Raftmates: A Story of the Great River

by Kirk Munroe

  CHAPTER XX.

  BIM GROWLS.

  During the following day, while these letters were on their way to thelittle Iowa town in which the principal actors in this story wereplaying at such cross-purposes, active preparations were being made onboard the _Whatnot_ for the first exhibition of its panorama. In thosedays the panorama filled the place now taken by the stereopticon; andthough its crude pictures lacked the photographic truth of lanternslides, they were by no means devoid of interest. In fact, theirgorgeousness of color, and the vagueness of detail that allowed each torepresent several scenes, according to the pleasure of the lecturer,rendered them quite as popular, if not so instructive, as their modernsuccessors.

  The success of a panorama, however, depended largely upon the personwho explained its pictures. If he were witty, and knew how to tell thegood story of which each one was certain to remind him, all went well,and the fame of that panorama spread far and wide. If, on the otherhand, he was prosy, and offered only dry explanations of his pictures,the impatient river-town audience did not hesitate to express theirdissatisfaction, and the exhibition was apt to close with a riot.

  All this was well known to Cap'n Cod; but twenty years of absence fromthe stage had caused him to lose sight of his first and onlyhumiliating appearance before an audience, and had restored all hisyouthful confidence in his own abilities. He was therefore to be thelecturer of his own show, while Winn and Solon were to enter thetreadmill, and supply, as well as they could, the place of a mule infurnishing power to move the heavy roll of paintings. Sabella was alsoto remain out of sight, but was to grind out music from the hand-organwhenever it might be needed. This was only a temporary position, andwould be filled by either Winn or Solon after a mule had been obtainedfor the treadmill. Sabella's real duty was to dress Don Blossom, andsee that he went on the stage at the proper time.

  The hour for giving these arrangements a public test finally arrived.By eight o'clock the exhibition hall of the _Whatnot_ was packed withan audience that contained a number of raftsmen and steamboat handsfrom the water-front. These were good-naturedly noisy, and indulged incat-calls, stampings, and other manifestations of their impatience forthe curtain to rise. An occasional lull in the tumult allowed thedroning notes of the "Sweet By-and-By," then new and extremely popular,to be heard, as they were slowly ground out from the hand-organ by theinvisible Sabella.

  At length they ceased; the little drop-curtain was slowly rolled up soas to expose the first picture, and Cap'n Cod, pointer in hand, in allthe glory of the blue swallow-tail with brass buttons, stepped on thestage. His appearance was greeted with a silence that was almostpainful in its contrast with the previous tumult.

  Now for the neat introductory speech that the old man had prepared socarefully and rehearsed until he knew every word by heart. He steppedforward, and gazed appealingly at the silent audience; but no word camefrom his dry lips. He swallowed convulsively, and appeared to bestruggling with himself. A titter of laughter sounded from the back ofthe room. The old man's face became fiery red and then deathly pale.He looked helplessly and pitifully from side to side.

  "Wind him up!" shouted a voice.

  "He's stopped short, never to go again," called another.

  "He's an old fraud, and his show's a fake!"

  "Speech! speech!"

  "No; a song! Let old dot-and-carry-one give us a song!"

  "Oh, shut up! Don't you see he's a ballet-dancer?"

  And so the derisive jeerings of this audience, like those of anothertwenty years before, hailed Cap'n Cod's second failure. His confidencein himself, his years of experience, the memory of what he ought tosay, all vanished the moment he faced that mass of upturned faces, andhe was once more the dumb, trembling Codringhampton of twenty yearsbefore. A mist swam before his eyes, he groped blindly with his hands,the derisive yells of the river-men, who were endeavoring to securetheir money's worth of amusement from this pitiful spectacle, grewfainter and fainter in his ears. He tottered backward, and would havefallen, had not a young man from the audience sprang to his assistance.

  Very tenderly he helped the old man from the stage and into thefriendly shadows of the side scenes. In another moment he reappeared.With flashing eyes he stepped in front of the turbulent audience andheld up his hand. The curiosity of the river-men was sufficient toproduce an almost instant silence, which in another second might havechanged into an angry roar.

  Who was this young fellow? What business had he to interfere withtheir fun? What was he going to say? He'd better be careful! Theywere not in a humor to be trifled with.

  For a moment he looked steadily at them.

  Then he said:

  "Boys, I am surprised, and if I thought for a moment that you reallymeant to worry that old man, I should be ashamed of you. But I knowyou didn't. It was only your fun. He has been a soldier, and lost aleg fighting for you and me and to preserve the glorious Union, thatyou and I are prouder of than anything else in life. He has a daughterin there too--a young girl, for whom he is trying to make a living withthis show. I saw her just now, and if you could have seen the look ofdistress and terror on her face as she sprang to the old man's side youwould feel as I do about this business. Yon would know, as I do, thatthis was no fake, but a square--A, number one--show, packed full andrunning over with good things, worth ten times the price of admission.You'd know that it was just the bulliest show ever seen on this littleold river, and you'd turn in with a will to help me prove it. I am astranger, just arrived in town, and never set eyes on this outfitbefore; but I'm willing to put up my last dollar on the fact that thisshow is so much better than I've said that as soon as you've seen itonce, you'll want to see it right over again, you'll come to it everyevening that it stays here, and then you'll follow it down the river onthe chance of seeing it again. Hello, inside! Turn on your steam, andset your whirligig to moving."

  By this time the good-nature of the audience was fully restored, and,amid encouraging cries of "That's the talk!" "Ring the jingle-bell andgive her a full head!" "Sweep her out into the current and toot yourhorn, stranger!" the panorama began slowly to unroll. The young manpicked up the pointer, and the moment the second picture--a lurid scenethat Cap'n Cod had entitled "The Burning of Moscow"--was fully exposedto view, he began:

  "There you have it, gentlemen! One of the most thrilling events ofthis century. The great San Francisco fire of '55. City swept cleanfrom the face of the earth, and built up again, finer than before,inside of a month. I tell you, fellows, those Californians arerustlers! Why, I met a man out in 'Frisco last month whom I knew, twoyears ago, as a raftsman on this very river at twenty a month andfound. To-day he is worth a cool million of dollars, and if you wantto know how he made it, I'll let you into the secret."

  And so the young stranger rattled on with story and joke, never pausingto study the panoramic scenes as they moved slowly along, but givingeach the first title that suggested itself, and working in descriptionsto fit the titles. He kept it up for more than an hour; and whenSabella, who was watching him from the side scenes with admiringwonder, called out softly that the picture he was then describing wasthe last, he gracefully dismissed as delighted an audience as everattended a river show, and disappeared with them.

  Billy Brackett is a friend in need.]

  Billy Brackett had come up the Illinois side of the river by rail andstage, and had been ferried across to Mandrake just in time to beattracted by the incipient riot aboard the _Whatnot_. Led to the sceneby curiosity, his generous indignation was aroused by the sight of thehelpless old man and his tormentors. Now, to avoid being thanked forwhat he had done, he hurried away, released Bim from his confinement onthe wharf-boat, to that bow-legged animal's intense joy, and went tothe hotel for the night.

  The next morning, when he came down into the office, the clerk handedhim Mrs. Caspar's letter. He stood by the desk and read it. Then heread it again, with a frown of perplexity deepening on his forehead."Winn here, on
board the _Mantel-piece_, and out of money! What canEllen mean? She must be losing her mind."

  The young man was so engrossed with this letter that he paid noattention to the other occupants of the room. Thus he did not seeCap'n Cod and his niece enter the front door, nor notice that theformer was greeted by two men who had been talking earnestly togetherand watching him with great interest. Nor did he see Sabella stoop topat Bim, who had gone to meet her. He did not notice the entrance amoment later of a boy with a very puzzled expression of countenance andan open letter in his hand. Neither did he see that the boy wasaccompanied by the printer who had furnished his reward notices, andwho now pointed in his direction, saying, "That's him there. That'sMr. Brickell."

  At the same moment Sabella exclaimed, "Oh, Winn, here's Bim! Isn't hea dear dog?" Then she too caught sight of Billy Brackett, and pullingCap'n Cod by the sleeve, whispered, "There he is, uncle. That is thegentleman you have come to thank for helping us so splendidly lastevening."

  While she was thus whispering into one ear, the night watchman of thewharf-boat, who stood on the other side of the old man, was saying, ina low tone, "Yes, sir. As I was just telling the Sheriff, that's theman as stole his skiff, for I saw him when he landed here in it."

  Sheriff Riley, who had only reached Mandrake half an hour before, wasstaring at Winn, and saying to himself, "There's the young rascal now.I knew it wasn't that other fellow, though somehow his face isstrangely familiar too."

  There was a momentary hesitation on all sides. Then, as though movedby a single impulse, Winn started towards Billy Brackett to ask him ifhis name was Brickell, Cap'n Cod stepped up to express his heart-feltgratitude for what he had done the evening before, and Sheriff Rileymoved towards Winn with the intention of arresting him. At this Bim,recognizing the Sheriff, stationed himself in front of his preoccupiedmaster, erected the bristles on the back of his neck, and growled.