XXIV
DURING all this time, Chief Borden had been at the coaming of the open hatchway, watching the “Jiggers” from the main deck; and, when the electric lights had been turned on in the hold, he had been able to enjoy “Shine’s” combat with the wild animals, from a gallery seat. At first he had been merely an indifferent spectator, much preoccupied with affairs of state in the department; but when he saw the lion driven back among the cages like a doused cat, the shouts of laughter from the men around him set him smiling under his grey mustache. These men, under Keighley, were loweringthe big line down into the hold to attack the fire; and they amused themselves by shouting encouragement to “Shine” as if they were following a bull fight. The situation was the funnier because “Shine” was unable to hear them—on account of the uproar around him—and unable to see them because he was in the light and they in darkness; and he whooped and danced about with his nozzle, unconscious that he was playing the clown for their amusement. “Give it to ’em,” they called. “Kick ’em in the slats. Ho-ho! This ’s more fun ’an a circus!”
The chief—naturally a jovial man, with a bluff military manner—enjoyed it as much as anybody. But when the bear appeared, they all saw danger in the joke. “Here,” the chief cried.“He’ll never hold that brute. Get a bigger line down to him. There comes another. They’ll eat him up.”
Keighley and his men ran back to bring up a three-inch line, and the chief remained laughing at the duel between “Shine” and the bears. He shouted, “Back out, you fool!”
Moore and the fireman with him, who were just below where the chief stood, heard the order and obeyed it. By so doing they left “Shine” unprotected from an attack in the rear. When the third bear appeared, the excitement became frantic; and the whole company, from the chief down, pulled on the incoming hose and shouted and laughed together.
The chief, at the nozzle, was the first to see the lion creeping around the hatch. “Stop him!” he cried, to nobodyin particular. “Damn it all! Behind you, man,” he yelled to “Shine.” “Look behind you!”
“Shine” could not hear him. The chief took off his cap and threw it down at the animal, vainly. He dropped on his hands and knees beside the hatch, clutching the nozzle of the three-inch line, bellowing hoarsely for water, half-choked with laughter. When “Shine” caught sight of the lion and turned from the bears to drive it back, the chief saw the bears closing in, and he hammered on the iron coaming of the hatch with the nozzle, in an inarticulate excitement. And then he got water just as “Shine” dropped his pipe and ran; and he struggled with his kicking nozzle, the tears of laughter running down his cheeks, unable to see the bears whom he was trying to take in the flank with hisstream so as to hold them until “Shine” could make good his retreat.
Keighley had been working his men like an old slave-driver, glancing back at the chief, every now and then, with a sly, dry smile. Now he caught Borden’s pipe and steadied it. “All right, chief,” he said. “He’s out. Here he comes.”
“Shine” climbed, panting, up the ladder. “Hold those brutes off us now,” Keighley ordered. “We got to get down to that fire. Here ‘Shine’! You an’ Cripps take this pipe an’ keep those cats away from the hatch.”
“Shine” came to the chief’s pipe, grinning at the remarks of the men.
“You’re as good as a circus,” Borden said, wiping his eyes.
“They scared the tripe out o’ me.”
Keighley turned to his pipe. “I’m responsible for this boat”
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The chief gave place to him. Keighley ordered: “Down yuh go, now.”
Cripps and “Shine,” at one angle of the hatch, and Moore and his pipeman, diagonally opposite, commanded the deck below with two solid streams that drove the animals into shelter among the cages, while Keighley and his squad, with axes and ladder straps, went down to fasten their six-inch line and cut an opening for the pipe in the hatch. The smoke blew up in a thick belch as the men stripped off the tarpaulin. “That’ll keep Mr. Bear busy,” the chief said.
“Mr. Doherty, too,” “Shine” volunteered.
The chief looked at him. “Who’s this Doherty anyway?”
“Shine” kept his eyes on the pipe.“He’s the mut that got us all in trouble the time o’ the fire on that other Dutch boat.”
“I thought the ‘Jiggers’ were at the bottom of that,” the chief said, with a pretended innocence.
“They blamed it on us. They blamed ev’rythin’ on us—because some o’ the fat heads higher up used th’ association in their damn con games.”
The chief scowled at this reference to the conspiracy that had ousted him. “You’re a ‘Jigger,’ are you?”
“That’s what I am,” “Shine” admitted, with bravado. “I’m a ‘Jigger’ all right, but I ain’t a back-sticker, any more’n half the other fullahs I know—an’ they didn’t ask us before they put up their deal with the Commissioner, if yuh want to know.”
The chief’s dignity would not let himdiscuss such matters with a man in the ranks. He said, “Shut off your nozzles there, now. You’re putting too much water on that deck”—and walked away without further remark.
“Shine” said, under his voice, to Cripps: “That’ll holdhimfer a while.”
Cripps replied, with a convincing oath, “It’s true, too.”
A hole had been cut in the hatch below, and a denser smoke rose from it. There was nothing to do now but wait for the six-inch line to drown out the smolder; and Cripps and “Shine” waited, standing with their pipe.
“Watch that ladder,” “Shine” whispered. “Doherty’ll be tryin’ to make his sneak while its thick up here.”
A moment later, he yelled suddenly: “Yah!” And dropping his pipe, heran to fling himself on Doherty as the ex-fireman leaped out of the smoke. They rolled together on the deck.
“Hold that man,” the chief ordered, as the crew tore the fighting “Shine” from his enemy. They lifted Doherty to his feet and backed him against the winch. “The police’ll want him for interfering with firemen in the discharge of their duties.” He turned to the four “Jiggers.” “I want you men to appear in court against him, understand?... That’ll doyou,” he said to “Shine.” “Go back to your place.”
“Shine” went back to his place, licking his lips, with a venomous grin.
The rest of the fire was merely an affair of “standing fast” while the six-inch line flooded the hold; and in halfan hour “the job” was done. The German first officer and his men took charge of Doherty and agreed to turn him over to the police as soon as their boat tied up to the pier; and to them was left the work, too, of returning the wild animals to their cages. The firemen were free to pick up their lines and return to theHudson, chaffing “Shine.”
“That’s all right,” he swaggered. “I’m a li’n-tamer, all right, all right.”
“Yuh’re not much on polar bears,” they told him.
He retorted delicately, “Yuh can’t train a brute that’s got no sense. Polar bears are like youse guys. They’re holler in the cocoa.”
“It wasyouthat did the hollerin’.”
“I was callin’ you fullahs on. I seen yuh was a-scared to come.”
“The hell yuh say! Conlin in the lion’s den. Y’ought to set up a show down on Coney.”
“Shine” winced at that thrust. “Never mind,” he said, with a curse. “I done fer Doherty!”
Cripps drew him aside. “Are yuh goin’ t’ appear against Doherty?”
“Well,amI!” he cried. “Watch me! I wish t’ell it was a murder case, that’s all! An’ if you an’ Moore won’t stan’ by me, yuh can go—”
“That’s all right,” Cripps put in hastily. “We’ll stan’ by yuh, ‘Shine’.”
“Yuhbetter!” “Shine” said.
The other men kept discreetly silent, and the boat turned back for the run down the river.