PLANS AND ARRANGEMENTS.
“I say, fellows,” exclaimed Egan, the next time he found all his friends
together, “there’s something going to happen during this camp that never
happened before. The paymaster is coming here to settle with us.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean that we are entitled to a dollar a day for the work our company
did at Hamilton,” replied Egan. “As we were under orders five days we
have five dollars apiece coming to us from the State.”
“Do the wounded come in for that much?” inquired Hopkins.
“They belong to the company, do they not?” demanded Egan. “They are not
to blame for getting hurt, are they? They will get just as much as the
others.”
We may here remark that the Legislature gave them more. Hopkins received
a hundred dollars to pay him for his sprained ankle; the boy who was hit
in the eye with a buck-shot, and who stood a fair chance of going blind
from the effects of it, got eleven hundred; Stanley received six hundred,
and so did each of the boys who were shot at Don Gordon’s side when the
company was ordered out of the car.
“I’ll never spend those five dollars,” said Don.
“Neither will I,” chimed in Hopkins. “If I get the money all in one bill,
I’ll have it framed and hang it up in my room beside a fox-brush which I
won at the risk of my neck.”
“I wonder how mine would look hung around the neck of that white swan
that led me such a race two winters ago,” said Egan. “I think they will
go well together, and every time I look at them, they will remind me of
the most exciting incident of my life. Gordon, you’ll have to make yours
into a rug and spread it on the floor beside the skin of that bear that
came so near making an end of Lester Brigham.”
The boys had only three days more to devote to study during the school
term, and much lost time to make up. The work was hard, they found it
almost impossible to keep their minds upon their books, and everybody,
teachers as well as students, was glad when the first day of August
arrived, and the battalion took up its line of march for its old camping
ground. The students were hardly allowed time to become settled in their
new quarters before their friends began to flock into the camp. A few
fathers and guardians came there with the intention of taking their sons
and wards from the school at once—they did not want them to remain if
they were expected to risk their lives in fighting rioters. Some of the
timid ones were glad to go; but the others, who were full of military
ardor, begged hard to be permitted to complete the course, and pleaded
their cause with so much ability that their fathers relented, and even
took the trouble to hunt up Professor Kellogg and congratulate him on
having “broken the back-bone” of the Hamilton riot.
Lester Brigham’s father and mother were among the visitors, and so were
General Gordon and his wife. The former were very indignant when they
left Rochdale. Mr. Brigham repeatedly declaring that it was a sin and an
outrage for the superintendent to send boys like those under his care
into battle, and after he had told him, in plain language, what he
thought of such a proceeding, he was going to take Lester out of that
school without any delay or ceremony. But when he reached the camp, he
did not feel that way. General Gordon reasoned with him, and when he
shook hands with Lester, he said he was sorry the boy hadn’t been in the
fight, so that he could praise him for his gallant conduct. Mr. Brigham
didn’t know that Lester had hidden his head under the bed-clothes when
the bugle sounded.
“I was afraid you would want me to leave the school,” faltered Lester, as
soon as he had somewhat recovered from his surprise.
“By no means,” said his father, earnestly. “You boys will have full
control of this government some day—did you ever think of that?—and now
is the time for you to learn your duty as citizens. What are you going to
be when this examination comes off? A captain, I hope.”
“I shan’t be anything,” replied Lester, who could scarcely conceal his
rage. “I shall never be an officer, because I can’t see the beauty of
toadying to the teachers. I’ll not stay here to fight strikers, either.”
“I sincerely hope your company will never be called upon to perform any
duty so hazardous,” said Mr. Brigham; “but if it is, I want to hear
that you are in the front rank. If you do not obtain promotion this
examination, I shall think you have wasted your time.”
“I have invited a couple of my friends to go home with me,” said Lester,
who wanted to make sure of a cordial reception for Jones and Williams,
even if he and they were expelled from the academy for misconduct.
“I am glad to hear it,” said Mr. Brigham. “Your mother and I will
endeavor to make their visit so agreeable that they will want to come
again.”
“And Williams has invited me to go home with him next year,” added
Lester. “He lives down in Maryland, a short distance from Egan and
Hopkins. May I go?”
“Certainly. Make all the friends you can, but be sure that they are the
right sort.”
“I’ve got his promise,” said Lester to himself, as he paced his lonely
beat that night, “and he’ll not break it. But I must say he’s a nice
father for any fellow to have. I thought sure he had come here to take
me home with him. He talks very glibly about my risking life and limb in
defence of law and order, but would he take it so easy if he were in my
place? I’ll not stay here another year, and that’s flat.”
Contrary to his expectations Lester Brigham, although he fell far behind
his class in both deportment and studies, had not been left at the
academy under arrest, and now he was glad of it. It was easier to get
out of the camp than it was to leave the academy grounds, and he and his
fellow-conspirators could hold a consultation every day. They began to
exhibit some activity now, and among those who had agreed to accompany
Lester on his “picnic” there was not one who showed any signs of backing
out, or who even thought of it, with the exception of Lester himself.
Three of their number had been taken home by their angry parents, but
those who remained held to their purpose, and urged their leaders to
decide upon a plan of operations. Lester, who had been rendered almost
desperate by the extraordinary behavior of his father, was anxious that
something should be done at once, and he and his two right-hand men had
many an earnest conference, the result of which was the promulgation
of an order to the effect that none of the “band,” as they called
themselves, should ask for a pass until they were told to do so.
“That will keep us together, you know,” said Lester and his lieutenants.
“If one of us asks for a pass to-day and another to-morrow—why, when the
time for action comes those who have already been out will be refused,
and consequently not more than half of us will get away. Williams will
have to go out to do a little scouting so as to ascertain when and where
we can get a boat, but the rest of us must be content to stay in.”
Their first week under canvas was a busy one, as it always was. The
fortifications, which had been thrown up the year before in anticipation
of that fight with the Mount Pleasant Indians, must be repaired and camp
routine established before liberty was granted to anybody. Before this
work was completed many of their visitors took their departure. Among
these were General and Mrs. Gordon, who wished Don and Bert a pleasant
visit with their friend Curtis in his northern home, and Lester’s father
and mother, who did not forget to give the boy a good supply of spending
money before they went, and to assure Jones and Williams that they looked
forward to their visit to Rochdale with many pleasurable anticipations.
“That money is intended for the use of yourself and your friends,” said
Mr. Brigham. “If it is stolen from you, or if the superintendent finds
out that I gave it to you, it will be your own fault. If you will come
home with a strap on your shoulder, I will give you as much more.”
During the second week passes were freely granted, and one of the first
to go out was Enoch Williams, whose duty it was to find a suitable
boat and lay plans for seizing it at a specified time. He was gone all
day, and when he came back he was full of enthusiasm, some of which he
communicated to Jones, who was the first boy he met after reporting his
return. They exchanged a few whispered words, and then hurried off to
find Lester.
“It’s all right, Brigham,” said Jones, gleefully. “Enoch has done his
full duty, and deserves the thanks of every fellow in the band. We’re off
to-morrow night.”
Somehow Lester did not feel as highly elated over this piece of news as
his friends thought he would. He wanted to desert and do something that
would make the academy boys talk about him after he was gone, but he
wished from the bottom of his heart that he had never said a word about
running away in a boat.
“I think myself that I have planned things better than any other boy in
the band could have done it,” said Enoch, with no little satisfaction in
his tones. “I’ve got the boat, and now you must assess every fellow in
the band five dollars.”
“What for?” demanded Lester.
“To pay for her, and to buy our provisions.”
“To pay for her,” echoed Lester. “I thought we were going to steal her.”
“So we are—after a while. Now I will begin at the beginning and tell you
just what I have done: When I got down to the river I found that the
cutter I wanted to take on account of her superior accommodations, had
gone off on a cruise, and that there was only one yacht in port. But
she’s a beauty, and I wouldn’t be afraid to go to Europe in her. She
was anchored out in the stream, and while I was wondering how I could
get aboard of her, her keeper came off in a dory and told me that if I
wanted to take a look at the schooner he would be glad of my company,
for he was alone there. I went, and in less than an hour I had everything
arranged. His owner is going on a cruise with a party of friends next
Monday, and it took but little urging on my part to induce the keeper to
agree to give the band a ride down the river to-morrow night, provided we
would promise to come back when he said the word, so that he could have
the schooner in her berth at daylight.”
“You didn’t promise that, of course,” said Lester, when Enoch paused to
take breath.
“Of course I did,” answered Enoch.
“Well, you’re a good one,” exclaimed Lester, in deep disgust. “I’ll not
go on any such expedition. A night ride on the river! There would be
lots of fun in that, wouldn’t there? When I start on this picnic I don’t
intend to come back to Bridgeport until I have had sport enough to pay me
for the trouble of deserting, or I am captured and brought back.”
“Neither do we,” said Jones, as soon as he saw a chance to crowd a word
in edgewise. “Let Enoch finish his story, and then see if you don’t think
more of his plans.”
“I promised that he could come back with his vessel before daylight, so
that his owner wouldn’t suspect that he had been doing a little cruising
on his own hook,” continued Enoch, “but I didn’t say that we would come
back with him.”
“You might as well have said so,” snapped Lester. “Where are we going to
stay and what are we going to do without a boat to sail about in?”
“Wait until I have had my say, and then you may talk yourself blind for
all I care,” retorted Enoch, who was beginning to get angry.
“Go easy, Williams,” Jones interposed. “We don’t want a row before we get
out of camp. If we go to quarreling among ourselves there’s an end of all
our fun.”
“I don’t want to quarrel,” said Lester, who did not like the way Enoch
glared at him.
“Then wait till I get through before you pass judgment upon the
arrangements I have made,” exclaimed Enoch. “I didn’t promise
Coleman—that’s the boat-keeper’s name—that we would return to Bridgeport
with him, and neither did I say that he could bring the yacht back, for I
don’t intend that he shall do anything of the kind.”
“How are you going to prevent it?” inquired Lester.
“That’s the best part of the plan,” said Jones. “Go on, Enoch.”
“This is the way we will prevent it,” continued the latter. “We’ll go
with him as far as Windsor, and then we will stop and make an excuse to
get him ashore. As soon as we are rid of him we’ll fill away for the bay.
If the wind is at all brisk he can’t catch us.”
“What do you say to that?” demanded Jones.
“I say it looks like business,” answered Lester, who now, for the first
time, began to take some interest in his scheme. “It’s all right, Enoch;
you couldn’t have done better, and I couldn’t have done as well. There’s
my hand.”
“I thought you would like it after you had given me a chance to explain,”
said Enoch, growing good-natured again.
“So did I,” chimed in Jones. “We want to do something daring and
reckless, you know; something that will make the good little boys open
their eyes.”
“There’s only one objection to it,” continued Enoch. “When we send
Coleman ashore we shall lose our small boat, but we can easily stop at
one of the islands in the bay and borrow another.”
“So we can,” exclaimed Lester, with great enthusiasm. “Say, boys, what’s
the use of buying any provisions? Let’s turn pirates and forage on the
farmers for our grub?”
“That’s the very idea,” said Enoch.
“I am in favor of foraging and have been all the while,” said Jones. “But
we must be careful and not try to carry things with too high a hand. If
we get the farmers down on us, they will help our pursuers all they can,
and that will bring our cruise to an end very speedily. We must buy the
most of our provisions and we must speak to the boys about it now, so
that when they ask for a pass they can draw on the superintendent for
five dollars apiece.”
“But how will you get out of the lines, Enoch?” inquired Lester. “The
superintendent will not grant you liberty for two days in succession.”
“I’ll get out; don’t you worry about that,” replied Enoch, confidently.
“Now let’s separate and post the other boys, and see who they want for
treasurer. That’s an official we have never had any use for before.”
“Tell them that I am a candidate,” said Lester, who thought he would be
a little better satisfied if he could keep his five dollars in his own
hands.
“That won’t do at all,” said Jones, quickly.
“Of course not,” chimed in Enoch. “You’ll have enough to do to manage the
yacht. I shall push Jones for the office.”
“By the way, how much did you agree to pay Coleman for giving us a ride
down the river?” asked Lester.
“Twenty-five dollars,” replied Enoch.
“That’s a good deal of money to pay out for nothing. The understanding
was that we were to capture our vessel. If we had held to that, we could
have got her for nothing.”
“And had a tug after us as soon as she could get up steam,” replied
Enoch. “As I said before, this schooner is the only yacht in port. We
couldn’t capture her without getting into a fight with Coleman, and if we
had alarmed anybody, we should have had to run a race with the telegraph
as well as with the tug. Now, remember what I say, Lester: We shall be
in danger as long as we are this side of Oxford. Coleman knows that we
are going to take French leave, and has promised to be as sly as he can
in taking us on board the schooner; but no matter how carefully we cover
up our trail, some sharp fellow like Mack will be sure to find it, and
telegraph the authorities at Oxford to be on the look-out for us.”
“And Coleman himself will raise an outcry just as soon as he finds out
that we have given him the slip,” added Jones.
“To be sure he will. I tell you, Brigham, we’re going to have a time of
it, and you will have a chance to show just how smart you are. After
we get the schooner everything will depend upon you. If you can take
us safely past Oxford and out into the bay, you will be a leader worth
having, and the boys will feel so much confidence in you that they will
do anything you say.”
“And if I fail in my efforts to do that, they will lose what little
confidence they have in me now, and put somebody else in my place,”
said Lester to himself, as he and his friends moved off in different
directions to hunt up the rest of the band and tell them of the plans
that had been determined upon. “What am I to do now?”
There was a time when Don Gordon would have been delighted with such a
prospect as this. The responsibility resting upon the captain of the
schooner, and which was much too heavy a burden for Lester to bear, would
have aroused all the combativeness in his nature, and made him determined
to succeed in spite of every obstacle that could be thrown in his way.
Lester, however, felt like backing out, and he would have done so if he
had received the least encouragement from a single one of the band to
whom he spoke that night. They were all strongly in favor of Enoch’s
plan, and promised to be on hand at the appointed time with their money
in their pockets.
“If you don’t want to go, now is the time to say so,” Lester ventured to
suggest, hoping that some timid boy would take the hint and give him an
excuse for staying behind himself; but the invariable reply was:
“I do want to go. I didn’t agree to this thing just to hear myself talk.
If you fellows are going, I am going too.”
“Whom have you seen, Brigham?” asked Jones, as the two met again just
before the supper call was sounded. “All right. Enoch and I have seen
the rest, and have found them all true blue. There’s not a single
weak-kneed one among them. We mustn’t leave the camp in a body, you
know, for that might excite suspicion; but we’ll see them in Bridgeport
to-morrow afternoon, and tell them to be at Haggert’s dock at dark.”
They were all going, that was evident, and Lester did not see how he
could refuse to accompany them. If he feigned illness or neglected to
ask for a pass, he would surely be found out and accused of cowardice,
and then the boys would have nothing more to do with him. There were few
outside the band who ever took the trouble to speak to him, and if they
deserted him he would be lonely indeed.
“And more than all, Williams and Jones would refuse to go home with me,
and that would knock my visit to Maryland in the head,” said Lester to
himself. “That wouldn’t be at all pleasant. I shall have a harder time at
Rochdale than I ever had before. Don and Bert Gordon will be sure to tell
all the people there how I have acted ever since I came to the academy,
and what a coward I was on the night the false alarm was given, and they
will make it so disagreeable for me that I can’t stay. I must stick to
those boys, for they are the only friends I have. I believe I’ll turn
the command of the yacht over to Enoch. He wants it and I don’t; and if
I give it up to him of my own free will, perhaps it will increase his
friendship for me.”
Lester breathed easier after he made this resolution, and, although he
did not enjoy his sleep that night, he did not look forward with so many
gloomy forebodings. He received his pass and his money when he asked for
them, and in company with Jones set out for Bridgeport. They directed
their course toward Haggert’s dock, and when they reached it Lester
obtained his first view of a sea-going yacht. One glance at her was
enough to satisfy him that he could do nothing with her, and he suddenly
thought of an excuse for saying so.
“Is that the schooner?” he asked, as he and his companion seated
themselves on a spar that was lying on the dock.
“Why, of course she’s a schooner,” exclaimed Jones, looking up in
surprise. “A vessel of that size wouldn’t be square-rigged, would she?
Can’t you see that she is a fore-and-after?”
“Not being blind I can,” replied Lester, loftily. “I inquired if she was
_the_ schooner—the one we are going to take.”
“Oh!” replied Jones. “Yes, I suppose she is, but I can very soon find
out,” he added, as he drew his handkerchief from his pocket. “If that man
who is lounging in the cockpit is Coleman, I can bring him ashore.”
“Having always been used to plenty of sea-room, I am not sure that I can
handle the schooner in this narrow river,” said Lester.
“We are not going to stay in the river, you know,” answered Jones. “We
shall get out of it as soon as we can.”
“I know that; but Enoch said last night that we shall be in danger as
long as we remain this side of Oxford, and the boy who takes us down the
river ought to be one who knows how to handle boats in close places. I
don’t know much about schooners, for, as I told you long ago, my yacht
was a cutter.”
“What’s the difference?” asked Jones.
“There is a good deal of difference the first thing you know,” exclaimed
Lester; and fearing that he might be asked to tell what it was, he
hastened to say: “Williams is a good fellow and a good sailor too, if
I am any judge, and I think I will ask him to take command. Of course
I could manage the schooner, and perhaps I will take her in hand after
Enoch gets her out of the river.”
“All right,” said Jones. “I guess Enoch will take her if you ask him.
That’s Coleman.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he waved his hand in reply to my signal, and is now coming off
in his boat.”
In a few minutes Coleman rowed up to the wharf in his dory. He did not
get out, but stood up in his boat and kept it in its place by holding
fast to a ring-bolt.
“I wanted to make sure that everything is just as it should be,” said
Jones, who saw that the boat-keeper was waiting to hear what he had to
say. “Can we go on our cruise to-night?”
“Are you one of the deserters?” asked Coleman.
“I am; and my friend here, is another. One of our fellows was down here
yesterday and talked the matter over with you. Has anything occurred to
interfere with the arrangements you and he made?”
“Not that I know of. How many of you are there?”
“Just twenty-five,” replied Jones.
“That will be a dollar a piece,” said Coleman. “Can you raise so much
money? Then it’s all right; but there’s one thing I want understood
before we start: I must be back here before daylight.”
“There’s nothing to prevent it,” answered Jones; “that is, if you can
walk back from Windsor by that time,” he added, mentally.
“I am doing this thing without my owner’s knowledge,” continued Coleman.
“If he should come down here early in the morning and find the yacht
gone, I’d lose my situation.”
“We know that. All we ask of you is to take us as far as Windsor, where
we intend to go ashore for an hour or two. You don’t object to that, I
suppose.”
“Oh, no. If you don’t want to go any farther than that, I can easily get
back in time to avoid suspicion. Anything going on at Windsor?”
“A party,” replied Jones.
After a little more conversation the two boys got up and walked away, and
Coleman went back to the schooner.
“There is that much done,” said Jones. “We have paved the way for getting
him ashore. After we get him up in town we will lose him, and then we’ll
have the schooner to ourselves. Now let’s separate and look out for the
rest of the fellows. Tell them about the party that isn’t going to come
off in Windsor, and give them to understand that they may talk about it
as much as they please in Coleman’s hearing. Urge upon them the necessity
of being on the dock at dusk, so as not to run the risk of being left
behind, but caution them against forming a crowd there. We don’t want
anybody to see us off, and consequently we must be careful not to attract
attention. Williams and I will meet you at noon at Cony Ryan’s.”
“Well, don’t bring any other fellows with you,” said Lester, who knew
that this meant pies, pancakes and milk for three, and that he would have
to foot the bill.
Jones said he wouldn’t, and the two boys gave each other a farewell
salute, and set out in different directions in search of the other
members of the band.