Sailor Jack, the Trader

by Harry Castlemon

“It might, but what shall we tell them? There’s been nothing done yet,” replied Dick, as he followed Rodney to the main-deck.

That was true, but there was something done by the time they got the skiff overboard. It was lying bottom up on the guard just abaft the door that gave entrance into the engine-room on the port side, that is, the side away from the bank, and the oars that belonged to it were stowed under the thwarts. Jack was ashore, the mates were on the forecastle, the deck-hands busy with the breast and stern lines, the captain was at his post on the roof, the engineer was at the throttle, slowly turning the wheel to work the boat broadside to the bank, and there was no one to observe their movements. Noiselessly they pushed the skiff into the water, then stepped in and shipped the oars and pulled toward the steamer’s bow, edging away a little into the darkness so that they could not be seen by anyone on shore. A subdued exclamation of surprise and alarm burst from their lips when they pulled far enough ahead so that they could look over the bow toward the cotton-bales on the bank. There were a score of men there now, and with the exception of the three who were there when the boat touched the bank, they were all armed and wore spurs.

“Guerillas?” whispered Dick.

“Do you think we will have anything to tell the gunboats?” asked Rodney. “Turn her around and pull the best you know how.”

“It looks cowardly to run away and leave Jack,” replied Dick, laying out all his strength on his oar.

“We wouldn’t do it if we could help him in any other way. But they won’t hurt him. It’s the boat they’re after,” said Rodney; but even while the words were on his lips he could not help wondering if the guerillas did not expect to find a large sum of money on the boat, and whether their disappointment would not make them so angry that they would take vengeance on somebody. But there was no way in which he could stop it except by bringing a gunboat to the rescue, and with this object in view he “pulled the best he knew how.” He and Dick kept the skiff in the channel in order to get the benefit of the current, and in less time than they thought to do so, brought themselves within hailing distance of one of the iron-clads.

“Boat ahoy!” shouted a hoarse voice from her deck.

“Trading boat Venango!” responded Rodney, hoping to give the officer of the deck some idea of the nature of their business.

The latter must have heard and understood, for he told them to come alongside; and when the order had been obeyed, not without a good deal of difficulty, for the current ran like a mill sluice, and the officer of the deck had listened to their hasty story, he went below to speak to the captain, who, after a long delay, sent word for them to be brought into the cabin. But the sequel proved that he had done something in the meantime. He had told the ensign on watch to arouse the executive, to have two companies of small-arm men called away, and to send word to the Samson to raise steam immediately. Being a regular, the captain lost no time. After listening to what the boys had to say, he gave them permission to go aboard the Samson with the small-arm men, and in ten minutes more the boat that could run seventeen miles an hour against a four-mile current was ploughing her way up the river at an astonishing rate of speed. But the guerillas hadn’t wasted any time either. Before the ram had left the iron-clads a mile astern, a small, bright light, which grew larger and brighter every instant, shone through the darkness ahead, and presently the Venango came floating down with the current, a mass of flame. After robbing her of everything of value, the guerillas had applied the torch and turned her adrift. But where were Jack Gray and her crew? This question was answered at day-light the next morning when Rodney and Dick pulled the skiff back to the landing, where they found Jack sitting on a cotton-bale, and whittling a stick as composedly as though such a thing as a guerilla had never been heard of. His crew were asleep behind the levee, and Jack was keeping watch for a steamer bound down. The guerillas hadn’t bothered him any to speak of, he said, although they did swear a little when they learned that he had no money. They affirmed that if they couldn’t make a dollar a pound out of their cotton, the Yankees shouldn’t do it, and they would burn every trading boat that Jack or anybody else put on the river. But they never burned another boat for Jack. A steamer which came along that afternoon took him and his crew to New Orleans, and there he took leave of the boys, who did not see him again for a long time. But before they parted, however, he showed them a letter from Marcy, in which the latter stated that Charley Bowen had shipped on a Union gunboat at Plymouth. Being a deserter from the rebel army, he was afraid to enlist in the land forces, for if he were captured and recognized he would certainly be shot to death. He thought there would be little danger of that if he went to sea.

The trading business having been broken up Rodney was anxious to see his home once more, and that was where he and Dick started for as soon as they had seen the Hyperion drop down the river with Jack Gray on board. Rodney’s father and mother had heard of the loss of the Venango, but they did not know what had become of her company, and the boys’ return was an occasion for rejoicing. At the end of the month Dick Graham also went home, and then Rodney was lonely indeed. If he hadn’t had plenty of work and energy enough to go at it, it is hard to tell what he would have done with himself. For want of some better way of passing his leisure moments he made an effort to learn what had become of Billings, Cole, Dixon, and all the other Barrington boys who had promised, with him, to enlist in the Confederate army within twenty-four hours after they reached home. He knew their several addresses, but the only one he heard from was Dixon, the tall Kentuckian who, good rebel as he was, always interfered whenever the hot heads among the academy boys tried to haul down the Old Flag and run the Stars and Bars up in its place. And the reply he received did not come from Dixon himself but from his sister, who told Rodney that her brother had been killed at the head of his regiment while gallantly leading a charge upon a Federal battery. He went into the Confederate army a private and died a colonel.