Chapter 4: Taking a “Galleon”

Henry and Shif’less Sol spied upon the Spanish camp again the next day, and returned with news that the two chiefs had departed, but that Braxton Wyatt had remained, evidently intending to accompany Alvarez to New Orleans, where they were sure the Spanish leader now intended going.

“I think, too,” said Henry, “that they will break up camp in the morning and march. I believe that they came up on the Mississippi, and will return the same way.”

“Then they have boats,” said Paul in dismay, “and we have none.”

“But we can get one,” said Henry significantly.

“If you want a thing, jest go an’ git it,” said Shif’less Sol. “I remember once when I wuz a leetle bit o’ a boy back in the East, I hankered terribly after some hickory nuts that I knowed wuz in a grove about a mile from our house. I suffered days an’ days o’ anguish fur them hickory nuts, wishin’ mighty bad all the time that I had ‘em. At the end o’ two weeks I walked over an’ got ‘em, an’ my sufferin’ stopped off short.”

“That’s just what we mean to do about our boat, step over and get it,” said Henry laughing. But he did not divulge his plan and the others were content to wait for the event.

As Henry had predicted, the Spanish camp broke up the following morning, and Alvarez and his force took up a march almost due eastward. They traveled in an easy fashion, and showed no signs of apprehension, Alvarez deeming that fifty well-armed men were not in any danger from wandering tribes. He did not know that five resolute borderers were following closely behind him, even looking into his camp at night, and knowing every important thing that he did. Braxton Wyatt may have suspected it, but he said nothing, aware that it could not be prevented.

The five were well prepared. They carried a large supply of ammunition, a blanket each, and jerked meat. If their food supplies gave out there was the forest swarming with game, and they knew that it swarmed in the same fashion all the way down to New Orleans. They would camp at sunset three or four miles from the Spaniards, keeping watch the night through, and in the morning it was easy enough to take up the trail of Alvarez and his men, which, to their experienced eyes, was like a high road leading through the forest.

One evening just as the sun was setting Henry parted some twining bushes and looked over a cliff. The others came to his side and they, too, looked as he was looking.

At their very feet lay the mighty Mississippi. They had seen it before, but it was never so impressive as now. Great at any time it was in spring flood, rolling a vast, yellow current down toward the Gulf. The waters overflowed on the low, eastern shore, and it was so far across that they could not see the further bank in the shadowed evening. The setting sun, nevertheless, lighted up the middle of the current with blood-red gleams, and the five gazed with a certain awe at the mighty stream, as it flowed ever onward. It was the highly imaginative Paul who was impressed the most.

“We know where it goes to,” he said, “but I wonder where it comes from.”

Henry waved his hand vaguely toward the North.

“Up there somewhere,” he said, “a thousand miles from here, or maybe two thousand. Nobody can tell.”

Paul did not say anything more, but continued to gaze at the vast, yellow current of the Mississippi, coming out of the unknown regions of the far north and flowing into lands of the far south, almost as mysterious and, vague, once belonging to France but now owning the lordship of Spain. It was the homely language of Shif’less Sol that recalled him from his dreams.

“It’s purty big out thar, an’ looks ez if you couldn’t tamper with it--this here river stands no foolin’--but do you know, Paul, water’s pow’ful friendly. It’s always travelin’ about, always on the move. Land stands still, it’s always thar, an’ never sees nothin’ new, but water jest keeps a’ movin’, seein’ new countries, here to-day, somewhar else to-morrow, lavin’ new banks, breathin’ new air, floatin’ peacefully on to new people, gatherin’ in their talk an’ ways.

“Jest think! This river comes out o’ we don’t know whar, sees all the wilderness, whispers to the bars and buffaloes an’ Injun tribes ez it goes by, takes a look at us standin’ here on the bank, an’, after wonderin’ what we’re about, slips on down hundreds o’ miles to Louisianny, gazin’ at the French thar on the bank at New Orleans, an’ then shoots out into the sea.”

“Thar to be lost,” said the unpoetical Long Jim.

“Not to be lost, never to be lost, Jim,” said Shif’less Sol earnestly. “That Missip. water is still thar in the sea, an’ it goes slippin’ an’ slidin’ along with the salt clean to all them old continents. It takes a look in at England, that’s fightin’ us in the East, an’ if the English could understand the water’s language it might tell ‘em a lot o’ things that wuz wuth their knowin’. An’ then it goes on to Spain an’ France an’ Germany, whar they talk all them useless tongues, an’ after a while it takes a whirl clean ‘roun’ Africa an’ Asia, an’ sees goodness knows what, an’ then goes slippin’ off to see islands in oceans that I ain’t ever heard tell on. Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat but ain’t that a movin’ an’ stirrin’ life fur ye!”

Sol drew a deep breath and Paul looked at him with shining eyes.

“You’ve said a good deal of what I was thinking, Sol,” he said, “but for which I couldn’t find words.”

“We’re likely to travel with the river for a while,” said Tom Ross, “an’ we must purvide a way.”

“We’ll do it soon,” said Henry.

They camped that night in a dense grove near the bank but they built no fire. After midnight Henry and Shif’less Sol slipped away and went northward.

“‘Bout four miles on we’ll strike them Spaniards,” said the shiftless one.

It was a close calculation, as at the end of the four miles they saw the light of a fire flaring through the trees and bushes and knew that they had come upon Alvarez and his men. Their camp lay on rather low ground beside a little bay of the Mississippi, and the keen eyes of the two woodsmen saw at once that the force of Alvarez had been increased.

“He’s got about seventy men whar he had about fifty afore,” said Shif’less Sol as they crept nearer.

“They came on boats as I thought,” replied Henry, “and he left a detachment here with the boats, while he went across country. Maybe he was on an exploring expedition or something of that kind, when Braxton Wyatt overtook him with his proposition.”

Sol looked at Henry and Henry looked at Sol. A ray of moonlight fell upon their tanned and stern faces. Then as they looked a twinkle appeared in the eye of each. The twinkle deepened and the two broke simultaneously into a soundless laugh.

“We want one of those boats,” said Henry.

“We shorely do,” said Shif’less Sol.

“We need it in the course of our duty,” said Henry.

“We jest can’t git along without it,” said Shif’less Sol.

“It will be much easier floating down the middle of the Mississippi in a boat than it will be walking along the bank all the way.”

“It will shorely save the feet, an’ give a feller time to think, while the current’s doin’ the work. It jest suits a lazy man like me.”

Again they broke simultaneously into a laugh that contained no sound, but which was full of mirth.

“It’s taking what doesn’t belong to us, and we are not at war with the Spanish,” said Henry.

“They tried to hold Paul a prisoner, and they’re not at war with us,” rejoined Sol. “We’ve got a right to hit back. Besides, we’re doin’ it to save a war, and we’re only borrowin’ their boat fur their own good.”

The two, without further ado, made a circuit around the Spanish camp, coming down on the northern side. There fortunately for them the trees and bushes were thick to the water’s edge, and the shore was very low. In fact, the river, owing to the flood, overlapped the bushes.

They redoubled their caution, using every art and device of woodcraft to approach without noise. They could see the flare of the camp fire beyond the bushes, and now and then they caught sight of a sentinel’s head. They felt amply justified in this attempt, for Alvarez had not only held Paul a prisoner, but was plotting with the Indian chiefs to slay all the white people in Kentucky.

“Here are the boats,” whispered Henry.

There they were, eight in number, large, strong boats, every one with several pairs of oars, and tied with ropes to the bushes.

The eyes of Shif’less Sol watered as he gazed.

“They look pow’ful good to a lazy man,” he said, “I could shorely sleep mighty comf’table in one o’ them while Jim Hart wuz pullin’ at the oars.”

“I think the small one at the end nearest to us would just suit our party,” said Henry; “although it has more, it could be handled easily with a single pair of oars.”

“Shorely!” said Shif’less Sol, “but how to git away with it is now the question.”

It was indeed a problem, vexing and likewise dangerous. A sentinel, musket on shoulder, walked up and down in front of the Spanish navy, and he seemed to be very wide awake. Moreover, two men slept in each boat.

“We must get that sentinel somehow,” said Henry, “not to hurt him, but to see that he doesn’t talk for the next half hour or so.”

“What’s your idea?” asked the shiftless one.

Henry whispered to him rapidly and Sol grinned with satisfaction.

“Good enough,” said the shiftless one. “It’ll work,” and he crept away from Henry deep in the bushes a little west of the sentinel. A moment or two later the Spaniard on watch was startled by a sharp, warning hiss from the edge of the thicket. He knew very well what made it--a rattlesnake, a thing that he loathed and feared. He certainly did not want such a deadly reptile sliding through the grass on his feet, and, clubbing his musket, he walked forward, looking intently for the venomous thing. He did not see it at first and all his faculties became absorbed in the search. Holding the clubbed musket ready for an instant blow he peered into the grass and short bushes. He was a Spaniard not without courage, but he was oppressed by the night, the wilderness, the huge river flowing by, and his feeling that he was far, very far, from Spain. Under the circumstances, the poisonous hiss inspired him with an intense dread and he was eager to slay. He leaned a little farther, swinging the musket butt back and forth, ready for a quick blow when he should see the target.

He did not hear a light step behind him, but he did feel a powerful arm grasp him around the waist, pinning his own arms to his side, while a hand was clasped over his mouth, checking the ready cry that could not pass his lips. Then before his starting eyes a figure rose out of the bushes whence the hiss had come. It was not that of a rattlesnake, but that of a man, a tall man with powerful shoulders, blue eyes, and yellow hair, undoubtedly one of the ferocious Americans.

The sentinel felt that his hour had come, and he began to patter his prayers in his throat, but the two Americans, the one before him, and the one who had grasped him from behind, did not slay him at once. Instead they said words together in their harsh tongue. Then they tore pieces from the sentinel’s clothing, made a wad of it and pressed it into his mouth. They also tied a strip from the same clothing over his mouth and behind his head, and, still despoiling his clothing, they bound him hand and foot and laid him in the bushes, where he was invisible to his comrades and could only see a sky in which a few dim stars danced. But on the whole he was glad. They had not killed him as he had expected, and the gag in his mouth was soft. Moreover, his comrades would surely find him in time and release him.

Henry and Shif’less Sol turned away and smiled again at each other.

“Not much trouble, that,” whispered the shiftless one. “He wuz shorely a skeered Spaniard ef I kin read a man’s face. Guess he wuz glad to get off ez easy ez he did. Now fur the boat!”

“Here we are,” said Henry. “We must pitch out the two men sleeping in it--you take one and I’ll take the other--and then we must seize the oars and pull like mad, because the whole camp will be up.”

The boat was tied with a rope to a stout sapling and two Spanish soldiers slumbered in great peace inside. The oars lay beside them. Henry cut the rope with one sweep of his long-bladed hunting-knife, and then he and Shif’less Sol sprang into the boat. Each seized a man by the shoulders and lifted him in his powerful arms. It was a chance that one of the sleepers was Luiz, and, when he was snatched suddenly from blissful dreams to somber fact, he opened his eyes to see bending over him the same grave, tanned being who had rescued him from the raging buffalo.

But it was not a beneficent spirit, because Luiz was tossed bodily the next moment into three feet of muddy water. He uttered a cry of terror and despair as he went down, and another Spaniard uttered a similar cry at the same moment. Both cries were cut off short by mouthfuls of the Mississippi, but the two Spaniards came up a moment later, and began to wade hastily to the shore. Each cast a frightened glance behind him, and saw their boat disappearing on the river’s bosom, carrying the two evil spirits with it.

“I shorely enjoyed that,” said Shif’less Sol, as the oars bent beneath his powerful stroke. “That Spaniard’s face as he woke up an’ found hisself whirled out into the Mississippi wuz the funniest thing I ever seed, an’ I had the fun, too, without hurting him. It ain’t often, Paul, that you kin do what you need to do an’ be full o’ laugh, too, an’ so when the time comes I make the most o’ it.”