Raftmates Part 12

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. h.e.l.lo, 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 ent.i.tled "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 t.i.tle that suggested itself, and working in descriptions to fit the t.i.tles. 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Billy Brackett is a friend in need.]

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 grat.i.tude 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 s.h.i.+pping 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 ash.o.r.e 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.