Part 6 (1/2)
Captain Newell looked in at the gambling tables and did not see his friend, but as he turned to look about the upper end of the cabin he caught sight of him coming along the deck, and stepped out to wait for him.
”Looking for me?” asked Uncle Joe, smiling.
”Yes; want to tell you that your young friend Boyd has changed his mind and is going out to Santa Fe to look after his numerous interests there. Ordinarily I would keep my mouth shut, but I know his father and the whole family, and no finer people live in St. Louis. Who have you in mind to go in charge of your wagons?”
Uncle Joe scratched his chin reflectively. ”Well, I'd thought of Boyd and was kinda sorry he was going out over the other trail. I'll keep my eyes on the scamp. Strikes me he'd take _my_ wagons through for his keep, under the circ.u.mstances! He-he-he! Changed his mind, has he?
D----d if I blame him; I'd 'a' gone farther'n that, at his age, for a girl like Patience. How about a little nip, for good luck?”
”Not now. How would you like to change sleeping partners?” asked the captain, quickly explaining the matter.
”First rate idea; th' partner I got now spends most of his nights scratching. Better s.h.i.+ft me instead of him, or Boyd'll get cussed little sleep in that bunk.”
Captain Newell leaned against the cabin and laughed. ”All right, Joe; I'll have your things taken out and the change made by supper time, at the latest. Look out those gamblers in there don't skin you.”
True to his word the captain s.h.i.+fted Joe Cooper to the room of his new friend, and sent the bull-necked, bullwhacking bully who had shared Tom's cabin to take the ex-gambler's former berth. This arrangement was suitable both ways, for not only were the two friends put together, but the two loud-voiced, cursing, frontier toughs found each other very agreeable. They had made each other's acquaintance at the camp-fire on the bank the night previous and like many new and hastily made friends.h.i.+ps, it had not had time to show its weaknesses. One of them had stolen a bottle of liquor at the camp-fire carousal and upon learning of the change shortly after supper, had led his new roommate to their joint quarters to celebrate the event; where they both remained.
The early part of the night was pa.s.sed as usual, Uncle Joe at the card tables, Tom Boyd with Patience and later mingling with the hunters and trappers in the cabin until his eyes became heavy and threatened to close. Leaving his friend at the table, he went to their room and in a few moments was so fast asleep that he did not hear the merchant come in. It seemed to him that he had barely closed his eyes when he awakened with a start, sitting up in the berth so suddenly that he soundly whacked his head against the ceiling. He rolled out and landed on the floor like a cat, pistol in hand, just as his roommate groped under the pillow for his own pistol and asked what the trouble was all about.
The sound of it seemed to fill the boat. Shouts, curses, crashes against the thin part.i.tion located it for them as being in the next room, and lighting a candle, the two friends, pistols in hands, cautiously opened the door just as one of the boat's officers came running down the pa.s.sage-way with a lantern in his hand. There was a terrific crash in the stateroom and they saw him put down the light and leap into a dark shadow, and roll out into sight again in a tangle of legs and arms.
Other doors opened and night-s.h.i.+rted men poured out and filled the pa.s.sage.
The battle in the stateroom had taken an unexpected turn the moment the officer appeared, for the door sagged suddenly, burst from its hinges and flew across the narrow way, followed by a soaring figure, to one leg of which Ebenezer Whittaker, bully bullwhacker of the Santa Fe trail, was firmly fastened. After him dived his new friend, who once had ruled a winter-bound party of his kind in Brown's hole with a high and mighty hand. The trapper went head first into the growling pair rolling over the floor, his liquor-stimulated zeal not permitting him to waste valuable time in so small a matter as the ident.i.ty of the combatants. He knew that one of them was his new roommate, the other a prowling thief, and being uncertain in the poor light as to which was which, he let the G.o.ddess of Chance direct his energies.
At the other end of the pa.s.sage-way the boat's officer, now reinforced by so many willing helpers that the affair was fast taking on the air of a riot, at last managed to drag the thief's lookout from the human tangle and hustle him into the eager hands of three of the crew, leaving the rescuers to fight it out among themselves, which they were doing with praiseworthy energy and impartial and indefinite aims. Considering that they did not know whom they were fighting, nor why, they were doing so well that Tom wondered what force could withstand them if they should become united in a compelling cause and concerted in their attack.
At the inner end of the pa.s.sage, having beaten, choked, and gouged the thief into an inert and senseless ma.s.s, the bullwhacker turned his overflowing energies against his new and too enthusiastic friend, and they rolled into the stateroom, out again, and toward the heaving pile at the upper end of the hall. Striking it in a careless, haphazard but solid manner, just as it was beginning to disintegrate into its bruised and angry units, the fighting pair acted upon it like a galvanic current on a reflex center; and forthwith the scramble became scrambled anew.
Finally, by the aid of capstan-bars, boat hooks, axe handles, and cordwood, the boat's officers and crew managed to pry the ma.s.s apart and drag out one belligerent at a time. They lined them up just as Captain Newell galloped down the pa.s.sage-way, dressed in a pair of trousers, reversed; one rubber boot and one red sock and a night s.h.i.+rt partly thrust inside the waistband of the trousers; but he was carefully and precisely hatted with a high-crowned beaver. He looked as if he were coming from a wake and going to a masquerade. Notwithstanding the very recent and exciting events he received a great amount of attention.
”What-in-h.e.l.l's-th'-matter?” he angrily demanded, glaring around him, a pistol upraised in one hand, the other gripping a seasoned piece of ash.
”Answer-me-I-say-what-in-h.e.l.l's-th'-matter-down-here?”
”There was a fight,” carefully explained the weary officer.
”h.e.l.l's-bells-I-thought-it-was-a-prayer-meetin'!” yelped the captain.
”Who-was-fightin'?”
”_They_ was,” answered the officer, waving both hands in all directions.
”What-about?”
The officer looked blank and scratched his head, carefully avoiding the twin k.n.o.bs rising over one ear. ”d.a.m.ned if _I_ know, sir!”
”Were _you_ fightin', Flynn?” demanded the captain aggressively and with raging suspicion. ”Come, up with it, were you?”
”No, sir; I was a-stoppin' it.”