10 A King and a Duke

CHAPTER 10 A King and a Duke Two or three days and nights went by, quiet, smooth, and lovely. It was a huge river— sometimes a mile and a half wide. We traveled at night and hid the raft just before daylight. Then we would have a swim and watch the daylight come. As soon as it was night, we took the raft out to the middle of the river and let her float wherever the current wanted. Then we relaxed, dangled

our legs in the water, and talked about all kinds of things. We were always naked, day and night. At least whenever the mosquitoes would let us be. The new clothes Buck's folks gave me were too good to be comfortable. And besides, I didn't like clothes much. Sometimes we had that whole river to ourselves for the longest time. Sometimes you could see a spark or two—candles or lanterns— on a raft or in a cabin near the shore. Once in a while you could hear a fiddle or a song coming over from somewhere. It's lovely to live on a raft. The sky was speckled with stars. We would lie on our backs and just look up at them. One morning I paddled upriver a bit to see if I could get some berries. Just as I was passing a place where a path crossed the creek, a couple of men came running up the path as fast as they could. I thought I was a goner for sure. Whenever anybody was after anyone else, I always thought it was me, or maybe Jim. I was

about to paddle away, but they were pretty close by then and they called out and begged me to save their lives. They said they hadn't been doing anything wrong, but they were being chased. There were men and dogs coming. They got aboard and in a few minutes we heard the dogs and the men away off, shouting. I paddled in among the trees and hid us from them. One of these fellows was about seventy. He had a bald head and very gray whiskers. He was wearing an old beaten-up slouch hat, a greasy blue shirt, and ragged old blue jeans stuffed into his boot-tops. The other fellow was about thirty and dressed the same. Both of the men had big, fat, ratty-looking carpet-bags. After breakfast we talked. The first thing that came out was that these chaps didn't know one another. "What got you into trouble?" the bald-headed one asked.

"Well, I'd been selling an article to take the yellow off the teeth. And it does take it off, too. It just takes the enamel along with it. But I stayed about one night longer than I ought to. I was just about to get away when I ran across you on the trail. You told me they were coming and begged me to help you to get away. So I told you I was expecting trouble myself and would scatter out with you. That's the whole yarn. What's yours?" "Well," said the bald-headed man, "I'd been running a little religious meeting there for about a week, talking to the folks about how they should behave. I was taking in as much as five or six dollars a night—ten cents a head—when somehow a report got around last night that I had been behaving badly on the sly. This morning I heard the people were gathering. If they got me they said they'd tar and feather me and ride me on a rail." "Old man," said the young one, "I reckon we

might double-team it together. What do you think?" "I could do that. What's your line of work, mainly?" "I'm a printer by trade, but I usually sell some medicines or work as a theater-actor. Oh, I can do lots of things—anything that comes in handy." "I've done some doctoring in my time, too. I can tell a fortune pretty good when I've got somebody along to find out the facts for me. Preaching's my line, too." Nobody said anything for a while. Then the young man sighed and said: "Alas!" "What are you alas-ing about?" asked the bald-headed man. "To think I should be leading such a life. And to be forced into such company..." He began to wipe the corner of his eye with a rag. "Ain't the company good enough for you?"

says the baldhead. "Yes, it is good enough for me. It's as good as I deserve. I don't blame you, gentlemen—far from it. I don't blame anybody. I deserve it all. I brought myself down. Yes, I did it myself." "Brought you down from where?" "Ah, you would not believe me. The secret of my birth—" "The secret of your birth! Do you mean to say—" "Gentlemen," said the young man very seriously, "I will reveal it to you, for I feel I may have confidence in you. By rights I am a duke! I am the rightful Duke of Bridgewater!" He started to cry about how he was so poor now. We tried to make him feel better, but he said he couldn't be comforted. He said we ought to bow when we spoke to him and say "your grace," "my lord," or "your lordship." He said he wouldn't mind it if we called him "Bridgewater," which was his title. He also told us that one of us