“Hold on there, wait! I’ve got papers for you,” called the officer, still hanging at our rail, for I had not yet ordered full speed.
“He hollered to me he was going to arrest us, Mr. Harry,” explained Peterson, much out of breath. “What’s it all about? What papers does he mean?”
“The morning papers, very likely, Peterson,” said I. “The baseball scores.”
“Will you halt, now?” called the officer.
“No,” I answered, through the megaphone. “You have no authority to halt us. What’s your paper, and who is it for?”
“Wire from Calvin Davidson, Natchez, charging John Doe with running off with his boat.”
“This is not his boat,” I answered, “but my own, and I am not John Doe. We are on our way to the coast, and not under any jurisdiction of yours.”
He stood up and drew a paper from his pocket, and began to read. In reply I pulled the whistle cord and drowned his voice; while at the same time I gave the engineer orders for full speed. Shaking his fist, he fell astern.
None the less, I was a bit thoughtful. After all, the Mississippi River, wide as it was, ran within certain well defined banks from which was no escaping. We were three hundred miles or more from the high seas, and passing between points of continuous telegraphic communication; so that a hue and cry down the river might indeed mean trouble for us. Moreover, even as I turned to pick up the course—for I had myself taken the wheel—I saw the figure of Aunt Lucinda on the after deck. She was on the point of heaving overboard a bottle—I heard it splash, saw it bob astern. “Now, the devil will be to pay,” thought I. But, on second thought, I slowed down, so that distinctly I saw the officer, also slowing down, stoop over and take the bottle aboard his launch.
“Ahoy, the launch!” I hailed. He put a hand at his ear as I megaphoned him. “Take this message for Mr. Calvin Davidson,” I hailed. He nodded that he heard. “—That to-night John Doe will wear his waistcoat, the one with the pink stripes. Do you get me?”