Chapter 8. In Which We Have An Adventure

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_ CHAPTER VIII. IN WHICH WE HAVE AN ADVENTURE

Our band of hardy adventurers arose with the sun on the morning following our first night in bivouac, and by noon of that day, thanks, perhaps, in some measure to my own work at the oars, and a sail which we rigged from a corner of the tent, we had passed into and through the lake which our map had showed us. Now we were below the edge of the pine woods, and our stream ran more sluggishly, between banks of cattails or of waving marsh grasses. We put out a trolling line, and took a bass or so; and once Lafitte, firing chance-medley into a passing flock of plover, knocked down a half-dozen, so that we bade fair to have enough for dinner that night. It was all a new world for us. No one might tell what lay around the next bend of our widening waterway. We were explorers. A virgin world lay before us. The nature of the country along the stream kept the settlements back a distance; so that to us, now, in reality, retracing one of the ancient fur-trading routes, we might almost have been the first to break these silences.

Toward nightfall we came into a more rolling and more park-like region; our prow was now heading to the westward, for the general course of the great river beyond. I had no notion to visit the city of Chicago, and our route lay far above that which must be taken by any large craft bound for the Mississippi route to the Gulf.

Farms now came down to the water's edge in places, villages offered mill-pond dams--around which, in scowling reticence, we portaged the Sea Rover, unmindful alike of queries and of jeers. I found time to post additional letters now. Indeed, I was preparing for a long and determined enterprise. It was the Sea Rover against the Belle Helene; and, did the skipper of the latter loll along in flanneled ease and luxury, not so with the hardy band of cutthroats who manned our smaller and more mobile craft, men used to hardships, content to drink spring water instead of sparkling wines, and to eat the product of their own weapons.

We were I do not know how far from our first encampment, perhaps thirty miles or more, when toward five o'clock of the evening we concluded to land at a wooded grassy bank which offered a good camping place. We made all fast, and in a few moments had our tent up and a little fire going, Lafitte and L'Olonnois, at this, happy as any two pirates I ever have seen; and were on the point of spreading our canvas table cover upon the grass, when we heard a gruff voice hail us.

"Heh! What're you doin' there?"

We turned, expecting to meet some irate farmer on whose land perhaps we innocently were trespassing; but the figure which now emerged from the screening bushes was rougher, bolder, and in some indescribable way wilder, than that of a farmer. I could not, at first, assign the fellow a place, for I knew this was an old and well settled country, and not supposed to be overrun with tramps or campers. He was a stout man nearly of middle age, dirty and ill clad, his coarse shirt open at the neck, his legs clad in old overalls, his hat and shoes very much the worse for wear. His face was covered with a rough beard, and so brown and so begrimed that, at once, I guessed this must be some dweller in the open. Yet he seemed no tramp; and even if he were, he had no right to hail us in this fashion.

I only looked at him, and made no answer, feeling none due. He came out into the open, followed by a nondescript dog, which had the lack of decency--and also of discretion--to attack my dog Partial with no parley or preliminary. I wot not of what stock Partial came, but somewhere in his ancestry must have been stark fighting strain. Mutely and sternly, as became a gentleman, he joined issue; and so well had he learned the art of war that in the space of a few moments, in spite of the loud outcry of the owner of the invading cur, he had him on his back in a throat grip which was the end of the battle and bade fair soon to be the end of the enemy.

The man who had accosted us caught up a club and made toward Partial with intent to kill him. Then, indeed, we all sprang into action. In two strides I was before him.

"Drop that!" I said to him quickly, but I hope not angrily. "Call him off, Jack!" I cried to Lafitte at the same time.

The sound of conflict ceased as Partial was persuaded to release his fallen foe, and the latter disappeared, with more wisdom as to attacking a band of pirates. His owner, however, was not so easily daunted. He still advanced toward Partial, and as I still intervened, he made a vicious side blow at me with his club.

It all happened, almost, in the twinkling of an eye. Here, then, was an adventure, and before the end of our second day!

There was not time to learn or to ask the reason for this man's animosity toward us, and, indeed, no thought of that came to my mind. A man may lay tongue to one--within certain bounds--and one will only walk away from him; but the touch of another man's hand or weapon is quite another matter. That arouses the unthinking blood, and follows then, no matter the issue, the gaudium certaminis, with no care as to odds or evens. Wherefore, even as the club whizzed by to my side step, I came back from the other foot and smote the hostile stranger on the side of the neck so stiffly that he faltered and almost dropped. Then seeing that I was so much lighter than himself and perhaps valuing himself against me purely on a basis of avoirdupois, pound for pound, he gathered and came at me, roaring out blasphemy and obscenity which I had rather Lafitte and L'Olonnois had not heard.

I had not often fought in fact, but knew that, sometimes, a gentleman must fight. What astonished me now was the fact that fighting contained no manner of repugnance to me. With a certain joy I met my foe, circled with him, exchanged blows with him--unequally it is true, for I was cool as though trying a cause at law, and he was very angry: so that he got most of my leads, and I but few of his, albeit jarring me enough to make my ears sing and my eyes blur somewhat, although of pain I was no more conscious than a fighting dog. The turf was soft underfoot, and the space wide, so that we fought very happily and comfortably over perhaps a hundred feet of country, first one and then the other coming in; until at last I had him so well blown that he stood, and I knew we must now end it toe to toe. I bethought me of a trick of my old boxing teacher, and stood before him with arms curved wide apart, inviting him to come into what seemed an opening. He rushed, and my left fist caught him on the neck. He straightened to finish me, but I stooped and brought my right in a round-arm blow, full and hard into the small of his back and at one side. It sickened him, and before he could rally, I stepped behind him, and having no ethics save the necessity of subduing him, I caught up his arm by the wrist, and slipping under it with my shoulder, pulled it down till he howled: a trick, only one of very many, which Hiroshimi patiently had taught me.

That very naturally ended our contest, and it was near to ending our war-like neighbor as well. During this warfare, which was short or long, I knew not, my associates, stunned and perhaps fearful, had sat silent; at least, I neither heard nor saw them. But now, all at once, over my shoulder I saw both Lafitte and L'Olonnois running in to my assistance. Each held in hand a bared blade of the samurai, and had I not shouted out to them to refrain, I have small doubt that in the most piratical and unsamuraic fashion they mayhap would have disemboweled my captive; for the old swords were keen as razors, and my friends were as red of eyesight as myself.

"No! No!" I called to them, even as our victim writhed and roared in terror. "Drop your weapons--that isn't fair." They obeyed, shamefacedly and with regret, as I am convinced: for illusion with them, at times, indeed overleaped the centuries, and they were back in a time of blood: even as I was in a stone-age wrath for my own part.

"Come here, Jack," I ordered, "and you, too, Jimmy. Do you see how I have him?"

They agreed. "It's a peach," said Lafitte. "Make him holler!"

"No," I replied, easing off the strain on the wrenched arm, "he has already 'hollered.'"

"Yes, sure, 'nuff, 'nuff!----ye!" cried our captive, who, now, was in mortal terror and much contrition, seeing both flesh and blood and cold steel had all the best of him. "Lemme go!"

"Certainly," I assented; "we did not ask you to come, and do not want you to stay. But, first, I must use you in a few demonstrations to my young friends. Jack,"--and I motioned to him with my head--"get behind him."

Eagerly, his three-cornered gray eyes narrowed, Lafitte skipped back of my man, and with no word from me he fastened on the other wrist so suddenly the man had no warning, and with a strong heave of all his body he doubled that arm up also. Much roaring now, and many protestations, for when our prisoner began with abuse, we could change it into supplication by raising his bent arms no more than one inch or two.

"Now, Jimmy," said I, "go in front of him, and put a thumb in the corner of his jaw, on each side. Press up until he begs our pardon." And, faith, my blue-eyed pirate, so far from shuddering at the task, at last managed to find those certain nerve centers known to all efficient policemen; and very promptly, the man made signs he would like to beg the boy's pardon and did so.

"Now, give me that arm, Jack," I resumed calmly, since our subject had no more fight left in him than a sack of meal. "So. Now go around and put your thumbs in his eyes--no, not really in his eyes, but in the middle of the bone above his eyes. So. Now, ask this boy's pardon, or I'll twist your arms off." And he asked it.

"You couldn't do it if you'd fight fair!" he bellowed.

"Could I not?" I asked. And cast him free. "Come on again, then."

"I'm afraid of them kids," said he. "They'd stick me."

"No, they would not," said I; but still he would not come on. Then I made a quick catch at his wrist, edgewise, and rolled my thumb along it at a certain place where the nerves lie close to the edge of the bone, as any policeman knows; and he would follow me, then. So I led him to our little camp-fire.

"Now," said I to him, "be seated," and he sat. I asked him if he would shake hands with me and my boys and make up. He was very sullen, but, at last, did so, not cheerfully, I fear, for he was not of good blood.

"Tell me," I demanded then, seeing that the triumph of calm reason had been sufficient in his case, "why did you come here, and why do you try to drive us off, who are only on a peaceful journey as pirates, seeking our fortune?"

"Pirates!" he exclaimed. "Just what I thought. What's the use my leasin' the pearl fer a mile along here if anybody can come and camp, and go to work, right alongside o' me? If old farmer Snider, that owns this land, hadn't gone to town I'd have the law on ye. Me payin' my money in and gettin' no protection. Fishin's rotten, too!"

I now perceived that we had encountered one of those half-nomad characters, a fresh-water pearl fisherman, such as those who, for some years, with varying fortune, have combed the sand-bars of our inland river for the fresh-water mussels which sometimes, like oysters, secrete valuable pearls or nacreous bits known as slugs. This explained much to me.

"I know the law," said I. "Farmer Snider can not lease the highway of yonder river where the Sea Rover passes. But I know also the law of the wilderness. One trapper does not intrude on another who has first located his country. We will pass on to-morrow. Meantime, if you don't mind, we will go with you to your camp and see how you do your work. Please forget that we have had any trouble. Had you but spoken thus at first, and not borne war against these bold pirates, all would have been well."

He looked at me oddly, evidently thinking my mind touched.

"Come!" I said, wiping the blood from my face, and passing him also a basin of water, "you fought well and the wonder is you did not kill me with one of those swings or swipes of yours. They were crooked and awkward, but they came hard."

He grinned and saved his face further by saying: "Well, you was three to one ag'in me." I smiled and let it stand so: and after a while, he arose stiffly and we all passed back into the wood.

We found that we were upon a little island, between two shallow arms of the stream. The camp of the pearl fisher lay at the lower end; and never have I seen or smelled so foul a place for human habitation. The one large tent served as shelter, and a rude awning sheltered the ruder table in the open air. But directly about the tent, and all around it in every direction, lay heaps of clam shells, most of them opened, some not yet ready for opening. I had smelled the same odor--and had not learned to like it--in far-off Ceylon, at the great pearl fisheries of the Orient. The "clammer" seemed immune.

Presently, he introduced to us a woman, very old, extraordinarily forbidding of visage, and unspeakably profane of speech, who emerged from the tent; his mother, he said. It seemed that they made their living in this way, clamming, as they called it, all the way from Arkansas to the upper waters of the Mississippi. They had made this side expedition up a tributary, in search of country not so thoroughly exploited; without much success in their venture, it seemed. The old lady, her head wrapped in a dirty shawl, sat down on an empty box, and stroked a large and dirty Angora cat, another member of the family, the while she bitterly and profanely complained. It was now dusk, and she did not notice anything out of the way in her son's rather swollen nose and lips.

I explained to Lafitte and L'Olonnois that we were now come into the neighborhood of possible treasure, and the sight of a few pearls, none of very great worth, which the old crone produced from a cracker box, was enough to set off Jimmy L'Olonnois, who was all for raiding the place.

"What!" he hissed to me in an aside. "Did we not spare his life? Then the treasure should be ours!"

"Wait, brother," said I. "We shall see what we shall see." And I quieted Lafitte also, who was war-like at the very sound of the word pearl. "Them's what they take from the Spanish ships," said he. "Pearls is fitten for ladies fair. An' here is pearls."

"Wait, brother," I demanded of him. For I was revolving something in my mind. I presently accosted the clammers.

"Listen," said I, "you say business is bad."

"It certainly and shorely is," assented the old dame, fishing a black pipe out of her pocket, and proceeding to feed it from another pocket, to the discomfort of the soiled Angora cat.

"Well, now, let me make you a proposition," said I, taking a glance at the heap of fresh shell which lay beyond the racks of trolling lines and their twisted wire hooks, by means of which dragging apparatus the mussels are taken--shutting hard on the wire when it touches them as they lie feeding with open mouths--"you've quite a lot of shell there, now."

"Yes, but what's in it? Button factories all shut down with a strike, and no market: and as for pearls, they ain't none. Blame me for carryin' a grouch?"

"Not in the least. But what will you take for your shells, and agree to open them for us, at wages of five dollars a day?"

"Both of us?" he demanded shrewdly. I smiled and nodded. "It's more than you average, twice over," said I, "and you say the stream is no good. Now I, too, am a student of the great law of averages, because I am or was a director in a great life insurance company. You say the luck is bad. Like other adventurers, I say that under the law of averages, it is time for the luck to change."

"The luck's with you," growled the clammer, "it's ag'in me." Unconsciously, he put a finger to his swollen nose. "What'll you gimme?" he demanded.

"One hundred dollars bonus and ten dollars a day," said I promptly; and he seemed to know I would not better that.

"Who are ye?" he queried: "a buyer?"

"No, a pirate."

"I believe ye. I never saw such a outfit."

"Will you trade?" I asked; "and how long will it take to open the lot?"

"Nigh all day, even if we set up all night and roasted." He nodded to a wide grating; and the ashes underneath showed that in this way the poor clams, like the Incas of old, were sometimes forced to give up their treasures by the persuasion of a fire under them.

"Very well," I said. "We'll call it a day. That's a hundred and ten dollars for you by this time to-morrow. I invoke the aid of capital and of chance, both, against you. You will very likely lose: but if so, it would not be the first time the producer of wealth has lost it. But I make the wager fair, as my reason tells me I should."

"Ye're a crazy bunch, and I think ye're out of the state asylum over yonder," broke in the old woman, "but what the hell do we care whether ye're crazy or not? Ye look like ye had the money. Jake, we'll take him up."

"All right," said Jake. "We'll go ye."

"To-morrow morning, then," said I; and our party rose to return to our camp, where Partial greeted us with warmth; he having assigned to himself the duty of guard. And so, as Pepys would say, to bed; although Lafitte and L'Olonnois scarce could sleep.

"Let him attempt to make a run for it, after we have hove him to, and we will board him and give no quarter!" This was almost the last of the direful speech I heard from L'Olonnois, as at last I turned myself to a night of deep and peaceful slumber. _

Read next: Chapter 9. In Which We Take Much Treasure

Read previous: Chapter 7. In Which I Achieve A Name

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