” answered Mr. Brigham. “If you
didn’t, how does it come that Dan knew all about those checks? He made
a full confession to Don Gordon. The story is all over the country, and
the people about here are very angry at you. Suppose that Dan had shot
Don Gordon, as he tried to do? What do you suppose would become of you? I
really believe you would have been mobbed before this time. I wonder if
you have any idea of the excitement you have raised in the settlement?”
No; Lester had not the faintest conception of it, for the simple reason
that he had held no conversation with anybody, save the members of his
own family, since the afternoon on which Dan Evans was overpowered and
robbed of his mail-bag. When the full particulars of the affair came to
his ears, he was as frightened as a boy could be, and live. He knew that
he was in a measure responsible for the robbery, that it would never
have been committed if he had held his tongue regarding his father’s
money, and the fear that he had rendered himself liable to punishment
at the hands of the law, nearly drove him frantic. His terror was
greatly increased by his father’s last words. There had not been so much
excitement in the settlement since the war—not even when it became
known that Clarence Gordon and Godfrey Evans had dug up a portion of the
general’s potato patch, in the hope of unearthing eighty thousand dollars
in gold and silver that were supposed to be buried there. Don Gordon had
more friends than any other boy in the settlement, unless it was Bert,
and the planters were enraged at the attempt that had been made upon his
life. If Dan Evans’s bullet had found a lodgment in his body instead of
going harmlessly through the roof, Dan and Lester Brigham, as well as the
three flatboatmen who stole the mail, might have had a hard time of it.
Lester’s first care was to hide himself in the house, as he had done
after he and Bob Owens burned Don’s old shooting-box. He earnestly hoped
that the men would escape with their plunder; but when he learned that a
strong party, led by General Gordon, had pursued them in Davis’s sailboat
and captured them, he was ready to give up in despair. Judge Packard
would have to look into the matter now through his judicial spectacles,
and Lester did not want to be summoned to appear as a witness. Neither
did Dan, who, disregarding the advice Don Gordon had given him, took
to the woods and hid there, just as he did after he picked his father’s
pocket of the hundred and sixty dollars that David had made by trapping
quails.
When Mr. Brigham saw that Lester took to staying in the house, and
that he had suddenly lost all interest in hunting and shooting, his
suspicions were aroused. He always kept his ears open when he went to the
landing, and by putting together the disjointed scraps of conversation
he overheard while he was waiting for his mail, he finally accumulated a
mass of evidence against his son Lester that fairly staggered him.
“I couldn’t believe this of you until I went to Gordon and asked him what
he knew about it,” continued Mr. Brigham. “Then the whole story came out.
Lester, you will have to go away from here.”
“That’s just what I want to do,” exclaimed the boy, in joyous tones. “I
never did like this place. It is awful lonely and dull, and there is
no one for me to associate with. If I could only go off somewhere on a
visit——”
“As I told you, at the start, I have got things fixed for you for
four years to come,” said Mr. Brigham. “You ought to have something to
do—something that will occupy your mind so completely that you will have
no time to be discontented or to think of anything wrong. I have decided
to send you to school; and I am sorry I didn’t do it long ago.”
When Lester heard this he threw his cap spitefully down upon the floor,
planted his elbow viciously upon the arm of the lounge, and looked very
sullen indeed. School-rooms and school-books were his pet aversions.
“I don’t want you to do that,” said he, angrily. “I would much rather
stay here.”
“Do you want to grow up in ignorance?” demanded his father.
If Lester had given an honest response to this question it would have
been: “No, I don’t want to grow up in ignorance, but I do want to live at
my ease. I desire to go to some place where I can find plenty to amuse
me, and where I shall have no labor to perform, either mental or manual.”
But he did not quite like to say that, and so he said nothing.
“You don’t know a single thing that a boy of your age ought to know,”
continued Mr. Brigham. “I have just had a long conversation with Gordon
and his two boys.”
Lester looked up with a startled expression on his face. “You haven’t
determined to send me to Bridgeport, have you?” he exclaimed.
“I have,” was the decided answer.
“To the military academy?” asked Lester, in louder and more incredulous
tones.
“That’s the very place. The systematic drill and training you will there
receive, will be of the greatest benefit to you, if you are only willing
to profit by them. That school has made men of Don and Bert Gordon
already.”
“I should say so,” sneered Lester, suddenly recalling some items of
information that had come to him in a round-about way. “Don has been in a
constant row with the teachers ever since he has been there.”
“That is not true. He got himself into trouble when he first entered
the school, and lost his shoulder-straps by it; but he has toned down
wonderfully under the influence of those three boys he brought home with
him, and he is bound to make his mark before his four years’ course is
completed.”
“But, father, do you know that the teachers are awful hard on the
boys—that if a student looks out of the wrong corner of his eye, or
breaks the smallest one of the thousand and more rules that he is
expected to keep constantly in mind, he is punished for it?” asked
Lester, who was almost ready to cry with vexation. It was bad enough, he
told himself, to be sent away to any school against his will; but it was
worse for his father to select a military academy, and then to hold that
embodiment of mischief and rebellion, Don Gordon, up to him as an object
worthy of emulation. Lester had no desire to learn the tactics, and he
dreaded the discipline to which he knew he would be subjected.
“I heard all about it during my talk with Don and Bert,” replied his
father. “A strong hand and plenty of work are just what you need.”
“But do you know that Bert is first sergeant of the company to which I
shall probably be assigned, and that one of its corporals is a New York
boot-black? Do you want me to obey the orders of a street Arab?”
“He could not have attained to the position he holds unless he had proved
himself worthy of it. The majority of the students, however, are the
sons of wealthy men, and they are the ones I want you to choose for your
associates. Make friends with them and bring some of them home with you,
as Don and Bert did, or go home with them, if they ask you. My word for
it, you will see plenty of sport there, if you will only do your duty
faithfully. Gordon’s boys are impatient to go back; and yet there was a
time when Don disliked school as heartily as you do.”
“When shall we start for Bridgeport?”
“A week from next Wednesday. New students are received up to the 13th of
the month; so we must make our application two days before the school
begins.”
“Of course we’ll not go up on the same boat with the Gordons?”
“Why not? Having been there before, they can save us a great deal of
trouble by telling us just where to go and what to do.”
“But I don’t like the idea of traveling in their company. They will snub
me every chance they get.”
“You need not borrow any trouble on that score. They have good reasons
for disliking you, but if you conduct yourself properly, you will
have nothing to fear from them. Now, Lester, promise me that, if you
are admitted to that school, you will wake up and try to accomplish
something. I will do everything I can to aid and encourage you, and I
will begin by putting it in your power to hold your own with the richest
student there.”
Lester perfectly understood his father’s last words, and he was
considerably mollified by them. If there were anything that could
reconcile him to becoming a member of the military academy, it was the
knowledge of the fact that a liberal supply of spending money was to be
placed at his disposal. Lester’s highest ambition was to be looked up to
as a leader among his companions. He had failed to accomplish his object
so far as the boys about Rochdale were concerned, but he was pretty sure
that he would not fail at Bridgeport. He didn’t, either. His money, which
Mr. Brigham might better have kept in his own pocket, brought him to the
notice of some uneasy fellows at the academy, who joined him in a daring
enterprise, the like of which had never been heard of before. It gave
the village people something to talk about, and furnished the law-abiding
students with any amount of fun and excitement. In fact the whole school
term was crowded so full of thrilling incidents, so many things happened
to take their minds off their books, that when the examination was held,
some of the best scholars narrowly escaped being dropped from their
classes.
“I will do anything I can for you,” repeated Mr. Brigham, seating himself
in the nearest chair and taking a newspaper from the table. “If you will
go through the four years’ course with flying colors, and come out at the
head of your class, I shall be highly gratified, and I assure you that
you will lose nothing by it.”
Mr. Brigham fastened his eyes upon his paper, and Lester, taking this
as a hint that he had nothing more to say just then, picked up his cap
and went out. He made his way directly to his own room, and taking his
squirrel rifle down from the antlers that supported it—purchased antlers
they were, and not trophies of the boy’s own skill—he buckled a cartridge
belt about his waist and left the house. He wanted to go off in the woods
by himself and think the matter over; but it is hard to tell why he took
his rifle with him, for he had no intention of hunting, and he could not
have killed anything if he had. Perhaps it was because he had fallen into
the habit of carrying a weapon on his shoulder wherever he went, just as
Godfrey and Dan did.
“It is some comfort to know that the governor is not disposed to put
me on short allowance,” thought he, as he sat down on a log and rested
his rifle across his knees, “and perhaps I can manage to stand it for a
while. If I can’t, and father won’t let me come home, I’ll skip out, as
Bob Owens did; only I’ll not go into the army. But it can’t be all work
and no play up there. There must be some jolly fellows among the students
who are in for having a good time now and then, and they are the ones I
shall run with. I am sorry Bert is an officer, for he will tyrannize over
me in every possible way. I feel disgusted whenever I think of that.”
Lester Brigham was not the only boy in the world who felt disgusted that
day. There were three others that we know of. One of them lived away off
in Maryland, and the others lived in Rochdale. The last were Don and Bert
Gordon.
When their father came into the room in which they were sitting and
told them that Mr. Brigham was waiting to see them in the parlor, they
followed him lost in wonder, which gave place to a very different feeling
when they learned that this visitor had come there to make some inquiries
regarding the Bridgeport military academy, with a view of sending his
son there. Bert gave truthful replies to all his questions, and so did
Don, for the matter of that; but he did not neglect to enlarge upon the
severity of the discipline, or to call Mr. Brigham’s attention to the
fact that no boy need go to that school expecting to keep pace with his
classes, unless he was willing to study hard. Believing that Lester would
make trouble one way or another, Don did not want him there, and he hoped
to convince Mr. Brigham that the academy at Bridgeport would not at all
suit Lester; but he did not succeed. The visitor seemed to believe that
military drill was just what his refractory son needed, asked the boys
when they were going to start, thanked them for the information they had
given him, and took his leave.
“Well, now, I am disgusted,” exclaimed Don; while Bert went over to the
window and drummed upon it with his fingers.
“I don’t see how you are going to help yourselves, boys,” said the
general. “Lester Brigham has as much right to go to that school as you
have.”
“I know that,” replied Don. “But I don’t want him there, all the same.”
“Neither do I,” said Bert. “He will be in my company, and if I make him
toe the mark, he will say that I do it because I want to be revenged on
him for burning Don’s shooting-box and getting Dave Evans into trouble.”
“Do your duty as a soldier, and let Lester say what he pleases,” said the
general.
“Oh! he’ll have to,” exclaimed Don. “If he doesn’t, he will be reported.
Bert’s got to walk a chalk line now, and if he makes a false step, off
come his diamond and _chevrons_. It’s some consolation to know that we
can’t introduce him to Egan and the rest. They would snub us in a minute
if we did, and serve us right, too. A plebe must be content to wait until
the upper-class boys get ready to speak to him.”
“Having passed four years of my life in that academy I am not ignorant
of that fact,” said the general, after a little pause, during which he
recalled to mind how he had once had his face washed in a snow-drift by
a couple of second-class boys whom he had presumed to address on terms
of familiarity. “But I hope you will do all you can for Lester. Remember
how lonely you felt when you first went there, and found yourselves
surrounded by those who were utter strangers to you.”
“Oh, we will,” said Bert, while Don scowled savagely but said nothing.
“If he will show us that he has come there with the determination to do
the best he can, we’ll stand by him; won’t we, Don?”
Of course the latter said they would, but he gave the promise simply
because his father desired it, and not because he had any friendly
feeling for Lester Brigham.
The other disgusted boy was Egan, who, on this particular day, was pacing
up and down the back veranda of his father’s house, shaking his fist at
the surf that was rolling in upon the beach, and acting altogether like
one whose reflections were by no means agreeable. What it was that had
happened to annoy him, we will let him tell in his own way.
Christmas, with its festivities, was now a memory. New Year’s day
came and went, and Don and Bert, each in his own way, began making
preparations for their return to Bridgeport. The latter, who was
determined that the close of another school year should find him with at
least one bar on his shoulder, devoted his morning hours to his books,
while Don, to quote his own language, proceeded to put himself through a
regular course of training. There was a long siege of hard study before
him, but one would have thought, by the way he went to work, that he was
preparing himself for a physical rather than an intellectual contest. He
rode hard, hunted perseveringly, kept up his regular exercise with Indian
clubs and dumb-bells, and looked, as he said he felt, as if he were good
for any amount of work.
Knowing how valuable a little advice would have been to them when they
first joined the academy, Don and Bert rode over to see Lester, intending
to give him some idea of the nature of the examination he would have to
pass before he would be received as a student, and to drop a few hints
that would enable him to keep out of trouble; but they never repeated the
experiment. Lester was surly and not at all sociable; and he was so very
independent, and seemed to have so much confidence in his ability to make
his way without help from anybody, that his visitors took their leave
without saying half as much to him as they had intended.
“I know what they are up to,” said Lester, who stood at the window
watching Don and Bert as they rode away. “They have reasons for wishing
to get on the right side of me. Somebody has probably told them that I am
to have plenty of money to spend, and they intend that I shall spend some
of it for their own benefit. I am going in for a shoulder-strap—I am not
one to be satisfied with a sergeant’s warrant—and the first thing I shall
do, after I get it, will be to take those stripes off Bert Gordon’s arms.
He and his boot-black can’t order _me_ around.”
This soliloquy will show that Lester had changed his mind in regard to
the school at Bridgeport. He wanted to go there now. His father, who
knew nothing about the academy beyond what Don and Bert had told him,
and who judged it by the fashionable boarding-schools at which he had
obtained the little knowledge he possessed, had neglected no opportunity
to impress upon Lester’s mind the fact that a rich man’s son would not
be allowed to remain long in the ranks, and that there was nothing to
prevent him from winning and wearing an officer’s sword, if he would only
use a little tact in pushing himself forward. After listening to such
counsel as this, it was not at all likely that anything that Don and Bert
could say would have any influence with him.
“He thinks he is going to have a walk over,” said Don, as he stroked his
pony’s glossy mane.
“It looks that way, but there’s where he is mistaken,” replied Bert.
“Lester will be walking an extra before he has been at the academy a
week.”
“Well, we’ll not volunteer any more advice, no matter what happens to
him,” said Don. “We’ll let him go as he pleases and see how he will come
out.”
The day set for their departure came at last, and Don and Bert,
accompanied by Mr. Brigham and Lester, set out for Bridgeport, which they
reached without any mishap. They rode in the same hack from the depot to
the academy, and when they alighted at the door, they were surrounded
by a crowd of boys who had already reported for duty, and who made it
a point to rush out of the building to extend a noisy welcome to every
newcomer. School was not yet in session, and the first-class boys were
not above speaking to a plebe.
Among those who were first to greet Don and Bert as they stepped out of
the hack, were Egan, Hopkins and Curtis. As these young gentlemen had
already completed the regular academic course, perhaps the reader would
like to know what it was that brought them back. They came to take what
was called the “finishing course,” and to put themselves under technical
instruction. After that (it took two years to go through it) Hopkins
was to enter a lawyer’s office in Baltimore; Egan intended to become
assistant engineer to a relative who was building railroads somewhere in
South America; while Curtis was looking towards West Point.
The boys who composed these advanced classes were privileged characters.
They dressed in citizens’ clothes, performed no military duty, boarded in
the village, and came and went whenever they pleased. When the students
went into camp, they were at liberty to go with them, or they could
stay at the academy and study. If they chose the camp, they could ask to
be appointed aids or orderlies at headquarters, or they could put on a
uniform, shoulder a musket, and fall into the ranks. They held no office,
and the boy who was lieutenant-colonel last year, was nothing better than
a private now.
Don and Bert greeted their friends cordially, and as soon as the latter
could free himself from their clutches, he beckoned to Mr. Brigham and
Lester, who followed him through the hall and into the superintendent’s
room.