Raftmates: A Story of the Great River

by Kirk Munroe

For answer Bim left his seat, ran to the bow of the boat, uttered a short bark, and fixed his gaze pointedly down-stream.

"A light, as sure as you are a dog of wisdom!" cried Billy Brackett, looking in the direction thus indicated. "I vow, Bim, your name ought to be 'Solomon Minerva,' and I must have a 'howl' engraved on your collar the first chance I get. That is, if you ever arrive at the dignity of owning any collar besides that old strap. Your light looks as though it might proceed from a camp-fire, and I reckon it's on the main channel too. At any rate, we'll pull down there and make inquiries."

A few minutes later the skiff was run ashore near the beacon blaze that Winn Caspar had left on the eastern side of the island, and its occupants were searching the vicinity for those whom Billy Brackett had so confidently expected to find near it.

"It is very strange," he muttered. "Some one must have built this fire; but why he did so if he didn't want to camp beside it beats me. Hello! What's this? Hooray; we are on the right track after all! But what foolishness is that boy up to? and what can he be doing on this island? Thirdly, where is the raft? Eh, Bim! You haven't seen a stray raft round here, have you? No. I thought you would have mentioned it if you had. So he is on this island is he? and leaves word that we can find him by following the trail? Perhaps the trail leads to the raft; but where is the trail? Hello! you've struck it, have you? Good dog! Here, let me tie this bit of twine to your collar. There, now you're better than a lantern."

As we all know, the trail upon which Billy Brackett and Bim were thus started led directly to the log-hut in the forest. When the former discovered this, he fully expected to find his nephew within. To his surprise, although a fire smouldered on the hearth, there was no other sign of human occupancy. Then the young man searched in vain for some hit of writing, such as had guided him to this point.

"I declare!" he exclaimed at length; "the corollary is worse than the theorem, and things are becoming so decidedly mixed that we must begin to go slow. I for one propose to replenish that fire, and then bunk down right here for the rest of the night."

With this the young man went out into the darkness and began groping about for wood with which to keep up the fire until morning.

In the mean time, Bim, left to his own devices, had struck the trail leading from the hut to Winn's camp, and started along it, probably thinking that his master was following him as before. The dog soon discovered Winn, and undertook to establish friendly relations with him by rubbing his cold nose against the boy's cheek. The suddenness with which Winn started up caused the dog to spring back into the darkness, from the shelter of which he regarded his new acquaintance distrustfully. Just then Billy Brackett, to cheer the loneliness of his log-hut, began to chant the ballad of "The Baldheaded Man," and Bim, hearing his master's voice, darted off in that direction.

Now Billy Brackett, though very fond of music, and possessed of an inextinguishable longing to produce melodious sounds, could not sing any more than Bim could. His efforts in this line had so often been greeted with derisive shouts and unkind remarks by his engineering comrades that he no longer attempted to sing in public. When alone, however, and out of hearing of his fellows, he still sometimes broke forth into song. Bim always howled in sympathy, but the effect of their combined efforts had never been so surprising as upon the present occasion, when they caused the precipitate flight from the island of the very nephew for whom the young engineer was searching.

In blissful ignorance of this unfortunate result of their performance, Billy Brackett and Bim sang and howled in concert, until their repertory was exhausted, when they lay down on the floor of the hut, and with the facility of those to whom camp life has become a second nature, were quickly asleep. From this slumber Billy Brackett was startlingly awakened, some time later, by Bim's bark, and a pistol shot that rang out from the profound stillness of the forest like a thunder-clap. He grasped the dog's collar and sat up. Before he could rise any farther there came a roar of guns, a trampling of feet, a confusion of voices, a rush, and a crashing of wood. The next instant the door of his hut was burst in, and the room was filled with armed men, every one of whom seemed to be pointing a rifle or a pistol straight at his devoted head.