Beadle's Dime Library No. 247 — page 4: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

4 ‘T’m under many obligations to you, my dear sir, for having saved my boy’s life to-day, and for your kindness now in bringing in his skiff. Won’t you come on board and at least try my whisky?’ Alligator Ike made no reply but to lay down his push-pole and fasten the painter of the skiff to the stern railing of the Lily. When this was done, he straightened up and shouted up toward the upper deck: ‘* Hello, Yank! Whar be ye? Whar’s that five dollars ye promised? Hyar’s the skiff.” ‘“‘Here! In a minute!” cried Julian, and he “ange scrambling down to the side of the t. Alligator Ike stood up in the middle of his scow and rested his push-pole against the bottom to retain his position, half turning his back on the Lily, in a manner so openly rude and in- eae that Colonel Grey flusbed slightly as he said: “My good sir, I spoke to you just now. Is it the habit of Southern gentlemen to repel polite- ness with insult?” Alligator Ike wheeled around where he stood and fixed his dark piercing eyes on Grey. “‘Southern gentlemen!” he echoed in a singu- lar tone, and entirely dropping his rough accent. **There are none left, man. You Yankee mud- sills have driven them out, and devour the land that once was theirs. We have no gentlemen, I’macracker. Don’t you see me take Yankee money ?” Then turning on Julian fiercely: ‘‘Give me my pay and let me go. Dye think I want to lie here all night by your blistering sore of a Yankee boat. Give me my money, curse you and your whole crew!” Julian hastily handed over the stipulated sum, and Alligator Ike stuck it into his pouch, when Colonel Grey cried out excitedly: ‘*T know I’ve seen you before, or some one very like you. I tell you, you must come aboard this boat. I want to engage you asa guide. See here, don’t go. You seem to be fond of money. I want to engage a guide and [ll pay you fifty dollars a month if you'll guide us. Alligator Ike shrugged his shoulders, PO his back resolutely turned to the steamer, an answered indifferently, resuming his ‘‘ cracker” drawl and dialect: “'Tain’t ‘nuff, Yank. Hev to double it afore we kin talk biz.” “* Very well, I'll double it,” said the colonel, in a resolute tone. “I'll give you a hundred dollars a month to be our guide. Now will you come aboard here or not?” Alligator Ike turned round at last and faced Colonel Grey fully, throwing back his broad hat to show his face. ** Pll come aboard, Yank,” he said, slowly, ** but mebbe the time’ll come when ye'll wish I hadn’t come.” The colonel laughed and held out his hand. ‘* My dear sir,” he said, ‘ll risk it. You can be as ill-tempered in speech as you like; but as long as your heart’s in the right place and you act as you did to-day, you and I will never quarrel, I can assure you.” Alligator Ike took the proffered hand and said in the same slow way: ““Mebbe ye wouldn’t give your hand to me Yank, ef ye knowed how many of your kind I'd throw’d in their tracks.” Colonel Grey looked at him fixedly, and spied on the powerful figure of the hunter something that attracted his attention. His belt of alligator-skin, instead of bein fastened with a buckle and strap, had a sma military plate and hook in front, which bore the letters ‘“‘ C. 8. A.” surrounded by a wreath. The colonel smiled as be saw it, and again held out his hand, saying: ‘“‘ Ts that all, my friend? That's nothing. I'm always glad to see one of the men who fought os us, for they were men in the true sense of the word. Look here.” As he spoke he threw back his coat and showed on the front of his vest, over the heart, a little bronze star, hung by a piece of ribbon. ** Do you know that?” he asked. Alligator Ike’s face darkened slightly as he looked at the well-known badge. ‘Tt didn’t need that to tell me who ye were, Yank,” he said, slowly. ‘‘ ’veseen ye afore.” ‘« Indeed!” said Grey, eagerly. *‘I thought I knew your face, too. What regiment did you belong to?” The hunter threw up his head uaa, and seemed about to answer, when another feeling checked him from the utterance, **No, no,” he said, gloomily; ‘“‘never_mind now. ‘Tis all over, many a year agone, Yank. Let her rest. You have a history; you can look at the that once waved in the color com- pany, as it hangs on the wall inits tatters, and you can feel the prouder for it. Ours is hidden away in garrets for the moths to devour, and we have to wipe our eyes after a good look at the poor old rags. Never mind w I was or what the regiment.” “Well, well,” said Grey, kindly, “*I don’t mean to recall painful feelings, my dear sir. You must come in and have supper with us.” It had not escaped his notice or Julian’s that when the giant hunter was agitated he dropped Alligator Ike. ee his cracker draw], and spoke like an educated gentleman. ‘* Come in and sup with us,” he pursued. ‘‘ The sun bas seb and it grows dark. Tie up your scow, and we'll fasten to the bank.” ANigator Ike nodded absently and stepped on board the yacbt, where he stood leanin against the stera railing, while the little vesse steamed slowly up the stream to the only bare place in sight on the bank, and tied up to a palm tree for the night. The hunter remained where he bad first stopped, motionless as a statue, appearing to be absorbed in thought, till the Lily had been tied up, when he looked at the upper deck in time to catch the intent gaze of three ladies, two of them young and pretty, who instantly drew back their heads, as if abashed at being found out in peeping. Alligator Ike’s lip curled as he muttered to himself inaudibly: ** Fool! did ye think your time was come again? What have you to do with women now 7 He turned away, threw his old-fashioned brown rifle over his arm, and went forward to the bow of the boat, where he found pilot, engineer and fireman, making things snug for the night, Colonel Grey superintending. ‘‘ See here, Yank,” he said, abruptly, ‘‘’twon’t do. I take it all back. Ican’t stay hyar. I should smother. I’m gwine back to the woods.” Grey laid bis hand on bis arm. ‘*My dear sir, you’ve passed your word to stay with me and I shall hold you toit. Your fellow-soldiers have never brokenit. They gave their parole and—” “ Hold on,” interrupted Alligator Ike, fierce- ly. ‘‘ Don’t ye make no mistake, Yank. J never give no parole to no man.” ‘You gave it to me,” said Colonel Grey firmly; ‘‘and you can’t escape. You promised to be my guide for a hundred dollars a month, and I shall bold you to the promise.” Alligator Ike looked at him ate ‘“Ye will have it then,” he muttered, ‘‘I told ye yell be sorry for it; so ye will. But don’t say I hain’t warned ye. What’s that for?” A bell was ringing in the cabin. _ “That is for supper,” said the colonel heart- y. ‘*Come in, sir, and remember that I trust to the honor of a Southern gentleman to make me never repent my confidence. Come in.” Alligator Ike hesitated a moment, then bowed his head and followed his bost into the hand- some cabin of the yacht where Grey said: ‘*My wife, my daughter Alice, and Miss Zuniga, Mr. Strang. Julian you know already, Come, let us sit down at once.” CHAPTER V. A RUDE GUEST. Tue cabin of the Lily was furnished witha comfort and luxury that showed ber owner to be a rich man who knew how to enjoy life wherever he went. : It occupied two-thirds of the boat, was divided into state rooms by temporary folding partitions that could be taken down in the day time, so as to throw the whole area into a single large sa- loon; and such was its condition that eveuune, while the center was occupied by a dining-table covered with a snowy cloth and glittering with silver and cut glass. Into this cabin, fitted up in expensive hard woods, entered the Grey family, bandsome in dress and appearance, with luxury and refine- ment visible in every feature, and with them, as an equal, stalked’ in the alligator-hunter, in bis hard leathern jacket and boots, his coarse red shirt—a striking contrast, Yet somehow it seemed, even to the women of the Grey family, that the big man didn’t look so much out of place as might have been ex- pected, rough as was bis attire. He removed his hat with a slight, rather cold bow, to the ladies of the party, and entered the splendid cabin with the same ease and simplicity as if itbad beena hut in the midst of the forest. He appeared not in the least abashed, but only inclined to be cold and distant in bis manner, as if he were a savage prince into whose land they bad come unasked, but toward whom his dig- nity compelled him to be civil. Mrs. Grey, a simple, kind-hearted woman was not a litfle afraid of the gloomy, bearded giant, while the two girls eyed him with fear and admiration combined; for Alligator Ike was a very fine figure of a man, and his face was exceedingly handsome when his broad hat was removed. ‘ “Mr. Strang,” said the polond) eri him to a seat, ‘* you will be kind enough to sit between my daughter and Miss Zuniga. The young ladies will, I DORs attend to your wants.” ¥ Alligator Ike bowed slightly and answered in his deep voice and most pronounced dialect: “The young ladies is very good, but in the South we men don’t let ladies wait on us. We wait on ¢ , The colonel smiled. ** We won't ute over that. Here comes dinner. Soup, Mr, Strang?’ “ Thank ye, no, sir,” returned Ike coldly. ‘I never teches the stuff. It’s p’izen to us wood- men,” The colonel colored slightly at the remark: but helped the rest of the party, while Alliga- tor Ike sat bolt upright in silence at the table not moving amuscle, but staring at a cut glass bottle, while the other people ate their soup rather awkwardly. Colonel Grey began to feel that he had made a mistake, for a silence had fallen on the party which it seemed impossible to break, and the face of the hunter looked particularly stern and forbidding. Presently the fish came on, fresh from the river; and Colonel Grey, without asking any questions, sent a plate of delicious black bass to the hunter in common with the rest. Still more to the host’s discomfiture, Ike said to the black waiter, in gruff tones: “You kin take it away, boy. I don’t ever eat no fish, less I ketches it myself.” Alice Grey, the only one who did not seem to be afraid of the giant, and who was a spoiled beauty, used to having her own way, here tit- tered audibly and looked up into Ike’s stern eyes, saying: ‘‘Mr. Strang, may 1 ask you a question?” The alligator-hunter nodded slightly. ‘You may, miss.” ““Why don’t you eat fish of any one else’s catching, and what is the use of sitting down to dinner unless one does eat ?’”’. Ike shrugged his broad shoulders. **T ain’t good at conundrums, miss.” ‘One would think you were like the lady in the Arabian Nights story who ate rice with a bodkin,” retorted Alice, rang “T don’t think you’re a bit nice to bebave like that.” Alligator Ike compressed his lips and cast a glance out of the window over the river, but made no answer, and another silence fell on the party till the waiter made his appearance with a third course, which proved to be a dish of wild ducks, when Grey said quietly: “Now, Mr. Strang, I hope we’ve something to tempt you at last. Surely you eat roast duck?” Ike shook bis head. : ‘Thank ye sir,” he said in the coolest way in world. ‘I never eat ducks.” ‘‘Then what in the world will cried Julian oer suddenly. ‘‘ We've tried you with everything under the sun. What will you have?’ Alligator lke looked at him indifferently, ‘‘ Nothing that you Yanks kin give me, L told yer father not to keep me; but he ‘lowed as bow he’d make me come to dinner, and here Iam. Now let’s see him make me eat,” The colonel colored high at this openly rude ecb, and replied with as much courtesy as he could retain under the circumstancis: ‘‘]-am sorry you put itin that light. In the North we consider a man is bound to be civil to the guests at his own table, and to the host at whose table he sits, one as much as the other. I am sorry if you have determined not to eat at my table at all.” Alligator lke looked at him in a singular way, and a smile of dubious import curled Lis black beard as be answered slowly: ‘Yank, I told ye me and you couldn’t cot- ton together, but since a bargain’s a bargain, and I said I'd be yer guide, Vil be it, But guides don’t come to dinner in the cabin, nor they don’t eat with the ladies of the family. Ye made a mistake, and that’s all there is bout it. Reckon we'll be more comfortable if 1 go ashore aud cook my own grub my own way. We-uns and you-’uns ain’t made to be together. Reckon I'll say good-evenin’,” As he spoke he rose up in his six feet and several inches more of bone and brawn, and bowed to the ladies. ; ‘‘ Ladies,” said this singular alligator-hunter, with a grace in his bearing and face that was in singular contrast with bis uncouth dialect, ‘‘ I’ve b’en brought in here ag’in’ my will, and I’ve bad to do and say things I hadn’t orter do and say. You-uns is from the North, we~uns is from the South, and some on us is jest as hot rebs as we was twenty year ago, when we was pottin’ Yanks. But I hain’t nothin’ to say or do ag’in’ you ladies. Good-evenin’.” And with that he bowed low, stepped across the saloon where he had laid his rifle and hat, took up both and stalked out. At the door he paused to say: ‘‘Cunnel Grey, when you want to talk guide, arter supper, I’m with yer. Tell one of the boys: to toot a whistle three times, and I'll come. My dinner’s in the wood.” Then he vanished, and Grey said, pettishly: ‘‘Serves me right for trying to patch ae eace with those imbittered savages. ell eae no peace till the generation’s dead. Come, children, eat your dinner. I won’t let it spoil ne. And indeed an incubus seemed to be lifted from the party after the exit of the hunter, for they all began to eat and talk and discuss him at the same time with some resultant confusion. “T think he’s a very handsome fellow,” ob- served Alice Grey, ‘‘ but it’s evident that he hates us as if we were his mortal foes.” 3 ‘He makes me shudder when I look at him,” ou have?’ soo ig gute mal <¢om cbooks:com