CHAPTER XII THE CASK IN THE RIVER
From the cave to Borden’s Ford the advance was a continuous frolic. The banks of the river were of rock and at places these closed in, making little gorges through which the stream broke into rougher water. Now and then there were places that might be called rapids. Particularly, just below Borden’s Ford there was a long riffle over which the water boiled and bubbled until it entered the gorge at Big Butternut. As there was a sharp turn in this narrow defile the narrowed river swept up in foam-crested waves.
Here, picnickers frequently spread their lunch. The younger folks always lingered to throw sticks and logs down the riffle to see them tossed about in the miniature whirlpool. From above the head of the riffle there was boating as far as the quarry.
At Big Butternut Whirlpool the scampering Wolves came to a welcome stop, with a general demand that the patrol be allowed to go in swimming.
“That’s where there’s nothin’ doin’!” answered Connie. “I promised Mr. Trevor that no one would be allowed to ‘shoot the rapids.’”
“You did?” shouted Art. “Well what’d we come for? He didn’t say nothin’ to me.”
“There was no need,” smiled Connie. “I’m the boss. That’ll do for all.”
“Did you bring a little knittin’ for us to do?” asked Davy Cooke sarcastically.
“Can we go wadin’ up on the ford?” sneered Colly Craighead.
“We’re goin’ swimmin’ up above the ford,” answered Connie, unmoved by these gibes, “as soon as we cool off. Then we’ll see if we can’t coax a few bass into the fryin’ pan. I got a seine in my haversack. We’ll get some minnies at the ford.” (By “minnies” Connie meant minnows.)
The stop at the whirlpool was not long. After hurling all loose wood into the rushing gorge, the boys hurried to the ford and the near-by clearing in the woods. Here, as at the cave, there were tables and seats and remnants of many outings.
Running along the shore to this point, several boys made out a peculiar object in the river, high up on the riffle and near the ford. The object was dark and round. That it was not a rock, every boy knew. So unusual was it in appearance that there was a general determination to wade out and investigate.
“Looks like somethin’ that’s drifted down the river an’ got stuck,” suggested Wart.
“Like a barrel,” was Leader Connie’s verdict.
“If it’s a barrel,” exclaimed Sammy Addington, “I wonder if it’s anything in it?”
The squad had reached the ford by this time. Haversacks were dropped and Art, Wart and Colly, pulling off their shoes and stockings, rushed into the river. Connie, a little more dignified, walked down the bank again, followed by most of the patrol.
“It’s a beer barrel,” were the first words from the investigators, “full o’ nothin’.”
But the waders, glad to be in the splashing riffle, continued their advance, twisting and balancing themselves on the slippery stones.
“There’s marks on it!” yelled Art a moment later. The keg was standing end up and on a big flat stone. Its upper part was dry. As Art and Wart reached it, one glance drew their heads downward for a closer look. As the two boys grasped the head of the keg it slid off the rock and fell on its side in the water. Art was excitedly waving his arms to Connie and the others and yelling: “Come quick, all o’ you. It’s—” But even in his excitement he could see Wart vainly attempting to hold the cask with his scout staff.
“Stop it,” Art shouted. Then he too was floundering after the keg which was bumping up and down. For a moment Wart’s staff caught and held the cask. Then it rolled around the stick and into deeper water.
“She’s gone,” shouted Wart to those on shore. “Get her down below the rapids. Run!”
Art did not despair at once. Springing forward in a deluge of spray he tried to overtake the barrel. He thought he had it once and made a final lunge. The slippery object spun about under the tips of his fingers and the boy fell flat in the water. Before he could get to his feet Wart splashed by him. He could just reach the cask with his stick. But he could not hold it. Yet he slackened it until the drenched Art rejoined him. By this time the water was well above each boy’s knees.
Suddenly the cask was caught by a new current and torn away from the two staffs. It turned over several times in the deeper water as if preparing for the swift journey through the whirlpool.
“Come on!” shouted Art to Wart. “Don’t let her get away. Let’s go with her. Them kids may let her get away.”
Diving forward into the deepening current Art gave himself a quick shove with his long staff and was off after the bobbing cask. Without hesitation Wart followed, their new khaki shirts, neckties and scout hats forgotten. It was a vain race.
When the keg shot into the twisting whirlpool its pursuers suddenly found enough to do in caring for themselves. Connie was on the right-hand bank of the gorge but the current set toward the left. He yelled to the boys to keep to the right but the rush of the water bore them to the opposite side. Connie and others of the boys lay on the edge of the cut, reaching down with their staffs. But the stream-tossed boys were beyond the reach of these and no one had time to cross the gorge to the other side.
Midway, where the defile made an angle, the cork-like cask was hurled against the rocky wall. The swimmers struck the same foam-covered barrier an instant later. The barrel was not out of their minds. Each boy kept his head off and each took the wall on his left shoulder. Several times the swimmers struck and scraped against the rough rock, buried in the spitting spray and the boiling current.
At the lower end of the gorge, where the river turned again into shallower and quieter waters, most of the excited patrol members were on the look-out. As the mysterious keg shot out of the foaming gorge it was seized. In its wake came the exhausted Art and Wart. The boys had suffered no damage, beyond black-and-blue shoulders and half-ruined uniforms. But the dash through the gorge had been one attempted only by the hardiest swimmers.
“Did you make it out?” panted Art as he caught his staff from a rescuer. “Look on the end!”
The keg was rolled out on the sand and upended.
“The other end,” exclaimed Wart—his smart new “Baden-Powell” (as the boys termed their hats) limp and his shirt clinging to him like a second skin.
As the keg was reversed and the patrol crowded about, it could be seen that a crude inscription had been made on its head. As one of the boys dried the top with a handkerchief the marks seemed to have been carved in the wood or possibly burned in with a hot iron. After a close look Connie gasped:
“Wha—wha—how—?”
“It may ’a’ been buried,” exclaimed Art. “Mebbe way up in the wild country and mebbe the river washed it up.”
“You can’t tell,” sputtered excited Colly Craighead. “I’ll bet you it’s somepin’.”
“Anyway,” broke in Wart, “it’s ours—we found it, an’ ‘finders is keepers.’”
The astounding inscription was this:
Jessie James Tresure—1901
“If it’s money,” suggested Duke Easton, “mebbe we oughtn’t to take it. Like as not it’s blood money.”
“Mebbe it’s jewlry,” broke in Sammy Addington. “If it is, we could advertise it.”
“I can’t see how Jesse James would be hidin’ anything ’round here,” spoke up Leader Connie. “I’ve read his life an’ history an’ bloody deeds an’ he lived way out in Missouri where he done his robbin’.”
“You don’t reckon Round Rock River runs way out there, do you?” asked Sammy. “I never heard where it comes from.”
“Say,” broke in Phil Abercrombie fired by a brilliant idea, “the railroad goes acrost the river up at the old quarry. I’ll bet the gang was on a train an’ they throwed the cask o’ treasure offen the train so’s to hide it so they wouldn’t be no evidence.”
“In that case,” remarked Connie, “they’d hardly burn the name on the barrel.”
“Mebbe it was their enimies ’at done that,” ventured the rebuffed Phil.
“Boys,” exclaimed Connie in a new tone. “I’m suspicious o’ this thing. This ain’t no buried treasure cast up by the waves. Some one put it where it was. It couldn’t ’a’ floated over the ford.”
“I don’t know about that,” exclaimed Art indignantly. “Who’d ’a’ put it there? Ain’t no one around here to get excited over it.”
“We’re here,” replied Connie with a smile as he kicked the cask over on its side.
“But who knowed we was comin’ here?” argued Art resentfully.
“For one,” went on Connie as he rolled the keg about, listening to something pounding within, “Nick Apthorp knew, ’cause I told him where we was comin’ and when we’d get here.”
“That settles it,” exclaimed Colly. “It’s a job. Let’s throw it back in the river.”
“Not on your life!” shouted Art. “I’ve heard o’ smart guys ’at wouldn’t pick up a pocket book with real money in it, ’cause it was first of April.”
“An’ besides,” continued Connie, his smile even more pronounced, “the head o’ this keg has been took out an’ put back. You can see the new here. It ain’t been in the water long.”
“Always knockin’,” retorted Art. “Anyway, me and Wart found it. I guess we’ll take it for ours, eh, Wart?” he added with a wink.
“You can have my share,” exclaimed Connie. “But if it was me I wouldn’t touch it. I smell Goosetown all over that thing.”
For answer red-faced Art caught up a heavy boulder and dashed it against the top of the beer keg. The head fell in and water splashed out.
“It’s been leakin’,” he exclaimed. “I hope it ain’t spoiled what’s inside.”
Colly Craighead was the first to peer within. Then he caught his nose between his fingers and fled to Connie’s side without a word. As Art raised the broken head of the cask Sammy Addington thrust his short arm into the keg and drew out the dead body of “Wolf,” the fat little yellow pup that the Goosetowners had led in insulting parade before the Elm Streeters.
Art gave one quick sweeping glance about the place. If he expected to find Nick Apthorp and his friends in spying ambush he was disappointed.
“All I got to say,” he exclaimed in an angry voice, “is that this thing’s gone far enough. We stood for what they done marchin’ past us the other day but I ain’t a-goin’ to stand for no more. This Boy Scout business is all right but I ain’t a-goin’ to let these guys rub it in.”
“Say, Art,” spoke up Connie, coming forward, “you know what we’re goin’ to do to that gang before we get through with ’em?”
“We’re goin’ to make ’em dance to Miss Ginger!” exclaimed Art defiantly.
“We ain’t goin’ to do anything of the kind,” retorted Connie. “We’re goin’ to give ’em rope like we been doin’ an’ when they get enough—”
“They’ll hang theirselves,” broke in Wart Ware.
“No,” went on Connie. “When they get to the end o’ the string they’ll turn an’ eat out o’ our hands an’ be glad to.”
“What d’you mean?” growled Art.
“I mean they ain’t a bit worse’n we are only they’re dyin’ kind o’ hard.”
“I ain’t settin’ myself up for no goody-goody,” retorted Art. “But I like to be half decent.”
“Then,” laughed Connie, “let’s bury poor little Wolf and forget it.”
Art and Wart Ware were really the only disgruntled boys. The others took the incident as a joke. And by the time the noonday spread was under way even the scouts who had shot the chutes began to forget their chagrin. There was a long loaf after dinner, then an hour in the water, and later the march was resumed to the quarry where the automobiles were waiting for the trip homeward. Art did not tell his parents of the episode of the treasure keg as he had of his purchase of the aeroplane ticket.
The hike to Round Rock River only whetted the appetite of the Wolves. Even on the way home they began discussing the details of next week’s “camp out.” Sleeping in the open overnight, stories and songs by the red camp fire, blankets to snuggle up in when it turned cool just before dawn, the joys of sentinel duty where possibly the solitary picket might have to stand his watch in the soft summer rain—protected of course by his rain coat—were the things that enticed.
All the scouts were glad to hear that the injured boy was improving. But it was not yet possible for any of his boy admirers to be admitted into the sick room. The real preparation for the next outing was left to Mr. Trevor, and he responded most satisfactorily. It was finally arranged that the patrol was to start for Bluff Creek Thursday morning and return Saturday evening. The boys were to walk both ways, the camp equipage being carried in a single-horse cart loaned by Mr. Addington.
This had been a delivery wagon and it bore a dilapidated top, the ornamentation of which was the legend on its sides:
STAPLE AND FANCY GROCERIES.
By Wednesday evening new strips of white muslin had covered these and on the new field of white blazed the words:
SCOTTSVILLE BOY SCOUTS:
WOLF PATROL.
When the squad started Thursday morning Colly Craighead was in the driver’s seat and the wagon bed behind him was crowded with tents, poles, bedding, cooking utensils, dishes and, not the least in importance or quantity, provisions both “staple and fancy.”
It was perhaps unfortunate that the direct road to Bluff Creek, east of Scottsville, lay through the danger zone of Goosetown. No assault from their old enemies was anticipated but it was certain that the expedition would not pass unobserved. And it did not. While they were crossing the railroad tracks a well-known voice greeted the joyous party. It was that of Nick Apthorp, who was beginning the day with a pipe and a bit of gossip, perched high in the air in the semaphore signal tower.
“Hello, kids,” he exclaimed heartily. “Lookin’ for some more lost treasure?” The result of their Round Rock River humor was of course well known to the Coyotes long before this.
“You had a lot of courage to kill a little pup like that,” responded Art instantly. “Take all of you to do it?”
“Nope,” responded Nick with a guffaw, “he died o’ grievin’ fur his friends. What’s doin’?”
“We’re goin’ campin’ for a couple o’ days down to Bluff Creek,” answered Connie. “Say, Nick,” he added, “this Boy Scout business is great. We had a bully time down to Round Rock. We’re goin’ for two weeks next month and have games.”
As the party passed on Nick sat gazing at it in silent thoughtfulness.
