More days passed, and the houseboat was making steady progress down the Mississippi, with as happy a party of lads aboard as could be found anywhere. Indeed, each day seemed to bring new delights along with it; and so lighthearted were the chums that every little while Bluff would break out in some college song, to be joined in the chorus by several other hearty voices.

They fished many times, and took toll of the waters they passed over; though sometimes the hooks came in empty, and they had to change the order arranged for dinner that evening. Once Bluff, who had gone ashore with his favorite gun over his shoulders, was heard to shoot several times; and the others were more or less concerned as to what manner of spoils he might have run across; for really at this time of year the law did not allow of hunting, save for woodcock, and very few other edible kinds of game.

When he came in shortly afterwards it was to fling down a magnificent specimen of the red-tailed hawk.

“Why, would you believe it,” asserted Bluff, stoutly, “the measly thing just went for me like hot cakes, and I never did a thing to rile her up. I had to use my gun first of all, to club her away; and then, as she darted down at me, I just thought it was a mighty poor game that two couldn’t play at; so I began to shoot. Took several times to make her be good. Looky here, where she scratched me in the cheek when she tried to carry me off at first.”

The others never did know the true inwardness of that story. Frank guessed that Bluff, deeming a big, saucy hawk fair game, had blazed away and wounded her; and that he got his scratched cheek when he came to close quarters with the bird.

But to the victor belong the spoils; and in reality Frank believed the hawk was likely to do more damage to farmers’ chickens and the small song birds, than it might good by destroying mice and such vermin that play such havoc with the growing crops. And for many days did that handsome hawk hang there, nailed on the cabin wall of the houseboat.

Frank continued to study Luther Snow. He was slowly making up his mind that they must get rid of him before arriving anywhere near New Orleans. He had mentioned Vicksburg once or twice as the point where they would purchase him a ticket on the railroad, so he could get to his destination quickly; but secretly Frank had arranged with his chums that Memphis should be the point of departure.

“Between us,” remarked Jerry, on one occasion, as they were talking it over together, while Luther was inside the cabin, asleep on the cot they had made up for his occupancy; “I really don’t think the old chap wants to leave us at all, but would rather stay aboard till we get to Orleans.”

“Sure he would,” remarked Will, with a nod and a grin; “he’d be a silly not to, when he’s certain of three square meals a day, and such meals,” and he smacked his lips in a way that must have made the cook feel proud that his talent was appreciated so much.

“Yes, I happen to know he wants to stick by us,” remarked Bluff.

“Tell us how, then,” said Frank, quickly, his eye on the door of the cabin.

“Well, more’n a few times, when we got to talkin’, Luther, he’d turn to the subject of the great expense he’d been to us; and then he’d always say he hoped we’d change our minds, and not put him ashore at Vicksburg, because he wasso contented aboard here, and wished he could just finish the voyage with us. Besides, he said we might need his help later on, as a doctor; and you know he did fix me up the finest way ever when I fell on that axe, and cut my leg so bad a week ago. Reckon no regular sawbones could have done the job better.”

“He says he studied for a doctor’s sheepskin away back, and was always sorry he didn’t keep right along,” Will put in.

“How about that, Frank; do we keep him or assist him on his way by rail?” Bluff asked; but Frank would not commit himself, because he believed that in some way the old man might hear of it, and play “sick” when they drew near Memphis, so that they could not have the heart to put him ashore.

He was himself coming to some sort of conclusion in the matter, and it first of all seemed to be founded on a certain fact, which by now Frank had made certain of. Luther Snow was not the real name of their passenger. Frank had made a startling discovery one day recently, and it put an end to his bewilderment at least. It happened that, chancing to notice some handkerchiefs the old man had stowed in his various pockets, and which he was washing out, after a crude fashion that would have made a woman laugh, Frank saw that in every case a name had been carefully erased with indelible ink.

Then again there began to be other little things about the old man that told the observing lad he surely had never been a carpenter. Frank purposely asked him to build some boxes out of several smooth boards purchased for the purpose; and the result was a botched job that any second-class carpenter would have blushed to own. Even Bluff screwed up his eyebrows when he saw them, and privately declared that he did not wonder old Luther was out of a job so often, if that was a sample of the best he could do along the line of his trade.

To Frank there was a deeper significance in this failure to make good on the part of their passenger. No wonder his hands were so free from calloused places, for Frank now felt positive that Luther had never been a carpenter in all his life.

If that part was made up, then probably the entire tale was only a “fairy story,” told for a purpose. That purpose was to get aboard the houseboat, for some reason or other. Well, he had been aboard for some weeks now, and nothing had happened, only he seemed to like it so well he wanted to remain with the boys until they reached New Orleans.

There was something about this desire on his part that impressed Frank. If, as he now actually began to believe, Luther Snow was really the Marcus Stackpole of whom Uncle Felix had particularly warned them, why had he not picked up the hidden treasure Jerry was always talking about, and disappeared long ago?

Frank somehow began to believe that, after all, there was no secret cache aboard the boat which might contain valuables in the shape of papers or jewels. Jerry liked to think there was, but really they had not a peg on which to hang such an idea; except that queer Uncle Felix seemed to want to keep strangers off the boat, and particularly a man he seemed to dislike very much, one Marcus Stackpole.

Frank was even now busying himself with trying to lay some little trap by means of which he might learn the truth.

“I’ll take him unawares some time,” he was saying to himself, as he stood on deck that afternoon, after they had tied up, with the sunlight around him, and looked out from under the shady branches of the tree to which the boat was fast; “and spring that name on him – call him Mr. Stackpole. If he can look me in the eye, and never show a sign, I’ll have to think I’m mistaken; but all the same, off this boat he goes at Memphis, if I have to get an ambulance, and send him to the hospital.”

Bluff was seated, as he often might be seen, on the rail of the boat; while Will pottered over the tangled fish lines, for Jerry had taken a notion to put a new roll of film in the little camera, and was even then rubbing it up. Luther Snow, a blanket about his shoulders, sat near by, watching it all in a pleased sort of way.

“Time was when I could stand anything, boys,” remarked the old man as he gathered this covering closer to his body; “and I reckon I’ve been through considerable all over the wide world, for a man who never had a cent that he didn’t earn himself. But I’m getting a little old now, you see. I begin to feel rheumatism in my bones, and sometimes I begin to believe that my days as a rover are nearly over.”

Frank always listened when he started to speak of experiences in his checkered past. It often aroused the curiosity of the boy to understand how a man who, as he confessed himself, was only a common carpenter (and a mighty poor one at that, Frank would say to himself), had been able to get around in all the queer corners of the world that Luther Snow had.

He seemed to know many foreign cities by heart, and spoke of certain things in a way that only one familiar with them could do. Well, there could be no doubt of one thing, and this was that Luther occupied the rôle of a mystery to Frank, a puzzle he could not wholly solve.

If, then, he proved to be Marcus Stackpole, the very man against whom they had been especially warned, what did he want?

Frank kept repeating that to himself time and again as he lounged there and in the light of the declining sun watched his chums; then turned his eyes in the direction of the man who had the blanket about his shoulders, and who seemed so satisfied to be with them on board Uncle Felix’s houseboat.

It was Jerry who startled them all suddenly by calling out:

“Hey! there’s a gray squirrel right over your head, Bluff! Watch me give the little beggar a scare, will you?”

He reached over, and picked up one of a number of sticks of wood which had been brought on board at their last stop, being intended to serve as fuel for the little cook stove, after they had been chipped in half, perhaps.

This was a short and heavy one Jerry had selected. Rising to his feet, he gave it one whirl around his head, and then let fly. Jerry had always been reckoned something of a thrower. He often played in the pitcher’s box before he went away from home, and was even now a promising fielder on the sub nine at college.

So Frank would not have been very much surprised had he succeeded in knocking the squirrel in question off his perch. But he was very much astonished at the most remarkable consequences of Jerry’s shot.

There was an angry scream, such as only an enraged cat could make; and something large and hairy, with extended legs, came floundering down upon the deck of the houseboat directly in front of Bluff. Indeed, in its passage, the wildcat, for it turned out to be nothing else, made a vicious stab for Bluff; and that excited as well as alarmed individual was so taken aback, that quite naturally he lost his grip on the railing of the boat, and fell over into the river.

This was getting to be a settled habit with Bluff, for he seemed capable of going overboard on the slightest excuse, just as though he rather liked taking a plunge into the cool waters of the Mississippi.

And the angry cat sprawled there on the deck, yowling and snarling, as if daring anyone to dispute his right to be monarch of all he surveyed.

CHAPTER XIX – A BOBCAT ON BOARD

“Help!” gasped Jerry, who seemed to be in some sort of a pickle, having managed to get his legs crossed in such a way, as he sat there pottering with Will’s camera, that in the excitement of the moment he was unable to either rise, or roll out of the danger zone.

As sometimes happens in a case like this, it turned out to be the one least expected to play the part of hero. Nobody dreamed that Will – quiet, sensitive Will, the artist of the expedition, and a boy given more to dreaming than doing strenuous things – would jump into the breach as he did.

In fact, he was never able to explain it himself, save that somehow he seemed to imagine those clubs on the deck were just made for belaboring a tiger-cat over the head with; and from the fact that Bluff had gone over into the river, with Jerry calling wildly for help, it must be up to him to dosomething.

Why, he snatched up one of the heavy sticks as though he had been anticipating just such a sudden call, and had his plan of campaign already laid out.

“Take care, Will; don’t let him get in at you with those sharp claws!” cried the startled Frank, as he too tried to possess himself of a suitable cudgel, if there chanced to be another worth having in the bunch.

He could not find what he wanted on the spur of the moment – one was too slender to promise any results; while another seemed much too short with which to attack a vicious wildcat.

Will did not appear to expect any help in his fight. The way he kept at it was a revelation to those who watched him, for all the while Frank sought his stick, he kept one eye on the battle, determined to jump in, if necessary, club or no club.

Whack! came the cudgel Will yielded against the side of the bobcat, knocking the savage beast sprawling on the deck; though like his kind the cat could not be kept down, but was on its feet instantly, more angry than ever.

“Whoop! hit him again for his mother!”

It was surely Bluff who gave utterance to that shout. Evidently he had not cared to stay there in the river, while so much that was exciting seemed to be occurring aboard the houseboat; and taking advantage of some objects upon which he was able to seize, Bluff had clambered up far enough to thrust his head over the side, in time to witness that splendid “home run hit” made by timid Will.

Well, they would hardly be likely to ever call him that again, after seeing how vigorously he went after the now demoralized wildcat, getting in blows whenever an opening occurred, and meanwhile poking at the beast threateningly.

It crouched there, snarling as only such a beast can, with its ears drawn back, and its green eyes seeming to emit sparks. Once it sprang full at the boy, and Mr. Snow uttered a cry of alarm; he made his way into the cabin, and now held Bluff’s repeating gun in his hands, with the air of a hunter accustomed to such tools; but there seemed small chance to get a fair shot, the boy and the cat were so close to each other.

But Will proved as quick as a flash in his movements. He met this leap of his feline foe just as cleverly as a champion ball player might a swift one, straight over the plate. There was a loud concussion; and then they had a view of a squirming, hairy figure just passing over the rail above Bluff, four legs working overtime in the effort to get a grip with those keen-pointed and poisonous claws.

Luther Snow thrust the gun into the hands of Frank, who had been in the act of trying to meet the figure of the cat at the instant the animal made his spring.

“It’s your right to wind him up, Frank!” the man said; and seemed as cool as any one accustomed to scenes of peril all his life could be.

So Frank stepped to the rail, and seeing the baffled bobcat just about climbing the bank, he wound up his existence with one shot.

“Wow! is it all over?” demanded Bluff, who, when the cat came sailing toward him a second time, had simply let go, and dropped with another splash into the river; because, as he afterwards said, he was already as wet as he could get; and knew he would be safe down there from those threatening claws.

Will was as pale as a ghost, and breathing hard from his exertions, when Frank rushed over to seize his hand and squeeze it.

“Good boy, Will!” he exclaimed. “We’re proud of you this day, believe that. Why, what you didn’t do to that poor beast could be put into a thimble. I’ll never, never forget it, as long as I live!”

“Maybe you won’t have to,” remarked Jerry, who, it seemed, had finally managed to get on his feet again, and now stood there; holding the camera in his hands, a grin of delight on his face.

“What do you mean, Jerry?” asked Frank.

But Will saw the little black box, and being himself always just wild to snap off everything he could run across that promised to make a good picture, he seemed to jump to the right conclusion.

“Did you do it, Jerry?” he demanded, eagerly.

“I rattled her right lively; and if I didn’t make a big mistake, you ought to get some good pictures out of the lot,” replied Jerry, handing Will’s property over.

“Well,” remarked the wet figure that came crawling over the rail just then, “if you only managed to press the button when that crazy cat was sailing into Will, and our chum gave him that blow on the nose, you’ve got something we’ll all be proud to see.”

“That was when I pushed the button the last time, I reckon,” Jerry declared; “but honest to goodness, I was that excited I wouldn’t like to say right now that I got anything but the tip of pussy’s tail.”

“Oh! I hope it won’t be so bad as that,” said Will; “not that I want to figure in a picture, because I’d ten times rather it was one of the rest; but I’ve always wanted to get a snapshot of a bobcat on the jump.”

“He was on the jump, all right!” affirmed Bluff. “I thought he’d drop on my head, and jab my eyes out, so I ducked. I like cats all right, in their proper places; which I take it is in the laps of old maids. I haven’t lost any cat, and wasn’t looking for one. But, Frank, since I’m wet already, let me go in and get your game before he drifts away.”

“Don’t call it my game,” remarked Frank, positively; “that honor belongs to Will here. And if we can cure the skin, he’s going to have a little rug made out of it to remember this occasion by.”

“Hear! hear!” cried Jerry; while Bluff, who shed moisture with every step he took, waded out to where the dead animal was floating on the water in a little swirl just below the tied-up houseboat.

“Well, I’m going to develop that film to-night, you hear,” said Will; “because I just can’t wait to see what Jerry did. I hope he got more of the cat than his tail. It ain’t much of a tail at that, either, seems to me. But look at these claws, and his sharp teeth. Ugh! I don’t believe I’d have had the nerve to tackle him, if I’d seen them first.”

“Yes, you would!” declared Bluff, confidently. “Always thought you was timid-like, William, because you never blew your horn about what you’d do; but sure, I’ve changed my mind; and now I reckon you’ve got more real spunk than anyone in the whole bunch.”

“Just what I meant to say, Bluff,” remarked Frank.

“And my sentiments to a hair,” Jerry added.

“I’ve seen some instances of bravery in my time, but few that could equal the way he attacked that angry wildcat, and sent it over the rail,” Luther Snow said, with sincerity in his voice.

“But, Will, I hope the beast didn’t scratch you anywhere,” Frank went on; “for you know it’s sometimes a dangerous thing to be wounded by the claws of any wild beast that lives on animal food. Lots of hunters have died from blood poisoning, even when they thought the scratches hardly worth washing, they were so small.”

“He never touched me, Frank, that I know of; and I can’t see a sign of a scratch anywhere on my hands,” Will replied, proudly.

“And there don’t seem to be any on your neck or face,” Jerry declared, after an examination. “But, Frank, if there had been, would you have used that purple stuff you carry in that little bottle, tightly corked, and labeled ‘poison’?”

“Just what it’s for,” came the reply, “and it disinfects any sort of wound that seems suspicious. The only trouble is, that it leaves a dark stain on the flesh for some days. It’s permanganate of potash, and any druggist will put it up if he’s told what it’s for. But when one’s life may pay the forfeit, what does a little pain, or stain, amount to?”

“You are quite right, my boy,” remarked Luther Snow. “I’ve carried a small phial of that same stuff thousands of miles, over African trails, and through the better part of India. And if I’ve used it once, I suppose I have fifty times; for myself or some gun bearer who was clawed by a lion or tiger.”

Again did Frank have that deep conviction that there was something strange about this Luther Snow, as he called himself. How a poor carpenter, who had never had a dollar he did not earn himself, could spend years in hunting just for pleasure, all over Asia and Africa, bothered him. But some day he expected to know what the key could be to this riddle.

That night the talk was all about past experiences that had come the way of the four Outdoor Chums. One story brought up another, and through it all Luther Snow sat there, listening as though spellbound. If he had been somewhat of a traveler and a hunter, as an old man; surely these boys deserved more or less credit for what they had been through, considering their years.

Frank felt drawn toward the man in spite of himself. There were times when he believed that if this mystery that hung over Luther Snow could only be lifted he might look on him with friendly eyes.

But he never wavered in the least with regard to that resolution he had taken, which was to the effect that when they reached the city on the bluff, Memphis, he would play a little lone hand he was arranging, and see to it that Luther was left behind; with plenty of money in his pocket, placed there secretly, to cover all further expenses down to the city he wished to reach, according to his story – New Orleans.