he sun, from his station a little north of east, stared full into the grape arbor sleeping room, and shone on hal’s still face. a fly hustled in, and buzzed about hal’s nose. hal frowned, and impatiently shook his head; but unable to rid himself of sun or fly, opened his eyes. at the same instant ned, beside him, stirred and turned over, disturbing bob, who had been very comfortable.
both boys sat up and blinked. bob stretched, shook himself, and strolled out.
“say—we’d better get out and run those trot-lines!” yawned ned. “we’ve overslept.”
“i should think so!” yawned back hal.
“do you know, when i woke, bob was on my stomach. he must have been there all night!” announced ned.
“he was keeping warm,” explained hal.
“well, he weighed about a ton,” responded ned, unwilling to make light of it. “but then,” he added, “he kept me warm, too.”
the boys yawningly staggered to the water’s edge and made their toilet in a tin basin, with the scull-boat for a wash-stand. already the sun was climbing[87] high, and the gnats and flies and all the world of insect and bird were awake. sam and joe could be descried at work on their lines, far outside the mouth of the bayou.
only the three tenants of camp grape arbor were sluggards!
of these bob was the friskiest. ned and hal, while trying to be good natured, still were very irritable. they were stiff and lame, and spotted with mosquito bites. their hands were painfully cracked from water and dirt and the oar, and their faces, burned by the sun, felt strangely leathery. hal’s nose was peeling, and ned, who foolishly had rolled up his sleeves, was the owner of a huge water blister half way between left wrist and elbow.
however, when they once more were in the boat, and had started for the lines—bob again remaining alone in camp, a state at which he never failed to protest strongly—their spirits really rose, and they were happy.
“there’s the harriett!” said ned, as the mellow whistle of a steamboat signaling for a landing chimed in the distance, over the water.
“then it must be about eight o’clock!” cried hal, scandalized. “my! but we’re lazy!”
and to atone for their late rising he dug valiantly with the sculling oar.
their morning’s haul consisted of five catfish, and, amid great rejoicing, a fine pickerel, for their fish-box; a soft shell turtle, who so easily released his own[88] flapper, and swam off, that ned declared he was one of the two they had caught yesterday, and was simply making his regular rounds; and a black bass, a mere minnow, whose greediness had led him to take into his mouth more than he could swallow. him the boys let go, to grow.
as on previous occasions, all the other hooks were as bare of bait as of anything else, and ned had to scrape together every scrap at hand to rebait them.
upon their return to camp the hungry boys, with the ever-hungry bob as assistant, had breakfast. breakfast consisted of—bacon and potatoes and coffee. the critical hal insisted that the coffee tasted “froggy”; just the same, he drank it!
for dinner they planned a much grander menu. but for the present, bacon and potatoes filled a crying need.
it was necessary to get more bait; and refreshed by their breakfast, the boys, having tidied camp to the extent of hanging their blankets upon some bushes in the sun to dry, went with bob on another frog hunt. they found frogs, but no snakes; evidently the evening was the snakes’ special hour for foraging.
in their search they followed adown the little swamp which slanted in toward the river. it grew wetter as they proceeded, and they were about to leave it, when they heard a tremendous outburst of barks and growls from bob.
“here, bob! we’re coming, bob, old fellow!” they called, running helter-skelter to back him up, or scold him, whichever was proper.
bob was in a great dilemma. he had run across an immense snapping-turtle, and did not know what to do with it. he was afraid to close with it, and yet he was unwilling to flee from it, therefore he had adopted the middle course of circling it at a respectful distance, and abusing it in dog language.
the turtle was a patriarch. his shell was thick and black and knobby, and the skin of his neck and legs was thick and black and warty. his claws were long and curving, and as with his head he slowly followed bob’s antics, his deep-set eyes fairly flashed sparks, while he held his formidable mouth half open, as if hankering for a bite out of one of bob’s legs. how he hissed, with a hoarse, gaspy hiss! he was so enraged that he filled the air with a musky odor.
“isn’t he a whopper, though!” exclaimed ned, grasping bob, who, at the arrival of reinforcements, had waxed altogether too fierce for safety.
“i’d hate to have him get hold of me!” asserted hal, poking at the monster with a stick. the turtle seized the stick with such a grip that he jerked it out of hal’s hands, and mr. hal involuntarily jumped back a pace.
“well, i guess we aren’t wanted here,” remarked ned, laughing. “come on, bob.”
“keep the stick,” called back hal, as, dragging the reluctant bob, they moved off, leaving the turtle,[90] his jaws firmly clamped upon the piece of wood, in possession of the field of battle.
having secured a supply of the hapless frogs, the boys took a short cut to pay their respects to sam and joe. bob, after pretending that he was going back to have it out with the turtle, finally cooled down and trotted along with them. but he could not be induced to approach the shanty, and with an eye out for the brindled dog sat at a distance and sorrowfully waited.
sam was on the muddy beach, mending the seine; joe was moulding dough-balls, on the bench in front of the cabin.
“good-morning,” said the boys.
“mornin’,” replied joe.
from the shady side of the shanty the brindled dog growled; from the beach sam nodded.
“how’s fishin’?” asked joe.
“pretty good,” answered ned. “only, we overslept.”
“thought you did. seen you weren’t up when we went out, ’bout five o’clock,” said joe.
“going to try the net?” inquired hal, looking at sam and his task.
“yes, thought we’d make a haul or two ‘crost the river this afternoon,” informed joe. “ever see a big seine laid?”
“i have,” said ned.
“i haven’t,” said hal.
“better come along, then,” invited joe.
“all right—much obliged,” responded ned and hal. “what time?”
“oh, some’ers after dinner toward the shank o’ the afternoon,” replied joe. “you watch, an’ when you see us gettin’ ready, you come down.”
with this in prospect the boys gleefully returned to camp, to run their trot-lines and to have an early dinner. the running of the lines was not especially a success, the haul being only two catfish; but the dinner was a great success, being baked potatoes and fried pickerel, pressed beef and coffee, and with dessert of toasted bread dipped in canned blueberries.
before sam and joe showed signs of starting out, the boys had time to fit up a stove, by digging a hole in the top of the bank, covering it with a piece of sheet iron, and making an entrance at right angles, for fuel and draft.
it was quite a luxury to loll back, ned against the mass of net heaped upon the fish-box built into the broad stern, and hal in the narrowing bows, while sam and joe sped the boat across the ripply, sparkling river. soon the wordy, left-handed compliments being exchanged between bob, on guard at the grape arbor, and the brindled dog, on guard at the shanty, died away in the distance, and the eastern shore of the mississippi came into plain view.
the boat landed on a wide, shelving, sandy beach, over which rose a line of bluffs. hal piled ashore, followed by sam, but ned stayed in the stern and offered to “pay out” the net.
one end of the seine was passed to sam, on shore; and then joe slowly pulled away in a great circle, the seine dropping, fold after fold, into the water behind. ned held himself ready to loosen any tangle; but there were no tangles. the net had been coiled just right, and he was not needed.
it did not take long to lay the thousand foot net, and joe managed so well that when the circle, marked by its slender line of round corks, was complete, the boat was at the shore just below its former landing place. weighted by lead at the bottom, and buoyed by corks at the top, the net now hung straight down from the surface, and formed a meshy wall.
sam and joe began to haul in, evenly and swiftly, from one end. yard after yard the wet weave piled on the beach, and the circle gradually, but none the less surely, lessened.
“looks like a water-haul,” commented joe to sam, scanning the water inside the circle for signs of prisoners.
“humph!” replied sam.
the line of corks was now short and near, and still there had been not a single struggle to pass them. the surface stayed placid and smiling.
“humph!” again said sam.
the boys did not give up, but continued to gaze hopefully. it did not seem possible that there was nothing in the net.
however, such was the case.
“water-haul!” declared joe, finally.
“humph,” repeated sam.
“pshaw!” exclaimed the boys, with disappointment, eyeing the empty seine as it lay on the sand.
“what do you mean by ‘water-haul’?” queried hal.
“water’s all we got, ain’t it, sonny?” responded sam, sourly, throwing the net by armfuls into the boat.
“i reckon we don’t try again till the moon changes,” hinted joe, with a sly wink at ned. but as hal refused to be hoaxed into asking more questions, after a slight pause he continued:
“sam an’ me have got to go up to newton for provisions an’ stuff. you boys can go or you can stay an’ we’ll take you in comin’ back.”
newton was a river hamlet about two miles above.
“better let ’em stay,” advised sam, whom the “water-haul” appeared to have made very grumpy. “we’ve got enough to pull against the current, without them in too.”
“we’ll stay, of course,” spoke ned.
“how long will you be gone?” inquired hal.
“oh, jest for a spell,” replied joe.
“don’t you forget us,” said ned.
“do you think they will?” asked hal, growing nervous as he watched the two fishermen row away.
“of course not!” assured ned. “say—i tell you what we’ll do. let’s climb the bluffs, and while we’re exploring we can see sam and joe when they’re coming back.”
the river side of the bluffs had been cut away by running water until in many places the bare limestone was exposed, to form perpendicular cliffs. between these cliffs were little gullies, thickly matted with the wild strawberry, the wild morning glory, the violet, and a thousand other woodland plants, all growing independent of man. graceful and stately, against the gray walls rose and drooped the rock honeysuckle.
eager to reach the crest, the boys scaled from foothold to foothold, and hot and breathless, speedily emerged upon the top. here they stood and looked down upon the bird’s-eye view of land and water.
at their feet was the beach, much reduced in size, where they had witnessed the “water-haul.” north and south stretched the river, a broad ribbon of blue emblazoned with silver, and rent here and there by islands. beyond, directly opposite them, was the mouth of the monga, just above which, they knew, was the shanty and the brindled dog, and still farther above, the grape arbor and bob.
on the hither side of the river sam and joe were plainly visible, making their way, in their skiff, along the shore line, where the shallows reduced the force of the current.
“my, but this is pretty, isn’t it!” sighed hal.
“i should say so!” agreed ned. “i don’t blame the indians any for hating the white men who made them give it up.”
the two boys strolled along the crest, sparsely wooded with sentinel oaks, and covered with short turf which furnished forage for a few horses.
they had not gone far when they came upon quite a hole or pit, extending down through the black forest loam into the yellow clay beneath.
“why was this dug, do you suppose?” remarked hal.
“i don’t know,” said ned, gazing into it, and pondering.
“there’s another,” cried hal, pointing ahead.
so there was, and still another was visible, farther on.
“i tell you—these are indian mounds, and people have been opening them to see what’s inside,” exclaimed ned, positively.
“but i don’t see much ‘mound’ about them,” objected hal.
however, a series of gentle little rises could be made out, each with its blunt top laid open, and its sides disfigured by heaps of dirt.
“what do they find in them?” asked hal.
“oh, skeletons, and arrow-heads, and things,” informed ned. “but you have to dig good and deep; twenty feet, i guess.”
the boys scanned with a thrill of awe these relics of a passed people who loved thus to inter their chiefs on some lofty outlook, commanding wood and stream.
“it must have been mighty long ago,” mused hal. “here’s a stump of a tree that grew right out of the middle of one.”
he fell to work counting the rings.
“two hundred and sixty!” he announced.
“gee!” blurted ned. “come on,” he proposed, after a moment which both required in order fully to grasp the message of the stump. “let’s poke around inside of one, and perhaps we’ll find some arrow-heads and stuff.”
he picked up a stout piece of branch, with a sharp end, and slid down into the first pit; hal, similarly equipped, slid after.
the boys wielded their sticks well, but no trophies resulted. evidently the mound had been well cleaned out, and nothing missed. they proceeded to the next, and the next. time sped more rapidly than they were aware of. suddenly ned straightened up, in the third mound, and exclaimed:
“say, hal, do you know it’s getting dark?”
they hastily scrambled out of the hole. not only was the sun low, but it was cloaked by a mass of dense, black cloud unfolding swiftly toward the zenith. an ominous growl of thunder rolled up the sky. birds were twittering uneasily, and the slight breeze had died entirely away.
“great cæsar!” cried hal. “i bet sam and joe have gone by, and we haven’t seen them!”
“no, they wouldn’t do that. they’d look for us, and yell!” assured ned, stanchly. “but we’re going to have a big thunder-storm, that’s sure.”
“i wish they’d come,” murmured hal, plaintively.
“maybe they’ll wait until after the storm,” responded ned. “anyway, we’ve got to find some place where we can keep kind of dry, and watch the river, too.”
“don’t you remember that cave we saw when we were climbing up?” asked hal, struck with an idea. “what’s the matter with that?”
nothing was the matter with it. it was a cavity worn out under a jutting slab of limestone—much as though the sloping ground had fallen away at this point. there was plenty of room to sit upright, for some distance back in it.
a short time the boys sat on their roof, so to speak, and hung their legs over the edge of the slab, while they noted the approach of the storm. swiftly the cloud marched onward, foot by foot blotting out the blue. vivid lightning played through the billows of heavy vapor, and the thunder pealed and mumbled.
nearer came the devouring line of black. birds were flying for shelter. a fresh breeze sprang up, blowing toward the advancing giant, as if he were sucking in the air. the river, upon which appeared not a sign of sam and joe, changed from silver to dull lead frosted by a multitude of white-caps.
“it’s pretty grand, isn’t it!” commented ned, struck with the majesty of the storm, and with the novelty of their plight.
“y-yes,” replied hal; who, nevertheless, preferred to look upon the scene, however grand, from the neighborhood of some convenient house.
until the very last moment they sat here; then, with the first spattering drops of rain, they dived for shelter. with flare of lightning, and crackle of thunder, and roar of wind, the rain descended in torrents; but only a whiff of spray now and then reached the boys, tucked in the farthermost recess of their cave.
it seemed as though the rain never would abate, for as often as it slackened, and the boys took hope, so often it was sure to be swelled by a gust of reinforcements. but finally it died to a drizzle, and ned made bold to slip out and take a survey.
the storm was over, practically, but the dusk of evening was settling down in earnest.
“who-oo-oo-oo-ee-ee!” shouted ned, thinking that perhaps sam and joe might be within hearing, although he did not see any skiff.
no answer.
hal came out, and joined him in another call, which brought no response but the echoes. oppressed by the dampness and the rapidly waxing gloom, the boys felt a strange desolation.
“i wonder how bob liked the storm,” spoke ned, trying to be cheerful. “he must have been scared!”
“and all our things are just sopping! we left our blankets out to dry, you know,” mourned hal.
“say!” on the instant exclaimed ned, fumbling in his pockets. “do you know, i left my knife up there by one of those holes!”
“oh, you can’t find it, now,” objected hal, who somehow did not fancy being deserted, even for a moment, in this weird spot.
“yes, i can,” flung back ned, scrambling up the wet slope, and anon slipping and stumbling. “it’s by the second hole, where i sharpened my stick.”
ned gained the crest at the same point where he and hal had come out when they had climbed before. it was very still, up here; only the drip, drip, from the trees, and the soughing of the wind, breaking the quiet. it also was much darker and lonesomer than he had expected it would be, but he bravely trudged forward along the edge of the bluff toward the old mounds.
he started to whistle, but his “marching through georgia” came to an abrupt stop right in the middle of the first chorus. what uncanny, harrowing sound was that? he halted, with one foot upraised, and peered ahead.
he was nearing the first of the opened mounds, when rising apparently out of the second he descried a dim, white thing, spectral, wavering, menacing him with a series of ghastly noises.
the goose-flesh sprang out all over ned’s body, as if he had been in swimming too long, a weakness seized on his knees, and he imagined that his hair was rising under his battered felt hat.
it occurred to him that, rightfully enough, the indians did not approve of having their remains, which had slumbered through two centuries and a half, exposed by means of spades and crooked sticks in the hands of the pale-face. and having cautiously retreated backward, step by step, suddenly he turned and bolted as hard as he could run! he didn’t want his jack-knife.
guided through the blackness more by guesswork than by sight, over the edge of the bluff he plunged, and fell, rather than ran, to the cave and the arms of hal.
hal had heard him coming, and received him with concern.
“what’s the matter, what’s the matter?” he demanded.
“there—there’s something white and funny in one of the mounds!” panted ned. “when it saw me coming it made a noise at me—a regular ghost-noise—and—and i lit out.”
“aw, shucks!” scoffed hal.
“well, you go up with me, and i’ll show you,” declared ned, indignant. “those mounds are graves, you know.”
up he went, again, hal readily accompanying.
“listen!” whispered ned, clutching him by the coat sleeve, when they had reached the top.
those same dreadful sounds were being borne to them, amid the wailing of the night wind.
hal caught him by the hand.
“sh!” cautioned ned; and they softly stole forward, their heart in their mouth.
yes, the white thing was there, just as ned had predicted. they didn’t go very near.
hal gave back a yard, and so did ned. they were poised, all prepared to run like deer if a hostile movement was made against them, when from the beach below arose to them a strenuous yodling:
“oooo-dle—loo-dle—loo-dle—loo-dle!”
sam and joe! the call broke the spell.
“oooo-dle—loo-dle—loo-dle—loo-dle!” yodled the boys, fleeing as they shouted. never had signal been so welcome.
“thought we’d left you here for good, didn’t you?” queried joe, when, having been piloted by shouts and a waving lantern the boys, stumbling, slipping, leaping, brought up beside the skiff, at the water’s edge.
“say——” hailed ned, with scant ceremony, “there’s some indian graves up on the bluff, dug open, and now it’s dark there’s a big white thing in one of them, and we don’t know what it is.”
“it made an awful noise at us, and we think it’s a ghost,” added hal.
“wa-al, i’d like to look at it,” drawled joe. “i never seen a ghost. want to take a squint at it, sam?”
“naw,” replied sam. “i wouldn’t climb them bluffs for ten thousand ghosts!”
joe, lantern in hand, strode to the foot of the bluff.
“if it’s the genu-ine article, throw it down, an’ i’ll pass jedgment on it,” called sam, after him. “a hundred foot drop won’t hurt a real ghost any, i reckon.”
with hal and ned close at his heels joe ascended the steep slope, and at the top, warned by the two boys, paused to listen.
“there,” whispered his companions, breathlessly, as upon the thick air floated the mysterious sounds.
“by gorry, the noises are genu-ine, all right,” muttered joe, astonished, and making in the direction whence they seemed to come.
“perhaps the lantern will put it out, so he won’t see it,” whispered hal to ned, vaguely suspicious that ghosts cannot stand the light.
“sh!” bade ned.
however, the white thing was in the same position as when they last had seen it. joe never paused, but walked right ahead, and boldly swung his lantern forward, reckless of consequences.
the boys, hard behind him, fully expected to behold some unearthly, awesome shape exposed to view.
with a shock, partly of relief, partly of disappointment, they found themselves gazing upon the protruding eyes, inquiring ears, kindly face, and flowing main and forelock, of a white horse, while from his nostrils issued strange snorts of appeal and alarm.
only his head was visible above the mound. the remainder of him was inside.
“oh, gee!” exclaimed both boys, in chagrin, wishing that they, instead of the horse, were in the hole—and out of sight.
joe doubled over in a fit of laughter that caused him fairly to shake and wobble on his feet.
“whoopee! whoopee!” he gasped. “nothin’ but an old white hoss, got stuck in a hole. or mebbe it’s the hoss the injun used to ride, and had buried with him, and it’s his night to come out. p’raps to-morrer night’ll be the injun’s turn.”
“it—it looked like a ghost,” faltered hal. ned was tongue-tied in his shame.
“git out o’ here!” urged joe, circling the animal, and smiting him suddenly on the flank.
under this sudden spur, with a grunt, a heave, and a volley of loud snorts, the horse, awakening from his silly lapse into helplessness, all at once plunged and reared, and was at last again on hard ground. forthwith he began to graze.
“now there’s room for the injun to pop out, when he wants to,” chuckled joe. “come on, you ghost-finders, so he won’t be afraid.”
and, followed meekly by hal and ned, he returned to the boat.
oh, how sam jeered!
he and joe never forgot. and thereafter, whenever they chanced upon hal or ned they would be sure to ask, slyly:
“seen any ghosts lately?”
as if to atone for his past ill-nature, as they pulled in at the shanty landing, sam—who really had a very kind heart—said, gruffly:
“you kids had better stop for a snack with us. steak an’ taters is all we got, but that grape-arbor camp o’ yourn must be nigh drowned.”
the boys, with some misgivings lest bob should find out, and feel hurt, accepted the invitation; and hal frankly yielded the palm to sam as a cook.
this seemed to tickle sam more than anything else.
“wa-al, i do know how to cook, a bit,” he granted, “seein’ as i’ve cooked for joe an’ me for twenty odd year.”
carrying a bone which sam sent, with his compliments, to “the dog,” finally they arrived at their camp. bob wanted to know where on earth they had been so long—but was hushed, in the midst of his noisy remarks, by the bone.
the camp, as sam had predicted, was “drowned.” nevertheless, the sun would repair all damage, inasmuch as the bread, the tenderest article of food in their cupboard, fortunately had escaped the wetting.
before a huge bonfire the boys partially dried their blankets, and then retired to the near-by horse-shed to sleep.
ere the mosquitoes had fully found them they were beyond annoyance, and roundly snoring, while about their heads the little wood mice rustled through the straw.
not until morning did it occur to them that they had not found the missing knife!
