CHAPTER III.
REVENGE OF A DIFFERENT SORT.
No matter where one begins to tell a story there is always somethingback of the beginning that must be told for the sake of making thematter clear. Whatever you tell, something else must have happenedbefore it and something else before that and something else beforethat, so that there is really no end to the beginnings that might bemade. The only way I can think of by which a whole story could be toldwould be to begin back at Adam and Eve and work on down to the presenttime; and even then the story would not be finished and nobody but aprophet ever could finish it.
The only way to tell a story then is to plunge into it somewhere as Idid two chapters back, follow it until we get hold of it, and then goback and explain how it came about before going on with it. I musttell you just now who these boys were, where they were and how theycame to be there. All this must be told sometime and whenever it istold somebody or something must wait somewhere, and I really thinkJake Elliott may as well wait there in the drift-pile as not. Hedeserves nothing better.
During the summer of the year 1813, while the United States and greatBritain were at war, a general Indian war came on which raged withespecial violence in middle and southern Alabama. The Indians foughtdesperately, but General Jackson managed to conquer them thoroughly.He was empowered by the government to make a treaty with them and heinsisted that they should make a treaty which they could not helpkeeping. He made them give up a large part of their land, and soarranged the boundaries as to make the Indians powerless for furtherharm.
The Indians hesitated a long time before they would sign the treaty,but it was Jackson's way to finish whatever he undertook, and notleave it to be done over again. As the people of the border used tosay, he "left no gaps in the fences behind him," and so he insistedupon the treaty and the Indians at last signed it. Meantime, however,a great many of the Indians, and among them several of their mostsavage chiefs had escaped to Florida, which was then Spanishterritory.
Jackson remained at his camp in southern Alabama through the summer of1814 bringing the Indians to terms. During the summer it becameevident that the British were preparing an expedition against Mobileand New Orleans, and Jackson was placed in command of the wholesouthwest, with instructions to defend that part of the country. Thiswas all very well, and very wise, too, for there was no man in thecountry who was fitter than he for the kind of work he was thus calledon to do; but there was one very serious obstacle in his way. He hadhis commission; he had full authority to conduct the campaign; he hadeverything in fact except an army, and it does not require a veryshrewd person to guess that an army is a rather important part of ageneral's outfit for defending a large territory. He called forvolunteers and accepted any kind that came. He even published aspecial address to the free negroes within the threatened district andasked them to become soldiers, a thing that nobody had ever thought ofbefore.
The boys in the southwest were strong, hearty fellows, used to thewoods, accustomed to hardship and not afraid of danger. Many of themhad fought bravely during the Indian war, and when Jackson called forvolunteers, a good many of these boys joined him, some of them beingmere lads just turning into their teens.
Sam Hardwicke, was noted all through that country for several reasons.In the first place he was a boy of very fine appearance and unusualskill in all the things which help to make either a boy or a manpopular in a new country. He was a capital shot with rifle orshot-gun; he was a superb horseman, a tireless walker, and an expertin all the arts of the hunter.
He was strong and active of body, and better still he was a boy ofbetter intellect and better education than was common in that countryat that early day when there were few schools and poor ones. Hisfather was a gentleman of wealth and education, who had removed toAlabama for the sake of his health a few years before, bringing alarge library with him, and he had educated his children verycarefully, acting as their teacher himself. Sam was ready for college,and but for Jackson's call for troops he would have been on his way toVirginia, to attend the old William and Mary University there, at thetime our story begins. When it became known, however, that men wereneeded to defend the country against the British, Sam thought it hisduty to help, and reluctantly resolved to postpone the beginning ofhis college course for another year.
All these things made Sam Hardwicke a special favorite, and persons agreat deal older than he was, held him in very high regard, on accountof his superior education, but more particularly on account of thereal superiority which was the result of that education; and I want tosay, right here, that the difference between a man or boy whoseeducation has been good and one who has had very little instruction,is a good deal greater than many persons think. It is a mistake tosuppose that the difference lies only in what one has learned and theother has not. What you learn in school is the smallest part of thegood you get there. Half of it is usually worthless as information,and much of it is sure to be forgotten; but the work of learning it isnot thrown away on that account. In learning it you train anddiscipline and cultivate your mind, making it grow both in strengthand in capacity, and so the educated man has really a stronger andbetter intellect than he ever would have had without education. Manypersons suppose,--and I have known even college professors who madethe mistake,--that a boy's mind is like a meal-bag, which will holdjust so much and needs filling. They fill it as they would fill themeal-bag, for the sake of the meal and without a thought of the bag.In fact a boy's mind is more like the boy himself. It will not do totry to make a man out of him by stuffing meat and bread down histhroat. The meat and bread fill him very quickly, but he isn'tfully-grown when he is full. To make a man of him we must give himfood in proper quantities, and let it help him to grow, and the thingsyou learn in school are chiefly valuable as food for the mind.Education makes the intellect grow as truly as food makes the body doso; and so I say that Sam Hardwicke's superiority in intellect to theboys and even to most of the men about him, consisted of somethingmore than merely a larger stock of information. He was intellectuallylarger than they, and if any boy who reads this book supposes that awell-trained intellect is of no account in the practical affairs oflife, it is time for him to begin correcting some very dangerousnotions.
To get back to the story, I must stop moralizing and say that when Sammade up his mind to volunteer, a number of boys in the neighborhooddetermined to follow his example, and, as Sam has already explained,the little company was organized, under Sam's command as captain. Ofcourse Sam had no real military authority, and he did not for a momentsuppose that his little band of boys would be recognized as a companyor he as a captain, on their arrival at Camp Jackson; but they hadagreed to march under Sam's command, and he knew how to exerciseauthority, even when it was held by so loose a tenure as that of mereagreement among a lot of boys.
We now come back to the drift-pile. When Jake had carefully hiddenSam's boots, as he supposed, deep within the recesses of the greatpile of logs and brush and roots, he began groping his way back towardthe entrance. It was pitch dark of course, but by walking slowly andfeeling his way carefully, he managed to follow the passage way. Justas he began to think that he must be pretty nearly out of the den,however, he came suddenly upon an obstruction. Feeling about carefullyhe found that the passage in which he stood had come to an abrupttermination. We know, of course what had happened, but Jake did not.He had come to the end of the log which Sam had thrown down to stop upthe passage way, and there was really no way for him to go. Hesupposed, of course, that he had somehow wandered out of his way,leaving the main alley and following a side one to its end. Hetherefore retraced his steps, feeling, as he went, for an opening uponone side or the other. He found several, but none of them did him anygood. Following each a little way he came to its end in the mattedlogs, and had to try again. Presently he began to get nervous andfrightened. He imagined all sorts of things and so lost his presenceof mind that he forgot the outer appearance and size of the driftpile, and frightened himself still further by
imagining that it mustextend for miles in every direction, and that he might be hopelesslylost within its dark mazes. When he became frightened, he hurried hisfootsteps, as nervous people always do, and the result was that heblacked one of his eyes very badly by running against a projectingpiece of timber. He was weary as well as frightened, but he dared notgive up his effort to get out. Hour after hour--and the hours seemedweeks to him,--he wandered back and forth, afraid to call forassistance, and afraid above everything else that morning would comeand that he would be forced to remain there in the drift pile whilethe boys marched away, or to call aloud for assistance and be caughtin his own meanness without the power to deny it. Finally morningbroke, and he could hear the boys as they began preparing forbreakfast. It was his morning, according to agreement, to cut woodfor the fire and bring water, and so a search was made for him atonce. He heard several of the boys calling at the top of their lungs.
"Jake Elliott! Jake! Ja-a-a-ke!!" He knew then that his time had come.
What had Sam been doing all this time? Sleeping, I believe, for themost part, but he had not gone to sleep without making up his mindprecisely what course to pursue. When he threw the log down, he meantmerely to shut Jake Elliott and his own boots up for safe keeping, andit was his purpose, when morning should come, to "have it out" withthe boot thief, in one way or another, as circumstances, and Jake'stemper after his night's adventure, might determine.
He walked back, therefore, to his place of rest, after he had blockedup the entrance of the drift-pile, and threw himself down again underthe bushes. Ten or fifteen minutes later he heard a slight noise atthe root of the great tree near him, and, looking, saw something whichlooked surprisingly like a pair of boots, trying to force themselvesout between two of the exposed roots. Then he heard retreatingfootsteps within the space enclosed by the circle of roots, and beganto suspect the precise state of affairs. Examining the boots hediscovered that they were his own, and he quickly guessed the truththat Jake had pushed them out from the inside, under the impressionthat he was driving them into a hole in the centre of the tangleddrift.
Sam was a brave boy, too brave to be vindictive, and so he quicklydecided that as he had recovered his boots he would subject his enemyonly to so much punishment as he thought was necessary to secure hisgood behavior afterward. He knew that the boys would torment Jakeunmercifully if the true story of the night's exploits should becomeknown to them, and while he knew that the culprit deserved theseverest lesson, he was too magnanimous to subject him to so sore atrial. He went to sleep, therefore, resolved to release his enemyquietly in the morning, before the other boys should be astir.Unluckily he overslept himself, and so the first hint of the dawn hereceived was from the loud calling of the boys for Jake Elliott.Fortunately Jake had not yet nerved himself up to the point ofanswering and calling for assistance, and so Sam had still a chance toexecute his plan.
"Never mind calling Jake," he cried, as he rose from his couch ofbushes, "but run down to the spring and bring some water. I have Jakeengaged elsewhere."
The boys suspected at once that Sam and Jake had arranged a privatebattle to be fought somewhere in the woods beyond camp lines, a battlewith fists for the mastery, and they were strongly disposed to followtheir captain as he started up the river.
"Stop," cried Sam. "I have business with Jake, which will not interestyou. Besides, I think it best that you shall remain here. Go to thespring, as I tell you, and then go back to the fire, and getbreakfast. Jake and I will be there in time to help you eat it. If oneof you follows me a foot of the way, I--never mind; I tell you youmust not follow me, and you shall not."
There were some symptoms of a turbulent, but good-natured revolt, butSam's earnestness quieted it, and the boys reluctantly drew back.
Passing around to the further side of the drift-pile, more than ahundred yards away from the nearest point of the camp, Sam called in alow tone:--
"Jake! Jake!"
"What is it?" asked Jake presently, trembling in voice as he trembledin limb, for he was now thoroughly broken and frightened. He dreadedthe meeting with Sam nearly as much as he dreaded the terrible fatewhich seemed to him the only alternative, namely, that of remaining inthe drift-pile to starve.
"Come down this way," said Sam.
"Well," answered Jake when he had moved a little way toward Sam.
"Do you see a hole in the top, just above your head?" asked Sam.
"Yes, but I can't see the sky through it."
"Never mind, get a stick to boost you, and climb up into it."
Jake did as he was told to do, and upon climbing up found that therewas a sort of passage way running laterally through the upper part ofthe timber, crooked and so narrow that he could scarcely force hisway through it. Whither it led, he had no idea, but he obeyed Sam'sinjunction to follow it, though he did so with great difficulty, as inmany places sticks were in the way, which it required his utmoststrength to remove. The passage through which he was crawling sopainfully, was one which Sam and his companions had made by dint ofgreat labor, during their residence in the tree root cavern a yearbefore. It led from the main alley way to their post of observation ontop of the pile, their look-out, from which they had been accustomedto examine the country around, to see if there were Indians about,when they had occasion to expose themselves outside of their place ofrefuge. As the only way into this passage was through a "blind" holein the roof of the main alley way, no one would ever have suspectedits existence.
After awhile Jake's head emerged from the very top of the drift pile,and he saw Sam lying flat down, just before him. He instinctivelyshrank back.
"Come on," said Sam; "but don't rise up or the boys will see us. Crawlout of the hole and then follow me on your hands and knees."
Jake obeyed, and the two presently jumped down to the ground on theside of the hummock furthest from camp.
Jake's first glance revealed Sam fully dressed, and standing firmly_in his boots_. There could be no mistake about it, and yet a momentbefore he would have made oath that those very boots were hiddenhopelessly within the deepest recesses of the drift-pile. He could notrestrain the exclamation which rose to his lips:--
"_Where_ DID _you get them boots_?"
"Never mind where, or how. I have a word or two to say to you. Youtook my boots and were on the point of throwing them into the river.If you think such an act by way of revenge was manly and worthy of asoldier, I will not dispute the point. You must determine that foryourself."
"Let me tell you about it, Sam," began Jake in an apologetic voice.
"No, it isn't necessary," replied Sam. "I know all about it, and itwill not help the matter to lie about it. Listen to me. You were aboutto throw the boots into the river; but you changed your mind. You knowwhy, of course, while I can only guess; but it doesn't matter. Youtook them into the drift pile and put them into a hole there. The nextthing you know of them I have them on my feet, and I assure you Ihaven't been inside the drift pile since you entered it. Solve thatriddle in any way you choose. I blocked up the entrance, and thismorning I have let you out. Not one of the boys knows anything aboutthis affair, and not one of them shall know, unless you choose to tellthem, which you won't, of course. Now come on to camp and get readyfor breakfast."
With that Sam led the way. Presently Jake halted.
"Sam," he said.
"Well."
"My eye's all bunged up. What'll the boys say?"
"I don't know."
"What must I tell 'em?"
"Anything you choose. It is not my affair."
"They'll think you've whipped me?" exclaimed Jake in alarm.
"Well, I have, haven't I?"
"No, we hain't fit at all."
"Yes we have,--not with our fists, but with our characters, and I havewhipped you fairly. Never mind that. You can say you did it byaccident in the dark, which will be true."
"But Sam!" said Jake, again halting.
"Well, what is it now?"
"What made you let me out
an' keep the secret from the boys?"
"Because I thought it would be mean, unmanly and wrong in me to takesuch a revenge."
"Is that the only reason?"
"Yes, that is the only reason."
"You didn't do it 'cause you was afraid?" he asked, incredulously.
"No, of course not. I'm not in the least afraid of you, Jake."
"Why not? I'm bigger'n you."
"Yes, but you're an awful coward, Jake, and nobody knows it betterthan I do, except you. You wouldn't dare to lay a finger on me. Icould make you lie down before me and--Pshaw! you know you're a cowardand that's enough about it."
"Why didn't you leave me for the boys to find, then, and tell thewhole story?"
"Because I'm not a coward or a sneak. I've told you once, but ofcourse you can't understand it; come along. I'm hungry."