Raftmates: A Story of the Great River

by Kirk Munroe

Wildly happy, the exhausted boy flung himself down on the wet planks, and yielded to pleasant reflections. It was only twenty miles to St. Louis. The current was carrying him at the rate of five miles an hour, so that he ought to reach the city soon after noon. There he would hail some steamboat or tug, and get it to tow his raft to a safe mooring-place. Then he would telegraph to both his father and his Uncle Billy. After that he would engage some stout man to help guard the raft until his friends arrived. Or perhaps he would buy a revolver and guard it himself, and when his father and Uncle Billy came along, he would challenge them before allowing them to step on board. Yes, that would be the scheme, and the boy became very proud of himself as he thought of the praises in store for him.

At length Winn rose from his moist resting-place, and began to examine his surroundings. How strange the raft did look, to be sure. He wouldn't have believed its appearance could have been so altered, and now wondered that he had ever recognized it. In fact, the only feature that seemed at all familiar, as he studied it, was the forward gable end of the "shanty." But somehow the building itself appeared much longer than when he last saw it. Still, there was that interior. He had seen the partition, with its door leading into his own little room, and he never heard of a raft "shanty" with a partition in it until this one was built. He must have another look at that interior.

The locked door baffled him. It was of such solid construction, and its lock was so well made, that it resisted all his efforts to force it. The windows were provided with heavy wooden shutters that were fastened on the inside. For an hour Winn busied himself with vain efforts to effect an entrance. At the end of that time he was discouraged. He was also uneasy. He had heard steamboats pass him, but could see nothing of them on account of the fog. The last one passed very close. The next might run him down. How he wished the raft were safely tied to some bank or levee. It was awful to be thus blindly drifting, right in the track of steamboats. The fog hung so low over the water that their pilots were lifted well above it, and could see the landmarks by which they were guided. They could also see other steamboats; but such things as scows and rafts had no business to be moving at such a time. They were supposed to be snugly tied up, and consequently no pilot would be on the lookout for them. Winn knew this as well as any one, and the knowledge did not tend to reassure him.

If he only had some one with him to help work the heavy sweeps by which the raft's course might be directed, or even to advise him what to do. It was dreadful to be alone. What a foolish thing he had done, after all, in attempting to manage this affair by himself. If he had only gone back for Billy Brackett. But his boyish pride in his own ability had again overcome his judgment, and now he must abide by the consequences.

"I only hope, if I do get run down and killed, they will find out who I am," thought the poor boy. "It would be horrid to disappear and have folks say I was a coward, who had run away for fear father would be angry with me for losing his raft. As if my father would ever do anything to make me afraid of him! And mother! How badly she would feel if I should disappear without ever giving her the comfort of knowing I was dead. There is Elta, too, and the very last time I saw her I was ugly to her. Oh dear! I wish—well, I wish, for one thing, that I could get inside that 'shanty,' and out of this miserable drizzle. I wonder if I can't pick the lock?"

Full of this new idea, Winn obtained a bit of stiff wire from the handle of a lantern that stood outside the "shanty." This he bent as well as he could into the rude form of a key, and thus equipped, he worked patiently at the lock for another hour. At length he threw away the useless implement in disgust.

"I was never cut out for a burglar, that's certain!" he exclaimed. "There's one thing I can do, though, and I will, too. I can smash down the door, and get inside that way."

An axe lay beside a pile of wood near the forward end of the raft; and armed with this, the boy began to rain vigorous blows upon the stout door. Before these it quickly yielded, and he thus gained the interior.

Once inside, he gazed about him blankly. Nothing looked familiar; nothing was as he had expected to find it. There was the partition, with a door in it, to be sure, and there was the small room beyond the main one; but there was also another partition, and another door beyond this. There had been but two rooms in the Venture's "shanty," while here were three. Then again the "shanty" that he had helped to build was only boarded up on the outside, while the interior had been left unceiled, with the frame exposed. The interior on which he now gazed was wholly ceiled, so as to make the walls of double thickness, and conceal every bit of the framing.

The perplexed boy noticed these details at a glance; and as he stood staring blankly about him, the uncomfortable suspicion began to force itself into his mind that perhaps this was not the Venture after all.