FIGHT OR FAIR PLAY

As the exchange of cartridges was in progress, five men, all armed, approached the bivouac. They had landed from a boat a hundred yards or so further down the creek, and attempted to creep upon the camp and take it by surprise.

Fortunately Larry’s quick ears had caught sound of them, and by the time the exchange of bird for buckshot was completed they were in plain view and not more than a dozen or twenty yards away.

“Halt!” Larry cried out to them, and as they seemed indisposed to obey the command, he called again:

“Stand where you are or we’ll shoot!”

There was no doubt in Larry’s mind that these men were a band of smugglers, or that they were trying to spring upon his party unawares. He had no mind to be taken by surprise by murderous ruffians. Fortunately for all concerned, his command was obeyed.

“Who are you and what do you want?”

“That we decline to say,” said the spokesman of the party.

“Then stand off,” said Larry, “or go back to your own place, wherever it is, or take the consequences.”

Larry was quick to observe that neither the words nor the tone of the one who had spoken were such as the drunken, degraded, ignorant men he had seen in the smugglers’ camp would have used, and the fact puzzled him. After a moment’s reflection he called out:

“If you have any business with us you may come ahead a few paces into the full light of the fire and say what you have to say. But if one of you raises a gun we’ll give you a volley of buckshot straight at your breasts. Come on out of the bushes and tell us what you want.”

As the advance was made and the full firelight fell upon the five men, Larry saw that they were in the uniform of the revenue cutter service, with which he was familiar.

“I beg your pardon, Boatswain,” he said, but without relaxing his watchfulness; “I couldn’t see your uniforms until now, and mistook your party for one of a very different sort. Come to the fire and tell us what you want; your men can stay where they are till we understand each other better.”

This last was said because of an apparent purpose on the part of the men to move forward in a body.

“Now then, Boatswain, what have you to say to us?” Larry asked, while the other three boys stood watchfully by the huge trunk of the fallen tree with their shotguns held precisely as they would have been had their owners been alertly waiting for a pointer to flush a flock of birds for them to shoot on the wing.

“We are men in the revenue service,” the boatswain answered. “We were sent ashore from the cutter that lies just off the mouth of the creek to ask who you are and what you are doing here—in short, to give an account of yourselves. It will save trouble if you answer us.”

“Coming from an agent of the revenue,” answered Larry, with dignity, “your questions are entirely proper. It was not necessary to couple an implied threat with them. However, that was nothing worse than a bit of ill manners, and I’ll overlook it. To answer your questions: My name is Lawrence Rutledge; one of the others is my brother. We live in Charleston, and with our two guests we are down here for a little sporting trip. Is there anything else you’d like to know about us?”

“That’s a queer sort of boat you’ve got,” answered the other.

“I asked if there was anything else you wanted to know,” said Larry, ignoring the comment on the dory’s appearance as an impertinent one.

“I guess you’ll have to talk with the lieutenant about that. You see I’m only a warrant officer.”

“Very well. Where is he?”

“On board the cutter.”

“Send for him then. We’ll give him any information we can.”

“I think I see myself sending for him! I’ll have to take you on board.”

“But we won’t go,” answered Larry, with eyes snapping.

“You’ll have to go.”

“But we won’t. We are American citizens, attending to our honest business. If your lieutenant or any other officer of the Government wishes to ask us any legitimate question, we’re ready to answer. But we will not endure insult or wrong. If you have a warrant for our arrest we’ll not resist, but we’ll not submit to arrest without authority.”

“We don’t have to bother about warrants when we’ve got smugglers dead to rights.”

“But we are not smugglers.”

“That’s for you to settle with the lieutenant. It’s my business to arrest all of you and take you on board the cutter.”

In a low voice, before the boatswain had finished his sentence, Larry said to his comrades:

“Jump over the log—we’ll make a breastwork of it,” and instantly they obeyed, leaving him on the side next the revenue men. Then to the boatswain he said:

“You’ve no right to arrest without a warrant. I tell you once for all we’ll not submit to arrest.”

“What’ll you do then?”

“We’ll fight first,” answered Larry, delivering the words like shots from a pistol, and leaping to the farther side of the fallen tree as he spoke.

The boatswain was bewildered. He knew, in a vague way, that no one can legally make an arrest without a warrant, except when he sees a person in the act of committing crime or running away from officers; but he had never before had an experience of determined resistance. He was accustomed to the summary ways of brute force that prevail in military life, and to him it seemed absurd for anybody to resist the only kind of constituted authority with which he was familiar.

He was sorely perplexed. He was by no means sure that the boys were the smugglers he had been sent to arrest. On the contrary, their manner, their speech and all other appearances were in their favor. Nevertheless his superior officers had been watching the dory’s movements for several days and had sent him ashore in full assurance that they had their quarry at bay. He was convinced that he ought to arrest the party, but he had only four men and himself for the work, and there stood four stalwart young fellows behind the fallen tree trunk with four double-barreled shotguns bristling across the barrier. The creek, with a sharp bend, lay upon their left and completely covered their rear, while on their right was a swamp so densely grown up in cane and entangled vines, to say nothing of the treacherous mud below, that passage across it would have been nearly impossible in the broadest light of day. Clearly Larry’s party must be assailed in front if assailed at all, and the boatswain was not to blame for hesitating to make an assault which would almost certainly cost the lives of himself and all his men. Add to this his uncertainty as to his right to make any assault at all, and what he did is easily understood.

He ordered his men to fall back to their boat, and as they did so he stood alone where he had been. When the men were well away, he said to Larry:

“You don’t think me a coward, do you?”

“Certainly not,” Larry answered.

“Well, this thing may get me into trouble you know, and if you’re the man you say you are, I may want you to help me out as a witness. Will you do it?”

“Yes, certainly. But what’s the use of getting into trouble? I’m willing to trust your word as an honorable fellow; if you’ll trust mine in the same way you and I can settle this whole matter in ten minutes in a way that will bring you praise instead of blame. Don’t go aboard the cutter and report a failure and be blamed for it; stay here and talk the matter over and then go aboard with a report that will do you honor. What do you say to that?”

“What are your terms?”

“Only that you meet me in the same spirit in which I meet you. Give up your notion that we are a gang of smugglers—you must see how absurd it is—and give up your claim of a right to arrest us without a warrant; meet me half way and I’ll show you how to get out of a scrape that you wouldn’t have got into but for those two mistaken guesses. We have no feeling of enmity toward you and no wish to injure you. If we were ready to fight you to the death, it was only in defense of our rights. Give up your attempt to invade those rights and there will be no quarrel between us. Is it a bargain?”

“Well, you speak fair anyhow. I don’t see what else I can do than meet you half way. I’m ready.”

“Very well, then,” said Larry, emptying his gun of its cartridges and signing to his comrades to do likewise. “As you have sent your men away, we’ll make things even by disarming ourselves.”

With instinctive recognition of the manly generosity thus shown the boatswain tossed his own gun to the ground and, advancing, held out his hand, saying:

“You wouldn’t have done that if you hadn’t been what you say you are. I’m ready to sit down now and talk things over.”

Larry sprang over the log that separated them and took the proffered hand. Then all sat down, and Larry said:

“I’m willing to tell you now what I never would have told you under a threat. We have seen the smugglers you are looking for; we know where they are, or at any rate where they were two days ago; we know where their plunder is hidden, and we are prepared to go with you to the place. We were on our way to Beaufort to report all this to the revenue authorities when you came to arrest us.”

The two had risen and were standing now, and the boatswain was continually shaking Larry’s hand. He tried to say what was in his mind but couldn’t. His wits were bewildered for the moment, and Larry came to their rescue.

“Pull yourself together, Boatswain,” he said, “and listen to me. Hurry back to your boat, go aboard the cutter at once, and report that you haven’t found a smuggler’s camp but that you’ve found somebody who can and will show your commanding officer where one is. Tell him Lawrence Rutledge and his companions offer their services as guides who know where to go. Be off, quick. We’ll wait here for his answer.”

The boatswain’s wits were all in his control now and he hurried away. He had achieved victory where only defeat had seemed possible. He had met with success where a few minutes before he had hoped for nothing better than failure. He was going on board to receive commendation instead of the censure he had expected. Honor was his in lieu of dreaded disgrace.