Captain Sam Part 12

A large quant.i.ty of the long gray moss of the swamps was stored in the bottom for bedding purposes, and the boat was ready for her pa.s.sengers. One by one they took their places, Sam in the bow, and the voyage down the creek began. This stream was very crooked, and many fallen trees interrupted its course, so that it was very difficult to navigate it with so long a boat. In addition to this, the river had risen much faster than the creek, and the back water had entirely destroyed the creek's current, so that the boat must be pushed and paddled every inch of the way.

Nearly the entire day was consumed in getting to the river, five miles away from the starting place, and as the afternoon waned the boys grew tired, while Jake Elliott began to manifest his old disposition 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't starve by the way, an' _if_ this water runs that way."

"Very well," said Sam, "the longer we are on the route the better it will please you, Jake."

"Why?"

"Because you don't want to get there at all. But we'll be there sooner than 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 of this 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 the current, at this stage of the water, can't be much less than five miles an hour. Four miles an hour will take us ninety-six miles in twenty-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 enough to permit him to see the rapidly running stream long before any one else did. The rest strained their eyes, or rather their necks trying to catch a glimpse of the stream, but the undergrowth of the swamp lay between them and the sight. Sid's announcement put new energy into them, however, and they plied their paddles vigorously for ten minutes, when, with a sudden swing around a last curve of the creek, Sam brought his boat fairly out into the river, and turned her head down stream. The river was full to its banks, and in places it had already overflowed. The current was so strong that the mouth of the creek, out of which they had come, was out of sight in a very few minutes. Work with the paddles was suspended, Sam only dipping his into the water occasionally for the purpose of keeping the boat straight in mid-channel. The river was full of drift-wood, some of it consisting of large logs and uprooted trees, and night was already falling. 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?" asked Billy 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 taxed already 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 s.h.i.+ne 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 go on. 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 in such a boat as this anyhow, and as we're only floating, we go exactly with the drift nearest us; we go faster than the drift in by the sh.o.r.e there, because we're in the strongest part of the current, but the drift 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 not much. 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, the drift would b.u.mp us pretty badly, but it can do us no harm so long as we float along with it."

[Ill.u.s.tration: SAM PLAYS THE PART OF SKIPPER.]

The moon, nearly at its full, was rising now, and very soon the river became a picture. Running rapidly, bank full, with tall trees bending over and throwing their shadows across it, with here and there a fragment of a moon glade on the water, while the dense undergrowth of the woods, lying in shadow, gave the stream a margin of inky blackness on each side,--it was a scene to stimulate the imaginations of the group of healthy boys who sat in the boat gliding silently but swiftly down the river.

Hour after hour they sped on, not a boy among them in the least disposed to avail himself of Sam's permission to lie down for a nap on the moss in the bottom of the boat. Every bend of the river gave them a new picture to look at, and finally Sam had to use authority to make the boys lie down.

"We must all sleep some," he said, "for to-morrow the sun will s.h.i.+ne too strong for sleeping, and we've done a hard day's work. It will be now about seven or eight hours until sunrise, and there are just seven of us. It will take half an hour for the rest of you to get to sleep, and so I'll run the boat for an hour and a half. Then I'll wake Billy, and he can run it an hour. Then Joe must take the paddle,--his name is Butler, you see,--and so on in alphabetical order, each of you taking charge for an hour. If anything happens,--if you get into an eddy, 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 to sleep, that everything was likely to go well. Then he waked Billy Bowlegs, 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 hard during the day, and had had a weight of responsibility upon him during the difficult voyage down the creek. He was quietly sleeping some hours later when suddenly the boat was sharply jarred, and turned very nearly on her side, while the water could be heard surging around her bow 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, he being on watch at the time.

"Just as you meant that we should," answered Sam. "You've deliberately paddled us out of the current into a drift hammock, you sneaking scoundrel," continued Sam, now thoroughly angry, seizing Jake by the shoulders, and throwing him violently into the bottom of the boat. "I have a notion to give you a good thras.h.i.+ng right here, or to set you ash.o.r.e and go on without you."

"Do it, Captain! Do it! He deserves it," cried the boys, but Sam had made up his mind not to give way to his temper, however provoking Jake's conduct might be, and as soon as he could master himself, he renewed his resolution, which had been broken only in the moment of sudden awakening.

The boat was not damaged in the least, but her position was a difficult one from which to extricate her. She lay on the upper side of a pile of drift which had lodged against some trees, and a floating tree had swept down against her side, pinning her to the hammock, as such drift piles are called in the South. The work of freeing her required all of Sam's judgment, as well as all the boys' strength, but within half an hour, or a little more, the boat was again in the stream.

"Now," said Sam, speaking very calmly, "we've lost a good deal of sleep and must make it up. Jake Elliott, you will take the paddle again, 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.