CHAPTER V. AFLOAT ON A LOG

SI, SHORTY AND THE WEST-POINTER HAVE AN EVENTFUL JOURNEY.

THE log swept out into the yellow swirl, bobbing up and down in the turbulent current.

"Bobs like a buckin' broncho," said Shorty. "Make you seasick, Si?"

"Not yet," answered his partner. "I ain't so much afraid o' that as I am that some big alligator-gar 'll come along and take his dinner off my leg."

"Bah," said Shorty, contemptuously; "no alligator-gar is goin' to come up into this mud-freshet. He'd ruther hunt dogs and nigger-babies further down the river. Likes 'em better. He ain't goin' to gnaw at them old Wabash sycamore legs o' yourn when he kin git a bite at them fat shoats we saw sailin' down stream awhile ago."

"The belief in alligator-gar is a vulgar and absurd superstition," said the Lieutenant, breaking silence for the first time. "There, isn't anywhere in fresh water a fish capable of eating anything bigger than a bull-frog."

"Hullo; did West Point learn you that?" said Shorty. "You know just about as much about it as you do about gittin' over cricks an' paddlin' a canoe. Have you ever bin interduced to a Mississippi catfish? Have you ever seen an alligator-gar at home in the Lower Mississippi? Naw! You don't know no more about them than a baby does about a catamount. I have heard tell of an alligator-gar that was longer'n a fence-rail, and sort of king of a little bayou down in the Teche country. He got mad because they run a little stern-wheel steamboat up into his alley to git their cotton off, an' he made up his mind to stop it. He'd circle 'round the boat to git a good headway and pick out his man. Then he'd take a run-and-jump, leap clean across the boat, knock off the man he'd picked out, an' tow him off under a log an' eat him. He intended to take the Captain fust, but his appetite got the better of him. He saw a big, fat, juicy buck nigger of a deck-hand, an' couldn't stand the temptation. He fetched him easy. Next he took a nice, tender little cabin-boy. Then he fetched the big old Mate, but found him so full o' terbacker, whisky and bad language that he couldn't eat him nohow, an' turned him over to the mudturtles, what'll eat anything. The Captain then got scared an' quit. He didn't care a hat for the Mate, for he was glad to git rid of him; but he liked the cabin-boy an' he had to pay the owner o' the nigger $1,200 for him, an' that made runnin' up the Teche onprofitable."

"Oh, Shorty," Si gasped. He thought he was acquainted with his partner's brilliant talents for romance, but this was a meteoric flight that he had not expected.

"But that wasn't nothin'," Shorty continued, "to a he catfish that a man told me about down near Helena, Ark. He used to swim around in a little chute near a house-cabin in which lived a man with a mighty good-lookin' young wife. The man was awful jealous of his woman, an' used to beat her. The ole he catfish had a fine eye for purty women, and used to cavort around near the cabin whenever his business would permit. The woman noticed him, and it tickled him greatly. She'd throw him hunks o' bread, chunks o' cold meat, and so on. The man'd come out and slap her, and fling clubs and knots at him. One day the man put his wife in a basswood canoe, and started to take her across the river. He hadn't got a rod from the shore when the old he catfish ups and bites the canoe in two, then nips the man's hand so's he didn't git over it for months, and then puts his nose under the woman's arm, and helps her ashore as polite as you please."

"Shorty," gasped Si, "if you tell any more such stories as that this log'll certainly sink. See it how it wobbles now."

"I consider such stuff very discourteous to your officer," said the Lieutenant stiffly. "I shall make a note of it for consideration at some future time."

"Halt! Who goes thar?" rang out sharply from the bank.

"Hush; don't breathe," said Shorty. They were in an eddy, which was sweeping them close to the rebel bank.

"Who air yo' haltin'?" said a second voice.

"I see some men in a canoe out thar. I heared their voices fust," said the first voice.

"Whar' yo see any men in a canoe?" asked the second incredulously.

"Right over thar. You kin see 'em. They're comin' right this-a-way. I'm a gwine t' halt 'em agin an' then shoot."

"Stuff," said the other. "You're allers seein' shadders an' ghostses. That 'er's only an ole tree with three limbs stickin' up. Don't yo' shoot an' skeer the whole camp. They'll have the grand laugh on yo', an' mebbe buck-an'-gag yo'."

"'Tain't stuff," persisted the other. "Thar never wuz a tree that ever growed that had three as big limbs as that all on one side. You're moon blind."

"A man mout well be rain blind in sich a storm as this, but I tell yo' that's nothin' but an ole sycamore drift log. If yo' shoot the boys'll never git tired o' damnin' yo', an' jest as likely as not the ossifers'll make yo' tote a rail through the mud termorrer."

The boys were so near that every word could be distinctly heard, and they were floating nearer every moment.

The suspense was thrilling. If the man fired at that distance he could not help hitting one of them and discovering the others. They scarcely breathed, and certainly did not move a muscle, as the log floated steadily in-shore in the comparatively stiller waters of the eddy. The rain was coming down persistently yet, but with a sullen quietness, so that the silence was not broken by the splashing of the drops.

A water-moccasin deadliest of snakes crawled up onto the log and coiled himself in front of Si, with that indifference to companionship which seems to possess all animals in flood-times. Si shuddered as he saw it, but did not dare make a motion against it.

The dialog on the bank continued.

"Thar, you kin see thar air men in a canoe," said the first voice.

"I can't see nothin' o' the kind," replied the other.

"If hit ain't a log with three dead limbs, hit's a piece o' barn-timber with the j'ists a-stickin' up."

"I don't believe hit nary mite. Hit's men, an' I'm a-gwine t' shoot."

"No, yo' hain't gwine t' make a durned fool o' yourself. Wait a minute. Hit's a-comin' nigher, an' soon you kin hit it with a rock. I'll jest do hit t' show yo how skeery yo' air. Le'me look around an' find a good rock t' throw. If I kin find jest the right kind I kin hit a yallerhammer at that distance."

This prospect was hardly more reassuring than that of being fired at, but there was nothing to do but to take whatever might come. To make it more aggravating, the current had slowed down, until the motion of their log was very languid. They were about 100 feet from the shore when they heard the second voice say:

"Heah, I've got jest the right kind o' a dornick. Now jest keep yer eye peeled an' fixed on that center limb, an' yo'll hear it chunk when I plunk hit an' show hit's nothin' but a stick o' wood."

Si thought he saw the Lieutenant crouch a little, but was not sure.

The stone came whistling through the air, struck the top of the Lieutenant's cap and knocked it off into the water.

"Thar," said the second voice triumphantly; "yo' see hit ain't no men. Jest as I done tole yo'. I knocked the bark offen the end o' one o' the sticks."

The log moved slowly on, and presently catching in a stronger current, swept out into the stream again. It seemed so like deliverance, that Si made a quick blow and knocked the snake off into the water, and Shorty could not help shouting triumphantly:

"Good-by, Johnnies! Sorry we can't stay with you longer. Got other engagements down the crick. Ta-ta! See you later."

The chagrined sentry fired an angry shot, but they were already behind a clump of willows.

"Lootenant," said Shorty, "you put on a whole lot of unnecessary frills, but you've got good stuff in you after all. You went through that little affair like a man. I'll back you after this."

"When I desire your opinion, sir, as to my conduct," replied the Lieutenant, "I shall ask you for it. Until then keep it to yourself. It is for me to speak of your conduct, not you of mine."

But again they "had hollered before they were out o' the woods," as Shorty afterward expressed it. The gunfire and the sound of their voices so near shore had stirred up the rebels. A canoe with three men in it had pushed out, and, struggling with the current, had made its way toward them, guided by their own voices. The top of a floating tree had hidden it from their sight until it suddenly came around the mass of leafage, and a man standing up in the bow leveling a revolver at them ordered instant surrender. The other two men were sitting in the middle and stern with paddles, and having all they could do to maintain the course of the canoe.

Si and Shorty were so startled that for an instant they made no response to the demand. The Lieutenant was the first to speak:

"Are you a commissioned officer?" he inquired.

"No," was the answer.

"Then I refuse to surrender. I'll surrender to no one inferior to me in rank."

"Sorry we'uns can't obleege yo', nohow," said the man with the revolver, in a sneer; "but we'uns'll have t' be good enough commissioned ossifers for yo' jist now, an' yo'll have t' done hold up yo'uns hands. We'uns hain't no time t' send ashore for a Lootenant."

The other two chuckled as they struggled with the current, and forced the canoe up close to the log. Shorty made a motion as if throwing up his hands, and called out in a submissive way:

"Here, le'me git hold o' the bow, and I kin help you. It's awful hard paddlin' in this current."

Without thinking the men threw the bow in so close that Shorty could clutch it with his long hand. The grab shook the ticklish craft, so that the man with the revolver could scarcely keep his feet.

"Heah," he yelled at the other two. "Keep the dugout stiddy. What air yo'uns doin'? Hold her off, I tell yo'uns."

Then to the Lieutenant:

"Heah, yo'uns surrender to wonst, or I'll blow yo' heads offen yo'uns."

The Lieutenant started a further remonstrance, but Shorty had in the meantime got the other hand on the canoe, and he gave it such a wrench that the man with the pistol lost his footing and fell across the log, where he was grabbed by Shorty and his pistol-hand secured. The stern of the canoe had swung around until Si had been able to catch it with one hand, while with the other he grabbed the man in the stern, who, seeing the sudden assumption of hostilities, had raised his paddle to strike.

Si and Shorty had somewhat the advantage in position. By holding on to the log with their legs they had a comparatively firm, base, while the canoe was a very ticklish foundation for a fight.

The middle man also raised his paddle to strike, but the Lieutenant caught it and tried to wrest it away. This held the canoe and the log close together while Si and Shorty were struggling. Si saw this, and letting go, devoted both hands to this man, whom he pulled over into the water about the same time that Shorty possessed himself of the other man's pistol and dragged him out of the canoe.

"Hold fast in the center there, Lieutenant," he called out, as he dropped the pistol into his bosom and took in the situation with a quick glance. "You two Johnnies hold on to the log like grim death to a dead nigger, and you won't drown."

He carefully worked himself from the log into the canoe, and then Si did the same. They had come to a part where the water spread out in a broad and tolerably calm lake over the valley, but there was a gorge at the further end through which it was rushing with a roar. Log and canoe were drifting in that direction, and while the changes were being made the canoe drifted away from the log.

"Hold on, men," shouted the Lieutenant; "you are certainly not going to abandon your officer?"

"Certainly not," said Shorty. "How could you imagine such a thing? But just how to trade you off for this rebel passenger presents difficulties. If we try to throw him overboard we shall certainly tip the canoe over. And I'm afraid he's not the man to give up peaceably a dry seat in the canoe for your berth on the log."

"I order you to come back here at once and take me in that boat," said the Lieutenant imperatively.

"We are comin' back all right," said Shorty; "but we're not goin' to let you tip this canoe over for 40 Second Lieutenants. We'll git you out o' the scrape somehow. Don't fret."

"Hello, thar! Help! Help!" came across the waters in agonized tones, which at the same time had some thing familiar in them.

"Hello, yourself!" responded Shorty, making out, a little distance away, a "jo-boat," that is, a rude, clumsy square-bottomed, square-ended sort of a skiff in which was one man. "What's wanted?"

"I'm out here adrift without no oars," came in the now-distinctly recognizable voice of Jeff Hackberry. "Won't yo' please tow me ashore?"

"Le's go out there and git him," said Shorty to Si. "We kin put all these fellers in that jo-boat and save 'em."

A few strokes of their paddles brought them alongside.

"How in the world did you come here, Hackberry," asked Shorty.

"O, that ole woman that I wanted so bad that I couldn't rest till I got her wuz red-hot t' git rid o' me," whined Hackberry. "She tried half-a-dozen ways puttin' wild parsnip in my likker, giving me pokeberry bitters, and so on, but nothin' fetched me. Finally she deviled me to carry her acrost the crick to the Confederit lines. I found this ole jo-boat at last, an' we got in. Suddenly, quick as lightning she picked up the oars, an' give the boat a kick which sent hit away out into the current. I floated away, yellin' at her, an' she standin' on the bank grinnin' at me and cussin'. I've been havin' the awfulest day floatin' down the freshet, expectin' every minute t' be drowned, an' both sides pluggin' away at me whenever they ketched sight o' me. I wuz willin' t' surrender t' either one that'd save me from being drownded, but none of 'em seemed t' care a durn about my drowndin'; they only wanted t' plug me."

"Please save me, Mister," begged Jeff, "an' I'll do anything under the shinin' sun for yo'; I'll jine the Yankee army; I'll lead you' to whar thar's nests o' the pizenest bushwhackers. I'll do anything yo' kin ax me. Only save me from being drownded. Right down thar's the big falls, an' if I go over them, nothin' kin same me from drowndin'." And he began a doleful blubbering.

"On general principles, I think that'd be the best thing that could happen," remarked Shorty. "But I haven't time to discuss that now. Will you do just what we want, if we save your life?"

"Yes; yes," responded he eagerly.

"Well, if you don't, at the very minute I tell you, I'll plug you for certain with this," said Shorty, showing the revolver. "Mind, I'll not speak twice. I'll give you no warnin'. You do what I tell you on the jump, or I'll be worse to you than Mrs. Bolster. First place, take this man in with you. And you (to the rebel in the canoe) mind how you git into that boat. Don't you dare, on your life, kick the canoe over as you crawl out. If I find it rocks the least bit as you leave I'll bust your cocoanut as the last act of my military career. Now crawl out."

The rebel crawled over the gunwale into the boat as cautiously as if there were torpedoes under him.

"Now," said Shorty, with a sigh of relief, as the man was at last out of the canoe, "we'll paddle around here and pick up some pieces of boards for you to use as oars. Then you bring the boat over to that log."

This was done, and the Lieutenant and the two rebels clinging to the log were transferred to the jo-boat. The moment the Lieutenant felt himself in the comparative security of the jo-boat his desire for command asserted itself.

"Now, men," said he, authoritatively, "pull away for the other side, pointing up stream. That glow over there is our campfires. Make for it."

"All right, Lootenant," said Shorty. "You command that boat. You've got your revolver with you, and kin make 'em mind. We'll pick up some more boards, so as to have oars for all o' 'em. They'd better use 'em lively, for it ain't a great ways t' the suck. If you git into that you'll go to Davy Jones's as sure as the Lord made little apples. Paddle, now, if you value your lives. Me and Si are goin' back to look for that galoot that shot at us. We want to make a present of him to our Colonel, who's after information from the other side. We want his gun and another one to make up for the two that we had to leave on the island. We'll join you before you git acrost."

The Lieutenant lifted up his voice in remonstrance against the desperate undertaking, but Si and Shorty paddled swiftly away, leaving him and his squad to struggle over the muddy lake in their clumsy bateau.

Though the boys were sadly worn by the day's exciting adventures, yet they were animated by the hope of doing something that would signally retrieve their earlier misfortunes. Both were adepts at canoe navigation, the canoe was light and easily managed with but two in it, and they had gotten the lay of the shore so well in mind that they felt sure that they could slip around and come in on the man who had fired upon them. The drizzle of the rain helped curtain them; they pushed the canoe through the top of a paw-paw thicket that rose but a little way above the flood, Shorty sprang out, and in a few steps came up behind the two pickets, who were crouching over a little fire they had built behind the cover of some dense weeds.

"Was this the post that fired on men in a canoe a little while ago?" he asked, as if a rebel officer out on a tour of investigation.

"Yes," the men stammered, as soon as they could recover from the startle of his sudden appearance.

"Which man fired?" asked Shorty.

"Me," answered one.

"Well, I want you and both your guns," said Shorty, thrusting his revolver against the man's face. "Pick up them guns and go right ahead there."

The man meekly did as bid, and in a few minutes was landed into the canoe, into which Shorty jumped and pushed off. When nearly across they came upon the jo-boat, with the Lieutenant standing erect with drawn revolver, while the men were laboring hard to propel it to shore. The boys fastened its painter to the stern of the canoe and helped by towing.

They headed for a large fire burning brightly on the bank, indicating that it was the headquarters of the pickets. In response to the sharp challenge, the Lieutenant responded:

"Friends, without the countersign."

Quite a number of officers and men thronged to the water's edge to see what could be coming from that unexpected quarter. The Lieutenant ordered the boys to fall to the rear with their canoe, that he might be the first to land, and as his bateau labored close to the shore he recognized the Colonel in command of the picket line, and said in a loud voice:

"Sir, I have the honor to report that I have been across the creek reconnoitering the enemy's lines. I have with me five prisoners four soldiers and one guerrilla."