“there’s a bottom plank ’most ripped out of her!” shouted moses, coming on deck and looking wildly about for marion. “she’s goin’ down!”
“i don’t reckon she’ll sink,” said kenton; “but she’ll be durn wet to sleep in.”
“what did it?” cried lewis.
“sawyer, i guess, while she was comin’ through the gap. it was an awful pull. ain’t nothin’ left to show what done it, now,” said macafee.
“there’s a bayou a little way below here that we can pole her into and lay her up,” said marion. “let go the hawsers. lewis, you and lincoln watch the cargo and the horses. get ashore. i don’t
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believe she can sink. let go the lines—all together—claiborne, you and kenton and mose man the sweeps. i’ll look out forward. watch the water, you fellows. if she settles any further, call out. give us time to get off in the skiffs. i don’t think she’ll settle much farther.”
the ark had sunk to her gunwales, and now floated like a raft. the whole crew were on deck, excepting the two who had been set ashore to watch the cargo and horses. with her dismantled cabin piled amidships, she looked a wreck indeed, and excited much sympathy from the craft that passed her. about a mile below, the arksmen worked her into a flooded bayou, up which they were obliged to pole for a considerable distance before reaching shoal water.
on this bayou the arksmen, directed by marion, established a permanent camp. the cargo was brought over by small boatloads,
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and some was loaded and brought across by land on the horses, and stored in a shelter which was built for it. there were no means of re-shipping it by other barges, for all the craft on the river were loaded with their own freight; and, besides, the port was still closed to the americans.
at this camp marion overhauled the great flatboat as well as he could, without getting it out of the water, and so heavy had been the damage done by the snag and the strain of bringing the ark through the gap that, as moses said, the cross-bottoming and closing of the seams was about as much work as building two new flatboats.
weeks passed, and the stifling malarial summer wore through. one after another the men sickened with a local fever, against which their familiar remedies seemed powerless. they recovered, but the great heat which made work during the middle of the day impossible, kept them prostrated.
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the dews fell like rain every night, and made sleeping on the ground, as they were accustomed to doing in the northern woods, more dangerous than they knew. the air they breathed was full of heavy scents from blossoming bays and magnolias.
marion realized, too late, that he had been led by a forlorn hope into entering a cul de sac. he kept up the spirits of the men, however, and after nightfall led many an excursion up and down the bayou, spearing alligators by torchlight, from the skiffs. the men enjoyed this, for there are few more exciting sports, and it helped to keep the alligators at a distance from the camp, where they were too fond of coming at night to look for garbage around the cooking quarters, and terrify the horses and tige. his life, poor fellow, was not a happy one. jimmy had captured a baby alligator, about two feet long, and was trying to tame him in a little corral near the
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camp. natural sin was deeply rooted in his nature, however, and he and tige, who could not leave such small fry to scoff at him unpunished, kept up a constant and deadly warfare; and yet it ended in the little reptile’s drooping away from too much civilizing, until, like a flower out of water, he withered up, his skin grew cracked and dingy, and he died and was buried with melancholy rites.
marion also sent the men fishing a good deal, and they trolled all the way to the head of the bayou after green trout, or black bass, as they are called in the north.
it was on one of these trips that the boys made a curious discovery which greatly excited the imagination of moses, and led jimmy to think of something which indirectly saved the fortunes of the crew, and, in all probability, marion royce’s life as well.
the two were paddling up a branch of
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the bayou, which they had never explored before. it was just sunrise, for they usually made these expeditions about daybreak, and brought back the camp’s breakfast. the creek was very narrow—not more than ten feet across from one high bank to the other, but fully fifteen feet deep in most places, and fed by many little springs, which they could see purling at the bottom. the still water at the surface was so clear that they could see the clean sand and the tufts of grass in which the fish hid, motionless. after the months on the dirty mississippi, and the black waters of the lower bayou, this little creek was a marvel of delight to the boys, and they paddled along, their blades brushing the banks as they went.
“it’s the first perfectly clear water we’ve seen since we left home, isn’t it?” said mose. “my, don’t it make you homesick?”
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jimmy shook his head. he had not been homesick. the ark had been his first real home. “look!” he cried.
moses looked, and saw, blocking the little creek ahead of them, the ribs of an ancient, many-oared galley. it rose, skeleton-like, to the surface of the water, hung with tatters that looked like sea-weed and turned out to be rust-eaten chains. the boys paddled up to it and felt them over, dipping their arms in to the shoulder. they could see it as clearly as if it had been out of water.
“curious, ain’t it?” said jimmy. “escaped, most likely, from corsairs, or spaniards, or something. wonder what became of the crew?”
“let’s go ashore and look,” suggested mose.
there was a tiny strip of shelving beach, up which they drew the skiff, and then they wandered about the landing-place.
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“here are some marks on these magnolias,” said moses, after prowling about for awhile. “right opposite each other. a ship on this, and a square on the other. do you suppose there’s a treasure hid between them?”
jimmy studied the deep scars in the smooth trunks attentively. “uncle amasa always said that pirates didn’t bury treasure,” he said. “they spent it all. no; i reckon that’s just a mark to show where the next fellows were to land, and what they’d find when they got here.”
“i bet there’s treasure,” said moses, excitedly. “let’s come up here every morning, and dig until we’ve dug all round the landing, and see if we don’t find it!”
jimmy looked at him with paternal indulgence. “don’t you get work enough on the ark to suit you?” he asked. “come on into the woods a bit and see what they meant by these marks.”
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they went up a pine-needle-covered slope and gained a tiny little cleared plateau, and saw an orderly line of live fig trees. if the boys had been southern born, this might have told them that they were looking at the place where people had lived, but they knew nothing about the habits of fig trees, and they did not even guess that the late crop of brown fruit which hung to the branches was good to eat. experience with sundry prickly pears had made them cautious where they had at first been venturesome, and they left the figs alone. a few silvery boards strewed the cleared ground, and at a little distance a row of strange little wooden edifices, like the dog tents of soldiers, were falling into decay. moses bent down and peered into one of them.
“why, they’re graves!” he exclaimed, in an awed voice. “i wonder why they were covered like this.”
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“to keep animals from rooting up the dead, i reckon,” answered jimmy, who was practical. “the people from the boat must have come and lived here and waited for their friends a long time, and died of some fever, one by one, so that each fellow was decently buried. that’s all i can make of it, and i reckon that satisfies me. don’t it you?”
“no, it don’t,” said moses, decidedly. “i want to hunt for the treasure.”
jimmy looked at the younger boy thoughtfully, without answering. he saw that the vision of treasure had filled moses’ imagination so that the terrible parallel that these lost graves and relics of a boat foreshadowed, for their own desolate plight farther down the bayou did not even occur to him. nothing could be gained by pointing it out, moreover, so he kept his peace. he examined the ground carefully, and searched the bottom of the creek,
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when they finally returned to their skiff; but the sands of many years had sifted back and forth, and he saw nothing.
“mebby he got away,” he muttered, “when there wasn’t any one left to look after. lord a’mighty, i hope so.”
“who got away? what ye talking about?” asked moses.
“the last one, of course,” said jimmy. “we counted nine of those hen coops. some fellow must have buried the last one, mustn’t he? we didn’t find any traces of him anywhere, so i reckon when there wa’n’t anybody left to look after, he got away, and mebby lived to get somewhere. i hope so.”
“then he probably took the treasure with him, if there was any?” asked mose, who was still cherishing visions.
jimmy stared at him. “oh, dod rot you and your treasure,” he said, roughly. “i mean—of course, he took it. wouldn’t you?”
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“sure—of course,” said mose. but this view of the case was a great blow to his fancies, and they rowed down to camp almost in silence.
when they got back to the ark, moses was full of their discovery, and told the men about the galley and the marks on the trees, and discussed the possibility of treasure. but jimmy drew marion aside to propose a very different idea.
“mack,” he said, abruptly, “i want to take one of the skiffs and go to natchez.”
marion lifted his head sharply. “what for?” he asked. he was the color of clay, and staggered as he stood. “what for?” he repeated, sharply.
“i’m afraid i’ll lose my head if i don’t go,” answered jimmy.
“your head, man? what’s the matter with you? are you sick, too?”
“it’s the same as mine,” persisted jimmy. “the others can’t tell who shot
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him, but they’re all willing i should negotiate for the crowd, because he gave me the most trouble. i mean big harp—his head. i want to take it to natchez, and give it over to the commandant at the fort and have it stuck up on the palisades, so that there won’t be so much outlawry along the river for a while. i got to studyin’ about it up the bayou, and i think it’s my duty. i oughtn’t to wait.”
was this jimmy claiborne? the boy who talked about his duty to other rivermen? marion looked at him with a dawning understanding of what the month among the outlaws, and the months on the ark, had been to the boy who had been condemned at home. he knew nothing of the way the incident up the bayou—which had fired the younger boy with enthusiasm for treasure hunting—had brought home to this one what he owed to his fellows. and the young captain stood silent, staring out
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of feverish eyes at the big fellow who faced him.
“jimmy,” said marion, leaning back against a magnolia, “do you know that you’re the only man i can count on?”
“me?” said jimmy.
“yes, you. kenton is around, and that’s about all. he’s discouraged. macafee’s discouraged. merrick’s a pretty sick man. i’m discouraged. oh, boy,” he broke off, “if you knew what a load this expedition is to carry about on——”
“on a chill?” suggested jimmy.
“yes, that’s it. on a chill. a band of those ruffians who are loafing around natchez could come up here and wipe us out—the way we stand. there’s charlie and lewis hoyt, and there’s shadwell and moses and you, and that’s about all.”
he leaned against the magnolia and thrust his hands deep in his pockets and regarded jimmy with a countenance so dismal
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that jimmy felt himself stricken with an icy foretaste of fear; not fear for his life or limb, but that fear known as responsibility for others, which he now realized was the thing that most brave men carried about with them, even when they slept. marion had carried it all through the voyage. was he laying it down?
“you’ll be all right by mid-day,” said jimmy, with outward cheerfulness. “you’ll be all right, mack. don’t you go and worry. everything’s doin’ all right. the men are gettin’ on pretty well. corson has his chill, and then about noon he gets up and waters the horses. every fellow is able to do something. they ain’t knocked out. why, if any danger was to come along it would brace ’em right up.”
marion frowned. “i want you to know how things are,” he said, a little impatiently. “i don’t want you to think things are all right, and then some morning
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have the whole load fall on you without any warning, that’s all.”
he pulled himself up with an effort. “if you go to natchez, you’d better find out from somebody who’s had experience in this climate how they treat these fevers. you’d better take lincoln with you, for you’ll probably have a fight on your hands. there’s a rough crowd there, and if you’re alone you’ll probably lose your ‘big harp.’ find out everything you can about the chances of deposit at new orleans. the commandant probably won’t tell you much, but what he does say will have truth in it; and all these rumors that we’ve been getting have nothing definite, except that we can’t deposit and ought to fight. the men along the river don’t know any more about the plans of the french than we do. i hope there’s no fight coming; but if there is, god willing, we’ll take a hand in it.”
“you bet,” said jimmy. he cleared
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his throat, because what he had to say embarrassed him. “mack,” he began, “i reckon you know i’ll stand by you? if you’re going to be sick, don’t you go and worry. i’ll stand by the ark. i can put the thing through. you can trust me.”
marion smiled wearily. “you will be captain, jimmy?”
jimmy flushed. his lip trembled. “you’re the captain of this expedition,” he answered in a voice that he tried hard to make steady, “and captain you’re going to stay, mack, whether ye’re up or on your back here in camp; and i’ll see that your orders get carried out, that’s all. but don’t you worry—you hear me?”
“all right,” said marion. “i guess we understand each other.”
“i reckon we do,” said jimmy.
the young captain moved away towards the shelter of poles where kenton was feeding the horses. he walked
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unsteadily, and jimmy saw him wipe his forehead with the back of his hand. a heavy weight settled on jimmy’s heart. and this was the man jimmy had sworn to be revenged upon, for forbidding him to join the crew! at that moment, watching him going off to look after the welfare of the camp when he should have been in bed, jimmy would have welcomed the chance of laying down his life for marion royce.
if marion should let sickness get hold of him so that he could not command the expedition, what would become of all of them? in the crew there were but marion and himself who had the gift of leadership. the others, efficient enough in other ways, all had disqualifications for commanders, and would quickly have brought the rest of the crew to riot and mutiny and chaos. the fact that marion had been afraid of jimmy’s influence at the outset, pointed to the influence which jimmy had it in him
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to wield, for either good or evil, and now jimmy wondered that he had ever threatened to cast it against law and order.
he continued to turn it all over and over in his mind through the process of helping get the breakfast of fish and pot porridge; and even after he and shadwell had provisioned their skiff and started down the river towards natchez, he continued to think of it.
he did not communicate his thoughts to lincoln. no one ever confided in lincoln. he was too unsympathetic. with his drawling indolence, he scoffed at everything. jimmy looked at him and wondered if he had ever felt a responsibility.
“well,” said shadwell at length, returning the look with one of languid tolerance, “you’re most as talkative as your pa. what’s the matter?”
“nothin’,” said jimmy.
“old mack’s petering out,” observed
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shadwell. “fussed like an old granny about our getting off. you’d think we were goin’ to new orleans. wanted to have lewis come along, at the last minute, and leave them short-handed.”
jimmy pulled away at the oars. “good thing, too, if we could have him,” he said. “you just wait till it comes to pullin’ back; you’ll think so, too.”
lincoln lay back in the stern and waved off the mosquitoes. a little later in the day the breeze would come up and blow them away for a time, but now they swam in the sunlight like singing clouds.
“dod rot ’em,” said lincoln.
they shot out into the river and the current took jimmy’s work away from him.
only two boats were floating down, but from the crews of these they received much disconcerting news.
the climax of the long grievance had
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come. the spaniards could no longer arbitrarily keep the gate of the world closed to the frontiersmen. for the west an outlet was necessary at new orleans. the flatboats must unload there and deposit their goods pending reshipment in sea-going vessels. ten years before, when the spaniards had denied this privilege, the west had talked of war, and a treaty had been made which gave the americans the right to unload their goods. the term of the treaty had expired and the spaniards had withdrawn this right of deposit. all was again chaos, rendered more formidable by the great increase in the river traffic. what with their market closed and the talk of a french invasion, it was no wonder that the rivermen were ready and anxious to fight.
as they neared natchez they received more news. bonaparte, with a navy behind him, was coming to colonize the mississippi
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valley as a “grand french empire of the west.” meanwhile, the arksmen who ventured below point coupé—“the line of west florida”—as it was called, would probably be stopped by a spanish battery, recently planted there by the governor.
the flotilla at natchez was evidence of the reality of this blockade. as jimmy and lincoln wound in and out among the fleet it seemed to them that the army which it represented, all the way down to the line, must overwhelm the spanish troops if it came to fighting. in fact, the arksmen had little fear of the spaniards. it was bonaparte and his general victor whom they feared.
the marietta brig was moored among barges and broadhorns, and jimmy soon picked out a man he knew, who consented to watch their skiff while they went ashore. he expressed a good deal of curiosity as to their errand, but jimmy deemed it unwise
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to give any information, and made no mention of the plight in which they had left the rest of the crew and the ark.
the sun was setting as they went up to the fort and applied for admittance. on the parade ground the flag was being lowered, and the recruits who were drilling had been formed to salute it. the notes of a bugle died away. the little gun, on the parapet overlooking the river, leaped forward with a loud report.
“you can’t see the colonel,” said the sentry, in answer to jimmy’s request. “come to-morrow morning, after guard mounting.”
“we must see him,” said jimmy, looking towards the dispersing group about the flagstaff. “it’s important. we’ve got to get back up the river to-night.”
the sentry looked at him stolidly, and returned his musket to his shoulder.
two figures came towards them: one,
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whom the boys saw was the commandant; the other a civilian, a slender young gentleman, dressed quietly in black. without further parley jimmy started forward to waylay them.
“halt, you!” said the sentry. “i tell you, you can’t see him.”
“i’ve got to see the commandant,” said jimmy, loudly, with his eyes fixed on the nearing figures. “i’ve brought the head of big harp, and i don’t want to leave the fort with it. some of the cut-throats around here would be glad to break my head in exchange for it, if i take it away.”
his words reached the commandant, as he had intended that they should, and he and his companion looked up, both men appeared in rare good humor, which was, doubtless, the reason for the attention which the two arksmen received.
“you wish to see me?” the colonel asked. “you say you have big harp’s head?”
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“yes, sir.”
“come this way.” he led the boys out of hearing of the sentry. “you will pardon me, governor,” he added to the young gentleman with him, “but this is the fourth time that big harp’s head has come to me within the year. if a patriot had as many heads to give for his country as an outlaw has to have offered for ransom, our enemies would never come to the end of them. what proof have you, young sir, and, in faith, who are you that you wear a scalp-lock with a civil tongue? your garments bespeak the arksman from kentucky, but your head looks as if it might be forfeit, like our friend’s here.”
“aye, sir, it came near being,” said jimmy, smiling; “and to him, at that. but since it had to be the one or the other, i’m glad to have had it as it is.” he began fumbling with the leather thong that tied the bag he carried.
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“oh, not so fast,” expostulated the colonel. “it’s an ill sight to sup on. governor claiborne, here, would be offering a ransom for the return of his appetite. let it wait until to-morrow.”
“governor claiborne?” repeated jimmy. he looked with astonishment on the young gentleman in black.
the governor looked back at him in some amusement. “well,” said the governor, briskly, “what is it? i assure you there’s no ransom just at present on my head, that you should covet it.”
“i beg your pardon, sir,” said jimmy, hastily. “i was surprised. my name is claiborne.”
“the devil it is!” said the governor. “you do me too much honor. and what’s the beginning of it? i didn’t know there were any head-hunters amongst our family. where are you from?”
“from ohio,” said jimmy. “we came
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from virginia. uncle amasa, my grandfather, is descended from william claiborne.”
“i see, cousins,” said the governor. “well cousin, my advice to you while you are in natchez is that you go and make the acquaintance of the barber.” he put his hand into his pocket and brought out some silver pieces.
jimmy drew back, flushing haughtily. “we have to get back to our ark,” he said. “we have left some very sick men up a bayou just below the place where we were shipwrecked. one of my errands was to learn from some doctor who knows the fevers how to take care of our sick.”
the bearing of the two older men changed at once. they asked questions of jimmy and lincoln, and as one question brought up another they eventually had the history of the voyage from the moment of jimmy’s joining the crew, and jimmy’s anger cooled.
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“one thing i brought that i thought might be sent on its way if you knew who it was meant for,” he added, fishing in his pocket. “it’s a letter that the outlaws took from a despatch messenger that they killed. they thought it had something to say about money being sent by a brig from marietta, and they had me read part of it. but when they found it was about militia, they were disappointed and let me keep the letter. here it is.”
the outer addressed sheet was missing, but the rest, including the sheet which jimmy had used for his message, was all there, and as it was growing dark the colonel unfolded a little pocket lantern, and putting it together, stuck a candle in it, and read the letter carefully. then he handed it to the governor, who also read it. they looked at each other.
“i congratulate you,” said the colonel.
“thank you. but the purchase may
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not go through.” the governor turned to jimmy. “have you read this letter, my son?”
“they made me;—most of it, but as i didn’t know who it was from nor who it was to, i didn’t learn much.”
“you didn’t recognize the signature of president jefferson, nor my initials, with the dashes between them?”
“indeed, sir, but i’d never happened to hear of you at all,” said jimmy, candidly, “until the colonel here introduced you, and i could not make out the signature. are you the one that’s to be picked out to receive the territory from napoleon bonaparte if the president buys it, as the letter says he’s offered to? faith, i’d like to see that, sir. i’d like to be able to tell uncle amasa that one of our folks had a hand in such a thing as that. he’d be right proud to hear it.”
the governor looked in stupefaction at
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the unmoved young arksman who spoke with so little deference, and yet from such an honest pride. then he threw back his head and laughed boyishly, loud and long. the colonel, after glaring a moment, also threw his head back, and jimmy, after looking doubtfully from one to the other, joined them.
“i’ll bear it in mind,” the governor said. “if there is anything to see, by jupiter, you shall see it, and more thereafter. but now, colonel, how about the sick men up the bayou? they must be gotten out of there. can’t we send up some men and put them aboard their ark and fetch them out where they’ll have a chance for life and limb?”
“we certainly will,” said the commandant, and they were soon deep in ways and means.
the head of big harp the colonel delivered to an orderly whom he called to him, to be guarded until morning, when it
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should be displayed on the natchez trace, as a warning to all outlaws and a protection to the pioneers along the river.
“the bounty will be paid to you,” he promised jimmy, as he sent the two boys away in command of a barge-load of men and a surgeon.
“i’d rather not take it, sir,” said jimmy. “it would be blood money. spend it in making the river safer for the arksmen. i’m mighty grateful to you for arranging to get us out of the bayou with our cargo, and if we can land it at new orleans and sell it and get home with all safe, we’ll count ourselves lucky enough.”
“the river is open,” said the colonel. “you’ll have no trouble with the spaniards. they got frightened when they heard about the independent army you arksmen were organizing, and have restored the right of deposit. but with all this rumor of a french invasion threatening, no one will
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buy goods. i’m afraid we can’t help you there, so you’d better accept the money, though your unwillingness does you credit, i’ll be bound.”
“i’d rather not, sir,” answered jimmy, “and the others didn’t have half as much trouble with him as i did. i’d rather you’d use it to protect the rivermen.”
the governor, who was still with them, clapped his hand on jimmy’s shoulder. “you’re one of us, all right,” he said. “the colonel will keep it in trust for you, to buy land—or get an education at the university of virginia, where the rest of the family have gotten their learning. would that suit you?”
“i’ve got plenty of land,” said jimmy, doubtfully, “and i expect i’d never come to be governor even if i went to the university. i reckon it had better go into protection for the arksmen along the river. i’ll be comin’ down occasionally myself,
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and i’d like to feel that my money is out keepin’ watch along shore somewhere, or else helping to fit out explorers in the wilderness, like uncle amasa’s always pining to. i reckon that would suit me best.”
“well, well, we needn’t equip an expedition with it now,” said the colonel. “good luck to you, and au revoir.”
“goodbye,” said jimmy, “and thank you.”
“goodbye, cousin! see you in new orleans,” shouted the governor.
