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Read Ebook: Up the River; or Yachting on the Mississippi by Optic Oliver
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Ebook has 1641 lines and 72209 words, and 33 pages
"I never want to see you no more," growled he. "You've always behaved bad ever since I fust knowed you, and you will come to some bad end yet."
"I hope not," I said, seating myself.
"You sartin will. I took care on you when you was little, and done everything I could for you; but you have worked agin me from the fust."
As I seated myself I saw a customer come up to the front bar. He had a package, which he laid upon the counter while he poured out his dram.
"I don't think it's any use for you and me to talk over these things," I added, turning my eyes from the counter to the bloated face of my former tyrant. "We shall not be likely to agree in regard to matters in the past."
"You know just as well as I do that the steam-yacht you sail in rightfully belongs to me," he added.
"I think not. If she belongs to anybody besides myself, it must be to my father."
"That man ain't your father any more'n I am."
At that moment a rather rough-looking man came into the saloon, walked far enough back to look into the negro bar, and then retreated.
"I think it has been fully proved that Major Garningham is my father," I replied.
I had scarcely spoken the words, as the rough-looking visitor was retreating without any dram, when Nick made a flying leap over the counter, and rushed out at the street door. The gentleman with the package had his eyes upturned to the ceiling, in the act of draining the tumbler in which he had elaborately stirred up the fiery mixture.
When Nick went over the counter the customer was startled. He saw, at the same moment I discovered the fact, that the package he had laid upon the counter was missing. He rushed out of the saloon like a crazy man.
FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS.
"What on airth does all that mean?" said Captain Boomsby, rising with difficulty from his chair, and walking towards the front door.
"I'm sure I don't know," I replied. "I saw Nick leap over the counter as though he had found a mocassin-snake behind it."
"Don't say nothin' about mocassins here, for you scart my wife out of her seven senses once afore," said the captain, savagely, as he stopped and looked at me.
He had set a trap to have such a snake bite me in his house; but I was not thinking of that when I named the venomous reptile. This event, and the quantity of his own vile fluids he consumed, made him sensitive on the subject of snakes. I was afraid he would soon see more of them than he could manage.
"What made Nick run out so quick, and what did Peverell follow him for, without payin' for his liquor?" continued Captain Boomsby, when he had properly admonished me in regard to the snakes.
"I don't know, sir," I replied. "Who was the man that followed Nick?"
"That was Peverell."
"Who is Peverell?" I asked. "What does he do?"
"He is the messenger, I believe they call him, of the First National Bank of Florida."
"That explains it all, then," I added, beginning to understand the situation.
"I don't see nothin'. What explains it all?" demanded the captain, testily.
"Peverell had a package when he came in. He put it on the counter before he poured out his dram," I explained. "When Nick went over the counter the package was gone. If Peverell is the messenger of a bank, I have no doubt the bundle contained money in bank notes."
"Creation! You don't! But what made Nick go over the bar so like a hoppergrass?" exclaimed the saloon-keeper.
"I don't know. I can only understand what I saw."
"If Nick's got that bundle of money, he's smart," added Captain Boomsby.
"Do you think it was smart to steal it, captain?" I asked, mildly.
"How big a package was it, Sandy?" replied my tyrant, turning away from the moral question.
"It was at least two inches thick."
"Creation! Then there ain't less than a thousand dollars in it!"
"Let us hope that Nick did not take it," I added.
"Well, you go out, Sandy, and see where Nick's gone. I can't leave both bars without anybody to look out for 'em, for them niggers will come in and steal the liquor as quick as they will chickens."
I was interested to know the meaning of what I had seen in the saloon, and I went out into Bay Street. A crowd of men were rushing towards a narrow street leading down to the river. I followed them, and, near the landing-place of the Charleston steamers, I saw a colored policeman lay violent hands on the rough-looking person who had walked into the saloon, looked into the negro bar, and then retreated.
I was not bestowing any particular attention upon the rough-looking visitor, but I had seen him pass close by the bank messenger. I concluded that he had snatched up the package on the counter, and retreated with it from the saloon. Nick had either seen the man take the bundle, or had discovered that it was missing. No one could have taken it but the person who was passing out of the door. On the impulse of the moment the young bar-tender had leaped over the counter to pursue the thief.
Of course a crowd quickly collected around the robber and the policeman, with Nick and the messenger in the inner circle. The bank official was very much excited, and I judged that the package contained a considerable sum of money. Nick was hardly less disturbed. I was interested enough to run all the way to the pier, and work myself into the centre of the crowd before it had become very compact.
"Dat's jes like you, Buckner," said the policeman, as soon as he could obtain breath enough to speak,--and he had not quite enough when he did speak. "I done cotch you doin' dat same ting before."
"Doing what thing, you black spider?" demanded Buckner, who appeared to be greatly astonished at his arrest.
"You done stole someting," protested the guardian of the peace. "What did you run for if you don't steal someting?"
"I didn't steal anything! I run because the rest of you did, to find out what the matter was," replied Buckner, stoutly. "What did I steal, you black Lazarus?"
"Donno what you 'tole. I 'pose dis gemman can told what you 'tole," replied the policeman, turning to Peverell.
"He stole a package of bank bills I laid on the counter; that is what he stole! And there was four thousand dollars in the package, too," gasped the messenger.
"Did you see me take the package?" demanded Buckner, indignantly.
"I did not; but you were the only person that came into the saloon and left it while I was there," replied Peverell, sharply; and it was evident that he had no doubt at all in regard to the guilty person.
"I didn't touch your package! I didn't see any package! I didn't go near you, or even know you were in the saloon!" protested Buckner, vehemently. "I'm a poor man, I know, and it is hard enough for me to get a living; but I never stole the value of a penny in my life."
"But I saw him take it!" broke in Nick, with almost as much earnestness as Buckner or Peverell, though he had no special interest in the animated discussion. "The moment he tried to get out of the saloon, I jumped over the counter and went for him."
"That's so!" added Peverell, with increasing energy. "But we are wasting time. Why don't you search your prisoner, and get the package? If he stole it, he has the package now."
"Search me as much as you like!" replied Buckner, warmly.
"Search him!" "Overhaul him!" "Clean him out!" shouted the crowd, who were working themselves up to a fever-heat over the case.
"He's thrown it away before this time," suggested Nick.
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