He got up and stepped boldly out of the shrubbery, carrying his cocked rifle ready. Bob came after him, and Sam, with a heavy club, followed them both. Joe walked straight to the gangplank and stepped aboard.
The cabin of the boat was cut in two by a sort of hallway, or “dog-trot,” running right across it amidships, and the plank led up to this. Their first step on the gangplank showed something that had before been invisible—a barrel standing in this corridor, whose smears and stains of rosin indicated its contents.
From the “dog-trot” a half-opened door was on each side. Joe put his head into the stern cabin. No one was there. The small room was fitted with four bunks against the wall, filled with dry Spanish moss and some ragged blankets. There were a rough wooden chair, a plank table. A half-full box of shotgun shells, a broken bottle, and a cob pipe lay on the floor. Adjoining this room was a tiny apartment evidently used as a kitchen when weather did not permit of cooking at a fire ashore, for there were a small stove, scattered lumps of wood, a few cooking-utensils, a sack of meal, a suspended ham.
It was pretty certain now that no one was aboard the boat, and the boys looked into the forward cabin with less uneasiness. But at the first glance Bob uttered a loud exclamation. There were four barrels in the room, which, though headed up, showed the hardened rosin oozing from the cracks between the staves.
“Told you-all we’d shore find it!” exclaimed Sam, exultantly. “All dug out an’ melted an’ strained an’ barreled up for us. We shore oughter be ’bleeged to Mr. Blue Bob!”
“Yes, but this isn’t anything,” said Joe. “Where’s the rest of it—the thousand barrels you said we’d get?”
“I declare, I dunno!” Sam confessed. “Mr. Joe, you don’t reckon dey’ve done shipped it to Mobile an’ sold it?”
“I’m afraid that’s just what they’ve done, Sam,” replied Joe, regretfully. “But let’s look ashore a little.”
They landed and examined the impromptu refinery. The impure rosin had evidently been melted up in the big kettle, and there were a big, rough trough, caked with the brown stuff, a wire-cloth strainer, and a quantity of burlap. All these things showed indications of much use.
The barrels on the shore were empty, with the exception of one that was about a third full of hard strained rosin. The kettle was quite cold; everything looked as if it was some time since operations had ceased.