Driftwood (Spears)/Chapter 17

’LL take you over to talk to Dad," the ferry boy had told Jep, and with the baby, the baby-carriage, and Jep in the skiff, he rowed over to the house-boat where the ferryman lived.

Crimson was the man’s name, and he listened to the story Jep told, a frank narrative, including the reason why he had run away from New Madrid. The story excited the indignation of the man. "They hain’t no right to take that baby away from you ’ns!" he said. "But you can’t stay here. The rewarders’ll be tearin’ down around these boats, now, lookin’ for you. They’d like to pick up a hundred dollars reward money. They’ll search for you all along the river, at towns and eddies. A kid like you, with a baby, is a pretty easy mark to spot. Funny they didn’t pick you up-town to-day, but your nerve goin’ right around the way you did saved you. Let’s see."

The man thought a while, and his wife served supper for the family. He had noticed the house-boat moored to the willow, but hadn’t happened to see it float down-stream. At the same time, he thought probably it had pulled the tree along with it.

"That willow’s just a drifter," he said. "It come down and lodged there among some brush-stumps. A little strain, and the boat’d float out. It’d been caught down below, only there’s no boats tied along the Ridge, and nobody’d notice a shanty-boat goin’ by, anyhow, thinkin’ somebody was inside, watchin’ through the window."

After supper he put Jep and the baby into a hunting cabin-launch, and drove up Ash Slough. Two hours later he left them in a fisherman’s cabin-boat moored in the woods along the banks of Beef Island Chute.

"Si Drury here’ll take care of you, and I’ll keep you posted about them tryin’ to find you," Crimson assured the boy. "Us river folks takes care o’ one another, for if we didn’t stand by one another, the Up-the-Bankers’d drive us off the river, and then where’d we be? I used to know your dad in the old days. We whacked up together, one time driftin’ a hundred-and eighty-seven log raft, good pine logs, that we landed in the Hickman eddy, after fightin’ the current all one night, and for about fifty miles. We made a hundred and eighty-seven dollars doin’ it, and ate a dinner with the odd dollar. You ask him! He’ll remember it. I’ll smell around down below, and see what I can do; and I won’t tell anybody or do anythin’ without I tell you first!"

He kept his promise literally, too. For after days of waiting, late one evening there was a hail from the chute, and Crimson came aboard.

"They’ve rewarded you two kids for ’leven hundred, now," the man said. "We can’t take any chances of any kind. Looks like you-all must be a powerful bad pair of river pirates, specially that kid there! If ever I did see an ornery, no ’count, mean-lookin’, desperate river rat, that little un shore is bad!"

The baby, feeling that he was being talked about, threw up his hands and laughed aloud.

"’Leven hundred reward!" gasped Jep. "What—what they got ag’in me?"

"Reckon those adoptin’ females up there wants that baby powerful strong, youngster. If you wanted easy money, now, likely you could get it just by givin’ up the kid, eh?"

"What!" Jep demanded, his eyes narrowing and his face setting.

"Hi-i! Look ’t the man in him!" Crimson laughed. "He’d never go back on any pal o’ his, not for money—not for anything!"

"I’d do anything if I thought it’d be best for Driftwood," Jep returned. "I wish I mout find my folks—and get to talk to ’em!"

"’Course, I don’t know," Crimson shook his head. "I ’low maybe Jep Veraine may be your name, and likely ’t isn’t. Anyhow, there’s a fellow says his name is Jimmy Veraine, out in the boat here—"

"What!" Jep shouted, jumping to his feet, and at his cry the stern door opened and Jimmy bounded into the room, then stopped and blinked in the bright light. The two boys, six feet apart, looked at each other, and glanced around at the two men and the fisherman’s wife, controlling themselves with visible effort.

"Howdy, Jim!" Jep greeted.

"Howdy, Jep!" Jimmy replied as gravely. "How’s the kid?"

"Oh, all right! Where you been?"

"Trippin’ down. We got to Helena. Found your boat driftin’ down, so we sort o’ thought maybe we’d better come up and look for you."

"I stopped to Memphis," Jep explained. "Boat tore loose."

"It was tied to a willow ’bout four inches through. Pulled out by the roots."

"I was just wishin’ you’d come along."

"Mr. Crimson said so. You’re rewarded!"

"Yes."

"Mr. Carruth’s down to Memphis. Perhaps he could fix it up. It’s about the kid, you know. You ain’t done nothin’ wrong."

"’Course I haven’t! They hadn’t any right to take Driftwood, there!"

"Poor kid!" Jimmy said as he lifted the baby to his knees. "I bet your mother probably ’d like to git you back."

"I’ve seen women rear around a heap about lots less likely kids than that one," Crimson said.

"’Course you have!" the fisherman’s wife exclaimed. The two men laughed.

Jepson Veraine stared into space. Forces that he couldn’t understand were compassing him about. A reward was offered for him—eleven hundred dollars to be paid for his capture. It was the grimmest fact he had ever faced, and it took all his courage to sit there, as he was doing, thinking things out.

The two men and the woman looked at him curiously. Jimmy glanced at him, but played with the baby on his knees. It seemed as though Driftwood knew that something momentous was about to happen. He waved his hands toward Jep, who had been caring for him so long. Getting no response, he slid down from Jimmy’s lap, and toddled over to the menaced youth, who took him upon his lap, and wrapped him in his arms.

Still Jep thought, resting his cheek on the baby’s head. After a long time he straightened up and his grave eyes met Crimson’s own clear gaze.

"I think I’d better go down to Memphis, Mr. Crimson," Jep said. "I don’t know what they want me for; I haven’t done any wrong; I’ve done the best I knew how. But Driftwood and me’ve just got to go and face the music! I don’t know what’s the matter, and I don’t care—much!—for I’m through runnin’ away!"

The three grown people stared for a minute in silence. Jimmy clicked his teeth.

"That’s right!" he said. "We don’t have to run from anything!"

"Good boys!" Crimson shouted. "That’s the way to do it! Face the music!"

The woman wrapped Driftwood up till she was sure he would not catch cold, and Crimson, Jimmy, Jep, and the baby went into the cabin-launch, to return to Memphis. The boys did not know what they were facing, but they would face it man-fashion, sure in their hearts that they had done no evil.

Crimson, that night, had seen something that he would always tell about—a river lad who would not be daunted, and who turned to face whatever a reward of eleven hundred dollars might mean, for that sum was too large to have been offered for some whim, as a mere hundred dollar reward had seemed to be.

Quietly they drove down the long bend, turned safely into Ash Slough, and dropped down to Crimson’s boat. But Jep would not stop there, even to have a cup of coffee.

"We’ll go straight to headquarters!" he declared, now that his mind was made up. "You’ll get Mr. Carruth, won’t you?"

"You may believe me I’ll do that! And I’ve got five hundred dollars to help pay for the best lawyer in the State of Missouri for you, too!" the ferryman exclaimed with enthusiasm. "We’ll stand by you—yes, indeedy!"

So they walked up Ferry Street, with Jep pushing the baby-carriage before him, refusing to let any one deprive him of that consolation at the most doleful moment of his life. For himself he did not worry so much; but he could not speak at the thought of having Driftwood taken from him.

"Laws! Laws!" he whispered to himself. "He’s sure good company! But prob’ly—likely they can educate ’im, and make ’m rich, or somethin’! But he ain’t theirs. Those women haven’t got any right to him! I’ll fight ’em. I’ll spend all the money I’ve got—Work a hundred years to get more money—but what I’ll keep him, same’s my blood brother!"

In just that little while Driftwood had won his way into the boy’s heart, and only two things could have persuaded Jep to go back—the fact that there was no wrong in his own heart, and the desire to give the baby a fair show according to the law.

That was the way Jep figured it all out. He couldn’t let the disgrace of a reward for him stand; he must be cleared! He would demand that the court and justice and the Government give him what he had earned by honest care and right of possession; and he knew that Jimmy and Sibley Carruth would waive their claims in his favor.

It was after two o’clock in the morning when the four entered the police station—Jep, Driftwood, Mr. Crimson and Jimmy. With the baby in his arms Jep walked up to the big desk where the captain sat. The policeman looked curiously at the little group, and nodded to Crimson, whom he knew.

"Well, what’s the idea?" the captain asked.

"I’m rewarded, and I’ve come to give myself up," Jep answered.

"What? Who are you? What’ve you done?"

"I’m—I’m Jepson Veraine, and I’m wanted—at New Madrid!"

"Oh—yes! So—so you’re the kiddnapper, eh?"

"No, sir!" Jep shook his head stoutly.

"That’s the baby, though?" "We found him in the drift!" Jimmy declared. "We—"

"Eh? That’s the way of it, eh? Well, all right! I know somebody that’ll be mighty, mighty happy to hear from you—I do, indeed!" the policeman nodded as he reached for the telephone.

"Howdy, Central!" he called into the instrument. "Give me toll!"