CHAPTER II.
GETTING EVEN IN THE DARK.
Sam Hardwicke had thrown himself down under a clump of bushes, as Ihave said, a little apart from the rest of the boys. Before he went tosleep, however, his brother Tom, a lad about twelve years of age, butrather large for his years, came and lay down by his side, the twofalling at once into conversation.
"What made you fire up so quick with Jake Elliott, Sam?" asked theyounger boy.
"Because he is a bully who would give trouble if he dared. I didn't wantto have a fight with him and so I thought it best to take the firstopportunity of teaching him the first duty of a soldier,--obedience."
"But you might have reasoned with him, as you generally do withpeople."
"No I couldn't," replied Sam.
"Why not?" Tom asked.
"Because he isn't reasonable. He's the sort of person who needs amaster to say 'do' and 'don't.' Reasoning is thrown away on somepeople."
"But you had good reasons, didn't you, for stopping here instead ofgoing on further?" asked Tom.
"Certainly. There's the Mackey house five miles ahead, and if we'dgone on we must have stopped near it to night?"
"Well, what of that?"
"Jake Elliott would have pilfered something there."
"How do you know?" asked Tom in some surprise at his brother'spositiveness.
"Because," Sam replied, "he tried to steal some eggs last night atBungay's. I stopped him, and that's why I choose to camp every nightout of harm's way, and keep all of you within strict limits. I don'tmean to have people say we're a set of thieves. Besides, Jake Elliotthas meant to give trouble from the first, and I have only waited for achance to put him down. He isn't satisfied yet, but he's afraid to doanything but sneak. He'll try some trick to get even with me prettysoon."
"Oh, Sam, you must look out then," cried Tom in alarm for his brother."Why don't you send him back home?"
"For two or three reasons. In the first place General Jackson needsall the volunteers he can get."
"Well, what else?"
"That's enough, but there's another good reason. If I let him go awayit would be saying that I can't manage him, and that would be a sorryconfession for a soldier to make. I can manage him, and I will, too."
"But Sam, he'll do you some harm or other."
"Of course he will if he can, but that is a risk I have to take."
"Well, I'm going to sleep here by you, any how," said Tom.
"No you mustn't," replied the elder boy. "You must go over by the firewhere the other boys are, and sleep there."
"Why, Sam?"
"Well, in the first place, if I'm not a match in wits for JakeElliott, I've no business to continue captain, and I've no right toshirk any trial of skill that he may choose to make. Besides you're mybrother, and it will make the other boys think I'm partial if you stayhere with me. Go back there and sleep by the fire. I'll take care ofmyself."
"But Sam--" began Tom.
"_You've_ seen me take care of myself in tighter places than any thathe can put me in, haven't you?" asked Sam. "There's the root fortresswithin ten feet of us. You haven't forgotten it have you?"
"No," said Tom, rising to go, "and I don't think I shall forget itsoon; but I don't like to let my 'Big Brother' sleep here alone withJake Elliott around."
"Never mind me, I tell you, but go to the boys and go to sleep. I'lltake care of myself."
With that the two boys separated, Tom walking away to the fire, andSam rolling himself up in his blanket for a quiet sleep. He hadalready removed his boots, coat and hat, and thrown them together in apile, as he had done every night since the march began, partlybecause he knew that it is always better to sleep with the limbs asfree as possible from pressure of any kind, and partly because hesuffered a little from an old wound in the foot, received about a yearbefore in the Indian assault upon Fort Sinquefield, and found it morecomfortable, after walking all day, to remove his boots.
The camp grew quiet only by degrees. Boys have so many things to talkabout that when they are together they are pretty certain to talk agood while before going to sleep, and especially so when they arelying in the open air, under the starlight, near a pile of blazinglogs. They all stretched themselves out on the ground, weary withtheir day's march, and determined to go at once to sleep, but somehoweach one found something that he wanted to say and so it was more thanan hour before the camp was quite still. Then every one slept exceptJake Elliott. He lay quietly by a tree, and seemed to be sleepingsoundly enough, but in fact he was not even dozing. He was layingplans. He had a grudge against Sam Hardwicke, as we know, and wasvery busily thinking what he could do by way of revenge. He meant todo it at night, whatever it might be, because he was afraid to attemptany thing openly, which would bring on a conflict with Sam, of whom hewas very heartily afraid. He was ready to do any thing that wouldannoy Sam, however mean it might be, for he was a coward seekingrevenge, and cowardice is so mean a thing itself, that it always keepsthe meanest kind of company in the breasts of boys or men who harborit. Boys are apt to make mistakes about cowardice, however, and mentoo for that matter, confounding it with timidity and nervousness, andimagining that the ability to face unknown danger boldly is courage.There could be no greater mistake than this, and it is worth while tocorrect it. The bravest man I ever knew was so timid that he shrunkfrom a shower bath and jumped like a girl if any one clapped handssuddenly behind him. Cowardice is a matter of character. Brave men arethey who face danger coolly when it is their duty to do so, notbecause they do not fear danger but because they will not run awayfrom a duty. Cowards often go into danger boastfully and withoutseeming to care a fig for it, merely because they are conscious oftheir own fault and afraid that somebody will find it out. Cowards aremen or women or boys, who lack character, and a genuine coward is verysure to show his lack of moral character in other ways than byshunning danger. They lie, because they fear to tell the truth, whichis a thing that requires a good deal of moral courage sometimes. Theyare apt to be revengeful, too, because they resent other people'ssuperiority to themselves, and are not strong enough in manliness tobe generous. They seek revenge for petty wrongs, real or imaginary, insly, sneaking, cowardly ways because--well because they are cowards.Jake Elliott was a boy of this sort. He was always a bully, and peoplewho imagined that courage is best shown by fighting and blustering,thought Jake a very brave fellow. If they could have known himsomewhat better, they would have discovered that all his fighting wasdone merely to conceal the fact that he was afraid to fight. Hemeasured his adversaries pretty accurately, and in ordinarycircumstances he would have fought Sam, when that young man talked tohim as he did in the beginning of this story. There was that in Sam'sbearing, however, which made Jake afraid to resist the imperious willthat asserted itself more in the quiet tone than in the threateningwords. He was Sam's full equal physically, but he had quailed beforehim, and he could scarcely determine why. It annoyed him sorely as heremembered the loud cheering of the boys. He chafed under theconsciousness of defeat, and dreaded, the hints he was sure to receivewhenever he should bully any of his companions, that he had a scorestill unsettled with Sam Hardwicke. He knew that he was a coward, andthat the other boys had found it out, and he almost groaned as he laythere in the silence and darkness, meditating revenge.
A little after midnight he got up silently and crept along the riverbank to the clump of bushes where Sam lay soundly sleeping. His firstimpulse was to jump upon the sleeper and fight him with an unfairadvantage, but he was not yet free from the restraining influence ofSam's eye and voice so recently brought to bear upon him.
No, he dared not attack Sam even with so great an advantage. He mustinjure him secretly as he had determined to do.
Creeping along upon all-fours, he felt about for Sam's boots, andfinding them at last, was just about to move away with them when Samturned over.
Jake sank down into the sand and listened, his heart beating and thesweat standing in great drops on his forehead. Sam did not
move again,however, but seemed still to sleep. After waiting a long time Jakecrept away noiselessly, as he had come.
Slipping down over the low sand bank he stood by the river's edge withthe boots in his hand.
"Now," he muttered to himself, "I guess I'll be even with 'CaptainSam.' By the time he marches a day or two barefoot with that game footo' his'n, I guess he'll begin to wish he hadn't been quite so sassy."
Filling the boots with sand he swung them back and forth, meaning totoss them as far out into the river as he could. Just as he was aboutquitting his hold of them, a terrifying thought seized him. Thesand-filled boots would make a good deal of noise in striking thewater, and Sam on the bank above would be sure to hear. Jake was readyenough to injure Sam, but he was not by any means ready to encounterthat particularly cool and determined youth, while engaged in the actof doing him a surreptitious injury. He must go higher up the streambefore putting his purpose into execution.
The bank at this point was crowned with a great pile of drift wood,the accumulation of many floods, which had been caught and held in itsplace by two great trees from the roots of which the water hadgradually washed the sand away until the trees themselves stood upupon great root legs, fifteen feet long. The trees and the drift pilewere the same in which Sam Hardwicke had hidden his little party ayear before, when the fortunes of Indian war had thrown him, with Tomand his sister, and the black boy Joe, upon their own resources in theIndian haunted forest. The story is told in a former volume of thisseries.[1] Sam's resting place just now was within a few feet ofthe great tree roots, but Sam was not sleeping there, as Jake Elliottsupposed. He had been wide enough awake, ever since Jake firststartled him out of sleep, and he had silently observed that worthy'smanoeuvres through the bushes. Jake crept along the edge of thedrift pile to its further end, intending to toss the boots into theriver as soon as he should be sufficiently far from Sam for safety. Ashe went, however, his awakened caution grew upon him. He reflectedthat Sam would suspect him when he should miss his boots the nextmorning, and might see fit to call him to account for their absence.He intended, in that case, stoutly to deny all knowledge of theaffair, but he could not tell in advance precisely how persistentSam's suspicion might be, and it seemed to him better to leavehimself a "hole to crawl through," as he phrased it, if the necessityshould come. He resolved, therefore, that instead of throwing theboots away, he would hide them so securely that no one else couldpossibly find them. "Then," thought he, "if the worst comes to theworst I can find 'em, and still stick to it that I didn't take 'emaway." An opening in the pile of drift-wood just at hand, wassuggestive, and Jake crept into it passing under a great log that laylengthwise just over the entrance. The passage way through the driftwas a very narrow one but it did not come to an end at the end of thegreat log as Jake had expected, and he felt his way further. Thepassage turned and twisted about, but he went on, dark as it was.After a while he found himself in a sort of chamber under one of thegreat trees, and inside the line of its great twisted roots. He didnot know where he was, however, but Sam or Tom or Joe could have toldhim all about the place.
[Footnote 1: The Big Brother, published by G. P. Putnam's Sons. Afriend suggests that many northern readers may doubt the existence ofsuch trees as those which I have described briefly here, and morefully in "The Big Brother." I think it right to explain, therefore,that I have seen many such trees with roots exposed in the mannerdescribed, in the west and south, and my favorite playing place as aboy was under precisely such a tree. Of course no tree could stand thesudden removal of ten or fifteen feet of earth from beneath it; butthe trees described have gradually undergone this process, and theroots have struck constantly deeper, their exposed parts graduallychanging from roots, in the proper sense, to something like adownward-branching tree trunk.]
GETTING EVEN IN THE DARK.]
Here his journey seemed to be effectually interrupted, and he thrustthe boots, as he supposed, into a hole, driving them with some littleforce through a tangled net work of small roots. What he really diddo, however, was to drive them through a net work of small roots,between two great ones, into the outer air, at the very spot fromwhich he had taken them. When he quitted his hold of them, leavingthem, as he supposed, buried in the centre of a great drift pile, theylay in fact by Sam's coat and hat, right where they had lain when Samwent to sleep.
Sam had silently observed him as he entered the drift pile, andrunning quickly to the entrance he seized a stick of timber and drewit toward him with all his force. Sam Hardwicke had an excellent habitof remembering not only things that were certainly useful to know, butthings also which might be useful. When Jake entered the drift pile,Sam remembered that during his own stay there a year before, he hadcarefully examined the great log which formed the archway of theentrance, and that it was kept in its place only by this single stickof timber acting as a wedge. Pulling this out, therefore, he let thefarther end of the great tree trunk fall, and completely blocked thepassage way.