Chapter XIX: Pilgrims From Old Chicago

The "peck of trouble" referred to as their portion by Clay turned out to be a full bushel, and good measure at that, in a very short time. Although the boys turned on the power--a thing they should have done long before--as soon as the crest of water came in sight, the _Rambler_ was pitched down toward the swamp like a chip.

If the boys had been able to direct her course, they might have held her in the current, and so kept out of the muck hole into which she was swept when the water cut around a bend, driving straight on the shore. But just as the craft was getting under control a mass of limbs and cane-brake tangled her propellers, and she went down with the flood, striking, as has been said, in a swamp where the head of the bayou had been, and into which the water still poured.

It was pitch dark out on the river and in the swamp, but the lights of the _Rambler_ cast a circle of illumination about the spot where she lay, so that the black, bubbling water, with all the unclean reptiles it was forcing forth from their haunts, was in full view. It was carrying wreckage now, and this was piling up between the current and the boat, shutting off all chances of backing out, even if the current would have permitted it. It was indeed a desperate situation.

The motor boat had come to a stop against two monster cypress trees, between which she had wedged her nose. Only for this she might have been carried farther into the swamp, the water being deep for some distance ahead.

During the whirling passage down the bayou, while the boat was bumping against tree trunks and bounding off with a jar and a swish to go swinging around again, like a foolish dancer doing the time limit, Mose had clung tightly to one of Clay's legs. At the very beginning of that mad race he had caught sight of a couple of alligators, and was in deadly fear that they would climb on board and make a meal of him!

When the boat finally lodged between the giant trees, the little negro boy bounded from the deck and, seizing hold of a mass of vines, clambered up the tree to the west like a young monkey! Believing that he would have to help the others up, he carried a rope with him! Finally, sitting astride of a limb, he called down what he considered very good advice to the boys on the boat.

"Dey done get yo', sho'!" he warned. "Catch on de rope an' shin up!"

Serious as the situation was, with the water trinkling in over the stern of the motor boat, the boys grinned at each other at the fright of the boy.

"Come on down!" Alex. called. "If the boat should break away from the trees, you would be left alone in the swamp. Come on down and help get the boat out of this blessed swamp! You may get out with your rope and tow her if you want to!" he added, with a chuckle.

"Fo' de Lawd!" cried Mose, shuddering at the idea of getting into water inhabited by monsters who would leave a fat pig to feast off a black boy!

At least that was what one of the boys had said to him!

Attracted by the strange lights, walking and creeping things now began gathering in the shadows at the rim of the circle of light. Once Clay caught sight of the soft, appealing eyes of a deer, and now and then the howls of a swamp cat came to their ears above the roaring of the flood. Great water snakes struck their heads above the surface and looked, red-eyed, and hostile, at the boys.

Swamp creatures with soft fur and frightened eyes crouched on fallen trees and scanned the deck as a possible refuge. To make the scene more desolate still, if possible, two round-eyed owls answered each other's cries from a near-by cypress.

"Say," Jule whispered to Clay, during a little lull in the rain, "there's a man by that tree. I've been watching him a long time. Look at him!"

Clay followed the line of the pointing finger and laughed.

"Why, that's a bear!" he shouted. "A swamp bear--one of the kind Teddy Roosevelt came down here to shoot when he was president! Let him alone and he'll let us alone. They fight like devils when wounded or molested."

The boys all agreed to let the bear alone, but Captain Joe and Teddy seemed to have notions of hospitality. The dog barked invitingly, and Teddy did a stunt of bear talk which brought the wanderer one tree nearer to the boat. He was now in the circle of light, and could get no nearer without swimming.

"He sees Teddy and wants to ask his advice!" Jule laughed.

At that moment Mose, noting that the boys were gazing fixedly in one direction, turned his eyes that way and saw the bear. The shriek he let out might, it seemed, have been heard in New Orleans, if the wind had been blowing in that direction!

"Ah's a gone coon!" he wailed, after that one yell. "Ah's a goin' whar de good niggers go! Good bear! Good bear!" he added coaxingly.

The bear looked upon the scene for a moment longer with disapproving eyes and then turned away. For a moment he was seen walking on jammed logs, alternately wading through shallow places, and then he was lost in the darkness.

"There!" Alex. called out to Mose, "you've frightened our bear off!"

"Dat yo' bear?" asked Mose. "Den yo' keep yo' animile out our ya'd!"

Although frequently invited to return to the boat, Mose insisted on keeping his place in the tree. Now and then he called out that a bear or a deer was about to board the _Rambler_, but for the most part he sat still, looking about for more things to be frightened at!

The _Rambler_ was now securely fastened in between the two trees, standing on a level, or floating on a level, rather. There was considerable water under the deck, it having worked its way down through the joints about the hatches, and the boys proceeded to lift all available covers and bail it out.

"How are we ever going to get out of here?" asked Jule, working away with a basin and a sponge. "These trees will hold us forever."

"We'll have to cut them down, Silly!" answered Case. "Just as soon as the water goes down, we'll crawl out on one of the mattresses and fix the propellers."

"Mattresses!" answered Jule. "They drifted away long ago."

"Look ahead and see," remarked Case, and Jule did so.

The willow and brake mattresses which had been towed down stream were loose from the motor boat, but they were in sight, having lodged against the mud bank farther in the swamp. They could be reached, the boys figured, by a little wading after the flood subsided, which it was certain to do before long.

"You see," Case went on, "the trees will hold the boat up, like it was in a dry dock, and we can fix the propellers and the leak and then chop down the trees and get out. Perhaps we can follow this channel out to the river. If there wasn't an opening somewhere, the current here wouldn't be so fierce!"

"There may be a channel," Clay agreed, "but if there is it must be full of standing trees and hidden snags. If we ever get out of here, we'd better run back to the main channel, and keep out of such holes in future!"

"There wouldn't be any fun in river trips," laughed Alex., swinging an axe at the head of a water snake which was trying to get up on the deck, "if it wasn't for the adventure there is in it! I wouldn't have missed this for anything!"

With the last word of this endorsement of the situation on his lips Alex. took a header over the gunwale of the boat into the water! A great trunk had bunted the _Rambler_ on the port side, and she had tipped so as to knock the boy off his feet and over the railing before he could make up his mind what was coming off!

"Wow!" cried Clay, as the boy came, spluttering to the surface.

"You wouldn't miss this for anything!" roared Case.

"Bring a couple of snakes and an alligator out with you!" requested Jule.

Mose, sitting on the limb, high up in the tree, called down to the boy that a water snake was trying to get into his pocket, and that an alligator was nosing about his leg.

Disregarding all comment and advice, Alex. crawled back on deck and sat looking wrathfully into the flood. But his anger did not last long.

"If that log hadn't come along," he said, "I should have forgotten my bath. When it comes daylight, I'm going to get up a race with that alligator, with the snake as referee! Mose can enter if he wants to!"

Mose shivered at the thought. He was now climbing higher. When near the top he gave another yell and hustled down to a lower limb, where he sat with his hands clinging tightly to the trunk.

"Fo' de Lawd's sake!" he shrieked.

"What is it now?" asked Jule. "If you don't come down I'll shoot you!"

Mose pointed to the rim of the light zone and cried that the river robbers had come to get the boat. The boys looked where he pointed and saw three young men standing in a submerged grove of cypress trees. All were armed and all were bearded and forbidding in appearance. As the boys looked one stepped forward.

"Just a second," Clay called. "That is near enough!"