XII
TOM’S DARING VENTURE
TOM’S teeth were indeed chattering when the company reached their camp.He was chilled “clear through,” he said, and his companions were veryuneasy. They feared, and not without reason, that he had contracteda swamp fever, which always begins with a chill. To avoid that, theRutledge boys, who knew the coast and its dangers, had carefully kepton or very near the salt water, and had chosen for their camp a spotwhere there were no live oaks, no gray moss and no black sand. StillTom might have caught a fever.
Cal piled wood on the fire with a lavish hand, so that an abundance ofheat might be reflected into their dry bush shelter, the open side ofwhich faced the fire, and Dick busied himself searching out dry clothesfrom the lockers, while Larry helped Tom to strip himself as speedilyas possible.
“Now run and jump into the creek,” he directed, as soon as the last ofTom’s clothes were off. “The salt water is luke-warm or even warmerthan that. I’ll wring out your clothes while your bath is warming you,and when you come out we’ll give you a rub down that would stimulatecirculation in a bronze statue. Hurry into the water, and don’t hurryout too soon.”
By the time Tom had been rubbed down and had got into dry clothes, hedeclared himself to be “as warm as a toast, as hungry as a schoolgirl,and ready to stand a rigid examination as to the character and purposesof our scoundrel friends down there.”
“Good!” exclaimed Larry. “That’s proof positive that you haven’t caughtthe fever. I was afraid you might.”
“Fever? Why, I was as cold as the Arctic circle—but then perhaps youkeep your fevers on ice down here and serve ’em cold. You have so manyqueer ways that nothing surprises me.”
Larry explained, and Tom laughed at him for his pains, for of courseTom knew what he had meant.
It was well past midnight, and the others shared Tom’s hunger in fullmeasure, so they were not greatly disappointed when, in response totheir eager demands for the story he had to tell, he answered:
“I’ll tell you all about it when we get something to eat. Till then myloquacity will closely resemble that of a clam.”
One of the party had killed some fat black squirrels during thepreceding day, and as these were already “dressed for the banquet,”in Dick’s phrase, they were spread upon a mass of coals, and within abrief while the meal—supper or breakfast, or post-midnight luncheon,or whatever else it might be called—was ready to receive theirattention.
“Now, Tom, tell us!” demanded Larry, when their hunger was partiallyappeased.
“Wait a minute,” interposed Dick. “Isn’t this rather risky?”
“What?”
“Why, sitting here on our haunches, rejoicing in the genial warmthof the fire—over-genial, I should call it, as it’s blistering myknees—and having no sentry out to see that the scoundrels don’t pouncedown on us by surprise.”
“There’s no more risk in it,” answered Tom, confidently, “than inwearing socks, or playing dominoes, or trying to trace out the featuresof the man in the moon.”
“But why not, Tom?”
“Because the scoundrels down there are all dead—dead drunk, Imean—and they have all they can do just now in sleeping it off.”
“Are you sure of that?”
“Yes, entirely sure. You saw how they were drinking—half a pint ofrum at a dose, repeated every five minutes. Well, they kept that upas long as they could find the way to their mouths. They had emptiedthe demijohn before you fellows left, and not being satisfied, theygot out a keg of the fiery stuff, had a rough and tumble fight oversome question relating to it, beat each others’ faces into somethingvery much like Hamburger steaks, and then decided to let the kegarbitrate the dispute. Four or five of them had been arbitrated intoa comatose state before I left, another was trying to sing somethingabout ‘Melinda,’ setting forth that he had ‘seen her at the windah,’and was prepared to give his hat and boots if he could ‘only have beendah.’ The rest were drunkenly silent as they sat there by an open darklantern which they had forgotten to close, I suppose, and drinking rumfrom tin cups whenever they could remember to do so. They will givenobody any trouble to-night.”
“But, Tom,” interposed Dick, “how do you know it was rum they weredrinking?”
“Now, see here,” said Tom, “I’d like to know who’s telling this story.If I’m the one the rest of you had better let me tell it in my own way.I was going to begin at the beginning and tell it straight through, butyour intrusive questions have switched me off the track. Now listen,and I’ll tell you all I know and how I know it, and what I think of it,and what I think you think of it, and all the rest of it.”
“Go ahead, Tom!” said Cal; “I’ll keep the peace for you; you’ll bear mewitness that I haven’t spoken a word since you began. Go on!”
“All right,” said Tom. “I thought you were about to give us adisquisition when you began to say that, but you didn’t, so I’llforgive you. Well, you see when you fellows heard me moving outthere in the thicket and thought I was instituting a retreat, I wasonly changing my base, as the military men say. I had seen somethingthat aroused my curiosity, and my curiosity is like a baby aftermidnight—if you once rouse it, you simply can’t coax it to go to sleepagain.”
“What was it you had seen, Tom?” Larry began.
“Silence!” commanded Cal. “Tom has the floor.”
“Oh, I beg pardon—” Larry began apologetically.
“No, don’t do even that. Go on, Tom.”
“I will as soon as you two twin brothers cease your quarreling. AsI was saying, I had seen something that aroused my curiosity. As Iwas peering through the bushes, looking toward the main body of theroisterers, I saw the limping one slip away from the general companyand sneak off. He went very cautiously through the undergrowth to thehovel nearest me and entered it, closing the door after him. I couldsee a little pencil of light streaming out through a crack, so I knewhe had opened his lamp in there. After a little fumbling he came outagain, but he was so drunk he forgot to take his lamp with him, as Idiscovered by the continued streaming out of that little pencil oflight.
“That was what aroused my curiosity. I wanted to know what was in thathovel, and as the lame gentleman with the ‘load’ on had obliginglyleft his lamp there for my accommodation, I resolved to embrace theopportunity offered. I moved cautiously upon the enemy’s works. Thatis to say, I crept forward toward the hovel. That’s what you fellowsmistook for the signal to retreat.
“Now I am convinced that our temporary neighbors, the scoundrels,are disposed to be in all ways obliging. At any rate they hadconsiderately placed the door of the hovel so that it fronted my sideof the structure and not theirs. Thus, when I opened the door the lightfrom the burning lamp did not shine toward them and thus give the alarm.
“I entered the place and rather minutely examined its contents.”
“What was in there?” asked Cal, forgetting in his eagerness that he hadhimself undertaken to prevent the interruption of Tom’s narrative byquestions from any source.
“I’ll tell you about that when I come to it. Story first, Cal.
“I had just finished my inspection when I heard footsteps of ratheruncertain purpose passing round the hovel toward the door, which ofcourse I had closed behind me. As there is only one door to thathovel and it has no windows by which ‘lovers might enter or burglarselope’—that’s wrong end first but it’s no matter—I realized thatthere was no time to lose. I hurriedly settled down behind a pile ofcigar boxes—”
“Their plunder is cigars, then?” asked Dick, forgetting.
“I did not say so,” Tom answered teasingly. “I made no mention ofcigars, so far as I can remember. I spoke only of cigar boxes. Theymight be filled with anything, you know. At any rate your interruptionhas spoiled the most thrilling part of my narrative, which must now becontinued prosaically and without the dramatic fire and fervor I hadplanned to put into it.
“My concealment was hasty and at best ver
y imperfect. In my hasteI forgot to conceal my gun, which stuck up a foot or two above thebarrier of boxes that imperfectly hid my person. Fortunately, however,the lame gentleman was too blind drunk even to see double and, as hemade no mention of the matter, I refrained from alluding to it.
“Apparently he had entered the hovel with a single purpose, namely, toclose his lantern and take it away. With what I cannot help regardingas praiseworthy persistence, he carried out that purpose, giving heedto nothing else. He omitted even to close the door after him, and asthe place was without heating apparatus of any kind—except rum forinternal combustion—I took my leave as soon as I felt confident thatthe lame gentleman had either rejoined his comrades or had falleninto dreamless slumber on his way to do so. My next adventure was thehead-on collision with Larry in the trail.”
“IN MY HASTE I FORGOT TO CONCEAL MY GUN.”_Page 126._]
Tom paused, took another bite at the squirrel’s leg he had been eatingbetween sentences, and it seemed necessary to set him going again bymeans of questions.
“Why don’t you go on, Tom? You haven’t told us yet what you found inthe hut.”
“I’m thirsty,” answered the boy. “Speaking is dry work, as you know, ifyou ever read Hawthorn’s ‘A Rill from the Town Pump!’ Have we enoughwater in the spring, Cal, for me to waste it in slaking my thirst?”
“We’ve caught all our things full, I reckon. I’ll see.”
When Cal returned he brought with him a small supply of rain water.
“What made you so long about it, Cal?” asked Larry. “We’re all waitingfor you.”
“So I see,” answered Cal. “I make all required apologies for havingkept this distinguished company waiting while I attended to somematters that are even more vitally interesting to all of us than isTom’s promised inventory of the things discovered by him in the tentsof the wicked, if I may so designate a slab hovel in a cane brake.”
“What have you been doing, Cal? And why didn’t you call the rest ofus to help you?” asked Dick, whose New England conscience was apt toscourge his spirit if he thought he had been doing less than his shareof whatever there was to do.
“I’ll reply to your questions in inverse order,” Cal replied. “I didnot call for help because I did not need help. In what I had to do oneperson was as good as a dozen. I may have been a trifle slow aboutit, but that is chiefly because water won’t run through a hole fasterthan nature intended it to do. As for your other question, I’ve beenengaged in a job of water-supply engineering. All the receptacles Iset to catch water were nearly full, and as it still rains—a factthat you may have observed for yourselves—I thought it best to emptytheir contents into the water kegs and set them to catch more. Asnobody thought to bring a funnel along, I have had to resort to simplermethods, and I have found that it is by no means easy to pour waterfrom a four-gallon bait pail into a one-inch bung hole without spillingit. For the rest, Captain Larry, I beg to report that one of our waterkegs is now full and the other perhaps one-third full. I hope to catchenough more water before the rain ceases to finish filling that keg andto serve all camp purposes during the few hours that we shall probablyremain here.”
“Why, I should think we might stay as long as we like, now,” said Tom;“this rain must have filled up our spring.”
“It has, and it has spoiled it for use for many days to come.”
“But how?” persisted Tom.
“Let me remind you, Tom, that we are all eagerly waiting for you totell us some things that are distinctly more interesting to us thanthe condition and prospects of a swamp spring can be when we’ve enoughwater for our present and immediate future need. Go on with your story.”
“Oh, the story is finished,” Tom replied, “but you want to hear aboutthe contents of the hovel. They consist in part of little kegs—threeor five gallon kegs, I should think—of Santa Cruz Rum. At least that’swhat I made out the letters branded on them to mean. These kegs arelying on the ground in rows that impressed me as far more orderly thanthe scoundrels themselves ever think of being. I should say there arefifteen or twenty of the kegs in that hovel.
“The rest of the stuff consists of cigars in boxes, and the boxes arecarefully tied together in parcels—thirty boxes to the parcel. That’sthe way we all saw them carry them up from their boats.”
“Where on earth can they have got all that rum and all those cigars,anyhow? And what do they bring them away down here in the woods for, Iwonder?” speculated Dick. “What’s your guess, Tom?”
“Pirates,” answered Tom; “and those things are their plunder.”
“Curious sort of pirates,” said Cal, scoffingly. “Unlike any piratesI ever heard of. Why, Tom, did you ever hear of pirates contentingthemselves with taking the rum and cigars they found on the ships theyoverhauled? You’ve got to guess two or three times more if you’re goingto guess right.”
“Well, what do you think they are?” asked Tom, a trifle disappointed tofind his theory bowled over so easily.
“Smugglers,” answered Cal. “And I don’t just think it either—I know.”
“But, Cal,” interrupted Larry, “smugglers must bring their goods fromforeign ports, and we all know enough about boats to know that thoseflat-bottomed tubs of theirs wouldn’t live five minutes in a littleblow on blue water.”
“No, nor five seconds either, and those precious rascals know all thatquite as well as we do. For that reason, among others, they refrainfrom risking their valuable lives by venturing upon blue water.”
“Then how do they carry on their traffic?”
“I have often remonstrated with you, Larry, for your neglect to readthe newspapers. But for that you might have been as well informed onthis and other subjects as I am. About a month ago I read in a New Yorknewspaper that fell in my way a somewhat detailed account of the way inwhich certain kinds of smuggling is carried on along the Atlantic andGulf coasts wherever the conditions are favorable, and the conditionsare nowhere so favorable as right here on this South Carolina coast,where deep, but often very narrow and crooked, inlets and creeks openfrom the broader waters of the sounds directly into densely woodedregions that are often wholly unpeopled for many miles in everydirection.
“This is the way they do it: Schooners and other small sea-going craftload at West Indian ports and take out clearance papers for New York orHalifax or some other big port which can be best reached by skirtingthis coast. Under pretense of stress of weather, or shortness of wateror provisions, they put into some harbor of refuge like that sound outthere. They make no effort to land anything, and if questioned by therevenue officers they can show perfectly regular papers. Then whenopportunity offers, their shore gangs—like the one over there—slipout in the darkness, take on full loads of freight, and land it in somesecluded spot like the one down there, and the schooner sails away toher destination.”
“But how do they get their goods from the woods to market?” Tom asked.
“By wagons, I suppose, and a little at a time. That doesn’t concern usvery deeply. What does concern us, is that we’ve got to get away fromhere as soon as this rain stops. The clouds seem to be breaking, by theway, and the wind has shifted to the northwest,” said Cal, steppingout of the shelter to observe the weather. “It will clear pretty earlyin the morning, I think, and in the meantime I for one want to get alittle sleep.”
“But what’s the hurry, Cal?” asked Tom. “Why can’t we stay here a dayor two longer? I’d like to see what the smugglers do when they come to.”
“There are several reasons for getting away at once,” answered Cal.“For one thing, we’re running short of some necessary supplies and mustgo to Beaufort to replenish our stores. Then there’s the question ofwater supply. After I finish filling the kegs we’ll have barely enoughleft to get through the day on.”
“But how has the rain put the spring out of commission, Cal?” askedTom. “You promised to explain that.”
“By filling it full of surface water. It will be a week or more bef
orethe water there is fit to drink, at least as a steady diet.”
“There’s a much better reason than that,” said Larry.
“What is it?”
“Why, we must hurry to put ourselves in communication with theauthorities, so that they can come down on that place before thescoundrels get away, or get their plunder away.”
“Yes,” said Tom, who was reluctant to leave the place and give up theadventure, “I suppose we ought to do that.”
“Ought to? Why, we simply must. Every decent citizen owes it as a dutyto give notice of crime when he discovers it, and to aid the officersof the law in stopping it. Civilized life would come to an end ifmen generally refused to support the authorities in their efforts toenforce the law. We’ve discovered a den of thieves, engaged in robbingthe Government—that is to say, robbing all of us. So we’ll get awayfrom here just as early in the morning as we can. Now let’s get somesleep.”
It was easy to say, “Let’s get some sleep,” but not easy to get itin the excited condition of mind that had come upon every member ofthe little party. But, by keeping silence and lying still, the wearyfellows did manage to sleep a little after awhile, and it was the sunshining full in their faces that at last aroused them to a busy day.