Part 29 (1/2)

Only for your warning, the river thieves might have sneaked aboard the _Rambler_ and captured it. In that case, you know very well what would have become of us. We should have been murdered!”

”I have no doubt that you would have taken care of yourselves,” Eddie declared.

”There's one thing I want to ask you,” Clay went on, ”and that is about the outlaw you buried back in the swamp. He was a white man, wasn't he?”

”Yes; a white man blacked up like a negro.”

”Did you look him over carefully enough to be able to give me a description of him?”

”Well, we washed him up a little when we saw that he was a Caucasian, and I got a fair impression of his face, which wasn't a prepossessing one, by any means.”

”Can you give me something of a notion of it in a few words?” asked Clay.

”Some old acquaintance of yours?” asked the other, with a smile at Case.

”He might have been. The fact is, I thought I recognized the voice of the spokesman.”

”There!” Alex. exclaimed. ”I had that same notion. Mose,” he added, turning to the negro boy, ”was that the man who threw you and the dog into the water?”

”Ah sure done thought so!” was the reply.

”You think it was Sam, the Robber, the man who accompanied Red?” asked Jule.

”I didn't know but it might be!” answered Clay, and Alex. at once insisted that it was the same man. Mose was ready to swear to the fellow's ident.i.ty by this time!

”Tell us how he looked after the black was washed off,” requested Clay, after a short pause, during which the three men compared notes--mental notes--of their impressions of the man they had left in the lonely grave in the swamp.

”We have decided on one word that expresses our thought of the man,”

Gregg finally replied. ”You know that all human beings in some manner resemble some wild animal species. Some men are lions, some are monkeys, some are dogs, some are bears, some are foxes. Well, this man was a fox!”

”I thought so,” Clay exclaimed. ”I thought the fellow's voice sounded like Sam's.”

”There are many men with fox-faces,” Gregg warned. ”This man may not have been the individual you refer to as Sam. If he is an enemy of yours, keep looking for him.”

With this bit of good advice the matter was dropped for the time. The steamer was no longer in sight, but the _Rambler_ was kept on her way to the Gulf.

In the middle of the next forenoon they came to Delta, which is at the bottom of the Vicksburg cutoff, on the west bank of the river. Here, with many handshakes and expressions of regret at parting, the three men left the boat.

”If we have any luck at all,” Gregg said, as the _Rambler_ pushed out, ”we'll meet you somewhere south of New Orleans. We've always wanted to see that swamp country.”

The boys moved slowly down the river after that.

Again they were enjoying themselves, fis.h.i.+ng, hunting and exploring the country on either side of the great stream.

There were lowlands, swamps, winding bayous and forests in places.

Again, there were plantations, with n.o.ble houses showing from the river. Whenever they halted at a plantation landing they were received most hospitably.

The wreckage of the flood was running out of the stream, and the water was dropping down to normal. Occasionally they left the boat at night and built rousing camp-fires on high banks. At such times plantation hands often gathered about them with banjo and mandolin and violin and made the night musical.

They heard no mention of the Rock Island warehouse robbery until they approached Baton Rouge. The night before they sighted that beautiful city they camped on a piece of high land on a small island. No sooner was their fire blazing high than a couple of rowboats skimmed across the river and drew up near the little camp.