CHAPTER XII.
THE LOST TRAP.
It was a quiet evening.
Outside, the moon was just creeping up over the trees, and shining from a cold looking sky.
Out upon the broad river the current swept past with its constant gurgle and swish, ever heading into the mysterious Southland, which our boys yearned to reach.
Maurice was doing some sort of writing at the table, by the light of the only lantern they possessed, and which did not afford any too generous a light.
Thad was rummaging about, looking everywhere for a steel trap he had once possessed, and which now seemed strangely missing.
"I wanted to try it ashore the worst kind tonight, because I've never stopped thinking of that fine 'possum we had; and from the signs where we picked up our wood I'm just dead sure a family of the ringtails hold out," he was saying, as he turned things over, and looked in the most inaccessible corners.
Thad was gifted with a streak of stubbornness; when he wanted anything badly he hated to give it up the worst kind.
Consequently, although he had apparently hunted that whole cabin over from one end to the other, he kept "nosing around," as his cruising mate observed, rooting here and there, and muttering his disgust.
"I've been told that there's such a thing as putting a thing away too carefully, and now I believe it," remarked Maurice, as he looked up for the tenth time to see the other bending far over, and actually pawing into a dark hole under the sheathing of the cabin side.
"But you remember seeing that trap after we started?" complained
Thad.
"Sure I have; but since that early day you must have tucked it away in some place that's just disappeared. Joking aside, I wonder if it was that thing fell overboard the other day when you were romping about the deck with Dixie?" continued Maurice, as if a new idea had come to him.
Thad had a broad grin on his face as he turned around, still on his knees.
"What's this?" he remarked, holding some object up.
"Well, now," drawled the other, in his Kentucky way, "looks to me like it might be a trap; and since we only had one aboard it must be the missing muskrat gripper. Where'd you hit it?"
"In this blessed hole, and for the life of me I don't remember ever putting it in there. If I did it must have been while I was asleep and dreaming."
"Sure you didn't expect to get a rat, and try and call it a bally 'possum? Hey! what are you after now? Expect to find the mate to it perhaps. Think traps grow from seed like corn?" Maurice exclaimed, as he saw the other once more thrust his arm into the hole.
"Why, I tell you this ain't the trap I had at all. Must have been one poor old The Badgeley owned. P'raps he kept his traps in here. Say, wouldn't it open your eyes some now if I pulled out a second one of the same? Now, what d 'ye think of that?"
"I declare if it isn't another of the same kind. They do grow then. Any more where that came from, Thad?" demanded the boy at the table, beginning to show a decided interest.
"Oh! I don't know. Would you say that was anything like the breed?" and he continued to drag out objects which he held up until Maurice had counted five.
"Here, you've gone and loaded that hole to have the laugh on me; now just own up!" he exclaimed, finally, throwing up his hands as if surrendering.
"Honest Injun, I never set eyes on a single one of the lot before now. You can see they're awfully rusty, too, and need oiling, because they've been lyin' in that cubbyhole lots of months. I've had the Tramp nearly a year now, and the old fisherman built it himself, he told me, meaning some day to float down the Mississippi. Just to think that we're doing it instead of him."
"Sure there's no more of 'em inside that bully old cache?" demanded Maurice, laughing as he surveyed the pile of rusty traps, which no doubt has once been used by the former owner of the boat to add to his scanty income by supplying him with numerous pelts of muskrats in the swamp not far from the town on the Ohio.
"I reckon I got the whole bunch; but no harm in making one more try," and as he spoke Thad pushed his arm again into the dark opening.
Maurice watched him as if amused.
"Another, eh?" he laughed, as he saw Thad draw back, with an exclamation of surprise and wonder.
"No trap this time; but something else poor old The must have shoved in there for safe-keeping."
When he held the object up Maurice saw that it seemed to be a little packet, wrapped in a dingy piece of oiled cloth.
"Well, I declare, that's mighty queer. Looks like the old fellow used that hole for keeping his valuables in. Bring it over to the light, Thad, and let's take a peep at it."
Thad was only too eager to do so, for somehow the fact of finding a treasure-trove aboard the Tramp excited him not a little.
So he knelt down beside the rough little table that served them in so many capacities, yet which could be turned up against the cabin wall in case more room was needed at any time.
"Here, take my knife and cut that cord," said Maurice, when his chum had been clumsily fingering the wrapping that bound the odd little packet for what to him seemed an unnecessarily long time.
"Guess I'll just have to," observed Thad, with a grin; "since my fingers all seem like thumbs. Here she goes, then," and he started to use the keen edge of the steel blade.
"Wonder what it is," remarked the other, his eyes glued curiously on the packet, which was not more than five or six inches in length.
"Feels just like a book," returned Thad, starting to unwrap the cloth that bound the object in its waterproof folds.
"A book, eh? Like as not some sort of diary. I've never heard you talk much about the old fellow; was he educated at all, and could he write d'ye think?" demanded his comrade, with awakening interest.
"Sure he could. Well, what did I tell yo? It's a book all right, and p'raps old The kept a record of the fish and muskies he caught winter and summer. He was a queer old duck, though he did seem to think a heap of me. Wow! look at that, would you!"
Thad's startled exclamation was not in the least surprising, considering what had happened.
As he idly opened the book there was disclosed a little collection of genuine government yellowback bills, not one of which was less than ten dollars in its denomination. No wonder both boys stared, their eyes seemingly "as big as saucers," as Thad afterwards described it.
Mechanically Thad began to count the money that had come into their possession so miraculously.
"Three hundred and thirty dollars! Did you ever hear of such luck in all your born days?" he said, his face lighting up with delight.
"But it isn't ours, you know, Thad. He gave you the boat, but how do we know he ever meant you to have this money? Can't you just remember something that would explain it all? Didn't he say just a little to you at some time about it?"
Maurice looked anxiously from the pile of bills to Thad's sober face, as though urging him to exert himself to the limit to bring back to his mind some clue that would unravel the mystery.
And Thad suddenly became anxious himself; he cast a quick look toward the little window of the shanty-boat cabin, just as if oppressed with a fear that hostile eyes might even then fee fastened upon them.
So quickly does the possession of riches bring new troubles; up to that moment such a thing as a possible intruder had been far from occurring to Thad; but circumstances alter cases, and now they had something worth stealing—and he grew afraid.
So his first act was to push the money out of sight under an old magazine that Maurice had been reading, one they had secured from Bob Archiable, the itinerant clock mender, when aboard his floating home.
"I remember now that when I went to see poor old The at the hospital, when they sent for me, he told me that he wanted me to have the Tramp for my own. Then he started to say something more, but began to choke so he could hardly breathe. The nurse tried to ease him, but he died right there before me. I've never forgot how mournful like he looked at me. I always thought the old man was trying to tell me something more. And now I believe it was this!"
"That's right, old fellow. But let's look into the book. I see it has lots of writing in it, and perhaps we'll get a clue that way."
The book proved to be a rude sort of a diary, in which the river fisherman kept an account of the various little matters which concerned his rather monotonous life.
Now and then, however, there were references to his expectation of realizing some long anticipated pleasure; and the name of "Bunny" began to appear frequently.
"What do you make of it?" asked Thad, after they had read for half an hour; he relied upon the sagacity of his companion to solve what was proving a puzzle to him.
"Why, it seems to me that Bunny must have been some one dear to the old man. I kind of think it was a daughter who married and went down the river some time or other; for his thoughts seem to have always been bent on that coming trip away down in Dixie, when he grew too old to fish alone. But go on and read some more. I reckon we'll catch on sure before the end."
Maurice settled himself more comfortably to listen.
"Sounds good to me, what you say; and that's about my mind, too," observed the one who had discovered the treasure-trove, as he once more turned to the soiled diary to continue reading what the former owner of the shanty-boat had written, in his crabbed hand.
"Here it is, at last; just listen," he exclaimed, fully ten minutes afterward, and then he went on:
"I met a man today that had just come up from down-river way. And he knows George Stormway well. He told me Bunny was getting on right well, and had three children. Last time I heard there wa'nt but two mouths to feed. But he said George was laid up sometimes with the shakes, and money mighty scarce in their cabin. Time about for Old The to make up his mind to just drop in on Bunny, and surprise her. If I live to fall that's what I'm going to do, sure. I reckon if I left here in October I'd bring up at Morehead sometime about the end of November. But It'll be a long wait till then. As I get older I seem to want to see the gal and her kids more'n more,"
Maurice looked at Thad, and perhaps there was a suspicious moisture in his eyes as he winked violently several times.
"The poor old chap never hung out, Thad. If he had he would be on board this boat right now, carrying his little treasure down to his Bunny, to give her a surprise. That was a tough deal all right," he said, reaching out his hand for the charts they had secured of the lower Mississippi.
"What's up?" asked the other and his voice was rather husky, so that he had to cough several times to clear it.
"Why, d'ye know, I was wondering where that place might be. I don't remember having noticed it; and p'raps it is too small to be put on the map."
Thad went on reading in the diary, while his chum placed a forefinger on the chart, and ran it slowly down. "Here's where we are, right now," he was saying, half to himself; "and down below— well, I declare, if that ain't the queerest thing. What d'ye think, Thad, we must be only a day's run, above Morehead. It's on the map all right, even if it is only a wood station, where the river steamers stop to load up!"
Thad had to examine the location to make sure, and all the while he was saying eagerly:
"It's just like all this happened on purpose, Maurice—my wanting that trap so bad, and not finding it, and then looking in the hole in the side of the cabin, to strike this! I reckon old The's spirit must have been pushing me along; and Maurice, there ain't but one thing for us to do now."
"Yes," said the other, nodding his head with determination; "this money don't belong to us. Bunny needs it, and Bunny's going to get it, if we can find her out!"
"Shake on that, Pard Maurice. I knew you'd say it!" cried Thad.
And then and there they ratified the bargain with a grip that stood for everything that was loyal and true.