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THE MERRY ANNE

By Samuel Merwin

Illustrated by Thomas Fogarty

The Macmillan Company

1904


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THE MERRY ANNE

[Illustration: 9013]

Dear H. K. TV.:

This tale dedicates itself to you as a matter of right. For we grew up
together on the bank of Lake Michigan; and you have not forgotten, over
there in Paris, the real house on stilts, nor the miles we have tramped
along the beach, nor, I am sure, the grim old life-saver on the near
Ludington, and his sturdy scorn for our student life-savers at Evanston.
And the endless night on Black Lake, with Klondike Andrews at the tiller
and never a breath of wind, we shall not forget that. Once we differed:
I failed to tempt you into a paddle in the Oki, one fresh spring day
three years ago; but then, your instinct of self-preservation always
worked better than mine, as the adventure in the Swampscott dory will
recall to you.

But, after all, these doings do not make up the reason why the story
is partly yours; nor do the changes in the text that sprang from your
friendly comment. I will tell you the real reason.

[Illustration: 8014]

Early, very early, one summer morning, you and I stood on the
wheel-house of the P'ere Marquette Steamer No. 4--or was it the No. 3--a
few hours from Milwaukee. The Lake was still, the thick mist was faintly
illuminated by the hidden sun. Of a sudden, while the steamer was
throbbing through the silence, a motionless schooner, painted blue, with
a man in a red shirt at the wheel, loomed through the mist, stood out
for one vivid moment, then faded away.

That schooner was the Merry Anne; and the man at the wheel was Dick
Smiley. What if he should some day chance upon this tale and declare it
untrue? know better, for we saw it there.

S. M.




CHAPTER I--DICK AND HIS MERRY ANNE

THE _Merry Anne_ was the one lumber schooner on Lake Michigan
that always appeared freshly painted; it was Dick Smiley's wildest
extravagance to keep her so. Sky blue she was (Annie's favorite color),
with a broad white line below the rail; and to see her running down on
the north wind, her sails white in the sun, her bow laying the waves
aside in gentle rolls to port and starboard, her captain balancing
easily at the wheel, in red shirt, red and blue neckerchief, and slouch
hat, was to feel stirring in one the old spirit of the Lakes.

It was a lowering day off Manistee. Out on the horizon, now and then
dipping below it, a tug was struggling to hold two barges up into the
wind. Within the harbor, at the wharf of the lumber company, lay the
_Merry Anne_. Two of her crew were below, sleeping off an overdose
of Manistee whiskey. The third, a boy of seventeen, got up in slavish
imitation of his captain,--red shirt, slouch hat, and all,--was at work
lashing down the deck load. Roche, the mate, stood on the wharf, the
centre of a little group of stevedores and rivermen. "Hi there, Pink,"
he shouted at the red shirt, "what you doin' there?"

The boy threw a sweeping glance lake-ward before replying, "Makin'
fast."

"That 'll do for you. There won't be no start _this_ afternoon."

"But Cap' Smiley said--"

"None o' your lip, or I 'll Cap' Smiley you.

"Pretty ugly, out there, all right enough," observed a riverman.
"Cornin' up worse, too. Give you a stiff time with all that stuff
aboard."

"I ain't so sure about that," said Roche, with a swagger. "If _I_ was
cap'n o' this schooner, she'd start on the minute, but Smiley's one o'
your fair-weather sort."

"Sure he is. He done a heap o' talkin' about that time he brung the
_William Jones_ into Black Lake before the wind, the day the _John T.
Eversley_ was lost; but Billy Underdown was sailin' with him then, and
he told me hisself that he had the wheel all the way--Smiley never done
a thing but hang on to the companionway and holler at him to look out
for the north set o' the surf outside the piers; and there's my little
Andy that ain't nine year old till the sixth o' September, could ha'
told him the surf sets south off Black Lake, with a northwest wind. If
it hadn't been for Billy, the Lord only knows where Dick Smiley'd be
to-day."

A tug hand had joined the group, and now he addressed himself to Roche.

"Cap'n Peters wants to know if you're a-goin' to try to make it, Mr.
Roche."

"Not by a dam' sight."

"Well--I guess he won't be sorry to wait till mornin'. What time do you
think you 'll want us?"

"Six o'clock sharp."

"Them's Cap'n Smiley's orders, is they?"

"Them's _my_ orders, and they're good enough for you."

"Oh, that's all right, of course, only Cap'n Peters, he said if 'twas
anybody else, he'd just tie up and wait, but there ain't never any
tellin', he says, what Dick Smiley 'll take it into his head to do."

"You tell your cap'n that Mr. Roche said to come at six in the mornin'."

"All right. I 'll tell him. Say--Cap'n Smiley ain't anywhere around, is
he?"

"_No, Cap'n Smiley ain t anywheres around!_" mimicked Roche, angrily.
"If you want to know whereabouts Cap'n Smiley is, he's uptown
skylarkin', that's where _he_ is."

The river hands laughed at this.

"I reckon he's somethin' of a hand for the ladies, Dick Smiley is, with
them blue eyes o' his'n," said one. "I ain't a-tellin', you understand,
but there's boys in town here that could let you know a thing or two if
they was minded."

As a matter of fact, Dick was at that moment in an up-town jewellery
shop, fingering a necklace of coral.

"I want a longer one," he was saying, "with something pretty hanging on
the end of it--there, that's the boy--the one with big rough beads and
the red rose carved on the end."

"Must be somebody's birthday, Captain," observed the jeweller, with a
wink.

And Dick, who could never resist a wink, replied: "That's what. Day
after to-morrow, too, and I haven't any too much time to make it in."

"Here's a nice piece--if she likes the real red."

Dick took it in his hands and nodded over it. "I think that would please
her. She likes bright colors." He drew a wallet from a hip pocket and
disclosed a thick bundle of bills.

"I shouldn't think you'd like to carry so much money on you, Captain, in
your line of work."

"It isn't so much. They are most all ones." But the jeweller, seeing a
double X on the top, only smiled and remarked that it was a dark day.

"Yes, too dark. I don't like it. Makes me think of the cyclone three
years ago April, when the _Kate Howard_ went down off Lakeville. I spent
three hours roosting on the topmast that day. It was black then, like
this. If it keeps up, you 'll have to turn on your lights in here."

"Guess I will. It wouldn't hurt now. Well, good-by, Captain. Drop in
again next time you run in here."

"All right. But there's no telling when that will be. I have to go where
Captain Stenzenberger sends me, you know."

"You don't own your schooner yet, then?"

"No; only a quarter of it. Well, good-by." And he left the shop with the
corals, securely wrapped, stowed in an inside pocket.

The first big drops of rain were falling when he reached the schooner.
The deck was deserted, but he found Roche and his wharf acquaintances
settled comfortably in the cabin. Their talk stopped abruptly at the
sight of his boots coming down the companionway.

"Why isn't the load lashed down, Pete?" he asked, addressing Roche.

"Why--oh, it was lookin' so bad, I thought we'd better wait till you
come."

"Where's the tug? Don't Peters know we want him?"

The loungers were silent. All looked at Roche.

"Why, yes--sure. He ain't showed up yet, though."

"You ain't goin' to try to make it, are you, Cap'n?" asked a riverman.

"Going to try? We _are_ going to make it, if that's what you mean."

One of the men rose. "I'm going up the wharf, Cap'n. If you like, I 'll
speak to Peters."

"All right. I wish you would. And say, Pete, you take Pink and see that
everything is down solid. I don't care to distribute those two-by-fours
all down the east coast."

Roche went out, and the others got up one by one and took shelter in the
lee of a lumber pile on the wharf. A little later, when he saw the tug
steaming up the river, Roche shook the rain from his eyes and looked
long at the black cloud billows that were rolling up from the northwest,
then he slipped below and took a strong pull at his flask. The tug came
alongside, and then Roche sought Dick.

"Cap'n, what's the use?" he said in an agitated voice. "Don't you
see we're runnin' our nose right into it? Why, if we was a
three-hundred-footer, we'd have our hands full out there. I don't like
to say nothin', but--"

Smiley, his hat jammed on the back of his head, his shirt, now dripping
wet, clinging to his trunk and outlining bunches of muscle on his
shoulders and back, his light hair stringing down over his forehead,
merely looked at him curiously.

"You see how it is, Cap'n, I--"

"What are you talking about? All right, Pink, make fast there! Who's
running this schooner, you or me?"

"Oh, I don't mean nothin', Cap'n; but seein' there ain't no particular
hurry--"

"No hurry! Why, man, I've got to lay alongside the Lakeville pier by
Wednesday night, or break something. What's the matter with you, anyhow?
Lost your nerve?"

"No, I ain't lost my nerve. And you ain't got no call to talk that way
to me, Dick Smiley."

"Here, here, Pete, none of that. We're going to pull out in just about
two minutes. If you aren't good for it, I 'll wait long enough to tumble
your slops ashore. Put your mind on it now--are you coming or not?"

"Oh, I'm cornin', Cap'n, of course, but--"

"Shut up, then."

The idlers on the wharf had not heard what was said, but they saw Roche
change color and duck below for another pull at his flask.

The tug swung out into the stream; the _Merry Anne_ fell slowly away
from the wharf.

"Call up those loafers, Pete," shouted Smiley, as he rested his hands
on the wheel. The two sailors, roused by a shake and an oath, scrambled
drowsily upon the deck with red eyes and unsettled nerves, and were
set to work raising the jib and double-reefing foresail and mainsail.
Captain Peters sounded three blasts for the first bridge, and headed
down-stream.

Passing on through the narrow draws of the bridges and between the
buildings that lined the river, the _Merry Anne_ drew near to the long
piers that formed the entrance to the channel. And Roche, standing with
flushed face by the foremast, looked out over the piers at the angry
lake, now a lead-gray color, here streaked with foam, there half
obscured by the driving squalls. His eyes followed the track of one
squall after another as they tore their way at right angles to the surf.

Already the _Anne_ had begun to stagger. At the end of the towing hawser
the tug was nosing into the half-spent rollers that got in between the
piers, and was tossing the spray up into the wind.

One of the life-saving crew, in shining oilskins, was walking the pier;
he paused and looked at them--even called out some words that the wind
took from his lips and mockingly swept away. Roche looked at him with
dull eyes; saw his lips moving behind his hollowed hands; looked out
again at the muddy streaks and the whirling mist, out beyond at the two
barges laboring on the horizon, gazed at the white and yellow surf. Then
his eye lighted a little, and he made his way back to the wheel.

"Don't be a fool, Dick," he shouted. "Just look a' that and tell me
you can make it. I know better. I'm an old friend, Dick, and I like you
better'n anybody, but you mustn't be a dam' fool. Ain't no use bein' a
dam' fool."

"Who are you talking to?"

"Lemme blow the horn, Dick.'Taint too late to stop 'em. We can get back
all right--start in the mornin'. Don't you see, Dick--"

Smiley's eyes were fixed keenly on him for a moment; then they swept
to the windward pier. He snatched the horn from Roche's hand and blew a
blast.

The sailors up forward heard it, and shouted and waved their arms. A tug
hand, seeing the commotion, though he heard nothing, finally was made
to understand, and Captain Peters slowed his engines. Smiley, meanwhile,
was steering up close to the windward pier.

"Tumble off there, Pete," he ordered. "Quick, now."

"What you going to do to me? Ain't goin' to put me off there, are you?"

"Get a move on, or I 'll throw you off. There's no room for you here."

"Hold on there, Dick; I ain't got no clothes or nothin'. And you owe me
my pay--"

"You 'll have to go to Cap'n Stenzenberger about that. Here, Pink, heave
him off. Quick, now!"

"Don't you lay your hand on me, Pink Harper--"

But the words were lost. The young sailor in the red shirt fairly
pitched him over the rail. The life saver, running alongside, gave him
a hand. Captain Peters was leaning out impatiently from his wheel-house
door, and now at the signal he dove back and hurriedly rang for full
steam ahead; it was no place to run chances. And as the schooner passed
out into the open lake, leaving the lighthouse behind her, and soon
afterward casting off the tug, there was no time to look back at the
raging figure on the pier. Though once, to be sure, Dick had turned with
a laugh and shouted out a few lines of a wild parody on the song of the
day, "Baby Mine."

The song proved so amusing that, when they were free of the tug and
were careening gayly off to the southwest with all fast on board and
a boiling sea around them, he took it up again. And braced at a sharp
angle with the deck, one eye on the sails, another cast to windward, his
brown hands knotted around the spokes of the wheel, he sang away at the
top of his lungs:--

                   "He is coming down the Rhine.

                   With a bellyful of wine,"

Young Harper worked his way aft along the upper rail. His eye fell on
the figure of his captain, and he laughed and nodded.

"Lively goin', Cap'n."

Lively it certainly was.

"Guess there ain't no doubt about _our_ makin' it!"

"Doubt your uncle!" roared the Captain. And he winked at his young
admirer.

"Guess Mr. Roche didn't like the looks of it."

"Guess not."

Harper crept forward again. And Smiley, with a laugh in his eye, squared
his chest to the storm, and thought of the necklace stowed away in the
cabin; and then he thought of her who was to be its owner day after
to-morrow, and "I wonder if we will make it," thought he; "I wonder!"

And make it they did. Sliding gayly up into a humming southwest wind,
with every rag up and the sheets hauled home, with the bluest of skies
above them and the bluest of water beneath (for the Lakes play at April
weather all around the calendar), Wednesday afternoon found them turning
Grosse Pointe.

The bright new paint was prematurely old now, the small boat was missing
from the stern davits, the cabin windows had been crushed in, and
one sailor carried his arm in a sling, but they had made it. Harper,
hollow-eyed, but merry, had the wheel; Smiley was below, snatching his
first nap in forty-eight hours, with the red corals under his head.

"Ole," called Harper, "wake up the Cap'n, will you? I can't leave the
wheel. He said we was to call him off Grosse Pointe."

So Ole called him, and was soon followed back on deck by another
hollow-eyed figure.

"Guess it's just as well Mr. Roche didn't come along," observed the
boy, as he relinquished the wheel. "_He'd_'a' had all he wanted, and no
mistake."

"He had enough to start with. There wasn't any room for drunks this
trip."

As he spoke, Smiley was running his eye over the familiar yellow bluffs,
glancing at the lighthouse tower, at the stack of the water works
farther down the coast, at the green billows of foliage with here and
there a spire rising above them, and, last and longest, at the two piers
that reached far out into the Lake,--one black with coal sheds, the
other and nearer, yellow with new lumber.

Between these piers, built in the curve of the beach and nestling under
the bluff, was a curious patchwork of a house. Built of odds and ends of
lumber, even, in the rear, of driftwood, perched up on piles so that the
higher waves might run up under the kitchen floor, small wonder that the
youngsters of the shore had dubbed it "the house on stilts."

Old Captain Fargo (and who was not a "Captain" in those days!) had built
it with his own hands, just as he had built every one of the sailboats
and rowboats that strewed the beach, and had woven every one of the nets
that were wound on reels up there under the bluff.

A surprisingly spacious old house it was, too, with a room for Annie
upstairs on the Lake side, looking out on a porch that was just large
enough to hold her pots and boxes of geraniums and nasturtiums and
forget-me-nots.

Smiley could not see the house yet; it was hidden by the lumber piles on
the pier. But his eyes knew where to look, and they lingered there,
all the while that his sailor's sixth sense was watching the set of the
sails and the scudding ripples that marked the wind puffs. He wore a
clean red shirt to-day and a neckerchief that lay in even folds around
his neck. Redolent of soap he was, his face and hands scrubbed until
they shone. And still his eyes tried to look through fifty feet of
lumber to the little flowering porch, until a sail came in sight around
the end of the pier. Then he straightened up, and shifted his grip on
the spokes.

The small boat was also blue with a white stripe. At the stern sat a
single figure. But though they were still too far apart to distinguish
features, Dick knew that the figure was that of a girl--a girl of a
fine, healthy carriage, her face tanned an even brown, and a laugh in
her black eyes. He knew, even before he brought his glass to bear
on her, that she was dressed in a blue sailor suit, with a rolling
blue-and-white collar cut V-shape and giving a glimpse of her round
brown neck. He knew that her black hair was gathered simply with a
ribbon and left to hang about her shoulders, that her arms were bared to
the elbow. He could see that she was carrying a few yards more sail than
was safe for a catboat in that breeze, and there was a laugh in his own
eyes as he shook his head over her recklessness. He knew that it would
do no good to speak to her about it; and her father and mother had never
been able to look upon her with any but fond, foolish eyes.

Steadily the _Merry Anne_ drew in toward the pier; rapidly the
_Captain_--so Annie called her boat--came bobbing and skimming out to
meet her. A few moments more and Dick could wave his hat and shout,
"Ahoy, there!" And he heard in reply, as he had known that he should, a
merry "Ahoy, there! I 'll beat you in!" And then they raced for it, Annie
gaining, as she generally could, while the schooner was laboriously
coming about, and working in slowly under reduced sail. She ran in close
to the pier, came up into the wind, and waited there while the crew were
making the schooner fast.

At length the stevedores started unloading the lumber and Dick was free.
He leaned on the rail and looked down at Annie who had by this time
come alongside; and he saw that she had a bunch of blue-and-white
forget-me-nots in her hair.

"Well," she said, looking up, and driving all power of consecutive
thought out of Dick's head, as she always did when she rested her black
eyes full on his, "well, I beat you."

"Take me aboard, Annie. I've got something for you."

"All right, come down. You can take the sheet."

Dick pushed off from the schooner's side and the _Captain_ filled away
toward the shore.

"Hold on, Annie, come about. I don't have to go in yet."

"Where do you want to go?"

"I don't care--run out a little way."

Annie brought her about and Dick watched her with admiring eyes. "Well,
now," he began, as they settled down for a run off the wind, "I didn't
know whether I was going to get here to-day or not."

"It _was_ pretty bad."

"You were thinking of me, weren't you, Annie?"

She smiled and gave her attention to the boat.

"Roche was drunk, and I had to leave him at Manistee."

"You didn't come down shorthanded, did you, Dick,--in that storm?"

He nodded.

"But how? You couldn't have got much sleep."

"I didn't get any till this noon."

"Now, that's just like you, Dick, always running risks when you don't
have to."

"But I did have to."

"I don't see why."

"What day's to-day?"

A mischievous light came into her eyes, but her face was demure.
"Wednesday," she replied.

"Yes, I knew that."

"Why did you ask me, then?"

"Oh, Annie, Annie! When are you going to stop talking that way?"

Again the boat claimed all her attention. He leaned forward and dropped
his voice.

"Don't you think I've waited most long enough, Annie?"

"Now, Dick, be sensible."

"But haven't I been sensible? Not a word have I said for two months. And
I told you then I would speak on your birthday."

"So you really remembered my birthday?"

"Remembered it, Annie! What a girl you are! Do you know how long I've
been waiting? And all the boys laughing? It's two years this month. It
was on your birthday that I saw you first, you know. And it wasn't a
month after that that I spoke to you. How could I help it? Who could
have waited longer? And you, with your way of making me think you were
really going to say yes, and then just laughing at me."

"Now, Dick--if you don't stop and be sensible, I 'll take you straight
inshore."

"Oh, you wouldn't do that, Annie?"

"Yes, I would. I will now. Ready about!" The _Captain_ came rapidly up
into the wind, but stopped there with sail flapping; for Dick held the
sheet, and his hand had imprisoned hers on the tiller.

"Now, Dick--Dick--"

"Wait a minute. Don't be angry with me when I've risked the schooner
and everybody aboard her just so's to get down here on your birthday.
Promise me you 'll hold her in the wind while I get you your present."

She hesitated, and looked out toward the horizon.

"Promise me that, Annie, and I 'll let go your hand."

"You--you've forgotten--what you promised--"

"I know, I said I'd never take hold of your hand again until you put it
in mine--didn't I?"

She nodded, still looking away.

"And I've broken the promise. Do you know why, Annie? It's because when
you look at me the way you do sometimes, I could break every promise
I've ever made--and every law of Congress if I thought it would just
keep you looking at me."

Not a word from Annie.

"Promise me, Annie, that you 'll hold her here?"

Still no word.

"Won't you just nod, then?"

She hesitated a moment longer, then gave one uncertain little nod. He
released her hand, held the sheet between his knees, drew the package
from his pocket, and displayed the corals. She was trying bravely not to
look around, but her glance wavered, and finally she turned and looked
at it with eager eyes. "Oh, Dick, did you bring that for me?"

"I surely did." He held it up, and when she bent her head forward, he
slipped it over and around her neck. Her eyes shone as she ran the red
beads through her fingers and looked at the carved pendant. Dick leaned
back and watched her contentedly. Finally she let her eyes steal upward
and meet his, with a smile that was half roguish. "I never really
laughed at you, did I, Dick?"

He moved forward with sudden eagerness. "Don't you think now is a good
time to say yes, Annie,--now, on your birthday? I own a quarter of the
schooner now, you know; and I'm ready to make another payment to-morrow.
And don't you see, when we're married you can help me to save, and
before we know it we can have a home and a business of our own." She was
bending over the corals. "You didn't really think you could save more
with--with me, than you could alone, did you, Dick?"

"Yes, I'm sure of it. It will give me something to work for, don't you
see?"

"But--but--" very shyly, this--"Haven't you anything to work for now?"

"Oh, Annie, do you mean that--are you telling me you 'll give me the
right to work for you? That's all I want to know."

"Now, Dick--please let go my hand--you promised, you know--"

"What is a promise now! If you knew how you torture me when you lead me
on till I'm half wild and then change around till I don't know what I've
said or what you've said or hardly who I am--"

"No, Dick, you mustn't--I mean it. We must go in. See, there's father on
the beach. It must be supper-time."

"Wait a minute--I haven't half told you--"

But she was merciless. The _Captain_ came about and headed shoreward.

"Did you meet the revenue cutter anywhere up the Lake--the _Foote?_ She
was here yesterday."

"There you are again, all changed around! What do I care about the
_Foote_--when I'm just waiting to hear you say the only word that can
make my life worth living. Now, Annie--"

"You mustn't, Dick. I've let you say too much now. If you go on, you 'll
make me feel that I can't even thank you for your present."

"Was that all? Were you only thanking me?"

She nodded, and Dick's face fell into gloom. But when the _Captain_ was
beached, and Annie had leaped lightly over the rail, she turned and gave
him one merry blushing look that completely reversed the effect of her
reproof. And as she hurried up to the house, he could only gaze after
her helplessly.




CHAPTER II--THE NEW MATE

[Illustration: 0046]

IN the morning the _William Schmidt_, Henry Smiley, Master, came in
from Chicago and tied up across the pier from the _Merry Anne_.

Henry, Dick's cousin, was a short, stocky, man, said to be somewhat of
a driver with his sailors. He seldom had much to say, never drank, was
shrewd at a bargain, and was supposed to have a considerable sum stowed
away in the local savings bank. Though he was wanting in the qualities
that made his younger cousin popular, he was daring enough in his quiet
way, and he had been known, when he thought the occasion justified it,
to run long chances with his snub-nosed schooner.

After breakfast Dick walked across the broad pier between the piles of
lumber, and found Henry in his cabin. They greeted each other cordially.

"Sit down," said Henry. "Did you come down through that nor'wester?"

Dick nodded.

"Have any trouble?"

"Oh, no. Lost some sleep--that's all. You aren't going down to the yards
to-day, are you?"

"Yes--I think likely. Why?"

"I 'll go along with you. I'm ready to make another payment on the
schooner. I've been thinking it over, and it strikes me I'm paying about
three times what she's worth. What do you think? Would it do any harm to
have a little talk about it with the Cap'n? You know him better than I
do."

Henry shook his head. "I wouldn't. He is too smart for you. He will beat
you any way you try it, and have you thanking him before he is through
with you. I have gone all over this ground before, you know. Of course
he is an old rascal--but I don't know of any other way you could even
get an interest in a schooner. You see, you haven't any capital. He will
give you all the time you want, and I don't know but what he's entitled
to a little extra, everything considered. But don't say anything,
whatever you do. You've got too good a thing here."

"You think I ought to just shut up and let him bleed me?"

"He isn't bleeding you. Just think it over, Dick. You are making a
living, and you already have a quarter interest in your schooner. You
couldn't ask much more at your age. Have you heard from him yet, by the
way?"

"No."

"He spoke to me the other day about wanting to see you when you came in.
There's another order to come down from Spencer."

"Where's that?"

"Up in the Alpena country."

"Lake Huron, eh? Oh--isn't that where you went in the spring?"

"Yes, I've been there. An old fellow named Spencer runs a little
one-horse mill, and he's selling timber and shingles. And from what
the Cap'n said, I don't think he'd care if you brought along a little
venture of your own. That's the way I used to do, when I was paying for
the _Schmidt_."

"How could I do that?"

"Spencer will give you a little credit. You can stow away a few thousand
feet, and clear twenty or thirty dollars. It helps along."

"All right, I 'll try it. Are you sure the old man won't care?"

"Oh, yes. He's willing enough to do the square thing, so long as it
keeps us feeling good and doesn't lose him anything."

"Say--there's another thing, Henry. I fired Roche, up at Manistee."

"Fired him?" Henry's brows came together.

"Yes, I had to. I had stood him as long as I could."

"I don't know what the Cap'n will say about that."

"I'd like to know what he can say. I was in command."

"Yes, I know--of course you had a right to; but the thing is to keep on
his good side. Suppose we go right down to the yards, and see if you can
get your story in before Roche's."

"What does the Cap'n care about my men, I'd like to know!"

[Illustration: 0051]

"Now, keep cool, Dick. Roche, you see, used to work for him,--I don't
know but what they're related,--and it was because the Cap'n spoke to
me about him that I recommended him to you when I did. And look here,
Dick,"--Henry smiled as he laid a hand on his cousin's shoulder,--"I'm a
good deal older than you are, and you can take my word for it. Don't get
sour on things. Of course people will do you if they can; but it's human
nature, and you can't change it by growling about it. You are doing
well, and what you need now is to keep your eyes open and your mouth
shut. Why should you want to hurry things along?"

A flush came over Dick's face. "There's a reason all right enough. You
see, Henry, there's a little girl not so very many miles from here--"

"Oho!" thought Henry, "a little girl!" But his face was immobile,
excepting a momentary curious expression that passed over it.

"Now don't get to thinking it's all fixed up, because it isn't--not yet.
But you see, I've been thinking that when I've got a little something to
offer--"

"There's another thing you can take my word for, my boy," said Henry,
with a dry smile; "don't get impetuous. Marrying may be all right, but
it wants to be done careful."

Captain Stenzenberger's lumber yard was a few miles away, at the Chicago
city limits. As the two sailors left the pier to walk up to the railway
station, Dick was glad to change the subject for the first one that came
into his head. "What do you suppose the _Foote_ has been doing here this
week, Dick? I heard she put in Tuesday or Wednesday."

"Looking for Whiskey Jim, I suppose."

"Oh, are they on that track again?"

"Haven't you seen the papers?"

"No--not for more than a week."

"Well, it's quite a yarn. From what has been said, I rather guess it's
the liquor dealers that are stirring it up this time. There is a story
around that he has been counterfeiting the red-seal label on their
bottles. I think they're all off the track, though. Anybody could
tell 'em that there's no such man. Every time a case of smuggling comes
up, the papers talk about 'Whiskey Jim,' no matter if it's up at the
straits or down on the St. Lawrence."

"But what's the trouble now?"

"Oh, they're saying that this fellow is a rich man that has a big
smuggling system with agents all around the Lakes and dealers in the
cities that are in his pay,--sort of a smuggling trust."

"Sounds like a fairy story."

"That's about what it is. The regular dealers have taken up the fight to
protect their trade, and one or two of the papers in particular have put
reporters on the case, and all that sort of thing. And as usual they're
announcing just what they've done and what they're going to do. The old
_Foote_ is to make a tour of the Lakes, and look into every port. And if
there is any Whiskey Jim, I 'll bet he's somewhere over in Canada by this
time, reading the papers and laughing at 'em." Captain Stenzenberger was
seated in his swivel chair in his dingy little one-story office at the
corner of the lumber yard. His broad frame was overloaded with flesh.
His paunch seemed almost to rest on his thighs as he sat there, chewing
an unlighted cigar in the corner of his mouth,--a corner that had been
moulded around the cigar by long habit and that looked incomplete
when the cigar was not there. His fat neck--the fatter for a large
goitre--was wider than his cheeks, and these again were wider than his
forehead, so that his head seemed to taper off from his shoulders. A
cropped mustache, a tanned, wrinkled face and forehead, and bright brown
eyes completed the picture. When his two captains came in, he rested
his pudgy hands on the arms of his chair, readjusted his lips around the
cigar, and nodded. "How are you, boys?" said he, in a husky voice. "Have
a good trip?" This last remark was addressed to Dick.

"First part was bad, but it cleared up later."

"Did you put right out into that storm from Manistee?"

"Yes--you see I had the wind behind me all the way down. Got to get a
new small boat, though."

The "Captain" did not press the subject. In return for the privilege
of buying the schooner by instalments he permitted Dick to pay for the
insurance, so the young man could be as reckless as he liked.

Dick now explained that he had come to make a payment, and the
transaction was accomplished.

"Step over and have a drink, boys," was the next formality; and the two
stood aside while Stenzenberger got his unwieldy body out of the chair,
put on his hat, and led the way out.

Adjoining the lumber yard on the west was a small frame building,
bearing the sign, "The Teamster's Friend." It had been set down here
presumably to catch the trade of the market gardeners who rumbled
through in the small hours of every morning. In the rear, backed up
against a lumber pile, was a long shed where the teams could wait under
cover while their drivers were carousing within. A second sign, painted
on the end of this shed, announced that Murphy and McGlory were the
proprietors of the "sample room and summer garden." The three men
entered, and seated themselves at a table. There was no one behind the
bar at the moment, but soon a woman glanced in through the rear doorway.

Stenzenberger smiled broadly on her, and winked. "How d' do, Madge," he
said. "Can't you give us a little something with a smile in it,--one o'
your smiles maybe now?"

She was a tall woman, with a full figure and snapping eyes,--attractive,
in spite of a crow's-foot wrinkle or so. She returned the smile,
wearily, and said, "I 'll call Joe, Mr. Stenzenberger."

"You needn't do that now, Madge. Draw it with those pretty hands of
yours, there's a dear."

So she came in behind the bar, wiping her hands on her apron, and
quietly awaited their orders.

"What 'll it be, boys?"

Dick suggested a glass of beer, but Henry smiled and shook his head.
"You might make it ginger ale for me."

"I don't know what to do with that cousin of yours," said Stenzenberger
to Dick. "He's a queer one. I don't like to trust a man that's got no
vices. What _are_ your vices, anyhow, Smiley?"

Henry smiled again. "Ask Dick, there. He ought to know all about me."

Stenzenberger looked from one to the other; then he raised his foaming
glass, and with a "Prosit" and a stiff German nod, he put it down at a
gulp.

"Been reading about the revenue case?" Henry asked of his superior.

"I saw something this morning."

"I've been quite interested in it. Billy Boynton told me yesterday that
they had searched his schooner. It's a wonder they haven't got after us
if they're holding up fellows like him. Do you think they 'll ever get
this Whiskey Jim, Cap'n?"

"No, they talk too much. And they couldn't catch a mud-scow with that
old side-wheeler of theirs."

"Guess that's right. The _Foote_ must have started in here before the
_Michigan_, and she's thirty years old if she's a day. The boys are all
talking about it down at the city. I dropped around at the Hydrographic
Office after I saw Billy, and found two or three others that had been
hauled over. It seems they've stumbled on a pipe-line half built under
the Detroit River near Wyandotte, and there's been a good deal of
excitement. There's capital behind it, you see; and a little capital
does wonders with those revenue men."

Stenzenberger was showing symptoms of readiness to return to his desk,
but Henry, who rarely grew reminiscent, was now fairly launched.

"They can't get an effective revenue system, because they make it too
easy for a man to get rich. It's like the tax commissioners and the
aldermen and the legislators,--when you put a man where he can rake off
his pile, month after month, without there being any way of checking him
up, look out for his morals. And where they're all in it together, no
one dares squeal. It's a good deal like the railway conductors.

"You remember last year when the Northeastern Road laid off all but two
or three of its old conductors for stealing fares? Well, it wasn't a
month afterward that one of the 'honest' ones came to me and hired the
_Schmidt_ to carry a twelve-hundred-dollar grand piano up to Milwaukee,
where he lives. He had reasons of his own for not wanting to ship by
rail. No, sir, it wouldn't be hard for me to have sympathy with an
honest thief that goes in and runs his chances of getting shot or
knocked on the head,--that calls for some nerve,--but these fellows that
put up a bluff as lawmakers and policemen and revenue officers and then
steal right and left--deliver me!"

"Well, boys, I guess I 'll have to step back. I'm a busy man, you know.
Have another before we go?"

"One minute, Cap'n," said Dick. "There's something I want to talk over
with you, if you can spare the time."

Stenzenberger sat down again. Henry, whose outbreak against the evils of
society had stirred up, apparently, some pet feeling of bitterness, now
sat moodily looking at the table.

"It's about Roche, Cap'n," Dick went on. "I had to leave him at
Manistee."

"Why?"

"He drinks too much for me--I couldn't depend on him a minute. He bummed
around up there, and got himself too shaky to be any use to me."

Stenzenberger, with expressionless face, chewed his cigar. "What did you
do for a mate?"

"Came down without one."

"Have you found a man yet?"

"No--haven't tried. I thought you might have some one you could
suggest."

"I don't know. You 'll want to be starting up to Spencer's place in a day
or so." He chewed his cigar thoughtfully for a moment, then dropped his
voice. "There's a man right here you might be able to use. Do you know
McGlory?"

"No."

"You do, Henry?"

"Yes, he was my mate for a year."

"Well," said Dick, "any man that suited Henry for a year ought to suit
me."

"You 'll find him a good, reliable man," responded Henry, in an
undertone. "He has a surly temper, but he knows all about a schooner."

"Well,--if he's anywhere around here now, we could fix it right up."

Stenzenberger looked around. The woman had slipped out. "Madge," he
called; "Madge, my dear."

She entered as quietly as before.

"Come in, my dear. You know Cap'n Smiley, don't you?"

No, she didn't.

"That's a fact. He's never seen in sample rooms. He sets up to be better
than the rest of us; but I say, look out for him. And here's his cousin,
another Cap'n Smiley, the handsomest man on the Lakes." Dick blushed at
this. "Sit down a minute with us."

She shook her head, and waited for him to come to the point.

"Where's that man of yours, my dear? Is he anywhere around?"

"What is it you want of him?"

"I want him to know our young man here. I think they're going to like
each other. You tell him we want to see him."

She hesitated; then with a suspicious glance around the group left the
room.

In a moment McGlory appeared, a short, heavy-set man with high
cheek-bones, a low, sloping forehead, and a curling black mustache. He
nodded to Stenzenberger and Henry, and glanced at Dick.

"Joe," said the lumber merchant, "shake hands with Cap'n Dick Smiley.
He's the best sailor between here and Buffalo, and the only trouble with
him is we can't get a mate good enough for him. A man's got to know his
business to sail with Dick Smiley. Ain't that so, Henry?"

"I guess that's right."

"And Henry tells me you're the man that can do it."

This pleasantry had no visible effect on McGlory. He was looking Dick
over.

"I don't know about that, Cap'n. I promised Madge I'd give up the Lake
for good."

"The Cap'n here," pursued Stenzenberger, "is going to start to-morrow
or next day for Spencer, to take on a load of timber and shingles." His
small brown eyes were fixed intently on the saloon keeper as he talked.
"And I think we 'll have to keep him running up there for a good part of
the summer. Queer character, that Spencer," he added, addressing Dick.
"He has lived all his life up there in the pines. They say he was a
squatter--never paid a cent for his land. But he has been there so many
years now, I guess any one would have trouble getting him out. He has
got an idea that his timber's better than anybody else's. He cuts it all
with an old-fashioned vertical saw, and stamps his mark on every piece."

"Why should it be any better?"

"I don't know that it is, though he selects it carefully. The main thing
is, he sells it dirt cheap,--has to, you know, to stand any show against
the big companies. He's so far out of the way, no boats would take the
trouble to run around there if he didn't. Well, McGlory, we've got a
good thing to offer you. You can drop in here once a week or so, you
know, to see how things are running. Come over to the office with us and
we 'll settle the terms." Stenzen-berger was rising as he spoke.

"Well, I don't know. I couldn't come over for a few minutes, Cap'n."

"How soon could you?"

"About a quarter of an hour."

"All right, we 'll be looking for you. Here, give me half a dozen ten
cent straights while I'm here."

McGlory walked to the door with them, and stood for a moment looking
after them.

When he turned and pushed back through the swinging inner doors, he
found Madge standing by the bar awaiting him, one hand held behind her,
the other clenched at her side, her eyes shooting fire.

He paused, and looked at her without speaking.

"So you are going back to the Lake?" she said, everything about her
blazing with anger except her voice--that was still quiet.

He was silent.

"Well, why don't you answer me?"

"What's all this fuss about, Madge? I haven't gone yet."

"Don't try to put me off. Have you told them you would go back?"

"I haven't told 'em a thing. I'm going around in a minute to see the
Cap'n, and we 'll talk it over then."

"And you have forgotten what you promised me?"

"No, I ain't forgot nothing. Look here, there ain't no use o' getting
stagy about this. I ain't told him I 'll do it. I don't believe I will do
it."

"Why should you want to, Joe? Aren't you happy here? Aren't you making
more money than you ever did on the Lake?"

"Why, of course."

"Then why not stay here?"

"There's only this about it," he replied, leaning against the bar, and
speaking in an off-hand manner; "Stenzenberger offers me the chance to
do both. I could be in here every few days--see you most as much as I do
now in a busy season--and make the extra pay clear."

"Oh, that's why you have been thinking you might do it?"

"Well, that's the only thing about it that--" He was wondering what was
in her other hand. "You see, I can't afford to get the Cap'n down on
me."

"You can't? I should think _he_ would be the one that couldn't afford--"

"Now see here, Madge." He stepped up to her, and would have slipped his
arm around her waist, but she eluded him. "I guess I 'll go over and see
what he has to offer, and then I 'll come back, and you and me can talk
it all over and see if we think--"

"If _we_ think!" she burst out. "Do you take me for a fool, Joe McGlory?
Do you think for a minute I don't know why you want to go--and why
you mean to go? Look at that!" She produced a photograph of a pretty,
foolish young woman, and read aloud the inscription on the back, "To
Joe, from Estelle."

An ugly look came into his eye. "I wouldn't get excited about that
kiddishness if I was you."

"So you call it kiddishness, do you, and at your age?"

"Well, so long now, Madge. I 'll be back in a few minutes."

"Joe--wait--don't go off like that. Tell me that don't mean anything!
Tell me you aren't ever going to see her again!"

"Sure, there's nothing in it."

"And you won't see her?"

"Why, of course I won't see her. She ain't within five hundred miles of
here. I don't know where she is."

"You 'll promise me that?"

"You don't need to holler, Madge. I can hear you. Somebody's likely to
be coming in any minute, and what are they going to think?" He passed
out into the back room, and she followed him.

"How soon will you be back, Joe?" She saw that he was putting on his
heavy jacket--heavier than was needed to step over to the lumber office.

"Just a minute--that's all."

"And you won't promise them anything?"

"Why, sure I won't. I wouldn't agree to anything before you'd had a look
at it."

He watched her furtively; and she stood motionless, trembling a little,
ready at the slightest signal to spring into his arms. But he reached
for his hat and went out.

She stood there, still motionless, until his step sounded on the front
walk; then she ran upstairs and knelt by the window that overlooked the
yards. She saw him enter the office. A few moments, and the two men who
had been with Stenzenberger came out and walked away. A half-hour,
and still Joe was in there with the lumber merchant. An hour--and then
finally he appeared, glanced back at the saloon, and walked hurriedly
around the corner out of sight. And she knew that he had slipped away
from her. The photograph was still in her hand, and now she looked at it
again, scornfully, bitterly.

A man entered the saloon below, and she did not hear him until he fell
to whistling a music-hall tune. At something familiar in the sound a
peculiar expression came over her face, and she threw the picture on the
floor and hurried down. When she entered the sample room, her eyes were
reckless.

The man was young, with the air of the commercial traveller of the
better sort. He was seated at one of the tables, smoking a cigarette.
His name was William Beveridge, but he passed here by the name of
Bedloe.

"Hello, Madge," he said; "what's the matter--all alone here?"

"Yes; Mr. Murphy's down town."

"And McGlory--where's he?"

"He's out too."

He looked at her admiringly. Indeed, she was younger and prettier, for
the odd expression of her eyes.

"Well, I'm in luck."

"Why?" she asked, coming slowly to the opposite side of the table and
leaning on the back of a chair.

But in gazing at her he neglected to reply. "By Jove, Madge," he broke
out, "do you know you're a beauty?"

She flushed and shook her head. Then she slipped down into the chair,
and rested her elbows on the table.

"You're the hardest person to forget I ever knew."

"I guess you have tried hard enough."

"No--I couldn't get round lately--I've been too busy. Anyhow, what was
the use? If I had thought I stood any show of seeing you, I would
have come or broken something. But there was always Murphy or McGlory
around." He could not tell her his real object in coming, nor in
avoiding the two proprietors, who had watched him with suspicion from
the first. "Do you know, this is the first real chance you've ever given
me to talk to you?"

"How did I know you wanted to?"

"Oh, come, Madge, you know better than that. How could anybody help
wanting to? But"--he looked around--"are we all right here? Are we
likely to be disturbed?"

"Why, no, not unless a customer comes in."

"Isn't there another room out back there where we can have a good talk?"

She shook her head slowly, with her eyes fixed on his face. And he, of
course, misread the flush on her cheek, the dash of excitement in her
eyes. And her low reply, too, "We'd better stay here," was almost a
caress. He leaned eagerly over the table, and said in a voice as low as
hers: "When are you going to let me see you? There's no use in my trying
to stay away--I couldn't ever do it. I'm sure to keep on coming until
you treat me right--or send me away. And I don't believe that would stop
me."

"Aren't you a little of an Irishman, Mr. Bedloe?"

"Why?"

She smiled, with all a woman's pleasure in conquest. "Why haven't you
told me any of these things before?"

"How could I? Now, Madge, any minute somebody's likely to come in. I
want you to tell me--can you ever get away evenings?"

"Of course I can, if I want to."

"To-morrow?"

"Why?"

"There's going to be a dance in the pavilion at St. Paul's Park. Do you
ride a wheel?" She nodded.

"It's a first-rate ride over there. There's a moon now, and the roads
are fine. Have you ever been there?"

"No."

"It's out on the north branch--only about a four-mile run from here. We
can start out, say, at five o'clock, and take along something to eat.
Then, if we don't feel like dancing, we can take a boat and row up the
river."

She rested her chin on her hands, and looked at him with a half smile.
"Do you really mean all this, Mr. Bedloe?"

For reply, he reached over and took both her hands. "Will you go?"

"Don't do that, please. Do you know how old I am?"

"I don't care. What do you say?"

"Please don't. I hear some one."

"No, it's a wagon. I want you to say yes."

"You--you know what it would mean if--if--"

"If McGlory--Yes, I know. You're not afraid?"

Her face hardened for an instant at this, and then, as suddenly,
softened. "No," she said; "I'm not afraid of anything."

"And you 'll go?"

She nodded.

"Shall I come here?"

"No, you'd better not."

"Where shall we meet?"

"Oh--let me see--over just beyond the station. It's quiet there."

"All right. And I 'll get a lunch put up."

"No--it's easier for me to do that. I 'll bring something. And now
go--please."

He rose, and slipped around the table toward her. .

"Don't--you _must_ go."

And so he went, leaving her to gaze after him with a high color.




CHAPTER III--AT THE HOUSE ON STILTS

[Illustration: 0076]

DICK and Henry did not go directly back, and it was mid-afternoon when
they reached the pier. As they walked down the incline from the road,
Dick's eyes strayed toward the house on stilts. The _Captain_ lay with
nose in the sand, and beside her, evidently just back from a sail, stood
Annie with two of the students who came on bright days to rent Captain
Fargo's boats. They were having a jolly time,--he could hear Annie
laughing at some sally from the taller student,--and they had no eye for
the two sailors on the pier. Once, as they walked out, Dick's hand went
up to his hat; but he was mistaken, she had not seen him. And so he
watched her until the lumber piles, on the broad outer end of the pier,
shut off the view; and Henry watched him.

Dick hardly heard what his cousin said when they parted. He leaped down
to the deck of the _Merry Anne_, and plunged moodily into the box of
an after cabin. His men, excepting Pink Harper, who was somewhere up
forward devouring a novel, were on shore; so that there was no one
to observe him standing there by the little window gazing shoreward.
Finally, after much chatting and lingering, the two students sauntered
away. Annie turned back to make her boat fast; and Dick, in no cheerful
frame of mind, came hurrying shoreward.

She saw him leap down from pier to sand, and gave him a wave of the
hand; then, seeing that he was heading toward her, she turned and
awaited him.

"Come, Dick, I want you to pull the _Captain_ higher up."

Dick did as he was bid, without a word. And then, with a look and tone
that told her plainly what was to come next, he asked, "What are you
going to do now?"

"I guess I 'll have to see if mother wants me. I've been sailing ever
since dinner."

"You haven't any time for me, then?"

"Why, of course I have,--lots of it. But I can't see you all the while."

"No, I suppose you can't--not if you go sailing with those boys."

Annie's mischievous nature leaped at the chance this speech gave
her. "They aren't boys, Dick; Mr. Beveridge is older than most of the
students. He told me all about himself the other day."

"Oh, he did."

"Yes. He was brought up on a farm, and he has had to work his way
through school. When he first came here, he got off the train with only
just three dollars and a half in his pocket, and he didn't have any idea
where he was going to get his next dollar. I think it's pretty brave of
a man to work as hard as that for an education."

Dick could say nothing. Most of _his_ education had come in through his
pores.

"I like Mr. Wilson, too."

"He is the other one, I suppose?"

Dick, his eyes fixed on the sand, did not catch the mirthful glance
that was shot at him after these words. And her voice, friendly and
unconscious, told him nothing.

"Yes, he is Mr. Beveridge's friend. They room together."

"Well, I hope they enjoy it."

"Now, Dick, what makes you so cross? When you are such a bear, it
wouldn't be any wonder if I didn't want to see you."

He gazed for a minute at the rippling blue lake, then broke out: "Can
you blame me for being cross? Is it my fault?"

She looked at him with wondering eyes.

"Why--you don't mean it is _my_ fault, Dick?"

"Do you think it is just right to treat me this way, Annie?"

"What way do you mean, Dick?"

He bit his lip, then looked straight into her eyes and came out with
characteristic directness:--

"I don't like to think I've been making a mistake all this while, Annie.
Maybe I have never asked you right out if you would marry me. I'm not
a college fellow, and it isn't always easy for me to say things, but
I thought you knew what I meant. And I thought that you didn't mind my
meaning it."

She was beginning to look serious and troubled.

"But if there is any doubt about it, I say it right now. Will you marry
me? It is what I have been working for--what I have been buying the
schooner for--and if I had thought for a minute that you weren't going
to say yes sooner or later, I should have gone plumb to the devil before
this. It isn't a laughing matter. It has been the thought of you that
has kept me straight, and--and--can't you see how it is, Annie? Haven't
you anything to say to me?"

She looked at him. He was so big and brown; his eyes were so clear and
blue.

"Don't let's talk about it now. You're so--impatient."

"Do you really think I've been impatient?"

She could not answer this.

"Now listen, Annie: I'm going to sail in the morning, away around to a
place called Spencer, on Lake Huron; and I could hardly get back inside
of ten or twelve days. And if I should go away without a word from
you--well, I couldn't, that's all."

"You don't mean--you don't want me to say before to-morrow?"

"Yes, that's just what I mean. You haven't anything to do to-night, have
you?"

She shook, her head without looking at him. "Well, I 'll be around after
supper, and we 'll take a walk, and you can tell me."

But her courage was coming back. "No, Dick, I can't."

"But, Annie, you don't mean--"

"Yes, I do. Why can't you stop bothering me, and just wait. Maybe
then--some day--"

"It's no use--I can't. If you won't tell me to-night, surely ten--or,
say, eleven--days ought to be enough. If I went off tomorrow without
even being able to look forward to it--Oh, Annie, you've got to tell
me, that's all. Let me see you to-night, and I 'll try not to bother you.
I 'll get back in eleven days, if I have to put the schooner on my back
and carry her clean across the Southern Peninsula,"--she was smiling
now; she liked his extravagant moods,--"and then you 'll tell me." He
had her hand; he was gazing so eagerly, so breathlessly, that she could
hardly resist. "You 'll tell me then, Annie, and you 'll make me the
luckiest fellow that ever sailed out of _this_ town. Eleven days from
to-night--and I 'll come--and I 'll ask you if it is to be yes or no--and
you 'll tell me for keeps. You can promise me that much, can't you?"

And Annie, holding out as long as she could, finally, with the slightest
possible inclination of her head, promised.

"Where will you be this evening?" he asked, as they parted.

"I 'll wait on the porch--about eight."

For the rest of the afternoon Dick sat brooding in his cabin. When, a
little after six, he saw Henry coming down the companionway, his heart
warmed.

"Thought I'd come over and eat with you," said his cousin. "What's the
matter here--why don't you light up?"

Dick, by way of reply, mumbled a few words and struck a light. Henry
looked at him curiously.

"What is it, Dick?" he asked again.

There had been few secrets between them. So far as either knew, they
were the last two members of their family, and their intimacy, though
never expressed in words, had a deep foundation. Before the present
arrangement of Dick's work, which made it possible for them to meet
at least once in the month, they had seen little of each other; but at
every small crisis in the course of his struggle upward to the command
of a schooner, Dick had been guided by the counsel and example of the
older man. Now he spoke out his mind without hesitation.

"Sit down, Henry. When--when I told you about what I have been
thinking--about Annie--why did you look at me as you did?"

"How did I look?"

"Don't dodge, Henry. The idea struck you wrong. I could see that, and I
want to know why."

"Well," Henry hesitated, "I don't know that I should put it just that
way. I confess I was surprised."

"Haven't you seen it coming?"

"I rather guess the trouble with me was that I have been planning out
your future without taking your feelings into account."

"How do you mean,--planning my future?"

"Oh, it isn't so definite that I could answer that question offhand.
I thought I saw a future for myself, and I thought we might go it
together. But I was counting on just you and me, without any other
interests or impediments."

"But if I should marry--"

"If you marry, your work will have to take a new direction. Your
interests will change completely. And before many years, you will begin
to think of quitting the Lake. It isn't the life for a family man. But
then--that's the way things go. I have no right to advise against it."
Henry smiled, with an odd, half bitter expression. "And from what I have
seen since my eyes were opened, I don't believe it would do any good for
me to object."

"You are mistaken there, Henry," the younger man replied quietly; "it
isn't going well at all. I've been pretty blue to-day."

"Well," said Henry, with the same odd expression, "I don't know but what
I'm sorry for that. That future I was speaking of seems to have faded
out lately,--in fact, my plans are not going well, either. And so you
probably couldn't count on me very much anyway."

He paused. Pink Harper, who acted as cook occasionally when the _Anne_
was tied up and the rest of the crew were ashore, could be heard
bustling about on deck. After a moment Henry rose, and, with an
impulsive gesture, laid his hand on Dick's shoulder. "Cheer up, Dick,"
he said. "Don't take it too hard. Try to keep hold of yourself. And look
here, my boy, we've always stepped pretty well together, and we mustn't
let any new thing come in between us--"

"Supper's ready!" Pink called down the companionway.

Dick was both puzzled and touched; touched by Henry's moment of
frankness, puzzled by the reasons given for his opposition to the
suggested marriage. It was not like his cousin to express positive
opinions, least of all with inadequate reasons. Dick had no notion of
leaving the Lake; he could never do so without leaving most of himself
behind. Plainly Henry did not want him married, and Dick wondered why.

It was half-past seven, and night was settling over the Lake. Already
the pier end was fading, the masts of the two schooners were losing
their distinctness against the sky; the ripples had quieted with the
dying day-breeze, and now murmured on the sand. The early evening stars
were peeping out, looking for their mates in the water below.

On the steps, sober now, and inclined to dreaming as she looked out into
the mystery of things, sat Annie. A shadow fell across the beach,--the
outline of a broad pair of shoulders,--and she held her breath. The
shadow lengthened; the man appeared around the corner of the house.
Then, as he came rapidly nearer, she was relieved to see that it was
Beveridge.

He was in a cheerful frame of mind as he stepped up and sat beside her.
It was pleasant that the peculiar nature of his work should make
it advisable to cultivate the acquaintance of an attractive young
woman--such a very attractive young woman that he was beginning to
think, now and then, of taking her away with him when his work here
should be done.

"What do you say to a row on the Lake?" he suggested, after a little.

"I mustn't go away," said Annie. "I promised I would be here at eight."

"But it's not eight yet," Beveridge replied. "Let's walk a little
way--you can keep the house in sight, and see when he comes."

"Well," doubtfully, "not far."

They strolled along the beach until Annie turned. "This is far enough."

"I don't know whether I can let your Captain come around quite so
often," said he, as they sat down on the dry sand, in the shelter of a
clump of willows. "It won't do--he is too good looking. I should like to
know what is to become of the rest of us."

This amused Annie. They had both been gazing out towards the schooners,
and he had read her thoughts. He went on: "You know it's not really
fair. These sailor fellows always get the best of us. He named his
schooner after you, didn't he?"

"Oh, no, I don't believe so."

"Sailors and soldiers--it's the same the world over! There's no chance
for us common fellows when they are about. Tell you what I shall have
to do--join the militia and come around in full uniform. Then maybe you
would be looking at me, too. I don't know but what I could even make you
forget him."

She had to laugh at this. "Maybe you could."

"I suppose it wouldn't do me any good to try without the uniform, would
it?"

She tossed her head now. "So that's what you think of me--that I care
for nothing but clothes?"

"Oh, no, it's not the clothes. His red shirt would never do it. But it's
the idea of a sailor's life--there is a sort of glitter about it--he
seems pluckier, somehow, than other men. It's the dash and the
grand-stand play that fetches it. I suppose it wouldn't be a bit of use
to tell you that you are too good for him."

She made no reply, and the conversation halted. Annie gazed pensively
out across the water. He watched her, and as the moments slipped away
his expression began to change; for he was still a young man, and the
witchery of the night was working within him.

"Do you know, I'm pretty nearly mean enough to tell you some things
about Dick Smiley. I don't know but what I'm a little jealous of him."

She did not turn, or speak.

"I'm afraid it is so. I would hardly talk like this if I were not. I
thought I was about girl-proof,--up to now, no one has been able to keep
my mind off my work very long at a time,--but you have been playing the
mischief with me, this last week or so. It's no use, Annie. I wouldn't
give three cents for the man that could look at you and keep his head.
And when I think of you throwing yourself away on Smiley, just because
he's good-looking and a sailor--you mustn't do it, that's all. I have
been watching you--"

"Oh,--you have?"

"Yes, and I think maybe I see some things about you that you don't see
yourself. I wonder if you have thought where a man like Smiley would
lead you?" She would have protested at this, but he swept on. "He can
never be anything more than he is. He has no head for business, and even
if he works hard, he can't hope to do more than own his schooner. You
see, he's not prepared for anything better; he's side-tracked. And if
you were just a pretty girl and nothing more,--just about the size of
these people around you,--I don't suppose I should say a word; I should
know you would never be happy anywhere else. Why, Annie, do you suppose
there's a girl anywhere else on the shore of Lake Michigan--on the whole
five Lakes--living among fishermen and sailors, as you do, that could
put on a dress the way you have put that one on, that could wear it the
way you're wearing it now?

"Oh, I know the difference, and I don't like to stand by and let you
throw yourself away. You see, Annie, I haven't known you very long, but
it has been long enough to make it impossible to forget you. I haven't
any more than made my start, but I'm sure I am headed right, and if
I could tell you the chance there is ahead of me to do something big,
maybe you would understand why I believe I'm going to be able to offer
you the kind of life you ought to have--the kind you were made for. I
don't want to climb up alone. I want some one with me--some one to help
me make it. You may think this is sudden--and you would be right.
It _is_ sudden. I have felt a little important about my work, I'm
afraid, for I really have been doing well. But ever since you just
looked at me with those eyes of yours, the whole business has gone
upside down. Don't blame me for talking out this way. It's your fault
for being what you are. I expect to finish up my work here pretty soon
now, and then I 'll have to go away, and there's no telling where I 'll
be."

Annie was puzzled.

"Oh, you finish so soon? It is only September now."

"I have to move on when the work is done, you know. I obey orders."

"But I thought you were a student, Mr. Beveridge?"

He hesitated; he had said too much. Chagrined, he rose, without a word,
at her "Come, I must go back now," and returned with her to the house.
And when they were approaching the steps, he was just angry enough with
himself to blunder again.

"Wait, Annie. I see you don't understand me. But there is one thing you
_can_ understand. I want to go away knowing that you aren't going to
encourage Smiley any longer. You can promise me that much. I don't want
to talk against him; but I can tell you he's not the man for you; he's
not even the man you think he is. Some day I will explain it all.
Promise me that you won't."

But she hurried on resolutely toward the house, and there was nothing
to do but follow. "Will you take my word for it, Annie,--that you 'll do
best to let him alone?"

She shook her head and hurried along.

On the steps sat a gloomy figure--Dick, in his Sunday clothes, white
shirt and collar, red necktie, and all. His elbows rested on his knees,
his chin rested on his hands, and the darkness of the great black Lake
was in his soul. He watched the approaching figures without raising his
head; he saw Beveridge lift his hat and turn away toward the bank; he
let Annie come forward alone without speaking to her.

She put one foot on the bottom step, and nodded up at him. "Here I am,
Dick. Do you want to sit here or--or walk?"

He got up, and came slowly down to the sand.

"So this is the way you treat me, Annie?"

"I'm not late, am I, Dick? It can't be much after eight."

"So you go walking with him, when--when--"

"Now, Dick, don't be foolish. Mr. Beveridge came around early, and
wanted me to walk, and--and I told him I couldn't stay away--"

She was not quite her usual sprightly self; and the manner of this
speech was not convincing. Dick's reply was a subdued sound that
indicated anything but satisfaction.

"I'm mad, Annie,--I know I'm mad--and I don't think you can blame me."

"I--I didn't ask you to come before eight, Dick."

"Oh, that was it, was it? I suppose you told him to come at seven."

"Now, Dick,--please--"

But he, not daring to trust his tongue, was angry and helpless before
her. After a moment he turned away and stood looking out toward the
lights of the schooner. Finally he said, in a strange voice, "I see I've
been a fool--I thought you meant some of the things you've said--I ought
to have known better; I ought to have known you were just fooling with
me--you were just a flirt."

He did not look around. Even if he had, the night would have concealed
the color in her cheeks. But he heard her say, "I think perhaps--you had
better go, Dick."

He hesitated, then turned.

"Good night," she said, and ran up the steps.

"Say--wait, Annie--"

The door closed behind her, and Dick stood alone. He waited, thinking
she might come back, but the house was silent. He stepped back and
looked up at her little balcony with its fringe of flowers, but it was
deserted; no light appeared in the window. At last he turned away, and
tramped out to the _Merry Anne_. The men were aboard, ready for an early
start in the morning; the new mate was settling himself in the cabin.
To Dick, as he stood on the pier and looked down on the trim little
schooner, nothing appeared worth while. He leaped down to the deck, and
thought savagely that he would have made the the same leap if the deck
had not been there, if there had been fourteen feet of green water and a
berth on the scalloped sand below. But there was one good thing--nothing
could rob Dick of his sleep. And in his dreams Annie was always kind.




CHAPTER IV--THE CIRCLE MARK

[Illustration: 0098]

EARLY in the morning they were off. Dick, glum and reckless, took the
wheel; McGlory went up forward and looked after hoisting the jibs and
foresail. The new mate had already succeeded, by an ugly way he had, in
antagonizing most of the men; but their spirits ran high, in spite of
him, as the _Merry Anne_ slipped away from the pier and headed out into
the glory of the sunrise.

"Hey, Peenk," called Larsen, "geeve us 'Beelly Brown.'" And Pink, who
needed no urging, roared out promptly the following ballad, with the
whole crew shouting the spoken words:--

                   Oh, Billy Brown he loved a girl,

                   And her name was Mary Rowe, O-ho!

                   She lived way down

               In that wick-ed town,

                   The town called She-caw-go.

                   (Spoken) WHERE'S THAT?

                   The place where the Clark streets grow.


                   "Oh, Mary, will you bunk with me?"

                   "Say, ain't you a little slow, O-ho!

                        'Bout sailin' down

                   To this wicked town

                   To tell me you love me so?"

                   (Spoken) GO 'LONG!

                   She's givin''im the wink, I know.


          Oh, the wind blowed high, an' the wind blowed strong,

          An' the Gross' Point' reef laid low, O-ho!

                   An' Billy Brown

                   Went down, down, down,

               To the bottom of the place below.

               (Spoken) WHERE'S MARY?

               She's married to a man named Joe.


"You're makin' noise enough up there," growled McGlory. Pink, with a
rebellious glance, bent over the rope he was coiling and held his peace.

As they started, so they sailed during four days--the Captain reckless,
the mate hard and uncommunicative, the men cowed. And at mid-morning on
the fourth day they arrived at Spencer.

The Hydrographic Office had at that time worked wonders in charting
these Great Lakes of ours, but it had given no notice to the little
harbor that was tucked snugly away behind False Middle Island, not a
hundred miles from Mackinaw City on the Lake Huron side; merely a speck
of an island with a nameless dent behind it. But old Spencer, a lank,
hatchet-faced Yankee, had found that a small schooner could be worked in
if she headed due west, "with the double sand dune against the three
pines till you get the forked stump ranged with the ruined shanty; meet
this range and hold it till clear of the bar at the north end of the
island; circle around to port; when clear of the bar, hug the inner
shore of the island until the mill can be seen behind the trees; then
run up into the harbor. Plenty of water here."

This discovery had resulted in such a curious little mill as can be
found only in the back corners of the country,--a low shed with a flat
roof; one side open to the day; within, an old-fashioned vertical saw;
the whole supplied with power by a rotting, dripping, moss-covered
sluiceway.

All about were blackened pine stumps--nothing else for a hundred miles.
And all through the forest was the sand, drifting like snow over roads
and fences, changing the shape of the land in every high wind, blowing
into hair and clothes, and adding, with the tall, endless, gray-green
mullein stalks, the final touch of desolation to a hopeless land. Here
and there, in the clearings, sand- farmers and their sand-
wives struggled to wring a livelihood from the thankless earth. Other
farmers had drifted helplessly away, leaving houses and barns to blacken
and rot and sink beneath the sand drifts, and leaving, too, rows of
graves under the stumps.

Twenty miles down the coast, where a railroad touched, was a feeble
little settlement that was known, on the maps, as Ramsey City.

This region had been "cut over" once; it had been burned over more
than once; and yet old Spencer, with his handful of employees and his
deliberate little mill, wore a prosperous look on his inscrutable
Yankee face. There was no inhabited house within ten miles, but he was
apparently contented.

McGlory, it seemed, knew the channel; so Dick surrendered the wheel
when they were nearing the island, and stood at his elbow, watching the
landmarks. The mate volunteered no information, but Dick needed none;
he made out the ranges with the eye of a born sailor. But even he was
surprised when the _Merry Anne_ swung around into the landlocked harbor
and glided up to a rude wharf that was piled with lumber. Behind it was
the mill; behind that, at some distance, a comfortable house, nearly
surrounded by other smaller dwellings.

"So this is Spencer, eh?" observed Dick.

"This is Spencer," McGlory replied.

The owner himself was coming down to meet them, reading over a letter
from his friend, Stenzenberger, as he walked. His wife came out of her
kitchen and stood on her steps to see the schooner. Two or three men
in woodman's flannels were lounging about the mill, and these sat up,
renewed their quids from a common plug, and stared.

"How are you?" nodded Spencer, pocketing the letter. He caught the line
and threw it over a snubbing post. "This Mr.

"Smiley?"

"That's who," said Dick.

"How are you, Joe?" to McGlory.

"How are you, Mr. Spencer?"

In a moment they were fast, and Dick had leaped ashore. He caught
Spencer's shrewd eyes taking him in, and laughed, "Well, I guess you 'll
know me next time."

"Guess I will." There was a puzzled, even disturbed expression on the
lumberman's face. "I was thinking you didn't look much like your cousin.
The stuffs all ready for you there. You'd better put one of your men on
to check it up. Will you walk up and take a look around the place?"

"Thanks--guess I 'll stay right here and hustle this stuff aboard. I'd
like to put out again after dinner."

Spencer drew a plug from a trousers pocket, offered it to Dick, who at
the sight of it shook his head, and helped himself to a mouthful. Then
his eyes took in the schooner, her crew, and the sky above them. "Wind's
getting easterly," he observed. "Looks like freshening up. Mean business
getting out of here against the wind--no room for beating. You'd better
leave your mate to load and have a look at the place."

"Well, all right; McGlory, see to getting that stuff aboard right off,
will you? We 'll try to get out after dinner sometime."

When Spencer had shown his guest the mill and the houses of his men,
he led the way to his own home and seated his guest in the living room.
Here from a corner cupboard he produced a bottle and two glasses.

"I've got a little something to offer you here, Mr. Smiley," said he,
"that I think you 'll find drinkable. I usually keep some on hand in case
anybody comes along. I don't take much myself, but it's sociable to
have around." Dick tossed off a glass and smacked his lips. "Well, say,
that's the real stuff."

"Guess there ain't no doubt about that."

"Where do you get it from?"

"I bought that in Detroit last time I was down. Couldn't say what house
it's from."

"Oh, you get out of here now and then, do you r

"Not often--have another?"

"Thanks, don't care if I do."

"You see I've got a little schooner of my own, the _Estelle_,--named her
after my wife's sister,--and now and then I take a run down the shore to
Saginaw or Port Huron, or somewhere."

"Do you get much lumber out?"

"Enough for a living."

"I noticed you had a mark on the end of every big stick--looked like a
groove cut in a circle--most a foot across."

"Yes, that's my mark."

"The idea being that people will know your stuff, I suppose."

Spencer nodded shortly. "I'm getting out the best lumber on the Great
Lakes--that's why I mark it--help yourself to that bottle--there, I 'll
just set it where you can reach it." Dick would have stopped ordinarily
at two glasses. To-day he stopped at nothing. "Much obliged. I haven't
touched anything as strong as this for two years."

"Swore off?"

"Sort of, but I don't know that I've been any better off for it. There's
nothing so good after sailing the best part of a week."

"You're right, there ain't. And that's the pure article there--wouldn't
hurt a babe in arms. Take another. You haven't been working for Cap'n
Stenzenberger many years, have you?"

Throughout this conversation Spencer was studying Smiley's face.

"No, nothing like so long as Henry."

"How do you get along with him?"

"The Cap'n? Oh, all right. He's a little too smart for me, but I guess
he's square enough."

"Doing a good business, is he?"

"Couldn't say. I don't know much about his business."

"Oh, you don't?" There was a shade of disappointment in the lumberman's
voice as he said this, but Dick, who was reaching for the bottle, failed
to observe it.

"McGlory been with you long?"

"No, this is his first trip."

"You don't say so! Wasn't he with your cousin a while back?"

"Yes, for a year."

"Thought I'd seen him on the _Schmidt_. Is he a good man?"

"Good enough."

"Let's see, wasn't he in with Stenzenberger once?"

"Couldn't say."

"Oh, you couldn't?"

"No. Say, I 'll have to step down and see how things are going. Here,
I 'll just have another nip out o' that bottle."

"Nonsense, Cap'n; sit down, sit down. I guess McGlory's competent to get
the load aboard all right. I ain't hardly begun to get acquainted with
you yet. We 'll have dinner pretty soon now, and when you've put a little
something solid inside you, we 'll go down and have a look at things.
Don't get bashful about the bottle. There's plenty more where that come
from."

"I don't know but what I've had all that's good for me."

"Pshaw! A man of your inches? Here now, here's to you!"

They drank together, and a little later they drank again.

When Mrs. Spencer, a tired, faded out little body, came to the door and
said, "Dinner is ready, Ed," Dick's spirits were soaring amazingly, and
his voice had risen to a pitch slightly above the normal. Spencer nodded
toward his guest and remarked, "This is Cap'n Smiley, Josie."

"Glad to make your acquaintance," exclaimed Dick, boisterously, striding
forward to shake her hand.

"Show the Cap'n to the dining room, will you, Josie?" Spencer said.
"I 'll step out and call the boys."

Mrs. Spencer led the way through the short hall to the dining room,
where a table was spread for Spencer's eight or ten men (Mc-Glory and
the crew were to eat on the _Merry Anne_). Dick, stepping high, followed
her, and found himself being presented to a blond young woman with blue
eyes and an agreeable expression. "My sister Estelle, Cap'n Smiley,"
said Mrs. Spencer.

"Glad to meet you," said Dick, looking so hard at her as they shook
hands that she blushed and dropped her eyes.

Mrs. Spencer slipped out to the kitchen after the introduction, leaving
them to await the men.

"You've never been here before?" she ventured.

"Never have. Do you live here?"

"Yes, I've been with sister four years now."

"Well, say, this is a pretty lonely place for a girl like you. I 'll have
to sail around often."

"I guess you will."

"Yes, _ma'am_, you're too pretty for this corner of the woods."

Estelle blushed and shook her head.

"But that's the gospel truth, sure as I'm Dick Smiley. And I can see
you're too sensible to get mad at any one for telling the truth."

"Oh, Captain, I'm afraid you're a flirt," simpered Estelle.

"Me, flirt? Never. Not on your diamond ear-rings!"

"Sh! What would Ed think if he was to come in and hear you talking like
that?"

Spencer, in truth, was already on the steps; in another moment he came
into the room at the head of his men. And Dick, suddenly aware that his
tongue was taking liberties with him, shut his lips tight and refused
to speak another word throughout the meal. In vain the lumberman rallied
him; in vain the men made advances; in vain Estelle, who was waiting
on table, threw him glances from behind Spencer's chair or let her hand
brush his in passing him the potatoes; from a flushed, talkative man,
Dick had turned abruptly into a silent, moody one, and he ate steadily,
with eyes for nothing but his food.

The meal was nearly over when Spencer, looking around the table, said,
"Hello, where's Pete?"

"He's busy," replied one of the men, "said he'd be a little late."

"Well, if he likes his vittles cold, I guess it's his own funeral."

"There he is now, outside there."

At this Spencer pushed back his chair and went to the window. "Hello,
there, Pete," he called. "Ain't you coming to dinner?"

"Yes, be right along."

Dick stopped eating at the sound of the last voice, and listened, his
fork in the air, for what was coming next. Hearing nothing further, he
faced around and watched the door. A moment later in came Roche, trying
to greet the men without looking at his former captain, and sliding into
his chair with averted face.

"Mr. Roche, don't you know Cap'n Smiley?" said Spencer.

"Yes, yes, I know him. How are you, Cap'n?"

"How are you, Pete? How'd you get here?"

"Oh, I--" Roche was embarrassed. "I used to work for Mr. Spencer, and
when I left you he took me back."

Dick merely grunted, and went on eating.

"Here, Estelle!" called Spencer. "Estelle, Cap'n Smiley'd like another
piece o' pie. Ain't Estelle there, Josie?"

Mrs. Spencer appeared in the kitchen doorway. "No, she ain't here."

"Why, I just saw her a minute or so ago."

"She said it was hot in the kitchen and stepped outside. What is it you
want?"

"Cap'n Smiley'd like some more pie."

"All right, I 'll get it for him."

Dick bolted the second helping in the silence that had enveloped him
since the meal began. Then he got up, said something about the schooner
that nobody quite understood, and left the house.

Matters were going slowly at the wharf.

There was still a small pile of timber, and another of shingles waiting
to be loaded. So far as Dick could see, Harper seemed to be directing
the work.

"What are you doing there, Pink?" he demanded, in a tone that made Pink
look curiously at him before replying.

"Loadin' up."

"Where's McGlory?"

"I don't know."

"You _don't know!_ Well, why in------don't you know?"

"I 'll tell you, Cap'n."

"Oh, you 'll tell me, will you?"

"Yes, I will. Mr. McGlory was awful partic'lar about the first load
o' stuff that went aboard, handled most of it hisself, and made us work
slow, an' then he just naturally quit workin' and walked off without
sayin' a word, an' so I an' the boys have been tryin' to hustle it
aboard, like you said, without him."

"Quit workin'! What right's he got to quit workin'?"

"I don't know, Cap'n."

Two of the sailors, standing near by, had been watching their captain
during this talk.

Now one of them turned away to hide a grin.

"What are you grinning about there?" roared Dick.

"I wasn't grinnin', Cap'n."

"Oh, you wasn't. Get to work, then, and shut your mouths. You're a lot
o' loafers, that's what you are. Hustle, now!" He lent a strong hand
himself, glad to vent in work the explosives that were working in his
head; and as he worked he muttered, "So we quit workin' when we're
tired, do we?"

Meanwhile the mate was strolling in the forest a few hundred yards away
with Estelle. He was looking closely at her, as they walked, from under
heavy eyebrows. She was flushing a very little and studying the sand at
her feet.

"Who's been giving you that kind o' talk about me?" he was asking.

"Why--I don't know as it was anybody especial."

"You didn't believe it, did you?"

"N-no--but you see, you told me you were coming right back, and then you
didn't--and I didn't know whether I was ever going to see you again or
not. I thought--"

"Well, what was it you thought?"

"I thought you probably could have come if you'd wanted to!"

"You know better than that, Estelle. The only way I could come was on
the schooner, and Cap'n Henry laid me off before the next trip. The
minute I had a chance to come up here with this man, I grabbed it. What
I'd like to know is, who is there up here that wants to tell lies about
me? What else have you heard?"

"You--you won't be mad, Joe, if--if I tell?"

"Course not. Here, let's sit down."

They found a seat in the hollow of the sand, where the undergrowth
screened them.

"You see, Joe, I heard that you--were married."

He started up. "That's a lie!"

"You said you--wouldn't get mad."

He dropped down again, muttering: "I ain't mad at you, Estelle, but
don't you see there's some one that's just setting out to spread these
lies. It's enough to rile a fellow. Who was it told you?"

"I don't know--it was quite a while back--maybe it was--Josie."

"But she don't know anything about me. Who could 'a' told her?"

"I don't know. You won't say anything to her, will you, Joe?"

"No, course not. It's funny, that's all. But so long's you don't believe
it, I don't suppose I've got any cause for kicking."

"Of course I don't believe it--not now. Before you'd come back, and
after all you'd said about--"

"About what, Estelle?"

"About coming up here for me--and our going away from here--"

"That's it," he broke in eagerly--"that's just it. I couldn't do it then
because I didn't have the ready. But now, you see, I've got a little
put by, and there ain't nothing to hinder our clearing out o' here for
good."

"Isn't there, Joe?"

"Not a thing."

"Oh, I'm so glad. You don't know--you don't know how sick I get of this
place, and these men around. I most die with it sometimes--feel as if
I could go away alone if I knew of any place to go. Once I thought a
little of--of just doing it anyhow, and maybe finding you in Chicago.
You've told me where your place is, you know, up on the north side."

"Yes, I know, but we can do it now."

"Now, Joe?"

"Sure."

"To-day?"

"Well--you see--I couldn't hardly do it to-day. I've got to finish my
trip."

"Oh--"

"Now wait, Estelle. If I got impatient, I'd lose the trick, don't you
see. This man, Dick Smiley, is working for the man that's got to help
me. I know a way to make him back me--set me up in my own place in some
new town maybe. I couldn't leave Smiley in the lurch without getting his
boss down on me. I've got a hold on him, but he'd never stand for that.
This Smiley's a no-good lot, but I've got to stick out this trip with
him."

"But--then you 'll be back in Chicago."

"I know. I'm coming up here by train. Or say I meet you at Saginaw."

"You thought you could do that before."

"I was broke then. Now I've got the stuff. And I know how I can turn
a trick on this trip back that 'll be worth an easy five hundred to me.
That 'll take us clear down to Niagara Falls, maybe."

"Oh, could we go there, Joe?"

"Sure, anywhere you say."

"But, how 'll I know when to start?"

"Well, let's see. I can't be sure of getting back to Chicago, and
cleaning things up, and coming up to Saginaw inside of seven days. Call
it eight; that 'll make it--to-day's Tuesday--next week Wednesday. What
day does Spencer drive down to Ramsey?"

"Thursdays."

"Then that's our day. You could get him to take you along, couldn't
you?"

"Yes."

"Then you give him the slip and catch the afternoon train to Saginaw."

"But how could I take my things? He'd be sure to see them."

"Leave 'em behind. I 'll buy you what you need. Have you got any money?"

"Not very much?"

He sat up and drew out a handful of bills. "Here--say I give you
twenty-five. That 'll see you through, won't it?"

"Oh, yes, Joe."

She was decidedly pretty now. Her weak face was alive with eagerness,
her eyes were dancing. And McGlory, as he looked at her, seemed to feel
something approaching a thrill.

There they sat, hearing nothing, seeing nothing, until the brush parted
and Dick stood over them.

"Well, Mr. Man," said he, "I hope you're passing a pleasant afternoon
with your friend."

Estelle got to her feet first.

"We thought maybe you'd spend a few minutes with us to-day," continued
Dick. "You see we can't stay very long."

"Who're you talking to?" growled the mate.

"I'm a-looking right at you."

It was an awkward moment for McGlory. He felt that it was downright
necessary to show his superiority, for it is only by such a show
that women like Estelle are kept constant. On the other hand, even he
understood the danger of openly defying his captain. But the seconds
were flying.

"You go back to your schooner, Dick Smiley. You ain't boss here."

"Well, by--" Dick checked himself, with a half bow toward Estelle. "I
beg your pardon, my dear. Your friend kind o' surprised me."

McGlory flashed a suspicious glance at her.

"None o' your jaw now, Smiley. You can do your talking when it's time to
sail. You 'll have to shut up here."

"Maybe you 'll be good enough to tell me when you 'll be ready to start,"
suggested Dick, with extravagant politeness.

McGlory rumbled an unintelligible reply; and Dick turned again to
Estelle. "Will you excuse him, my dear. You see he's got a previous
engagement with me. But you couldn't hardly blame him for forgetting,
with such a lady friend to talk to."

"Look here," McGlory broke out; "you've said enough. You go back to your
schooner where you belong!"

"Thanks, I'm going. We're all going. You 'll come with us, my dear?"

Estelle, who was plunged in confusion, said nothing, but fell in with
him. And McGlory, fuming, had to follow.

The east wind was freshening; the sky was darker. Spencer, who stood
awaiting them on the wharf, shook his head at Dick. "You aren't going to
start now, are you, Cap'n?"

"Sure we are."

"It's mean business with an east wind. But still McGlory knows the
channel."

"McGlory be----!" said Dick, throwing off his ceremonial manner now that
Estelle had escaped to the house. "I'd take her through hell for fifty
cents. Just watch my smoke." Spencer said nothing further. The mate was
ordered up forward; the lines were cast off; Dick took the wheel. And
out they went, with a reckless daring that made Spencer and Pink Harper
smile from different motives.

"He's going to butt a hole clean through Middle Island," muttered the
lumberman. But before the words were out, the Merry Anne swung cheerily
about and went skimming along the channel bank. Soon she rounded the
island in safety and disappeared.

Not until they were fairly out on Lake Huron did Dick call his mate.
Then he gave up the wheel without a word and stumbled down into the
cabin. His high spirits had given place to weariness and depression;
and, dropping down for a moment on his bunk, he fell asleep.

On deck McGlory, with an expression of smouldering anger, stood at the
wheel, glancing now at the sails, now at the water, now at the receding
shore. If his eyes could have penetrated the bluffs and the forest, he
would not have been happier. For Estelle, who seemed to be the victim of
her emotions today, was listening to some earnest talk from a boastful
fellow named Roche.




CHAPTER V--BURNT COVE


[Illustration: 0124]

DURING the rest of the afternoon, during the evening, on into the
night, Dick's hearty snoring floated up the companionway. At supper-time
McGlory called Ole Larsen to the wheel, and went below. The Swede looked
after him and observed that he took the steps slowly and cautiously,
and was more quiet than usual in the cabin. From the mate his attention
turned to the binnacle. His instructions were to hold the course,
nor'east, pointing into the wind with the sheets hauled close.
Ordinarily he would not have taken the trouble to question any orders
that might have been given him, but the dislike and distrust all the
crew felt for their new mate was stirring in his mind. He took occasion,
when Harper came aft about some work, to beckon him and point to the
compass.

"Aye tank we don' go at Mackinaw, no," he said in a half whisper.

"Is that the course he gave you?"

"Ya-as, dat's her."

"I was thinkin' myself it was funny. Near's I can figure, we're pointin'
for Manitoulin Island. Now what in thunder--Look here, Ole--first chance
I get I'm goin' to wake the Cap'n."

"Aye tank we do dat, ya-as."

They had dropped their voices, but Mc-Glory had heard them. He now
came tiptoeing up the companion steps, wearing an ugly scowl. "Go up
forward," he commanded, addressing Harper.

"I was just askin' about the course, Mr. McGlory. It didn't quite seem
to me--"

"Go up forward!"

Pink hesitated, then he raised his voice. "Cap'n Smiley generally likes
me to wake him when he's slept as long's this."

"Go up forward."

"Well--"

He was starting, but he moved too slowly. McGlory's temper gave way, and
he struck him, with the back of his hand, across the face.

"You hit _me!_" The blood rushed into Harper's face; he drew himself up,
his fists contracting, the muscles of his bare forearms knotting. Ole
gazed impassively at the compass, but his fingers were twitching on the
spokes of the wheel; he saw from the expression of Harper's eyes that
the boy needed no assistance. For one tense moment, as they stood
there on the sloping deck, a faint light shining on them from the open
companionway, anything seemed possible. Had Mc-Glory been a coward he
would have retreated from the blazing figure before him; but he was not
a coward. Instead of retreating, he stepped forward, gripped Harper's
arm, and whirled him around. "Go up forward!" he said for the fourth
time. And Pink, swallowing hard, went.

A gentle sigh escaped the wheelsman. The mate turned on him; but Ole was
gazing out into the dark with an expressionless face. Into the silence
that followed came a gurgling snore from the cabin; if Pink had hoped to
wake the captain, he had failed. And the end of this brief incident was
that McGlory returned below and finished his supper, while the _Merry
Anne_ continued to point nor'east.

Towards eleven o'clock the moon rose and showed Duck Island six miles
off the port bow. McGlory was again at the wheel. He now brought her up
still closer to the wind, heading a few points off Outer Duck Island and
skimming the lower edge of Jennie Graham Shoal. Huddled up in the bow,
out of the mate's view, Harper and Larsen were watching out ahead,
pulling at their pipes and occasionally exchanging a whispered word or
two. Linding, the third sailor, lay flat on the deck by the windlass,
his head pillowed on a coil of rope, the regular sound of his breathing
telling that he was asleep. Soon Ole's practised eyes made out a bit of
land far off to port, and he pointed it out to his companion.

"What is it?"

"Meedle Duck Island, ya-as."

A few minutes more and they saw a line of coast dead ahead.

"Manitoulin Island?" whispered Pink.

"Aye tank."

On they went until the shore lay plainly before them in the
moonlight,--on until the breeze began to fail them, so close were they
in the shelter of the land. Finally they heard McGlory say in a guarded
voice, "Ready about, up there!" and they sprang to their places.

It proved a short tack. Hardly a quarter of an hour later, when the land
had faded but a little way into the indistinct night, they came about
again. This time they ran in so directly for the land that Pink grew
nervous. He stood up, pipe in hand, looking back at the mate, then
forward at the shore. The breeze fell away, but they drifted on through
a mirror of shapes and shadows. The trees of the bank loomed before
them, then, it seemed, around them.

Still the _Merry Anne_ drifted on, her wheelsman turning every stray
breath to advantage. She was in a cove now, though how wide it was or
how far it extended the sailors could not tell, so strangely were the
bluffs and the trees reflected in the water. Drifting, however, is lazy
work, and Harper sat down to it and relighted his pipe, At length the
schooner came lazily up into the wind and McGlory ordered the anchor
overboard. Here was a chance to try to wake the Captain, and the
chance was seized; but even the dank and rattle of the chain failed to
interrupt the snoring in the cabin.

"Linding," said McGlory, "come back here."

Larsen and Harper looked at each other,--they had not told
Linding,--then between them they woke him and sent him aft.

Without a word the mate motioned the sailor to help him lower the boat
over the stern.

"He's goin' ashore," whispered Harper. Ole nodded. "He's beckonin' for
us--say, Ole, shall we go?"

But the Swede started promptly aft. The habit of obedience is so strong
in a well-dis-posed sailor that only great provocation will overthrow
it. With but a moment's hesitation, Harper followed.

"Climb down there," said the mate; "and mind you're quiet about it."

Down they went; McGlory came after and took the rudder; and, propelled
by two pairs of oars, the boat slipped away, crossed a patch of
moonlight, and entered the mysterious region of shadows.

"Way enough--easy now!"

They literally could not distinguish the shore--it was all distorted,
unnatural. They dragged the oars in the water and looked over their
shoulders. Linding was in the bow with a long boat-hook ready in his
hands. Then they found themselves floating quietly alongside a narrow
landing pier, and it was necessary to tumble in the oars in a hurry.

Linding checked the boat's headway, the others reached out and caught
the planking with their hands; and McGlory stepped out.

"Make her fast," he said, "and come ashore."

They obeyed.

"Now, boys,"--he seemed of a sudden to be making an attempt at
good-nature,--"I want you to wait here for me. I 'll be back in five
minutes." And walking along a path that mounted the bluff, he left them
standing there.

For a few moments they were silent. Then Harper spoke up: "Look here
fellows, I don't know how it strikes you, but I'm hanged if I like this
way o' doin' business. What we'd better do is to pull right back an'
wake the Cap'n."

"Meester McGlory, she haf geef us orders, ya-as?"

"What's that got to do with it?"

But the two Swedes shook their heads. They were slow of body and mind;
the idea of rowing off without the mate was too daring. "You won't do
it, then?"

They looked at each other.

"All right," said Harper, pulling off his coat, "all right. Have it your
way. But I'm goin' back, an' I'm goin' now." He tossed his coat into the
boat, pulled off his boots and threw them after, let himself down into
the water, waded a few steps, and struck out for the schooner. It was
but a little way. He swam around to the stern, and drew himself up by
the boat tackle, which had been left hanging down close to the water.
Rushing down into the cabin, where a single lantern burned dimly, he
bent over the Captain, who lay dressed in his bunk, and shook him.

"Wake up, Cap'n, wake up!"

"Lemme be, will you?"

"Wake up! It's me--Harper."

"I don't care if it is. You needn't drown me."

"But, Cap'n!"

"Well, what's the row?" Slowly Dick raised his head and looked around.
"Good Lord! What time is it?"

"Twelve o'clock."

"Twelve o'clock _what!_"

"Midnight."

"Midnight your gran'ma!"

"But it is. Mr. McGlory, he--"

"Just let go o' me, will you? Go over there and drip on the steps." Dick
was slowly swinging his feet around and sitting up. "You've soaked my
bedding now. What's the matter with you anyhow? Been trying to swim
home?"

"No, Cap'n, but Ole says we're up at--"

"See here, why haven't I been waked up?"

"Mr. McGlory wouldn't let me wake you."

"Wouldn't let you?"

"No, he--"

"What's the matter with your lip?"

"McGlory hit me."

"Hit you!" Dick sprang to his feet. "What in thunder are you talking
about?"

"I'm tryin' to tell you, Cap'n, if you 'll just listen--"

"Go on, be quick about it."

"You've been sleepin' ever since we left Middle Island. Ole an' me we
seen that the course was nor'east instead o' nor'west, an' I was goin'
to wake you, but he wouldn't let me, an' I hollered loud but it
didn't wake you, an' now we're in a place Ole thinks is Burnt Cove on
Manitoulin Island, an'--an' Mr. McGlory's made me row him ashore, an'
told us to wait there for him, an' I swum back to wake you--"

Dick was standing close to Harper, staring at him with a mixture of
astonishment and incredulity. Now he brushed him aside and ran up the
steps. Sure enough, on every side were trees and the shadows of trees.
The Lake was not to be seen. He turned again to Harper who was close at
his elbow. "Where's the boat?"

"Right over there--not a hundred yards."

"Ole!" called Dick.

"Ya-as."

"Bring that boat back and hustle about it."

In a moment they heard the clanking of oars, and soon the boat appeared
in the moonlight and ran alongside.

"What are you doing there?" said Dick.

"Mees' McGlory, she say to wait."

"Oh, she does, does she! Well, we 'll see about it." He leaped down to
the boat and took the stern. "Pull ashore."

"Cap'n," said Harper, "will you let me go?"

"Sure, if you want to. Take Linding's place. Linding, you stay on the
schooner. And mind, there's nobody but me giving orders around here.
Pull away, boys."

The landing pier was deserted when they ran alongside. "Which way did he
go?" asked Dick, as he stepped out.

Harper pointed at the dim path.

"How long ago was it?"

"Just a few minutes."

"All right. We 'll wait here." He sat down with his back against a post,
and filled his pipe. "Got a match, Pink? Oh, I forgot, you're wet. Ole,
give me a match." He lighted up and settled back to smoke and think.

McGlory had evidently walked some little distance back from the Cove,
for nearly ten minutes passed before they heard his step in the brush.
Dick sat still until he saw the mate coming down the bluff, then he
said, "Get aboard, McGlory."

At the first word McGlory stopped short.

"Well," Dick added, rising, "how long are you going to keep us waiting?"

Still there was no word from the motionless figure. Not until Dick
stepped to the stern of the boat did he speak. "Come up here a minute,
will you, Cap'n? I want to speak to you."

"You can do any speaking you have to do on the schooner. Swing around,
Pink. I 'll hold her."

"Just a minute, Cap'n, you know what I mean."

"All I know about you is that you can't be trusted."

"Seems to me you're gettin' mighty innocent all to once."

"You can have your choice, McGlory, of getting aboard or staying behind.
For my part, I'd a heap sight rather leave you behind."

"You needn't talk that way. I know what I'm doin'--I know I'm not to
talk to you--"

"All right, Pink,"--Dick stepped into the boat,--"let her go."

McGlory turned and looked back up the path, as if listening. Then
suddenly he ran out on the landing and got aboard just as the men were
pushing off. He took the bow thwart, and settled down without a word.
When they reached the schooner, he got out the boat-hook, and held her
steady while Dick climbed out.

"That 'll do there," said Dick, when McGlory and Larsen were hoisting
the boat up to the davits. "Let her down again. Pink, you'd better take
Linding and sound the channel ahead of us. We 'll start right out."

"That ain't necessary," put in the mate, hurriedly; "I can take her
out."

Dick turned and looked him over sharply. "How do I know you wouldn't run
her aground? You seem to be raising the devil generally."

"I ain't a fool," replied the mate, with an impatient gesture.

"I'd feel a little safer if you were. Well, all right, Pink, make her
fast. We 'll let him try it."

McGlory took the wheel, and Dick sat by him on the cabin trunk. They
went out as they had come in, gaining a rod here and a yard there, as
the vagrant night breezes stirred the trees and faintly rippled the
water. Up forward the men settled down as quietly as if working out of
Burnt Cove after midnight were a part of the daily routine. Dick smoked
in silence. The mate alone was nervous. For some reason he seemed
as anxious now to get out of the Cove as he had been to get into it.
Occasionally his eyes wandered back toward the darker spot where the
landing was. Once he seemed to hear something,--they were then in sight
of the open lake,--and he swung her off quickly to gain headway. Finally
Dick asked:--

"Got another o' your lady friends stowed away up here?"

The mate grunted.

"Maybe you thought you'd just drop around for a little call. That the
idea?"

"No, that ain't the idea."

"I didn't know you were a Mormon."

Another grunt.

"Case o' temporary mental aberration, perhaps. You thought you owned the
schooner. Or maybe you dreamed I was going to give it to you--not for
its intrinsic value, but as a token of affection _and_ esteem. That it?"

"No, that ain't it, an' you know it ain't."

"Oh, I'm in the secret, am I?"

McGlory leaned across the wheel and looked at him. "Are you a-tryin' to
make me think you don't know why I come here?"

"I certainly am."

"Well, you beat me."

"Then we're in the same condition. It isn't exactly usual, you know, to
take another man's schooner off for a summer cruise without asking him
if he don't mind. Of course, between friends, it's all right---only
there are some little formalities that are customary. But I suppose you
aren't going to tell me anything about it--why you did it."

The mate said nothing. They were now slipping out into deep water, where
the breeze could fill the sails, and the schooner began to heel and to
nose through the ripples with a grateful sound. The light was stronger
out here, and the mate could see the Captain's face more plainly. What
he saw there answered several questions that lay, unspoken, in his mind.

"I 'll take the wheel now," said Dick. "Hold on, don't you go forward.
Wait here till I get through with you." He raised his voice and called
to the others. "Come back here, boys, all o' you." And when the crew
was grouped about the wheel: "Pink, here, is going to be my mate for
the rest o' this trip. I want you to take his orders the same as if
they were mine. McGlory has nothing more to say on this schooner. That's
all."

The men looked at each other. The Swedes were slow to grasp what was
said. McGlory stood back in the shadow, and his face told nothing.
Harper was excited.

"That's all, I tell you. You can go back."

They went at this--all but Pink, who lingered. "Cap'n--"

"Well, what is it?"

"I was just goin' to say--it's more'n square--you've been more'n white
to me--"

"Hold on there. You needn't bother about engrossing any resolutions.
You 'll find it hard enough."

"Well--I'm mighty obliged for--"

"Not at all."

Thirty-six hours later, when the Merry Anne was slipping through the
islands west of the straits and heading southward for the run down Lake
Michigan, McGlory slipped aft and addressed Harper, who had the wheel.
"I was sort o' hasty awhile ago, Pink, when I hit you that time. I hope
you ain't a-layin' it up against me."

Pink stared at him, but offered no reply.

"I was a little excited. You see, Cap'n Smiley's a good sailor, but he
don't know where his own interest is."

"I ain't got nothin' to say to you about Cap'n Smiley."

"I know. Say, you ain't got no objections to turnin' an honest penny,
have you?

"That depends."

"Or say maybe it was a neat little five hundred--good hard stuff."

"Where's it cornin' from?"

"You know where we was--over in Canada?"

"I ought to."

"Well, Smiley knows all about that."

"The---------he does!"

"Sure thing. He's been there before, more'n once."

"Funny he didn't know the channel then. There ain't a place around the
Lakes he couldn't sail the _Anne_ through if he'd smelled it once."

"I know. That's the queer part of it. He knows it with his eyes shut. He
had some reason or other for puttin' up the bluff he did, an' I'd give
just about ten round dollars to know what it was."

"Better ask him."

"Watch me. This ain't the kind o' thing you can talk out about. I know
he knows, an' he knows I know; but he's down on me an' there's nothin' I
can say--here, anyway."

"What do you want o' me?"

"You're the right sort--you've got nerve an' a head on you. Help me
carry this business through, an' I 'll divvy up with you--five hundred,
sure, to start with."

"What am I to do?"

"Nothin' hard. You've got a good stand in with Smiley. Just put in a
word for me, so's he won't fire me before another trip, anyway. You
fellows made a mistake this time in not standin' by me. I can do better
by you than he can--a lot better. Help me to stay aboard for the next
trip, an' I 'll hand you fifty right now for a sweetener."

"Well, I 'll see what I can do."

"I've got the fifty down below. I 'll get it."

"Hold on--don't be in a hurry. You'd better see what I can do for you
before you do any sweetenin'."

McGlory nodded and slipped back to his station. When the watch was
changed, he went below and settled down to writing a letter on crumpled
paper with a pencil. He seemed to be thinking hard. Three times he made
a start, only to hold the paper up to the lantern, shake his head over
it, tear it up, and stuff the pieces into his pocket. But the fourth
attempt, which follows, suited him better.

"Dear Estelle: I ain't done the trick I was going to do this trip. The
Captain woke up too soon and stoped me. But I've got a fellow here on
bord that's going to see me threw next trip so don't you go down to
Saginaw yet. Wait til you see me at Spencer's and Ile tell you al about
the scheme itll be worth a thousand cool anyway I should say its worth
waiting for. I'm doing it for you you know so don't you get impatent but
just wait a litle longer and we 'll have a gay old time.

"Joe."

When he gave the wheel to Dick, Harper repeated to him the whole
conversation and asked him what he made of it.

"Give it up."

"You don't think he's layin' for you, do you? I couldn't tell what he
was up to. Of course he wouldn't hardly let me see into his game the
first time we talked."

"Oh, no,--hardly."

"Will I go on lettin' him talk to me?"

"If you see any fun in it."

"It ain't that--I thought maybe we could find out what he's after."

"I don't want to know about it."

"But you don't think he 'll try to--stick it into you anyway?"

"Let him try. He can't do much harm."

"Well--"

"Take my advice, Pink, and quit thinking about him. I don't like this
business any more than you do, but the worse it is the less I want to
know about it. When we get back we 'll fire him, and that will end it."

"Don't you think we'd better tie him up, or somethin'?"

"That wouldn't do any good. You'd better tumble below and get some
sleep. There's nothing like it when you're a little worked up."

Dick had indeed something else to think of than his rascal of a mate.
Only four days of sailing, if the wind should hold, lay between the
_Merry Anne_ and the Annie for whom she had been named. These days would
slip away before he knew it, and then? The uncertainty was hard, but
still he dreaded the meeting--that might be harder still.

Off Waukegan on the last day the wind swung around to the south, nearly
dead ahead; and as the schooner lost headway and was forced into beating
to windward, the dread suddenly gave place to impatience. So variable
were his thoughts indeed, as the miles slipped astern and the long
green bluff that ends in Grosse Pointe grew nearer and plainer, that his
courage oozed away.

Far down the Lake, between the Lake View crib and the horizon, was a
speck of a sail. Dick's heart sank--he knew as if he could make out the
painted name that it was the _Captain_. He watched it hungrily as the
_Merry Anne_, headed in close to the waterworks pier, swept easily
around, and started on the last outward tack. Then he called to Pink,
and had the sheets hauled close; and he laughed softly and nervously as
the schooner responded with a list to port and a merry little fling
of spray. He could at least come in with a rush, with all his colors
flying.

He was waiting for the tiny sail to swing around and point northward.
He was disappointed. He reached for the glass and took a long look--then
lowered it, and smiled bitterly. There were two figures seated in the
stern of the _Captain_.

The _Schmidt_ was lying on the south side of the pier; and the wind
enabled Dick to come easily up on the opposite side and make fast. It
was late in the afternoon, and Dick released the two Swedes, both of
whom had families on shore. Then he crossed the pier, between the high
piles of lumber, and found Henry sitting quietly, as usual, in his
cabin.

To the older man's greeting Dick responded moodily. "I want to talk to
you, Henry. What's my reputation, anyhow, among the boys? Do they call
me mean, or a driver, or hard to get along with?"

Henry looked at him curiously, and shook his head. "I never heard
anything of that sort. Your row with Roche was the only thing, and I
guess he was a poor stick."

"Well, I'm through with McGlory, too."

"Through with him?" Henry was startled. "You haven't discharged him?"

"No, but I'm going to to-night. I've brought him back here, and he wants
to stay, but I won't have him aboard another minute."

"What's the trouble?"

Dick gave him the whole story, including the conversation between
McGlory and Harper up in the straits.

"I don't like the sound of it very well," said Henry, when he had
finished. "Couldn't you get on with him a little longer?"

"After that?"

"I know--there is some deviltry behind it. But still he is a good man.
You 'll have hard work finding a better. And honest, I would kind of hate
to face Cap'n Stenzenberger myself with this story."

"Why? I can't have a man around that's going to steal my schooner in my
sleep."

"Oh, well, he could never do that again. I can't see what he was
thinking of. Do you see into it at all?"

Dick had been staring at the cabin table. At this question he raised his
eyes, for an instant, with an odd expression. "I know all I want to.
The whole thing is so outrageous that I am not going to try to follow it
up."

"He talked to your man about a rake-off, didn't he?"

Dick nodded.

"What do you suppose he was going to rake?"

Dick, whose eyes were lowered, and who was therefore unconscious of the
pallor of his cousin's face, said nothing.

"I know we don't look at some things quite the same, Dick," Henry went
on. "But if anybody on _my_ schooner is going to do any raking, he has
got to see me first. A dollar's a dollar, my boy. When you are my age,
you will think so too."

"I don't mix in this business."

"No more would I. But it seems to me, if McGlory's got some way of his
own of making a little pile, and if you could have your share for just
letting him stay aboard, you'd be sort of a fool not to do it."

"Excuse _me!_"

Henry smiled indulgently. "There's nothing very bad in what you have
told me. Of course, if there are things you _haven'_t told me, it might
make a difference."

"You have the whole story."

"Do you know, Dick, you make me think of the folks up at the college
here. You know that brewer that died repentant and left five hundred
thousand dollars to the Biblical School? Well, a lot of the old
preachers got stirred up over it and made them refuse the money--
made 'em refuse five hundred thousand cash! Good Lord! if these
particular folks would look into the private history of all the dollars
in the country, they'd never touch one of them,--not one. There isn't a
dollar of the lot that hasn't got a bad spot somewhere, like the rest
of us. The main thing is, are your own hands clean when you take it? If
they are, the dollar can't hurt you."

"But look here, Henry, my mind's made up about this. I won't have that
fellow on my schooner."

"Going to turn him off to-night?"

"Yes, right now."

"All right. You can send him over here. I 'll give him a bunk till
morning. But what are you going to do for a mate?"

"Pink is all right. I could go farther and do worse."

"All right. Tell Joe to bring his things along."




CHAPTER VI--THE RED SEAL LABEL


[Illustration: 0152]

IT was on Friday morning that the _Merry Anne_ had sailed away from
Lakeville for her first trip to Spencer's. On this same Friday another
set of persons were passing through a series of events which concern
this story.

Dick had sailed out at daybreak. A few hours later, when the morning
was still young, Roche, who had come down by train from Manistee, was
hanging about near "The Teamster's Friend." now standing on the corner
by the lumber office looking stealthily up and down the street, now
passing by on the opposite sidewalk, closely watching the screened
windows. Finally he crossed over and entered the saloon to ask for
McGlory. Murphy, the senior partner in the business, who lived a
few blocks away, came in for his day's work and found Roche there.
"McGlory," said Murphy, "won't be back for a week or so." At this, with
an angry exclamation, Roche went out. The quantity of bad whiskey he had
taken in since his discharge from the _Merry Anne_ at the Manistee pier,
had not worked to change his humor or to calm his faculties. He was
plunging around the lumber office into a side street when Beveridge, who
had been watching his every movement, accosted him.

"Beg pardon, have you got a match?"

"Hey? What's that?"

"Have you got a match?"

"A match? Why, sure."

"Much obliged. I've got the cigars. Better make a fair trade. You 'll
find 'em a good smoke."

"Well, don't care 'f I do. Here, you can't light in this wind."

"Oh, yes, I'm Irish. Say, haven't I seen you somewhere?"

"Couldn't say."

"Why, sure I have. Isn't your name Roche?"

"That's what it is."

"And you're mate of the _Merry Anne_, sailing out of Lakeville?"

"You're wrong there."

"No, I'm sure of it. I've seen you too many times."

"Why, do you b'long out there?"

"Yes, I live at Lakeville."

"Well, look here; I 'll tell you how it is. I was on the _Merry Anne_,
but I ain't any more."

"Oh, you quit Smiley?"

"You're right, I quit him. No more Smiley for me."

"What's the trouble?"

"What _ain't_ the trouble, you'd better say. But I ain't tellin'.
Smiley's done me dirt, an' I know 'im for just what he is, but I ain't
tellin'."

They were passing another saloon, and Roche accepted an invitation to
step in.

"I've seen Smiley a good deal around the piers," said the young fellow,
when they were seated. "Likes to swagger some, doesn't he?"

"Oh, he's no good."

"Mean to work for? Those conceited fellows generally are."

"He's mean, yes. But that ain't the worst thing about him." Roche paused
guardedly, and glanced around the empty room.

"I don't know much about him myself, just seen him now and then. But of
course I've heard things.

"I 'll tell you right here, you arn't the only one that 'll be hearin'
things before much longer." Another cautious glance around. "You don't
happen to know anythin' about law, do you?"

"I've studied it some."

"Well, look here. I know some things about Dick Smiley, and if it was
worth my while, I'd tell 'em. But you see, I am an honest man, an' I've
got my livin' to make, an' he's just cute enough to lie about me an' try
to drag me down with 'im. Folks might say I didn't quit him the first
minute I found 'im out. I can't run no risks, you see."

"I can tell you this much--but, of course, it's none of my business."

"Go on."

"Well, it depends on the case. But if he has done anything serious,
and if the authorities find it hard to get evidence against him, you
probably wouldn't have any trouble, even if you were right in with him.
A man can turn state's evidence, you know."

"But I wasn't in with 'im. When I'd found him out, I quit him--the first
good chance I got."

"Yes, of course. But it all depends. I couldn't tell you anything more,
because I don't know the case. It all depends on how bad they want him."

"They want him bad enough." He dropped his voice, and leaned across the
table. "Did you ever hear o' Whiskey Jim?"

"You don't mean to say--"

Roche nodded.

"Why, man, you're rich."

"How do you make that out?"

"Haven't you seen the papers?"

Roche shook his head.

"There's a reward of five thousand up for Whiskey Jim."

"Who 'll give it?"

"The Consolidated Dealers. You see, there has been a counterfeit label,
of the Red Seal brand, on the market; and I understand the liquor men
have been running it down and putting the Treasury Agents on the track
to protect their business."

"Fi' thousand, eh? An' do you think we could make it?"

"If you have the evidence to convict this Whiskey Jim, we can. But now,
before we go into this, what sort of an arrangement will you make with
me if I steer it through for you?"

"What would you want?"

"Well--I should go at it something like this. I should go to the United
States Treasury officials and tell them I could get them the evidence
they want if they would agree not to prosecute us. It would take some
managing, but it can be done. But I can't do it for nothing."

"What do you want?"

"Say one thousand. That's twenty per cent."

"Too much."

"Not for the work to be done. Remember, I agree to get you off without
any more trouble than just giving in your evidence."

"But I don't need to get off. I ain't done nothin'."

"No, I understand. Of course not."

"Say five hundred, and it's a go."

"No, sir. I can't do it for that. I might take seven hundred and fifty,
but--"

"It's too much, a--------sight too much. You'd ought to do it for less."

"Couldn't think of it."

"Well--"

"Is it a go?"

"I suppose so."

"All right. That's understood. If I can get the five thousand for you,
you will hand me seven hundred and fifty. Now, I suppose the sooner we
get at this, the better for both of us. When can I see you and talk it
over?"

"You might come around this afternoon."

"Say two o'clock?"

"That's all right."

"Where do you live?"

"I'm stoppin' over on North Clark. Forty-two-seventy-two an' a half,
third floor. You 'll be around, then, will you, Mr.--Mr.--"

"Bedloe's my name. Yes, I 'll be there at two sharp."

But at two o'clock, when Beveridge called at the boarding-house on North
Clark Street he found that Roche was gone. "He only stopped here a day,"
said the landlady. "This noon he paid me and said he was called out of
town by a telegram."

"Did he say when he would be back?"

"He didn't know."

"Did he leave his things?"

"No. What little he had he took along." Beveridge turned thoughtfully
away and walked around the corner, where Wilson was awaiting him. He had
no means of knowing that Roche was already well on the way to Spencer,
where Smiley saw him a few days later.

"Not there, Bill?" asked Wilson.

"No,--skipped."

"Lost his nerve, eh?"

"I guess so."

"Well, what now?"

"Nothing, until I see Madge to-night."

"Do you really expect anything there?"

"I don't know. It's a chance, that's all."

"Do you think she 'll keep her promise?"

"Couldn't say. I 'll give her a chance, anyhow."

She did keep it. Very shortly after five, while Beveridge was riding
slowly up and down near the meeting-place, he saw her coming, and his
eyes lighted up with surprise. He could not know how much thought had
been given to the effect which pleased him so; he only observed that she
looked like a young girl in her short wheeling skirt and leggings, and
with her natty little cap and well-arranged hair.

They found St. Paul's Park gay with lights and music when they arrived.
Dancing had been going on all the afternoon on the open-air
platform. The ring-the-cane booth, the
every-time-you-knock-the-baby-down-you-get-a-five-cent-cigar booth, were
surrounded by uproarious country folk, with only here and there a city
face among them. A little way down the <DW72>, through the grove, ran the
sluggish North Branch, a really inviting spot in the twilight; and to
this spot it was that Beveridge led the way after checking the wheels.

"The boats don't amount to much," he said to Madge, as he helped her
down the bank, "but I guess we can have a good time, anyhow."

She did not reply to this, but there was a sparkle in her eyes and a
flush on her cheek, as she stepped lightly into the boat, that drew an
admiring glance from Beveridge.

He took the clumsy oars, and pulled upstream, under the railroad bridge,
past all the other boats, on into the farming country, where the banks
were green and shaded.

"Pretty nice, isn't it?" said he.

She nodded. They could hear the music in the distance, and occasionally
the voices; but around them was nothing but the cool depths of an oak
copse. She was half reclining in the stern, looking lazily at the dim
muscular outlines of her oarsman. "You row well," she said.

"I ought to. I was brought up on water."

"You don't know how this takes me back," said Madge, dreamily. "I
couldn't tell you how long it is since I have been out in the country
like this."

He pulled a few strokes before replying, "Didn't McGlory ever take you
out?"

"I don't like to think about him now. Let's talk of something else."

"I'm glad you don't like to. That's the only thing that bothers me."

"What--Joe?"

"Yes."

"Oh, he needn't bother you."

"I can't help it. You see, you're--"

"His wife? Yes, so I am. But I'm--"

"What, Madge?"

"I don't know what you would think if I said it."

"Say it, please."

She glanced into his face. He saw with surprise that her eyes were
shining. "Well--I was--going to say--that--that--I'm about through with
him."

"Do you mean that, Madge?"

She was silent; perhaps she had not meant to say so much.

"Has he been ugly to you?"

"It isn't his meanness altogether. If that were all, I could have stood
it. I have tried hard enough to love him all the while. Even after he
first struck me--"

"You don't mean--"

She smiled, half bitterly, and rolled her sleeve up above her elbow.
Even in that faint light he could see the discoloration on her forearm.
"He meant it for my head," she said.

"Why, he's a brute."

She smiled again. "Didn't you know that a woman can love a brute? It
wasn't that. Even when he made me live in the saloon, and when I found
out what his business really was--" she paused. "I was brought up a
little better than this, you know."

"Yes, I have always thought that."

"And when I learned that he wasn't--well, honest, I don't believe I
should have cared very much."

"Oh, I guess he is not dishonest, is he?"

"He is bad enough, I'm afraid. He--I don't know--I don't believe it
would do any good to tell you--"

"No, don't, if you'd rather not, Madge."

"I don't care--I'd just as soon. You don't know what a relief it is to
have somebody I can talk out with. I have guarded my tongue so long. And
I suppose, even after all that is past, that if he hadn't left me--"

"You don't mean that he has gone?"

She nodded. "It comes to the same thing. He will drop in once in a
while, I suppose. But he has gone back to the Lake with Captain Smiley,
and that means that he wants to see--" she turned toward the shadow of
the oaks--"there's somebody up in Michigan that--that he--"

"Oh," said Beveridge.

"Yes, I have known it a long while." She turned, looked at him, and
spoke impetuously: "Do you think I haven't been fair to him? Do you
think he--anybody--could say I hadn't stood all a woman ought to stand?"

Her real emotion caught Beveridge off his guard. For an instant he
hesitated; then he said gently: "Don't let it disturb you now, Madge.
I don't think he can bother you much more. There is no reason why that
shouldn't all slip into the past."

"I wish it could."

Beveridge was silent for a moment. He wished to lead her into telling
all she knew about McGlory and his ways, yet he hesitated to abuse the
confidence so frankly offered. But, however--"There is one thing about
it, though, Madge," he said quietly. "If he is on the Lake, he will have
to go where his boat goes, and there isn't much chance for him to get
into bad ways. Even if, as you think, he is dishonest, he will have to
behave himself until he gets back to town."

"You don't understand," she cried. "It is just there, on the water, that
he can do the most harm. I'm going to tell you, anyway. I don't care.
He is a smuggler, or a moonshiner, or something,--I don't know what you
would call it."

"A moonshiner--here in Chicago!"

She nodded nervously. "He is only one of them. I have known it for a
long time, and sometimes I have thought I ought to speak out, but then
he--oh, you don't know what a place he has put me into--what he has
dragged me to! There is one thing I will say for Joe,--he is not the
worst of them. The rest are smarter than he is, and I believe they have
used him for a cat's-paw. But he is bad enough."

"You don't know how hard this is to believe, Madge. That a man sailing
on a decent lumber schooner can manage to do enough moonshining--or even
smuggling--to hurt anybody--"

"But that is just it! It is in the lumber."

"In the lumber!" He had stopped rowing, and was leaning forward. Had her
own excitement been less, she could hardly have failed to observe the
eager note in his voice.

"Yes--oh, I know about it. But it's no use saying anything. They will
never catch the head man--he is too smart for them--" Beveridge took her
hand, and held it gently in both his own. "Don't let's think any more
about any of them, Madge. I don't wonder it excites you--it would
anybody. But you are through with them all now." She sat up, rigid, and
looked at him. "Are you sure I am?"

"Yes."

"But how? Joe is my husband. Tell me what you mean. What am I to think?
You see what I have done. I have let you bring me out here; I have--I
have told you things that could put Joe in prison. Do you--do you mean
that you can help me--that I can get free from him?"

For a moment Beveridge thought of turning and rowing back. But he was
not yet through. The conversation had taken an unexpected turn, but he
would not retreat now.

"You are willing to be free?" he whispered. "Oh--yes."

"To leave him forever?"

"Yes."

"Then we understand each other, Madge. It may take some time."

"I don't care--I don't care for anything now."

"I shall have to do some thinking."

"Do you think it will be hard?"

"No, but we shall see. Shall we start back--I'm afraid you won't get
home till pretty late, now."

"It doesn't matter; I'm alone there now, you know. But still, perhaps
we'd better." As they rowed down the stream, and later, on the ride back
to the city, Beveridge could not but be fascinated by Madge, in the flow
of spirits that had come with the freedom of this evening. She liked
to look at him and to laugh at his little jokes. She caressed him in a
hundred ways with her voice and her eyes. She rode her wheel with the
lightness of youth, and led the way flying down the paved streets of the
city. And when at last she dismounted at "The Teamster's Friend," and
unlocked the side door, she was in a merry glow.

"Come in," she said.

"Don't you want to get to sleep? It is late."

"I'm not tired. We must have something to eat after that ride. Wasn't it
fine?"

So he went in with her, and they sat down to a cold lunch in the dining
room.

When he rose to go, and they were both lingering in the dining-room
door, he said, smiling, "By the way, Madge, while I think of it, I want
an empty bottle."

"Come out into the bar-room. You can help yourself."

She lighted the gas for him, and he went in behind the bar and rummaged
among some bottles and flasks that stood on the floor. At length he
found one that seemed to suit him, and stood a moment looking intently
at the label.

"Do you find what you want?"

"Yes, this will do first-rate."

She followed him to the door, and said, as he stood on the step, "When
am I to see you again?"

"In a few days."

"Not to-morrow?"

"No, I'm afraid not. I expect to be out of the city over Sunday. I have
to go where I'm sent, you know."

"Do you know," she said, with a smile, "you have not told me anything
about your business? Why, I hardly think I know anything about you."

"You will soon know enough."

She smiled again. "Wait, you will have to be a little careful about
coming. Mr. Murphy goes away about ten o'clock every night. You might
come a little later, and then if Joe isn't here, I will be down. If you
don't see me, you mustn't ask any questions."

"I won't."

"And you will be thinking about--"

"Yes. We 'll talk it over next time. Good night."

"Good night," she replied. And when he had walked a little way, he heard
her humming a tune to herself in the doorway.

Wilson was sitting in the shadow on the steps of the lumber office. He
rose and came forward.

"Hello, Bill!"

"That you, Bert?"

"What's left of me. If I'd known you were going to be gone half the
night, I'd have brought a blanket."

"Couldn't help it."

"I suppose not. Not even if she'd been fifty-five, with red hair and a
squint, eh?" Beveridge, instead of laughing, made an impatient gesture.
"Come out here in the light, Bert. Nobody around, is there?"

"No. Our friend the policeman went by ten minutes ago. Just as well he
didn't see you with your friend. They say he's a chum of McGlory's."

"See what you think of this," said Bedloe, drawing the bottle from under
his coat.

"Hello, you don't mean to say you've got it?"

"Take a good look."

"Yes, sir. Well, I 'll be----! There's the red seal, and the left foot
a little out of drawing, and the right hand turned out instead of in,
and--is it?--yes, an imperfection in the capital C. Yes, sir, you've
got it! I won't say another word, Bill. You're a wizard. You must have
hypnotized her."

"Well, I got it. No matter how. And I got something else, too. Here,
step into the lumber yard before we're seen. Stenzenberger doesn't keep
a private watchman, does he?"

"No. He doesn't need it, with his friendly hold on the police."

A board was loose in the rear fence. Within a very few minutes the two
men were stepping cautiously between the piles of lumber, Beveridge
peering eagerly into the shadows, his companion watching him and
following close behind.

"Wish we'd brought a lantern, Bill."

"I thought of it. But it would hardly be safe."

"Come this way--over by the Murphy and McGlory shed. That's where it
would have to be handled."

Silently they tiptoed forward, reaching out with their hands, to avoid a
collision with the projecting timbers. Once Beveridge tripped and would
have fallen if Wilson had not caught his arm. "Wait--keep still, Bert!"

"It's all right. We're way back from the street here."

"It isn't the street I'm watching. See that light?" He pointed up to a
second-story window in the adjoining building. "She's still up; and it's
awful quiet around here."

A moment later Beveridge stopped and sniffed.

"What is it, Bill?"

"Don't you smell anything?"

"Ye-yes, guess I do, a little. But there are a lot of old kegs and
bottles on the other side of the fence."

"There are no old kegs about this." He moved forward, feeling and
sniffing his way along a pile of twelve-by-twelve timbers. "Here, have
you that big jack-knife on you, Bert?"

"Yes; here it is."

Cautiously, very cautiously, Beveridge began prying at the end of one of
the big sticks.

"Shall I lend a hand, Bill?"

"No; it's got to be done without leaving any signs of our being here. It
may take time--the thing is in for keeps, all right."

During fully a quarter of an hour they stood there, Beveridge prying
with the long blade of the knife, his companion watching him without a
word. Finally Beveridge gave a suppressed exclamation.

"Fetched her?"

"Yes. Take hold--easy now."

Together they pulled a long, circular plug from the end of the timber,
and set it on the ground.

"Just put your arm in there, Bert."

"Well, I 'll be----! Did she tell you about this?"

"She certainly did."

"But how did you do it, man, without letting on?"

"Never mind about that," replied Beveridge, shortly.

"Yes, sir. It's all there--no end of it."

"All right now; that's enough. Let's put the plug back. Now's the time
for us to go slow."

"You're right there. Even with this it will be awful hard to bring it
home. The next thing to get is the man. I wish we knew where that fellow
Roche went. What do you think?"

"I'd be willing to buy him a new hat if he isn't on the train for
northern Michigan just about now. But we don't need him very bad. We
want a bigger man than him."




CHAPTER VII--DRAWING TOGETHER


[Illustration: 0178]

THE eleven days Dick had given her for considering were going faster
than any other days Annie had known. To make it worse, she had to pass
them alone, for Beveridge, who was always diverting, hardly appeared
after Dick sailed away. It was now the afternoon of the tenth day, a
bright, cool afternoon with a southerly breeze and a rippling lake. She
was in her room, looking out at the pier, where the _Schmidt_ lay, when
a voice caught her ear. She stepped nearer to the window and then could
see Beveridge and his friend Wilson standing on the beach. While
she looked, Wilson said good-by, and strolled over to the pier; and
Beveridge turned irresolutely toward the house on stilts, looking up at
the flowering balcony.

Annie remembered that she had not watered her flowers. She always waited
until the shadows crept around to the eastern side of the house; they
were here now, so, filling her pitcher, she stepped out. Beveridge,
fully recovered from the odd sensations of his evening with Madge,
raised his cap, but found that she had turned her back on him and was
absorbed in her forget-me-nots. "Annie," he called, "aren't you going to
speak to me?"

"Oh,"--she came to the railing,--"oh, how do you do?"

"Won't you come out?"

"Why--I suppose I might."

"All right. I 'll wait down here." When she appeared on the steps, he
suggested a sail.

"I don't mind--if the wind holds. It's not very strong, and it may go
down with the sun." She was looking about from lake to sky with the easy
air of a veteran mariner; and he was looking at her.

"Let's chance it."

So they pushed out; and at the moment when Dick and the _Merry Anne_
were coasting along the bluffs above Grosse Pointe the _Captain_ was
skimming out on a long tack for the Lake View reef.

Little was said until they were entering on the second mile, then this
from Beveridge, lounging on the windward rail, "Have you been thinking
about our talk that evening, Annie?"

"Oh, dear!" thought she; but she said nothing.

"You haven't forgotten what I said?"

"Oh, the evening you came up for me?"

"Yes, and Smiley came later."

"But you don't--you don't want me to think that you meant--"

"But I did, Annie. Do you remember I told you I thought I had a fair
chance to be something in the world? Well, I'm nearer it than I thought,
even then. There are a good many things I'm going to tell you some
day,--not just yet,--but when you know them, you 'll understand why I've
dared to talk this way. If I didn't believe I was going to be able to
do for you all you could want, and more; if I didn't feel pretty sure I
could help you to grow up away from this beach, to get into surroundings
that will set you off as you deserve, I'd never have said a word. But
I _can_ do these things, Annie. And if I could only know that I had the
right to do them for you--I want to take you away from here."

"But I don't want to leave the beach."

"I know--I think I understand just how you feel. It's natural--you were
born here--you've never seen anything else. But I can't stay here, and I
can't go without you. I can't get along anywhere without you."

"But--"

"What, Annie?"

"You've got along very--very well, lately."

"No--that's just it, I haven't. My work has kept me out of town."

"Your work?"

"Yes, I've--"

"Mr. Beveridge, are you a student, or aren't you?"

"I--"

"Tell me, please. Some of the things you have said I don't understand."

"Well--no, I'm not."

"Then what you have said hasn't been true?"

"No--some of it hasn't."

"And yet you--" She hesitated.

"In a very little while, Annie,--maybe only a day or two,--some
surprising things are going to happen. I wish I could tell you, but I
can't. I have been perfectly honest with you,--no, don't look at me that
way; it is true,--and if I have misled you in one or two little things,
it was only because I couldn't honestly tell you the whole truth yet.
A few days more, and you shall know everything. I'm not a student. If I
were, I could never offer you what I do offer you now." He straightened
up, his eyes lighted, and an eager note in his voice compelled her
attention. "I have made a big strike, Annie, or so near it that it can't
get away from me now. I have no earthly business to tell you this,--I
never talked so to any one before,--but I have offered you everything,
myself and all I have, and it would be poor business not to trust you
with part of my secrets, too. I want you to know, because I trust you;
and because I--I'm going to be able to spare you some disagreeable
scenes." He leaned forward. "Tell me, Annie, when does Dick Smiley come
back?" She turned and looked up the Lake. His eyes followed hers; there,
on the horizon, were the white sails of the _Merry Anne_.

"Then I can tell you sooner than I thought--to-morrow. To-morrow night
I 'll tell you everything. And maybe you will tell me too--everything.
Will you, Annie? If I come for you to-morrow night and tell you all
about myself, will you give me your answer?"

She was still looking northward; to-morrow was Dick's eleventh day. "I
can't," she said slowly; "I have an engagement for to-morrow evening."

"Not--not with him?"

She nodded.

"Break it, Annie, break it. Or no, wait--I won't say that. We 'll just
leave it. I'm willing to let it work itself out. I think, maybe, when
to-morrow comes, you won't want to see him any more than I want you
to. I won't tell you he's a rascal; I'd rather let you find it out for
yourself. I want you to know why I've spoken out this way, and how hard
I have tried to save you from doing something you would regret all your
life."

She was bewildered.

"Tell me this, Annie,--haven't you an aunt or anything here in town?"

"Yes,"--her voice was hardly audible,--"Aunt Lizzie lives up by the
waterworks."

"Do you go up there much?"

"Sometimes."

"Won't you go to-day, and stay over till to-morrow about this time?"

"Why?"

"It may save you annoyance. I think some disagreeable things are going
to happen here--I'd rather not have you at home. It's only on your own
account."

"I don't see what can happen to me at home."

"Nothing will happen to _you_, but don't ask me to tell you now.
To-morrow evening I 'll come up for you and bring you down, and then I 'll
tell everything. You see, I must have your answer to-morrow. I shall
probably have to go right away, and I couldn't go thinking I had left
this--the one thing of all that I care about--unsettled. I want you to
know that everything in the world I have to offer you is yours forever.
I want you to know this, and then, when you've thought it over and
realized what it means for both of us, I want you to come to me and give
me your hand and tell me that--that it's all right--that you give me
everything, too." A long silence. "Let's sail up toward the waterworks
now, Annie. I can drop you off there at the pier, and bring the Captain
down alone."

She looked again toward the Merry Anne.

He read her thoughts. "We needn't pass near her. We 'll run in close to
the shore."

She shook her head. "I'm going to turn back."

And back they turned. In vain he urged her, reproached her, pleaded with
her; hardly a word could he get during all the run back to the beach. He
pulled up the boat for her, and walked by her side to the steps. There,
with an odd pressure of the lips, she shook her head at him, as if
afraid to trust her voice, and mounted the steps.

"Annie, you haven't told me. Will you go?"

She shook her head again, and entered the house. Beveridge, motionless,
looked after her. Finally he turned, and glanced with a troubled air at
the approaching schooner, then at the sleepy pier, where he could see
Wilson stretched out flat holding out a bamboo fishpole over the water.
Behind the house Captain Fargo was mending his nets. Beveridge heard him
humming a song as he worked, and after hesitating a moment longer walked
around and greeted him.

"How do you do, Captain."

"How are you?" The fisherman straightened his spare old figure and
looked at the young man. His face was brown above the beard, and
crisscrossed with innumerable fine wrinkles. Beveridge knew, in meeting
those faded blue eyes with their patient, subdued expression, that he
was facing a man whom he could trust.

"I have something to say to you, Captain, that may be a surprise,--I
want Annie."

"You want her?"

"Yes. You may think I've not known her very long, but it has been long
enough to show me that I can't go on any longer without her."

Captain Fargo stood for a moment without replying, then asked simply,
"What does she say?"

"It isn't settled; I have told her how I feel, and asked her for an
answer to-morrow night."

"Isn't she a little young?"

"I don't think so."

"And you--you're a student?"

"No, I'm not."

"Do you think you could support her? I'm afraid we have taught her to
expect more than our position would seem to make right."

"Yes, I can support her comfortably. You see, I--"

"Hasn't Annie told me you were a student?"

"Yes, I told her that, myself. There was a reason for it, Captain. The
situation is unusual, and my only chance of keeping her out of what is
to come lies in talking it out plainly with you." He swept the beach
with a swift glance, stepped close to the older man, and spoke rapidly
and eagerly in a subdued voice.

The Captain removed his hat, and looked out over the water with a
distressed expression. "Are you sure you are right about this?" he
asked, when Beveridge had finished.

"Perfectly."

"You know, it is generally easy to prove a thing when your mind's set on
it."

"There is no doubt whatever. My mind is set on nothing but carrying out
my orders. Do you think I would tell you this if I didn't have the whole
case right in my hands--cold? I tell you, I've got it. It's the end of
one of the worst cases in fifty years."

"Well, I don't know. I hate to think it."

"In my business we learn not to think anything. I always thought Maxwell
would live and die in the work. If there was a clean man and a good
friend to me anywhere on earth, it was Tommy Maxwell. But he had this
work before me, and they paid him I don't know how much to cover the
scent and skip to Mexico. After all his experience, Tommy couldn't walk
by that offer, and now he must end up in Mexico for it. If I told you
about the men and the methods that I have had to fight in this business,
you would find it hard to believe me. In some ways it has been even
a dangerous case." This was Beveridge's first opportunity to free his
mind, and his tongue was threatening to run loose. He was speaking with
a certain pride. "You know there is one of us shot, on the average,
every year, in this work."

"I don't know," said Fargo again. "Maybe you are right about her going.
It wouldn't be pleasant for her. I 'll speak to her mother about it."

"Of course, the sooner the better."

"Yes. I 'll go in now."

"One minute, Captain. You understand, don't you, my putting it before
you? It's just to spare Annie. There may be rough work."

"Yes, I understand."

"You 'll hardly find it necessary to tell Mrs. Fargo what I have told
you."

"No, I suppose not. Though it would be perfectly safe with her."

"If you don't mind, I'd rather not."

"Very well."

The Captain went into the house; and Beveridge walked away. The _Merry
Anne_ was at the moment coming slowly in toward the north side of the
pier.

When he had nearly reached the pier, Beveridge turned and stood frowning
and snapping his fingers. A glance told him that Wilson had just hauled
out a fine perch and was baiting his hook for another. He turned toward
the house, and found that the Captain was approaching him.

"Well," said Beveridge, "will she go?"

"I haven't said anything yet. I thought I'd turn it over in my mind.
Aren't you pretty young for this work, Mr. Beveridge?"

"Not so very. Do as you like about it. I have said all I can."

"Oh, it's all right, of course; well, I 'll step in and see how Annie
feels about going."

A second time they parted, and a second time Beveridge walked away.
He looked over his shoulder, and saw Annie running down the beach for
something she had left in the _Captain_. He hurried back and intercepted
her.

"Annie."

"Yes."

"I don't know if you understand--you see, I have gone a good way in
telling you what I have--"

"Oh, of course, if you want to take it back--"

"But I don't. Not a word of it. I was only going to say--" he hesitated
again. She waited. "It isn't what I have asked you for myself; that
stands, Annie, and always will. It's the other. Don't you see how I have
put myself in your hands? I never did such a thing before in my life.
Just by letting you know that there's going to be something going on
here to-night, and by asking you to be away, I have put a lot of power
in your hands. You won't mind--you won't be offended--if I ask you not
to breathe a word of it to a soul?"

He waited, hoping for some reassuring word or sign, but she only looked
at him with wide eyes.

"You see a chance word might undo everything. If--" he glanced out
toward the two schooners--"if a hint of the facts gets out there to
him--don't you see? It simply can't happen. You know why I've told
you. It was because I love you, because I want to save you from it
all,--that's why I've put myself in your hands."

But all she said was, "Don't say any more; I must go in."

He was silent. But with one foot on the first step, she turned. "Wait,
tell me--"

"Yes?"

"Tell me--have you anything to do with that revenue cutter that was in
here the other day?"

"Oh, dear Annie, you mustn't ask me that." Then she hurried into the
house.

In the kitchen Captain Fargo was trying to tell his wife some
half-truths, never an easy thing for him to do.

"But what is it? What's the trouble? I don't see that anything could
happen here that it would hurt her to see."

"It wouldn't hurt her, but it really would be better to take her up to
Lizzie's. You and she could come back together to-morrow."

"Oh, it's me too! Now what is all this about, anyway?"

The Captain, instead of replying, spoke to himself: "I can't believe it.
There has been a mistake made. They never should have sent a boy of his
age to do such work."

"What work? Is there something you have promised not to tell me?"

"Yes, there is. Don't ask me what it is. Just talk it over with Annie,
and see if she won't go with you up to Lizzie's."

Mrs. Fargo threw a glance at her husband, hesitated, then went up to
Annie's room.

"Let me in, dear." Annie obeyed. "I want you to put on your things and
go out with me."

"Not to Aunt Lizzie's?"

"Yes. Your father thinks--"

"Has _he_ been talking to father, then?"

"Your father and I have been talking it over. He hasn't told me just why
he asks it--"

"But I know."

"Oh, do you?" There was a note of burning curiosity in these three
words.

"Yes, I do. And I don't believe a word of it."

"It's nothing very bad, I hope?"

"Oh, I don't mean that I understand it all, but I know something about
it. Mr. Beveridge had no right to go to father."

"Oh, it was Mr. Beveridge?"

"Yes, it was. Tell me, mother, did he--do you know what else he said?"

"No, I haven't asked him. But he wants us to go very much, and I don't
think we had better say anything."

"He wants you to go, too?"

"Yes."

"Now, mother, you won't think I'm very bad if I--don't go?"

"I'm afraid your father--"

"Father doesn't understand it himself, I'm sure. It is all a mistake--"

"Your father thinks that, too."

"Oh, does he? Then he won't mind if I don't go!"

"I don't know. I 'll tell him what you say." The mother slipped out, and
returned to the kitchen. "She doesn't want to go, father."

"But I have asked her to. I can't explain to you, or her--"

"She seems to know more than you do. She says it's a mistake."

"It is; it must be. But I said--"

"Now, father, don't you think we'd just better not say anything more?
Nobody is going to hurt us in our own home."

"No, he said that himself."

"Well, now, suppose we just let her have her way. I could see something
was troubling her, and I think she'd best be let alone."

The Captain had done what he could, so now he returned to his nets and
left his wife to begin getting supper.

Beveridge was standing at the shore end of the pier waiting for Wilson,
fish-pole on shoulder, to approach. "Well, what luck, Bert?"

Wilson held up a small string of perch. "Fair. It's too late in the day
to catch many."

"Going up to the house?"

"Yes, I guess so."

Then their voices dropped.

"Where will you be, Bill?"

"In the park here, by the road. You 'll be back early?"

"Yes, soon as I can make the arrangements."

"You have spoken to them at headquarters?"

"Yes."

"All right. So long."

"So long."

At seven o'clock, after supper, Captain Fargo was hailed by Henry
Smiley.

"How are you, Henry? Glad to see you. You haven't been around much
lately."

"No, too busy."

"On your way up-town?"

"No, just been. I ran out of tobacco and went up to get some. I
generally live on the schooner, you know. I have no other place to go
to. That's the devil of it, Cap'n, when you get to be my age without a
home or a near relation. There isn't a soul that cares anything about
me."

"I guess you need some supper. Come in with us,'tain't all cold yet."

"That wouldn't help any. I've had enough to eat."

"What do you mean by talking about your age? You're young yet."

"Do you call forty-five young?"

"What do you think of me? I'm most sixty."

"That's another story. When you go, you 'll leave something behind to
show that your life was worth living."

"I wasn't much younger than you when I married."

"None o' that for me," said Henry, with a sort of smile. "I never was
minded to it. If you have seen anything worth while about living, you're
lucky. I never could."

"Look here, Henry, I don't like to hear you talking that way. What's the
matter with you?"

Another questionable smile. "I 'll tell you how it looks to me. We have
to live with a pack of rascals, and heaven help the fools!"

"Henry, you're enough to give a man the blues."

"I've had enough to-day to give 'em to me. To tell the truth, Cap'n, I
don't know what to make of Dick. I'm afraid he is one of the fools."

"There isn't anything serious the matter, is there?" This was said
nervously.

"He's young, and independent. He has no idea of easing off his own
notions so as to keep things running smooth with other people. I've
done everything a man could to help him get on, but it's no use; he
antagonizes the only people who can help him. He's bristling all the
time. A couple of weeks ago he just naturally got sick of his mate and
fired him. I smoothed things over and got the Cap'n to suggest another.
And now he's fired this one, and won't have him on his schooner at
all,--and I've had to take him in for the night."

"Wasn't there any reason?"

"Reason--yes. I know he means to tell the whole story, but he has no
idea how hasty he is sometimes. McGlory's so ugly I could hardly trust
my own self with him. I thought the best thing would be to walk off for
a while, and maybe we'd both cool off."

"Dick's all right, though, isn't he? No--no trouble, or anything?"

"Why? Been hearing anything?"

"I--I've thought he wasn't quite himself lately."

"Why did you think that?"

"Oh, I couldn't say, exactly."

"Why, no, I don't think he's in any trouble." Henry smiled again. "I
suppose you know as much as I do what's bothering him."

"No. What is it?"

"Well now, see here, if it's that way, I oughtn't to say anything. But
you don't quite follow. Surely, you know. Just about the little girl."

"My Annie?"

"Yes. Of course we all know how Dick feels there."

"Well, I've thought of it, of course."

"That's another thing that's been bothering me. He's got no earthly
business to think of such a thing. I don't know what to make of him,
anyhow. I used to think I understood him, but Lord! he has new sides to
him every day--you might as well try to organize a volcano. It's kind of
discouraging. He's the nearest approach to something to care about I've
got, and if he would only let me, I'd like to sort o' push him along.
But I don't know--I don't know."

"I'm afraid I misled you a little just now, Henry."

"How's that?"

"What I said about not having heard--I _have_ heard something."

"About Dick?"

"Yes. I can't tell you what. I know it isn't so, but it has bothered
me."

"What sort of thing--about his character?"

"In a way--yes."

Henry looked sharply at the Captain with an expression of doubt and
uncertainty. Then he half turned away.

"You aren't going, Henry?"

"Yes, guess I'd better, and see what Mc-Glory's up to. I'd let him go
back to the city, but I want to see Cap'n Stenzenberger before he does.
Good night."

Henry walked out on the pier to his schooner.

The evening came slowly on and settled over the lake. The breeze,
instead of dropping with the sun, had freshened, and now was stirring
up little waves that lapped the two schooners and the piling under the
pier. Annie, sitting out on her balcony in an inconspicuous dress, her
arms on the railing, was listening and watching--and waiting. She had
heard Henry say good night to her father, and had seen him walk out on
the pier until he was lost among the lumber piles. She saw the afterglow
die in the north, the red-gold lake fade to amber, to gray-blue, almost
to black, while the twinkle of the lighthouse on the point grew into
a powerful beacon and sent an arrow of light deep into the water. She
watched the horizon line grow dimmer and dimmer until it disappeared,
and sky and lake blended in darkness. All was quiet on the pier. The
lights of the schooners swayed lazily; occasionally a voice floated in
over the water, a quiet, matter-of-fact voice. She looked up the beach,
down the beach; all was peaceful.

But there was no quiet in Annie's heart. She was rigid; her hands were
clasped; her eyes shifted nervously from point to point. Once she got up
and went into her room and tried to read; but in a few moments she was
back. And there she sat until the late twilight had darkened into night.

Then she rose, passed through the room, leaving the light burning,
stepped out into the hall, and softly, very softly, closed the door. She
stood motionless, still holding the knob. Her father and mother were
in the sitting room quietly talking. She went slowly down the stairs,
stepping cautiously over the one squeaky step, and slipped through the
hall. The sitting-room door was closed.

"Annie?"

"Yes, mother."

"Is that you?"

"Yes, I'm out here."

"What is it?"

"Nothing. I'm going out for a breath of air."

"Where are you going?"

"Oh, not far."

"Come in soon, won't you?"

"Yes, of course. I'm not going off anywhere."

There was apparently no further need for quiet, yet she was half a
minute closing the front door after her. Again she looked up and down
the beach. She could see the street now on the low bluff; but no one
appeared within the light of the corner gas lamp. Then she hurried along
the beach, climbed up on the pier by some rough steps that she knew,
and walked rapidly out toward the schooner, stepping on the balls of her
feet, and avoiding loose planks.




CHAPTER VIII--THE EVENING OF THE SAME DAY


[Illustration:0206]

ONCE within the shadow of the lumber Annie paused. Not a sound came
from the two schooners. She knew that the _Merry Anne_ lay to leeward,
on the north side, and after a moment of listening and a glance behind
she turned toward it, making her way by feeling the lumber until she
found an opening. In another moment she stood at the edge of the pier,
looking down on the schooner. At first she thought Dick must be asleep,
for there was no light in the cabin; then she saw him sitting on the
cabin trunk, his hands clasped about his knees, his pipe between his
teeth, his eyes fixed on the dark water. The night was still, the
lapping of the ripples was the only sound.

"Dick," she whispered.

He turned with a start and removed his pipe. Though he looked directly
toward her, he evidently could not see her, for her black dress blended
with the shadows.

"Dick," she said again.

This time he ducked under the boom and came across to the rail. "Who's
there?"

"It's me, Dick. I'm coming down."

"No, wait." He stepped up beside her, and added, in a low, uncertain
voice, "You might wake Pink; he's sleeping below." And before she knew
it, his pipe lay on a plank and he had taken both her hands. "You came
out to see me, Annie?"

"Yes, but wait, Dick; I don't know how to tell you--I couldn't help
coming--" He waited for her to go on, but she could not. She could not
even withdraw her hands, but stood motionless, her wits fluttering.
Finally he spoke:--

"You said you came to tell me--"

"Not that, Dick--not what you think. It's something else."

He released her hands. He even, in his bewilderment, took up his pipe
again.

"I've found something out, Dick. I couldn't let it go by without telling
you. It's about--Mr. Beveridge."

"Oh," said Dick.

"Did you think he was a student?"

"Yes, I thought so."

"Well, he isn't at all."

"Oh," said Dick again. And then, "Isn't he?"

"No, he has something to do with--don't you understand what I'm getting
at, Dick?" He shook his head.

"Are you going to make me tell you?"

"You needn't tell me anything you don't want to, Annie."

"O dear, I don't understand it myself, much of it; but I thought you
would if what he says is true."

"It's something about me, then?"

"Yes, Dick,--and the revenue cutter."

"The revenue cutter?"

"Yes, the _Foote_. He has something to do with her."

"He's a revenue officer, then?"

"Yes, or something. I don't know just what he is. But you understand it
now, don't you?"

"Not a bit."

"But you must, Dick. He says something is going to happen, right here."

"On the pier?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"Now--to-night. I was afraid it would be before I could get out here.
And I had to wait till dark, you know."

"But how do you know all this, Annie?"

"Mr. Beveridge--Mr. Beveridge told me more than he meant to, I guess.
And then he talked with father. And father and mother both tried to make
me go up to Aunt Lizzie's early this evening, so I wouldn't be here. It
was to save me from something, they said."

"But I don't see, Annie--"

"Why don't you go, Dick. I've come out here to tell you, so you can
sail away before he comes. Then you won't have any trouble. There's a
mistake, I know; and when they have found it out, you can come back."

"Oh, I couldn't do that, Annie. I have no reason to go away. If anybody
wants to see me, he knows where he can find me."

This silenced Annie. She looked at Dick, and then looked away from him,
out over the Lake, not knowing what to say or think.

"You came out just to warn me, Annie?"

She nodded.

"There must be something more then--something you haven't told me."

"No--only he--Mr. Beveridge said a good deal--he tried to make me
believe you were--dishonest, or something."

"And you didn't believe it?"

She made no reply to this. She was beginning to think about getting back
to the house. When Dick spoke again, it was in a gentler voice.

"I'm glad you came out, Annie, mighty glad. And I know you 'll be glad to
find out that he is wrong."

"Oh, I know that--"

"But there must have been some things I don't understand at all. I don't
know but what it's a good thing he is here. If he can clear it up, it
will be better for all of us. So I 'll stay right here, and if he wants
me, he can have me. That's no reason why I should dodge any man living."

"I knew it--I'm glad--"

Then Dick's reserve broke down. He caught her hands again. "But you
can't tell me your coming out here doesn't mean anything, Annie. You've
told me already what I didn't dare to ask you."

"No, Dick, let me go. I'm going back."

"But after this--you can't put me off now, Annie. Don't you see? It's
no use trying to make me think you would have done this for anybody,
because you wouldn't. I know it, and you know it."

"Now, Dick, please! I'm afraid--"

"If you only knew how I've felt this trip,--what a regular hell it has
been,--you wouldn't keep me waiting any longer. I know to-morrow's the
time; and I wouldn't have said a word to-night if you hadn't come out
here. But you _are_ here, and you have let me know so much that it's
only a matter of saying a word. You can't blame me if I take your coming
that way."

Annie was struggling, and Dick in his eagerness was holding her tightly.
But she got her hands free now and turned away.

"Let me go back with you, Annie. I--I 'll try not to bother you. I didn't
mean to just now. Hang it, I never can trust myself when--"

"No, you mustn't come."

"Not even good night, Annie?"

But she hurried off without a word into the shadows, and felt her way
nervously until she reached the central roadway, where it was lighter.
It was now getting on toward nine o'clock, and nothing had happened.
Perhaps nothing was going to happen, after all. What with her hope that
it all might be a mistake, and her fear that she had come on a fool's
errand, Annie was in a pretty state of mind. She did not know what to
make of Beveridge; she did not know what to make of herself; the natural
thing, apparently, was to get angry with Dick, and this she was rapidly
doing.

When she was passing the last but one of the lumber piles, hurrying
along with less caution than she had used in coming out, a man appeared
out of the shadow and blocked the way. She stepped aside and tried to
run by, but he, as quick as she, stepped aside too and caught her wrist.
Then she saw that it was Beveridge.

"Let me go!" she said breathlessly.

"No, Annie, wait. You decided to warn him, did you?"

"Let me go. You have no right to hold me."

"Yes I have, more right than you know. Now tell me, why did you do it?"

"Mr. Beveridge--"

"You must wait, Annie. No one is going to hurt you. If you had known
what you were doing, you never would have come. It's no place for a
woman. But now that you have done this, now that you are here, I think
you had better stay and see with your own eyes what you have done. Then
perhaps you will believe me."

Poor Annie could say nothing more. Her head whirled. She let him lead
her back along the roadway.

Close to the spot where she had turned off to reach the schooner
Beveridge stopped. In a moment he was joined by another man.

"Bert?"

"Yes. What is it? Want me to take her home?"

"No. Wait here, in case I call. And have an eye on the other boat."

"You aren't going to take her back there?"

"Never you mind what I'm going to do."

"But look here, Bill! This is no place for--"

"Do what you're told and keep still."

Annie heard this muttered conversation without taking it in. Beveridge
still held her wrist, held it tighter than he knew, but she was hardly
conscious of this either. She was caught up and whirled along on the
high wind of events. She was conscious only of Beveridge, of a new side
to his character. The young man she had known on the beach and aboard
the _Captain_ had vanished. This Beveridge was hard, irresistible; his
manner, the atmosphere about him, spoke of some object that must be
reached without regard to obstacles. Her Beveridge had been friendly,
considerate; there was nothing considerate about this man. And yet, a
part of his object was to convince her that he was right and that Dick
was wrong; and she knew why.

Dick had gone back to his seat on the cabin trunk. Beveridge, gripping
Annie's wrist, stood at the pier edge, and looked down.

"Smiley," he said.

Dick crossed the deck. "I'm Smiley. What is it?"

"I shall have to ask you to come away with me."

"Who are you?"

"Beveridge, special agent of the United States Treasury Department."

"Well, what do you want me for?" Dick was peering forward, trying to
make out the figure in the background.

"I guess it isn't necessary to tell you that; I 'll give you a minute to
get what things you need."

"Who have you got there?"

"It's me, Dick."

"Annie!" Dick leaped up to the pier. "Have you dragged her out here to
see--"

"Get back there on your schooner, Smiley. It won't be necessary to do
any talking. Anything you say is likely to be used against you. Get back
there."

Dick looked at him a moment, then jumped down. Beveridge followed,
helping Annie, none too gently.

"Where's your man Harper?"

"Pink," called Dick. "Pink, come up here."

In a moment the sleepy mate appeared.

"Harper," said Beveridge, "get an axe. Be quick about it."

Pink looked at Dick, who said, "Go ahead. Do whatever he tells you."

The axe was brought and handed to Beveridge.

"Now, Smiley, you and your man go below, please."

"Below?"

"To the hold. I 'll follow."

"Pink," said Dick, "get a lantern."

They had to wait a minute, while Pink was lighting the lantern. There
they stood, without speaking, each watching the other. Finally Pink
led the way to the open hatch, and descended the ladder. Dick followed.
Beveridge led Annie to the opening. "Wait," he said; "I 'll go first, and
help you down."

Dick, standing below on the timbers, looked up like a flash. "I wouldn't
try to bring her down here if I were you."

"I'm not talking to you, Smiley."

"No, but you will be if you bully her much longer. Just try to make her
go down that ladder. Try it!"

Beveridge, without heeding, turned to Annie.

When he turned back, Dick, with itching fingers, stood on the deck
beside him.

"What are you doing here? Didn't I tell you to go below?"

"Annie," said Dick, "just say the word--just look at me--if you
want--look here, Mister Beveridge, I don't know much about law, but it
seems to me you haven't shown me any papers, and, until you do, you can
have your choice of letting go of her hand or losing your front teeth.
Just whichever you like."


But Beveridge did neither. "No, Smiley," said he, "we won't get into
that sort o' talk." After which remark, he stooped over and looked down
at Pink and his lantern, and at the timbers on which Pink was standing.
"I guess maybe you can see without going down, Annie. Sit down here, and
watch what I do. Go ahead, Smiley."

[Illustration: 0219]

Dick again descended the ladder, and the special agent followed, axe in
hand. Annie, with horrified eyes, sat limp against the hatch and took in
every motion in that dimly lighted group below. She saw Dick and Harper
stand aside; she saw Beveridge raise the axe a little way and bring it
down sharply on the end of a stick of timber,--an end that was marked
with a circular groove; she saw the timber split open, and a plug fall
out; she saw Beveridge stoop and dip his fingers in a brown liquid that
was flowing from some sort of a broken receptacle; she smelled whiskey.
She was confused, she had only a half understanding of what it meant,
but she shivered as if a cold wind were blowing upon her; and when they
had all three mounted to the deck and were standing about her, she was
still sitting there, holding to something, she knew not what, and gazing
with fascinated eyes into the square black hole,--blacker than at first,
now that Harper was holding the lantern before her on the deck. But she
knew when Beveridge stepped forward to help her up, only to be brushed
aside by Dick, who raised her gently, with a low exclamation of pity,
and helped her across the deck.

The three men gathered about her at the rail.

"Before we go any farther," said the agent, in a conversational tone,
"will you men walk into Cap'n Fargo's house with me and sit down while
we talk this over a little? If you say you will, I'm willing to take
your word. But if not, I have men on the pier and on the bank that might
help you to make up your minds."

"That's not necessary. We 'll go with you. Just a step up, Annie. Put
your hand on my shoulder."

"All right, Mister Smiley. Come, Harper." In passing his assistant,
Beveridge paused to whisper: "I 'll be at the house. See that McGlory
doesn't try to get ashore. If he gives you any trouble, whistle."

A few moments more, and they were seated around Mrs. Fargo's dining
table, Beveridge, Dick, Pink Harper, and the old fisherman. Annie was
shut in her room, refusing admittance even to her mother.

"There's one question that comes up right here, Mr. Smiley," began
Beveridge, "before we go any farther. Is this man Harper one of your
accomplices?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"Don't take my time by evasions. You have given me trouble enough
now. If you will tell me he has had little or nothing to do with this
business, and if he can give a good account of himself, I 'll let him go.
What do you say?"

"Will you tell me what you mean?"

"That's enough. I won't waste any more time on it. We 'll hold him.
Cap'n," turning to Fargo, "there's one thing--I guess you can understand
my position--I shall have to call on Annie for a witness, a little
later."

Here Dick broke out. "So that's why you dragged her into this, is it?"

"Be careful what you say, Mr. Smiley." Dick looked hard at him, then
glanced around the group, then settled back in his chair. After a short
silence, Captain Fargo spoke.

"This isn't all settled, is it, Mr. Beveridge? Dick hasn't told you that
what you thought was so?"

"It was hardly necessary. I found the proofs right there on his
schooner."

"Is that right, Dick?"

"It seems to be."

"You don't mean to say right out that you're a smuggler, Dick?"

"No, I'm not."

Captain Fargo was puzzled. He looked from one to the other of the two
men, until Beveridge, with an air of settling the matter, rose. "You'd
better not throw away any sympathy there, Cap'n. You can be thankful
to find out in time that he's a bad one. I'm only sorry to have to draw
your family into it. I tried hard enough not to."

"Yes, I know that."

There was a shout outside, a noise on the steps, and a hammering on the
door. Then before the fisherman could get out of his chair, the outer
door burst open, and down the hall and into the dining room came Wilson,
breathless, his hat still on his head.

"Well, Bert--"

"He's skipped!"

"McGlory? What were you thinking of? Where'd he go?" Beveridge was on
his feet.

"No use, Bill; sit down. It 'll take a steamer to catch him."

"You didn't stand there and let him sail off."

"Wait 'll I tell you. I was back a little way, where the pier narrows,
so's he couldn't slip by through the lumber. The schooner he was on,
the--the--"

"_Schmidt_," put in Pink.

"The _Schmidt_ was on the south side, the--the--"

"_Merry Anne_" said Pink, "--was on the north. There's a south wind, you
see. And the first thing I knew I heard the tackle creaking off to the
left. Thinks I, that's from the _Merry Anne_, only there ain't a soul
aboard her. I ran out and looked, and sure enough, there she was, with
two or three men hauling away on the sails."

"And you didn't stop 'em?"

"How could I, Bill? You see, they'd cut the ropes and let her drift off
down the wind. She was a hundred feet out before they made a move."

"But what were they doing on the _Merry Anne?_"

"Don't you see?" said Pink; "she can beat the old _Schmidt_ hands down."

"They'd sneaked across out by the end," added Wilson, "while I was
nearer shore." Beveridge sat down again, and tapped the table nervously
as his eyes shifted from one to another of the faces before him. "How're
they sailing, Bert?"

"Right off north."

"Before the wind?"

"Yes, sure," said Pink; "how could they help it with a south wind?"

"Smiley,"--Beveridge had turned on Dick, and was speaking in a keen,
hard voice,--"where are they going?"

"I couldn't tell you."

"Think a little. Your memory's poor, maybe."

But Dick was stubborn. Pink, however, was struck by a flash of
intelligence. "I 'll bet I know."

"Where, Harper?"

"Why, to Spencer's, where we just come from."

"Where's that?"

"Around in Lake Huron. If I had a chart here--Cap'n, ain't you got a
chart o' Lake Huron?"

Except for Pink's eager voice, the room was still. The four other men
sat like statues, leaning forward. As he waited for the reply, the boy
became suddenly conscious of the odd expression of their faces. He had
meant to help both Dick and himself--was he helping?

The thought that had already found a place in Dick's mind, the thought
that they were in the hands of a merciless agent, whose whole object was
to prove them guilty, whose own advantage, whose future perhaps, lay in
proving them guilty--and that the course to be followed was not a matter
for offhand decision, came now to him, and he faltered.

Captain Fargo shook his head. "No," said he, huskily, "not even of Lake
Michigan."

"Go on, Harper. Perhaps you can tell us. Your memory's better than
Smiley's."

When Beveridge spoke that last sentence, he made a mistake. Pink glanced
at Dick, and dropped his eyes. When he raised them, his lips were closed
tight, as if he were afraid to open them at all.

"Well, go on."

Pink shook his head.

"Don't be a fool, Harper. If you can help me get McGlory, it may make it
easier for you."

"But him--" Pink motioned toward Dick--"would it make it easier for
him?"

Beveridge shook his head. "I don't believe the Lord a'mighty could save
him."

"Then," said Pink, with a flash of anger, "you can go to hell for all o'
me!"

Beveridge sat thinking. He looked at Dick from under his eyebrows,
studying the man with shrewd eyes. With the same scrutiny, he looked at
Pink. Then he drew an envelope from his pocket and consulted a list
that had been jotted on the back; and followed this with a Milwaukee
time-table, which he studied with eye and finger. "It's now--" he looked
at his watch--"nine-twelve. We 'll make the nine-forty. Come along with
me, Smiley." Captain Fargo asked the question that Dick would not ask.
"What are you going to do with the boys, Mr. Beveridge?"

"We're going to Milwaukee now, on the nine-forty."

"To Milwaukee!"

"Yes. I'm afraid that's all I can tell you." Dick and Pink took their
hats and rose. Wilson stepped back to fall in at Pink's shoulder,
leaving Smiley to his superior. Suddenly Captain Fargo, after a moment
of puzzled silence, broke out with, "Wait--has anybody seen or heard of
Henry?"

All looked blank.

"Where was he seen last?" asked the Special Agent.

"He was here on the beach after supper. We had a little chat together.
He'd been uptown after some tobacco, and said he was going right out to
the _Schmidt_, and would be spending the night there."

"He hasn't been around since?"

"No--not here."

"You haven't seen him?" This was addressed to Pink. Beveridge wheeled
suddenly on him in asking it, and raised his voice with the idea of
bullying him into a reply. But Pink shook his head.

"They wouldn't likely have lugged him across the pier with them. He may
be on the _Schmidt_ yet. How about it, Bert?"

"I don't think so. I looked around the cabin. Shall I look again?"

"Yes. We 'll wait here. You 'll have to hurry with it. We can't stay here
more than ten minutes longer."

Wilson was out of the room at a bound, down the steps and across the
beach and running out on the long pier. In five minutes he was back.

"Well--"

"Not a soul there."

"How many men did he have aboard? Do you know, Cap'n?"

"Only one or two, I guess, besides Mc-Glory."

"They've gone along, of course. The only question is, did they take him
with 'em?"

"How could they?" said Wilson. "He is a strong man, and there wasn't any
sound of a scuffle. No, if there had been anything like that, I should
have heard it."

"I 'll tell you what I think," said Fargo. "It isn't what I think,
either; but it keeps coming up in my mind. He didn't seem quite himself
when he was talking to me."

"How--nervous?"

"Oh, no, but kind of depressed. He never says a lot, but then he isn't
generally blue like he certainly was to-night. He talked about McGlory,
too."

"What did he say about him?" asked Beveridge sharply.

"He said that McGlory and Dick had disagreed, and Dick had ordered him
off his schooner, and he had taken him in for the night. McGlory, he
said, was so ugly there was no getting on with him. He had sort of made
an errand up-town so he could get away and cool down a little. I guess
he felt so glum himself he was afraid to trust himself with a man that
acted like McGlory was acting." Beveridge was standing by the door,
ready to start, watching the Captain closely during this speech. Now
a look of intelligence came to his face. "How are Henry Smiley's
affairs--money and that sort of thing?" he asked.

"Oh, all right, I think. He has always been saving. He must have a neat
little pile tucked away by this time."

"And he wasn't married, or--" Beveridge paused.

"Not Henry. No, he was a woman-hater, pretty nearly."

"Was he pessimistic--kind of down on things? Did he have any particular
object in living--anything to work for specially?"

"He was pessimistic, all right. Didn't believe in much of anything. I--I
know what you're thinking, Mr. Beveridge, but I--I can't hardly think
it's possible. I don't know, though, I guess his schooner was about the
only thing he cared for, except maybe Dick here."

"Oh, fond of his cousin, was he?"

"Yes, I think you could say he was that."

"Had you dropped him any hint of what I told you?"

"Well, now you speak of it, I don't know but what maybe I did let him
see that I was a little worried about Dick."

Beveridge nodded. "I can't wait any longer. Come, Bert. You, I suppose,"
turning to Dick and Pink, "will come along without any trouble?"

"Certainly," said Dick.

"Good-by, Captain--and say, by the way, Captain, if I were you, I would
send right up to the life-saving station and have them set a few men to
dragging out there."

"Do you really believe that--"

Beveridge nodded. "If he is found anywhere, it will be within fifty feet
of the pier. Good-by. Come, Bert."

They hurried over to the railway station, Beveridge walking with
Dick, Wilson with Harper. In the minute or two that they had to wait,
Beveridge scrawled the following message, and had it put promptly on the
wire:--

"To Captain B. Sullivan, on board U.S. Revenue Cutter _Foote_,
Milwaukee.

"Am coming Milwaukee with two of our men. Third has stolen schooner and
headed Lake Huron. Will be aboard for chase about midnight. Kindly have
all ready.

"Wm. Beveridge.

"_To Operator_:--If not there, try Sheboygan, Manitowoc, Sturgeon Bay,
and Marinette,--in order named. Beveridge.

"RUSH!"




CHAPTER IX--THE CHASE BEGINS--THURSDAY MORNING


[Illustration: 0236]

THE four men were in the smoking-car, spinning along toward Milwaukee.
Beveridge handed Dick a cigar. Then, after a little:--

"Say, Smiley, I'm doing a rather odd thing with you."

"Are you?"

"Yes--in taking you off here instead of having you locked right up in
Chicago."

Dick waited.

"You see, I have thought this business over pretty carefully; I have
thought _you_ over pretty carefully--and I like you. Now I have been
some time on this case, and I understand it, I think. I understand you,
and McGlory, and Stenzenberger, and the lot of you. But there is one
place where I'm still weak,--that is Spencer and his places up there in
Lake Huron. That is the only thing we haven't run down. I could get
it of course in time, but it _would_ take time, and that's just what I
don't want to take now. I'm depending on you to set me right. Of course
it's your privilege, if you want, to shut your mouth up tight. But I
don't take you for that sort of a chap. I have a way of my own of going
at these things. There are some of our men would bully you, but that
isn't my way--not with you. I 'll tell you right here, that any help you
can give me will be a mighty good thing for you in the long run."

"What do you expect me to tell you?"

"You will know at the proper time. All I want to find out now is whether
you are going to stand by me and help me through with it or not."

"Why, I will do what I can."

"What does that mean exactly?"

"I will tell you all I know."

"All right, sir. Now we understand each other. And I 'll do what I can to
make it easy for you."

"There's one thing--"

"What is it?"

"What are you going to do with us in Milwaukee?"

"If we have to stop over night, why, we 'll go to a hotel."

"Not the jail, eh?"

"No,"--Beveridge gave his prisoner a keen glance, then shook his
head,--"no, that won't be necessary."

The _Foote_ was not at Milwaukee; apparently she was not at Sheboygan,
Manitowoc, Sturgeon Bay, or Marinette. Throughout the night, while
Dick and Harper were shut up with Wilson on the top floor of the hotel,
Beveridge haunted the telegraph office downstairs. Simultaneous messages
went out to Cedar River, Green Bay, Two Rivers, Kewaunee,--to every
little town along the west shore, even back to Kenosha, Racine, and
Waukegan. Then Beveridge thought of the east shore, and tried all the
ports from Harbor Springs down to St. Joseph, but with no success. He
dropped on the lounge in the hotel office for a cat nap now and then.
And finally, at half-past five in the morning, he was called to the
telephone and informed that the _Foote_ had just been sighted heading in
toward the breakwater.

Promptly he aroused his prisoners, who obligingly tumbled into their
clothes; and the party drove down to the river and boarded a tug. A
little time was to be saved by meeting the revenue cutter before she
could get in between the piers. So out they went, past silent wharves
and sleepy bridge keepers, out into the gold of the sunrise.

There was the _Foote_ nearly in, her old-fashioned engine coughing hard,
her side wheels beating the water to a foam, making her very best speed
of nine miles an hour. She caught the signal from the tug, stopped,
backed, and let down her companion ladder. Captain Sullivan, a grizzled
veteran, bearing evidences of hasty dressing, was at the rail to meet
them.

"Well," said Beveridge, "I'm mighty glad to see you, Captain. I didn't
know whether you were on earth or not."

"I got your message at Sturgeon Bay, and came right down."

"Did you answer?"

"Of course," somewhat testily. "You gave me no Milwaukee address. I sent
it to Lakeville."

"That so? They should have forwarded it. They must have gone to sleep
down there."

"I know nothing about that. All clear down there? All right, Mr.
Ericsen!"

The tug backed away, the paddle-wheels revolved again, and the old
steamer swung around in a wide circle.

"You haven't told me where you want to go, Mr. Beveridge." Captain
Sullivan was taking in Smiley and Harper with an eye that knew no
compromise.

"We 'll do that now, Cap'n. Mr. Smiley here is going to help us out a
little if you will show us your chart of Lake Huron."

"_He_ is!" was the Captain's reply. Then he turned abruptly and led the
way up to the chart room.

The chart was spread out, and the three men bent over it.

"Now, Mr. Smiley," said Beveridge, "can you put your finger on Spencer's
place?"

Dick did so.

"There's a harbor there, you say?"

"What's that nonsense," broke in Captain Sullivan, "a harbor behind
False Middle Island?"

"Yes," Dick replied, "a good one."

"You'd better tell that to the Hydrographic Office."

"I don't need to tell it to anybody. I've been in there with my
schooner."

"When was that, young man?"

"This month."

The Captain turned away with a shrug, and joined his lieutenant on the
bridge. "We 'll make for False Middle Island, Mr. Ericsen, just beyond
Seventy Mile Point."

"Very well, sir."

Deliberately, very deliberately, the Foote coughed and rumbled
northward, and Milwaukee fell away astern. She could not hope to catch
the Merry Anne if the southerly breeze should hold. The schooner was
running light, and even though she might have made but eighty or ninety
miles during the night, she was by this time more than abreast of
Milwaukee, and on the east side of the Lake, where she had the advantage
in the run for the Straits of Mackinac.

"Do you think," asked Beveridge, when the Captain had gone to the
bridge, "that we can overhaul her in the Straits?"

Dick shook his head. "Hardly. She has had a pretty steady breeze all
night."

"But it isn't very strong."

"It doesn't need to be. There is nothing she likes better than running
before just such a breeze. And when the sun is well up, it will blow
harder."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"This here is sort of an old tub, too."

Dick sniffed. "You have to watch the bubbles to see which way she's
going."

Beveridge studied the chart. "See here," he said, "where's the Canadian
hangout?" Dick laid his finger on the indentation that represented Burnt
Cove.

"Beyond the--what's this--Duck Island?"

"Just beyond the Duck Islands."

"Which place do you think he will make for?"

"Well--I can only tell you what I think."

"Go ahead."

"What McGlory will do will be to head for Spencer and take off the old
man."

"And then run over to Burnt Cove?"

"That's what I think. Burnt Cove is in Canada, you see."

"Yes, I see it is. The boundary line runs down west and south of
Manitoulin Island."

"If you want to stop him very bad, you'd better have Captain Sullivan
go over to the boundary, close to Outer Duck Island, and then head for
Spencer. In that way we shall be approaching Spencer along the line that
McGlory must take if he tries to make the cove; and if it is not night,
we ought to stand a good chance of sighting him. I figure that we ought
to get up there just about in time."

"Of course, he doesn't know that we're so hot on his trail," mused
Beveridge.

Dick sniffed again. "If you call this hot."

The Captain returned from the bridge, and Beveridge repeated Dick's
suggestion.

"How are we to know this schooner?"

"She's sky-blue with a white line."

"Is she fast?"

"She don't need paddle-wheels to beat this." This remark did not please
Captain Sullivan. He turned away.

"I don't know how you feel, Smiley," said

Beveridge, "but I didn't get much sleep last night. Did you?"

"Precious little."

Within a few moments, while the colors of the dawn were fading, while
the _Foote_ was pounding heavily along northwest by north, the special
agents and their two prisoners were sleeping like children.

At two o'clock Thursday morning the Foote lay, with motionless engines
and lights extinguished, to the southward of Jennie Graham Shoal, near
Outer Duck Island. Smiley and Harper, with Wilson close at hand, stood
leaning on the rail, watching a launch that the crew were lowering to
the water.

"Well," said Dick, in a low voice, "it looks as if we might get them."

"Shouldn't wonder," Wilson replied. He, too, was subdued by the strain.

"Pretty dark, though."

"That isn't all on their side."

"No, perhaps it isn't. Going to put out both launches, eh?"

"It looks that way."

Cautiously and swiftly the sailors worked. One launch, and then the
other, was lowered into the water.

"Pretty neat, ain't it?" whispered Pink. "Why, with this wind they've
got to run in right by one or other of the boats to get to Burnt Cove.
Would they let us sail the _Anne_ around, think, if they get her back?"

Dick shook his head.

Farther aft Beveridge was talking to Captain Sullivan. "It's the only
thing to do, Captain. With him along, we can't miss her."

"I've nothing more to say. I don't like it; but he's your man."

"One thing more, Captain. It won't hardly be necessary to send an
officer with me."

"But--"

"You see Wilson and myself, and about four husky sailors, a couple of
 'em to run the launch, will be enough, Why not just leave it that way?
You might tell your men they're to take my orders."

His meaning was obvious to the Captain; but he hesitated. This man
Beveridge was young and bumptious. Irregular things had sometimes to be
done, but it were best that they should be done by a seasoned officer.
Still, it was Beveridge's case. They walked together toward the
prisoners.

"Smiley," said Beveridge, "I'm going to take you along. I guess there
isn't much doubt you could tell your schooner in the dark?"

"Tell her in the dark!" exclaimed Pink. "Why, he knows the squeak of
every block!"

So Dick went. The Captain added a fifth sailor for safety, and took time
to give him a few quiet instructions before he joined the launch. Then
they pushed off and slipped away into the night. For four hours after
that, the only sound heard aboard the _Foote_, where Pink, sleepless,
hung over the rail, guarded by a deep-chested sailor, was the occasional
puff-puff of one of the launches as it changed its post. A dozen pairs
of eyes were searching the dark, looking for any craft that might be
coming from Michigan.

As Captain Sullivan suspected, Beveridge's launch was over the Canadian
boundary half an hour after she lost sight of the ship. Then Beveridge
drew Dick back near the boiler. "Tell me this, Smiley. Do you think
those fellows could possibly have got through before now?"

"I haven't much doubt of it."

"What makes you think so?"

"Because of the wind. It has never let down a minute since they started.
If they lost no time at Spencer's, they could have done it easily."

"That's what I thought. Will you take the wheel and pilot us into Burnt
Cove?"

"Sure, if you want me to."

Dick took the wheel. The fifth sailor spoke up. "You can't do that,
sir."

"Can't do what?" said Beveridge.

"Take the wheel, sir. Powers is to keep the wheel. That's the orders."

"There's nobody but me giving orders here."

"Sorry, sir; but Powers has got to keep the wheel."

"We won't have any talk about this, young man. I'm a special agent of
the United States Treasury Department, and I'm running this business.
Powers can sit down."

The sailor's orders evidently did not warrant him to resist further.

Dick looked about for his bearings. Dimly he could make out the islands
to the left. "What does she draw?" he asked.

"Two feet."

With only two feet of draft he could take chances. He was directly on
the course that the Merry Anne had taken in leaving the cove, and he
felt as certain, with the compass before him, as if he had made the trip
by night a hundred times. There was very little sea, and the launch made
good progress. "You might tell the engineer to crowd her all he can," he
said to Beveridge. "It's quite a run."

Once Dick glanced back; and he winced. There sat Wilson, on his left
hand and not a yard away, with a rifle across his knees. At this moment
Beveridge returned from a whispered consultation with the engineer, and
scowled at his assistant. "That isn't necessary, Bert," said he. "Put it
up."

The overzealous young man laid the rifle on the seat behind him; and
Beveridge, after a moment of hard thinking, his eyes fixed on Dick's
muscular back, came up beside the wheel and leaned on the coamings.
Dick's gaze left the compass only for the darkness ahead, where the
outline of something that he knew to be a coast line was, to his trained
eye, taking shape.

"Say, Smiley,"--the special agent's voice was lowered; his tone was
friendly,--"don't let that bother you. Nobody is holding a gun on you
here. That isn't my way--with you."

Dick's eyes were fixed painfully on the compass.

"I just want you to know that it was a mistake. These guns aren't for
you."

Beveridge, having said enough, was now silent. Apparently too boyish for
his work, often careless in his talk, he was handling Smiley right,
and so well did he know it that he was willing to lounge there at his
prisoner's elbow and watch the course in silence. If Beveridge was
ambitious, greedy for success and promotion, frequently unscrupulous
as to the means to be employed,--as now, when he was deliberately going
into English territory, an almost unheard-of and certainly unlawful
performance,--hard, even merciless, so long as he regarded only his
"case"; he was also impulsive and sometimes warm hearted when appealed
to on the personal side. He had, before now, gone intuitively to the
heart of problems that stronger minds than his, relying on reasoning
alone, had been unable to solve.

Much as a bank teller detects instantly a counterfeit bill or coin,
he picked his man. He was quick to feel the difference between
a right-minded man who has fallen into wrong ways and the really
wrong-minded man. His course tonight was a triumph. He had given his
prisoner the means to lead his little party to destruction, but he knew
perfectly that nothing of the sort would be done. More, the only man
aboard who could prove in court that he had gone over that vague thing,
the boundary line, was this same prisoner, who should, by all sensible
thinking, be the last man to trust with such information; and yet he
felt perfectly comfortable as he leaned out a little way and watched the
foam slipping away from the bow.

The launch went on toward the increasing shadows, plunged through the
surf, and glided into the cove.

"See anything?" whispered Beveridge.

"Not a thing," Smiley replied.

"She isn't here, eh?"

"No, neither of them."

"Neither of what?"

"Neither the _Anne_ nor the _Estelle_, Spencer's schooner. Shall we go
back outside?"

"Yes."

"You speak to the engineer, then. This bell makes too much noise."

They backed cautiously around and returned through the surf to deep
water.

"Lie up a little way off the shore here," said Beveridge; "we 'll cut
them off if they try to get in."

For a moment nothing was said; then this from Smiley, "Do you mind my
saying a word?"

"No. What?"

"It has just struck me--we are wasting time here."

"You think so?"

"I know so."

"Why?"

"It stands to reason that McGlory would expect to be chased, don't it?"

"Of course."

"Well, then, he is not going to put right over here after he has
taken off old Spencer, is he? It's almost like running back on his
course--amounts to the same thing."

"But he is likely to come here, isn't he?"

"I should think so."

"Well," impatiently, "how else could he do it?"

"Easily enough. He could go right on east from Spencer's place and make
for Owen Channel, up near the head of Georgian Bay. That's at the other
end of this island."

"Manitoulin Island? Is it as big as that?"

"Yes, it lies all across this end of Lake Huron. If he went through Owen
Channel, he could get around into the North Channel, and then down into
Bayfield Sound and Lake Wolsey. Bayfield Sound, you see, pretty nearly
cuts the island in halves. It is right opposite here, only a few miles
overland. That would be a long way around, but it is the safe way. You
see, I've been thinking--"

"Well--what?"

"Why, he would be likely to think just like I did, that when you had got
up here you wouldn't be able to resist coming on across the line."

"You seem to know these routes pretty well for a man who has been to
Spencer's only once."

"I saw it on the chart the other day. A man couldn't help figuring that
out."

"What would you suggest doing?"

"Putting for Spencer's, just as tight as your old stationary wash-tub
can make it."

"But hold on, now. If you think they have got away from there long
ago--"

"I _think_ that, but I'm not sure. Supposing they have--then you've lost
them anyhow. Don't you see? But suppose there was a delay in getting
away there,--it's more than likely McGlory and Spencer wouldn't agree.
McGlory isn't the agreeing kind, and I don't think Spencer is either. It
will be daylight before so very long, and with this wind they can't get
here, if they're coming here at all, without our sighting them on the
way over. And there is just a fighting chance of catching them there
before they make for Georgian Bay, or some other place we don't know
of." Beveridge thought a moment. "There is something in that. We 'll do
it."

At mid-morning the _Foote_ stopped her engines abreast of False Middle
Island, and Captain Sullivan sent for Beveridge.

"You tell me there is a harbor in there?"

"That's what I understand. But it won't be necessary to take the steamer
in."

The Captain's expression showed that he had not the slightest notion of
taking her in.

"I think," Beveridge went on, "that you had better put me ashore with
a few men in there north of the island. I 'll go around behind the
sand-dunes and come on the place from the woods. Then if they should be
there, and if they should try to run out, you can stop them. I 'll have
Smiley guide me."

"You're going to take him ashore with you?

"That's what I'm going to do."

"I don't believe in this!"

Beveridge said nothing.

"Oh, very well. I 'll have a boat ready." Smiley was called, and
Beveridge drew him aside and outlined his plan. Shortly Wilson joined
them, and a half-dozen sailors were picked from the crew. Then, all but
Smiley armed with rifles and revolvers, they descended to the small boat
and were brought rapidly to the shore.

"Which way?" asked Beveridge, sticking close at Smiley's elbow.

"I 'll show you; come along." He led the way back among the pines
and made a circuit, bringing up squarely on the landward side of the
settlement.

"Where is it now, Smiley?"

"Right there."

Beveridge peered out through the trees, then beckoned his men together.
"Come in close, boys, and pick your trees. Keep out of sight--and quiet.
Take my rifle, one of you."

"Shall we go in?" asked Wilson.

"You stay here, Bert."

"Hadn't you better take your rifle?"

"No, I don't want it. Quiet now."

The men spread out, taking places where they could command the
outbuildings.

"Smiley?"

"Yes."

"Which is Spencer's house--where he lives himself?"

"The biggest one. You can see the roof over that shed there."

"All right. Much obliged."

Beveridge walked rapidly out into the clearing and disappeared around
the shed. They heard him mount Spencer's front steps and knock.

"He's plucky enough," muttered Dick.

"Oh, don't you worry about Bill Beveridge," said Wilson. "Why, I've seen
him--"

But Beveridge was calling for them to join him.

"Nobody here?" asked Wilson.

"Not a soul. I took a look around the house. They left in a hurry. See
there."

He nodded toward the harbor. There lay the Merry Anne at the wharf. The
smaller schooner was not to be seen.

"Too late, eh?" said Wilson.

"Too late."

"Suppose they've gone overland?"

"Not a bit of it. They left Smiley's schooner here and went off in
Spencer's."

"Oh, he had one too?"

"Certainly he did."

Dick had made headlong for the schooner. Now they saw him standing on
the after deckhouse, reading a paper which he had found nailed to the
mast.

"What have you there?" called Beveridge.

"Come and see."

The special agent joined him and took the paper. "It's hard enough to
read. Whoever wrote this was in a big hurry. What's this? 'Left again.
You'd better foot it home. Whiskey Jim.' Whiskey Jim, eh? He's stealing
your thunder, Smiley."

"Will you let me see it again?" said Dick. He sat down on the edge of
the deck-house and read it over, gazing at it with fascinated eyes. The
other men watched him curiously.




CHAPTER X--THURSDAY NIGHT--THE GINGHAM DRESS


[Illustration: 0260]

WELL," said Wilson, "what do you think?"

"We 'll do our thinking later. Take these men and search the place.
Smiley and I will wait here."

"You don't expect them to find anything, do you?" asked Dick, when the
others had gone.

"Can't say. We've lost the men, but we may get some evidence."

"Where do you think they are?"

"Where could they be but in Canada?"

Dick was silent.

"Say, Smiley, I like the way you're acting in this business. If anything
on earth will make it any brighter for you, it is what you are doing
now. You might even go a step farther if you should feel like it any
time. It's plain that McGlory and Spencer are pretty deep in, and if you
would come out and tell all you know, it might help you a lot."

"I have told all I know."

"Oh, of course,--that's just as you like."

They were silent again for a few moments. Then Dick spoke up. "You feel
pretty sure about their being in Canada, don't you?"

"Have you thought of anything else?"

"Yes. Where is the other revenue cutter now?"

"The _Porter?_ At Buffalo, I think,--or Cleveland, or Detroit."

"And she's about twice as fast as the _Foote_, isn't she?"

"Just about."

"Well, now, supposing they weren't sure but what she would be sent up
here too? It was as likely as not."

"It should have been done."

"Then wouldn't they have been fools to have put right out again to cross
the Lake--with one steamer coming down on 'em through the Straits and
another coming up from Detroit?"

"Fools or not, they did it. We know that much."

"Do we?"

"_Don't_ we!"

"I don't see it."

"Don't you see what they've done? They have left your schooner here and
gone off in Spencer's.

"Who has?"

"Look here, Smiley, you are on the wrong side of this case. You ought to
be working for the government."

"I may be before I get through with it. You see what I'm driving at,
don't you?"

"About yourself?"

"Hang myself. About Spencer."

"And McGlory?"

"No, not McGlory. Just Spencer."

"Why not McGlory?"

"Just this--"

Wilson approached. "There's nobody here, Bill."

"Wait over there a minute, Bert, with the boys. Go on, Smiley."

"McGlory is a sailor; Spencer isn't. McGlory would feel safer on a boat;
Spencer knows these woods like a book. Do you follow?"

"Go on."

"Now, I'm just as sure as that I'm sitting here, that when it came to a
crisis like this, those two would disagree."

"And you ought to know them."

"I know McGlory. He isn't the kind that takes orders from anybody, drunk
or sober. And from the look I had at old Spencer, I don't think he is
either. He looked to me like a cool hand. Quiet, you know, with a sort
of cold eye. It doesn't sound like Spencer to put out into the Lake with
revenue cutters closing in all around him."

"But does it sound like McGlory?"

"Exactly. He's bull headed."

"Then you think the other schooner _was_ here?"

"More than likely."

"And McGlory took it and Spencer didn't?"

"That's getting near it."

"And who wrote that note?"

"I don't know. I never saw Spencer's writing, and McGlory's only once or
twice. It's written rough, but it looks familiar, somehow."

"McGlory's work then, likely?"

"Maybe."

"But what object would Spencer have in staying behind? Where could he
go?"

"He could get out of Michigan and down to Mexico without one chance in
a hundred of being caught--not unless you had men on every train in the
United States."

"You mean he would make for a railway?"

"Yes."

"But he would have to go to Alpena to do it."

"Not a bit. He needn't go anywhere near the coast. There's a town called
Hewittson, on the Central Road, about fifty miles back in the woods,
southwest of here. It's the terminal of a branch line, and it's the
nearest point."

"Even then he would have to go through Detroit or Michigan City, where
we _have_ men."

"No, he wouldn't. He could get over to the Grand Rapids and Indiana with
a few changes and without passing through a single big town. When he
once got down there in Indiana, you would have a pretty vigorous time
catching him."

Beveridge mused. "This is all very interesting, Smiley, but it is hardly
enough to act on."

"Isn't it, though? What earthly good could you do on the water that
Captain Sullivan couldn't do just as well without you? There he is with
his men, and he ought to do what you tell him."

"I don't know about that," said Beveridge, with a smile.

"Anyhow," Dick went on eagerly, "the old _Foote_ isn't going to make any
more miles an hour for having you on board."

"There's something in that. You seem to be keen on this business."

"Keen! Good Lord, man! don't you see the position I'm in? Don't you see
that my only chance is to help you run this down and get at the facts?
Honest, I don't see what you could lose by taking a flier overland to
Hewittson. It's just one more chance opened up for you, and you ought to
take it."

"How did you happen to know so much about these railroads up here?"

"You didn't suppose I had my eyes shut when I was looking at that chart
the other day, did you?"

"It seems to me you took in a lot in a thundering short time."

"Of course I did. It is my business to take in a lot when I look at a
chart."

"Well, this is interesting, Smiley. I 'll think it over. Come on, boys."

The sailors rowed them back to the steamer; and the special agent
was promptly closeted with Captain Sullivan. He laid out the whole
situation, suggesting that the Captain keep a close watch on the Burnt
Cove region and that he leave a launch at Spencer's. The fugitives
had left nearly all they had, even to clothing, behind, and it was
conceivable that they might return.

"I wish," he added, as he rose to go, "that I could call on the county
authorities. Wilson and I may have our hands full if we meet them."

"You think you'd better not?"

"Hardly. It is even chances that they are mixed up in the business some
way. Spencer has known them longer than we have."

He left the Captain's stateroom, and found Smiley waiting for him by
the wheel-house. "There's one thing I didn't say when we were talking,"
began the prisoner, looking with some hesitation at the agent.

"What's that, Smiley? Speak up. I'm starting now."

"You're going to try it, then?"

"Yes."

"Will you take Pink and me with you?"

Beveridge straightened up and flashed a keen, inquiring glance through
Dick's eyes, down to the bottom of his soul. Dick met it squarely.

"By Jove!" said Beveridge.

Not a word said Smiley.

"By Jove! I 'll do it!"

Dick turned away, limp.

"Smiley!"

He turned back.

"Where's Harper?"

"Down below."

"Bring him to my stateroom. Be quick about it."

A very few moments more, and Dick and Harper knocked at the special
agent's door.

"Come in."

They entered, and found Beveridge and Wilson together. Beveridge closed
the door, and there the four men stood, crowded together in the narrow
space. Beveridge gave them another of his sharp glances, then he drew
from his coat pockets two revolvers and held them out, one in each hand.

Dick and Pink looked speechless.

"Well, take 'em. You boys are to help me see this thing through, now."

"Do you--do you mean that?"

"I don't joke with pistols."

Without more words each reached out. Dick thrust his into his hip
pocket; but Pink opened his and looked at the loaded cylinder.

"Now, boys," said Beveridge, "we're off." Wilson descended first to the
launch, and Dick was about to follow when Captain Sullivan hurried up
and caught his arm. "Here, here! This won't do!"

Dick turned, and started to speak; then, seeing that Beveridge was
approaching, he waited.

"That's all right, Captain," called the special agent; "let him go."

"Let him go!"

Beveridge drew the Captain aside.

"You aren't going to take him ashore with you?"

"Yes, both of 'em."

Anger was struggling with disgust in the Captain's face. "You'd better
hand 'em revolvers and be done with it."

"I've done that already."

"Oh, you _have!_"

"Yes, sir. And I don't mind telling you that, guilty or not, there
aren't two men I'd feel safer with in the Southern Peninsula."

"Oh, there _ain't!_" A feeble reply, but the old Captain was beyond
words. "Very well," was all he could get out, "very well!"

With that they parted; and the boat, with the strangely selected party
aboard, made for the shore.

"Now, Smiley," said Beveridge, when the boat had left them on the sand,
"how about our direction?"

"Exactly southwest from here. I suppose we shall have to make for
Hewittson in a straight line, and see if we can't get there first."
A sort of road led off in a southwesterly direction, and this they
followed for an hour. Then it swung off to the left, and they plunged
into the forest, from now on to be guided only by the compass. The
afternoon wore along. For two hours, three hours, four hours, they
tramped through the forest, which now opened out into a vista of brown
carpet and cool shade, now ran to a blackened jungle of stumps and
undergrowth; but always underfoot was the sand, no longer white but
yellow and of a dustlike quality. It gave under the foot at every step;
it rose about them and got into their throats and finally into their
tempers.

"Say, Smiley," called Wilson. He had swung his coat over his shoulder;
his face was streaked with sweat and dirt; the spring was gone from his
stride. "Say, Smiley, where are those streams you were talking about?"

"Give it up."

"This is a pretty place you're getting us into."

"Shut up, Bert!" said Beveridge. "You tend to business, and quit
talking."

"Who's talking? Can't I ask a civil question?"

"From the sound, I guess you can't."

"You're saying a word too much there, Bill Beveridge!"

Beveridge stopped short and wheeled around. He had tied the sleeves
of his coat through one suspender so that it hung about his knees and
flapped when he walked. His waistcoat was open, his collar was melted to
a rag; altogether he was nearly as tired and hot as his assistant.

"What do you say to sitting down a minute?" suggested Smiley,
diplomatically.

But Wilson returned to the attack. "How long are you going to keep on
this way, Bill?"

The obstinate quality in Wilson's voice roused a counter-obstinacy in
Beveridge. He decided not to reply.

"Maybe the sand's getting into his ears so he can't hear well," said
Wilson, addressing Harper as nearly as anybody. But Pink, rather than
get into the controversy, went off a little way to a spruce tree and
fell to cutting off a piece of the gum.

"It's just as you like, Bill," pursued Wilson. "Of course, it ain't
any of my business,--but I just thought I'd tell you we passed that big
clump of pines over there about two hours and a half ago."

In spite of him, Beveridge's eyes sought the spot indicated.

"I don't care, you understand, Bill. I 'll go where I'm ordered. But if
you _will_ go on trusting that compass of yours, don't you think maybe
we'd better be thinking about saving up what sandwiches we've got left?
These Michigan woods _ain't_ a very cheerful spot to spend the fall,
unless you've planned that way, you know,--brought tents and things, and
maybe a little canned stuff."

"Oh, go to----!" muttered Beveridge, without turning.

"What's that you said?" Wilson was on his feet.

Here Smiley broke in with the suggestion that they try marking trees.

And for an hour they were tearing their shirts to strips, and sighting
forward from tree to tree; then the early twilight began to settle on
the forest. They spoke of it no more, but pushed on feverishly under the
leadership of Beveridge, whose spirits, which had reached low-water mark
in the difference with Wilson, were flowing again. From rapid walking
they took to running; still the twilight deepened. Finally the uneven
ground and the deep shadows led them into scratches and tumbles, and
they were obliged to stop.

"Bill," said Wilson, "look over there."

"Where?"

"That tree--runs up six feet or so, and shoots off over the ground, and
then turns square up again."

"Yes. What about it?" A queer sound was creeping into the special
agent's voice.

"Don't you remember--about three o'clock--the tree we passed? Harper
said it was exactly like a figure four, because of the broken part that
stuck up above the branch,--and you said--"

"Well, but--"

"Just take a good look at it."

Beveridge stepped a little way forward and looked and looked.

"Well?"

Beveridge was silent. His eyes left the tree only to fix themselves on
the ground.

"What do you think, Bill?"

Instead of replying, the special agent turned abruptly and walked away
through the brush. He soon disappeared, but his assistant could hear him
thrashing along. In a few moments he returned, and without a word set
about building a fire. They all lent a hand, and soon were sitting
around the blaze, moody and silent.

"Say, boys,"--it was Smiley speaking up,--"I have an idea. Let me take
your compass a minute, Beveridge."

There was no reply. Smiley thought he had not been understood. "Let's
have your compass, Beveridge."

Then the special agent looked up. "If you can find it, you're welcome to
it," he said. "Why, you haven't lost it?"

"If you've got to know, I've thrown it."

"The------you have!"

A moment's silence. Somewhere off in the wilderness a twig crackled, and
they all started. Harper's scalp tingled during the long stillness that
followed the sound.

"What did you do that for?" asked Smiley. "Because we're sitting at
this moment within a hundred feet of where we sat at three o'clock this
afternoon."

After this the silence grew unbearable. "I don't know how you fellows
feel," said Wilson, "but I'm thirsty clear down to my toes. If there's
any water around here, I'm going to find it." He drew a blazing pine
knot from the fire and started off.

"Look out you don't set the woods afire," growled Beveridge.

For five minutes--long minutes--the three sat there and waited. Then
they heard him approaching, and saw his light flickering between the
trees. He came into the firelight, and paused, looking from one to
another with a curious expression. It almost seemed that he was veiling
a smile.

"Come this way," he finally said. And they got up and filed after him.
He led them a short fifty yards, and paused. They stood on the edge of a
clearing. A few rods away they saw a story-and-a-half farm-house, with
a light in the kitchen window. Farther off loomed the outline of a large
barn. They stumbled on, and found midway between the two buildings a
well with a bucket worked by a crank and chain.

They could not speak; they looked at one another and grinned foolishly.
Then Beveridge reached for the crank, but Dick caught his arm.

"Hold on there, Bill," he said fervently, drawing a small flask from his
hip pocket, "you wouldn't spoil a thirst like this with water?"

"You don't mean to say that you've had this in your clothes all along?"
said Beveridge.

"Yes. I thought from the way things were going we might need it more
to-morrow than to-day."

There was a general smacking of lips as the flask went around. Then they
paused and looked at the house.

"Well," observed Beveridge, "I'm not sure that I want to be told where
we are--but here goes!" And he walked slowly toward the kitchen door,
sweeping his eyes about the farmyard and taking in all that could
be seen in the darkness. At his knock there was a noise in the
kitchen,--the sound of a chair scraping,--and the door was opened a very
little way.

"How are you?" began the special agent.

The farmer, for it was he who blocked the doorway, merely looked
suspiciously out.

"We're a camping party, Mr.--Mr.--"

"Lindquist's my name." His voice was thin and peevish, a fit voice for
such a thin, small man.

"--Mr. Lindquist, and we seem to have lost our way. Can you take us in
and give us a little something to eat?"

"Why, I don't know's I could. How many is there of you?"

"Four."

"You say you're campers?"

"That's what we are."

"Is your tent near by?"

"Blest if we know. If we did, we shouldn't be here."

It was plain to the three of them, standing back in the dark, that
Beveridge, for reasons of his own, was moving very cautiously, and
equally plain that the little man had some reason for being cautious
too. It was hard to think that any honest farmer, living so lonely a
life, would be so downright inhospitable.

"And you say you want something to

"Well, now,"--there was no trace of impatience in the special agent's
voice,--"that's just as you like. We don't want to impose on you; and of
course we're more than willing to pay for what we get."

"Well, I dunno. I s'pose you might come in. Maybe we've got a little
bread and milk."

The kitchen was not a large room. The floor was bare, as were the
walls, saving a few county-fair advertisements in the form of 
lithographs. A thin, colorless, dulleyed little woman was seated beside
a pine table, sewing by the light of a kerosene lamp. The third member
of the family, a boy of fourteen, did not appear until a moment later.
When the sound of the opening door reached his ears, he was lying flat
on his bed, chin propped on hands, feverishly boring through a small
volume in a flashy paper binding.

Beveridge, as they all found seats, was taking in the farmer, noting his
shifting eyes, and his clothes, which were nothing more than a suit of
torn overalls.

"Diana," said Lindquist, "you might give these young men some bread and
milk."

His wife laid aside her sewing without a word, and went to the pantry.

"Now," began Beveridge, "I suppose we ought to find out where we are."

"What's that?"

"Where are we, Mr. Lindquist? What's the nearest town?"

"The nearest town, you said?"

"Yes."

"Why, Ramsey, I guess, or--"

"Or--what?"

"Or--Spencer's place."

"That's what I was afraid of." Beveridge turned to his companions,
adding, "You see, we've got back near the lake."

At the sound of strange voices, the boy came down the stairs and stood
in a corner, gazing at the strangers, and holding his book behind him.

"How far off is the Lake, Mr. Lindquist?"

"How--what's that you say?"

"How far off is the Lake?"

"What Lake?"

"Lake Huron, of course."

"Lake Huron?--Oh, twenty,--twenty-two mile."

"That's another story!" exclaimed Wilson. But Beveridge, evidently
fearing his assistant's tongue, gave him a look that quieted him. The
faces of the four travellers all showed relief.

The bread and milk were ready now, and they fell to, joking and laughing
as heartily as if their only care had been a camp outfit somewhere in
the woods; but all the time the three were watching Beveridge, awaiting
his next move. It came, finally, when the last crumb of bread had
disappeared and the plates had been pushed back.

"Now, Mr. Lindquist," said Beveridge, "it's getting on pretty late in
the evening, and we're tired. Can't you put us up for the night? Not in
the house--I'd hardly ask that--but out in the barn, say?" As he spoke
he laid a two-dollar bill on the table and pushed it over close to the
farmer's hand.

"Well, I dunno." For a moment the bill lay there between their two
hands, then Lindquist's nervous fingers slowly closed over it. "I
suppose you could sleep out there."

"That's first-rate. We 'll go right out if you don't mind. You needn't
bother about coming. Just let your boy there bring a lantern and show us
where to go."

Lindquist did not take to this. "Axel," he said, "you go up to bed.
Mind, now!" Then he lighted the lantern and led the way to the barn.
When he had left them, tumbled about on the fragrant hay, Smiley spoke
up. "Well, Beveridge, what next?"

"Didn't he lock the door just then?"

"Yes," said Harper, "I'm sure I heard it. I 'll go and see."

Slowly he descended, and felt his way across the floor, returning with
the report that the door was fast.

"Now, boys, I 'll tell you," said Beveridge. "We 'll take a little rest.
It's all right as long as one of us is awake. Before the night's over
we've got to get hold of that boy, but we won't make a disturbance yet."

"Oh," cried Dick, a flood of light breaking in on his understanding,
"it's the boy you're after."

"Yes, it's the boy, of course. I've had to sit down a good many times in
my life and thank the Lord for my luck, but this beats it all."

"Are you sure, though, that they went through here?"

"Am I sure? Could you look at the old man and ask me that? What I'd like
to know is how far off they are just now."

"Lindquist doesn't look as if he'd tell."

"Oh, no; _he_ won't tell."

"Would it do any good to make him?"

"Put on a little pressure, you mean?"

"Yes."

"I don't think so. He'd lie to me, and we wouldn't have any way of
knowing the difference. The boy is our game."

"Why not get him now? We could break out of here easy enough."

"No, Smiley, you're a little off the track there. He must tell us on the
sly. Don't you see, he's a good deal more afraid of his father than he
is of us. If we aren't careful, we 'll have him lying too."

"Have you thought of the old lady?"

"Yes, but I'm doubtful there. She is afraid of him too. It's more than
likely that she was kept pretty much out of the way. Anyhow, her ideas
would be confused."

"But sitting up here in the haymow isn't going to bring us any nearer to
the boy."

"Isn't it?"

"I don't see how."

"Did you notice the book he was reading?"

"No, what book? I didn't see any book."

"I guess maybe you were right, Smiley, about your eyes being trained for
sea work. Now, I 'll tell you what. This little rest may be the only one
we're entitled to for a day or so, and I wish you fellows would curl
right up and go to sleep. I'm going to stay awake for a while. Harper,
over there, is the only sensible one in the lot. He's been asleep for
ten minutes."

"No, he ain't," drawled a sleepy voice.

"I can't get comfortable," growled Wilson. "How is a man going to sleep
with this hay sticking into your ears and tickling you?"

"Next time I take you out, Bert," said Beveridge, "I 'll bring along a
pneumatic mattress and a portable bath-tub and a Pullman <DW65> to carry
your things."

"That's all right, Bill. Wait till you try it yourself. There are
spiders in the hay, millions of 'em,--and if there's anything I hate,
it's spiders."

"Here," said Harper, "take some o' my pillow. I ain't having no
difficulty." He threw over a roll of cloth, which Wilson, after some
feeling about, found.

"Hold on, Harper, this isn't your coat?"

"No, it's part of a bundle of rags I found here."

"What's that!" Beveridge exclaimed. "A bundle of rags?"

"Feels like part of an old dress," said Wilson.

"Give it here, Bert. I 'll take what you've got too, Harper." With the
cloth under his arm Beveridge found the ladder and made his way to the
floor below. Then he lighted a match.

The others crawled to the edge of the mow and looked down into the
cavernous, dimly lighted space.

"Look out you don't set us afire, Bill."

"Come down here, Smiley, and see what you make of this."

It was not necessary to summon Dick twice. He swung off, hung an instant
by his hands, dropped to the floor, and bent with the special agent
over what seemed to be the waist and skirt of a gingham dress. The
examination grew so interesting that Harper and Wilson came down the
ladder and peered over Dick's shoulders.

"You see," said Beveridge,--"here, wait till I light another match. Take
this box, Bert, will you, and keep the light going? You see, it isn't an
old dress at all. It's rather new, in fact. Mrs. Lindquist would never
have thrown it away--never in the world. Now what in the devil--what's
that, Smiley?"

"I didn't say anything. I was just thinking--"

"Well--what?"

"I don't know that I could swear to it, but--you see, you can't tell the
color very well in this light."

[Illustration: 0287]

"Oh, it's blue, plain enough."

"You're sure?"

"Perfectly."

"Looks nearer green to me. But if it's blue, I've seen it before."

"Where?"

"The day I was at Spencer's. There was a girl there, the old man's
sister-in-law, and she wore this dress."

"Are you perfectly sure, Smiley?"

"Well--dresses aren't in my line, but--yes, I'm sure. I noticed it
because her eyes were blue too--and there was this white figure in it.
Her name is Estelle. She waited on table, and--"

"Go on--don't stop."

"Wait up," said Wilson. "If you've got it identified, I'm going to quit
burning up these matches. There are only about half a dozen left."

"All right. Put it out." And they talked on in the dark, seated, Dick
and Beveridge on the tongue of a hay-wagon, Wilson on an inverted
bucket, Harper on the floor.

"Why, she waited on table; and then McGlory disappeared and I had to go
after him, and I found him talking to her--"

"Hold on!" Beveridge broke in. "You say you found her and McGlory
together?"

"Yes. I guess we're thinking of the same thing. From the way they both
acted, I rather guess it's an understood thing. It wasn't as if he had
met her there by chance, not a bit of it. And I've been thinking since,
it seems more than likely that she would go wherever he went."

"That's right!" Beveridge exclaimed. "I'm sure of it. I know a little
something about it myself."

"You do?"

"Yes. This McGlory has left a wife behind him in Chicago."

"Madge, you mean?"

"Yes. The main reason he took up the offer to go out with you, Smiley,
was so he could get up here and see this--what's her name?--Estelle."

"So there is more than a fighting chance that where she is you 'll find
him."

"Exactly."

"And that means that he has been here to-day."

"Right again."

"Then who sailed the schooner for Canada?"

Harper, leaning forward in the dark and straining to catch every
syllable of the low-pitched conversation, here gave a low gasp of sheer
excitement. There had been moments--hours, even--during the day when
the object of this desperate chase had seemed a far-off, imaginary thing
beside the real discomforts of the tramp through the pines. But now, in
this sombre place, they were plunged into the mystery of the flight, and
he had been the unwitting means of deepening the mystery.

"That sort of mixes us up, Beveridge," said Smiley.

"Never mind." Beveridge's voice was exultant. "We're hot on the trail
now. This taking to the woods is about the neatest thing I ever did."

"You're right there, Bill," Wilson chimed in.

Until now Dick had supposed that the land chase had been entirely his
own notion, but he said nothing.

"Look here, Bill,"--it was Wilson breaking the silence,--"there isn't
any use of our trying to sleep to-night. Let's break out and run this
thing down."

"How are you going to know your way in the middle of the night?"

"Make 'em show us."

"Suppose you can't make them?"

"I know--you're still thinking about that boy. But we are no nearer him
than we were an hour ago."

"Listen a minute!"

They sat motionless. There was no sound; nothing but the heavy stillness
of the night.

Wilson whispered, "Think you heard something?"

"S-sh!"

A key turned softly in the lock. Then the door opened a little way,
and against the sky they could see a head. Wilson drew his revolver.
Beveridge heard the hammer click, and said quietly, "Don't be a fool,
Bert. Put that thing back in your pocket."

"Are you's in there?" came a voice from the door.

"Yes. Come along."

The door opened wider to admit the owner of the voice, then closed.
A moment later a lantern was lighted and held up before the grinning,
excited face of the farmer's son.

"Come on, Alex. What do you want?"

The boy slowly approached until he stood before them; then he set the
lantern on the floor, where it cast long shadows.

"What is it, my boy?"

Axel looked knowingly at them. "Say," he whispered, "I know what you's
are. You're detectives."

"Oh, we are, are we? What makes you think that?"

"You're detectives. I know."

"Sit down, and talk it over. Do you smoke?"

"Can I smoke? Well, I should say I can. You just watch me." He accepted
a cigar, his first, and lighted it. "Don't let on to Pa, will you? He'd
give me--" Unable to call up a strong enough word, the boy concluded
with a grin.

"That's all right. We know how it is ourselves. Your father has enough
to worry him just about now, anyhow. Didn't he have but the one suit of
clothes?"

"Well, there was his old everyday suit, but that got tore so bad Ma said
she couldn't mend it, and there wasn't only his Sunday suit and his work
clothes left."

"You don't mean that he had to fight with those fellows?"

"Oh, no,--that was a long time ago. Say, this cigar is the real thing."

"It ought to be good. It's a fifteen-cent-straight."

"_You_ don't say so!"

"I 'll tell you one thing, Alex."

"My name's Axel."

"I 'll tell you one thing. Your father has made a bad mistake in allowing
himself to get mixed up with these people. He is with the wrong crowd.
I'm the only one that could help him out."

The boy began to be frightened. "Oh, he ain't mixed up in it!"

"He isn't?"

"No. He never seen 'em before."

"What does he want to act this way for, then?"

"Well, you see--"

"Now look here, my boy. The sooner we understand each other, the better.
Your father has got himself into a dangerous situation. He can't deceive
me. I know all about it. Does he think he could keep me in here any
longer than I want to stay by locking the door? I'm half minded to
arrest him for this. He can't do that sort o' thing to me!"

Axel was downright frightened now. He held his cigar so long that it
went out. Wilson struck a match, and lighted it for him.

"I suppose you would like me to believe that he was forced to give up
his clothes?"

"Oh, he was! The fellow with the black hair--"

"McGlory?"

"Seems to me they called him Joe."

"That's the same man. Go on."

"Why, he pulled a gun, and marched Pa out here to the barn. Ma ran
upstairs crying. And the lady, she was crying, too. And the dark fellow,
he made the lady climb up where you was, on the hay--"

"Yes, I know," Beveridge interrupted, indicating the dress.

"And then he held the gun while Pa took off his Sunday suit that he'd
put on because he thought they was going to be visitors, and he threw it
up to the lady, and she put it on. One of the suspenders was busted, and
she didn't know how it worked, and she cried, and then Pa had to holler
up how he'd fixed it with a string and you twisted the string around
twice and then tied it. And then the dark fellow, he made me run in and
get Pa his overhauls."

"So they changed clothes right here, eh?"

"Yes, and the lady cried, and when she'd got all dressed in Pa's
clothes, why, she just said she wouldn't come down. And Joe, he said she
would, or he'd know the reason why. Then the others laughed some--"

"_The others!_"

"Yes, and they--"

"Hold on! How many were there in this party?"

"Why, three or four, counting in the lady."

"Three or four! Don't you know?"

"Well, you see, I didn't think about counting 'em then. What was I
saying?"

"You said the others laughed."

"Oh, yes. Not very much, you know,--just a little. Then the boss, he
said--"

"What sort of a looking man was this boss?"

"I dunno."

"Didn't you see him?"

"Oh, well, I--"

"What was it he said this time?"

"Oh,--he said something to Joe about not getting excited. I guess he
thought he was kind o' mean to the lady. Anyhow, she come down after a
little and kind o' stood around behind things. She was frightened some,
I guess. And then they all went off."

"Which way?"

"I dunno. They told us we hadn't better watch 'em, and so I thought
maybe I wouldn't."

"Was that the last you saw of them?"

"Well--not quite."

"Not quite! What else?"

"Before they'd gone very far, the boss came back."

"Oh, he did?"

"And he told Pa he guessed Joe was a little excited, and they hadn't
meant to be hard on him. And so he gave Pa a little money for his
trouble."

"I thought you said your father wasn't mixed up with them."

"He ain't. Not a bit."

"But you say he took their money?"

"What else could he do? They ain't the sort o' men you'd want to argue
with."

"There is something in that. But why did he try to lock us in here?"

"I dunno."

"Oh, you don't."

"No, but--I 'll tell you. Pa's rattled."

"I shouldn't wonder."

"He come up to my room just after he'd been out here with you, and
says if I ever said a word about it, it would land the whole family in
state's prison. That ain't so, is it?"

"Well, I'm not prepared to say."

The cigar was out again. "Oh, say, now, it wasn't his fault. He didn't
do nothing but what they made him do."

"Of course, the fact that he helped them under compulsion might be
considered in a court of law, but I'm not prepared to say that it
mightn't go hard with you all. I 'll do what I can to get you out of it,
but it's a bad scrape. What direction is Hewittson from here?"

"Off that way. There's a road 'most all the way."

"That's first-rate. I want you to go with us."

"When?"

"Now."

"Oh, Pa--he wouldn't let me--"

"But I tell you to come."

"Would it help us any in getting off?"

"I might be able to make it easier if you really give me valuable
assistance."

"We 'll have to get away pretty quiet."

"Very well." Beveridge was rolling up the blue dress into a small
bundle. "All ready, Bert--Smiley?"

"All right here."

"Put out your light, Axel."

They stepped cautiously outside, and the boy locked the door behind
them. "Hold on," he whispered; "don't go around that way. Pa ain't
asleep, never in the world!"

"Which way shall we go?"

"Here--after me--through the cow-yard." They slipped around behind the
barn, made a short detour through the edge of the forest, and reached
the road beyond the house.

"Does this road run both ways, Axel?" Beveridge asked.

"Yes, from Hewittson to Ramsey."

"Do you hear that, Smiley? We must have been within a few hundred yards
of it most of the way."

"Never mind, we 'll make better time now, anyhow."

They pushed on, indeed, rapidly for half a mile, guided by the lantern,
which Axel had relighted. Then the boy, overcome by the tobacco, had to
be left, miserably sick, in a heap by the roadside. Beveridge snatched
the lantern from his heedless fingers, thrust a bill into his pocket by
way of payment, and the party pushed on.




CHAPTER XI--THURSDAY NIGHT--VAN DEELEN'S BRIDGE


[Illustration: 0302]

THE stars were shining down on the stream that passed sluggishly under
Van Deelen's bridge, but they found no answering twinkle there. A gloomy
stream it was, winding a sort of way through the little farm, coming
from--somewhere, off in the pines; going to--somewhere, off in the
pines; brown by day, black by night; the only silent thing in the
breathing, crackling forest. It seemed to come from the north, gliding
out from under the green-black canopy with a little stumble of white
foam, as if ashamed in the light of the clearing. Then, sullen as
ever, it settled back, slipped under the bridge--where the road from
Lindquist's swung sharply down--with never a swirl, and gave itself
up to the pines and hemlocks that bent over. Behind the barn-yard it
circled westward, and paralleled the road for a few hundred yards, as if
it, too, were bound for Hewittson; but changed its mind, turned sharply
south, and was gone. Whither? The muskrats and minks perhaps could tell.

The clearing, in spite of the house and barn, was desolate; the pines
were pressing irresistibly in on every side to claim the land Dirck van
Deelen had stolen from them. The road, after crossing the bridge, lost
itself in the confused tracks between house and barn, only to reappear
on the farther side and plunge again into the forest,--a weary, yellow
road, telling of miles of stump land as well as of the fresher forest.

It was late, very late, but there was a light in the house. A woman,
in man's clothing, lay on the parlor sofa, too tired to rest. She was
white; her breath came hard; her eyes were too bright. McGlory stood
over her with a pair of scissors in his hand. He had cut off her long
hair, and now it lay curling on the floor.

"Here, you,"--he was speaking to Van Deelen,--"get a broom and take that
up. Be quick about it. What are you gawking at?"

Van Deelen, slow of movement and slower of thought, obeyed.

"Now," said McGlory to the woman, "come along!" And he took her arm.

"Oh, no, Joe! I can't go! It will kill me!"

"Cut that--get up!"

Roche, who had been eating in the next room, came in, looked at them,
and then hurried out, where the leader of the party awaited him.

"Aren't they 'most ready?"

"Yes--coming right along--if it don't kill her."

But when they heard a step and turned, only the woman appeared in the
doorway.

"Where's Joe, Estelle?"

"He--he's coming." She staggered. Roche caught her, helped her down the
steps, and with his arm about her waist led her out to the road. "He
says to go along, and he 'll catch us." She was plucky, or frightened,
for she staggered along biting her lip.

This was what McGlory had said to Van Deelen after he had got her to the
door: "Give me some paper and a pen--quick!"

They were promptly placed on the diningroom table; and he scrawled off
a few lines, folded the paper, and looked up with a scowl. The strain of
the week had not improved his expression. "Give me an envelope; I want
you to mail this for me."

"I haven't got one."

"The------you haven't!"

"Honest--that's the truth. I'd have to go to Hewittson, anyway. It 'll be
quicker for you to take--"

"Oh, shut up. I'm sick o' your voice. Here, take this." He thrust the
letter into his pocket and counted out twenty-five dollars in bills.
"This is for you. And mind, nothing said. You don't know us--never seen
four men coming through here in the night. Don't remember ever having
seen four men come through. Understand?"

Van Deelen drew back a step, and nodded. "No mistake about this now. If
you say a word, the world ain't big enough to hide you." His hand
was straying toward a significant pocket. "None of your hemmings and
haw-ings--if you're in a hurry to get to heaven, just give us away.
Understand?"

Another nod,--all the farmer was capable of; and McGlory was gone with
a bound, out the door, on toward the little group at the farther side of
the clearing.

They heard his step and his loud breathing. "What's this?" He had just
made out Roche's arm across Estelle's back. "What's _this?_" He tore the
arm away, whirled Roche around, and slapped his face so hard that he----

"By------!" gasped Roche. "By------!"

They glared at each other; Estelle sobbed. "Try that again, Joe McGlory!
Just try it! Hit me again! Why, you--why, I 'll break your neck!"

"_You_ will?"

"Yes, I will. Just hit me again!"

McGlory looked him over, decided to accept the invitation, and plunged
forward. Roche, without a moment's hesitation, turned and bolted up the
road,--ran as if the fiends were on his heels. McGlory finally stopped,
laughed viciously, and hurled a curse after him.

The third man let them go; he merely took Estelle's arm and helped her
along, soothing her a little, trying to calm the outburst of hysteria
that had been threatening for twenty-four hours. McGlory waited for
them in the shadow of the woods; and a little farther on Roche fell in
behind, muttering softly, and keeping well away from McGlory.

Estelle could hardly stagger along. McGlory passed his arm through hers
and dragged her forward. Now she was silent, now she stifled a sob, now
she begged piteously to be left behind. "Let me go back to Van Deelen's,
Joe--please! I can't go on."

"I thought you was such a walker."

"Oh, but--not so far as this. Let me go back there."

"Wouldn't that be smart, now! To leave you where you could blab the
whole thing!" She tried to walk a few steps farther; then she broke
away, stumbled to the roadside, and, sinking to the ground, covered her
face with her hands.

Roche stopped short and stared at her. The other spoke up: "This won't
do, Joe. There's no use killing her. We 'll drop back in the woods and
take a rest. We 'll all be better for it."

McGlory sullenly consented. He dragged Estelle off through the
undergrowth to the clearer ground under the trees, and they all
stretched out. In five minutes Roche was the only one awake of the
three men. Without raising his head he slipped over close to Estelle and
rested his hand on her shoulder. She rolled over with a start. "S-sh!
Not so loud, Estelle."

"Oh, it's you?"

"Yes. You didn't think I'd forgot, did you, Estelle?"

"I--I don't understand."

"Don't you think it's time to quit 'em? What's the use? I guess you know
him now for what he is."

"Yes, he's mean to me. But--"

"Don't you see--we can skip out and leave 'em here, and go back near the
house and hide. He wouldn't dast come back after us. The boss wouldn't
never let him."

"Do you think we could? I'm afraid. He wouldn't stop at anything."

"You just leave it to me. I can take care o' _him:_"

"I--I'm afraid. He's so determined. And I told him I'd go with him."

"What was he a-doin' back there in the house after he sent you out?"

"I don't know."

"Not so loud--whisper. Didn't you hear him say anything?"

"He asked for a pen and paper."

"Must 'a' wrote a letter. There it is--look there--sticking out of his
pocket. Wait a minute."

"Don't you try to take it. He 'll shoot you."

"Oh, damn him! I ain't afraid of two Joe McGlorys. Lemme go." He crept
over, drew out the letter skilfully, and returned. "I don't like to
strike a match here--"

"Oh, no, no--don't!"

"Can you crawl off a little ways--behind them bushes?"

"I guess so; I 'll try." He helped her. "S-sh--careful."

Behind the bushes they felt safer. Roche lighted a match and held up the
paper. This is what they read:--

"Dear Madge: There's a little misunderstanding up this way and I can't
get back for a little while I want some money you put the bills in a
envelope to generel dilivry South Bend Indiana. Don't you try to come to
me because it ain't a very pleasent situation I 'll tell you later where
to come don't forget the money and don't you put my name on it call me
Joe Murphy. Burn this soon as you read it.

"J."

Neither saw the insolent brutality of this letter; their thoughts were
elsewhere. Estelle gazed, thunderstruck. Roche held the match until it
burned his finger. As he dropped it and the paper to the ground, and the
dark closed in again, one of the sleepers tossed and mumbled. Estelle
caught his arm.

"He told me it wasn't so," she whispered. "He told me it wasn't so."

"Oh, he's just a common, everyday liar. Madge is his wife. Didn't I tell
you so the first day I come to Spencer's?"

"I don't know. What can we do? Do you think we could get away?"

"Sure thing."

"But how?"

"We 'll sneak back a ways and off to one side in the woods. He can't come
back and search the whole county for us. Don't you see?"

"But wouldn't _they_ catch us?" She glanced toward the east, whence
pursuit might come.

"Not a bit of it. Just trust me. Come on--now's the time. Move cautious
till we get on the road."

He helped her up, and they stole away. For a few moments she was buoyed
up by this new excitement, but soon fell back into the old weariness.
She clung to Roche until he was almost carrying her. "Keep a-going," he
whispered. "I 'll skip back to the house and pick up something to eat,
and then we 'll take to the woods. They can't never catch me, I tell you.
_I 'll_ fool 'em."

They struggled along. Halfway back to the farm-house Estelle completely
lost heart. "I can't do it!" she moaned. "Stop--let me sit down."

"Not here, Estelle! Not in the road!"

"Let me down, I tell you!"

"But he may be along any minute."

"I don't care. Let me down."

"Look here, Estelle, can't you see how it is? If he gets you, he 'll half
kill you. And you 'll have to walk farther with him than you would with
me."

She was beyond reason. She clung around his neck, holding herself up
even while she begged to be let down. Her condition and the terrible
loneliness of the night were unnerving Roche. "Come along," he said
angrily, "or I 'll make you come!"

"Don't hurt me!"

"By------! Don't you say another word!"

He jerked her roughly forward, while his wild eyes sought the road
behind.

"You said you'd be good to me!"

"Well, ain't I good to you? Ain't I saving your life, and you haven't
got the sense to see it?"

"O dear! Don't--"

"Keep still, now--come on--Don't you say any more."

Soon they reached the clearing, and, pausing for breath in the shadows,
they looked about. The night was far advanced, but a light showed in an
upper window of the house. Over in the barn a horse was thrashing about
his stall; the noise was deafening after the stillness. Roche released
Estelle, and to his horror she sank to the ground in a faint. He spoke
to her--she did not hear. He bent over and shook her, felt her wrist and
her forehead. Then he straightened up and looked back along the road.
His breath came fast and hard; the loneliness was closing in on his
soul. He shivered, though the air was not cold, then stepped back,
mopped the sudden sweat from his face, looked down again at the
woman,--even stirred her with his foot,--then turned and ran. Not down
the road, for the lowbrowed McGlory lay sleeping there; not to the
south, for the stream barred the way; but skirting the clearing to the
northern edge and then plunging into the woods, endlong and overthwart,
with a thousand ugly fancies hounding him, with a traitor in his bosom
that opened the door for the mad thoughts freely to enter and gnaw
there. He tripped on a log, pitched headlong and rolled over, scrambled
up with bleeding hands, and ran on in an ecstasy of fear. And the vast
black forest shut in behind him and swallowed him.

[Illustration: 0315]

When Estelle's eyes opened, she returned from peace to wretchedness.
Yes, the trees and the night and the swollen feet were real. She crawled
toward the farm-house; something within her warned her not to try to
rise. She lived months in dragging that hundred yards; the one goal of
life was the low stoop and the door under the light. When she reached
it,--her clothes torn, the dust ground into her face and hands,--she
fainted again, and clung to the steps.

Dirck van Deelen was sitting at the window with a shot-gun across his
knees. He had watched the--he could not see what it was--crawling to
his door. Now he looked out and saw it lying there. Whatever, whoever it
was, this would not do; so he opened the door and carried her up to the
room where his frightened wife was trying to sleep.

"We 'll have to take her in, Saskia."

"What is the matter? Is she hurt?"

"I don't know. I found her on the stoop. Help me examine her."

But they found no mark of bullet, knife, or blunt instrument. And while
the Dutch woman worked over her, the man went for water. At last she was
brought to a sort of consciousness, and, leaving his wife to care for
her, Van Deelen returned to his window and his gun.

Roche and Estelle had not been gone an hour when McGlory, haunted by the
fear of pursuit, awoke. He stretched himself, sat up, and looked over to
the spot where Estelle had been lying when he fell asleep. At first he
thought he saw her, a darker shadow, but on rising and walking over he
found no sign of her. He looked about, and called. Roche, too, was not
in sight. He hesitated, not yet fully awake, then turned back and woke
his companion.

"Well, what's the matter?"

"They're gone."

"Who's gone?"

"Roche and Estelle."

"How do you know? Have you looked around?"

"Come over here."

They prowled behind the trees, parted the bushes here and there, called
as loud as they dared, lighted matches, and examined the ground. Finally
McGlory broke out with an oath: "The little fool! So she thinks she can
serve me this way, eh?"

"You think they've skipped out?"

"Think? Do I think it? What do I want to _think_ for? Didn't I see him
a-hugging her?"

"He was just helping her then."

"Oh, just helping her, was he?"

"Well, what you going to do about it?"

"What'm I going to do?" McGlory was lashing his anger. His voice swelled
until he was roaring out the words: "What'm I going to do? I'm going
to run that Pete Roche down if I have to go to hell for him! I'm going
to---"

"Drop your voice, Joe. I can hear you. How're you going to find him?"

"Who you telling to shut up?"

"Hold on, now. None o' that talk to me!"

"Oh, you think you can boss me, do you?"

"Think? I know it. Don't waste your breath trying to bluff me. I asked
you how you're going to find him."

"How'm I going to--how'm I--why, I 'll break his head--I 'll--"

"Don't work yourself up. It won't help you any."

"You think you can talk like that to me? If you ain't careful, I 'll
break _your_ head. I 'll--"

"How are you going to find him?"

"You say another word, and I 'll knock your teeth down your throat."

"I've got my hand in my pocket, Joe, and I've got a loaded gun in my
hand, and if you threaten me again, I 'll blow a hole through you. I've
half a mind to do it anyway. A fool like you has no business getting
into a scrape if he can't keep his head. I'd a heap rather kill you than
get caught through your fool noise. The sooner you understand me, the
better for you. Now tell me how you're going to find out which way to
take."

"How--" McGlory was not a coward, but he could not face down the
seasoned courage of the man before him. "Why--that's a cinch. Ain't he
headed the same way we are?"

"Now, Joe, hold on. Don't be a bigger fool than you can help. You don't
really think he'd take her right along over this road, do you?"

"Why--dam' it!"

"It's no good talking to you if you can't quiet down. You want to kill
Roche, and you're right. I want him killed, too. The longer he's alive,
the more danger for us. But if you go at him this way, he may kill you."

"Him! Kill me! Why--"

"I mean it. He's desperate, too. You can't be too sure that he 'll always
run like he did to-night. He's got Estelle to look out for, too. Now,
it's plain that he hasn't gone down the road, because, look here,--she
isn't good for more than a mile an hour, and he'd have sense enough to
know we'd catch him."

"Where is he gone, then?"

"Not very far--we know that much. Likely they're back here in the woods.
Or maybe they went back to Van Deelen's."

"They'd never go there."

"They might have to. I guess you don't know much about women, Joe."

"I reckon I know more 'n's good for me."

"Then you ought to see she's pretty near done for."

"Estelle? She's bluffing."

"No, she isn't. Not a bit of it. When a woman's worked up and tired out
at the same time, something's likely to break. You were a fool to bring
her, anyhow. I don't know why I let you."

"_You! You_ let me!"

"You said so much about her being strong. Why, she's a child."

"Look here, you've said some things tonight that I don't like."

"Oh, have I? But this isn't getting us along any. The first thing is to
look around here a little more. There are any number of ways they might
have taken without going down the road."

Even McGlory could see the reason in this suggestion. They lighted
matches and prowled about, peering behind trees and bushes, looking
for broken or bent twigs, for any indication of the passage of a human
being. But the heavy growth of trees shut out what light there was
overhead, and neither was skilful enough to direct his search well.

"Find anything, Joe?"

"Not a thing. When it comes to sneaking off, Roche has head enough. It's
the only thing he's good for."

"The more I think of it, Joe, the more I believe they've gone to the
house."

"You're off there."

"No, I'm not. Listen a minute. Supposing they started off in the woods
and tried to dodge the house. Pretty soon Estelle gives out--surer than
New Year's. And it would be pretty soon, too, because the excitement
wouldn't keep her up long. Now what is Roche going to do? He isn't the
man to face out a bad situation like that--never in this world. He'd do
one of two things--he would skip out and leave her, or he would get her
to the house. If he skipped, there isn't one chance in a thousand of our
finding either of them. If he took her to the house, we can get one or
both. We can't stay around here much longer. We'd better try the house,
and if they aren't there, or anywhere about the place, we 'll go on
toward Hewittson."

"You 'll have to go without me, then."

"You think so?"

"I don't leave this place till I see Roche curled up stiff." This was
said as quietly as McGlory could say anything, but it was convincing.
The other looked keenly at him.

Suddenly McGlory, feeling in his pockets, muttered a curse and started
back toward the spot where they had slept.

"What's up? Lost something?"

"None of your business!" McGlory was searching the ground feverishly.

"If you told me what it was, maybe I could help you."

No answer. McGlory's temper was rising again. Finding nothing where he
had lain, he began thrashing about the bushes.

"Unless it's something important, Joe, you're wasting a lot of time."

"Well, say--you--you ain't seen a paper--or anything, have you?"

"A letter?"

"Not exactly. It wasn't in an envelope."

"Oh, you mean this, maybe." With a lighted match in one hand, he drew
a folded paper from his pocket and started to open it. McGlory sprang
forward, recognized it, and tried to snatch it away.

"It ain't necessary to read that. It's private business."

"I have read it."

"You have read it! You've been prying into my affairs, have you?"

"Not at all. I found this on the ground and read it. You must have
written it back there when you kept us waiting. You had no business to
do it. I never saw such a fool as you are." As he spoke, he touched the
match to the paper.

"Here, quit that! Don't you burn that letter!"

"Now, Joe, you didn't think for a minute I'd let you send this, did
you?"

"What right you got--"

"The right of self-preservation. We can't do any letter writing yet
awhile. I 'll help you out with money, but I won't let you do this
sort of thing. Let's start back." He led the way to the road, McGlory
sullenly following; and side by side they stepped out for the farmhouse.
"Beastly sort of a thing to do, Joe,--ask Madge for money to help you
run off with this woman."

"Well, I'd like to know--Ain't she had enough from me--"

"I don't doubt she has stood a good deal from you. What sort of a woman
is she, Joe?"

"Madge? Oh, she's all right."

"Pretty fond of you, isn't she?"

"I guess there ain't much doubt about that."

"I've noticed her a little."

"Oh, you have, have you?"

"Certainly. What else can you expect, skylarking around this way?"

"That's all right. A man's got to have his fling. But when it comes
to--"

"Madge is a fine-looking woman. I don't believe you know how pretty she
is, Joe. If you got her decent clothes, and took her out to the theatre
now and then, so she could keep her spirits up, she would be hard to
beat."

This was a new idea to McGlory. But what he said was, "Seems to me
you've done a lot of thinking about my wife."

"It's your own fault. But look here, do you think such an awful lot of
Estelle?"

"Oh, yes. I've had some fun with her. Of course, she ain't the woman
that Madge is."

"I was wondering a little--" McGlory's companion paused.

"What was you wondering?"

"What you're going to do with Estelle when you find her."

"Do with her? Why--why--"

"You didn't think she'd come right back to you--things the same as they
was before--did you?"

"Why--"

"Did she know you had a wife?"

"Well, no,--she didn't know that."

"But she does now. She has read the letter."

McGlory had not thought of this.

"Estelle isn't altogether a fool, you know. Not so bad as Roche--or
you. If I were you, I'd stick to Madge. If you don't, some better fellow
will."

"Who do you mean now, for instance?"

"Never mind who I mean. I don't think you've seen yet how mussy this
business is. Here Estelle is, like enough, on our hands. Now we can't
leave her behind. She wouldn't come along with you; and even if she
would, she isn't strong enough. If we did leave her here, it simply
means that she would be blabbing out the whole story to the first
goodlooking chap that asked her a few questions."

"But don't you see? I can't let a man insult me like Roche done."

"No, you can't. But if you could fix things so Roche nor nobody could
get her, and still you'd be free to go back to Madge, you wouldn't
object, would you?"

"Why, no--sure not. How do you mean?"

"If you find her there at the house, or in the barn, or anywhere around,
you'd better just--here, your knife ain't much good. Take mine." He
opened his clasp knife--the blade was five inches long--and held it out.

McGlory took it, stood still in his tracks looking at it, and then
raised his eyes to the face of his companion.

"Well--have you got the nerve?"

"Have I got the nerve!" McGlory laughed out loud, and thrust the open
knife into his belt, at the side, under his coat.

"I wouldn't use a gun unless I had to." He paused, laid his hand on
McGlory's arm, and dropped his voice. "Look there! There's a light in
the window."

McGlory swelled with rage. "I 'll put a stop to this!"

"Hold on a minute, Joe. I 'll slip around the bank of the creek here, the
other side of the barn, so I can watch the road and the barn both."
He ran silently away, dodging among the trees, and in a moment had
disappeared. While McGlory was standing there, breathing hard and
twitching impatiently, he passed behind the barn-yard, keeping always
among the trees of the bank, and on to the bridge. Here he looked
carefully around, then stooped under the beams of the bridge flooring
and got into a scow that lay there.

McGlory stood still as long as he could, then, throwing, the reins to
his temper, he strode toward the house.




CHAPTER XII--THE MEETING

[Illustration: 0332]

IT was between eleven o'clock and midnight when McGlory and his
companion returned to Van Deelen's; it was between ten and eleven of
this same Thursday night when Axel Lindquist was taken sick on the road,
not a long walk from his father's house.

In less than an hour Beveridge and his companions reached a turn in
the road and found themselves at the top of the <DW72>,--it was hardly
a hill,--with Van Deelen's bridge a little way below them, and the
farm-yard beyond. Beveridge extinguished the lantern. "Look there!"
Wilson exclaimed.

"Where?"

"At the house yonder. Don't you see there's a light burning?"

"That's a fact. We 'll move a little quietly, boys. Bert, you step around
between the house and the barn and keep an eye on the back door. Harper
will be with you."

They started down toward the bridge while Beveridge was speaking. When
they had crossed over, Harper stopped.

"Can you wait just a minute? I've got a stone in my shoe."

"We 'll go ahead. Come on as soon as you can and join Bert out by the
barn." And the three passed on, leaving Pink on a log at the roadside.

Beveridge and Smiley went up to the front door and knocked. There was
no response. But for the light in one window, the house might have been
deserted. Beveridge knocked again. "Open up in there!" he shouted. But
no one answered. Smiley turned and looked around the dim clearing with a
shudder. "Lonesome, isn't it?" he said. "What a place to live!"

Beveridge's mind was bent on getting in. "So they won't answer, eh?
We 'll see." He stepped back to the ground, picked up a length of
cord-wood, and struck a heavy blow on the door. At this, a head appeared
in an upper window.

"Who's there?"

"Open your door and I 'll tell you."

"Tell me who you are, first."

"A special agent of the United States Treasury Department."

"What do you want me for?"

"I don't care anything about you. I want the men you have hidden here."

"There ain't nobody here but my wife and me."

"Will you open, or shall I break in your door?"

"Wait a minute! Don't break it! How do I know you're what you say you
are?"

"Smiley, fetch a rail, will you please?"

"Hold on there! I 'll be down in a minute." The minute was not a quarter
gone when the same voice was heard through the door, saying, "You
haven't told me your names yet."

"Are you going to open this door?"

"Yes, yes. Don't get impatient now." The bolt slid back, and the door
opened a few inches. These inches were promptly occupied by Beveridge's
foot.

"What's your name, my friend?" asked the special agent.

"Van Deelen. I don't see what you want here. There ain't nobody here but
us."

"We 'll see about that." Beveridge, as he spoke, threw his weight on
the door and forced it open so abruptly that the farmer was thrown
back against the wall. He entered with Smiley close at his heels. "Of
course," he went on, as he shut it behind him, "if there isn't anything
really the matter here, you won't mind my looking around a little."

"Why, no--oh, no--only--"

"Only what?"

"My wife's down sick, and any noise or excitement might upset her."

"Nervous trouble, maybe."

"Yes, something of that sort."

"Has to keep her room, I suppose?"

"Yes, yes."

"Room shut up so noise won't disturb her?"

"Yes, we keep it shut."

"Place got on her nerves a little, maybe. Should think it would be sort
of monotonous here. No doctor, I suppose?"

"No, not this side of Hewittson."

"How long has she been troubled?"

"Why--"

"Sudden attack, to-day or yesterday? Sick headache, and all that?"

"Yes--she has a bad headache."

"Good deal of nausea, too? Sight of food distasteful?"

"Oh, yes, she doesn't want anything to eat.

"Can't keep anything on her stomach? Lost interest in living--no
enthusiasm for anything? Is that the form it takes?"

"Why, yes--yes--"

"Curious thing. Seems to prevail in this neighborhood. Young Lindquist,
back up the road, has the same trouble."

Van Deelen's stolid face wore a puzzled expression. He seemed not to
know how far to resent this inquisition. "Say," he asked, "what do you
want?"

"I want to know if you always receive folks with a shot-gun?"

"Why--"

"Bad characters in the neighborhood, maybe. Have they been giving you
trouble to-night?"

"Who're you talking about?"

"McGlory and the rest. When did they come?"

"There hasn't anybody been here."

"Oh, all right. That's first-rate--would you mind stepping up and
telling your wife the doctor has come?"

"You ain't a doctor."

"Come, my friend, don't contradict. I'm afraid we 'll have to take a look
into her room."

"Oh, you will!"

"Yes. We 'll walk around this floor a little first. Will you entertain
him a minute, Smiley?"

Beveridge slipped away, leaving the two standing at the foot of the
stairs. He moved from room to room, carrying a lamp which he had found
in the front room and had lighted. Soon he returned, set down the lamp
where he had found it, and joined Smiley and the farmer. "So Estelle's
had her hair cut," he observed.

Van Deelen shot a glance at him, but Beveridge went easily on. "Now
we 'll go upstairs, Dick."

Van Deelen, gun in hand, retreated upward a few steps and barred the
way. Beveridge looked at him, then he stepped quickly up and seized the
gun by barrel and stock. The farmer could easily have shot him, but he
made no attempt. And now the two men silently wrestled there, Van
Deelen in the more advantageous position, but Beveridge showing greater
strength than his figure seemed to promise. Finally, with a quick
wrench, the special agent got possession of the weapon and passed it
down to Smiley. "Now, Mister van Deelen," he said, "will you please
stand aside?"

For reply the farmer began retreating backward up the stairway, always
facing Beveridge, who followed closely. Dick drew the shells from the
gun, tossed it into the front room, and came after. The upper hall was
square, and of the three doors around it only one was closed. Beveridge
stepped into each of the open rooms, and then tried the door of the
third, while Van Deelen stood sullenly by.

"Will you open this door?" Beveridge asked, with the beginnings of
impatience.

No reply from the farmer. Smiley drew Beveridge aside and whispered,
"Maybe it's true that she's sick in there."

"Not much."

"But we haven't found her anywhere around the house."

"If she _is_ there, she isn't alone."

"But I kind of hate to break into a woman's room this way."

"Don't get chicken-hearted, Dick." He turned to the farmer and asked
again, "Will you open this door?"

There was no reply.

Without another word Beveridge threw himself against it; but it was
stoutly built and did not yield. All three heard a gasp of fright from
within.

"Hold on, Bill," Smiley exclaimed. "No use breaking your collar-bone.
I 'll get a rail."

He said this with the idea of bullying either the farmer or the persons
within the room into opening the door, but Van Deelen remained sullen
and motionless. Beveridge, however, caught up the idea; and with a "Wait
here, Dick," he ran down the stairs. In entering the house they had
closed the door after them, and now Beveridge had to stop and fumble a
moment with the lock.

But it was only a moment, and pulling it open he plunged out.

A breathless man with his hat pulled down was starting up the steps.
Beveridge stopped short; so did the breathless man. For an instant they
stood motionless, one staring down from the top step, the other staring
up from the bottom. Then Beveridge saw, in the shadow of the hat-brim,
a black mustache; and at the same instant the owner of the mustache
recognized the figure above him.

Not for worlds would Beveridge have called out. He had McGlory fairly in
his hands,--the moment he had been hoping for, almost praying for,
had come,--and he could never have resisted the desire to take him
singlehanded. McGlory was heavy, muscular, desperate--these were merely
additional reasons. Beveridge had known little but plodding work for
weeks and months--here was where the glory came in. And glory was
what he craved--a line in the papers, the envy of his associates, the
approbation of his superiors.

And so, when he saw McGlory before him in the flesh, silently tugging
at something in his hip pocket, he not only sprang down on him as a
mountain lion might leap on its prey,--not only this, but he took pains,
even in this whirling moment, to make no noise in the take-off. McGlory
got the revolver out, but he was a fifth of a second too late. Just as
he swung it around, the special agent landed on him, caught his wrist,
gripped him around the neck with his other arm, and bore him down in the
sand of the dooryard. Neither made a sound, save for occasional grunting
and heavy breathing. They rolled over and over, Beveridge now on top,
now McGlory. McGlory was hard as steel; Beveridge was lithe and quick.
If McGlory gripped him so tight around the body that it seemed only
a question of seconds before his ribs must go, one after another,
Beveridge never slackened his hold of that bull-like neck. McGlory
struggled to turn the revolver toward Beveridge; but Beveridge held to
his wrist and bent it back--back--until any other man must have dropped
the weapon for the sheer pain of it.

The door had swung to behind Beveridge as he went out; the horse was
thrashing in the barn; and Dick, leaning against the closed door of
Mrs. van Deelen's bedroom, looking at the farmer, heard nothing of the
struggle that was going on outside. He was wondering what interest
this farmer could have in a gang of smugglers. He decided to ask. This
business of standing opposite him and exchanging the glances of two
hostile dogs was not a pleasant experience for a man of Dick's sociable
humor.

"I've been wondering, Van Deelen, what you're acting this way for."

A suspicious glance was all this remark drew out.

"I don't believe you're mixed up with that crew, and I don't see how
you can be interested in covering their tracks. Are you sure you aren't
taking the wrong tack?"

"I ain't covering anybody's tracks. You don't know what you're talking
about."

"Can't you see that we don't enjoy breaking into people's houses and
prying around in bedrooms?"

"What do you do it for then?"

"What do we do it for! Why, McGlory and his gang are Smugglers--they're
a bad lot. And this man with me is a government officer."

"That ain't telling why you come _here_."

"Now, Van Deelen, what's the use of keeping up that bluff? It doesn't
fool anybody. We know all about their coming here. We've tracked them
this far. This officer will never leave the house until he has opened
this door and seen who you've got in here. I can promise you he 'll act
like a gentleman. Now don't you think it would be a good deal better
just to open up and be done with it?"

Having no reasonable answer to this, Van Deelen fell back into his
sullen silence.

"Wonder what's taking him so long," Dick observed. "Would he have to go
far for a rail?"

There was no answer.

Altogether, it was not a cheerful situation. Dick, who had borne up
capitally so far, now experienced a sinking of spirits. He looked first
at the glum figure before him, then at the dingy walls and ceiling, then
down into the shadows of the stairway. Seeing nothing that could prop
his spirits, he fell to humming "Baby Mine."

"Oh, I beg your pardon," he broke out, interrupting himself; "maybe I'm
disturbing your wife?"

There was no answer.

"You're a hilarious old bird," said Dick.

No answer--nothing but that glum Dutch face.

"Oh, well--go to thunder!"

Not even a gleam of anger disturbed those Dutch eyes. Dick, his feeble
struggle over, succumbed to the gloom and was silent. And such silence
as it was! The horse, over in the barn, had ceased kicking about; the
air was still. The creakings of the old house sounded like the tread of
feet. The loud breathing of the person within the closed room could be
distinctly heard.

There was a shot outside--then silence--two more shots--again the
silence. It is curious how a revolver shot, in the stillness of the
night, can be at once startling and insignificant. Curious, because it
is not very loud--no deafening report--no reverberation--but merely a
dead _thud_, as if the sound were smothered in a blanket. And yet it
was loud enough to raise goose-flesh all over Dick's body and send the
creepy feeling that we all know through the roots of his hair, as if a
thousand ants had suddenly sprung into being there. At the first report
he stiffened up; the second and third met his ears halfway down the
stairs. Van Deelen, frightened, bewildered, ran down close after him.

Dick paused at the foot of the steps and looked around. In an instant
he made out the familiar figure of Beveridge a dozen yards away. The
special agent was standing over a prostrate man, one hand gripping a
revolver, the other fumbling in his pocket for a handkerchief. The sweat
was glistening on his face, his collar and tie hung down his breast, his
coat was torn clear across the back.

Dick joined him, and knelt over the man on the ground.

"We've wasted time enough on him," said Beveridge, catching his breath.

"Who--oh, it's McGlory! Is--is he--"

"Shouldn't wonder. Help me get a rail, will you?"

They started without further words toward the barn-yard fence.

"Hold on," said Dick. "There's that cord-wood we used on the front
door."

"That will do."

So they went back and picked up the heavy stick. At this moment Harper
came running up, his shoe in his hand. "I didn't know you was going
to be in such a thundering hurry to begin the shooting, Mr. Beveridge.
I 'most cut my foot to pieces running up here."

"Come along, Dick," said Beveridge.

"Good Lord!" gasped Harper, suddenly taking in the figure of the special
agent. "What they been doing to you?"

But Beveridge gave no heed to the question. "Stay here at the steps,
Harper, and if any more come up, don't let 'em get away from you." With
the cord-wood on his shoulder, he entered the house and started up the
stairs. But Van Deelen hurried after him and caught his arm.

"Well, what do you want?"

"You needn't use that."

"You 'll let me in?"

"Yes."

Beveridge promptly set down his burden on the stairs, and stood aside to
let the farmer take the lead.

Van Deelen tapped at the door, and softly, called, "Saskia!"

"What is it?"

"You have to open the door and let this gentleman in."

"Mercy, no!"

"But you have to!"

"Then,--" the voice was very fluttery and agitated--"then wait a minute
after I unlock the door."

The bolt was slipped, and they could hear a frantic rustling and
scampering. Van Deelen opened the door and entered the room with
Beveridge and Smiley at his heels. As they entered, another door,
evidently leading to a closet, was violently closed.

The three men stood a moment in the middle of the room without speaking,
then Beveridge walked over to the bed. The woman lying there had turned
to the wall and drawn the coverlet over her face. Beveridge bent over
and jerked it back. "Smiley," he called, "come here and see if this
ain't your old friend, Estelle!"

The woman struggled to hide her face again, but Beveridge rudely held
her quiet. Dick would have turned away but for the special agent's
impatience. As it was he made him speak twice. Then he went slowly and
shamefacedly to the bed. "Yes, I guess this is Estelle, all right."

They saw her shudder. Her face was flushed with fever. Dick took
Beveridge's arm and whispered, "For heaven's sake, Bill, don't be a
beast." But Beveridge impatiently shook him off.

"Well, Estelle," he said, "the game's up. We've got them."

Her eyes were wild, but she managed to repeat. "You've got them?"

"Yes. You 'll never see McGlory again."

"And Pete--have you got Pete?" Beveridge glanced inquiringly at Smiley,
who, after a moment of puzzling, nodded, and with his lips formed the
name "Roche."

"Yes, we've got Roche. Pretty lot they were to leave you here."

But Estelle had fainted.

"Here, Dick," said Beveridge, "bring some water."

Van Deelen indicated the washstand, and Smiley fetched the pitcher.
Beveridge sat on the edge of the bed and stroked her forehead with the
cool water. He asked Van Deelen for some whiskey, and forced a little
between her teeth. Finally her eyes opened.

"There," said Beveridge, "that's better. You 'll be all right in a
minute. Now tell me why they left you."

"Look here, Bill," said Dick, "I can't stand this."

Beveridge paid no attention, but went on stroking her forehead. "Tell me
why they left you, Estelle. They weren't very square with you."

"It was Pete--" The whiskey had revived her a very little.

"Yes, I know. You were mistaken in Pete. He never meant to stand by
you."

"He said--"

"Yes--go on."

"He said we--we could get away--and--"

"Yes?"

"--and they were asleep and--and then we saw the house, and--oh, I can't
think--"

"Bill,--for heaven's sake!" cried Dick. "Yes, it's all right, Estelle.
You're all safe now. Try to think."

"I guess I fainted--Pete was gone--and I--I don't know--how I got to the
house--"

"That will do. Go to sleep, Estelle. We 'll take good care of you."
Beveridge rose, and looked significantly toward the closet door. "Now,
Mister," he said, addressing the farmer, "we 'll just take a look in that
closet before we go, and--"

A protesting voice, muffled by hanging garments, but shrill
nevertheless, came from the closet, and Beveridge smiled. "Is it your
wife?" he asked. Van Deelen nodded. And then, the smile lingering,
Beveridge led the way out of the room.

As they started down the stairs, Dick observed: "You were awful quiet
down there with McGlory, Bill. I'd heard your second shot before I knew
anything was happening."

"You never heard my second shot."

"I didn't? I'd like to know why I didn't."

"Because I only fired once."

"Then who did the rest of it? By Jove! Where's Wilson?"

Beveridge turned sharply at the question. "That's a fact," he muttered.
They had reached the front steps by this time, and could see Harper
ostentatiously standing guard with drawn revolver. "Say, Pink, have you
seen Bert anywhere?"

"No. Thought he was inside with you."

"Step around the house, quick. We 'll go this way."

They found Wilson lying on the ground, not far from the front of the
house. He had plunged forward on his face, with his arms spread out
before him. Apparently he had been running around from the rear to join
Beveridge when the ball brought him down. In an instant the two men were
kneeling by him.

"How is it, Bill? Can you tell?"

"He isn't gone yet. Get a light, will you?" Dick ran back into the house
and brought out Van Deelen with a lamp and some improvised bandages.
Beveridge had some practical knowledge of first aid to the injured; and
the farmer seemed really to have some little skill, as a man must who
lives with his family twenty-five miles from a physician. And so between
them they managed to stanch the flow of blood while Dick and Pink were
carrying a small bed out of doors. With great care not to start the flow
again, they carried him into the front room.

"Did you notice," said Beveridge to Smiley, when they had made him as
comfortable as they could, "where he was hit?"

"In the back, wasn't it?"

"Yes, and a little to the right. Now if he fell straight,--and I think
he did, because the way he went shows that he was running, and that he
simply pitched forward,--the shot must have come from near the bridge,
maybe from those trees a little down-stream from the bridge. Now there's
just one man could have done it, to my notion. He was an old hand,
because it was a pretty shot at the distance and in that _light_."

"Who do you think?"

"Well, now, there's Roche. He skipped out some time ago and left Estelle
in the woods. He wouldn't have done that unless he was badly scared,
would he? Isn't he a pretty poor lot, anyway--no nerve, just bluster?"

"That's Pete. If he is fairly started running, he won't stop to-night."

"That's about what I thought about him. It's pretty plain he would never
have come back here with McGlory after him--you see McGlory _had_
come after him,--he was chasing Roche because he had run off with
Estelle--and made such a cool shot as that was. So we 'll rule out Roche.
And McGlory is ruled out too, and Estelle."

"Oh--"

"So that leaves just 'the boss'--Spencer."

"That sounds reasonable."

"He has nerve enough for anything, hasn't he?"

"He looks as if he had."

"Now I 'll tell you what we 'll do. We 'll get this Dutch woman to nurse
Bert here, and then the four of us will step down to the bridge and see
what we can make of it--or hold on; I 'll take Van Deelen and go to the
bridge, and you and Harper can go down to the creek below the barn and
work up to the bridge. What do you think of that?"

"First-rate."

"You aren't too fagged?"

"Not me--not while the rest of you are on your pins."

"That's the talk. I 'll see about the woman here."

"Say, Bill, wait a minute. You aren't planning to walk right up to the
bridge, are you?"

"Sure. Why not?"

"If I was you, I'd work around through the trees a little. He may be
there yet, and we know how he can shoot."

"What's the use? It's all a gamble anyhow. The thing to do is to go on
the run. A man is a good deal like a dog, you know. If you run right at
him and show all over you that you mean business, why, even if he thinks
he is ready for you, it's likely to bother him. Upsets his nerve--starts
him thinking he is on the losing side."




CHAPTER XIII--WHISKEY JIM


[Illustration: 0358]

BEFORE the four men left the house Wilson revived and asked for his
chief. Beveridge, his torn coat thrown aside, hurried back and bent over
the bed. "What is it, Bert?"

"That's what I was going to ask you. I don't remember--exactly--"

"You were running around the house when somebody winged you. It doesn't
amount to anything--you 'll be around in a day or so."

"Oh, yes--that's it. It was some fellow behind, wasn't it? I remember I
didn't see anybody ahead."

"Yes--he was a little below the bridge, as I figure it."

"Yes--yes--don't you see, Bill? That's where Harper was--he stayed
behind with some yarn about his shoe--had a stone in it."

"Keep quiet, Bert! don't get worked up--"

"But think of it, Bill! What you going to do now?"

"I'm going to find the man that hit you."

"Not with those two, Smiley and Harper?"

"Why, certainly."

"But don't you see, Bill? That's just what they want. They've got rid
of me--now they 'll draw you off into the woods--why, you're putting
yourself right in their hands!"

"You'd better try to think of something else, Bert. Mrs. van Deelen here
is going to take good care of you. I 'll stop in on the way back." And
Beveridge slipped out the door without giving Wilson further opportunity
to protest.

The others were waiting impatiently at the steps. Smiley and Harper at
once started off toward the creek below the barn; and Beveridge set out
on a run for the bridge, telling the farmer to follow.

When he reached the creek, Beveridge searched through the trees for some
distance down-stream and then up-stream, but found no sign of a man.
"Well," he said, joining Van Deelen at the end of the bridge, "he got
away all right."

"Did you look under the bridge?"

"Yes. Nothing there."

The farmer stood still for a moment, thinking; then he clambered down
the bank and peered into the shadow under the bridge floor. "Come
down here," he said. And when Beveridge had reached his side, standing
ankle-deep in the muddy water, he went on, "See that?"

"No--wait a minute, I can't see anything yet. What is it?"

"Feel this rope. It's been cut."

"Oh," murmured Beveridge, "I see. A boat."

"Yes. He has stolen my boat."

"Of course--and slipped off down-stream as easy and quiet as you like.
He's a cool hand, that Spencer. Come back up here--we 'll go on down and
meet Smiley. Wait, though, he might be hiding anywhere down the stream
here. Are there many bushes and such along the bank?"

"Yes, it's grown up pretty heavy. I never had any reason for keeping it
cleared."

"Well, then, we 'll keep down here close to the water where we can see
things."

"It 'll be pretty wet. Will you wait while I get my boots? My
rheumatism's been pretty bad this year--"

"Go back, then. I can't wait for you."

And with this, Beveridge pushed off down the stream. Van Deelen, after
a moment's hesitation, followed. They met the other party just above the
barn.

"See anything?" asked Dick.

"Yes. He has gone down in a boat." Beveridge turned to the farmer. "Does
the creek go on far in this direction?"

"No, it turns off south pretty soon."

"Would it take him anywhere especial?"

"No--just into the woods."

"No houses south of here?"

"Not for a long way."

"And it's sluggish like this all along, isn't it? Full of snags and
shallows?"

"Oh, yes, he couldn't go very fast."

"All right. Come on, boys."

On they went, walking over the spongy ground below the bank or splashing
softly through the water. They did not speak, but followed their leader
eagerly through the moving shadows. The trees arched over their heads,
the water slipped moodily onward, blacker than the shadows. Now and then
they stumbled over projecting roots, or stepped down knee-deep in
some muddy hole; all the while their eyes strove to pierce the dark,
searching for a boat in the gloom of the opposite bank, or for a man
among the bushes above, even glancing overhead into the trees, where a
desperate man might have hidden. At length they reached an opening in
the trees of the right bank, and Beveridge, stepping up, found that the
road here paralleled the creek.

"Which way now?" asked Dick.

"No sign of a boat, is there?"

"No."

"Then keep on down-stream."

They divided now in order to watch both banks, for the creek had widened
a little and the shadows were dense. It was Smiley and Harper who waded
across, stepping down waist-deep in the water and mud. Not a word was
spoken. The only sound was the low splash-splash of four pairs of feet,
with now and then the noise of heavy breathing or a muttered exclamation
as one or another stumbled into a hole.

"Hello--ouch!"

The voice was Pink Harper's. At this point the trees had shut in
overhead, and the dark was impenetrable. Beveridge and Van Deelen could
see nothing across the creek, not even the blot of denser black which
told Smiley, only a few feet behind, where his companion had stopped.

"What is it?" came in a low voice from Beveridge.

"Hit my shin. Hold on--feels like a boat. Guess you'd better come
across."

Without a moment's hesitation the special agent turned to the left
and plunged into the stream. At this point it was deeper, and he found
himself submerged to the armpits. To save time he drew up his feet
and swam across until his knees struck bottom. And then the three of
them,--Van Deelen waited on the farther bank,--now dimly visible to each
other, stood side by side feeling of the boat.

"You 'll have to come over here," said Beveridge to the farmer, "and tell
us if it's your boat."

Van Deelen had no mind to swim. "Can't you strike a match?" he asked.

"Strike your aunt!" growled Beveridge, wringing his wet clothes.

"Well, say, that ain't necessary anyhow. My boat's the only one on the
creek."

"Why didn't you say that before I swam over?"

"Well, I--"

"You want to watch out or you 'll be coming down with brain fever one of
these days. Come, boys, we 'll go back."

"You think what he did was to take to the road back up there and set the
boat adrift?" asked Pink.

"Of course." The words came from the deeper water, where the special
agent was already swimming back. A moment more and Dick and Pink were
after him.

"Now, Mister van Deelen," said Beveridge, when they had gathered
together, "take us to the road."

"It's right back up-stream. You know where it is as well as I do."

"Can't we strike right over through the woods?"

"Why, yes, you could do--"

"All right, Dick. It 'll be lighter when we get up out of this hole."

They floundered through a hundred yards of undergrowth and finally came
upon the open road. They were a dismal enough party. The water in their
shoes gurgled when they moved and spurted out at the lacings in little
streams. Other streams ran down their clothing to the road, where the
sand drank them up. Beveridge was without coat or collar, and the others
were nearly as dilapidated. The physical strain of the chase, and the
loss of sleep, not to speak of Beveridge's fight with McGlory, had worn
them down nearly to the point at which nature asserts her peremptory
claims,--but not one of them knew it. They did not know that they were
a desperate spectacle in the eyes of the bewildered farmer; even if they
could have stood in the light of day and looked full at one another, it
is to be doubted if any of the three would have observed the deep-lined,
white faces, the ringed eyes, of the other two. For the spirit of the
chase was in them.

"Now, Mister Van," said Beveridge, almost gayly, "how far is it to the
next house?"

"Why--why--"

"Don't think too fast. A man died that way once."

"There's an empty house about a mile from here."

"All right, we 'll make for that. I want you, Van Deelen, to hitch up a
wagon and come on after us as quick as you can."

The farmer turned at once and walked rapidly up the road.

"Spencer hasn't much start of us," said Beveridge, as the three men
started in the opposite direction.

"He couldn't have. It took him a good while to work down here in that
boat. We 'll get him if he keeps the road."

"He 'll have to do that. If he took to the woods, he would be lost in an
hour--and that means starvation."

Pink ventured a pleasantry, "Maybe he's got a compass," of which the
special agent took not the slightest notice; but said, turning to
Smiley, "How are your legs, Dick?"

"Fine. Trim as they make them."

"Feel up to a dog trot?"

"Half a dollar even, I 'll beat you to the deserted house."

"Hold on, don't get to sprinting. Save your wind. An easy jog will do
it."

All three fell at once into an easy running gait, Smiley and Beveridge
side by side, Pink laboring along in the rear.

Five minutes later Beveridge paused for breath. "We must have run nearly
a mile by this time, boys."

"Easily."

"Not so loud. Doesn't it look to you as if the road turned--up ahead
there?"

It did look so; and as they went on toward the turning it grew plain
that they were approaching a clearing.

"Wait, boys," whispered the special agent. "This ought to be the
place,--we don't want to move quite so carelessly now. Dick, you go
around to the left, and I 'll take the right; Pink, you give us two or
three minutes and then move in quietly toward the clearing. In that way
we shall all three close in together. Wait a few minutes now."

The two men disappeared in the woods, one on each side of the road, and
Pink was left alone in the shadows. At first he could hear now and then
a low rustle as one or the other brushed through the bushes, but soon
these sounds died away. He was standing in the shadow at the roadside,
gazing with fixed eyes at the opening in the trees and stumps a hundred
yards farther along. He wondered if the three minutes were up. It was
too dark to use his watch. Waiting there under the stars, the minutes
spun out amazingly; all sense of the passage of time seemed to have left
him. He moved forward a few steps,--but no, it was too early; Dick and
Beveridge had surely not had time to get to their positions. Still, what
if he should wait too long, and not arrive in time to act in concert
with the others?

Out on the Lakes, with a slanting deck underfoot and a dim shore-line
somewhere off in the night, Pink's soul would have thrilled in unison
with the stars, but here, buried in the gloom of the pine stumps,--those
straight, blackened poles that stood in endless monotony,--his soul was
overwhelmed. A panic seized him; he knew he would be late; and he
took to gliding along in the shadows, nearer and nearer, until, seeing
plainly that the road swung around to the right, and that the clearing
was overgrown with tall weeds and was surrounded by a stump fence, he
paused again. His feet sinking at each step in the sand, he made no
sound.

He stood motionless. Over the weeds he made out the sagging roof of
a small building. Then, forgetting that his own figure was invisible
against the black of the forest, he dropped to the ground and, flat on
his face, wriggled forward. A row of sunflowers grew inside the fence.
At one point was a cluster of them, standing out high above the weeds.
Cautiously inch by inch he crept nearer. The bunched stalks, outlined so
distinctly against the sky, fascinated him by their resemblance to the
hat, head, and shoulders of a human being.

Nearer--nearer--a moment more and he would be able to place his hand
against the fence. He was holding his breath now; afterward he could
never tell what was the slight noise he must have made. Or perhaps it
was the sense that tells one when a person has silently entered a
room that caused the figure--just as Pink, lying there on the sand and
looking up, had made sure that it _was_ a figure and not a clump of
sunflowers--to look around, up and down. Pink scrambled to his feet and
plunged recklessly forward. The man, who had been sitting on the fence,
quietly dropped down on the inner side.

A stump fence is not easy to climb, and Pink was on the outer side,
where the tangled masses of roots spread out into a _cheveau-de-frise_
which, in the dark, seemed insurmountable. When he had finally got to
the top, at the expense of a few scratches, a disturbance in the weeds
near the front of the house told him where the fugitive had taken
refuge. He promptly set up a shout.

"Ho-o-ho!" came simultaneously from Smiley and Beveridge.

"Here he is!"

"Where?"

"In the--" Pink was balancing on the fence. Before he could finish his
shout a revolver shot sounded from the house, and he went tumbling down
into the enclosure.

"What's that! Are you hit?"

"No--just lost my balance. Close in--he's in the house." He was getting
to his feet during this speech and feeling himself, not sure, in spite
of his statement, whether it was the noise or the bullet that had upset
him. But he could find no trace of a wound.

"Keep your places!" Beveridge was calling to the others. "Keep your
places! Now then, Mr. Spencer, we have you cornered. You can have your
choice of giving up now or being starved out. Which will it be?"

No answer from the house.

"Speak up! I don't propose to waste much more time on you."

This time the fugitive decided to reply; but his reply took the form of
a second shot, sent carefully toward the spot in the weeds from which
the voice seemed to be coming.

"Hi!" shouted Pink, "did he get you?"

"No. Shut up, will you?"

The man with the revolver was plainly an old hand, for now he fired
a third time; and the shot came dangerously near, whether by luck or
otherwise, to shutting up the speaker for all time. Beveridge dropped
hastily behind a log that lay at his feet. Then, disgusted with himself,
he scrambled boldly up and stood on the log.

Pink was obediently silent, 'though trembling with excitement. The
stillness of the forest fell suddenly in upon them. For a few moments
nothing was said or done. The man in the house had a momentary advantage
which all recognized. What light the sky gave was all upon the clearing,
and to move, however cautiously, through that tangle of weeds and bushes
without setting the tops to waving, was impossible. The building was so
small that the man could, with little effort, command all four sides.
And so Beveridge decided on a council of war with Smiley. At his first
movement another shot came cutting through the bushes; but he laughed
aloud, and went deliberately on in a quarter circle until he found
Smiley. "Well," he said softly and gleefully, "we've got him."

"If we can keep awake as long as he can. What are you going to do now?"

"Wait till dawn, and see how he stands it. No, don't look at me. Keep
your eyes on the house. He's too slippery to run chances with. It
oughtn't to be so very long now. How about you--can you keep up all
right?"

"Me? Why, certainly."

"All right, then. I 'll go around and take the boy's place, so he can
rest a bit. Keep a close watch. So long."

"So long."

The special agent went on around his circle, and found Pink near the
fence. "I 'll be here for a while, Harper. You'd better try to get some
sleep."

"Me--sleep?"

"Take your chance while you have it."

"Moses and the bulrushers! You don't think I could sleep now?"

"Just as you like."

To the three watchers there seemed to be a breakdown somewhere on the
line that leads to dawn. The hours dragged until they stopped short. All
the real things of this world, cities and schooners and houses on stilts
and long reaches of blue water, had slipped back into the dim land of
dreams. Nothing was real but the brooding forest, the rank weeds with
their tale of desolation, the sand--sand--sand. Even Beveridge, sitting
on his log, gave way. At each sound from the forest,--a crackle or a
rustle,--he started like a nervous woman. Chilled by the night air and
his wet clothes, he shivered until his teeth rattled.

A husky, plaintive voice rose into the night, singing. It came from
Harper's post near the stump fence.

          "A fu-nee-ral per-cession was a-passin' down a street

     That was lin'd with mansions stately, rich, and grand;

          A tiny girl was sobbin', her lit-tull heart most broke,

          A tear-stained hank-er-chuff was in her hand.

          A tall and stately gentlemun, touched by her sorry plight,

          For she was pale and ragged, thin and wan,

          He stopped and took her lit-tull hand, and gently bending o'er,

     'Don't cry, my child, I 'll help you if I can.'"


All the horrors of the night and the forest were gathered up into that
wailing voice. Beveridge shuddered. But Pink was warming up to it now,
sharing his misery with the night. If the verse had been doleful, the
refrain was worse:--

                   "'Mother's in the coffun, sir,

                   Mother's left her home;

                   The ainjulls come and took her up on high.

                   But if I'm good and kindly, sir,

                   And never off do roam,

                   I 'll meet her in the sweet by-and-by.'"


Beveridge rose uncertainly to his feet. The song went on:--


          "'Tell me your name, my lit-tull child,' the gentlemun did

                   say,

          And when the words she lisping did repeat,

          He staggered back in horror with remorse wrote on his face,

                   And--"


At this point Beveridge began moving through the weeds. Pink sang on;
and he was just breaking out into the refrain,--

               Mother's in her coffan, sir,

               Mother's left her home;

               The ainjulls come and took her up--'"


when he heard a sound, started, looked up, saw a dark figure bending
over him, and stopped singing with a gasp.

"That 'll do for you," said the dark figure.

"Oh, it's you!" exclaimed Pink, with relief. "That 'll do for you.
Understand?"

Pink was silent. Beveridge slipped silently back to his log.

Night has a way of giving place to day, even such interminable nights
as this. Neither hastening nor resting, with no heed for the miserable
little company that surrounded the deserted house in the wilderness, the
hours stepped silently on into eternity. The darkness slowly changed to
blackness; then the east brightened, the sky paled, the new day tossed
its first flaming spears, and the shivering dawn was upon them.

Beveridge got up very slowly,--for a new kind of pain was shooting
through his joints,--stretched, and, walking bent, like an old man,
cautiously made his way to Smiley's post. The sailor was awake; but
whether he had been awake all night could hardly be, decided from his
face. Beveridge had his suspicions, but decided not to air them.

"Look here, Dick," he began.

"All right. Go ahead."

"How are your joints?"

"Never worse. How about yours?"

"Same way. I don't know how you feel, but I've had enough."

"Can't help that, can we?"

"I can help it, and I'm going to."

"I'd like to know how."

"Keep your eyes open and you 'll see. I want you to stay here under
cover."

"You aren't going to storm the house?"

"Yes, sir, that's just what I'm going to do."

"Have you thought it over? He 'll shoot you know."

"There are two ways of leaving this world, Dick, that I know of. One way
is to catch your death of rheumatism and go off slow; the other is to
let a man who can handle a revolver make a neat, clean job of it. I
don't know how you feel about it, but I prefer the neat way. Now you
wait here while I--"

"Hold on, Bill. Here we have him nicely penned and our plan of siege
all settled, when you up and change your tactics. I don't see the use of
putting yourself up for a target when we have him sure the other way."

"That's all right, Dick."

"Here's another thing. Wilson's out of the running--suppose he puts you
out too. What are Pink and I going to do? We have no authority to arrest
the man. I'm not even sure that it would be to our interest to try it in
such a case. Why not wait--just settle down to it. We can get something
to eat from Van Deelen. Say, didn't you tell him to follow us with the
wagon last night?"

Beveridge indulged in a dry smile. "Yes, I did. But I didn't more than
half think he'd do it. You do as I tell you, Dick, and--"

"Well, if your mind's made up, I suppose--"

Beveridge's mind was made up. He set out without further words, and
Dick watched him, uncertain of his movements, until he saw that he was
circling around in the direction of the stump fence and Pink. Dick's
thoughts were unsettled. Such actions were foolhardy, now that it was
nearly broad daylight. It would have been no trick at all to put a few
balls into the body below the waving weeds that marked the progress of
the special agent. For some reason, however, the shots did not come.

Between Dick and the house there was a comparatively open space. By
stepping forward a few yards he would emerge into full view of the man
in the house, whereas on Pink's side the growth was rank, and Beveridge,
if he should go directly to the house after giving Pink his directions,
would not be visible until he should have nearly reached the door. But
the telltale weeds!--there was something in the thought of Beveridge
being shot down like a porcupine as he floundered through the tangle
that made Dick shudder.

It would be better to walk straight out into the open and be done with
it.

Peering from his hiding-place, he could see that all was quiet.
Beveridge had reached Pink, and was probably talking with him. But
he could not hear their voices--the clearing was absolutely still. He
watched--and watched--his eyes fixed on the spot where Beveridge had
stopped. Perhaps his arguments had taken effect; perhaps the plan had
been changed. But no, the weeds were moving again.

Dick's blood was up. He drew his revolver and plunged straight out into
the open toward the house.

"Here you in there!" he shouted. "Come out or fight! Do you hear
me? Come out or fight! We've got you on all sides--you can't hit us
all--come out and be done with it."

The house was still. Beveridge heard Dick's voice, and knew what he
was doing. He tried to run forward, tripped, and fell headlong in the
briers, cursing like a buccaneer. Pink heard both the voice and the
tumble, and at the instant he too was fighting madly forward through
the weeds. Could he be expected to obey orders? To sit and twiddle his
thumbs while Dick was fighting? Not a sound came from the house.

Dick walked deliberately to the door and hammered with the muzzle of his
revolver.

"Come out," he called, "or I 'll smash it in." He heard the man stir.

"Come out, or by----!"

The man was walking slowly across the floor. Dick went on shouting:--

"No tricks, now! Open your door! I've got a gun on you--I've got a gun
on you!" The rusty old key turned and the door swung back. As it opened,
Beveridge broke out of the weeds, with Pink close after, and the three
men stood bewildered, motionless, staring at the square-built figure and
quiet face of--Henry Smiley.

They could not speak. Even Beveridge had lowered his weapon.

"Put up your guns, boys," said Henry, with a sort of smile. "Put up your
guns; I 'll go back with you."




CHAPTER XIV--HARBOR LIGHTS


[Illustration: 0386]

BEVERIDGE recovered first, and said in a businesslike way, "You 'll have
to give me your weapons."

Henry at once handed over two large-caliber revolvers, and emptied his
pockets of fully half a hundred cartridges. "It's a lucky thing for
you, Mister Beveridge," he said, "that Dick came out just when he did. A
minute more and I should have finished you."

But Beveridge's thoughts were not heading in the same direction. His
reply was, "Where's Spencer?"

"Spencer? You didn't get him?"

"No."

"Then he's in Canada."

"Oh, I see." Beveridge turned to Smiley. "Well, Dick, for a man that got
things exactly wrong, you came nearer to being right than I should have
thought possible."

As they walked back toward Van Deelen's, Henry fell in with his cousin.
"You don't seem very talkative, Dick. Guess I must have surprised you."

But Dick could not find his voice to reply.

"And you surprised me too, rather. How did you happen to be up here with
this man?"

"Then you don't know that he's holding me for Whiskey Jim?" cried Dick.

"No--is he?"

Dick, overcome with fatigue and emotion, nodded. Henry stopped and
turned to the special agent, who was walking close behind.

"You didn't think Dick here was in this business, did you?"

"We 'll discuss that later. Move along, please."

"But this won't do, Beveridge. Dick has nothing to do with it, nothing
whatever."

"I suppose he didn't know where his schooner went and what he carried
aboard her, eh?"

"Oh, I can explain all that. He's all right. I'm the man you want."

"I 'll talk with you again, Mr. Smiley. We can't stop now."

They found Wilson in a bad way. Mrs. van Deelen had been doing her
utmost during the night for her two patients, but to attempt moving
either was out of the question. Beveridge left some money to cover
the expense of caring for his subordinate, and Henry good-naturedly
contributed toward the care of Estelle. It was arranged that Van Deelen
should drive Beveridge and his party back to Spencer's, stopping on the
way to send Lindquist or his boy to Hewittson for a doctor. Nothing more
could be done here, and so they hurried Van Deelen into hitching up at
once. Beveridge could not sleep in comfort until his prisoner should be
safe under guard on the revenue cutter.

"There's one thing," said the special agent to Henry Smiley, as the four
haggard men climbed into the wagon that was to take them on the long
drive through the forest, "there's one thing I don't understand. Why
didn't you fellows pick up a horse at one of these places and drive,
instead of footing it,--with a woman along, too?"

"We did start in Spencer's wagon, but it broke down before we'd gone ten
miles, the road was so bad."

"But we didn't see it," said Pink.

"We must have passed it on the first stretch before we found the road."

"And then," said Henry, "I thought we'd better stick it out on foot. You
see, I didn't believe it would occur to you that we would take to the
woods. And even if it should, I thought we should have plenty of time
before you started after us. I misjudged it there, you see. I was
thinking hardest about the other end of it--about what we should do
when we got down into Indiana, with maybe your men on the lookout for us
everywhere. And then a horse is a give-away--you can't hide it. And the
road is so heavy with sand that it's 'most as quick to walk. I thought it
all over and decided it that way. So we dragged the wagon off into the
bushes, and led the horse off and shot him. But why didn't you ride?"

"We didn't get a chance until we reached Lindquist's. And then we were
so close on your trail--and I knew you were on foot--that I decided the
same way. If we had been rattling along in a wagon, you might have heard
us quarter of a mile ahead, and all you would have had to do then would
be to step into the bushes and let us go by."

At a few minutes before noon the party alighted from the wagon at
Spencer's wharf, where the _Merry Anne_ still lay, waved a signal to the
launch, and were carried out past False Middle Island to the _Foote_.

"I guess there isn't much doubt what we 'll do next," said Beveridge,
with a yawn, as the launch drew near to the companion-ladder, which had
been let down forward of the paddle-wheel.

"I guess there ain't," Pink replied with another yawn.

"One thing, Dick," said Beveridge, "before we go away from here,--it
isn't right to leave your schooner in there for the porcupines to chew
to pieces."

Dick, who had been studying the bottom of the boat, looked up quickly
and with a peculiar expression. After Henry's confession, would he be
allowed to sail her back himself? Beveridge caught the look, and for an
instant his face showed the faintest trace of confusion. "You see," he
went on, "I've been thinking it over on the way back from Van Deelen's.
It's rather an irregular thing to do, but I'm willing, if Captain
Sullivan will let us have a few men, to turn the schooner over to Harper
here. He's competent to handle her, isn't he?"

"Oh, yes," Dick replied in a dry voice, "he is competent enough."

Pink's eyes brightened. "Sure thing," he said, "I can run her easy."

Dick glanced at Pink, then dropped his eyes again. The boy had heard
only the words; he had not caught the thoughts that were passing between
his captain and the special agent. To Dick this decision, coming in the
lull after the excitement, coming after what seemed to him proof of his
innocence, sounded like the judge's sentence. Through the hour or two
that followed, during the dinner on the steamer, after the launch had
gone back into the harbor with Pink and his crew, even when the old
side-wheeler had raised her anchor and started on her lumbering way
around through the Straits and up Lake Michigan to Chicago, Dick,
lying dressed in his berth, was trying to puzzle out the meaning of
Beveridge's words and of the momentary confusion that had accompanied
them. And it did not raise his spirits that, after each struggle with
the problem, his thoughts were directed to Annie. Perhaps Beveridge
himself, if he had laid his thoughts bare, could not have helped him
much. For it was not reasoning that had shown him the tactical folly
of allowing Dick to come sailing gloriously in to Annie's very front
door,--red shirt, neckerchief, and all the appurtenances of a hero; it
was the instinct that made it impossible for him to resist holding every
advantage that came to his hand. Beveridge had done a big thing. He
had run down--killed or captured or driven out of the country--several
members of the most skilful gang in the history of smuggling on the
Great Lakes. He had done it alone. He was even beginning to put down his
surprise over the capture of Henry Smiley, and to feel that Henry was
the one man he had been after from the first. Yes, he had made his
success--the thing left was to win Annie. And to do this he must not
only see her before Dick could see her; he must also arrange that Dick's
appearance on the scene, when all the delays had been exhausted, should
be an inglorious one. Some of his finest work was yet to come. In
thinking it over, lying in his berth in the room next to Dick's, their
heads not two feet apart, he fell asleep with a smile on his lips. And
never had the _Foote_ seen such sleeping as followed. When all three
men, accusers and accused, had slept through the afternoon and on
through the night, when they failed to hear even the breakfast gong,
Captain Sullivan began to wonder if they meant to wake at all.

Afterward, for a day or two, all three, Beveridge, Dick, and Henry, were
very quiet. They sat yawning in deck chairs, or dozed in their berths.
But during this time, thanks to the sunny skies and the peaceful lake,
and thanks to Beveridge's elation and good-nature, to Henry's surprising
cheerfulness, and to the difficulty Dick found in showing the depth
of his feelings, the relations of the three were growing more and more
pleasant. By common consent they avoided discussing the chase or its
cause.

On the afternoon of the last day out, Dick and Beveridge sat smoking on
the after deck. The _Foote_ was rumbling slowly down the coast somewhere
below Milwaukee, and should make Chicago before midnight if nothing
broke in the engine room. They were discussing the Michigan peach crop
when Henry drew up a chair and joined them.

"Would you mind telling me," said Henry to Beveridge, filling his pipe
as he spoke, "what you are going to do with Dick, here?" So Henry was
the one to open the subject. Dick's lips drew together and his hand
trembled, but his eyes were steady.

Beveridge was evasive. "What am I going to do with him?" he repeated.

"Yes. You will have a good deal of say about that, won't you?"

"Why--yes, and no."

"Now that you know he had nothing to do with it, you 'll be able to get
him right off, won't you?"

"Why--yes, so far as I know. I should expect it to turn out that way."

Henry saw that a definite answer was not to be expected, so he puffed
a moment, looking off to the green shore-line. Finally he said, "Your
man,--what's his name?"

"Wilson?"

"Yes, he's in pretty bad shape, isn't he?"

"There's no doubt about that."

"Do you think he 'll pull through?"

"I couldn't say."

"What would be the penalty if he didn't?"

"That is for a judge and jury to decide."

"I suppose."

Henry paused again. Dick was gazing out at the water with fixed eyes.
This cool talk made him shudder.

"I've been thinking this over," Henry went on. "Of course, you caught
me red handed; and that, along with what I'm going to tell you, any time
when you're ready, gives you a pretty clear case against me. My outlook
isn't what you would call cheerful. I've never made a will, but I
guess now is about as good a time as any to get about it. I've got my
schooner, and I've got a little money put away,--some of it drawing
interest and some in the bank,--and what there is of it is to go to
Dick. He's the nearest approach to a relation I have, you know. And if I
were you, Dick, I should take some of it the first thing and pay up for
the _Anne_. That 'll make you more or less independent. Do you fellows
mind coming down into the cabin and fixing it up now?"

"Certainly not," said Beveridge, rising.

Dick found it difficult to reply, but he followed them below, and sat
with them at the dining-table. Beveridge got pen, ink, and paper.

"Now, I 'll tell you," said Henry. "I 'll just make out sort of a schedule
of what I'm worth. It won't take long. I know just what it is. There,
now, I guess it 'll be enough to say that I devise and bequeath it all,
without any conditions or exceptions, to Dick, he to take everything of
mine for his own, to hold and to use in any way that he may choose. Will
you witness this, Beveridge?"

"Certainly."

"We ought to have some others."

"I 'll get them." Beveridge stepped out, and returned shortly with
Captain Sullivan and his second officer. These put their signatures
under that of the special agent and with the exchange of only a word
or two returned to their posts. Nothing could have been more
matter-of-fact, could have savored more strongly of humdrum, everyday
life.

The three men sat there looking at the paper. Finally Henry, with a
smile, blotted it, folded it, and handed it to his cousin. "I'm going
to hand this over to you, Dick," he said. "That's the easiest way of
disposing of it."

Dick accepted it and turned it slowly over and over in his hands. "I--of
course, Henry--I appreciate this, but--" and then his face surged with
color, and he broke out in a round voice: "What's the use of talking of
this sort of thing now! Wilson isn't gone yet. I don't believe he will
go either. You make my blood run cold! You'd better just--"

"No," Henry interrupted. "No, I'd rather leave it like this."

"But, look here, Henry,--why, great guns! You aren't even convicted of
illicit distilling yet, let alone--why, even if you should be, don't you
see, you might lose a few years, but--"

"Oh, there wouldn't be any doubt about the conviction, Dick. The game is
up, so far as I am concerned. Supposing I should escape, what good would
it do me? I should be a fugitive. I should have to leave the country,
and go to a new place and begin all over again, just as I began here on
the Lakes twenty odd years ago. I have amounted to something here,--I
have held first place. I have kept these fellows,"--he indicated
Beveridge, with a slight upward turn at the corners of his mouth--"I
have kept these fellows guessing from the start. Anywhere else I should
be nobody, and at my age that doesn't appeal very strongly to a man.
Supposing, even, I could buy an acquittal and stay right on here, would
it be any better? You see, my boy, I have been ambitious in a way. I
have built up a machine--a new kind of a machine. If I could have been
let alone a year or so longer, I should have had everything running as
smooth and safe as the Republican County Committee. That was the one
thing I set out to do. But it's busted now. With these fellows once on
to the whole thing, it could never be carried on again. Oh, in a cheap,
shyster way, maybe; but that's not my way. It was my work and now it's
over. And when a man has come as near success as I have, and spent
the best part of his life working up toward it, he doesn't care about
beginning at the little end of something else. His mainspring is
broken."

They were silent. Henry was easily the most self-possessed of the three.
Finally Beveridge said:--

"You have spoken once or twice, Mr. Smiley, about telling us how you
worked this business."

"Yes, certainly, any time,--now, if you like."

"You won't mind if I take down the main points and then ask you to put
your name to it?"

"Not at all. I supposed of course you would want to do that."

This cold-blooded courtesy brought Dick near to shuddering again. But he
straightened up in his chair and prepared to listen.

"You say you are the man known as Whiskey Jim?"

"Yes. That is the name the papers have given to the whole organization,
and the organization, of course, is me."

"Would you mind talking rather slowly? I know shorthand, but I'm
decidedly out of practice at it."

"Certainly not. Suppose I explain the organization in a few words."

"That 'll do first-rate."

"If I forget and get to going too fast, just stop me. You see, as master
of the _Schmidt_, doing a tramp lumber business all around Lake Michigan
and Lake Huron, I was able to run the whole thing at both ends and still
keep about my business. I didn't have to use the mails--I didn't have
to do a thing that didn't look as solemn and proper as the Methodist
minister and his parish calls."

"I see. It was ingenious--no doubt about it."

"To be on the safe side, I located my stills over in Canada."

"I know,--at Burnt Cove."

"Yes; it was about as inaccessible there as any place on the Lakes. And
as we didn't try to sell the stuff over there, but shipped it all across
to the States, we were really safe enough. I don't know what either
country could have done about it, so far as the stills are concerned."

"Suppose I take it up here, Mr. Smiley, do you mind?"

"No, go ahead."

"Well, when you had got it put up and ready to ship, you brought it
across Lake Huron in Spencer's schooner."

"Yes--yes."

"And at Spencer's it was repacked in the timber."

Henry smiled a little at this. "Some of it was. Of course you know
better than to think that what I could bring down in a load of timber
once in a month, or two, or three, was my only way of getting the goods
to market."

"Oh, yes, of course."

"I have done things on a fairly large scale, you know. But you are right
in the main. Spencer's was the distributing point for all our goods.
The old man himself was what you might call the shipping clerk of the
organization. But we 'll go ahead with the timber scheme. That one line,
if you follow it up, will be enough to base your case on, won't it?"

"Yes, for the present. Though you were concerned in the attempt to run a
pipe line under the Detroit River."

"No, not very deep. I put a little money into it, but when I saw who was
running it, I got out. I knew they would get nipped sooner or later.
They went at it wrong."

"Well, you brought your loaded timbers to the pier at Lakeville. From
there they were hauled by wagons to Captain Stenzenberger's yards.
Stenzenberger, working through Mc-Glory, distributed the stuff in
Chicago." Henry shook his head with a touch of impatience. "You're
getting off the track there. Stenzenberger had nothing to do with it. I
fooled him through some of his men."

Beveridge looked incredulous. "So that's the way you want it to go down,
is it?"

"That's the way it was."

"Excuse me, Smiley, but that's absurd. I already have a case against
Stenzenberger. Even if I hadn't, it would outrage common-sense to state
that this man, a lumber merchant, could handle quantities of hollow
timbers, could have them right there under his nose all this time,
without knowing it." But Henry was stubborn.

"Very well," added Beveridge, "this is your statement. I will take down
just what you choose to say."

"You've got about enough there, I should imagine. Oh, about Wilson! I
was in the bushes just below the bridge, when he started to run around
the house, and I shot him. There, now, with the confession of the
smuggling and the shooting, you ought to have a case. Copy it out,
put it in the right legal shape, and I 'll sign it. All but the
Stenzen-berger part. I admit nothing about him."

"All right. I 'll put it down as you want. It makes no difference to me,
for you can never save him."

"One thing, Henry," said Dick, "that I don't understand. What was
McGlory after when he ran the _Anne_ up to Burnt Cove that time?"

"McGlory," Henry replied, "was a fool. When you first told me about it,
I didn't know what to think myself, but after thinking it over, and from
the way he has talked since when he was a little drunk, I think I
have made it out. He has been planning for some time to skip with this
Estelle--desert his wife. He arranged it with her that time he came up
with you. And as what ready money he had was down in Chicago, where he
couldn't very well get at it without his wife knowing it, he took the
chance of getting to Burnt Cove while you were sleeping off--" Henry
smiled. "I guess old Spencer served you some pretty strong fluids up
there that day. Well, anyway, McGlory thought he could take quite a lot
of the stuff aboard, sell it through one of our regular trade channels,
and get off with the money without going home. He couldn't get it into
his head that you really knew nothing about the business. It was a crazy
thing to do."

"I should think so."

"McGlory and Roche are pretty good examples of the sort of thing I have
had to contend with. I've never been able to get good reliable men to
work for me."

Beveridge wanted to smile over the incongruity in this speech, but he
controlled himself and listened soberly. Henry went on:--

"If I could have handled it alone, or with only Spencer to help, you
would never have got me. But with such a big business, I had to employ
a good many men. That was my weak spot. I've known it all along and
dreaded it, but I had to run the risk. There's a risk in every business,
and that was the risk in mine. No, sir, if I could have had competent
men, I should be laughing to-day at the whole revenue system."

"I should take exception to that, Smiley," said Beveridge. "Your men
weren't the only thing that gave you away, not by any means."

"Oh, weren't they?"

"No, the most important clew was the label you used. But say, Smiley,
here is what puzzles me. Why is it that you, a man of unusual ability,
haven't put in your time at something respectable? The brains and work
you have wasted on smuggling would have made you a comfortable fortune
in some other line."

"What do you mean by 'respectable,' Beveridge,--politics, trading,
preaching?"

"I guess you recognize the distinction."

"On the contrary, I don't recognize it at all. I asked for information."

"Oh, well, there is no use opening up that question. We all know the
difference between right and wrong, honesty and dishonesty."

"Do we? Do you?"

"I have always supposed I did."

"You're an unusual man. I congratulate you."

"See here, Smiley, this is interesting. You don't mean to say that you
consider smuggling an honorable business?"

"Why not?"

"Why not! Why--why--"

"It might clear your ideas, Beveridge, to go into this question a
little. Smuggling means, I suppose, the bringing of merchandise from,
say, Canada to this country."

"Dutiable merchandise, yes."

"What makes it dutiable?"

"The law."

"What makes the law?"

"The law is made by the people."

"What people?"

"Oh, see here, Smiley, this--"

"No, wait a minute. The trouble with you is you don't do your own
thinking; I 'll do a little for you. Take an imaginary case: There is
a little group of men in this country who manufacture, say, tacks. As
every man should, they are looking out for their own interests. They are
out to make money. The tacks mean nothing to them, except as they can be
turned into money. That is right and proper, isn't it?"

"Certainly."

"Now suppose, among them all, they employ a good many thousand men in
their tack factories, all of them voters. Suppose they're rich, and
ready to contribute a neat little sum to the campaign fund. Now then,
if any other group of men start up, just over the Canadian line, where
labor is cheaper, making tacks, and underselling our tack market, the
natural thing for our tack men to do is to go to their representatives
in Congress and say, 'Here, if you want our votes and our money, you
must pass a law putting a duty on tacks.' Why do they say this? Because
with such a law they can make more money. The people aren't helped
by it, mind you; the people have to pay all the more. The only men to
profit by it are the little group of tack manufacturers who want to get
rich and fat at the expense of this public you talk about. Now do the
Congressmen fall into line and pass the law? Certainly. Why?
Because _they_ are helped by it. They get the votes and the money
contributions--and probably a neat bribe besides. All this while, mind
you, the people are out of the game. They are being robbed by a law that
was made entirely to enrich a little group of men. These bribe givers
and takers put up a job on us, the most dishonest kind of a job, and yet
you seem to think I'm dishonest, too, because I follow their example and
look out for number one."

"Hold on, Smiley, there's a fallacy there--"

"Where? Point it out. I'm doing an honest business. The stuff I sell is
well made. Do you suppose I care what your government people think? Why,
the whole government system is a network of bribes and rake-offs and
private snaps."

"Of course, if you're an anarchist--"

"Look here, Beveridge, this talk seems to be rather personal--suppose we
make it more so. Let's see if we can't find out what your motives are in
this business. Are they Christian, or patriotic, or are you, like myself
and the tack men, and the law-makers, looking out for number one? The
man that was out here before you came I bought off. But it didn't
take me long to see that you couldn't be bought. Now why? That's the
question.

"Was it because you have principles against it? Not at all. Don't get
mad. I don't doubt a minute that you have some principles that you
learned in Sunday-school; but Lord, when a man's grown up and has his
living to fight for, do you think the Sunday-school has any chance. So,
you see, I thought it over, and reasoned it out about like this: You and
the other man were both ambitious, but where he wanted money, you
want position. It's to your interest to keep the confidence of your
superiors. That's why I couldn't buy you; it's all right, you've done
a good job, but don't try to persuade yourself that your integrity
is armor plate, that you've been doing right for the good of the
Sunday-school or from patriotic motives. Just because you happen to be
on the winning side, because your gang happens to be on top, don't
make the mistake of thinking you're better than the rest of us. For you
aren't."

Dick saw that Beveridge's tongue was trembling with a keen retort, and
he broke in, "But you haven't told how I was worked into this, Henry."

"Oh, that's simple. I wanted to boost you along in the world, but you
were young and had notions. So I thought if I could once make you bring
down a load of the stuff without knowing it, you would find yourself in
for it, and then I could make you see things in the right proportions.
I wanted you, bad. With one such man as you, I could have fooled them
forever." He paused and added meditatively: "And I would have made you
a rich man, Dick. But just when I had it arranged, you came and told me
that you had gone daffy over Cap'n Fargo's little girl, and I saw I had
as good as lost you. Yes, sir, I could have made your fortune. Well,
anyhow, you 'll get something out of it, after--"

Beveridge rose to go to his room, gathering up the papers. "I'm going to
write this out now, boys. I 'll see you later."

Late in the evening the statement was ready. Henry read it through,
suggested a few emendations, and signed it. Then the three went on deck.

Far down on the southwestern horizon was a row of twinkling lights.
Above them, in the sky, was spread a warm glow.

"We're getting along," said Henry. "There's Chicago."

"Oh, is it?" exclaimed Beveridge with interest.

"Yes. We 'll soon be in. Isn't it about time to put the handcuffs on me?"

Beveridge smiled. "That will hardly be necessary."

"But Chicago's a bad town. I might get away from you."

"We won't worry about that."

"Do you carry the things on you? I never saw any."

Beveridge drew a pair from his hip pocket, and handed them to Henry.

"How do they work?"

"Easily. Slip them on--this way."

There was a click and Henry's hands were chained together.

"That's easy enough, isn't it?" said he, walking a few steps up and down
the deck, surveying himself. Then he went to the rail and leaned on it,
looking silently off toward the lights.

Just what came next, Dick never could remember. He had turned away to
gaze at the alternating red-and-white lights that marked Grosse Pointe
and home, so that he saw little more than Henry's swift movement and
Beveridge's start. An instant more and he was standing at the rail
with Beveridge, in the place where Henry had been standing a moment
before--gazing down at the foam that fell away from the bows. He heard
the special agent sing out: "Stop her, stop her, Cap'n! Man overboard!"
He was conscious that the engines had stopped; and he heard the
Captain's voice from the bridge: "No use! He went under the wheel!" Then
came the order to lower a boat, and the rush of feet across the deck.




CHAPTER XIV--IN WHICH BEVERIDGE SURPRISES HIMSELF


[Illustration: 0416]

DICK and Beveridge stood on the wharf at Chicago. The lights that
wavered over their faces from the lanterns of the Foote and from the arc
lamp overhead showed them sober, silent. The _camaraderie_ of the chase
and of the voyage that followed had ceased to be. Beveridge's elation
had been subdued by the distressing event of the evening, but still
the mind behind his decorously quiet face was teeming with plans and
schemes. Dick was gloomy, bewildered. Both seemed to be waiting for
something. They stood watching the bustle aboard the revenue cutter as
the crew made her snug for the night, until finally Dick spoke:--

"You haven't told me yet what I'm to do next, Bill."

"What you're to do next?"

"Why--yes. You see--"

"Go on. I'm listening."

But Dick found it hard to go on. "I didn't know but what--"

Beveridge turned abruptly at a noise up the street, placed two fingers
in his mouth, and whistled. And after a moment Dick saw what had kept
him waiting. It was no sense of delicacy. Beveridge had been looking for
a carriage. "Get in, Smiley," he said, when the driver pulled up.

"Get in?"

"Yes--after you."

"You mean, then--"

"Well, what?"

"I didn't suppose after what has happened that you'd need me any
longer."

"Not need you, Smiley?" They were seated within the vehicle now, the
door was shut, and the driver, the special agent's whispered word in
his ear, was whipping up his horses. "I'm afraid you don't understand. I
have no authority to let you off."

It was his manner more than his words that suddenly swept away Dick's
delicacy and aroused his anger. "The hell you haven't!" was his reply.

"Certainly not."

"You don't expect me to believe that. You have no case against me now."

"I grant you that. And I can promise you that you won't be detained more
than a few days at the outside. But this business has passed up out of
my hands now. All I can do is to deliver you up, make my report, and set
the machinery in motion for your release."

Dick sat motionless, gazing into the shadows before him. "What right had
you to let Pink go, then?"

"That was different."

"How?--How?"

"Nobody ever looked on Harper as of any importance in the business."

"That is no answer. You're holding me on a technicality. The importance
of the man makes no difference when you are dealing in red tape."

"See here, Smiley, don't you think you had better stop abusing me, and
take a sensible view of it?"

As he spoke, they were crossing State Street, and the brighter light
illuminated the interior of the carriage. For reply, Dick turned and
looked at his custodian, looked him through and through with a gaze of
profound contempt. Words were not necessary; Beveridge saw that Dick
had fathomed his motives, Dick saw that he was understood. At the moment
neither was thinking of the gloomy city that was closing in around
them; for both saw the wide, free beach, the gleaming lake, the two long
piers, the quaint little house on stilts, the upper balcony with its
burden of forget-me-nots and geraniums and all the blossoms that Annie
loved. And both had in their nostrils the refreshing smell of the east
wind--made up of all the faint mingled odors of Lake Michigan--a little
pine in it, a little fish in it, but, more than all, the health and
strength and wholesome sweetness of the Lakes. And both were silent
while the carriage rattled along, while they stepped out, crossed the
walk, and entered a stone building with barred windows, while, with
Beveridge on one side and a guard on the other, Dick walked to his cell.

Beveridge caught the half-past eight train for Lakeville the next
morning, and walked straight down to the house on stilts. Annie was out
on the lake, her mother said, looking at him, while she said it, and
after, with doubtful, questioning eyes. So he sat down on the steps and
looked out over the beach and the water. It was a fine warm day, with
just breeze enough to ripple, the lake from shore to horizon, and set it
sparkling in the sun. The sky was blue and white; and the cloud shadows
here and there on the water took varied and varying colors--deep blue,
yellow, sea-green. The shore-line dwindled off to the northward in long
scallops, every line of the yellow beach cut out cleanly, every oak on
the bluff outlined sharply. In truth, it was a glorious day--just the
day Beveridge would have chosen had the choice been his--the day of
days, on which he was to make the last arrangements in clinching his
success, in assuring his future. Annie had gone out to the nets with her
father. She was, at the moment, rowing him in. On other days Beveridge
had sat here and watched her coming in from the nets, with a great box
of whitefish aboard.

The boat grounded on the sand. Captain Fargo stepped out and drew it up.
Beveridge rose and smiled lazily while he waited for Annie to come up
to the steps. The sun had been in her eyes, and at first she did not see
him distinctly.

"Well," said Beveridge, "hello! Didn't expect to see me, did you?"

She stopped abruptly and looked at him. He did not know just how to
interpret her expression.

"Aren't you going to speak to me, Annie?" Her answer, when it came,
blanketed him, and left him, so to speak, flapping in the wind. She
said, "What have you done with Dick?"

"Dick? Why--oh, he's all right."

"Why hasn't he been back?"

"He 'll be around all right. They thought it would be necessary to hold
him for a few days."

"To hold him,--where?"

"Don't you see--"

"Is he in prison?"

"Yes, but that will be fixed--"

"In Chicago?"

"Yes, he--"

"Father," said she, "Dick's in prison. We must go down to see him."
And she turned back to Beveridge with the question, "When can we get a
train?"

What could Beveridge do but fumble in his pockets, bring out a handful
of papers, look them over until he found a time-table, and announce that
the next train was the ten-twelve?

"You will have to show us how to get there, Mr. Beveridge," said
Annie. "Come and change your clothes, father. Will you wait here, Mr.
Beveridge?"

Beveridge said that he would, certainly. And then when father and
daughter had hurried into the house, and after Captain Fargo had turned
his box of fish over to a boy who acted on occasions as his helper, the
special agent sat down again and looked at the Lake. The sun was shining
on, bright as ever; the water was still varicolored, the sky still
blue-and-white; but he saw them not.

In something more than twenty minutes Annie was down and waiting
impatiently for her father. Her whole mind was bent on getting to town.
She hardly saw Beveridge. As for him, chagrined as he was, he had to
admit that she looked very pretty in her trim blue gown. He had never
before seen her dressed for the city. He was inclined to feel awed as
well as bewildered. Then, finally, appeared the Captain in his Sunday
clothes. And the three set out for the train and Dick.

All the way Annie was preoccupied. Hardly a word could Beveridge get.
From the train they hurried over to the stone building with the barred
windows. Here the special agent held a short, whispered conversation
which ended in the unbarring of doors and the word to follow down a
corridor. And finally the last door was opened and Dick stood before
them, dishevelled, unshaven, but indisputably Dick. Beveridge found
himself slipping into the background when Annie and the prisoner were
clasping hands without a word; but he watched them. He saw the question
in Dick's eyes,--the something deep and burning, the something that
was _not_ a question, in Annie's. He saw that she did not think of
withdrawing her hand; he knew that in one short moment more her arms
would be thrown around Dick's neck. He turned away, and, leaving them
there, walked out into the street.

The lights were out at "The Teamster's Friend." It was ten o'clock at
night, and from Stenzenberger's lumber office on one corner through to
the corner at the farther end of the block the street was deserted. But
Beveridge, who slowly turned the corner by the lumber yard,--Beveridge,
who had passed the most turbulent day of his life trying to realize that
he had lost Annie,--knew where to look. Lonely, miserable, plunged into
dejection now that the strain was over, he turned into the driveway that
led to the sheds in the rear of the saloon, and, pausing, looked up.
Yes, there was a light in the upper rear window. He whistled. The
curtain went up a little way--some one was looking down. The curtain
went down again; the light slowly disappeared, leaving grotesque shadows
on the curtain as it was carried from the room. Steps sounded in the
hall; the bolt slipped back, and Madge stood in the doorway.

"Hello," said Beveridge. "Here I am."

"Oh," cried Madge, with what sounded like a gasp of relief. She drew him
quickly in, closed and locked the door, and stood looking at him.

"I had to go out of town, Madge. I didn't get in till late last night. I
have some news for you."

"Come in," she said. And they went back into the dining room, where she
had set down the lamp. They took chairs on opposite sides of the table.
Madge rested her elbows on the red cloth, propped her chin on her
two hands, and waited. Beveridge, while he looked at her, was rapidly
getting back his self-possession.

"Well, Madge, there's a good deal to tell you. McGlory--"

She waited as long as she could, then exclaimed, in an uncertain voice:
"What about him? Where is he?"

"He's gone."

"Where?"

"Nobody on earth can tell you that."

She leaned across the table and caught his arm. "Is he dead?"

"Yes, dead--and buried."

She leaned back in her chair. She could not take her eyes from his face,
and yet she said nothing. It could not be said that her face showed
a trace of happiness, but there was, nevertheless, a strange sort of
relief there.

For a long time neither spoke. But Beveridge's impetuous nature could
not long endure this silence. "Well, Madge," he broke out, "do you still
want me?"

She did not answer.

"That's what I've come to know. If you 'll do it, we will be married
to-night."

"You couldn't--" her voice was low and dreamy. "You couldn't get a
license before to-morrow," she said.

"It's queer," said Dick, "but that is the Beveridge of it. You can't
tell what he is going to do next. I don't believe he knows himself half
the time."

The _Captain_, with Annie at the tiller and Dick stretched lazily out
beside her, was skimming and bounding along off the Grosse Pointe light.

"Wasn't it--" Annie wore a conscious expression--"wasn't it rather
sudden?"

"It must have been. But that is Beveridge."

"And she was a saloon keeper's wife?"

"Yes,--but it wasn't so bad as it sounds when you say it that way. She
was too good for McGlory."

"Oh, you--you know her?"

"I've seen her, yes."

"But isn't she--old?"

"Not so very. She can't be much older than Beveridge. She is good
looking--almost pretty. And she looks sort of--well, when you saw her
there in McGlory's place, it seemed too bad. She was quiet, and she
looked as if she was made for something better."

They were silent for a time. Then their eyes met, and she missed his
answering smile. "What is it, Dick?" she asked.

"I was thinking about Henry--about what he was, and then what he did for
me. We have everything to thank him for, you and I, Annie." He paused,
then went on. "I suppose he was wrong--he must have been wrong if we
are to believe in law at all. But that night on the steamer, when he
was telling us about it, I watched him and Beveridge both pretty
closely,--the expression of their faces and their eyes. The way a man
looks at you tells so much, Annie. And I knew all the while, though
Beveridge was standing there for the law, and Henry for what they call
crime, still--"

"What, Dick?"

"--if I were in a tight place again and had to choose which of those two
men to trust my life with, I shouldn't need to stop to think. It would
be Henry, every time."

He sat up to shift his position, when something which he saw on the
northern horizon drove the clouds from his face. This was a great day
for Dick. "Look, Annie!" He was pointing eagerly. "Look there!"

"Where?"

"Can't you see it--the _Anne?_"

Then Annie's heart leaped too. And she ordered Dick to ease off the
sheet, adding only, "We 'll meet her, shan't we?" To which Dick responded
with a nod.

So they headed north, with everything drawing full and the bubbles
dancing by. Pink saw them and came up into the wind. The _Captain_
slipped alongside, a sailor caught the painter, Dick handed Annie up,
clambered after, stepped to the wheel, and they swung slowly off.

"Make the boat fast astern," called Dick to one of the revenue cutter
men.

"All right, sir."

"Things gone all right, Pink?"

"First class. Not much wind in the Straits."

"I hardly thought there would be."

Annie was perched on the cabin trunk, looking at Dick with laughing
eyes. She enjoyed watching him, she liked his easy way of falling into
the command of his schooner, she admired the muscles on his forearm (for
he had rolled up his sleeves). He caught her glance. "Want to take her,
Annie?"

"Oh, yes, Dick. Will you let me?"

"If you want to."

So Annie took the wheel. She stood there, a merry, graceful
figure,--though Dick kept close by and reached out a steadying hand now
and then,--while the schooner came about, headed for the long pier, ran
up neatly into her berth, threw out her lines, and stopped, her voyage
over.

_[Note:--In the spring, when the ice broke up in the streams of
Michigan, a party of lumbermen found what had been the body of a man
lying in a shallow creek, deep in the forest. Particulars would be
unpleasant. It is enough to say that they buried him there, being rough
men and far from a coroner; and that on a water-soaked envelope in his
pocket was found a name which, as nearly as anything, seemed to spell
"Roche." To the persons of this tale his end remained a mystery. It
might be added that Beveridge found more difficulty than he had foreseen
in weaving his net around Stenzenberger. In fact the special agent had
failed, at last accounts, to disturb the serenity of the lumber dealer,
in spite of the moral certainty that his share in the guilt was the
largest of any. Perhaps his secret went to the bottom of Lake Michigan
with Henry Smiley.--S.M.]_

[Illustration: 0431]









End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Merry Anne, by Samuel Merwin

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