When the shanty-boat was out past the willow fringe, the Tough Customer swung aboard and grabbed his pole and began poling for dear life, shouting, “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” and then Orph slung one last slab at them and missed by ten feet, and about all that was left of the excitement was Rover, trying to bark his head off.
“That’s the end of them!” Orph said. “That’ll be the last we ever see of those two.”
He took his gun and he and Uncle Oscar started down toward the end of the island to watch the shanty-boat float by, and we all started down there with them. But when Jibby had gone a few yards, he stopped short. Then he turned back and worked his way through the willows to where the shanty-boat had been. He picked up a broken board and bent over the water and fished something white out from among the splinters of houseboat.
“What is it?” I asked, and he opened it and showed me.
It was the map of the pirate’s treasure place.
VIII
The Redheaded Bandit
Well, as soon as Jibby Jones got the map, we went down to the lower end of the island, and we saw the Tough Customer’s shanty-boat floating out of the slough and on down the river, and then we went back.
Orpheus Cadwallader and Wampus’s Uncle Oscar went back to the cottages, and we boys began looking for dead fish where we had left off, and as we looked we talked about the Tough Customer and the Rat and the land pirate’s treasure. We did not study the map then, because it was soaking wet. Jibby Jones pinned it inside his hat, so it could dry out there.
As we went along, Skippy and Tad and Wampus told me what they had heard the Tough Customer say to the Rat, and what they had heard the Rat say to the Tough Customer, and when they had told it all, Wampus said to me:
“George, I’ll bet the man the Tough Customer stole the map from was the Redheaded Bandit that tried to steal Rover last year. Because, listen—the Redheaded Bandit had a scar over his eye, didn’t he?”
“You bet he did!” I said. And all of a sudden I had a scared feeling, as if there was danger and mystery all around me and I knew it, but couldn’t see where or what it was exactly. You get the same feeling, sometimes, when you are walking through a big patch of weeds, taller than your head, and all of a sudden you hear a queer noise to the left of you, and a queer noise to the right of you, and then a cobweb strikes you across the face and sticks there, and you hear another queer noise behind you. That’s how I felt now—as if there was queerness and mystery all around our island. Because here was the Redheaded Bandit in this pirate’s treasure business, and I had never thought of the Redheaded Bandit as anything much.
The business of the Redheaded Bandit was like this: A year ago, the year before Jibby Jones came to our island, my sister May was going to be married to Mr. Edwin Skreever, of Derlingport, Iowa, on September 11th, in the evening. They were going to be married at our house down in town—in Riverbank—and from the way May and mother talked about it you would think it was going to be grand and lovely and everything. So May said to mother:
“Well, I suppose George and Wampus will have to be at the wedding, but I tremble to think of it. I know they will do some awful thing and spoil everything, but I suppose they will have to be there.”
May knew mighty well I wouldn’t go to her wedding or to anybody’s wedding unless Wampus went, too. We always go together.
“We’ll just have to hope for the best,” mother said.
“Well, there is one thing certain,” May said, “I’m not going to have those two boys down there until the last possible moment. When we go down to make the preparations, I want them left up here on the island where they will be out of mischief.”
That suited me, all right! I didn’t want to go down and have May nagging at me with her “Do keep your hands off that, George!” and “Please don’t touch that, George!”
We had been up there on Birch Island all summer—our family and Wampus Smale’s family and a dozen other families—living in the cottages on stilts and having a good time on the island and on the good old Mississippi. So, about the 1st of September, most of the families went back down to town, but our family and the Smales did not. They waited a few days longer.
Just about then—about the 1st of September—Mr. Edwin Skreever came down from Derlingport in his motorboat to visit with us until the wedding. I don’t say I liked him much; neither did Wampus. Maybe he was all right, but he was no fun. He thought he was wonderful, I guess, and May thought so, but he was too haughty to suit me. I guess he didn’t like boys much and he thought he had to be severe and solemn with them. He acted as if he thought he might die if the creases got out of his trousers. He had no use for my dog, either. He was always saying: “Down! Lie down! Get down! Get out!” to Rover. He did not like him.
You see, Rover is a pretty big dog and affectionate. He would rush up to Mr. Edwin Skreever and jump up on him and try to kiss him on the face. Sometimes he would get one paw on Mr. Edwin Skreever’s necktie and
