Chapter 21

EVERY ONE EXPLAINS.

At Bim's growl, Billy Brackett said "Be quiet, sir!" and looked up. He wondered somewhat at the number of persons advancing towards him, and was also surprised to note that, with one exception, they were all people whom he knew. He recognized Sabella and her uncle, the wharf-boat man, the printer, and even the Sheriff of Dubuque County. The only one of the group whom he had not seen before was the gentlemanly and thoroughly honest-looking young fellow upon whose shoulder the Sheriff had just laid his hand, saying,

"I want you, my boy."

"I expect I want him more than you do, Sheriff," remarked Billy Brackett, quietly, stepping forward and laying a hand on Winn's other shoulder. "You take him to be a thief, while I take him to be my nephew; and, of course, if he is the one, he can't be the other. Isn't your name Winn Caspar? Answer me that, you young rascal!"

"Yes," replied Winn, slowly, "that is my name. But what a stupid I have been!"

"You mean in allowing yourself to be carried off by the raft, and then losing it, and getting arrested, and running off with the Sheriff's skiff, and letting it go adrift with your coat in it, and shipping aboard some craft that your dear mother calls the _Mantel-piece_ for a cruise down the river, instead of getting along home and relieving the anxiety of your distressed parents, to say nothing of that of your aged uncle. Yes, it does seem to me that in this instance the general brilliancy of the family is somewhat clouded."

"I don't mean anything of the kind," answered Winn, stoutly. "All these things might have happened to any one, even to an uncle of your advanced years and wisdom. So I am sure I don't consider them proofs of stupidity. The only stupid thing that I am willing to acknowledge is that I didn't recognize Bim, after I'd been told there was a dog of that name here, too. That's the thing I can't get over."

"But you had never seen him!" exclaimed Billy Brackett.

"That makes no difference," was the calm reply. "I'd heard so much about him that I ought to have known him, and I can't forgive myself that I didn't."

"How about running off with my boat?" queried the Sheriff, who did not at all understand the situation.

"I didn't run off with your boat. It ran off with me first, and ran away from me afterwards. If you hadn't taken the oars out I should have rowed into Dubuque and sent some one back to the island with her. As it was, I had to go wherever she chose to take me, until she set me ashore on a tow-head, and went on down the river by herself. I'm glad of it, though, for if she hadn't, I should never have found the _Whatnot_."

"The _Whatnot_!" exclaimed Billy Brackett. "Are you living on board the _Whatnot_?"

"Yes, sir, this young gentleman is a guest on board of my boat," said Cap'n Cod, who now found his first chance to speak; "and glad as I have been to have him, it would have made me many times happier to know that he was the son of my old friend and commander. Why didn't you tell me the truth in the first place, boy?" And the veteran gazed reproachfully at Winn.

"I did tell you the truth so far as I told you anything. I didn't dare tell you any more, because I heard you say you were a friend of Sheriff Riley, and knew his skiff. So I was afraid you would have me arrested for running off with it, and in that way delay me so that I would never find the raft. Besides, I wanted to wait until I could get a letter from home to prove who I am, and I hadn't a chance to write until we got here."

"With me, the simple word of Major Caspar's son would have been stronger than all the proof in the world," said the loyal old soldier; "and though you did, as you say, tell the truth so far as you told anything, you did not tell the whole truth, as your father certainly would have done had he been in your place."

"The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," quoted the Sheriff, in his most official tone. "But look here, Cap'n Cod," he continued, "you haven't yet explained what you know of this young fellow, and his suspicious, or, to say the least, queer performances on the river."

"Cap'n Cod!" interrupted Winn. "Is your name Cap'n Cod?"

"It is a name that I have been known to answer to," replied the owner of the _Whatnot_; "and after my performance of last evening I don't suppose I shall ever be allowed to claim any other."

"If you had only told me all your names in the first place," said Winn, with a sly twinkle in his eyes, "I should probably have done the same. I have so often heard my father speak of Cap'n Cod's goodness and honesty and bravery, that I should have been perfectly willing to trust him; though I was a bit suspicious of the Sheriff's friend, Mr. Aleck Fifield."

"It's not the Sheriff's friends you need be suspicious of, my lad, but his enemies," interrupted Mr. Riley; "and I wonder if you haven't fallen in with them already. As I now understand this case, you came down the river on a raft until you reached the island near which I found you. What became of your raft at that point?"

"That is what I would like to know," replied the boy.

"What!" cried Billy Brackett. "Do you mean to say that you don't know where the raft is?"

"No more than I know how you happen to be here instead of out in California, where I supposed you were until five minutes ago. I haven't set eyes on the _Venture_, nor found a trace of her, since the first morning out from home."

"Well, if that doesn't beat everything!" said the young engineer, with a comical tone of despair. "I thought that after finding you the discovery of the raft would follow as a matter of course; but now it begins to look farther away than ever."

"But in finding me," said Winn, "you have found some one to help you find the raft."

"You?" said the other, quizzically. "Why, I was thinking of sending you home to your mother; that is, if the Sheriff here will allow you to go."

"I don't know about that," said the officer. "It seems to me that I still know very little about this young man. Who is to prove to me that he is the son of Major Caspar?"

"Oh, I can speak for that," replied Billy Brackett.

"And I suppose he is ready to vouch for you; but that won't do. You see, you are both suspicious characters, and unless some one whom I know as well as I do Cap'n Cod here can identify you, I must take you both back to Dubuque."

"Captain Cod," repeated Billy Brackett, thoughtfully. "I seem to have heard that name before. Why, yes, I have a note of introduction from Major Caspar to a Captain Cod, and I shouldn't wonder if you were the very man. Here it is now."

"I am proud to make your acquaintance, sir," said the veteran, heartily, after glancing over the note thus handed to him. "It's all right, Sheriff. This is certainly the Major's handwriting, for I know it as I do my own, and I don't want any better proof that this gentleman is the person he claims to be."

"Would you be willing to go on his bond for a thousand dollars?" asked Mr. Riley.

"I would, and for as much more as my own property, together with what I hold in trust for my niece, would bring," answered the old man, earnestly.

"And would you be willing that your money should be risked on any such a venture?" asked the Sheriff, turning to Sabella with a smile.

"Indeed I would," answered the girl, promptly. "After the splendid way Mr. Brackett helped us last evening, I know whatever he says must be so."

"That will do," said Mr. Riley. "With such sureties I am well content, and am willing to make public acknowledgment that these gentlemen are what they represent themselves to be. Now, for their future guidance, I will tell them what I have not yet hinted to a living soul. It is that their raft has probably been stolen and taken down the river by the most noted gang of counterfeiters that has ever operated in this part of the country. There are three of them, and I thought I had surely run them to earth when I traced them to the island just above Dubuque. You must have seen them there, didn't you?"

"No, sir," replied Winn, to whom this question was addressed. "I only saw one man on the island. He said he was a river-trader, and would help me float the raft. We went to look for his partners, and when I came back, it and he were both gone. After that I did not see a soul until you came along and arrested me."

"That confirms my belief that they have appropriated your raft to their own uses," said the Sheriff; "and it is a mighty good scheme on their part, too. We were watching all the steamboats, and even the trading scows, but never thought of finding them on a raft. They have probably disguised it, and themselves too, long before this, so that to trail them will be very difficult. I suppose you will try to follow them, though?"

"Certainly I shall," answered Billy Brackett, promptly. "I haven't undertaken this job only to give it up after a week's trial. As for Winn, though, I don't know but what I really ought to send him home."

"Now look here, Uncle Billy. You know you don't mean that. You know that, much as I want to see mother and Elta, I simply _must_ find that raft, or, at any rate, help you do it. You couldn't send me home, either, unless you borrowed a pair of handcuffs from the Sheriff and put me in irons. Anyway, I don't believe you'd have the heart. If I thought for a moment that you had, I'd--well, I'd disappear again, that's all."

"All right," laughed Billy Brackett. "I'm willing you should go with us if Bim is. What do you say, old dog? Speak, sir!"

And Bim spoke till the echoes rang again.