“It’s the same as mine,” persisted Jimmy. “The others can’t tell who shot 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 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 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 have the whole load fall on you without any warning, that’s all.”