IX
THE WINDING RIVER’S TREASURE
“Na’cissus Jackson”
IX
THE WINDING RIVER’S TREASURE
There was much bustle and preparation around the fish shanty one August morning. Hoarded on a shelf of the bluff were a lot of water-worn boards, which had drifted in along the beach at various times, or been thrown up by the storms, and gradually gathered.
The old shipmates had selected suitable pieces from the pile, and were busily engaged, with hammer and saw, in building a cabin on the big boat. It was a cumbrous and unwieldy craft, about twenty feet long, with high sides and a broad beam. For years it had been used in the work of installing the pound- and gill-nets in the lake, and for the necessary visits to them when the surf was too high for the small row-boat, which was kept for ordinary use.
The long oars, with which Sipes and Saunders had so often fought the big waves, were not exactly mated, but when the detachable motor on the wide stern failed to run, navigation was still possible. A bowsprit had been added to the boat, and a mast protruded through the partially completed cabin. Many rusty nails and odd pieces entered into the building of the superstructure. A large square of soiled canvas and some miscellaneous cordage lay scattered about on the sand. Some scrawled lettering in red paint across the stern indicated that the boat was henceforth to be the Crawfish.
“We’r’ goin’ on a v’yage,” explained Sipes. “We’r’ goin’ ’way off up the lake, an’ we’ll touch at diff’nt ports fer some stores we gotta have, an’ then we’r’ comin’ back, an’ we’r’ goin’ to a cert’n river you know ’bout, an’ we’r’ goin’ up it. If you want to make pitchers, you c’n come ’long. We’ll stop an’ take you aboard w’en we come by with the stuff we gotta git.”