Chapter 35

BIM'S HEROISM.

As the burning steamboat swept down towards the low-lying raft the destruction of the latter appeared so certain that its crew abandoned all hope of saving it; and, taking to their skiff, sought by its means to escape the threatened danger. It was a forlorn hope, and promised but little. Even with Billy Brackett's strong arms tugging at its oars, the heavily laden skiff seemed to move so slowly, that but for the ever-widening space between them and the raft they would have deemed it at a stand-still. They gazed in silence and with fascinated eyes at the on-coming terror. At length, with a sigh of thankfulness, they saw that they were beyond its track, and Billy Brackett's labors were somewhat relaxed.

Suddenly, as though endowed with a fiendish intelligence, the blazing fabric took a sheer to port, and headed for the skiff. A hoarse cry broke from the old negro, whose face was ashen gray with fright. It was echoed by Binney Gibbs. The others kept silence, but their faces were bloodless.

By a mighty effort Billy Brackett spun the skiff around, and with the energy of despair pulled back towards the raft. The stout oars bent like whips. If one of them had given way nothing could have saved our raftmates from destruction. Had the tough blades been of other than home make, and fashioned from the best product of the Caspar Mill, they must have yielded. With each stroke Billy Brackett rose slightly from his seat. Arms, body, and legs made splendid response to the demands of the invincible will. Years of careful training and right living were concentrated into that supreme moment. Another might have sought personal safety by plunging overboard and diving deep into the river. Glen and Winn might have followed such an example. Binney and Solon, being unable to swim, could not. But Billy Brackett was too true an American to consider such a thing for an instant. Generations of Yankee ancestors had taught him never to desert a friend nor yield to a foe; never to court a danger nor to fear one; to fight in a righteous cause with his latest breath; to snatch victory from defeat.

As the skiff dashed alongside the _Venture_ the vast, glowing, seething mass of flame, smoke, and crashing timbers swept by so close that the raftmates were obliged to seek a shelter in the cool waters from its deadly heat. Clinging to the edge of the raft, with their bodies entirely submerged, they gazed breathlessly and with blinded eyes at the grandest and most awful sight to be seen on the Mississippi. It was a huge lower-river packet, and was completely enveloped in roaring flames that poured from every opening, and streamed furiously from the tall chimneys the trailing banners of the fire-fiend. The boat was under a full head of steam, her machinery was still intact, and the great wheels, churning the glowing waters into a crimson foam, forced her ahead with the speed of a locomotive. The back draught thus caused kept the forward end of her lower deck free from flame. Here, as she rushed past, the boys caught a glimpse of the only sign of life they could discover aboard the ill-fated packet. It was a dog leaping from side to side, and barking furiously.

They had hardly noted his presence when a curious thing happened. There came an explosion of steam, a crash, and the starboard wheel dropped from its shaft. Thus crippled, the blazing craft made a grand sweep of half a circle in front of the raft. Then, as the other wheel also became disabled and ceased its mad churnings, the boat lay with her head up-stream, drifting helplessly with the current. The packet was not more than a couple of hundred feet from the raft when its wild progress was thus checked, and now the barkings of the dog, that had already attracted the boy's attention, were heard more plainly than before.

All at once Billy Brackett, who had regained the wave-washed deck of the raft, called out, "It's Bim! I know his voice!"

With this he again sprang into the skiff, with the evident intention of attempting to rescue his four-footed comrade. Winn Caspar was just in time to scramble in over the stern as the skiff shot away. "I may be of some help," he said.

As they neared the burning boat, they saw that the dog was indeed Bim. He answered their calls with frantic barks of joy, but refused to leap into the skiff or into the water, as they urged him to.

He would run back out of their sight instead, and then reappear, barking frantically all the while. Once he seemed to be dragging something, and trying to hold it up for their inspection.

"The dear old dog has some good reason for acting in that way," said Billy Brackett, "and I must go to him."

Winn had not the heart to remonstrate against an attempt to aid Bim, even though its extreme danger was obvious. The blazing hull, from which most of the upper works were now burned away, was liable to plunge to the bottom at any moment, and the boy shuddered at the thought of being engulfed in the seething whirlpool which would thus be created. He involuntarily cringed, too, at the thought of the red-hot boilers ready to burst and deluge all surrounding objects with scalding steam and hissing water. Still, he would not have spoken a single word to deter Billy Brackett from his daring project even had he known it would be heeded.

While these thoughts flashed through Winn's mind, his companion was clambering up over the low guards, and Bim's joyful welcome of his master was pitiful in its extravagance. The dog seemed to say, "I knew you would come if I only waited patiently and barked loud enough. Now you see why I couldn't leave."

The object to which Bim thus directed attention, as plainly as though possessed of speech, was a little curly-haired puppy, a Gordon setter, so young that its eyes were not yet opened.

Billy Brackett picked it up and dropped it over the side into Winn's arms. Then he tried to do the same by Bim; but, with a loud bark, the nimble dog eluded his grasp, and dashed away into the thick of the smoke. Tongues of flame were licking their cruel way through it, and as Bim emerged, his hair was scorched in yellow patches. He dragged out a dead puppy, laid it at his master's feet, and before he could be restrained had once more dashed back into the stifling smoke. Again he appeared, this time weak and staggering, every trace of his white coat gone. He was singed and blackened beyond recognition; but he was a four-footed hero, who had nobly performed a self-imposed duty. As he feebly dragged another little dead puppy to his master's feet, Billy Brackett seized the brave dog in his arms, and sprang over the side of the doomed steamboat into the waiting skiff. Tears stood in the young man's eyes as the suffering creature licked his face, and he exclaimed, "I tell you what, Winn Caspar, if this blessed dog isn't possessed of a soul, then I'm not, that's all!"

Meanwhile Winn was pulling the skiff swiftly beyond reach of danger. It was none too soon; for before they reached the raft, the glowing mass behind them reared itself on end as though making a frantic effort to escape its fate. Then, with a hissing plunge, it disappeared beneath the turbid flood of the great river. A second later there came a muffled explosion, and a column of water, capped by a cloud of steam, shot upward. At the same time the scene was shrouded in a darkness made absolute by the sudden extinguishing of the fierce light, while the silence that immediately succeeded the recent uproar seemed unbroken.

Then the momentary hush was invaded by the sound of many voices, some of which were uttering groans and cries of pain. A score of fortunates from the burned packet, who had been driven by the flames to the extreme after-end of the boat, where they were hidden from the view of those on the raft, had leaped into the water as they were swept past, and managed to reach it while Billy Brackett and Winn were away.

Now, by means of the skiff, others whose cries for help located them in the darkness were picked up. Many persons had escaped soon after the breaking out of the fire by means of the small boats and life-raft carried by the packet; while still others, comprising nearly half the ship's company, were lost. It was one the most terrible of the many similar disasters recorded in the history of steamboating on the Mississippi; and to this day the burning of the _Lytle_ is a favorite theme of conversation among old river men.

When Glen Elting learned the name of the ill-fated craft, he started and turned pale. "The very packet for which we were waiting!" he cried, with bated breath. "Oh, Binney, how many things we have to be thankful for!"

"Indeed we have," answered the boy; "and not the least of them is that we are in a position to help these poor people, who have been overtaken by the misfortune that was reaching out for us."

These two were tearing sheets into bandage strips, and dressing wounds with the salve and ointments found in Major Caspar's medicine chest. Solon was providing a plentiful supply of hot-water over a roaring fire in the galley stove, and bustling about among the forlorn assembly, that, drenched and shivering, had been so suddenly intrusted to his kindly care. Billy Brackett and Winn rowed in every direction about the raft so long as there was the slightest hope of picking up a struggling swimmer.

Their last rescue was that of a man clinging to a state-room door, and so benumbed with the chill of the water that in a few moments more his hold must have relaxed. Beside him swam a dog, also nearly exhausted.

When the man was carried into the "shanty," the dog followed him, and was there seen to be of the same markings and breed as the puppy saved by Bim. Noting this, Winn hunted it up and brought it to her. It was hers, and no human mother could have shown more extravagant joy than did this dog mother at so unexpectedly finding one of her lost babies. She actually cried with happiness, and fondled her little one until it protested with all the strength of its feeble voice. Then she lay down with the puppy cuddled close to her, and one paw thrown protectingly across it, the picture of perfect content.

Bim had been almost as excited as she, and in spite of his burns, had circled about the two, and barked until the puppy persuaded its mother to be quiet. Then Bim and she lay down, nose to nose, and while the former told his friend how he had found her deserted babies on the boat and had determined to save them, and how his own dear master had come in answer to his barks for assistance, she told him how she had been in the after-part of the boat getting her supper when the flames broke out, and had gone nearly crazy at finding herself separated from her little ones. She assured him she would have gone through fire and water to reach them had not her master thrown her overboard, and immediately afterwards jumped into the river himself. Then she believed that all was lost, for in her distress of mind she had entirely forgotten her brave friend Bim. If she had only remembered him, she would have been quite at ease, knowing, of course, that he would find some way of saving at least one of her puppies, which, under the circumstances, was all that could be expected.

At which Bim jumped up and barked for pure happiness, until his master said, "That will do, Bim, for the present."