CHAPTER XIIITHEPEQUOT QUEEN
The first pull on the rope resulted only in sawing through the turf and earth at the edge of the cliff until the rock was reached. The next tug brought a few inches more at the cost of terrific effort, for the rope must pass at almost right angles over the raw edge of the rock. Laurie, his hands clasping the rope above his head to lessen the strain across his chest, was showered with earth. Another heave, and Ned and Bob went back a scant foot, Polly, her weight on the rope, tightening the slack around the tree. Once more the two boys dug their heels into the ground and strained. This time there was no result. They tried again. It was as though they were pulling at the cliff itself. The rope tautened under their efforts but yielded not an inch.
“Must be ... caught!” gasped Bob.
Ned, weak from that hurried climb up the hill, nodded, and closed his eyes dizzily. The moment’ssilence was broken by a hail from Laurie.
“No good, you fellows! The rope’s worked into a crevice of the rock and is jammed there. I’ll have to climb it myself. Make your end fast around something and stand by to give me a hand—if I make it!”
Bob silently questioned Ned, and the latter nodded again. “Let him try,” he said huskily. “If he can’t—”
“Oh, wait, wait!” cried Polly. “We’re—we’re perfect idiots! He doesn’t have to do that, Ned! He can walk along that ledge, and we can hold the rope—”
“But it isn’t long enough,” Bob expostulated.
“Not down,” said Polly impatiently; “up!”
“Up? By Jove, that’s so! See what she means, Ned? Here, let’s get this tied to the tree!” A moment later Bob was at the edge, his eager gaze following the narrow ledge as it ascended at Laurie’s right. Scarcely twenty feet beyond, it ended at a perpendicular fissure hardly four feet below the top. Gleefully he made known the discovery to Laurie, and the latter, stretched like a trussed fowl against the rock, his toes still just touching the shelf, grunted.
“Never thought of that,” he said disgustedly. He stretched his head back until he could see the shelf. Then, “It’s a cinch,” he affirmed. “You’ll have to get the rope free first, though, and ease up on it until I can get my feet back on the ledge. Can you do it?”
“Have to,” answered the other cheerfully. Cautiously he and Ned untied the rope from about the tree, gave it some three inches of slack, retied it, and set to work at the edge of the cliff. Or, rather, Bob worked, for Ned’s hands trembled so that he couldn’t. The rope was fast in a jagged-edged notch of the rock, and Bob’s only implement, his pocket-knife, was somewhat inadequate. But he made it do. Using the handle like a tiny hammer, he chipped and chipped until finally the rope began to slip downward and Laurie’s weight rested again on the ledge. The end about the tree was unfastened; the rope was lifted from the channel it had dug through the overlying soil and carried a yard to the left. Then, with Ned and Bob and Polly holding it, their heels dug firmly into the sod, Laurie began his journey.
It was slow work at first, for his nerves andmuscles responded ill to the demands of his brain, and delays came when those above cautiously moved their position, taking new holds on the slowly shortening rope. Had Laurie been fresh for the task he would have swarmed up there in no time at all. As it was, it took a good ten minutes to reach the end of his journey; and, even so, he did not proceed to the limit of his narrow foot-path but, once his hands could reach the edge, squirmed his way over, Bob and Ned pulling and tugging.
Once there, he flopped over on his back in the tangle of brush and stretched legs and arms relievedly. In the little silence that ensued Bob removed the rope from Laurie and coiled it with unnecessary exactitude. Then Laurie took a long, deep breath, sat up, and said “Thanks!”
That relaxed the general tension. Bob laughed queerly, Ned grinned in a twisted way, and Polly dabbed at her eyes with a diminutive handkerchief.
“Welcome,” said Bob dryly. Then all four began to laugh and talk at the same time. After a moment of that Bob laid a hand on Laurie’s collar. “Let’s get out of this,” he said. Lauriegot to his feet somewhat shakily, and they fought their way back to the little clearing. “Now,” said Bob, “we’ll just sit down and look at that view we came up here to see and get rested for a quarter of an hour. I don’t know how Laurie feels, but I’m all in!”
“I’ll bet you are,” responded Laurie. “Guess I had the easiest part of it.”
“You look it,” answered Bob sarcastically. Laurie’s face was brown with dirt, his knuckles were bleeding, there was a cut on his chin, and his clothes were torn until they looked fit only for the ragman. Ned, who had been scowling blackly for the last minute or two, broke into sudden speech.
“Of all the crazy lunatics, Laurie,” he began fiercely.
“Oh,please, Ned!” cried Polly. “He didn’t mean to do it!”
“Let him say it,” said Laurie humbly. “I deserve it, and it’ll do him good.”
But Ned’s eloquence had fled him. He said “Humph!” and turned his head away and stared hard at the wide expanse of scenery spread before him. The others pretended not to know thatthere were tears in his eyes, and Bob said hastily: “Well, all’s swell that ends swell! How did it happen, anyway, Nod?”
“Oh, I was—was thinking about something and didn’t realize I was so close to the edge, I guess. Then Ned called to me and I turned around quick and one foot began to go. I tried to catch hold of that tree there and missed it. Next thing I knew I was sliding down the rock. I guess that trying to catch hold of the tree saved me, because it threw me forward and, instead of falling outward, I went sliding down with my face scraping against the rock. Somehow, just by luck, I got hold of a root for a second. It broke off, but it helped, I guess, for I stopped with my feet on that ledge and my right hand holding on to something above me. I suppose I made sort of a fuss about it down there,” he concluded apologetically, “but you don’t know how quivery your nerves get, Bob. Seemed like my legs wanted to dance all the time!”
“Son, you certainly had a narrow squeak of it,” said Bob solemnly. “Gee, when I saw you go over—”
“Oh, it was perfectly horrible,” shudderedPolly. “And then afterward, while Ned was gone—”
“There’s a busted window down there that some one’s got to settle for,” growled Ned.
“Believe me, old scout,” replied Laurie feelingly, “I’m willing to settle for a hundred busted windows! Of course, I don’t mean that it wouldn’t have been a heap more considerate of you to have slipped the catch with your knife and saved me the expense.”
Ned faced them again then, glaring at his brother. “You poor fish!” he said contemptuously.
“That’s me,” agreed Laurie smilingly. “Pulled up with a line!”
Polly and Bob laughed, the former a trifle hysterically. Then Ned’s mouth twitched itself into a grin. “Laurie, you’re an awful fool,” he said affectionately.
“Guess you’re right, Neddie.” He climbed to his feet, stamped them experimentally, seemed to approve of the result, and added, “Well, unless some one else is going to fall over, say we go home.”
“I’m ready,” agreed Bob. “How about the rope? Oughtn’t we—”
“In payment for my share in the recent—er—episode,” said Laurie, “I’ll look after it. Where’d you get it, Ned?”
“Why don’t we all go?” asked Polly. “It isn’tmuchfarther that way.”
“Right-o,” agreed Bob. “Besides, who knows what Laurie would do next if we let him go alone?”
So they set off down the hill again, every one by now extremely merry and light-hearted in the reaction. They dropped the rope through the window in the shed adjoining the office of the quarry company and retraced their steps to the village and up Walnut Street and so, finally, just as dusk began to settle down, reached the little shop. There it was Polly who voiced the thought that had been in the minds of the rest for some time.
“Perhaps,” said Polly, “it would be better if we didn’t say anything about what happened.”
“Polly,” declared Laurie relievedly—and slangily, “you spoke a mouthful!”
“Yes,” agreed Ned. “No use worrying folks about a thing when it’s all over.”
“Of course not,” chimed in Bob. “Guess it won’t happen again, anyway.”
“Not with me in the rôle of happenee,” said Laurie with conviction.
“If it ever does,” said Ned, “you’ll hang over the cliff until you dry up and blow away for all of me, you poor simp!”
But when they had said good night to Bob Ned’s tune was different. “Old-timer,” he said after a silence, “you sure had me scared.”
“I know,” said Laurie soberly. “Sorry, Ned.”
“Uh-huh. ’S all right.” Ned slipped his arm in Laurie’s. “Wish you’d cut out that sort of thing, though. Always gives me heart-failure. It’s risky business, anyway.”
“Right,” agreed Laurie. After a minute, as they passed through the gate, he added, “No more I’ll risk my neck on dizzy height.”
“Well said, for if you do you’ve me to fight!”
That evening the twins were content to lounge in easy-chairs in the recreation-room and read, refusing challenges to ping-pong, chess, and various other engagements requiring exertion ofmind or body. They went early to bed and, although Laurie roused once to hear Ned in the throes of nightmare and had to quiet him before returning to his own dreamless slumber, awoke in the morning their normal selves again.
After breakfast that morning Laurie announced to Ned that he was going to walk down and explain the broken window, and settle for it if settlement was demanded. Ned said, “All right, come along.” But Laurie persuaded the other that his presence during the conference with the quarry company officials was not only unnecessary but inadvisable. “You see,” he elaborated, “it’s going to require tact, old son, and Tact, as you know, is my middle name. Now, if I took you along you’d be sure to say something to queer the whole show and I’d have to fork over a dollar, maybe. No, better leave this to me, Ned.”
“Must say you fancy yourself a bit this morning,” scoffed Ned. “All right, though. Come over to Bob’s when you get back. I told him I’d go around there and look at the court.”
Laurie saved his dollar by narrating a moving tale of his fall from the cliff to the occupantsof the small office down by the river. One weazened little man who held a pen in his mouth and talked through it or around it—Laurie couldn’t decide which—reminded the visitor that if he had not trespassed on quarry company property he wouldn’t have got in trouble. But it was plain that this view was not popular with the other members of the force present, and Laurie was permitted to depart with his last week’s allowance intact.
From the office he made his way across toward the stone-walled dock where lay thePequot Queen. Once he paused, turned, and sent his gaze to the great mass of rock that arose precipitately from beyond the littered floor of the quarry. He couldn’t see the tiny ledge that had saved his life yesterday, but there, looking very small from down here, was the leaning tree, and he measured the distance to the rock-strewn ground beneath and shuddered. He was still gazing when there was a dull concussion and a cloud of gray dust, and a great pile of rock slid down the face. The little locomotive tooted and came rocking toward the railway, dragging a flat-car loaded with two great squares of rock. On the fartherside of the small dock a lighter was being loaded, a big boom swinging from cars to deck to the music of a puffing engine and the shrill piping of a whistle. Laurie continued his way to thePequot Queen.
A few years before the boat had been used in the ferry service between Orstead and Hamlin, across the river. Then the business failed to show a profit, the company was dissolved, and thePequot Queenwas pushed into the quarry company’s dock—without permission, if rumor was to be credited—and left to rot. She was about fifty feet long and very broad of beam. The stern was occupied by a cabin with many windows, a few of which were still unbroken. Amidships, if one may apply the term to a launch, was a small engine-room in which a rusted upright engine still stood amid a litter of coal-dust. A door led to a smaller compartment, the wheel-house. Between that and the bow was a space for luggage and freight. ThePequot Queenhad not carried vehicles.
At one time the boat had doubtless shone resplendent in white paint and gold-leaf. Now there were few traces of either remaining. Thename was still legible on each side of the bow, however, in faded black. Through the roof a rusty smoke-stack pushed its way to lean perilously to starboard. Atop the cabin, reached by a narrow companion, benches inside a pipe-railing had afforded accommodation for passengers in fine weather. The boat was secured fore and aft with frayed hawsers, and her rail lay close to the wall. Laurie viewed her speculatively from stem to stern and then stepped aboard. Had there been any one about to observe him they might have thought that here was a possible purchaser, for he went over the boat completely and exhaustively, giving, however, most of his time to the cabin. In the end he went ashore and once more viewed the derelict in frowning speculation. There was no doubt that thePequot Queenhad outlived her use as a water-craft. She still floated and would probably continue to float for many years yet, but old age had claimed her, as rotting timbers and yawning seams showed. Yet Laurie, whether or not he was a prospective purchaser, turned away at last with an expression of thoughtful satisfaction on his countenance.
Back by the railroad, he stopped and viewedhis surroundings intently. On one side lay the bridge, with the Basin beyond and to the left, and the big quarry to his right. On the other side was the company office and shed, the dock and pier, the latter piled high with roughly-squared blocks of stone. Toward town the river’s margin was unoccupied for a space, and then came the coal-wharves and the lumber company’s frontage. It was a noisy and dust-laden spot in which thePequot Queenhad been left to pass her declining years, and Laurie shook his head slowly as though the realization of the fact displeased him. Finally he crossed the bridge again, hurrying a little in order not to compete for passage with a slow-moving freight from the north, and continued along the river-front until he had passed the station and the warehouses across the track and was again allowed a view of the stream unimpeded by buildings. Here there was no wall along the river, but now and then the remains of an ancient wooden bulkhead still stood between the dusty road and the lapping water. Here and there, too, a rotted hulk lay careened or showed naked ribs above the surface further out. Across the road hardly more thana lane now, a few dejected but respectable dwellings stood behind their tiny front yards. Behind them the hill sloped upward less abruptly than farther back and was thickly clustered with unpretentious houses wherein the industrious foreign-born citizens of Orstead lived. Compared to the vicinity of the quarry, however, this section of town was clean and quiet. There were trees here, and later on there would be grass along the unfrequented road and flowers in the little gardens. Westward lay the sunlit river and the wooded shore beyond. Laurie nodded approvingly more than once as he dawdled along, paying, as it appeared, special attention to the margin of the stream. Finally, more than an hour after he had left school, he retraced his steps as far as Ash Street and turned uphill.
Ash Street was two blocks north of Walnut and, having an easier grade to climb, was less devious in its journey. It brought Laurie at length to Summit Street a short block from the little white house from which Miss Comfort had lately removed. As he passed it Laurie observed that so far no vandal hand had been laid on it. The brown shutters were closed at the down-stairswindows, and the buds on the lilac-bushes were swelling fast. Somehow these two facts, apparently unrelated, combined to bring a little pang of sadness to the observer. He went on, with only a glance down Pine Street to the blue shop, and entered the side gate of the Coventry place.