Part 19

Charles was mistaken in saying that he would be the only one to see any amusement in the affair after it was all over, for Stephen never tired of calling up George’s look of misery when the box was opened.

“Oh, if you and Will had only waited!” he often sighed to Charles.

Stephen almost forgot the insults heaped on himself and his dog during the earlier part of the evening, and as Bob Herriman prudently kept out of his sight for a few days, he almost forgave that wretch his wickedness.

One day he asked George if he might see the book of necromancy.

At first the Sage was inclined to be vexed at such a question; but finally, pointing upwards, he said, with a peculiar smile: “Well, Steve, I guess the _smoke_ of it is up there. And now, don’t say any more about it, please.”

“George, that night we passed through an _experience_ instead of an _experiment_;” Stephen replied solemnly, looking wondrous wise. “I promise not to bother you about it any more.”

Stephen kept his word religiously.

As for Will, strangely enough he took no cold, but was minus one suit of clothes.

Bob Herriman kept out of the boys sight for a few days. He had several very good reasons for doing so. In the first place, he was sore and stiff from many bruises; secondly, his cowardly nature dreaded meeting with the boys for whom he had lain in ambush, and whom he had exasperated beyond endurance; and thirdly, he wished to avoid Steve’s dog, which he now feared.

On account of this, the boy kept quiet near home, although his parents probably thought him at school. In these “holidays” he worked out a plan for revenge.

Revenge for what?

The only answer that can be given is that the boy was so vindictive in his nature that he wished to do the boys and the dog some injury--simply because he had fallen out of the evergreen; been humiliated, stunned, and hurt; had an unpleasant struggle in the water; and generally “got the worst of it,” as Charley put it.

At last he hit on a plan that pleased him greatly.

Suppose that, in order to lend variety, animation, and dignity to these pages, we forbear giving the details of his plot, and keep the reader in a state of mild suspense and wonder? Such a course would smooth our task, and not seriously disturb the readers peace of mind.

Although a raft has not been referred to specially as one of the attractions of the river, yet, for all that, an ill-made and disproportioned, but substantial and floatable one was moored a mile above the falls. Many hours had been spent by the boys in building and repairing this raft, and many times they had sailed proudly up and down the river on it. It was a source of great amusement to them all.

Some ten days after the adventure last narrated, Bob Herriman built a little “house,” which, seen from one end looked like a hen-coop, from the other like a dog kennel, while a stupid person behind might take it for a clumsy woodbox, another equally stupid person in front might take it for a modern home-made bee-hive. One end was three feet wide, the other three feet six inches. By laying a brick underneath it, its roof was level, with the spirit-level. By placing it on a perfectly smooth floor, without the brick underneath it, it rocked gently--just sufficiently, in fact, to lull a person to sleep. Briefly, Robert was not intended for a carpenter, and this “house”--which was almost worth its weight in nails--to be still further disproportioned, was much wider than it was long. Its width has already been given; its length was two feet and two, three, four and five inches. Its height was in exact proportion to its width and length. The door of a disused cupboard was brought into use, and once more did duty as a door.

Boys, exercise your ingenuity, and draw a correct picture of that “house.” It may help you to understand Bob’s plot.

Into this building its architect put several things which he thought would be needed to carry out his schemes successfully.

Every Saturday afternoon Stephen and his dog went swimming in the river. The other boys generally, but not always, swam with him. This was well-known to Herriman, and he took his measures accordingly.

The next Saturday Bob set out immediately after dinner, getting a boon companion of his to take his contrivance in a light waggon to the falls. This boy, whose thoughts never soared above the driving of his nag, asked no questions, and scarcely noticed the “house” or its contents. At the falls Bob set it down carefully, and then the two went their several ways--the youth with the waggon turning back and going to market, the plotter getting his building laboriously up the hill by the falls. The few people near stared at him in wonder, but said nothing.

When this wicked boy got his contrivance a few rods above the falls he stopped, took out of it and stowed away upon his person whatever water might damage, and then took an enormously long and very strong cord, which had hitherto been inside, and tied one end fast to a staple in what was supposed to be the roof of the “house.”

Having done this, he shoved the unwieldy thing into the river, and eyed it wistfully.

“No, it isn’t coming to pieces,” he exclaimed, joyfully, as he saw that his work bore the strain of floating in the water.

Then he grasped the rope--which will be described presently--and towed his invention--it _was_ an invention--rapidly up the river.

Arrived at the raft, he fastened this thing (we don’t know what else to call it) firmly on it. Then was shown the beauty and usefulness of the staple spoken of. Bob ran a strong cord through it and through some of the many staples and rings which were planted in the raft.

You perceive, gentle reader, that this boy was much better at scheming than at building.

Then he loosened the rope from the--let us call it _cage_--from the cage, and tied it fast to a ring in one end of the raft. This rope, or cord, was new and strong, and was actually one thousand feet in length! Bob did not believe in doing things by halves--but he had another object in view when he procured the long rope. Excepting a few yards at the end made fast to the raft, it was as yet coiled up neatly. About the middle a heavy iron ring, or sinker, was attached.

Bob arranged everything to his satisfaction, and had just set the raft afloat and made it stationery with an anchor, in the form of a sharp stick, when he espied Stephen and Carlo coming for their customary bath. He himself was screened by friendly shrubs and trees, but Stephen was in plain sight.

All that he had to do was to remain quiet and keep the raft to its anchor, and Stephen, he felt assured, would not see him.

In this belief the crafty plotter was right. Stephen hurriedly undressed a few rods below him, and plunged headlong into the river, Carlo beside him. Carlo, however, seemed uneasy, as though he suspected the presence of an enemy.

Bob examined the raft to see that it was securely anchored, and then stepped lightly ashore, an old muzzle and some pieces of rope in his hands. Unobserved, he stole along behind the shrubs, trees, and ridges, till he gained a hollow which completely hid him from Stephen, and then he stopped. Probably no boy in the neighborhood knew the lay of the land better than Mr. Bob.

Suddenly, he uttered a cry like a squirrel’s, which produced the effect he thought it would.

Both Stephen and his dog, not far away, heard it. Steve immediately stopped swimming, and said, “Sic it, Carlo! Sic it! Fetch him out!”

Bob chuckled, again uttered the cry, and was rewarded by hearing Carlo flying towards him. “Now, to keep out of the dog’s sight till he gets into this hollow,” he muttered, suiting the action to the word. “If Steve should come, too,”--and he grew pale at the thought,--“I’ll get the worst of it! But Steve won’t come.”

In this conclusion Bob was quite right; for Stephen preferred a good bath to a doubtful chase after a squirrel. Besides, he could not hunt the squirrel without dressing himself; and before that could be done, Carlo would probably have caught it, or else have given up the pursuit. Therefore, Stephen wisely determined to enjoy his bath, and let his dog hunt alone.

Crafty Bob had considered all these points, and felt quite easy in his ambush. He was wise in his day and generation.

“Sic it!” Stephen cried again; and Carlo, with his nose bent to the ground, ran hither and thither, trying to get scent of the “squirrel.”

Bob gave another encouraging squeak, and the dog plunged through the shrubbery into the hollow.

He feared the dog, and knew the risks he was running; but revenge spurred him on, and he remained collected and resolute, while Carlo, quite surprised, was taken at a disadvantage.

They grapple with each other, almost human dog and almost brutal boy, have a severe struggle, and fight desperately; but in the end, Bob slips his muzzle over Carlo’s nose, fastens it, and then binds his feet with the cords and straps.

Bob is master of the situation.

Swiftly he dragged the helpless animal by the way he had come, till he arrived at the raft. It was the work of but a minute to haul it on board, tear up the “anchor,” and shove off. When fairly afloat, the door of the cage was opened, and Carlo ignominiously thrust in.

Thus the reader perceives that this mysterious cage was to do duty as a prison. Had not its manufacturer been perusing some of the “literature” of the present day when he contrived his plot? Only, he varied the stereotyped form by abducting an heroic dog instead of an heroic fool.

Stephen gave up his whole attention to the delightful and thoroughly boyish pastime of swimming. In all probability he thought no more of his dog, believing him to be in full pursuit of the “squirrel.” But Bob had no sooner got under way than Stephen spied him.

Contrary to all the laws which regulate the actions of the heroes of romance, he engaged in conversation with the depraved youth. A hero in a book would have looked the other way in dignified silence when such a wretch came in sight, but not so Steve.

“Hollo!” he called out. “Why, Bob, I haven’t seen you since the night you yelled so bravely, and fell overboard into this very river. Have you got the plasters off your bruises yet? You ought to be as tender as pounded beef-steak after all your tumbles that night.

“But I say,” in a quarrelsome tone, “what are you doing with our raft? That raft isn’t common property; it belongs to us.”

“Who is ‘us’?” asked Bob, mockingly.

Now that he was on the raft, all his impudence returned. He knew that he could work his way into deep water before Stephen could reach him; for, unlike most rafts built by boys, this one was managed with ease, and propelled with something like swiftness.

“Who is ‘us’?” Steve echoed in amazement. “You know well enough that that raft belongs to us four--Will, and me, and Charley, and George, and Marmaduke, and myself--”

Bob could not deny the justness of Steve’s claim on the raft, so he waived the question, and cut him short, saying derisively, “Steve, I reckon you’d better stop, if you can’t count straighter’n that.”

“Well, you have no right to use it,” Steve replied. “What are you doing here anyway? Are you spying on me again?”

“Where is your dog? I thought he always followed you,” Bob observed, oaring briskly away.

“Carlo? So he does. He went after a squirrel a minute ago. ’Pon my word,” as if the thought had just struck him, “it’s very strange that I don’t hear him bark! Now, what’s the matter! Carlo, Carlo, Carlo, Carlo.”

Bob had now floated the raft down stream into deep water, and with a burst of idiotic laughter, he swung it half-way around. Up to this time, that side of the cage which looked like a dog-kennel had been toward Stephen; but the side which looked like a hen-coop was now, in turn, presented to him.

The raft had drifted down so far that it was nearly opposite to Stephen; and now, for the first time, he beheld his beloved dog, bound and helpless, in the clutches of an enemy.

An agonized cry of astonishment and horror broke from his lips.

Bob’s revenge had begun, and like all approved villains, he was destined to have a short, but brilliant, career.

“Why don’t you swim out and save your dog, Stepping Hen?” he asked mockingly, well knowing that he could soon out-strip an ordinary swimmer.

“Oh, just wait till I catch you, you abominable sneak!” yelled Steve. “I ought to have taught you a lesson before! Oh dear! O-o-h! Carlo! C-a-r-l-o!”

But Carlo could only whine piteously.

“Stay where you are,” Bob yelled back, “and when I get across the river you’ll ‘see sport,’ as you said on the island, at the picnic.”

Lustily and swiftly this thirster for revenge worked his way across the stream, jeering at poor Stephen’s threats and entreaties. The raft grounded near the bank, and, the coil of rope in his hand, he jumped ashore, and shoved it off. Then, oh most humane action! he jumped on the raft again, opened the door of the cage, and cast off the cords and straps that bound Carlo’s feet, thus leaving the poor beast at liberty to struggle feebly in his narrow prison. Having made the door of the cage fast, he landed once more, this time, however, getting his feet very wet.

To set the dog free was evidently an after thought, or he would have done so before, and so have saved himself time, trouble and a wetting.

Meanwhile, poor Stephen danced excitedly about in the water, shouting and gesticulating wildly. In fact, the poor boy was at his wits’ end. He made several desperate efforts to swim after the “jolly young waterman,” but failed in each effort. He lacked George’s great self-possession, and allowed his anger to get the better of his judgment. Thus he acted, and there he remained, until his teeth chattered and his limbs turned into what is known familiarly to the boys as “goose-flesh.” Then he rushed out of the water, and pulled on his clothes promiscuously.

To the frantic boy’s horror, he next saw Bob running _up_ the stream, along the bank whilst the raft, with the dog still on it, was drifting _down_ the stream.

“The scoundrel!” Steve gasped. “Is he going to run away, and let my dog drift over the falls?”

Such was not the case. Bob’s _left_ hand was toward Stephen, while in his _right_ hand he carried and unwound as he ran, the coil of rope. No; Bob was only “paying out the cable.” But Stephen was too far off to see this.

This one thousand feet of cord, however, did not work so harmoniously as Bob had imagined it would; it became most mysteriously and provokingly entangled at every step. The sinker on the cord kept the greater part of it under water; and when Bob at last reached the end of it, and turned, he changed it from his right hand to his left hand, so that it was still out of Stephen’s sight.

Bob stood still a moment, puffing and perspiring, and the raft stopped drifting and pulled gently, very gently on the cord. Then he moved on slowly, and to Stephen on the opposite bank, there seemed to be no connection between him and the raft.

If Steve had looked narrowly, however, he would certainly have seen the cord coming out of the water in front of Bob; for, if a boy can see the string leading to his new kite when his mischievous brother is flying it nearly a quarter of a mile away,--mark this, we do not say that any one else could see it,--then surely, in spite of the distance between him and Bob, he could have seen what little of the cord there was in sight.

But Steve’s attention was centred upon the raft, where his dog was.

Let not the peruser of this work of fiction suppose that the raft was really one thousand feet below Bob. By no means; sundry loose knots, kinks, or snarls, shortened the distance greatly.

But it was undoubtedly a long way below him.

“Hollo, Stepping Hen!” Bob yelled. “Don’t you see that _your_ raft and the dog are sailing towards the falls? Why don’t you stir around and save ’em?”

Stephen heard him distinctly, and it seemed to him that Carlo’s doom was sealed. He was now running madly up and down the margin of the river, in the vain hope of finding some craft on which he might set out in pursuit. But he could find nothing that would serve his turn.

Bob saw the boy’s dilemma, and like all orthodox villains, when successful in their wickedness, he could not conceal his delight. His powerful imagination saw a log in each broken twig, a huge boulder in each little stone, a frightful chasm in each slight depression in the ground; and he passed along by leaps that bore considerable resemblance to those of an Alpine hunter. He writhed his whole body, distorted his features, rolled his intensely blue eyes, hallooed, sang and uttered original and untranslatable interjections, expressive of triumph.

Such actions could not but be injurious to his system; but--fortunately for himself and the rest of the world,--as Bob afterwards invented and patented an ingenious saw-horse--they were to be of short continuance.

_Chapter XXVI._

BOB’S DOWNFALL.

To Stephen’s intense relief, he now saw Charley and George coming towards him from the village. He welcomed them with feverish delight.

“Hollo, Steve!” Charlie shouted. “What performance is that on the other side of the river? Who has set our raft afloat, and what is that thing on it?”

A hoot of defiance came booming across the river from Bob. He still felt himself secure; and instead of one witness of his triumph, there would now be three.

Stephen ran to meet the new-comers, and told them all that he knew about the matter, not sparing the arch-villain.

Their expressions of hopelessness and anger exceeded even Stephen’s.

“Isn’t there anything we can float over on?” Charles asked.

“Not a thing. Do you suppose I’d be here if I could cross?” Steve retorted, angrily.

“Take it coolly, boys,” the Sage advised. “We are not going to let that Herriman have it all his own way; surely we can work some plan to outwit him.”

Bob looked on in ecstasy, and hallooed as barbarously as a wild Indian on the war-trail. His plans had succeeded in every particular--almost beyond his expectations. Why should he not rejoice and be merry?

This shifting of the scene from one bank of the river to the other is not conducive to the reader’s happiness or the writer’s reputation. It would be better to single out one party and let the other go.

After a critical examination of how matters stood, the Sage said abruptly, “Look here, boys; there is room for hope. In the first place, Bob and the raft are moving at the same rate; second place, he has a cord fastened to the raft, with the other end in his left hand--but it’s an enormously long cord; third place, Will crossed the river in the village, and he will soon be coming up on the other side. Now, look at Bob and the raft, and see for yourselves.”

But before he had finished speaking, Steve and Charley had descried the rope in Bob’s hand.

“Oh, George!” cried Stephen, “you _are_ a philosopher!”

George was right about Will. A few minutes later, he was seen coming up on the other side of the river, and accompanied by Marmaduke and Jim.

Thus the whole band of heroes was assembling! Gentle reader, when that event takes place, you know that the villain’s downfall is at hand.

Stephen and Charles, beside themselves with delight, screamed to the three heroes to pounce on Bob and save Carlo.

The Sage--puffed up with pride at hearing himself called a philosopher by Stephen, who never flattered anybody--took another survey of affairs, and remarked: “Look here Steve, that raft is only drifting slowly, and by swimming out I could easily reach it, and then let Carlo free. The only objection to this plan is, that I should have to stay on the raft without my clothes on until I could get to them again. But there is no one to see me, and I don’t mind when Carlo’s fate hangs by a--a--tow-line. And by doing so, Will and the rest can chase Bob; for Bob will move nimbly somewhere in a minute or two.”

This striking idea took well with Charles and Stephen.

“Oh,” groaned the latter, “why didn’t I think of doing that before you came up!”

Will, Marmaduke, and Jim, hastened on, taking in the whole plot at a glance.

“Look out for Bob!” they heard from the three on the opposite bank. “See to Bob; we’ll take care of Carlo.”

Bob, however, had awakened to a sense of his danger. He saw Will, Marmaduke, and Jim, approaching; but not so soon as the boys across the river, as the intervening shrubs and inequalities in the ground obscured his view.

In all his nice little calculations he had not thought of, nor provided for, such a casualty as this. In the midst of his triumph why should three boys all at once come upon him? Why should they be coming up on his side of the river, when he had never known them to do so before?

But there was no time to be lost in idle speculation.

Should he fly? Then in which direction? To fly towards home seemed madness, for the three would have to be passed, and he knew well that at least one, Will, could outrun him. Or he might go _up_ the river, as he would have a start in his favor. But he was already a long way from the village and his home; of course he would be pursued; and where would the pursuit end?

His wild behaviour now gave place to gravity, and his last exultant shout died away on his lips.

He considered a moment, and then rejected both these possible means of escape, and determined to take what seemed the only course left open to him. The raft was under his control--he would haul it up and sail away on it!

If Bob had been a boy of George’s sententious terseness, he would have said, “I can defy my enemies when I am on the raft.” If he had been a hero of romance: “So shall I balk my persecutors, and frustrate their evil designs.” But being neither, he simply said to himself, “I’ll mount the raft; and then let ’em sing and holler as much as they want to! And the dog will be under my thumb, too!”

If Bob had reflected a little longer, perhaps he would not have resorted to this extreme measure; for, although he would be at liberty to float whither he pleased, in reality he would be as much a prisoner as the dog. Five resolute boys and one willing-hearted candle-holder, Jim, would sooner or later contrive some plan to entrap him.

Not a little to the boys’ astonishment, he now began to draw the raft hastily towards him. He worked as though his life depended on his agility; and as the rope came in hand over hand, it fell in a loose coil at his feet. If the raft had caught on a snag or run into the bank, he would have been left in a sad predicament; for the faster he drew in the rope, the faster Will bounded towards him. It was a strange, exciting race--not a race for life, but a race between meanness and its inevitable punishment.

The three on the opposite bank could not at first guess Bob’s intention. George was undressing himself preparatory to swimming out to the raft; but this manœuvre caused him to desist, and with the other two he stood stupidly gazing at the plotter, eagerly awaiting further developments.

But when the truth dawned upon him, he cheered Will so heartily that all the boys, together with the squirrels and birds, took up the cry, and made the place ring again. In fact, there was danger that all this hubbub might draw on them the wrath of some peace-loving paterfamilias.

Bob had reason to fear that the boys would take dire vengeance if they should overhaul him, and he toiled worthy of a better cause. Yard after yard of the rope passed through his hands, but notwithstanding all his efforts, he saw that Will was gaining on him. Although at his wit send, he yet had the sagacity to pull steadily and not too fast--that might break the rope.

At last the raft was alongside; and having gathered up the folds of the rope,--which he durst not leave behind, because that would put it in the power of Will easily to secure boy, dog, and raft,--he made a desperate and final effort, and sprang almost at random.