Munroe Kirk
Raftmates: A Story of the Great River
CHAPTER XX.
BIM GROWLS
During the following day, while these letters were on their way to the little Iowa town in which the principal actors in this story were playing at such cross-purposes, active preparations were being made on board the Whatnot for the first exhibition of its panorama. In those days the panorama filled the place now taken by the stereopticon; and though its crude pictures lacked the photographic truth of lantern slides, they were by no means devoid of interest. In fact, their gorgeousness of color, and the vagueness of detail that allowed each to represent several scenes, according to the pleasure of the lecturer, rendered them quite as popular, if not so instructive, as their modern successors.
The success of a panorama, however, depended largely upon the person who explained its pictures. If he were witty, and knew how to tell the good story of which each one was certain to remind him, all went well, and the fame of that panorama spread far and wide. If, on the other hand, he was prosy, and offered only dry explanations of his pictures, the impatient river-town audience did not hesitate to express their dissatisfaction, and the exhibition was apt to close with a riot.
All this was well known to Cap'n Cod; but twenty years of absence from the stage had caused him to lose sight of his first and only humiliating appearance before an audience, and had restored all his youthful confidence in his own abilities. He was therefore to be the lecturer of his own show, while Winn and Solon were to enter the treadmill, and supply, as well as they could, the place of a mule in furnishing power to move the heavy roll of paintings. Sabella was also to remain out of sight, but was to grind out music from the hand-organ whenever it might be needed. This was only a temporary position, and would be filled by either Winn or Solon after a mule had been obtained for the treadmill. Sabella's real duty was to dress Don Blossom, and see that he went on the stage at the proper time.
The hour for giving these arrangements a public test finally arrived. By eight o'clock the exhibition hall of the Whatnot was packed with an audience that contained a number of raftsmen and steamboat hands from the water-front. These were good-naturedly noisy, and indulged in cat-calls, stampings, and other manifestations of their impatience for the curtain to rise. An occasional lull in the tumult allowed the droning notes of the "Sweet By-and-By," then new and extremely popular, to be heard, as they were slowly ground out from the hand-organ by the invisible Sabella.
At length they ceased; the little drop-curtain was slowly rolled up so as to expose the first picture, and Cap'n Cod, pointer in hand, in all the glory of the blue swallow-tail with brass buttons, stepped on the stage. His appearance was greeted with a silence that was almost painful in its contrast with the previous tumult.
Now for the neat introductory speech that the old man had prepared so carefully and rehearsed until he knew every word by heart. He stepped forward, and gazed appealingly at the silent audience; but no word came from his dry lips. He swallowed convulsively, and appeared to be struggling with himself. A titter of laughter sounded from the back of the room. The old man's face became fiery red and then deathly pale. He looked helplessly and pitifully from side to side.
"Wind him up!" shouted a voice.
"He's stopped short, never to go again," called another.
"He's an old fraud, and his show's a fake!"
"Speech! speech!"
"No; a song! Let old dot-and-carry-one give us a song!"
"Oh, shut up! Don't you see he's a ballet-dancer?"
And so the derisive jeerings of this audience, like those of another twenty years before, hailed Cap'n Cod's second failure. His confidence in himself, his years of experience, the memory of what he ought to say, all vanished the moment he faced that mass of upturned faces, and he was once more the dumb, trembling Codringhampton of twenty years before. A mist swam before his eyes, he groped blindly with his hands, the derisive yells of the river-men, who were endeavoring to secure their money's worth of amusement from this pitiful spectacle, grew fainter and fainter in his ears. He tottered backward, and would have fallen, had not a young man from the audience sprang to his assistance.
Very tenderly he helped the old man from the stage and into the friendly shadows of the side scenes. In another moment he reappeared. With flashing eyes he stepped in front of the turbulent audience and held up his hand. The curiosity of the river-men was sufficient to produce an almost instant silence, which in another second might have changed into an angry roar.
Who was this young fellow? What business had he to interfere with their fun? What was he going to say? He'd better be careful! They were not in a humor to be trifled with.
For a moment he looked steadily at them.
Then he said:
"Boys, I am surprised, and if I thought for a moment that you really meant to worry that old man, I should be ashamed of you. But I know you didn't. It was only your fun. He has been a soldier, and lost a leg fighting for you and me and to preserve the glorious Union, that you and I are prouder of than anything else in life. He has a daughter in there too—a young girl, for whom he is trying to make a living with this show. I saw her just now, and if you could have seen the look of distress and terror on her face as she sprang to the old man's side you would feel as I do about this business. Yon would know, as I do, that this was no fake, but a square—A, number one—show, packed full and running over with good things, worth ten times the price of admission. You'd know that it was just the bulliest show ever seen on this little old river, and you'd turn in with a will to help me prove it. I am a stranger, just arrived in town, and never set eyes on this outfit before; but I'm willing to put up my last dollar on the fact that this show is so much better than I've said that as soon as you've seen it once, you'll want to see it right over again, you'll come to it every evening that it stays here, and then you'll follow it down the river on the chance of seeing it again. Hello, inside! Turn on your steam, and set your whirligig to moving."
By this time the good-nature of the audience was fully restored, and, amid encouraging cries of "That's the talk!" "Ring the jingle-bell and give her a full head!" "Sweep her out into the current and toot your horn, stranger!" the panorama began slowly to unroll. The young man picked up the pointer, and the moment the second picture—a lurid scene that Cap'n Cod had entitled "The Burning of Moscow"—was fully exposed to view, he began:
"There you have it, gentlemen! One of the most thrilling events of this century. The great San Francisco fire of '55. City swept clean from the face of the earth, and built up again, finer than before, inside of a month. I tell you, fellows, those Californians are rustlers! Why, I met a man out in 'Frisco last month whom I knew, two years ago, as a raftsman on this very river at twenty a month and found. To-day he is worth a cool million of dollars, and if you want to know how he made it, I'll let you into the secret."
And so the young stranger rattled on with story and joke, never pausing to study the panoramic scenes as they moved slowly along, but giving each the first title that suggested itself, and working in descriptions to fit the titles. He kept it up for more than an hour; and when Sabella, who was watching him from the side scenes with admiring wonder, called out softly that the picture he was then describing was the last, he gracefully dismissed as delighted an audience as ever attended a river show, and disappeared with them.
Billy Brackett had come up the Illinois side of the river by rail and stage, and had been ferried across to Mandrake just in time to be attracted by the incipient riot aboard the Whatnot. Led to the scene by curiosity, his generous indignation was aroused by the sight of the helpless old man and his tormentors. Now, to avoid being thanked for what he had done, he hurried away, released Bim from his confinement on the wharf-boat, to that bow-legged animal's intense joy, and went to the hotel for the night.
The next morning, when he came down into the office, the clerk handed him Mrs. Caspar's letter. He stood by the desk and read it. Then he read it again, with a frown of perplexity deepening on his forehead. "Winn here, on board the Mantel-piece, and out of money! What can Ellen mean? She must be losing her mind."
The young man was so engrossed with this letter that he paid no attention to the other occupants of the room. Thus he did not see Cap'n Cod and his niece enter the front door, nor notice that the former was greeted by two men who had been talking earnestly together and watching him with great interest. Nor did he see Sabella stoop to pat Bim, who had gone to meet her. He did not notice the entrance a moment later of a boy with a very puzzled expression of countenance and an open letter in his hand. Neither did he see that the boy was accompanied by the printer who had furnished his reward notices, and who now pointed in his direction, saying, "That's him there. That's Mr. Brickell."
At the same moment Sabella exclaimed, "Oh, Winn, here's Bim! Isn't he a dear dog?" Then she too caught sight of Billy Brackett, and pulling Cap'n Cod by the sleeve, whispered, "There he is, uncle. That is the gentleman you have come to thank for helping us so splendidly last evening."
While she was thus whispering into one ear, the night watchman of the wharf-boat, who stood on the other side of the old man, was saying, in a low tone, "Yes, sir. As I was just telling the Sheriff, that's the man as stole his skiff, for I saw him when he landed here in it."
Sheriff Riley, who had only reached Mandrake half an hour before, was staring at Winn, and saying to himself, "There's the young rascal now. I knew it wasn't that other fellow, though somehow his face is strangely familiar too."
There was a momentary hesitation on all sides. Then, as though moved by a single impulse, Winn started towards Billy Brackett to ask him if his name was Brickell, Cap'n Cod stepped up to express his heart-felt gratitude for what he had done the evening before, and Sheriff Riley moved towards Winn with the intention of arresting him. At this Bim, recognizing the Sheriff, stationed himself in front of his preoccupied master, erected the bristles on the back of his neck, and growled.
CHAPTER XXI.
EVERY ONE EXPLAINS
At Bim's growl, Billy Brackett said "Be quiet, sir!" and looked up. He wondered somewhat at the number of persons advancing towards him, and was also surprised to note that, with one exception, they were all people whom he knew. He recognized Sabella and her uncle, the wharf-boat man, the printer, and even the Sheriff of Dubuque County. The only one of the group whom he had not seen before was the gentlemanly and thoroughly honest-looking young fellow upon whose shoulder the Sheriff had just laid his hand, saying,
"I want you, my boy."
"I expect I want him more than you do, Sheriff," remarked Billy Brackett, quietly, stepping forward and laying a hand on Winn's other shoulder. "You take him to be a thief, while I take him to be my nephew; and, of course, if he is the one, he can't be the other. Isn't your name Winn Caspar? Answer me that, you young rascal!"
"Yes," replied Winn, slowly, "that is my name. But what a stupid I have been!"
"You mean in allowing yourself to be carried off by the raft, and then losing it, and getting arrested, and running off with the Sheriff's skiff, and letting it go adrift with your coat in it, and shipping aboard some craft that your dear mother calls the Mantel-piece for a cruise down the river, instead of getting along home and relieving the anxiety of your distressed parents, to say nothing of that of your aged uncle. Yes, it does seem to me that in this instance the general brilliancy of the family is somewhat clouded."
"I don't mean anything of the kind," answered Winn, stoutly. "All these things might have happened to any one, even to an uncle of your advanced years and wisdom. So I am sure I don't consider them proofs of stupidity. The only stupid thing that I am willing to acknowledge is that I didn't recognize Bim, after I'd been told there was a dog of that name here, too. That's the thing I can't get over."
"But you had never seen him!" exclaimed Billy Brackett.
"That makes no difference," was the calm reply. "I'd heard so much about him that I ought to have known him, and I can't forgive myself that I didn't."
"How about running off with my boat?" queried the Sheriff, who did not at all understand the situation.
"I didn't run off with your boat. It ran off with me first, and ran away from me afterwards. If you hadn't taken the oars out I should have rowed into Dubuque and sent some one back to the island with her. As it was, I had to go wherever she chose to take me, until she set me ashore on a tow-head, and went on down the river by herself. I'm glad of it, though, for if she hadn't, I should never have found the Whatnot."
"The Whatnot!" exclaimed Billy Brackett. "Are you living on board the Whatnot?"
"Yes, sir, this young gentleman is a guest on board of my boat," said Cap'n Cod, who now found his first chance to speak; "and glad as I have been to have him, it would have made me many times happier to know that he was the son of my old friend and commander. Why didn't you tell me the truth in the first place, boy?" And the veteran gazed reproachfully at Winn.
"I did tell you the truth so far as I told you anything. I didn't dare tell you any more, because I heard you say you were a friend of Sheriff Riley, and knew his skiff. So I was afraid you would have me arrested for running off with it, and in that way delay me so that I would never find the raft. Besides, I wanted to wait until I could get a letter from home to prove who I am, and I hadn't a chance to write until we got here."
"With me, the simple word of Major Caspar's son would have been stronger than all the proof in the world," said the loyal old soldier; "and though you did, as you say, tell the truth so far as you told anything, you did not tell the whole truth, as your father certainly would have done had he been in your place."
"The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," quoted the Sheriff, in his most official tone. "But look here, Cap'n Cod," he continued, "you haven't yet explained what you know of this young fellow, and his suspicious, or, to say the least, queer performances on the river."
"Cap'n Cod!" interrupted Winn. "Is your name Cap'n Cod?"
"It is a name that I have been known to answer to," replied the owner of the Whatnot; "and after my performance of last evening I don't suppose I shall ever be allowed to claim any other."
"If you had only told me all your names in the first place," said Winn, with a sly twinkle in his eyes, "I should probably have done the same. I have so often heard my father speak of Cap'n Cod's goodness and honesty and bravery, that I should have been perfectly willing to trust him; though I was a bit suspicious of the Sheriff's friend, Mr. Aleck Fifield."
"It's not the Sheriff's friends you need be suspicious of, my lad, but his enemies," interrupted Mr. Riley; "and I wonder if you haven't fallen in with them already. As I now understand this case, you came down the river on a raft until you reached the island near which I found you. What became of your raft at that point?"
"That is what I would like to know," replied the boy.
"What!" cried Billy Brackett. "Do you mean to say that you don't know where the raft is?"
"No more than I know how you happen to be here instead of out in California, where I supposed you were until five minutes ago. I haven't set eyes on the Venture, nor found a trace of her, since the first morning out from home."
"Well, if that doesn't beat everything!" said the young engineer, with a comical tone of despair. "I thought that after finding you the discovery of the raft would follow as a matter of course; but now it begins to look farther away than ever."
"But in finding me," said Winn, "you have found some one to help you find the raft."
"You?" said the other, quizzically. "Why, I was thinking of sending you home to your mother; that is, if the Sheriff here will allow you to go."
"I don't know about that," said the officer. "It seems to me that I still know very little about this young man. Who is to prove to me that he is the son of Major Caspar?"
"Oh, I can speak for that," replied Billy Brackett.
"And I suppose he is ready to vouch for you; but that won't do. You see, you are both suspicious characters, and unless some one whom I know as well as I do Cap'n Cod here can identify you, I must take you both back to Dubuque."
"Captain Cod," repeated Billy Brackett, thoughtfully. "I seem to have heard that name before. Why, yes, I have a note of introduction from Major Caspar to a Captain Cod, and I shouldn't wonder if you were the very man. Here it is now."
"I am proud to make your acquaintance, sir," said the veteran, heartily, after glancing over the note thus handed to him. "It's all right, Sheriff. This is certainly the Major's handwriting, for I know it as I do my own, and I don't want any better proof that this gentleman is the person he claims to be."
"Would you be willing to go on his bond for a thousand dollars?" asked Mr. Riley.
"I would, and for as much more as my own property, together with what I hold in trust for my niece, would bring," answered the old man, earnestly.
"And would you be willing that your money should be risked on any such a venture?" asked the Sheriff, turning to Sabella with a smile.
"Indeed I would," answered the girl, promptly. "After the splendid way Mr. Brackett helped us last evening, I know whatever he says must be so."
"That will do," said Mr. Riley. "With such sureties I am well content, and am willing to make public acknowledgment that these gentlemen are what they represent themselves to be. Now, for their future guidance, I will tell them what I have not yet hinted to a living soul. It is that their raft has probably been stolen and taken down the river by the most noted gang of counterfeiters that has ever operated in this part of the country. There are three of them, and I thought I had surely run them to earth when I traced them to the island just above Dubuque. You must have seen them there, didn't you?"
"No, sir," replied Winn, to whom this question was addressed. "I only saw one man on the island. He said he was a river-trader, and would help me float the raft. We went to look for his partners, and when I came back, it and he were both gone. After that I did not see a soul until you came along and arrested me."
"That confirms my belief that they have appropriated your raft to their own uses," said the Sheriff; "and it is a mighty good scheme on their part, too. We were watching all the steamboats, and even the trading scows, but never thought of finding them on a raft. They have probably disguised it, and themselves too, long before this, so that to trail them will be very difficult. I suppose you will try to follow them, though?"
"Certainly I shall," answered Billy Brackett, promptly. "I haven't undertaken this job only to give it up after a week's trial. As for Winn, though, I don't know but what I really ought to send him home."
"Now look here, Uncle Billy. You know you don't mean that. You know that, much as I want to see mother and Elta, I simply must find that raft, or, at any rate, help you do it. You couldn't send me home, either, unless you borrowed a pair of handcuffs from the Sheriff and put me in irons. Anyway, I don't believe you'd have the heart. If I thought for a moment that you had, I'd—well, I'd disappear again, that's all."
"All right," laughed Billy Brackett. "I'm willing you should go with us if Bim is. What do you say, old dog? Speak, sir!"
And Bim spoke till the echoes rang again.
