“What’s this mean? What you doing on this island? What you hurt this dog for?” Wampus’s Uncle Oscar asked when we came up to the men.
They were river-rats, all right, or tramps, or toughs of some kind; you could tell that by their looks. And one was the toughest-looking customer I ever did see! He had only one eye and that was an ugly one—keen and wicked-looking. His right hand had only two fingers and a thumb, and there were three deep scars across his face. He had a regular pirate’s bunch of black whiskers, and all he needed was a red sash with a couple of pistols stuck in it, and a cutlass, and a red handkerchief tied around his head, and a pair of brass rings in his ears, to look like a real pirate. And when he moved out from the nettles we saw he had one wooden leg—scarred and chipped as if he had used it to break rocks.
His mate, the other man, was smaller and meaner-looking, if anybody could look meaner. He looked like a rat—sneaky-looking. We called him the Rat when we talked about him afterward. So when Wampus’s uncle shouted at them, they looked at us.
“That’s all right, boss; that’s all right!” the Tough Customer said. “No harm meant. Pardner and I don’t mean no harm. We didn’t know anybody was on this island. We wouldn’t do no harm.”
“What did you try to kill that dog for, then?” Wampus’s uncle asked, and no fooling, either.
“Well, he come at us, boss,” the Tough Customer said. “We was just walking through here and the dog come at us. So I took a swipe at him with a club. Anybody would, boss, when a dog comes at him that way.”
“Well, you look here!” Wampus’s uncle said. “This is a private island, owned by folks, and nobody is allowed on it. And no nonsense about it, either. You get off, and you stay off, or you’re liable to get shot, or worse. You get off this island now, and you stay off it hereafter.”
“Yes, sure, boss!” the Tough Customer said. “We’ll do that; we don’t mean no harm; we wouldn’t touch anything, anyhow.”
And that might have been all right, but just then something went “Arr-awk—arr-awk!”—and anybody would have known it was a chicken. Orpheus Cadwallader made about five steps, and grabbed the Rat, and stuck his hand into the Rat’s shirt, and, sure enough, in the back of the Rat’s shirt was one of Orpheus’s own chickens. It gave a flop of its wings and scooted for its coop, making big flying leaps and scolding as it went. So Orph made a swipe at the Rat with the end of his gun, but the Rat dodged, and then turned and ran as hard as his legs could carry him. Orph let fly with both barrels of his shotgun, but there were too many trees; he did not even pepper the Rat.
“So!” said Wampus’s uncle. “That’s the idea, is it? Well, we’ll just see you off the island right here and now. Where’s your boat?”
The Tough Customer looked at the pistol Wampus’s uncle carried, and I guess he decided that Wampus’s uncle wouldn’t shoot a man in the back, not unless he ran, anyway, and he turned and stumped off toward the bank of the slough until he came to the path, and then he turned down the path a hundred yards, and all of us following him.
There was a place there where the arum and pickerel weed came close to the shore, but the water was two or three feet deep, and tied to a tree there was a shanty-boat—one of the smallest and worst old shanty-boats I ever saw. It did not look over ten feet long, and it wasn’t more than five feet wide, with not a window in it, and the deck not over two feet wide. The boards of which it was made were thin and old and warped, and the only power was a ten-foot pole with a board nailed on one end.
When he came to the shanty-boat, the Tough Customer stopped to untie his shore line and threw it aboard. He did not say another word. He took his ten-foot pole from the roof of the shanty-boat and braced it against the shore and pushed, and the boat slithered among the weeds and glided out from the shore.
We stood and watched until the shanty-boat was out in the middle of the slough, where the current caught it and swung it slowly downstream. Then the Tough Customer rested and looked toward us, and swore at us strong and steady for a long while, and Wampus’s uncle said it was all over, and we went home. I looked Rover’s paw and ear over, and saw they were not so bad, so I tied him up again and went to bed. Of course, mother asked all about what had happened, and said she had been frightened when she heard the gunshots, but she was glad everything was all right and the tramps were off the island.
The next morning there was only one thing for me to do if I wanted to have mother let me keep Rover on the Island, and that was to explore for dead fish and get them out of
