“But there is this difference,” added Jones, turning his back to the wind so that he could catch his breath. “Barr was in a measure dependent upon that big gun for his living, while Egan is dependent upon his yacht for nothing but his pleasure-rides. He is able to buy another boat if he loses this one, but poor Barr can’t replace that gun.”
“I am glad he’s got another that the officers know nothing about,” replied Enoch, as he unlocked the boat-house, and hung the lighted lantern he had brought with him upon a convenient hook. “Now catch hold, all of us, and shove her in.”
Lester Brigham, whose experience on the day he so rashly volunteered to assist in rescuing the crew of the Mystery, had made him very much afraid of rough water, was greatly relieved to find that the craft, in which Enoch purposed braving the white-caps, was not a canoe, but a staunch row-boat, with plenty of sheer, and roomy enough to hold ten or a dozen men. Being mounted on rollers she was easily managed, in spite of her size and weight. Lester assisted in putting her in the water, and in five minutes more she was being rowed rapidly toward the Sallie’s anchorage.
As they passed Mr. Egan’s residence Enoch took note of the fact that there was a bright light in the ex-sergeant’s room. He and his guests were doubtless having a “high old time” in there, and Enoch told himself that Gus had deliberately insulted him by not asking him and his guests over to help them enjoy it.
“Every body likes that boy—every body except Barr and his crowd of loafers and ruffians—and no one seems to care a cent for me,” thought Enoch, with no little bitterness in his heart. “I don’t believe that even those low-down fellows, the big-gunners, would countenance me, if it were not for the fact that I have showed that I can be of use to them. They are a pretty gang for a gentleman like myself to associate with, I must say! Well, the fault lies at Egan’s door, and he is going to suffer for it this very night.”
Guided by Enoch, who pulled the bow-oar, and acted as look-out and coxswain at the same time, the row-boat dashed past Mr. Egan’s oyster-sloop, and drew up alongside the Sallie. There were no signs of life on board either of the little vessels. Jones fastened into the fore-chains as soon as he could reach them with his boat-hook, and Enoch, after carefully laying down his oar, placed his hands on the rail, and sprang lightly to the yacht’s deck. Groping his way to the windlass he found, to his gratification, that Egan had been accommodating enough to leave the anchor-chain in such shape that it could be slipped in an instant. Seizing the rope with both hands he was about to lay out all his strength upon it in one vigorous jerk, which would have released the chain, and allowed it to run overboard through the hawse-hole, thus giving the yawl up to the mercy of the elements, when suddenly there was a glare of light and a deafening report on the deck of the oyster-boat, not more than a dozen yards away, and a bullet whistled through the air in close proximity to the boy’s head. This was followed by a chorus of barks and growls that made Enoch’s blood run cold, and a voice he had often heard before shouted at him through the darkness:
“You-uns mighty smart ober da’—you is so; but ole Sam wide awake, an’ he done seed ye when ye go pas’. Look out da’; Ise gettin’ ready to shoot agin, an’ the nex’ bullet come closter, I tell ye.”
Enoch waited to hear no more. He made a headlong rush for the side, and tumbled into his boat, which was at once pushed off into the darkness by its frightened crew. The Sallie was not destined to be given up to the tender mercies of the elements that night.
CHAPTER IV.
AT SCHOOL AGAIN.
The last time we saw Don and Bert Gordon, they had just returned to Mississippi after having spent a few weeks with their friend Curtis in his far northern home. They had come back with more honors as students, soldiers and hunters than they had ever hoped to win. Eight months’ hard study, combined with strict attention to their duties, had made Don major of the academy battalion and Bert first lieutenant of his company. The latter had barely escaped mutilation from the teeth and claws of a wounded lucivee, while Don had smelled powder, heard the whistle of bullets, seen a murderous-looking bowie-knife flourished before his eyes by a ruffian who tried his best to use it on his person, and those who were with him during that trying ordeal declared, as one boy, that he never flinched. More than that, he had performed a feat during his sojourn in Maine of which any veteran hunter would have been proud to boast. He had killed a full-grown moose, whose antlers had been given an honored place in his mother’s dining-room.