Sketches in Duneland

by Earl H. Reed

The evening meal was far from festive. The boat was poled out into the current and started away down stream in the moonlight, with Saunders at the helm. Sipes and the warden smoked complacently on the roof of the cabin, and the moody Bascom sat between them. Casey was in charge of the evidence near the bow, where he jealously guarded the bag of robins and kept his eye on the evil doer.

Sipes had remarked to me before they left that “things has been pretty dull ’round this ’ere camp, but now they’s sump’n doin’.”

“Ah tole Mr. Bascom that ’e bettah not go shoot’n’ much ’round heah,” said Narcissus, with a quiet chuckle, after the party had left, “but ’e said ’e wanted one o’ them robin pies that Mr. Sipes tole ’im ’bout. Ah don’t remembah ’bout no robin pie, but it might be awful good. The wa’den has ’fiscated all them robins, an’ Ah guess we got to fix up sump’n else fo’ dinnah tomorrow.”

I asked no questions when the old shipmates returned, and they volunteered no information as to any part that they might or might not have played in the little drama of the afternoon, but I suspected that the “third degree” that Sipes had mentioned before we started was now in process of application.

Justice was dealt out to Bascom with unsparing hand when he reached the county seat, and he was compelled to pay the full penalty of his wrongdoing. After liquidating his fines, and incidentally himself, in a moderate way, to drown his troubles, he had spent an hour or so about town, and was just taking the train, when he was again arrested for carrying a concealed weapon. He had neglected to leave his revolver at the camp, and was assessed accordingly.

He came back to us after three days, with a crestfallen air, and said that he was ready to break camp if we were. Nothing had been seen of the Ancient or the Captain, and he regarded it as poor strategy to stay longer, with no particular excuse for doing so. He would devise some other way of getting at the coy landowners.

We packed up our things and departed. The engine stopped just before we reached the village, and we found that our gasoline was exhausted. Unfortunately the oars had been forgotten when we left Shipmates’ Rest, but as the new motor had worked perfectly, there had been no occasion for them. We poled the Crawfish to the old pier, landed, and stowed my little boat and tent where we had found them. We then took the gasoline can and walked up to the village, leaving Bascom in charge of the Crawfish.

He was anxious for us to run across the Captain accidentally, and if possible get him down to the boat on some pretence. In effect, we were to shoo the wary Captain to the ambush, where the onion-skinner lay in wait with his tempting yellowbacks. We did not look very hard for him, but I happened to see him down the road talking to a man in a buggy. I was not inclined to do any shooing, and did not disturb him.

We spent some time in the village store. When we came out, the sky, which had looked threatening all the morning, was overcast with dark angry clouds. A big storm was brewing, and we decided not to start for Shipmates’ Rest until it was over. There was a high off-shore wind. The waves were rising rapidly out on the lake, but the protected water along the bluffs was still comparatively calm. As the wind increased we went down to the pier, intending to tie the boat up in a more sheltered place, and remain at the village all night. We found to our dismay that the Crawfish was adrift far out on the water. Under the strain of the wind and the river current, the line had parted that had held it to the pier.

Bascom was gesticulating wildly for help, but there was no means of getting to him. There happened to be no boats around the mouth of the river large enough to be of use in the waves that were now breaking over the Crawfish. There was no gasoline on the boat, and if there had been oars Bascom could not have got the boat back with them after he got into the current. Evidently he had not realized his danger until it was too late to jump overboard and swim ashore, or it may not have occurred to him.