CHAPTER XVI

Tad kept his misgivings to himself as the flatboat voyaged southward. Both of his companions were so genuinely happy over his safe return that nothing else really seemed to matter. They fed him and pampered him, dried and mended his clothes, and treated him in general like a long-lost brother.

Tad responded with a full heart. He ate the feast of corn-bread, bacon, and coffee that Allen prepared, and had no need to feign an appetite. And to the delighted ears of his companions he unfolded, bit by bit, as his strength returned, the tale of his capture and escape.

When he described how he first happened to run afoul of the outlaws he saw Allen redden uneasily, and the baleful glance that Abe turned on the son of his employer told Tad how deeply the matter must have been discussed.

He went on to tell of the ride, of the lonely house in the woods, and of the great black deaf-mute who was Murrell’s servant.

“I’ve heard o’ him,” put in Allen, his eyes wide with excitement. “Some ark hand from up the Yazoo said he’d done caught a sight of him once. Most o’ the keel-boat men, though, say they’re sartin he ain’t no nigger at all, but some sort of a gorilla.”

Tad did not laugh. The horror of those silent visits that Congo had paid him was still too fresh in his memory.

“No,” he answered. “He’s a man, all right. But, gosh! I believe I’d _rather_ have a gorilla after me than that big black devil. Ugh!” And he shivered a little in spite of the noonday heat.

He told them of the arrival of the strangers at the house, and how he had heard their talk of the doings in Natchez.

“That’s what I was afeared of,” said Abe, with a nod. “Every move I made in the town, I had a feelin’ there were spies a-watchin’. I was sure that if we did git a posse together, they’d have wind of it long ’fore we got thar. An’ added to that, all the head folks in Natchez were either scairt o’ Murrell or else in cahoots with him. I didn’t rightly know whar to turn next.”

The tall lad’s voice grew gruff, and he shook his head as he looked at Tad. “That shorely was a mean two days,” he said.

“All over now, though,” replied the boy, with an understanding grin. And he went on with the recounting of his adventures.

Sometime past the middle of the afternoon they were running eastward on the outer edge of a great ox-bow bend where the strong current bit deep into the Mississippi side. Floating swiftly as they were, with the bank only sixty or seventy yards away, Abe was rowing, and Allen was at the steering-sweep watching for possible snags. Suddenly Abe pointed at the top of the bluff, high above them and a little distance upstream.

“Look a’ thar!” he exclaimed. “They’re out o’ sight now, but you’ll see ’em in a jiffy past that clump o’ trees.”

Tad watched with all his eyes, and even Allen turned to look where the big fellow was pointing. But the seconds passed and nothing happened.

“Ye’d ought to have a sunshade,” the steersman remarked solicitously. “This heat’s makin’ ye see things.”

Abe frowned in puzzlement. “It beats me,” he said. “I’d ha’ sworn I saw three men on horseback, gallopin’ along that road on the bluff. What the ’Nation do ye s’pose become of ’em?”

“Probably thought that long arm o’ your’n was a gun aimed at ’em,” Allen suggested. But Tad was less inclined to take the incident as a joke. He approved Abe’s judgment that evening when the lanky oarsman pulled over toward the western shore.

“I sort o’ feel the need of a change o’ climate,” was Abe’s comment. “Reckon we’ll find the night air a bit healthier over here in Louisiana.”

Weary as he was, Tad fell asleep ten minutes after supper was over and never opened his eyes again until the smoke from the breakfast fire blew into them next morning. But he knew without being told that his two friends had stood guard by turns, all night.

“With a good start this mornin’,” said Abe, cocking an eye at the rising sun, “we’d ought to be ’most a hundred mile from Natchez by nightfall. I reckon we made thirty-five yesterday. Suits me to git as far away from that ’ar town as we kin--an’ as fast.”

The rest of the crew being in complete agreement with this idea, they finished breakfast in a hurry and were soon spinning downstream again. By noon they had put another thirty miles between them and the scene of Tad’s capture, and all of them began to breathe easier. But in his desire to add to the _Katy Roby’s_ speed, Abe pulled a trifle too hard on one of the forward sweeps, and the deeply-worn handle broke with a snap.

There was nothing to do but land and make a new one. Abe took the stern oar and swung over to the Louisiana bank. After they had tied up it took the two flatboatmen the best part of an hour to find the kind of tree they liked in this unfamiliar, half-tropical forest. When at last they had chosen a good-sized sapling, Abe whetted his ax and hewed swiftly away, first shaping a blade at the butt of the log, then cutting a long, rough handle out of the straight-grained center. Finally, with his clasp knife, he smoothed up the inequalities along the shaft, and before sunset they had a new oar as good as the old one.

Tad, looking out across the river while the others worked, saw what he took at first for a log drifting down rapidly along the Mississippi side. It was not until he caught the flash of a paddle that he realized it was not a log but a dugout canoe. Once, when the little craft was silhouetted for a moment against a lighter background, he made out a single dark figure paddling strongly in the stern. The next instant the canoe vanished past the end of an island.

If Tad had not been nervously keyed up by what he had been through, it is probable he would hardly have noticed the occurrence. Canoes were not very common along the lower river, but he had seen them occasionally, manned by Indians or white trappers, coming down from the smaller streams.

It was not the craft itself but something swift and furtive in the motions of the paddler that gave the boy an odd feeling of uneasiness. However, he did not even mention the canoe to Abe and Allen, for he was a little ashamed of his vague fears.

When the oar was finished they pushed on for another hour or two, and Abe was in favor of making up the time they had lost by traveling part of the night. But the sky, which had been clear most of the afternoon, had started to cloud up at sunset and was now heavily overcast.

“She’ll be black as yer hat in another hour,” Allen counseled. “With no moon to help, ye’ll never be able to steer betwixt all these islands.”

“All right,” Abe agreed grudgingly. “But we’ll have to make it watch an’ watch ag’in tonight, if we tie up here.”

Though Allen could see little sense in this precaution, he finally consented, provided he could take the first turn, and they made their mooring for the night. Tad offered to stand one guard, but the others would not hear of it. Probably he would have made a poor watchman, for as it turned out he slept again like a log from dark to daylight.

“What d’ye say _now_?” Allen called cheerfully from the breakfast fire next morning. “Not a sound all night. We jest wasted four hours o’ sleep apiece.”

But Abe, who had gone ashore for more wood, did not reply. He was stooping over something on the ground, examining it intently.

“Come here a minute,” he said, finally, and both the others went to join him, sensing a discovery of some kind.

His face wore a curious expression when he looked up. “If I was a real crackajack at this sort o’ thing,” he said, “I’d tell ye jest when this yere was made, an’ by what. The way things are, I kin only guess.”

He was kneeling before a little bare patch of black earth. At first Tad thought there was nothing there. Then he got down beside Abe, and when he peered closely he saw, very faint across the firm surface, the print of a naked foot.

Allen whistled softly. “Big b’ar, ain’t it?” he asked.

“Look again,” said Abe, laconically.

The track was long and immensely broad, and the impressions of all five toes were visible at the end farthest from the river. But Tad, even with his slight knowledge of woodcraft, knew that a bear track would show the claw-points beyond the toes.

[Illustration: HE SAW THE PRINT OF A NAKED FOOT]

“It’s a man, isn’t it?” he said, almost in a whisper.

“If it’s a man,” Abe answered slowly, “he’s got the biggest foot I ever hope to see. It’s as long as mine, an’ most half ag’in as wide. What’s more, I should say he’d never had a pair o’ shoes on in his life. Look at them splay toes.”

Tad saw that the print of the great toe was separated by a full inch from that of the second.

“Who--who do you think made it?” he asked.

Abe considered a moment. “I think it was a nigger,” he said. “Most likely a runaway slave, but anyhow a mighty big feller--one o’ the biggest. What I really want to know, though, is when he come by here. If ’twas last night it must ha’ been in the first few hours, ’cause--”

“No, sirree!” Allen spoke up indignantly. “Everything was quiet ’round yere in _my watch_--outside o’ the noise you made snorin’.”

Abe grinned. “Wal,” said he, “thar’s no way I know of to settle it. An’ he didn’t do us much harm that I can see. The sensible thing fer us to do is head south an’ leave him.”

With a last look at the mysterious footprint, they boarded the _Katy Roby_ once more and shoved out into the current, eating breakfast as they went.

“Anyhow,” said Allen, casting a sidelong look at the landing-place, “he was headed away from us when he made that track.” He took a mouthful of bacon, and then--“I hope he keeps on goin’,” he chuckled.

None of them felt very talkative that morning. They took their turns at the oars and tiller and kept the flatboat moving at her best speed, which now averaged four to five miles an hour. The current was perceptibly slower as they went farther south, and the channel seemed deeper, with fewer sand-bars. There were numerous jungle-clad islands, however, and in some of the narrow cuts through which they passed, the giant creepers and the long festoons of Spanish moss came trailing across the deck with a cool, slithery sound.

At noon they came into the head of a long open reach, and Abe stopped rowing to mop his sun-burned forehead.

“Whew!” he breathed. “Hotter’n corn-hoein’ time up home. It takes somethin’ to make me sweat, too. Wal, we don’t have to work so hard from now on. Let’s see--” he did some counting on his fingers--“we must be ’most a hundred an’ ten mile below Natchez right now. We’ll be down to Baton Rouge ’fore night, an’ I’m told thar’s good landin’s all along the Sugar Coast, below thar.”

They had left the region of pine forest behind them now and had come fairly into the heart of old Louisiana. On both sides of the river were the great Creole plantations with their stately white houses and stately French names. Sometimes when the flatboat ran close inshore, they caught intimate glimpses of lovely formal gardens and verandas gay with laughing girls.

Allen, staring open-mouthed at these creatures of a different world, turned to Abe at length with a wag of the head.

“By the ol’ jumpin’ sassafras,” he said, “I b’lieve Tad was tellin’ us the truth ’bout wearin’ shoes, back east. Did ye see them two women-folks jes’ now? White stockin’s _an’_ slippers on, right in the heat o’ the summer!”

They went past the town of Baton Rouge, late that afternoon. Tad remembered, as he saw the landing and the stores, that his letter to his father had never been sent, and asked if he might land.

“Sure ye kin,” said Abe. “But we’ll be in New Orleans ourselves in another two days--maybe as quick as the mail. Why not wait an’ surprise yer Pappy, now?”

This suggestion met a ready response from Tad. He could picture that meeting very clearly, and although he would not postpone his father’s happiness even by a day if he could avoid it, the idea of a surprise appealed to him.

They came, in the falling dusk, to a low wooden landing-stage built out from the levee. There was no house in sight except a long, roofed storage shed with a few empty molasses barrels piled beneath it, but a white-painted sign bore the inscription, “La Plantation de Madame Duquesne.”

Abe ran the broadhorn in alongside the dock and made fast to a post.

“Couldn’t ask fer a snugger place to tie up than this, could ye?” he asked. “Tad, you run up thar in the cane a ways, an’ cut us some sugar sticks to chaw. Allen an’ I’ll git the wood an’ water an’ start supper.”

Taking the short hand-ax, the boy followed the top of the levee for a little distance and turned in along a raised wagon-track that led back into the tall cane. He went on till he found some pieces that suited him, cut half a dozen lengths with the ax, and shouldering the bundle, started back toward the river.

He had almost reached the levee when there was a sudden movement in the thicket behind him, a crashing of the cane and a sound like the thud of feet.

Tad did not even wait to glance over his shoulder but made a leap for the levee and ran along it toward the boat with all his might. When he got to the landing he looked back. There was no sign nor sound of a pursuer. The peaceful calm of evening lay over the river and the shore.

“Who were ye racin’ with?” asked Allen jocosely.

Tad recovered his breath and told them in a few words what he had heard. His face was still pale, and he felt a trifle shaky, but he tried to laugh it off.

“I guess it was nothing to be afraid of,” he said. “Maybe it was a cow.”

“Or a rabbit,” said Allen. “They make a mighty loud noise sometimes, in the woods.”

Abe shook his head. “Sounds more like a b’ar, to me,” he put in. “Or it might even be a panther. At any rate it wouldn’t do a mite o’ harm to have a fire on the levee tonight. That’d keep the skeeters away as well as the varmints.”

They gathered more wood, and after supper built a slow-burning fire of half-green chunks on the levee, close to where the boat was moored.

Tad gave Poke a piece of sugar cane to worry, and watched the delighted little bear suck the sweetness out of the stick as if it had been a bottle. They all chewed on the succulent joints of cane till the dark had settled over the river. Then with the usual good-nights they spread their blankets and turned in.

“It’s hot tonight,” Abe yawned. “I’m goin’ to give you boys more room.” And so saying, he took his bed up to the raised deck forward.

In two minutes everything was quiet, aboard. But Tad did not sleep. He was thinking of the footprint they had found that morning, and of the noise in the cane. In spite of all the reassuring things he could tell himself, the thought persisted in his mind that it was not a cow he had heard--nor a bear--nor even a panther. It was a man.