CHAPTER XVI.
CAPTAIN SAM PLAYS THE PART OF A SKIPPER.
The launching of the boat was easy enough, and she rode beautifully onthe water. To test her capacity to remain right side up, Sam put theboys one by one on her gunwale, and found that their combined weight,thrown as far as possible to one side, was barely sufficient to makeher take water.
The stores were stowed carefully in the bow and stern; rough seatswere fitted in after the manner of a boat's thwarts, but not fastened.They were left moveable for the purpose of making it possible forseveral of the boys to lie down in the bottom of the boat at once.There was no rudder as yet, although it was Sam's purpose to fix oneto the stern as soon as possible, and also to make a mast when theyshould get to Pensacola, where a sail could be procured. For thepresent two long poles and some rough paddles were their propellingpower.
"When we get out into the river," said Sam, "she will float prettyrapidly on the high water, and we need only use the paddles to giveher steerage, and to paddle her out of eddies."
"What are the poles for?" asked Tom.
"To push her in shoal water, for one thing," answered Sam, "and tofend off of banks and trees."
A large quantity of the long gray moss of the swamps was stored in thebottom for bedding purposes, and the boat was ready for herpassengers. One by one they took their places, Sam in the bow, and thevoyage down the creek began. This stream was very crooked, and manyfallen trees interrupted its course, so that it was very difficult tonavigate it with so long a boat. In addition to this, the river hadrisen much faster than the creek, and the back water had entirelydestroyed the creek's current, so that the boat must be pushed andpaddled every inch of the way.
Nearly the entire day was consumed in getting to the river, fivemiles away from the starting place, and as the afternoon waned theboys grew tired, while Jake Elliott began to manifest his olddisposition to criticise Sam's plans.
"May be we'll make five mile a day, an' may be we wont," he said."We'll git to Pensacola in six or eight weeks, I s'pose, if we don'tstarve by the way, an' _if_ this water runs that way."
"Very well," said Sam, "the longer we are on the route the better itwill please you, Jake."
"Why?"
"Because you don't want to get there at all. But we'll be there soonerthan you think?"
"How long do you reckon it will take us, Sam?" asked Billy.
"I don't know, because I don't know how long we'll be getting out ofthis creek."
"Well, I mean after we get into the river."
"About a day and a half," replied Sam, "possibly less."
"You don't mean it?"
"Don't I? What do I mean, then?"
"How far is it?"
"Less than a hundred miles."
"Well, we can't go a hundred miles in a day and a half."
"Can't we? I think we can. We'll run day and night, you know, and thecurrent, at this stage of the water, can't be much less than fivemiles an hour. Four miles an hour will take us ninety-six miles intwenty-four hours."
"Hurrah for Captain Sam!" shouted Sid Russell, "Yonder's the river,an' she's a runnin' like a mill tail, too."
Sid was standing up, and his great length lifted his head high enoughto permit him to see the rapidly running stream long before any oneelse did. The rest strained their eyes, or rather their necks tryingto catch a glimpse of the stream, but the undergrowth of the swamp laybetween them and the sight. Sid's announcement put new energy intothem, however, and they plied their paddles vigorously for tenminutes, when, with a sudden swing around a last curve of the creek,Sam brought his boat fairly out into the river, and turned her headdown stream. The river was full to its banks, and in places it hadalready overflowed. The current was so strong that the mouth of thecreek, out of which they had come, was out of sight in a very fewminutes. Work with the paddles was suspended, Sam only dipping hisinto the water occasionally for the purpose of keeping the boatstraight in mid-channel. The river was full of drift-wood, some of itconsisting of large logs and uprooted trees, and night was alreadyfalling. Jake Elliott now spoke again.
"We ain't a goin' to try to run in the dark in all this 'ere drift,are we?" he asked.
"I can't say that we are," replied Sam.
"Why, you're not going to stop for the night, are you, Sam?" askedBilly Bowlegs, who was enjoying the boat ride greatly.
"Certainly not," replied Sam.
"Why, you said you was, jist a minute ago," muttered Jake Elliott.
"Oh, no! I didn't," said Sam, whose patience had been sorely taxedalready by Jake's persistent disposition to find fault.
"What did you say, then?" asked that worthy.
"Merely that we're not going to try to run in the dark to-night."
"Well, you're a goin' to stop then?"
"No, I am not."
"I see how dat is," said Joe, suddenly catching an idea.
"Well, explain it to Jake, then," said Sam laughing.
"W'y, Mas' Jake, don't you see de moon's gwine to shine bright as day,an' so dey ain't a gwine to be no dark to-night."
"That's it, Joe," replied Sam, "but if there was no moon I'd still goon. The drift isn't in the least dangerous."
"Why not, Sam?" asked Tom.
"Well, in the first place, it wouldn't be very easy to knock a hole insuch a boat as this anyhow, and as we're only floating, we go exactlywith the drift nearest us; we go faster than the drift in by the shorethere, because we're in the strongest part of the current, but thedrift nearest us is in the same current, and moves as fast as we do,or pretty nearly so. My paddling adds something to our speed, but notmuch. I only paddle enough to keep the boat straight in the channel.If we were to stop against the bank, and fasten the boat there, thedrift would bump us pretty badly, but it can do us no harm so long aswe float along with it."
SAM PLAYS THE PART OF SKIPPER.]
The moon, nearly at its full, was rising now, and very soon the riverbecame a picture. Running rapidly, bank full, with tall trees bendingover and throwing their shadows across it, with here and there afragment of a moon glade on the water, while the dense undergrowth ofthe woods, lying in shadow, gave the stream a margin of inky blacknesson each side,--it was a scene to stimulate the imaginations of thegroup of healthy boys who sat in the boat gliding silently but swiftlydown the river.
Hour after hour they sped on, not a boy among them in the leastdisposed to avail himself of Sam's permission to lie down for a nap onthe moss in the bottom of the boat. Every bend of the river gave thema new picture to look at, and finally Sam had to use authority to makethe boys lie down.
"We must all sleep some," he said, "for to-morrow the sun will shinetoo strong for sleeping, and we've done a hard day's work. It will benow about seven or eight hours until sunrise, and there are justseven of us. It will take half an hour for the rest of you to get tosleep, and so I'll run the boat for an hour and a half. Then I'll wakeBilly, and he can run it an hour. Then Joe must take the paddle,--hisname is Butler, you see,--and so on in alphabetical order, each of youtaking charge for an hour. If anything happens,--if you get into aneddy, or for any other reason find yourselves in doubt about anything,wake me at once. Now go to sleep."
Sam took the first watch, because he wished to see, before going tosleep, that everything was likely to go well. Then he waked BillyBowlegs, and, surrendering the paddle to him, went to sleep.
There was no noise to disturb any one, and all the boys slept soundly,none of them more soundly than Sam, who had worked especially hardduring the day, and had had a weight of responsibility upon him duringthe difficult voyage down the creek. He was quietly sleeping somehours later when suddenly the boat was sharply jarred, and turned verynearly on her side, while the water could be heard surging around herbow and stern.
Sam was on his feet in a moment, and the other boys sprang up quickly.
"Who's at the oar?" cried Sam, "and what's the matter?"
"We've got tangled in the drift, just as I told you we would,"
answered Jake Elliott from the bow, where he sat, paddle in hand, hebeing on watch at the time.
"Just as you meant that we should," answered Sam. "You've deliberatelypaddled us out of the current into a drift hammock, you sneakingscoundrel," continued Sam, now thoroughly angry, seizing Jake by theshoulders, and throwing him violently into the bottom of the boat. "Ihave a notion to give you a good thrashing right here, or to set youashore and go on without you."
"Do it, Captain! Do it! He deserves it," cried the boys, but Sam hadmade up his mind not to give way to his temper, however provokingJake's conduct might be, and as soon as he could master himself, herenewed his resolution, which had been broken only in the moment ofsudden awakening.
The boat was not damaged in the least, but her position was adifficult one from which to extricate her. She lay on the upper sideof a pile of drift which had lodged against some trees, and a floatingtree had swept down against her side, pinning her to the hammock, assuch drift piles are called in the South. The work of freeing herrequired all of Sam's judgment, as well as all the boys' strength, butwithin half an hour, or a little more, the boat was again in thestream.
"Now," said Sam, speaking very calmly, "we've lost a good deal ofsleep and must make it up. Jake Elliott, you will take the paddleagain, and keep it till sunrise."
"Well, but what if he runs us into another snarl?" asked Sid Russell,uneasily.
"He won't make any more mistakes," replied Sam.
"How can you be sure of that?" queried Tom.
"Because I have whispered in his ear," said Sam.
What Sam had whispered in Jake's ear was this:--
"_If any further accidents happen to-night, I'll put you ashore inthe swamp, and leave you there. I mean it._"
He did mean it, and Jake was convinced of the fact. He knew very well,too, that if he should be left there in the swamp, with all the creeksout of their banks, the chances were a thousand to one against hissuccess in getting back to civilization again. Sam's threat was aharsh one, but nothing less harsh would have answered his purpose, andhe knew very well that Jake would not dare to incur the threatenedpenalty.
The boys slept again, and soundly. The night waned and day dawned, andstill the current carried them forward. They breakfasted in the boat,first stripping to the waist and sluicing their heads, necks, arms andchests with water. Breakfast was scarcely over when the boat shot outof the Nepalgah into the Connecuh river, whereat the boys gave acheer. About noon they entered the Escambia river, and their speedslackened. Here they had met the influence of the tide which checkedthe force of the current, and their progress grew steadily slower,until Sam directed the use of the paddles. They had long since leftthe drift wood behind, lodged along the banks, and they had now abroader and straighter stream than before, although it was still notvery broad nor very straight. Two boys paddled at a time, one uponeach side, while a third steered, and by relieving each otheroccasionally they maintained a very good rate of speed.
The moon was well up into the sky again when the river spread out intoEscambia bay, and the boat was moored with a grape vine, in a littlecove on one of the small islands in the upper end of the bay, aboutfifteen miles above Pensacola. The boys leaped upon land again gladly.Their voyage had been made successfully, and they were at last in theneighborhood of the danger they had set out to encounter, and the dutythey had undertaken to do.