Skippy smiled his thanks and turned his little motor over. The inspector waved his hand.
“From the sound of that kicker,” he shouted, “I take it you’ve lost Toby’s muffler?”
“Sure,” Skippy answered laughing, “what do I need with a muffler, huh? ’Cepting it might be better for fishin’ with. But gee, I should worry about livin’ on fish if I can see Mr. Skinner, huh? Pop ought to be out by—by....”
“Tomorrow, eh?” Inspector Jones interposed turning his head aside and blowing his nose hard.
“Nope,” Skippy answered wistfully, “I won’t say tomorrow ’cause then—oh well, it’s too quick. But anyway, if I see Mr. Skinner it won’t be long after tomorrow, I bet.”
He had yet to learn from his bitter experience that tomorrow never comes.
Skippy’s little boat chugged out of the bay and around toward the Hook. It was late afternoon and the haze had deepened into an ominous sultriness. White caps danced atop the waves and off on the horizon black clouds and black sea met in dismal union. A flock of gulls swarmed about, flapping their huge wings between sky and sea with monotonous precision.
A miscellaneous collection of craft was anchored just outside the bay; sailboats, fishing smacks, dories and yachts of every size, and not the least of these was the shining hull of the lovelyApollyon. Skippy caught sight of her immediately and slowed his own little boat that he might have a better view of her in the light of day.
Her superstructure was painted a most delicate shade of green and Skippy understood then why he had imagined her to be of that ghostly whiteness below her anchor lights which shone like stars against that dark, memorable night. Too, the large gilt letters spelling out her queer name seemed not so ornate now as when he had first seen them.
His first reaction to the lovely yacht had been one of envy and admiration; it was so now and he tried hard not to think of the unhappy sequel that his first visit to theApollyonhad brought. Yet somehow he could not shake off the fear-inspiring memory of what the name really meant and he wondered if anything but evil could tread those spotless decks.
He chuckled a little and turned his motor boat toward the yacht. There were signs of a near-departure aboard and he caught sight of the second mate resplendent in his spotless uniform and cap. Leaning over the forward rail, he recognized Skippy at once, and waved his hand.
“If it ain’t the kid!” he called cheerfully. “Young Dare, hey? Well, you’ve come a ways.”
“Sure,” Skippy smiled. “I come down to see Mr. Skinner. It’s awful particular what I gotta see him about.”
“You look’s if it might be a case of life or death at that,” the second mate mused.
“It is a case of life, Mister—my Pop’s whole life,” said Skippy anxiously. “That’s why I wanta see Mr. Skinner.”
The second mate was all contrition. “Kid, I clean forgot about your Pop, ’deed I did. C’mon aboard. Sure Mr. Skinner’ll be seein’ you. ’Course I ain’t promisin’ you’ll find him easy talkin’ to ’cause he ain’t. He’s right set in his notions ’bout you Basin and river folks; he thinks you’re all rascals.”
“But his boss, ol’ Flint——” Skippy began protesting.
“He knowed like you’n me and plenty others that the old boss was a tough egg—and between you’n me Skinner ain’t no angel hisself—but that don’t change his mind none.”
Skippy realized this full well a little later when Marty Skinner refused to hear him, ordered him off the boat, and shouted that his father was a rogue and so was he.
Skippy rushed blindly out of the cabin. The door slammed behind him, the same door that had slammed behind his father on that tragic night. He had accomplished just nothing at all in that cabin of past horrors, nothing except to hear from a gentleman’s lips what his kind really thought of river people.
And he, Skippy Dare, was one of the river people—himself, the son of a rogue!
Skippy nosed the motor boat toward the Hook. He had no thought of anything save that he was angry and hurt and wanted to feel the fresh, salt breeze blow over his burning face. He felt that he must think over this new and humiliating status in which Marty Skinner had so cruelly placed him, and he wanted to think of it where no one could see the unhappiness that it caused him.
He hadn’t the heart to turn back toward the Basin and home. Home! He frowned at the word, for it seemed that theMinnie M. Baxterand all that it represented could bring him nothing now but recurring thoughts of the hated Skinner. All that the man had said had left its mark on the sensitive boy’s mind and for the first time in his life he felt a bitter hatred toward a fellow being.
That Marty Skinner, old Josiah Flint’s right-hand man, should call his father a rogue, was hardly to be endured. But if it were so, he reasoned in a calmer moment, then all the more reason for the blame to fall on the dead Josiah. Hadn’t Old Flint himself been the worst rogue of all?
He was tempted to return and shout these thoughts so that all aboard theApollyonmight hear. He wanted to tell them what Toby had said about Josiah Flint making the despised Brown’s Basin possible because of his selfish, unscrupulous dealings.
But, boy-like, Skippy’s anger was soon reduced to a smoldering memory and his father’s imminent incarceration was a thing that had to be faced. Just now he was forced to think of his own present situation, for a significant sputtering from the motor gave warning that he was about to have trouble.
He had not his father’s knack for adjusting the rebellious motor, and so he decided to turn the boat about and make for the quieter waters of the bay. But just then the motor stalled and despite his earnest efforts, it refused to respond.
Skippy looked about him anxiously and saw that he had already been carried an alarming distance. Dusk was rapidly settling, hastened by the deepening haze and in a few moments the tide and undertow had swept him out of sight of all the anchored craft clustered about theApollyon.
He looked hopefully toward the Hook but saw that it was useless to try and reach it even with the one oar that the little boat had in reserve. The tide was against him.
After a quick glance about, he hunted around among some neglected tools lying at his feet and picked out the searchlight. But that, too, refused to respond; the battery was dead. Then he looked for some matches only to meet with disheartening disappointment.
He got to his knees after that and worked furiously at the cold motor, squinting at his hopeless task in the near-darkness. The boom of thunder could be heard from out at sea, and with the swiftly passing minutes the storm came nearer and nearer until it broke directly overhead.
Lightning flashed across the drifting boat and Skippy dodged under the bow. There was something terrifying about the elements when one was alone and drifting steadily toward the sea in an open boat.
After a momentary lull, he crept out, not a little ashamed of his cowardice. He looked about, trying hard not to look or feel panicky despite the fact that he could see nothing of the Hook or anything else. Darkness and high, shadowy waves upon which the little boat bobbed were all that met his frightened gaze. Then a damp, cold wind began to blow.
He crouched down in the bottom of the boat with a feeling of dull despair. Rain pattered into an old rusty bait can that lay at his feet and he edged his shivering body closer under the bow. Curiously enough, he was quite calm now and the thought that his situation was dangerous did not enter his mind.
Skippy-like, he was thinking only that he was terribly hungry and more than anything else he wanted to eat.
The thunder and lightning died away after a time but the rain continued. The constant boom of the sea gradually wore away some of Skippy’s calm and he raised his head from time to time to gaze apprehensively at the dark sea rising all about him in mountainous waves.
The sky seemed a black void and at times as the little boat tossed about in the waves, he had the breath-taking sensation that he had turned turtle. Once, he mused about what probability there was of his being carried clear across the sea to some European port. He had heard of men being able to live without food or water from ten to fourteen days. Well, he had his fishing outfit, he reasoned hopefully; he needn’t starve, but how to get water puzzled him.
After a few more minutes of tossing wildly about, he decided that the little boat could probably never stand an ocean voyage. With each succeeding wave it came perilously near to upsetting and he doubted that the craft could triumph over the angry sea much longer.
That contingency awoke a strong determination in him, for he got to his feet, reached for the oar and struggled valiantly to balance the boat against the oncoming foe. The rain soaked him through to the skin but he was not cold for he was kept in constant action trying to make one oar do the work of two.
He had lost all sense of time and direction; he thought only of keeping the boat balanced. That he could not keep it up very long did not occur to him, for he already felt the effects of the past week’s malnutrition and his long journey from the Basin had fatigued him.
After what seemed an interminable time he caught a glimpse of a light, a faint gleam, but nevertheless a light. He gasped with joy and looked hard into the darkness to get a definite idea of its location. In point of fact he looked so hard he all but swamped the boat.
Great beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead when he righted the boat, but he came up triumphant on the crest of a wave. The exertion was too much for him, however; he felt inexpressibly weak and tired. His muscles ached and a giddiness in his head made him feel as if he must lie down.
But there was the light just ahead and he bent his frail body in a supreme effort to reach it. He was cheered because it did not seem to move and he ventured to hope that it might be on the shore. The main thing—it was a light, and light might reasonably be expected to mean rescue by all the rules of the game.
Suddenly a great arc of faint yellow light swept from behind and circled his head. He had come to no decision about its origin before it came again, a little brighter than before. Then after some minutes had passed and it had grown still brighter, it occurred to him that it was from the lighthouse at the Hook and the great light had gradually penetrated the fast dissolving haze.
He took heart at this because he knew he could not be so very far away from land. But he knew it was futile to even hope to get back there in his boat. It might be ten miles and it might be twenty. The great light at the Hook boasted a range of thirty miles on a clear night, he had heard his father say.
The light that gave him real hope was the heartening glimmer just ahead. He knew that it was not just because he wished it so fervently, but he could plainly see that it became brighter as the boat advanced.
Then suddenly he heard the faint ringing of a bell, which echoed eerily on the shifting wind.
He listened intently and thought that it came from the direction of the light. It rang again and again, each time a little louder. Suddenly, however, he was aware that the light seemed no longer stationary. He had the disheartening experience of realizing that his beacon of hope was a running light on a fishing smack. He felt like crying as he watched the shadowy hull gaining speed for he realized that she must have just started ahead, having waited for the wind to change.
Every wave carried her farther and farther away from the watching boy. If he had only got there just a little sooner, he thought dismally. But he had done the best he could. There was nothing left now but to sit and watch her swallowed up by the darkness and the mountainous seas and that had happened in a few minutes’ time.
He was glad he had not been foolish enough to hope that he could reach her and overtake her, only to be disappointed and use up what little strength he had left. That at least was some satisfaction and it helped him bear his desperate plight a little more patiently.
The constant booming of the sea had a queer effect on his sensitive ears. He imagined himself to be hearing all sorts of noises, particularly the ringing of the bell. At times he could have sworn he heard it right at hand and at other times it seemed but a mocking echo.
The air was quite clear now, though the rain continued, and Skippy saw to his dismay that the boat was getting a little too full of water for his safety. He put down the oar for a while and bailed her out with his rusty bait can.
The little boat tossed against each rising wave like a feather; but he worked feverishly and trusted to luck that it would not upset. Then after a few minutes he was startled by the sound of the bell ringing right over his head. Before he had time to look up he felt the boat bump hard against something.
He was on his feet in a second and saw to his great surprise that the boat was alongside of a bell buoy.
It has been truly said that time and tide wait for no man and certainly Skippy was aware of this instantly, for in the next second a giant wave had washed him out of reach of the buoy. This realization made him desperate and he got into action to get back to it, for he well knew now that to drift on through the night would mean certain death.
With a swift movement he pushed his wet hair back from his high forehead. Then he bent over, got the oar and grabbed a rope, holding it tightly in his hand. And for fully five minutes he battled and struggled against the undertow.
His eyes were wide and staring from the strain and little streams of water ran down either cheek. His clothes from head to foot were weighted against him with water but he never stopped until he had brought the boat back against the buoy and in a second he had thrown the painter around it and pulled it taut.
That done he sank down in the bottom of the boat, exhausted.
For some time his mind was an utter blank. He was too tired and weak to think or even to care. But the rain beating steadily down on his unprotected body soon chilled him back into action and he got up and exercised his arms and legs.
As the buoy swayed upon each succeeding swell, the bell tolled mournfully. Its eerie echoes were faint and quickly lost in the noise of the pounding sea, and Skippy decided that no mariner ten minutes’ sail from the bell was likely to look that way. Also, the quick wash of the sea prevented the bell from tolling its loudest and longest. Nothing but his own two hands could do that.
And so he did it.
For the next hour he bent his frail body over the swaying buoy and swung the cold, wet bell back and forth, back and forth. Peal after peal tolled forth dismally and though his eyes became blurred with weariness he knew that he had missed nothing, for nothing had passed for him to miss.
So it went on through the long, dark hours. He would take an interval of rest and then jump up to his vigil at the bell for fear he would fall asleep and miss some passing ship.
The night seemed interminable. Indeed, he began to believe that he had fallen asleep and that a day had passed and another night had come without his being aware of it, for never had he thought the dark hours were so long.
Morning came at last and with the first streak of light on the eastern horizon, hope came back anew. The rain gradually ceased and during Skippy’s intervals of rest he watched, with not a little awe, the wonder of dawn at sea. Little by little the night fled before the roseate morn and soon the entire sky was flooded with soft light. And as the sun crept up out of the sea he stretched himself across the wet seats and relaxed.
Two hours later, he woke with the sun shining full in his face. He sat up, startled, and realized that his head was aching and that he felt stiff and chilled. Moreover, he felt sick with despair to think that he had slept away the hours of daylight, hours when a ship might have passed near enough for him to signal.
He stood up and scanned the sunlit water in all directions but there was not a sign of a sail, not a sign of a ship. In the distance, a gull soared high above the water and after a moment another one seemed to leap out of space and join it.
The tide was going out and the whole surface of the blue-green water seemed to roll on toward the horizon in a series of undulating hills. A gentle murmur filled the warm, sunlit air and Skippy could not believe that the booming surf of the past night had been anything but a bad dream.
He rang the bell for a time but had to give it up because of a terrible giddiness in his head. And so for hours, he sat anxiously scanning the illimitable sea and sky, hoping, hoping, hoping....
Noon came and passed and the sun scorched him cruelly. The boat, too, had become a constant source of anxiety for she developed a leak and had to be continually bailed out, and he was thankful that he had not obeyed a former impulse and tried to row her east in the hope that he would strike the Hook.
Toward mid-afternoon he was conscious of pains in his chest, and his hunger and thirst were becoming unbearable, particularly the thirst, for the heat of the sun was intense. He wished fervently for the cooling rain of the night before.
Sunset came, however, and with it a soft, cool wind. Skippy welcomed it, but hated the gray light of approaching twilight that obliterated the deep blue clouds. It seemed to spell doom to him and he cried out in despair. If daylight had not brought rescue what hope was there left for another long night?
His hopes sprang up afresh, however, and he conceived the idea of tying to the bell a long length of rope which he found in the bottom of the boat. In this manner, he could ring it constantly just by pulling the rope which required little exertion on his part. By dusk he was feeling too sick to either stand or sit up.
He entered his second night at sea both hopeful and despairing. Every doleful clang from the bell brought him hope but in the following silence it would quickly vanish and he would sink in depths of despair. Then with his fast-ebbing strength he would pull hopefully at the rope again.
EVERY DOLEFUL CLANG FROM THE BELL BROUGHT SKIPPY HOPE.
EVERY DOLEFUL CLANG FROM THE BELL BROUGHT SKIPPY HOPE.
And so the bell tolled on through the long night hours.
A few hours before dawn a long, trim, high-powered motor boat cut through the placidly rolling waves. Its motor was so muffled that it emitted no more than a low droning sound and could be heard for only a short distance, despite the fact that it had been let out to full speed.
Besides the man at the wheel the boat carried six men, three standing fore and three aft. One of the men aft half lounged over the coaming and his broad shoulders and large, amiable face all but filled the stern of the boat. The spray constantly swept over his big, dangling hands and the salt moisture struck at his tanned cheeks but he seemed not to notice. His entire attention, like that of his comrades, was centered on the grayish black horizon; his eyes seemed to miss nothing, yet there was an abstracted look in them that the man at the wheel did not fail to notice.
“Whadja hear, Big Joe?” he asked quietly.
The big man nodded his head without moving his body.
“’Tis that buoy,” he said absently. “Sure and she’s goin’ a great rate for such a calm, me lad. Even in pretty bad storms I niver knowed Flint’s buoy to be ringin’ like that.”
“Flint’s?” queried another of the men, interested.
Big Joe Tully smiled reminiscently.
“And why not? ’Tis what most o’ Flint’s men called it. ’Tis a buoy at the intrance to Kennedy’s Channel and ’tis a bad spot, if iver there was wan. Ye niver know how the tide’s goin’ to act. ’Tis like a colleen what can’t make up her mind, and she’s not to be trusted, so nobody goes by that way. Besides, ’tis a long way round past the Hook. Anyways, the ould boss took advantage o’ that place and we used to meet some o’ his best customers there and unload the stuff to thim.”
“Not a bad idea takin’ us by there for an eyeful, hey, Tully?” suggested the man at the wheel. “Long’s you’ve decided on playin’ ball with us, since we squared that case ’gainst you, we might as well take your tips. Seems like a wise mug like ol’ Flint never made no mistakes. He got rich an’ the law never got him so ifhepicked out a spot like this buoy, he must ’a’ known what he was doin’. Mebbe it’ll be a pretty good spot for our customers too?”
They all laughed at this, but Big Joe Tully merely smiled and glanced down at the compass.
“Sure and ould Flint made his mistakes and plenty,” he said in his soft, deep voice. “He made mistakes whin he didn’t watch out that the coppers didn’t take the scows o’ men what was workin’ for his racket. And he made a mistake whin he stuck Toby Dare with a piece o’ junk. I guess he thought he’d be puttin’ me on me uppers where I’d be goin’ back and beg him for work.”
“He got knocked off fust, didn’t he, Big Joe?” laughed the man at the wheel.
“That he did. ’Tis too bad he couldn’t ’a’ lived to see how quick I connected with you guys.”
“It’s too bad he couldn’ lived anyways,” said another of the men, “’cause that poor guy Dare wouldn’t be in the can then. Anyhow I don’t think he knocked him off. I think he’d liked to ’cause Flint give him a lousy break, but I believe what he said in court that some other guy beat him to it.”
“I know lots o’ guys what were layin’ for ould Flint,” said Big Joe. “Sure he’d been dead a dozen times if iverywan what had it in for him, did what they said they’d like to. That’s why they won’t be holdin’ poor Toby.”
“All the same, theyareholdin’ poor Toby,” said the man at the wheel. “He was sentenced late yesterday afternoon for twenty years to life an’ by this time he’s hittin’ the hay in the big house, that’s what.”
“And didn’t ye hear!” said another. “His kid, Skippy, ain’t been seen since he had a talk with Marty Skinner aboard theApollyon. Poor kid, he went there to plead for his old man, the paper says, and that hardshell Skinner wouldn’t give him a break, I guess. The second mate told a reporter that the kid left the yacht in a rush, hopped in his kicker and beat it for the Hook. Guess he thought as long as he couldn’t do nothin’ for Toby, he’d get away somewhere and try an’ fergit. Well, that’s life.”
Big Joe Tully clenched his knotted, hairy fists.
“Sufferin’ swordfish!” he said. “Poor Toby! And that poor kid! ’Tis a howlin’ shame, so ’tis.”
“Know ’em?” asked the man at the wheel.
“I oughta—I worked ’longside o’ Toby doin’ Flint’s jobs night after night, so I did. A whiter guy than Toby niver lived. He ain’t old—thirty-four or so. Got married whin he was a kid and his wife died. He’s crazy ’bout that kid o’ his, Skippy. ’Tis what makes me feel bad.” Big Joe looked down at the compass once more. “North, northeast,” he said to the man at the wheel. “We oughta be at Flint’s buoy in twinty minutes. There’s the light from the Hook.”
They watched intently the great sweeping arc of light swinging over the smoothly rolling water. The motor boat plunged north, then northeast and in Big Joe Tully’s eyes was a thoughtful, puzzled expression, the closer they got to the buoy.
“D’ye say there ain’t somethin’ spooky ’bout the way that bell’s ringin’?” he asked his comrades. “Did ye iver hear a bell on a buoy ring like that without stoppin’? ’Tain’t natural, ’cause....”
Just then he caught a glimpse of the little kicker bobbing merrily alongside the buoy.
“An’ when I sees ye layin’ in the bottom o’ that kicker, I’d swore I was seein’ things so I would,” Big Joe Tully was saying. “Lucky I gets it in me noodle that somethin’s wrong the way that bell keeps ringin’.”
The shanty of theMinnie M. Baxterwas bright with the light of mid-morning. The floor had been scrubbed almost to whiteness, the table was laid with a soft Turkey red cloth and the lamp looked shiny and clean. Skippy’s feverish eyes took it all in before he turned on his pillow.
“I felt so sick, I didn’t exactly know it was you,” he said weakly. “I heard voices, but I couldn’t think what it was all about. All I’d thought all night was that I hadda keep on ringin’ the bell.”
“Sure, kid, and ye rang it!” said Big Joe with a light laugh.
“An’ you sure saved me,” Skippy smiled in return. “Gee, it was lucky you came that way, huh? Where’d you been?”
Big Joe lighted a cigarette and puffed on it before answering.
“Sure an’ just puttin’ the big eye on some new location for a new racket,” he said softly. “I got six men with me.”
“Is it—is it gonna be straight?” Skippy asked.
“Nah,” Big Joe laughed. “Who’ll be straight in the Basin and live like a human bein’? As ’tis, what they got? They’re all doin’ the higher-up’s dirty work; butme, I ain’t so foolish even if ould Flint tipped off the coppers and they grab me scow. I got a little money and I’ll work this new racket and make lots more. The doctor says ye’ve got a pretty weak lung so ye need a month in bed and the best o’ food. Well, sufferin’ swordfish, we’ll dig up the dough so’s ye’ll be fat an’ sassy ’fore Toby comes out.”
Skippy’s eyes lighted up.
“Gee, Mr. Tully, it must be costin’ an awful lotta money for a lawyer to appeal the case, huh?”
Big Joe waved a large hand deprecatingly.
“Forget it, Skippy. Ain’t I doin’ it for a good friend and ain’t I doin’ it so’s ye won’t see Toby in the can for twinty years or more? Don’t ye be worryin’ ’bout the dough, me lad. I made it with the scow easy. Now it’ll do you and Toby some good, so ’twill.”
“Gee whiz,” breathed the boy gratefully. “It’s too much for you to do for Pop and me ’cause we can’t pay it back—never!”
“That’s why ye gotta be forgettin’ it!” Tully protested. “I ain’t got nobody to spend it on, kid, so I might’s well spend it on you and Toby. I’d only leave it to ye in me will whin I died!” He laughed loudly. “Now’ll we be good friends, kid?”
Skippy had to fight back the tears before he smiled.
“Gee,sure! Gee, I like you an awful lot, Mis——”
“Cut out theMister, kid! Big Joe’s me monicker, and nothin’ else. Now anythin’ more on that big mind o’ yourn?”
Skippy nodded hesitantly.
“Gee—gee whiz,” he stammered, “I just was thinkin’ wouldn’t it be nice if you had enough money so you didn’t have to go into any crooked rackets for a while, huh? Gee, I’d like to think you didn’t have to do it, honest I would, Big Joe! Maybe I’ll be able to go to work when I get strong and I’ll be able to help then, huh? Maybe we can live on clean, honest money like Pop wanted me to, huh? Besides, the money you’re helpin’ Pop and me with is kind of from when you were runnin’ your barge straight, isn’t it?”
Big Joe got up from his chair, went over to the table and ground out his cigarette stub in an ash tray. Then he came back and leaning over Skippy’s bunk, he rumpled the boy’s hair playfully.
“’Tis a funny lad ye be, Skippy. But I s’pose ye be gettin’ it from Toby. He was always agin doin’ Flint’s work. Said he wouldn’t ’a’ started it if he hadn’t been takin’ care o’ ye so much daytimes whin ye was sick with that throat business.”
“Pop was always honest inside, that shows it,” said Skippy proudly.
Big Joe smiled.
“Anyways ye’re right about me runnin’ me barge straight the first year,” he said vehemently. “I did.” Then: “So ye want me on the level? Well, we’ll be seein’ about that but we ain’t goin’ to starve I’ll be tellin’ ye, so I will.”
Skippy’s eyes were shining.
“You’ll get along if people can see you’re tryin’ to be honest, that’s what Pop said.”
“Sufferin’ swordfish, kid,” said Big Joe. “Be quittin’ thinkin’ ’bout anythin’ now ’ceptin’ gettin’ better. And no more talk about work when ye’re better. Sufferin’ swordfish, ye ain’t nothin’ but skin and bones, the doctor said! Ye’re as pale as a ghost, too. Eggs, milk and chicken soup is what ye need and what ye’ll be gettin’.”
“Who’ll fix ’em?” Skippy asked, chuckling weakly.
“Our nixt door neighbor on theDinky O. Cross,” Big Joe said. “She’s a right nice woman, kid—Mrs. Duffy, and as soon as she sees us carryin’ ye in she said it milted her heart. So we put a plank across to her scow and she come in here and did ’bout iverythin’ ’fore the doctor come. I give her the dough for the things and she’s cookin’ thim now.”
“She’s a—she’s one of the river people, huh? Likeyou, Big Joe?” Skippy asked wondering.
“Like you and me, Skippy me boy,” answered Big Joe, nodding his head. “She’s one o’ our people, the kind what helps their own whin there’s trouble.”
Skippy shut his eyes to visualize the stern, cold visage of Marty Skinner. Hadn’t he talked of river people as if they were all of a kind? Hadn’t he said they were all crooks and criminals?
Big Joe had put him in that category of river people, he who had never disobeyed a law in his young life! He resented it and wanted to say so, but his better judgment prevailed against it and he decided to wait and see what kind of people these river people of Brown’s Basin really were. Certainly if they were all like Big Joe Tully, Skinner had much to learn.
It was the buxom Mrs. Duffy who decided it, some moments later. She came in like the fresh morning breeze from the inlet, clean-aproned and smiling, laden with soup and eggnog and a wealth of bright cretonne tucked under her generous arm.
“Cretonne curtains for thim little windows, bhoy,” she said breathlessly. “Mr. Tully give me the money for ’em an’ I made ’em up ’fore I come over. It’ll seem more like home to ye in Brown’s Basin whin ye see ’em from the outside. The inlet’s dismal enough, so ’tis, without starin’ at it through bare, dirty winders; ain’t I right, Mr. Tully?”
“Guess so,” Big Joe answered a little abashed. “Women folks know more about thim things, but even me, I be likin’ that bright stuff flutterin’ around a winder. Ye got the soup an’ everythin’?”
Mrs. Duffy’s smile was vast and it swept from Big Joe to the wan-looking Skippy.
“Ye’ll pick up, so ye will, or me and Mr. Tully’ll be to blame, Skippy,” she said heartily.
Skippy almost choked with gratitude. He tried to speak, but could only think that these were river people—his people! Big Joe, who was spending a lot of money so that his father might have another chance for freedom and who would spare no expense to nurse him back to health. And Mrs. Duffy, who was bringing cheer into the shanty of theMinnie M. Baxterand who seemed to care so much that he get well!
River people?Skinner didn’t know what he was talking about! He, Skippy Dare, was proud to be one of the river people.
Many delightful weeks Skippy spent after he was up and around. Day after day, he and Big Joe roamed the length and breadth of the river, and often they went down the bay and across to some unfrequented beach where they swam and fished to their hearts’ content.
Skippy soon showed the effects of his healthful life and Mrs. Duffy’s fine cooking. He was browned from head to foot and his flat chest had expanded two inches. And what was more, he had learned to triumph over tears.
That in itself was a great achievement, for he had great need to practice self-control during the fall and the winter following. The gods themselves seemed to have cast sorrowful glances over theMinnie M. Baxterand Skippy’s mettle was tried to the breaking point sometimes, yet always he came up smiling. Very often it was a poignant smile, the kind that pierced Big Joe Tully’s almost invulnerable heart and set him to doing all sorts of extravagant things so that he might see the pain effaced from the boy’s face and hear him laugh happily.
That was why on the evening of Toby’s retrial, Big Joe left the shanty of theMinnie M. Baxterin awkward haste. He had left Skippy smiling a smile so poignant that he could bear it no longer.
“Big Joe,” the boy said when they were dawdling over the most luxurious meal that Tully’s money could buy, “it was most like throwin’ money away, huh? They don’t wanta let Pop get out, I guess. They can’t find the man that really did it and they’ve gotta have somebody so I s’pose they think it might’s well be my Pop. Now hewillbe in for life on account of the way they tripped him up in his answers. Gee, how could he remember word for word what he said at his first trial? People don’t remember word for word ’bout things like that. Poor Pop was so nervous I got chills down my back.”
“Don’t ye be gettin’ down, kid,” Tully protested; “’tis not sayin’ we’re licked till they turn down an appeal. We got some more dough.”
“So much money,” said Skippy with a note of wonder in his high-pitched voice. “Gee, Big Joe, you’ve spent so much on Pop an’ me already. Now you wanta spend the last you got! Gee whiz, I can’t let you—I can’t! Much as I wanta see Pop free. It ain’t fair lettin’ you spend all your hard-earned money....”
Tully had long since learned that he could not lie to Skippy.
“Sure an’ this last coin ain’t hard-earned, kid,” he said not a little abashed. “So ye see ’cause it ain’t, it might’s well be used for springin’ your old man.”
“All right, if you say it like that,” said Skippy with a slightly reproving smile. Suddenly he squared his shoulders; then: “Anyway, next to Pop, Big Joe, I like you best. Gee, ain’t you been just like Pop even! So I don’t care if that money’s not so straight, but d’ye think it’ll be lucky for Pop? Sometimes I wonder if crooked money ain’t hard luck in the end. Maybe when you’re broke you can start over clean?”
“We’ll see what the breaks’ll be bringin’ this winter, kid,” Big Joe had mumbled. “We’ll see, so we will.”
And it was Skippy’s answering smile that drove Big Joe off the barge for a few hours. When he returned late in the evening, he had a fluffy sort of bundle in his big arms and an expansive smile on his face.
“Three guesses what’s in me arms,” he said with a mischievous wink, standing half in and half out of the doorway.
“Is it dead or alive?” Skippy asked chuckling.
“’Tis the liveliest little guy ye ever see.” Big Joe stooped over and released the fluffy bundle from his arms and presently an Airedale pup put its four young and rather unsteady legs on the shanty floor.
Skippy laughed out loud. He twisted his hands together in a gesture of delight, then got to his knees and coaxed the puppy to him.
“It’s got brown eyes like a reg’lar angel,” he said.
“An’ brown legs like the divil,” Big Joe laughed; “the divil for runnin’ into mischief. The man what I bought him from said he was a son-of-a-sufferin’ swordfish for runnin’ an’ chewin’. But he’ll be gettin’ better as he gets older, so he will. Ain’t he got the cute little mug though, kid!”
Skippy looked up with shining eyes, then drew the puppy up to him.
“Big Joe, that’s his name—it’s a swell name for him! Mug—Mugs, huh? With that funny little face he couldn’t be called anything else.”
“Sure, sure, kid. Anythin’ ye say. Mugs it’ll be, so ’twill.” He coughed. “And will he be makin’ ye happy now, kid?”
“Happy!Big Joe, Mugs’ll make me happy ’cause you bought him to make me laugh. Gee, gee....” Skippy swallowed his emotion. “What for do you do so much, Big Joe?” he asked naïvely. “Gee—why?”
“’Cause ye be such a nice kid, so ye be,” the man answered, rumpling Skippy’s straight hair. “Ye kind o’ get under a guy’s skin—ye do that. Ye seem to be needin’ somebody for to look after ye, so ye do, an’ with Toby not about it might’s well be me.” He laughed nervously. “Besides I ain’t got nobody else at all, at all, kid, an’ even a tough guy like me does be needin’ company, so he does.”
Skippy hugged the puppy gratefully and he was so overwhelmed by Tully’s generosity that he could not speak. Never, he thought, did a boy have a friend like Big Joe!
His cup of happiness would have been filled to the brim and his father been released that day. But here again, Big Joe, like an angel of mercy, was making a last supreme effort to bring his father back to him. It seemed impossible that such gigantic effort could fail to bring a joyous result and he told Tully so.
“An’ when Pop gets out,” he said in conclusion, “I bet he’ll never forget what you’ve done an’ all, Big Joe. Even now he don’t forget it. He said it’s so gloomy and strict in prison that he’s sad all the time, ’specially ’cause he was so used to roamin’ all over the river free. Gee, he said the feller what really killed Mr. Flint was a coward ’cause he must know how it’s keepin’ Pop an’ me away from each other an’ he said he could almost kill him for doin’ that alone.”
“There, now, the ould man’ll be gettin’ out!” said Tully vehemently. “My last grand’ll do it, I be tellin’ ye! See if it don’t! Now ye ain’t goin’ to start worryin’ all over ’bout Toby now, are ye? An’ me gettin’ ye Mugs so’s to make it aisier like for ye.”
Skippy looked at the puppy sliding over the floor on his gawky legs. He laughed.
“Mugs makes up for an awful lot, Big Joe, but nobody could make up for Pop,” he said wistfully. “I never told Pop, ’cause he’d think it sounded silly, but I love him. You know, like I guess girls feel only they show it an’ talk about it, but I don’t. I couldn’t. But I’m just tellin’ you like a secret—see? I get a funny pain in my heart when I’m not seein’ Pop an’ it gets awful bad when I think maybe he won’t ever get out of prison.” Then at the sight of Big Joe’s frowning countenance, he added: “But it’s like I said, Big Joe, I like you almost as much as Pop. An’ now you’ve bought me Mugs—gee, how much’d you pay for him, huh?”
“’Tis nothin’,” said Big Joe smiling softly; “a coupla bucks. ’Course, they cost a little more thin just muts, but the man at the dog place said thim Airedales be great for protectin’ kids so I think maybe he’d be good for ye nights when I might be out with the boys. He’ll be comp’ny anyways.”
A little later, when Big Joe was having a good-night smoke alone on the deck, he took out of his pocket a piece of paper, and in the light gleaming from the cabin windows he glanced at it curiously. It was a receipt for one Airedale puppy; price, one hundred and fifty dollars.
He smiled, shrugged his powerful shoulders and tearing the paper into bits let it drop in the inlet. Then he turned his trousers’ pockets outward and laughed ruefully.
“Broke,” he said half aloud. “Sure and ’tis aisy come, aisy go. And now for to be gettin’ some more dough. The kid’ll be needin’ it so——” He shrugged as if getting money was the least of his troubles.