John McElroy - Si Klegg, Book 4

"Hold on, men," shouted the Lieutenant; "you are certainly not going to abandon your officer?"

"Certainly not," said Shorty. "How could you imagine such a thing? But just how to trade you off for this rebel passenger presents difficulties. If we try to throw him overboard we shall certainly tip the canoe over. And I'm afraid he's not the man to give up peaceably a dry seat in the canoe for your berth on the log."

"I order you to come back here at once and take me in that boat," said the Lieutenant imperatively.

"We are comin' back all right," said Shorty; "but we're not goin' to let you tip this canoe over for 40 Second Lieutenants. We'll git you out o' the scrape somehow. Don't fret."

"Hello, thar! Help! Help!" came across the waters in agonized tones, which at the same time had some thing familiar in them.

"Hello, yourself!" responded Shorty, making out, a little distance away, a "jo-boat," that is, a rude, clumsy square-bottomed, square-ended sort of a skiff in which was one man. "What's wanted?"

"I'm out here adrift without no oars," came in the now-distinctly recognizable voice of Jeff Hackberry. "Won't yo' please tow me ashore?"

"Le's go out there and git him," said Shorty to Si. "We kin put all these fellers in that jo-boat and save 'em."

A few strokes of their paddles brought them alongside.

"How in the world did you come here, Hackberry," asked Shorty.

"O, that ole woman that I wanted so bad that I couldn't rest till I got her wuz red-hot t' git rid o' me," whined Hackberry. "She tried half-a-dozen ways puttin' wild parsnip in my likker, giving me pokeberry bitters, and so on, but nothin' fetched me. Finally she deviled me to carry her acrost the crick to the Confederit lines. I found this ole jo-boat at last, an' we got in. Suddenly, quick as lightning she picked up the oars, an' give the boat a kick which sent hit away out into the current. I floated away, yellin' at her, an' she standin' on the bank grinnin' at me and cussin'. I've been havin' the awfulest day floatin' down the freshet, expectin' every minute t' be drowned, an' both sides pluggin' away at me whenever they ketched sight o' me. I wuz willin' t' surrender t' either one that'd save me from being drownded, but none of 'em seemed t' care a durn about my drowndin'; they only wanted t' plug me."

"Please save me, Mister," begged Jeff, "an' I'll do anything under the shinin' sun for yo'; I'll jine the Yankee army; I'll lead you' to whar thar's nests o' the pizenest bushwhackers. I'll do anything yo' kin ax me. Only save me from being drownded. Right down thar's the big falls, an' if I go over them, nothin' kin same me from drowndin'." And he began a doleful blubbering.

"On general principles, I think that'd be the best thing that could happen," remarked Shorty. "But I haven't time to discuss that now. Will you do just what we want, if we save your life?"

"Yes; yes," responded he eagerly.

"Well, if you don't, at the very minute I tell you, I'll plug you for certain with this," said Shorty, showing the revolver. "Mind, I'll not speak twice. I'll give you no warnin'. You do what I tell you on the jump, or I'll be worse to you than Mrs. Bolster. First place, take this man in with you. And you (to the rebel in the canoe) mind how you git into that boat. Don't you dare, on your life, kick the canoe over as you crawl out. If I find it rocks the least bit as you leave I'll bust your cocoanut as the last act of my military career. Now crawl out."

The rebel crawled over the gunwale into the boat as cautiously as if there were torpedoes under him.

"Now," said Shorty, with a sigh of relief, as the man was at last out of the canoe, "we'll paddle around here and pick up some pieces of boards for you to use as oars. Then you bring the boat over to that log."

This was done, and the Lieutenant and the two rebels clinging to the log were transferred to the jo-boat. The moment the Lieutenant felt himself in the comparative security of the jo-boat his desire for command asserted itself.

"Now, men," said he, authoritatively, "pull away for the other side, pointing up stream. That glow over there is our campfires. Make for it."

"All right, Lootenant," said Shorty. "You command that boat. You've got your revolver with you, and kin make 'em mind. We'll pick up some more boards, so as to have oars for all o' 'em. They'd better use 'em lively, for it ain't a great ways t' the suck. If you git into that you'll go to Davy Jones's as sure as the Lord made little apples. Paddle, now, if you value your lives. Me and Si are goin' back to look for that galoot that shot at us. We want to make a present of him to our Colonel, who's after information from the other side. We want his gun and another one to make up for the two that we had to leave on the island. We'll join you before you git acrost."

The Lieutenant lifted up his voice in remonstrance against the desperate undertaking, but Si and Shorty paddled swiftly away, leaving him and his squad to struggle over the muddy lake in their clumsy bateau.

Though the boys were sadly worn by the day's exciting adventures, yet they were animated by the hope of doing something that would signally retrieve their earlier misfortunes. Both were adepts at canoe navigation, the canoe was light and easily managed with but two in it, and they had gotten the lay of the shore so well in mind that they felt sure that they could slip around and come in on the man who had fired upon them. The drizzle of the rain helped curtain them; they pushed the canoe through the top of a paw-paw thicket that rose but a little way above the flood, Shorty sprang out, and in a few steps came up behind the two pickets, who were crouching over a little fire they had built behind the cover of some dense weeds.

"Was this the post that fired on men in a canoe a little while ago?" he asked, as if a rebel officer out on a tour of investigation.

"Yes," the men stammered, as soon as they could recover from the startle of his sudden appearance.

"Which man fired?" asked Shorty.

"Me," answered one.

"Well, I want you and both your guns," said Shorty, thrusting his revolver against the man's face. "Pick up them guns and go right ahead there."

The man meekly did as bid, and in a few minutes was landed into the canoe, into which Shorty jumped and pushed off. When nearly across they came upon the jo-boat, with the Lieutenant standing erect with drawn revolver, while the men were laboring hard to propel it to shore. The boys fastened its painter to the stern of the canoe and helped by towing.

They headed for a large fire burning brightly on the bank, indicating that it was the headquarters of the pickets. In response to the sharp challenge, the Lieutenant responded:

"Friends, without the countersign."

Quite a number of officers and men thronged to the water's edge to see what could be coming from that unexpected quarter. The Lieutenant ordered the boys to fall to the rear with their canoe, that he might be the first to land, and as his bateau labored close to the shore he recognized the Colonel in command of the picket line, and said in a loud voice:

"Sir, I have the honor to report that I have been across the creek reconnoitering the enemy's lines. I have with me five prisoners four soldiers and one guerrilla."

SI WOKE up early the next morning with a savage exclamation.

"I declare, I'm all on fire," he said. "Some thing's just eating me up. I believe I've got a million graybacks on me."

"Same here, Si," said Shorty. "Never knowed 'em to be so bad. Seem to 've just got in from a march, and are chawin' three days' rations out o' me every minute. I'd 'a' thought they'd all 've bin drowned from the duckin' they've bin havin' for the past five days, but it only seems to 've sharpened their teeth and whetted their appetites. They've all come to dinner, and invited their friends."