The Mail Carrier

by Harry Castlemon

His game-bag was not a very handsome or expensive article. It was made of a piece of thick cloth, cut square and sewed together on three sides, and was slung over his shoulder by a leather strap. This strap, where it crossed his breast, was formed into a rude sheath in which Bob carried his hunting-knife. The bag answered the purpose for which it was intended—that of carrying the squirrels, quails, and other small game that fell to Bob’s rifle—but it did not suit the boy. He wanted something better, and felt angry every time he looked at it.

“I’ll have one like Don Gordon’s before many days (somehow all the boys in the settlement who did not like Don envied him and wanted things just like his), with a net to hold the game and leather pockets to carry my knife, cartridges and matches in,” said Bob to himself, as he put his lunch into the bag. “I’ll have a breech-loader, too, just as good as his own; and when I get it I’ll take pains to meet him somewhere in order to let him see that there are boys in the settlement who are just as well off as he is, and just as able to throw on style. Look out for yourself now, Godfrey Evans! I am on the trail of those greenbacks!”

Bob made his way in the direction in which Godfrey fled on the night he was discovered in the smoke-house, and after crossing an extensive cornfield, plunged into the woods and turned his face toward a certain locality that he believed to be one of the places in which Godfrey would be most likely to make his camp. Bob knew that Godfrey had a hiding-place on Bruin’s Island, in which he had concealed himself while the Union forces were passing through that part of the state, and he knew, too, as everybody else in the settlement did, that he had gone there as soon as his connection with the affair of the buried treasure became known. It was also noised abroad in the settlement that the fugitive had been driven off the island by Don Gordon’s hounds, and everybody wondered where he was now. Bob thought he knew. There were numerous hills and gullies on the main shore in the vicinity of Bruin’s Island, and in one of these gullies he expected to find the man of whom he was in search.

The moment Bob entered the woods he threw his rifle into the hollow of his arm and slackened his pace to a very slow and stealthy walk. His experience had taught him that hunters sometimes run upon the game of which they are in search before they know it; and, although he believed Godfrey’s camp to be five miles and more away, he was as cautious as though he expected to find it in the very next thicket. The sound of rustling branches and dropping nuts, accompanied by an occasional squeal of alarm, told him that the squirrels were at work on all sides of him; but Bob paid no attention to them. He was in pursuit of larger and more profitable game. He made his way slowly through the woods, stopping now and then behind a tree or thicket of bushes to listen and look about him, and at one o’clock found himself standing on the bank of the bayou.

The bank, at this point, was in reality a bluff, and rose to the height of a hundred feet or more. On each side of it was a densely-wooded ravine, one of which extended back into the forest, and the other, after running parallel with the bayou for a short distance, turned abruptly to the left and was finally lost in the swamp. They were both excellent hiding-places, and while Bob stood leaning on his rifle, wondering which one he ought to explore first, he saw a thin, blue cloud rising from the bushes which covered the bottom of the ravine on his right. Most boys would not have noticed it; but Bob was on the lookout for just such a sign, and he knew at once that it was the smoke of a camp-fire.

“There he is,” said he to himself, taking a hurried survey of the ridge in the hope of finding a path that led into the ravine. “It must be Godfrey, for no one else would be likely to make a camp in such a place. Now, if he is at home I must come upon him before he knows it, for if he hears me he’ll run off, and that wouldn’t suit me at all.”

Failing to find the path of which he was in search, Bob selected a place where the bushes grew the thinnest, and throwing himself on his hands and knees, crept quickly but noiselessly down the ridge, pushing his rifle in front of him as he went. Before starting he fixed the direction of the camp-fire in his mind, so that it was not necessary for him to stop and take his bearings. He kept straight ahead, working his way along with such caution that he scarcely caused a leaf to rustle, and finally raising his head above a huge log behind which he had crept for concealment, he saw the camp-fire close before him. Godfrey was at home, too. He was lying on a bed of boughs beside the fire, his head resting on his hand, the stem of his pipe tightly clenched between his teeth and his eyes fixed upon the glowing coals. The boy looked at him in surprise. Godfrey had never been noted for his neat appearance, at least since Bob became acquainted with him, but the young hunter had never seen him look as he did now. His clothes were all in tatters, his hair, which was not concealed by a hat, was disheveled, and his face was very pale and haggard.

“I wouldn’t be in his place for all the money there is in Mississippi,” said Bob to himself, as he drew back behind the log to make up his mind what he ought to do next. “It will not be long now before the cold winter rains will set in, and then what will he do with himself? He’ll freeze to death.”

Bob lay quiet behind the log for a minute or two and then suddenly rising from his place of concealment, showed himself to the astonished Godfrey, who let his pipe fall out of his mouth and started up in great alarm. Bob was so close to him that flight was useless. He was discovered and there was no help for it.

“Why, Godfrey, is that you?” exclaimed the boy, as if the meeting were purely accidental. “Did you see a spike buck run this way about half an hour ago?”