Part 23 (1/2)
”Are you sure he's asleep in the cabin?”
Frank asked this question in a low tone, some days after the adventure with the panther. He and his three chums were loitering on deck at the time. It was about the middle of the afternoon; and complaining of feeling sleepy, old Luther had vanished within the cabin.
”Yes, I just went in to get something; and he was snoring on his cot,”
replied Will; ”but what's up, Frank?”
”He's got something to tell us about the old man,” remarked Jerry. ”I've seen him watching Luther when he thought the pa.s.senger we've had fastened on us wouldn't be noticing him. Out with it, old fellow.”
”I've made up my mind that his name isn't Luther Snow at all,” Frank remarked, in a whisper.
”Then what might it be, Frank?” asked Bluff, casting a quick glance toward the door of the cabin.
”What would you say to Marcus Stackpole?” queried the other, coolly.
Various exclamations told of the boys' astonishment.
”How under the sun did you ever jump on to that?” demanded Jerry.
So Frank had to tell them the many reasons he had for believing it to be the positive truth; and as he talked the others began to see light too.
”That would account for the way he just made us take him on,” said Will.
”Yes,” added Bluff, ”even when we made him up a purse, he went on down the river, and laid for us again, with a yarn about the skipper of a packet jumping him because his money gave out. Well, we swallowed it all, like a lot of innocents, for a fact. Frank, honest now, I believe you've hit the truth, and that that little black launch that used to hover around was his boat.”
”He must have let 'em know someway that his pa.s.sage was secured, because I haven't noticed it around for weeks now,” remarked Jerry, with a nod of his head.
”But why under the sun do you suppose he wants to be with us on the _Pot Luck_?” demanded Will.
”That's what I can't tell you,” Frank replied. ”I only know that he acts as if he wants to stick to us all the way to New Orleans; and that Uncle Felix seemed to be afraid he'd do that very same thing. Chances are, we'll never know what it all means until we get there, and ask your uncle to explain.”
”Well, do we carry him there?” asked Bluff.
”I should say not, if we know it,” was the way Jerry vented his opinion.
”And as my uncle impressed it on me that, above all people, I mustn't take Marcus Stackpole aboard, I think we ought to get rid of him right away,” Will declared.
”Yes, that's easy to say, but how're we going to do it?” Jerry broke in with. ”The old fellow seems to like it here; yes, and I rather guess he's taken something of a fancy to the bunch of us, too. He sticks worse than a mustard plaster on your back. Talk of Sinbad, and the Old Man of the Sea; Luther could give 'em points on how to stay right there.”
”Leave it to Frank,” interrupted Will. ”He's got a plan, I'm sure; haven't you?”
”Well, here it is in a nutsh.e.l.l,” remarked Frank, smiling at the confidence the other chum seemed to have in his ability to meet a situation; ”we'll get to Memphis to-morrow, you see. Thinking that we mean to put him ash.o.r.e only at Vicksburg, below, Luther will have no chance to play sick; so we can work the little racket.”
”Are we in it, too, Frank?” asked Bluff.
”Yes, you and Jerry are to go ash.o.r.e after we tie up, to get some things, besides the mail. An hour later you'll have come back, with your errands done; but remember you're not to come aboard, or show yourselves. Then I'll recollect something I wanted you to do very much.
Will, at the time, can be deep in some business connected with his photography, and I can't send him to hunt you up at the store; so I'll ask old Luther to please take the bottle to get filled.”
”That's dead easy,” muttered Bluff; ”he'll fall into the trap; and after he's out of sight Jerry 'nd I'll slip aboard, when we part company with our pa.s.senger. Say, I'll be a little sorry, someway, too; for after all, he's not such a bad sort.”
”But, Frank, how will he know what our meaning is?” Will inquired.