“Now,” said he in a low tone as they went, “you are to order out your baggage as coolly as you please. Try and make it look as though you’d intended leaving the boat at this place from the first.”
When they reached the boat, the boys did as directed; they had their belongings in the clumsy traveling bags of that period, and they got them out on deck and down the gangplank—Crockett doing the same. When they reached the place where Captain Cumby and Dolph awaited them, Crockett said humorously:
“Cumby, you ain’t got no kind of knowledge of what’s going on yet. But keep a stiff upper lip, and just do what you’re told, and we’ll post you by and by.”
Looking around the edge of the cotton bales, Ned Chandler saw the hurrying forms of Huntley and Davidge and Barker, baggage in hand, hurrying down the plank from the steamboat. Reporting this to Crockett, the latter laughed as one well pleased, and then said to the old Texan:
“Dolph, see if you can get us some kind of a trap for ourselves and our belongings. Captain Cumby, if you don’t mind,” to that astonished gentleman, “we’ll pay a little visit to your plantation, and if you treat us well, we may stay there for a couple of days.”
CHAPTER VIII
A LITTLE JOKE
The Texan secured a conveyance, and Crockett and the two boys, with their baggage, tumbled in. Captain Cumby and Dolph mounted their horses, and away they went along the dirt road that led from the river. The last sight they had of Davidge and his friends, they were standing upon the wharf eagerly questioning some negroes and pointing after the wagon.
“They’ll know where we’re going,” said Ned to Crockett.
The backwoodsman nodded.
“So they will, youngster,” said he. “And that’s what I calculate on their doing.”