The Young Marooners on the Florida Coast Part 27

The idea was so valuable, that the boys scarcely allowed themselves time to eat or to rest until it was accomplished; and when at last the tide was seen moving towards the sea, they separated, Robert, Mary, and Sam going to the prairie landing, where they soon had the tent spread, and a fire burning; and Harold and Frank floating back to the place of their former residence, where they secured the raft, and calling Nanny, Dora, and the kids, returned overland to join the company at the new home.

For several days they were occupied with the labour of transporting their baggage, and fitting up their present abode with comforts and conveniences. The tent was not established at the landing where it was pitched the first night, but on the edge of the prairie, a furlong distant, and within a stone's throw of the spring.

On the third night after their removal, they experienced a loss which caused them to feel both sad and anxious. Nanny and her kids, having no place provided for them, had selected a nice retreat under the shelter of a mossy oak, and made that their lounging place by day, and their sleeping place by night. At the time referred to the boys had just retired to bed, when they heard one of the kids bleating piteously, and its cry followed by the tramp of the others running to the tent for protection. Harold and Robert sprang to their guns, and calling the dogs, seized each a burning brand, and hurried in the direction of the kid, whose wail of pain and fear became every moment more faint, until it was lost in the distance. The depredator was without doubt a panther. Such a circ.u.mstance was calculated to dishearten the boys exceedingly; for it forewarned them that not only were they likely to lose all their pets, but that there was no safety to themselves, and particularly none to Frank, if he should incautiously straggle into a panther's way. They called Nanny to a spot near the tent, fastened her by the dog's chain to a bush, threw a supply of wood on the fire sufficient to burn for some hours, and retired to bed sad and uneasy.

Returning from their unsuccessful sally, Harold significantly shook his head, and said, "I will be ready for him before he has time to be hungry again."

There was no other disturbance that night. Frank was asleep at the time of the accident, and knew nothing of it until the next morning, when seeing Nanny fastened near the tent, he asked why that was, and where was the other kid. "Poor Jinny!" he exclaimed, on hearing of its fate (the kids, being a male and female, had been called Paul and Virginia).

"Poor Jinny! So you are gone!" He went to Nanny, the chief mourner, and patting her smooth side said, in a pitying tone, "Poor Nanny! Ain't you sorry for your daughter? Only think, Nanny, that she is eaten up by a panther!" Nanny looked sorrowful enough, and replied, "Baa!" But whether that meant, "I am so sorry my daughter is dead," or, "I wish you would loose my chain, and let me eat some of this nice gra.s.s," Frank could not determine. After a breakfast, by no means the most cheerful, Harold said,

"Robert, we must make a picket fence for the protection of these poor brutes. But as I have a particular reason for wishing some fresh venison before night, I want to arrange matters so that either you or I shall go out early enough to be sure of obtaining it."

Robert urged him to go at once, but disliking the appearance of avoiding labour, he preferred to remain, and aid them through the most laborious part of the proposed work. The palisade was made of strong stakes, eight or ten feet long, sharpened at one end, and driven into a narrow trench, which marked the dimensions of the enclosure. Harold a.s.sisted to cut and transport to the spot the requisite number of stakes; and shortly after noon took Frank as his companion, and left Robert and Sam to complete the work. He had not been gone more than an hour and a half, before Robert heard the distant report of a heavily loaded gun, in the direction of the spot where the brant and ducks had been shot.

"Eh! eh!" said Sam, "Mas Harrol load he gun mighty hebby for a rifle!"

"Yes," said Robert, "and he has chosen a very poor weapon for shooting ducks."

The workmen were too intently engaged to reflect that the report which they heard could not have proceeded from a rifle. In the course of half an hour another report, but of a sharper sound, was heard much nearer, and appearing to proceed from the neighbourhood of the orange-trees, on the tongue of land. Robert now looked inquiringly at Sam, and was about to remark, "That gun cannot be Harold's--it has not the crack of a rifle;" but the doubt was only momentary, and soon pa.s.sed away. Long afterwards the familiar sound of Harold's piece was heard in the west, and a little before sunset Harold and Frank appeared, bearing a fat young deer between them.

"That looks nice; but you have been unfortunate, Harold," said Robert, who having finished the pen, and introduced into it Nanny and the two young ones, had wiped his brows, and sat down to rest.

"Why so?"

"In getting no more."

Harold looked surprised, but considering the remark as a sort of compliment to his general character, returned,

"O, that must be expected sometimes. But come, Robert, if you are not too weary, I shall be glad of your a.s.sistance in a little work before dark. I wish to post up a notice here, that night robbers had better keep away."

By their united efforts they succeeded in constructing a very simple though dangerous trap, which Harold said he hoped would give them a dead panther before morning. He laid Riley's rifle upon two forked stakes, about a foot from the ground, and fastened it so that any movement forwards would bring the trigger against an immovable pin, and spring it. He then tied a tempting piece of venison to a small pole, which was bound to the rifle in a range with the course of the ball. And to make a.s.surance doubly sure, he drove down a number of stakes around the bait, so that nothing could take hold of it, except in such direction as to receive the load from the gun.

"Now," said he, after having tried the working of his gun, by charging it simply with powder and pulling at the pole, as he supposed a wild beast would pull at the bait, then loading it with ball and setting it ready for deadly use--"Now, if there is in these woods a panther that is weary of life, I advise him to visit this place to-night."

The dogs were tied up, and the work was done. So long as the boys were engaged in making and setting their trap their minds were absorbed in its details, and they conversed about nothing else. But when that was finished, Harold referred to Robert's remark about his hunting, and said, "I was unfortunate, it is true, but it was only in going to the wrong place; for I got all that I shot at. But what success had you, for I heard your gun also."

"My gun!" responded Robert, "no, indeed. I heard two guns up the river, and supposed you were trying your skill in shooting ducks with a rifle."

Harold stopped, and stared at him in the dim twilight. "Not your gun, did you say? Then did Sam go out?"

"No. He was working steadily with me, until a few minutes before you returned."

The boys exchanged with each other looks of trouble and anxiety. "Did you hear any gun in reply to mine?" Harold asked. Robert replied he had not.

"Then," said Harold, in a voice tremulous with emotion, "I am afraid that our worst trouble is to come; for either there are Indians on the island, or our friends have come for us, and we have left no notice on our flag-staff to tell them where we are."

Robert wrung his hands in agony. "O, what an oversight again! when we had resolved so faithfully to give every signal we could devise. I'll get my gun! It may not be too late for an answer."

He ran with great agitation into the tent, and brought out his gun, but hesitated. "What if those we heard were fired by enemies, instead of friends?"

"In that case," replied Harold, "we must run our risk. If those were Indian guns, it will be vain to attempt concealment. They have already seen our traces; and if they are bent on mischief, we shall feel it.

Let us give the signal."

They fired gun after gun, charging them with powder only, and hearing the echoes reverberate far away in the surrounding forest; but no sound except echoes returned. The person who fired those mysterious guns had either left the island, or was indisposed to reply.

Many were the speculations they now interchanged upon the subject, and gravely did the two elder boys hint to each other, in language intelligible only to themselves, that there was now more to fear than to hope. They ate their supper in silence, and Mary and Frank went sorrowfully to bed. Robert, Harold and Sam sat up late, after the lights were extinguished, watching for the dreaded approach of Indians, and devising various plans in case of attack. At last they also retired, taking turns to keep guard during the whole night. All was quiet until near morning; when, in the midst of Sam's watch, they were aroused by hearing near at hand the sharp report of a rifle. In an instant the excited boys were on their feet, and standing beside their sentry, guns in hand, prepared to repel what they supposed to be an Indian attack. But Sam sung out in gleeful tone:

"No Injin! no Injin! but de trap. Only yerry[#] how he growl! I tell you he got de lead!"

[#] Yerry, hear.

The boys hastily kindled a torch, loosed the dogs, ran to the trap, and found, not a panther indeed, but a large wild cat, rolling and growling in mortal agony. The dogs sprang fiercely upon it, and in less than two minutes it lay silent and motionless, its keen eye quenched, and its once spasmed limbs now softly flexible in death. They took it up. It was nearly as large as Mum, being quite as tall, though not so heavy.

Before they had ceased their examinations the grey streak of dawn gleamed above the eastern woods, and instead of retiring to rest again, as their weariness strongly prompted, they prepared for the duties of the opening day.

These duties appeared to be so contradictory, that they scarcely knew what plan to pursue. It was clear that some one or more should go without delay to the coast, to ascertain whether their friends were or had been there. But who should go, and who should stay? If there were Indians abroad, it would be dangerous to divide their little force; and yet all could not go, for Sam was lame. Harold offered to go alone; but the others, burning with the hope that their father might yet be on the island, or within sight, insisted on bearing him company. Sam also helped to settle the question, by saying:

"Go, Mas Robbut, and little Missus, and Mas Frank; go all o' you. Don't be 'fraid for me; s'pose Injin come, he nebber trouble n.i.g.g.e.r."

This remark was based upon the well known fact that Indians seldom interfere with negroes. And encouraged thus to leave him a second time alone, the young people resolved to go in a body to the coast; agreeing with him, however, that if he saw any danger he should give them timely warning by setting on fire a fallen pine-top.

Carrying what arms they could, and sending their dogs on either side as scouts, they walked swiftly along their well known path to the seacoast.

No accident happened, no sign of danger appeared; everything was as usual on the way, and at the place of their old encampment. But scarcely had they reached the oak, before Harold, pointing to the earth, softened by a rain two nights before, cried out:

"Look here, Robert! The tracks of two persons wearing shoes!"

Robert's unpractised eye would never have detected the signs which Harold's Indian tuition enabled him so readily to discover; he could scarcely distinguish, after the closest scrutiny, more than the deep indentation of a boot-heel. But that was enough; a boot-heel proved the presence of a boot, and a boot proved the presence of a white man. That one fact relieved them from all apprehension that the visitors were Indians.

They fired their guns, to attract if possible the attention of the strangers; giving volley after volley, in repeated succession, and scanning the coast in every direction; but it was without the desired result--the persons were gone. Their dogs had by this time gone to a spot near the bluff, where there had been a fire, and were engaged in eating what the boys discovered, on inspection, to be a ham-bone and scattered crumbs of bread. On descending the bluff, where footprints were sharply defined in the yielding sand, Frank exclaimed:

"Here is _William's_ track! I know it--I know it is William's!"

The others examined it, and asked how he knew it was William's.

"I know it," said he, "by that W. When father gave him that pair of thick boots for bad weather, William drove a great many tacks into the sole; and when I asked him why he did so, he said it was to make them last longer, and also to know them again if they should be stolen, for there was his name. In the middle of one sole he drove nine tacks, making that W., and in the other he drove seven, so as to make an H.; for he said his name was William Harper. Yes, look here," pointing to the other track, "here is the H., too."

There was now not the shadow of a doubt that the track thus ingeniously identified was William's. Then whose was that other, formed by a light, well shaped boot? Every heart responded. The elder boys looked on with agitated faces; Mary burst into tears, and Frank, casting himself pa.s.sionately down, laid his wet cheek upon that loved foot-print, and kissed it.

But he was gone now--though he had been so near--gone without a word, or a sign, to say that he was coming back. Gone? Perhaps not. Perhaps a smoke might recall him, if the guns did not. Harold silently ascended the bluff, and with one of Frank's matches fired the gra.s.s placed beneath the heap of wood near the flag-staff. The smoke rose; it attracted the attention of the others, and soon they heard Harold call from a distance, "Come here, all of you! Here is something more."

They ran together, Robert and Mary taking each a hand of Frank; and when they reached the flag-staff, saw a paper fastened to it by wooden pins driven into the bark, and on the paper, written in large round characters:

"_Five Thousand Dollars Reward_

"Will be cheerfully paid to any one who shall restore to me in safety a boat's company, lost from Tampa Bay on the 26th of October last. They were dragged to sea by a devil-fish, and when last seen were near this island. The company consisted of my nephew, Harold McIntosh, aged nearly fifteen, having black hair and eyes; and my three children, Robert Gordon, aged fourteen; Mary Gordon, aged eleven; and Frank Gordon, aged seven years; all having light hair and blue eyes.

"The above reward will be paid for the aforesaid company, with their boat and boat's furniture; or one thousand dollars for any one of the persons, or for such information as shall enable me to know certainly what has become of them.

"Information may be sent to me at Tampa Bay, care of Major ----, commanding officer; or to Messrs. ---- & Co., Charleston, S. C.; or to R. H----, Esquire, Savannah, Georgia.