XVIII
FIGHT OR FAIR PLAY
AS the exchange of cartridges was in progress, five men, all armed,approached the bivouac. They had landed from a boat a hundred yards orso further down the creek, and attempted to creep upon the camp andtake it by surprise.
Fortunately Larry’s quick ears had caught sound of them, and by thetime the exchange of bird for buckshot was completed they were in plainview and not more than a dozen or twenty yards away.
“Halt!” Larry cried out to them, and as they seemed indisposed to obeythe command, he called again:
“Stand where you are or we’ll shoot!”
There was no doubt in Larry’s mind that these men were a band ofsmugglers, or that they were trying to spring upon his party unawares.He had no mind to be taken by surprise by murderous ruffians.Fortunately for all concerned, his command was obeyed.
“STAND WHERE YOU ARE OR WE’LL SHOOT.”_Pag. 182._]
“Who are you and what do you want?”
“That we decline to say,” said the spokesman of the party.
“Then stand off,” said Larry, “or go back to your own place, whereverit is, or take the consequences.”
Larry was quick to observe that neither the words nor the tone of theone who had spoken were such as the drunken, degraded, ignorant men hehad seen in the smugglers’ camp would have used, and the fact puzzledhim. After a moment’s reflection he called out:
“If you have any business with us you may come ahead a few paces intothe full light of the fire and say what you have to say. But if one ofyou raises a gun we’ll give you a volley of buckshot straight at yourbreasts. Come on out of the bushes and tell us what you want.”
As the advance was made and the full firelight fell upon the five men,Larry saw that they were in the uniform of the revenue cutter service,with which he was familiar.
“I beg your pardon, Boatswain,” he said, but without relaxing hiswatchfulness; “I couldn’t see your uniforms until now, and mistook yourparty for one of a very different sort. Come to the fire and tell uswhat you want; your men can stay where they are till we understandeach other better.”
This last was said because of an apparent purpose on the part of themen to move forward in a body.
“Now then, Boatswain, what have you to say to us?” Larry asked, whilethe other three boys stood watchfully by the huge trunk of the fallentree with their shotguns held precisely as they would have been hadtheir owners been alertly waiting for a pointer to flush a flock ofbirds for them to shoot on the wing.
“We are men in the revenue service,” the boatswain answered. “We weresent ashore from the cutter that lies just off the mouth of the creekto ask who you are and what you are doing here—in short, to give anaccount of yourselves. It will save trouble if you answer us.”
“Coming from an agent of the revenue,” answered Larry, with dignity,“your questions are entirely proper. It was not necessary to couplean implied threat with them. However, that was nothing worse than abit of ill manners, and I’ll overlook it. To answer your questions: Myname is Lawrence Rutledge; one of the others is my brother. We livein Charleston, and with our two guests we are down here for a littlesporting trip. Is there anything else you’d like to know about us?”
“That’s a queer sort of boat you’ve got,” answered the other.
“I asked if there was anything else you wanted to know,” said Larry,ignoring the comment on the dory’s appearance as an impertinent one.
“I guess you’ll have to talk with the lieutenant about that. You seeI’m only a warrant officer.”
“Very well. Where is he?”
“On board the cutter.”
“Send for him then. We’ll give him any information we can.”
“I think I see myself sending for him! I’ll have to take you on board.”
“But we won’t go,” answered Larry, with eyes snapping.
“You’ll have to go.”
“But we won’t. We are American citizens, attending to our honestbusiness. If your lieutenant or any other officer of the Governmentwishes to ask us any legitimate question, we’re ready to answer. But wewill not endure insult or wrong. If you have a warrant for our arrestwe’ll not resist, but we’ll not submit to arrest without authority.”
“We don’t have to bother about warrants when we’ve got smugglers deadto rights.”
“But we are not smugglers.”
“That’s for you to settle with the lieutenant. It’s my business toarrest all of you and take you on board the cutter.”
In a low voice, before the boatswain had finished his sentence, Larrysaid to his comrades:
“Jump over the log—we’ll make a breastwork of it,” and instantly theyobeyed, leaving him on the side next the revenue men. Then to theboatswain he said:
“You’ve no right to arrest without a warrant. I tell you once for allwe’ll not submit to arrest.”
“What’ll you do then?”
“We’ll fight first,” answered Larry, delivering the words like shotsfrom a pistol, and leaping to the farther side of the fallen tree as hespoke.
The boatswain was bewildered. He knew, in a vague way, that no one canlegally make an arrest without a warrant, except when he sees a personin the act of committing crime or running away from officers; but hehad never before had an experience of determined resistance. He wasaccustomed to the summary ways of brute force that prevail in militarylife, and to him it seemed absurd for anybody to resist the only kindof constituted authority with which he was familiar.
He was sorely perplexed. He was by no means sure that the boys werethe smugglers he had been sent to arrest. On the contrary, theirmanner, their speech and all other appearances were in their favor.Nevertheless his superior officers had been watching the dory’smovements for several days and had sent him ashore in full assurancethat they had their quarry at bay. He was convinced that he ought toarrest the party, but he had only four men and himself for the work,and there stood four stalwart young fellows behind the fallen treetrunk with four double-barreled shotguns bristling across the barrier.The creek, with a sharp bend, lay upon their left and completelycovered their rear, while on their right was a swamp so densely grownup in cane and entangled vines, to say nothing of the treacherous mudbelow, that passage across it would have been nearly impossible in thebroadest light of day. Clearly Larry’s party must be assailed in frontif assailed at all, and the boatswain was not to blame for hesitatingto make an assault which would almost certainly cost the lives ofhimself and all his men. Add to this his uncertainty as to his right tomake any assault at all, and what he did is easily understood.
He ordered his men to fall back to their boat, and as they did so hestood alone where he had been. When the men were well away, he said toLarry:
“You don’t think me a coward, do you?”
“Certainly not,” Larry answered.
“Well, this thing may get me into trouble you know, and if you’re theman you say you are, I may want you to help me out as a witness. Willyou do it?”
“Yes, certainly. But what’s the use of getting into trouble? I’mwilling to trust your word as an honorable fellow; if you’ll trust minein the same way you and I can settle this whole matter in ten minutesin a way that will bring you praise instead of blame. Don’t go aboardthe cutter and report a failure and be blamed for it; stay here andtalk the matter over and then go aboard with a report that will do youhonor. What do you say to that?”
“What are your terms?”
“Only that you meet me in the same spirit in which I meet you. Give upyour notion that we are a gang of smugglers—you must see how absurd itis—and give up your claim of a right to arrest us without a warrant;meet me half way and I’ll show you how to get out of a scrape that youwouldn’t have got into but for those two mistaken guesses. We have nofeeling of enmity toward you and no wish to injure you. If we wereready to fight you to the death, it was only in defense of our rights.Give up your attempt to invade those rights
and there will be noquarrel between us. Is it a bargain?”
“Well, you speak fair anyhow. I don’t see what else I can do than meetyou half way. I’m ready.”
“Very well, then,” said Larry, emptying his gun of its cartridges andsigning to his comrades to do likewise. “As you have sent your menaway, we’ll make things even by disarming ourselves.”
With instinctive recognition of the manly generosity thus shown theboatswain tossed his own gun to the ground and, advancing, held out hishand, saying:
“You wouldn’t have done that if you hadn’t been what you say you are.I’m ready to sit down now and talk things over.”
Larry sprang over the log that separated them and took the profferedhand. Then all sat down, and Larry said:
“I’m willing to tell you now what I never would have told you under athreat. We have seen the smugglers you are looking for; we know wherethey are, or at any rate where they were two days ago; we know wheretheir plunder is hidden, and we are prepared to go with you to theplace. We were on our way to Beaufort to report all this to the revenueauthorities when you came to arrest us.”
The two had risen and were standing now, and the boatswain wascontinually shaking Larry’s hand. He tried to say what was in his mindbut couldn’t. His wits were bewildered for the moment, and Larry cameto their rescue.
“Pull yourself together, Boatswain,” he said, “and listen to me. Hurryback to your boat, go aboard the cutter at once, and report that youhaven’t found a smuggler’s camp but that you’ve found somebody who canand will show your commanding officer where one is. Tell him LawrenceRutledge and his companions offer their services as guides who knowwhere to go. Be off, quick. We’ll wait here for his answer.”
The boatswain’s wits were all in his control now and he hurried away.He had achieved victory where only defeat had seemed possible. He hadmet with success where a few minutes before he had hoped for nothingbetter than failure. He was going on board to receive commendationinstead of the censure he had expected. Honor was his in lieu ofdreaded disgrace.