CHAPTER XXXI

THE CAPTAIN’S ORDERS

Maybe it wasn’t a very good speech, but anyway, he was nicer than he was before and he had an awful funny twinkle in his eye.

Then he said, “So you know how to dive, huh, sonny?  Can you keep your mouth shut?”

“Sure, you have to keep your mouth shut when you dive,” Pee-wee yelled up from the rowboat, and then the old man just had to laugh.

“I mean when you’re on land, sonny,” he said.

“Sure I can,” I told him.

“Well, then” he said, “if any of you scout kids goes about sayin’ as how Uncle Jimmy went away to the convention, and I ever meet you in your old skiff, by the Big Dipper I’ll run you down and cut you in half, that’s what I’ll do!  Do you hear?” he shouted.  “If you ever run afoul of the General Grant in the bay or anywheres else, by thunder, I’m Cap’n Savage, I am, and once upon a time I was Major Savage, and I should be at that there convention myself, instead of standing here blowing away at a better soldier than me!”

“Don’t you care, we’ll forgive you,” Pee-wee shouted up.

“Keep him quiet, will you?” I called down to Westy.

“Ask me something easy,” Westy said.

“And so you think you can dive,” old Captain Savage said, “or is that just boy scout talk?  Do I stand a chance of getting upstream and down again to-night, or not.  Where do you say that key-bar is?”

You can bet I knew just exactly where it was.  It was under the east span of the bridge and just underneath about the fifth or sixth plank from the centre.  I knew it was hard bottom down there, too.  So Captain Savage and the other man he had gave me a thin rope and we fastened one end on the deck.  I tied the other end of it around my waist in a loose French sailor’s knot, so I could pull it off without any trouble under water.

Then I dived.  I had to come up a couple of times without it, but the third time I got hold of it lying on the rocks, and quick as a flash I loosened the rope from my waist and tied it onto the keybar.  Then I came up, sputtering.

“Pull,” I sputtered, “you’ve got it; only pull easy.”  Then I scrambled up on the deck.  Believe me in less than a minute the tug-man and Westy and Pee-wee were on the bridge and had the key-bar fixed in its socket.  Then we started to push and around she went—­slow at first; then faster.

Oh, boy, wasn’t I glad to see old General Grant march through.  Just as I was going to get in the rowboat, Captain Savage stuck his head out of the window and shouted, “Here you, youngster; you come in here.  We have to overhaul accounts.”

“Scouts don’t accept anything for a service,” Westy shouted.

“I ain’t a-talking to you,” Captain Savage shouted; “you other feller, scramble aboard and come up here!  Don’t they learn you nothin’ about obedience in them thar scouts—­huh? you scramble up on board here like I tell you!” Oh, boy, I knew he meant me.