Raftmates Part 26

"Of course we will! Come right aboard and show us where to tie up,"

answered Billy Brackett, heartily.

By the time the raft was made fast near the scene of greatest danger, and Mr. Manton, with Worth, had come aboard, the night was as dark as pitch. The lanterns of the working gang glancing here and there like so many fire-flies were feebly reflected in the angry waters that slid stealthily by with uncanny gurglings and muttered growls.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "The lanterns of the working gang glancing here and there like fire-flies."]

"If the bank will only hold until morning!" said Mr. Manton, about midnight, as he and Billy Brackett entered the _Venture's_ cosey "shanty" for a brief rest. All but these two and Solon were asleep, laying in a stock of strength for the labors of the next day.

Suddenly there came a frightened shouting from the bank. Then all other sounds were drowned in the furious roar of rus.h.i.+ng waters, while the raft seemed to be lifted bodily and hurled into s.p.a.ce.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX.

HURLED THROUGH THE CREVa.s.sE AND WRECKED.

During the earlier hours of that eventful night Billy Brackett had brought all his engineering skill to bear upon the problem of how to save the Moss Bank levee. His cheery presence, and the evident knowledge that he displayed, inspired all hands with confidence and a new energy. Under his direction the raftmates worked like beavers, and Mr. Manton was more hopeful that the levee could be made to withstand the terrible pressure of swollen waters than he had been from the beginning. But it was very old and had been neglected for years. By daylight the young engineer might have noted its weak spots, and strengthened them. He would have seen the thin streams that silently, but steadily and in ever-increasing volume, were working their way through the embankment near its base. In the inky blackness of the night they were unheeded; and while spade and pick were plied with unflagging zeal to strengthen the higher portions, these insidious foes were equally busy undermining its foundations.

Shortly before midnight everything seemed so secure that the boys were sent to the _Venture's_ "shanty" to get a few hours of sleep. Then Billy Brackett and Mr. Manton came in for the hot coffee Solon was preparing for them. They had hardly seated themselves at the table when the catastrophe occurred. Without warning, a quarter of a mile of the water-soaked levee sank out of sight, and dissolved like so much wet sugar. Into the huge gap thus opened the exulting waters leaped with the rush and roar of a cataract. On the foaming crest of this tawny flood the stout timber raft was borne and whirled like an autumn leaf. A few of the working gang managed to reach it and save themselves, but others were swept away like thistle-down.

The boys thus rudely awakened from a sound sleep sprang up with frightened questionings, while Solon sank to his knees, paralyzed with terror. Nanita stood guard over her puppy, while Bim, with a single bark of defiance, leaped to his master's side and looked into his face for orders.

"Steady, boys! Steady!" shouted Billy Brackett, as coolly as though nothing unusual were happening. "No, not outside. Keep that door closed. It is safer in here. We can do nothing but wait patiently until the raft fetches up against something solid or grounds. Hear the waves boiling over the deck? There's a big chance of being swept off and dashed to bits out there."

For five minutes the raft was hurled forward and tossed with sickening plunges, as though in a heavy seaway, until its occupants were nearly prostrated with nausea. Then came a crash and a shock that piled them in headlong confusion on one side of the room. There was a grinding and groaning of timbers. One side of the raft was lifted, and the other forced down, until the floor of the "shanty" sloped steeply.

With a single impulse all hands rushed to the door and into the open air.

The raft seemed to be stranded at the base of a rocky cliff that towered directly above it to an unknown height. Against it the mad waters were das.h.i.+ng savagely. Beneath their feet the stout timbers quivered with such uneasy movements that it seemed as though the end of the _Venture_ had come, and that a few more seconds or minutes must witness its total destruction. Still they clung to it and to each other, for they had no other refuge, and in the absolute darkness surrounding them it would have been worse than folly to seek one.

After a while the first rush of waters pa.s.sed, and they settled into a strong smooth flow like that of the great river from which they came.

The uneasy movements of the raft ceased, and its s.h.i.+vering occupants again began to breath freely.

"I guess it is all right, boys!" called out Billy Brackett. "I believe we are stranded at the foot of the baga.s.se-burner; but the old craft has evidently made up its mind to hold together for a while longer, at any rate. So I move that we crawl into the 'shanty' again. It's a good deal warmer and more comfortable in there than it is out here."

So, very cautiously, to prevent themselves from slipping off the steeply-sloping deck, our raftmates worked their way back into the little house that had for so long been their home. They found the lower side of the floor about two feet under water.

All hands were greatly depressed by the calamity that had overtaken them. Mr. Manton, Worth, Sumner, and old Solon grieved over the ruin of Moss Bank. Glen and Binney feared for the safety of General Elting's valuable instruments. Billy Brackett wondered if Major Caspar, or any one else, would ever again have confidence in him as the leader of an expedition, while Winn, who had never ceased to reproach himself for the manner in which the voyage of the _Venture_ had been begun, was now filled with dismay at its disastrous termination.

He, as well as the others, realized that the raft was a fixture in its present position, that it would never again float on the bosom of the great river, and that all dreams of selling it in New Orleans must now be abandoned. He knew how greatly his father was in need of the money he had hoped to receive from it. He knew what a blow the loss of the wheat had been. Now the raft was lost as well. As the unhappy boy's thoughts travelled back over the incidents of the trip, and he remembered that but for him the wheat would not have been lost, and but for him the raft would probably have been sold in St. Louis, his self-accusations found their way to his eyes, and trickled slowly down his cheeks in the shape of hot tears. The others could not see them in the darkness, and he would not have cared much if they could.

But Billy Brackett was not giving way to his grief. There was too much to be done for that. He was trying to set up the overturned stove, and make things more comfortable. At the same time his cheery tones were raising the low spirits of his companions, and causing them to take a brighter view of the situation.

The young engineer, with Glen and Solon to aid him, worked in darkness, for the lamp had rolled from the table when the raft struck the stone tower, and been extinguished in the water that flooded part of the "shanty." In spite of this drawback, they finally succeeded in getting the stove into position. Then they began to feel for fuel with which to make a fire. Everything was wet. Some one proposed breaking up a chair, but Billy Brackett exclaimed,

"Hold on! I have thought of something better."

With this he caught hold of one of the thin boards used by the "river-traders" to ceil the room, and, with a powerful wrench, tore it off. This particular board happened to be near where Winn was sitting on the floor, so filled with his own sad thoughts that he paid but slight attention to what was going on about him. As the board was torn from its place several soft objects fell near him, and one of them struck his hand. It seemed to be paper, and when Billy Brackett sung out for some paper with which to start the fire, Winn said, "Here's a wad that's dry," and tossed the package in the direction of the stove.

The young engineer slipped it under the wood, struck a match, and lighted it. The next instant he uttered a startled exclamation, s.n.a.t.c.hed the package from the stove, and beat out the flame that was rapidly eating into it.

"What is the matter?" asked Winn.

"Matter?" returned Billy Brackett. "Oh, nothing at all; only I can't quite afford to warm myself at fires fed with bank-bills. Not just yet. I wouldn't hesitate to dissolve all my spare pearls in vinegar, if I felt an inclination for that kind of a drink, but I must draw a line at greenback fuel. Where did you get them? Whose are they? And why in the name of poverty do you want them burned up? Has your wealth become a burden to you?"

"Are they really bills?" asked Winn, incredulously.

For answer Billy Brackett struck another match, and all saw that he indeed held a package of bank-notes with charred ends. The same light showed Winn to be surrounded by a number of similar packages.

The expression of complete bewilderment that appeared on the boy's face as he saw these was so ludicrous that, as the match went out, a shout of laughter rang through the "shanty."

"As long as they are so plenty, I guess we might as well burn them, after all," said Billy Brackett, quietly. With this he struck another match, relighted the little bundle of bills in his hand, and again thrust it into the stove.

For a moment the others believed him to have lost his senses. Winn made a wild dash at the stove door, but Billy Brackett caught his arm.

"It's all right, and I'm not half so big a fool as I may appear," he said, laughing. "Do you remember our late friends the 'river-traders'?

And that they were counterfeiters? And that they occupied this very 'shanty' for several weeks? And that, after losing it, they made desperate attempts to regain its possession? And that we wondered why they had ceiled this room; also, what had become of their stock in trade?"

To each of these questions Winn gave an affirmative answer.

"Well," continued Billy Brackett, "the mystery is a mystery no longer.

They ceiled this room to provide a safe and very ingenious hiding-place for their goods; they wished to regain possession of the raft, that they might recover them. They failed, and so lost them. Now, by the merest accident, we have found them."

"Do you mean--" began Winn, slowly.

"I mean," said Billy Bracket, "that while we are apparently possessed of abundant wealth, it is but the shadow of the substance. In other words, every one of those bills is a counterfeit, and the sooner they are destroyed the better."

In spite of this disappointing announcement, the desire of the raftmates to discover the full extent of the "river-traders'" secret h.o.a.rd was so great that, having found a candle, they proceeded by its light to tear off the whole of the interior sheathing of the room.

They found a quant.i.ty of the counterfeit money, which Billy Brackett, sustained by Mr. Manton, insisted upon burning then and there. They also found, carefully hidden by itself, a package containing exactly one hundred genuine one-hundred-dollar bills.

"Enough," said Billy Brackett, quietly, "to refund the hundred they got from Glen and Binney, to repay Major Caspar for the wheat they dumped overboard, and to make good the loss of the _Whatnot_, which so nearly broke the heart of our brave old friend Cap'n Cod."

The justice of this disposition of the money was so evident that not a single dissenting voice was raised among those who had found it, for they all knew that an effort to trace it to its rightful owners would not only be fruitless, but would cost more than the entire amount.

The knowledge that his father was thus to be recompensed for the loss of which he had been the direct cause so raised Winn Caspar's spirits that when daylight came, although their situation remained unchanged, he felt himself to be one of the very happiest boys in all Louisiana.

The coming of daylight, while gladly hailed by the occupants of the wrecked raft, also disclosed the extent of the devastation caused by the flood. As they had surmised, the _Venture_ was stranded at the foot of the huge stone baga.s.se-burner. The mill near by was partly demolished. The great house, standing amid its clumps of shrubbery and stately trees, a quarter of a mile away, was surrounded by water that rose nearly to the top of the stone piers by which it was supported.

The quarters and other out-buildings had disappeared. Even at that distance they could see a throng of refugees on the verandas and at the windows of the great house.

"Unless speedy relief comes they will starve," said Mr. Manton, anxiously, "for our provisions had nearly run out yesterday."

"We are in about the same fix," said Billy Brackett, who had been in earnest consultation with Solon. "I didn't realize until this minute that we had given away nearly the whole of our own supply. Now I find that the few things we had left are under water, and most of them are spoiled."

At this announcement every one suddenly discovered that he was intensely hungry; while Bim, seated on his haunches and waving his fore-paws, began to "speak" vigorously for his breakfast.

CHAPTER XL.