Will marched ahead carrying the torch.
Will marched ahead carrying the torch.
CHAPTER V.
IN their eagerness they forgot to look around before entering the cave. They forgot to look at the tide, which had already turned and was creeping swiftly over the treacherous levels. They forgot everything except that they were in the cave where once undoubtedly had been Acadian treasures, and where, as each dreamed in his heart and denied on his lips, some remnant of such treasures might yet lie hidden.
Will marched ahead carrying the torch and peering with eager enthusiasm into every crevice. The cave was full of crevices, but they were shallow and contained nothing of interest but some fair crystals of selenite, which gleamed like diamonds in the torchlight. A few of these Reube broke off and pocketed as specimens. The cave widened slowly as it ascended, and the slope of its floor kept it well drained in spite of the water ceaselessly dripping from roof and walls. Its shape was roughly triangular, and our explorers sometimes bumped their heads smartly in their haste.
Presently they reached a point where a narrow gallery ran off from the main passage. Which to take was the problem.
“It seems to me,” said Reube, “that if there was any of the old Acadians’ stuff here it would be most likely to be hidden in the smaller passage.”
“Acadians’ stuff!” sniffed Will, sarcastically. “A lot of that we’ll find!”
But, none the less, he acted on Reube’s suggestion, and led the way up the side gallery. After running some twenty-five feet the gallery turned a corner and ended in a smooth, sloping face of rock. There was no sign of crevice or hiding place here. Across the sloping face of the rock there ran a ledge about a foot wide some five or six feet above the floor, and the roof of the gallery at this point ascended steeply to a narrow and longish peak.
“No risk of bumping our heads here,” said Will, as he flung the torchlight along the ledge and showed its emptiness.
“Better hurry back and try if we can’t finish the main cave before the light goes out,” said Reube, pointing to the pine sliver, already more than half consumed. Shielding the flame with his hand to make it burn more slowly, Will led the way with quick steps back to the larger gallery. This now became more interesting. Its walls were strewn with most suggestive-looking pockets, so to speak, full of silt and oozydebris, into which Will and Reube plunged their hands hastily, expecting to find a coin or a silver candlestick in every one. So fascinated were they by this task that they paid no heed to the torch till it burned down and scorched Will’s fingers. He gave a startled cry, but had presence of mind enough not to drop it. To make it last a little longer he stuck it on the point of his knife and then exclaimed, in a tone of disappointment:
“Reube, we must get out of this while the light lasts—and that’ll have to be pretty quick!”
“Rather!” assented Reube. “Hark!”
The word was barely out of his mouth before the two lads were running for the cave mouth, their heads bent low, their hearts beating wildly. The sound which they had caught was a hollow wash of waves. In a few seconds the torch went out, but there was a pale, glimmering light before them, enough to guide their feet. This puzzled them by its peculiar tone, but in half a minute more they understood. It came filtering through the tawny tide which they found seething into the cave’s mouth and filling it to the very top. Will gave a gasp of horror, and Reube leaned in silent despair against the wall of the passage.
“The tide will fill this cave to the very top, I believe,” said he.
“Yes,” answered Will, in a voice of fixed resolve; “there’s nothing for it but to try a long dive right out through the mouth and into the rocks. We may get through, and it’s our only chance!”
“Go on, then, Will. Hurry, before it’s too late! And—have an eye to mother, won’t you?” Here a sob came into Reube’s voice. “You know I’m a poor swimmer and no diver. Good-bye!” and he held out his hand.
But Will was coolly putting on his coat again.
“I forgot that,” said he, simply. “Well, we’ll find some other way, dear old man. Bring along your matches;” and he turned back toward the depths of the cave.
For answer Reube merely gripped his arm with a strong pressure and stepped ahead with a lighted match. He could not urge Will to carry out the plan just proposed because in his heart, for all his confidence in Will’s powers as a swimmer, he could not believe it feasible. He saw, in imagination, his comrade’s battered body washing helplessly among the weedy and foaming rocks; while in the cave, for all the horror of it, there would certainly be some hours of respite—and who could say what they might not devise in all that time? He had a marvelous faith in Will’s resources.
In grim silence, and husbanding every match with jealous care, they explored the main cave to its end. Its end was a horrid, round, wet hole, a few feet deep, and not large enough to admit them side by side. They looked each other fairly in the eyes for the first time since that one glance when they had learned that they were entrapped. Reube’s eyes were stern, enduring—the eyes of one who had known life long. The boy had all gone out of them. Will’s eyes looked simply quiet and kind, but his mouth was set and his lips were white.
“This is just a rat hole, Reube,” said he. “We won’t stay here anyway. Seems to me it would be better to have room to stand up and meet it like a man.”
“Yes,” replied Reube, his voice choking with a sort of exaltation at his comrade’s courage; “we’ll go back to the little gallery with the high roof. We’ll get up on that ledge and we’ll fight it out with the water to the last gasp, eh? It’s pretty tough—especially for mother!”
“Well,” said Will, with a queer, low tone of cheerfulness which seemed to his friend to mean more than cries and tears, “when I think of mother and Ted it sort of comes over me that I’d like to say my prayers—eh?” and for a minute or two, standing shoulder to shoulder, he and Reube leaned their faces silently against the oozy rock in the darkness. Then, lighting another match, they made all haste possible back to the side gallery, ascended it, and climbed upon the ledge. Hardly had they got there when they heard the tide whispering stealthily about the entrance of the passage. They felt that it was marking them down in their new retreat.
When the next match blazed up—for they could not long stand the darkness with that creeping whisper in their ears—Will gazed steadily at the peak of the roof above his head. The match went out.
“Another!” he cried, in a voice that trembled with hope.
“What is it?” asked Reube, eagerly.
“Roots!” shouted Will, leaping to his feet. “Tree roots coming through the roof up there! We must be near the surface, and there is evidently a fissure in the rock filled up with earth. We’ll dig our way out with our knives and our fingers yet!”
“But there are no trees on the Point,” urged Reube, doubtfully.
“Thunder, Reube! but can’t there be old roots in the soil?” cried Will, impatiently. “Dig, man, dig!” And he began clawing fiercely at the earth above his head. Reube aided him with fervent energy, and the earth, though hard and clayey, came down about them in a shower. Presently they could reach no farther up.
“We must cut footholds in this rock,” said Will.
The rock was plaster, but hard, and this took time. When it was accomplished they again burrowed rapidly toward the surface and air and light. They were working in the dark now, because with the rise of tide in the cave the air was growing close and suffocating. Three times they had to cut new footholds in the rock. They toiled in silence, hearing only each other’s labored breath and the falling of earth into the water beneath them. The tide was now crawling over the ledge where they had first taken refuge. There it stopped; but this they did not heed. The fear of suffocation was now upon them, blotting out the fear of drowning. Their eyes and ears and nostrils were full of earth. They worked with but a blind half-knowledge of what they were doing. All at once there came a gleam of light, and Reube’s hand went through the turf. He clawed at the sod desperately, and a mass of it came down about their heads. It troubled them not. There was the clear, blue sky above them. A sweet wind caressed their faces. They dragged themselves forth and lay at full length on the turf with shut eyes and swelling hearts.
CHAPTER VI.
IT was some minutes before either spoke. All they knew was that they were once more in the air and light. Then, with a start, Reube sat up and looked about him. He looked, of course, for theDido. To his inexpressible relief the cherished craft was there in plain sight, riding safely at her anchor, some fifty yards from shore. And there, farther out, rode the pinkie. Reube blessed his comrade’s foresight.
“Will, where would the boats be now?” said he, “if you hadn’t insisted on anchoring them?”
Will sat up and surveyed the situation, thoughtfully clearing the mud from his eyes with little bunches of grass.
“It was just as well we anchored them,” he assented. “And now that I’ve got my wind, I think I had better swim out to theDidoand bring her in for you. I feel as if I wanted a bath anyway; don’t you?”
“I’ll be with you in half a minute,” said Reube. “But first I want to explore the cave a little more. It seems to me we came away in something of a hurry!”
He let himself cautiously down in the hole, feet first.
Will stopped his undressing and stared at him in amazement.
“Are you crazy?” he cried. “Do come out of that beastly hole! The idea of it makes me quite ill!”
“O, I’m not going far,” said Reube, “and I won’t be gone long, either. Don’t be alarmed.”
As his head disappeared Will ran to the hole and looked down, anxiously and curiously. He saw Reube groping in a crevice filled with soft earth, about three feet below the surface.
“What in the world are you after, Reube?” he inquired.
“That!” replied Reube the next instant, holding aloft triumphantly a small blue jar of earthenware. “Take it, and give me a lift out of this!”
Will deposited the old jar reverentially on the turf, and turned to help Reube up. He half expected that the jar would vanish while his back was toward it; but no, there it was, plain and palpable enough. It had a cover set into the rim, and sealed around the edges with melted rosin; and it was heavy.
Thrilling with suppressed excitement, Reube and Will sat down with the jar between them, and Reube proceeded to chip away the rosin with his knife. Will gazed at the operation intently.
“Probably some good old Evangeline’s pet jar of apple sauce!” said he.
Reube ignored this levity, and chipped away with irritating deliberation. At last off came the cover. As it did so there was a most thrilling jingling within, and the boys leaned forward with such eagerness that their heads bumped violently together. They saw stars, but heeded them not, for in the mouth of the jar they saw the yellow glint of a number of gold coins.
“Well, dreams do sometimes come true!” remarked Will. And Reube, spreading out Will’s coat, which lay close at hand, emptied upon it the whole contents of the jar.
It was coin—all coin! There were a few golden Louis, a number of Spanish pieces, with silver crowns andlivres Tourtnois, amounting, according to such hasty estimate as the boys could make, to some five or six hundred dollars.
It was coin—all coin!
It was coin—all coin!
“That’ll be three hundred dollars apiece,” said Reube, with eyes sparkling; “and I’ll be able to take mother to Boston and go to college too!”
“Three hundred dollars apiece!” said Will. “Indeed, I don’t see what I had to do with it. You found it. You had nerve enough to take notice of it when you were more than three quarters dead. And you went back and got it. I’ve no earthly claim upon it, old man.”
Reube set his jaw obstinately.
“Will,” said he, “we were exploring the cave in partnership. If you had found the stuff, I’d have expected my share. Now, you’ve got to go shares with me in this, or I give you my word our friendship ends!”
“O, don’t get on your dignity that way, Reube,” said Will. “If I must, why, I suppose I must! And if I can’t take a present from you, I don’t see whom I could take one from. But I won’t take half, because I didn’t do half toward getting it, and because you need it enough sight more than I do. A couple of years ago I’d have spoken differently. But I’ll divide with you, and as to the proportions, we’ll settle that on the way home. Now I’m off for theDido!” And having thrown off his clothes as he talked, he ran down the bank and plunged into the sea.
“I’ll let you off with one third,” shouted Reube after him, as he sat on the bank and watched. “Not one penny less!”
“All right,” spluttered Will, breasting a white-crested, yellow wave. In a few minutes he was on board theDido. Pulling up the anchor and hoisting the sail, he brought her in beside a jutting plaster rock which formed a natural quay. Then he resumed his clothes, while Reube took his place at the helm.
The wind being still down the bay and the tide on the turn, they decided not to attempt the all-night task of beating up against it. It took them, indeed, two tacks to reach the pinkie. Will went aboard the latter craft, leaving Reube in his darlingDido. The two boats tacked patiently back and forth, in and out of the wide cove, till they gained the shelter of a little creek under the lea of Wood Point. Here they were secured with anxious care. Then Will and Reube started for home by the road, pricked on to haste by the thought of how their mothers would be worrying, by the sharp demands of their empty stomachs, and by the elating clink of the coins that filled their pockets. When they reached Mrs. Dare’s cottage Reube rushed in to relieve his mother’s fears, for she had indeed begun to be anxious. Will hurried on toward Frosty Hollow, munching a piece of Mrs. Dare’s gingerbread by the way.
As he trudged forward cheerfully, he was overtaken by an express wagon bound for “the Corners.” The driver offered him a “lift,” as the phrase goes about Tantramar. It was none other than Jerry Barnes, the master of the red bull, and the owner of the pinkie which Will and Reube had so boldly appropriated. Will told him the whole story, omitting only the discovery of the jar of coin. He and Reube had agreed to keep their counsel on this point, lest some should envy their good luck and others doubt their story.
“I hope,” said Will, “you are not put out at our taking the pinkie?”
“I hope,” grinned Barnes, “you’re not put out at old Ramses for bein’ so oncivil in the pastur’! But as for the pinkie, of course you did quite right. Only I’ll want you chaps to get her back to the creek by to-morrow mornin’s tide, as I’m goin’ to drift for shad to-morrow night!”
“Of course,” said Will; “we’ll go after her the first thing in the morning. That’s just what we planned on.”
“That there’s a smart boat Reube Dare’s built. And he’s a right smart lad, is Reube,” remarked Jerry Barnes.
“There’s where your head’s level,” agreed Will, warmly.
“And do you know when he’s goin’ to drift?” asked Barnes.
“He won’t be quite ready for to-morrow night,” said Will. “But we count on getting out the night following.”
“Well, now, a word in your ear!” went on Barnes, leaning over confidentially. “I’ve no manner of doubt Mart Gandy cut theDidoloose. And now Reube had better keep his eye on his nets after the boats get away to-morrow night. I shouldn’t wonder a mite if Gandy’d try slashing ’em, so as to give Reube an unpleasant surprise when he starts out for theDido’sfirst fishing.”
“I say,” said Will, “I never thought of that! We’ll ‘lay’ for him, so to speak, and give him a lesson if he tries it on.”
“A nod’s as good as a wink,” remarked Jerry Barnes, mysteriously, as he set Will down at Mrs. Carter’s door.
Mrs. Carter had not been at all anxious. Ever since Will’s reclamation of the new marsh she had had an implicit faith in his ability and judgment. She had imagined that he was spending the day with Reube. She rather lost her dignified self-control over Will’s story of the adventure in the cave, and she was filled with girlish excitement over the finding of the old blue jar.
“Of course, dearest boy,” said Mrs. Carter, “you did quite right to want Reuben to take all the treasure, since he alone found it. But where would he have been but for you? Reuben is a fine boy, if his grandfather didn’t amount to much. He takes after his mother’s family the most. I’m glad he made you take a share of these lovely old coins.”
“We’ll be able to have some sort of a jolly lark on the strength of it when Ted comes home,” said Will.
“We might take a run to Boston!” suggested his mother. “I want you boys to see the city; I want to see it myself. And I might—Mrs. Dare, you know, might want a friend near her if the operation proves at all serious, which I hope it won’t.”
“You dear, that’s just like your thoughtfulness!” cried Will, jumping up and kissing her. And so it was agreed upon, subject, in a measure, to Ted’s assent.
CHAPTER VII.
DURING the next forenoon theDidoand the pinkie were sailed up to their old berths in the creek. That night all the boats went out except theDido, fading like ghosts into the misty, half-moonlit dusk. Reube was very indignant at the thought that Gandy might attack his shad net, and vowed, if he caught him at it, to clap him in jail. Mrs. Dare had made the boys take a pair of heavy blankets with them, and, stretched on these, they lay along the seat in theDido’sstern, just under the shelter of the gunwale. The reel, with its dark burden of net, rose a few feet away, and stood out black but vague against the paler sky. Close at hand lay the wharf, like a crouching antediluvian monster, with its fore paws plunged into the tide.
From where they lay our watchers commanded a view of the surrounding levels by merely lifting their heads. In low but eager tones they discussed the Boston trip planned for the coming autumn, and Reube squeezed his comrade’s hand gratefully when he heard what company he and his mother would have.
“I can never tell your mother my gratitude,” said he. “With her there my anxiety will be more than half gone.”
“I’m so glad muzz thought of it!” said Will. “I’m sure it would never have entered my heedless head. And yet it is just the thing for us to do.”
Another subject of their excited colloquy was the disposal of those old coins. If deposited at the Barchester Bank they would certainly arouse comment and set all sorts of romantic stories going. But presently Will thought of his friend Mr. Hand, to whom all things in the way of financial management seemed possible. It was decided that on the very next day Will should take the whole store to him and get him to send it away for conversion into modern currency.
“And he’ll be able to see that we don’t get cheated,” added Will. “I fancy some of those coins will be wanted by collectors, and so be worth a lot more than their face value.”
“I tell you, Will,” exclaimed Reube, “I can’t even yet quite get over my astonishment at the way you swear by old Hand; or, perhaps I should rather say, at the way the old fellow seems to be developing qualities of which he was never suspected until you begun to thaw him out.”
“Indeed,” said Will, warmly, “Mr. Hand is fine stuff. He was like a piece of gold hidden in a mass of very refractory ore. But Toddles melted him down all right.”
In a short time conversation flagged, and then, listening to the lip-lip-lipping of the softly falling tide and the mellow far-off roar of the waters pouring through anaboideau, both the watchers grew drowsy. At last Will was asleep. Even Reube’s brain was getting entangled with confused and fleeting visions when he was brought sharply to himself by the queer sucking sound of footsteps in the mud.
He raised his head and peered over the gunwale. There was Mart Gandy within ten paces of the net reel. He had come by way of the dike. In his hand gleamed the polished curve of the sickle with which he was accustomed to reap his buckwheat, and Reube’s blood boiled at the thought of that long, keen blade working havoc in the meshes of his cherished nets. Gandy marched straight up to the reel, raised the sickle, and slashed viciously at the mass of woven twine.
Ere he could repeat the stroke a yell of wrath rang in his ear and Reube was upon him, hurling him to the ground. His deadly weapon flew from his grasp, and he was too startled to make much resistance. The weight of Reube’s knee on his chest, the clutch of Reube’s strong fingers at his throat, took all the fight out of him. He looked up with angry and frightened eyes and saw Will standing by, a meaning smile on his lips and a heavy tarred rope’s end in his hand.
Reube rubbed the culprit’s head rudely in the mud, and then relaxed the grip upon his gasping throat.
“I cannot pound the scoundrel now that I’ve got him down,” said he, turning his face toward Will. “What shall we do with him? You can’t lather a chap that doesn’t resist and that has his head down in the mud. It’s brutal!”
“We’ll tie his hands to the reel and give him a taste of this rope’s end,” suggested Will, judiciously.
“I don’t exactly like that either,” said Reube, rubbing his captive’s head again in the slime. “It’s too much like playing hangman. He deserves the cat-o’-nine-tails if ever a scoundrel did, but I don’t like the dirty work of applying it. We’d better just take him to jail. Then he’ll get a term in the penitentiary, and be out of the way for a few years. Fetch me that cod line out of the cuddy, will you?”
By this time Mart Gandy had found his voice. That word “penitentiary” had reduced him to an abject state of terror, and he began to plead piteously for mercy.
“Lick me! Lick me all you like!” he cried, in his queer, high voice. “I kin take a hidin’; but don’t send me to the penitentiary! What’d the old man do, as hain’t got his right senses no more? An’ the old woman’d jest plumb starve, for the gals they ain’t a mite o’ good to work. Le’ me off this time, Reube Dare, ’n’ I declare I won’t never do it ag’in!”
Mart’s imploring voice more than his words made Reube weaken in his purpose. As for Mart’s promise, he put no faith in that, and marked on Will’s face an unrelenting grin. Nevertheless he said:
“There’s something in what the rascal says, Will. If Mart goes to the penitentiary his family’s going to suffer more than he. I’ve a mind to let him off this time, after all.”
“Well,” grunted Will, “just as you say. But it would be nothing short of iniquitous to let him off altogether. You’d better give him a good ducking, to let him know you’re in earnest, anyway.”
Reube pondered this a moment.
“Mart Gandy,” he said, sternly, “I’m going to let you off this time with nothing more than a ducking, to fix the circumstance in your mind. But remember, if I find you again at any of your old pranks I’ll have a warrant out against you that very day! And I’ve got all the evidence needed to convict you. Now get up!” And he jerked the lanky and bedraggled form to its feet.
Mart, with the fear of prison walls no longer chilling his heart, had recovered himself during this harangue, and his eyes gleamed with a furtive, half-wild hate. Still he made no resistance. The sickle lay far beyond his reach, and he knew he was physically no match for either Reube or Will. He was led to the very edge of the steep, slippery incline of the channel, wherein the tide had dropped about fifteen feet. Will snatched a coil of rope out of the boat.
“Can you swim?” he asked, curtly.
“No,” said the fellow, eyeing him sidewise.
“He is lying,” remarked Reube, in a businesslike voice.
“Well,” said Will, “if he isn’t lying we’ll fish him out again, that’s all.”
Just as he was speaking, and while Gandy’s eyes were fixed upon his face with an evil light in them, Reube stepped forward and executed a certain dexterous trip of which he was master. Gandy’s heels flew out over the brink, his head went back, and, feet foremost, he shot like lightning down the slope and into the stream.
In a moment he came to the surface and began floundering and struggling like a drowning man.
“He’s putting that all on,” said Reube.
“Maybe not,” exclaimed Will. “Better throw him the end of the rope now.”
Reube smiled, gravely, but obeyed and a coil fell almost in Gandy’s arms. The struggling man seemed too bewildered to catch it. He grasped at it wildly, sank, rose, sank, and rose again. Will prepared to jump in and rescue him. But Reube interposed.
“No, you don’t,” said he, coolly; “not without one end of this rope round your waist and me hanging onto the other end!”
“Make haste, then,” cried Will, in some anxiety.
In a few seconds the rope was knotted firmly about Will’s waist, and he sprang into the water. Even as he did so the apparently drowning man disappeared. He came up again many feet away, and, swimming with wonderful speed, gained the opposite bank. He clambered nimbly up the slope and started at a run across the marsh. Reube, with derisive compliments, helped the dripping and disgusted Will to shore again.
“I saw his game,” said he, while Will wrung out his clothes. “He’s just like a fish in the water, and he thought he’d make believe he was drowning, and so manage to drag you down without getting blamed for it. But he knew the game was up when he heard what I said and saw you had the rope tied to you.”
“Right you are this time, old man,” said Will.
The sky had cleared perfectly, and in the radiant moonlight Reube’s skillful fingers quickly mended the net. The cut was not a deep one, as the blade had been stopped by two of the large wooden floats with which the net was beaded. The mending done and the net made ready for the next night’s fishing, the boys turned their faces toward the uplands to seek a few hours’ sleep at Mrs. Dare’s.
Meanwhile Mart Gandy had never ceased running till he got behind an old barn which hid him from the scene of his punishment. Then he turned and shook his long, dark finger in silent fury toward the spot where his antagonists were working. When he reached home he crept to a loft in the shed and drew out a long, heavy musket, once a flintlock, which he had altered to a percussion lock, so that it made an effective weapon for duck shooting. This gun he loaded with a heavy charge of powder and a liberal proportion of buckshot. He muttered over his task till it was done to his satisfaction, and then stole off to sleep in the barn.
CHAPTER VIII.
REUBE and Will did not go shad fishing the next night, after all. A fierce sou’wester blew up toward evening, and drifting for shad was out of the question. Every boat was made secure with extra care, and all night the fury of an unusually high tide put the Tantramar and Westcock dikes to the test. They stood the trial nobly, for well had their builders done their work.
The Dares’ wide-winged cottage, set in a hollow of the hill, was little jarred by the gusts that volleyed down upon it. Having seen theDidowell secured behind the little wharf, Reube felt altogether at ease.
“Are you quite sure,” asked Mrs. Dare that evening, “that Gandy won’t make another attack on the shad boat or the net?”
“O yes, mother,” answered Reube; “I’m no longer anxious on that score. Mart feels madder than ever, I’ve no doubt, and I think he’d have tried to drown Will last night if I had left him half a chance. But he is just mortally afraid of the penitentiary, and, now he knows we can prove a case against him, I imagine he’ll bottle his wrath for a while.”
“Well, dear, I hope you are right,” said his mother. “But I must say I think Mart Gandy is more dangerous than you give him credit for being. I want you to be very careful how you go about alone at night. I know that blood, and how it craves for vengeance. Be watchful, Reube, and don’t make the mistake of undervaluing your enemy.”
“No, mother, I won’t,” answered Reube. “I know that wise head of yours is generally in the right. If you think I ought to keep my weather eye open, why, open I will keep it, I promise you. And now it’s my turn! What were you doing out so late alone, when it was almost dark, with those poor eyes that can’t see much even in broad daylight?”
“I know it was imprudent, Reube, and I did have some trouble getting home,” confessed Mrs. Dare. “But, dear, I couldn’t help it. I heard quite late in the afternoon that Jim Paul was on a spree again, after keeping steady for a whole year. He has been drinking hard for a week—drunk all the time—and his wife sick in bed, and nothing to eat in the house. I went right down with a basket, and I was glad I went. The children were crying with hunger. And such a house! And Mrs. Paul lying on the floor, white as a ghost, where she had just fallen! She had got out of bed and tried to make some porridge for the children—there was nothing in the house but a little corn meal. Her husband was out, and she was trembling with fear lest he should return in a drunken frenzy and beat them all. Poor woman! And Jim Paul is a good husband and father when he is sober. You see, Reube, it took me a long while, blind as I’m getting, to find the children and straighten things up.”
“Well, mother, this autumn, if all goes well,” said Reube, cheerfully, “we’ll get the poor eyes fixed as good as new. And then you may stay out late sometimes without me scolding you.”
That night, when Reube and his mother were sleeping soundly, they were roused by a crash which the roaring of the wind could not drown. It seemed to shake the whole house. Reube sprang out of bed. As he dragged on his trousers his mother came to the door with a lamp in her hand.
“What is it, mother?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.
“Some one has broken in the outer door,” replied Mrs. Dare, calmly. “He is in the back kitchen now, but the inner door is bolted.”
Reube took the lamp from her hand and started down stairs.
“O, my boy, what are you doing? You have no weapon. O, if only we had—”
But Reube interrupted these words, which now had an all-unwonted tremor in them.
“Nothing else to be done, mother,” he said, quietly. “Don’t be scared! He won’t bother me, whoever he is!” And as his mother looked at him she felt strangely reassured. Or, perhaps it was something in his voice which satisfied her. She snatched up her big Paisley shawl, flung it over her nightgown, and followed Reube at a discreet distance.
Reube opened a door leading from the hall to the inner kitchen. At the same moment the door between the two kitchens was battered in with a loud crash, and there entered a terrifying apparition. It was Jim Paul, drunk, and with a wild glitter in his bloodshot eyes. His face and huge, burly form were stained with the blood of various fights, and he carried in his hand the ax with which he had broken down the doors.
Jim Paul’s appearance was well calculated to daunt an older heart than Reube’s, but Reube’s heart was of a dauntless fiber. A cold, steady light seemed to shine from his pale eyes as they met the fierce and feverish gaze of the intruder, who promptly stopped and glanced aside uneasily. Reube’s mouth and broad brow, usually so boyish, looked as grim as iron as he stepped up coolly to the drunken giant and asked him what he meant by breaking into the house.
Paul hesitated, beginning to quail before the stronger will that confronted him.
“Give me that ax!” said Reube, quietly.
Paul handed over the weapon with most prompt and deferential obedience, and began to stammer an inarticulate apology. Reube kept eyeing him without another word, and Paul grew anxious and worried under the gaze. At last he plunged his great hand deep down into his trousers pocket and drew forth a lot of silver and copper coins. These he pressed Reube to accept, presently breaking into maudlin protestations of esteem.
Reube turned away abruptly, having made up his mind what to do with his troublesome guest. He set the lamp on a shelf, and then took the money which Paul still held out.
“I’ll take care of it till you’re sober enough to put it to its proper use,” said he.
The big fellow was by this time on the verge of tears, and ejaculating a host of promises. He wouldn’t touch another drop, and he’d mend both the doors so they’d be just as good as new; and he’d never forget Reube’s goodness in not having him taken up for a burglar, and he’d go right home to his poor family.
“No you don’t, Jim!” interrupted Reube at this point. “You’ll stay right here where I put you for the rest of this night. And you’ll go home to your family in the morning if you’re sober enough, but not otherwise.”
At this Paul began to protest. But paying no more heed to his words than if he had been a naughty child, Reube led him to a small room opening off the kitchen. The window of this room was a tiny affair through which a man of Paul’s bulk could not manage to squeeze. Reube got a couple of heavy buffalo robes, spread them on the floor, and told Paul to lie down on them. Then, bidding him sleep soundly and feel better in the morning, Reube locked him in and went to bed. But he took the precaution to carry the ax up stairs with him. His mother said simply:
“You managed the poor fellow beautifully, my dear boy. I was glad you were not forced to be rough with him.”
Reube smiled inwardly at his mother’s magnificent faith in his powers, but all he said was:
“Good night, mother dear. He’s all right where he is now, and I’ll have a talk with him in the morning.”
In the morning Paul had fairly sobered up. He was genuinely ashamed of himself. After making him eat some breakfast Reube gave him back his money and sent him home. As he was leaving the house he turned to say something, but seeing Mrs. Dare within earshot he hesitated. Reube followed him to the gate. There he stopped and said:
“I know I was just crazy drunk las’ night, but I kinder reck’lect what happened. When we wuz all drinkin’ down to Simes’s, an’ I’d licked three or four of the fellers, Mart Gandy says, says he, ‘There’s a lad hereabouts as yer cain’t lick, Jim Paul, an’ him only a kid, too!’ In course I fires up, and says I, ‘Show him to me, an’ I’ll show yous all!’ Some more words passed, till I was that riled I was blind, an’ then Mart Gandy says, says he, ‘Yer cain’t lick Reube Dare!’ Off I started to once’t, an’ you know’s well’s I do that I’d never ’a’ lifted a finger agin this house ef I hadn’t bin jest blind crazy! But I’ll remember what I might ’a’ done ef you hadn’t jest bin able to make me mind; an’ ’fore God, I’ll try to keep straight. But you mark my words. Look out fer that ther Gandy! He’s up ter mischief, an’ he ain’t the one to stick at anything.”
“Thank you, Jim,” answered Reube, holding out his hand. “We’ll say no more about last night, but I’ll remember your warning, and I want you to remember the promise you’ve just made me!”
CHAPTER IX.
JIM PAUL’S warning made an impression on Reube’s mind. When Will Carter heard of it he exclaimed:
“That fits in with my own ideas exactly, Reube! There’s some alien streak in that Gandy’s blood that makes him more likely to knife you in the back than fight you to your face; and that being a kind of enemy you don’t understand, you’ve got to be all the more careful, old man.”
“Well,” said Reube, thoughtfully, “what is one to do about it anyway?”
“Why, look sharp for a chance to get the scoundrel locked up, even if his family does need him,” answered Will. “And, meanwhile, keep your eyes open after dark, and take no chances. Carry a good heavy stick, too.”
“All right!” laughed Reube. “But I think these hands of mine are good enough for Mart, any day.”
That night proving fine with a fair, light wind down the bay, Reube and Will took theDidoout for her first drift. In the cuddy were stowed some extra clothes in case of a cold bay fog rolling up, and several thick blankets, and enough bread and meat and cold tea for a couple of days in case the trip should be unexpectedly prolonged. Will insisted also on a generous sheet of Mrs. Dare’s gingerbread and a brown stone jug of lime-juice ready mixed. He had a care for material comforts. But as for Reube, he was in such a state of exalted excitement that he could think of nothing but shad and theDido.
Will was an excellent shot—famous, indeed, all about that region for his habit of going partridge shooting with a little rifle instead of the orthodox shotgun. He now took his beloved little rifle with him in the hope of bagging some rare specimen of gull or hawk. He little dreamed that he might turn out to be hunted instead of hunter on that trip.
By the time all preparations were complete, and the brown nets, beaded with wooden floats and leaden sinkers, unwound from the reel and neatly coiled in theDido’sstern, and the great half hogshead amidships filled with water to serve as ballast, the rest of the shad fleet were dropping one by one out of the creek. Like great pale moths their sails floated over the marsh, following the windings of the creek, and vanishing into the silvery night. TheDidofollowed with Reube at the helm. She sailed swiftly and soon overtook her slower rivals. Only the little red-and-white pinkie preserved her distance, and Reube had to acknowledge, reluctantly, that she was as speedy as theDido. When the fleet reached the open every boat headed down the bay, at the same time diverging from its neighbor. The object of this latter movement was to get the utmost possible room for the nets; of the former to get as far down the bay as possible before turning with the tide to drift back. The fishing was all done on this backward drift.
TheDidogradually lost sight of all her rivals but the pinkie, which hovered, a faint white speck, far to starboard. The five hours’ sail brought our young shad fishers past Cape Chignecto, and into wider waters. It was rough off the cape after the turn of tide, and theDidopitched heavily in the steep yellow waves. Neither Reube nor Will had ever before been so far down the bay, and in their curiosity over a certain strange formation of the cliffs they sailed somewhat close to the shore.
Will, from his place on the cuddy, was expatiating learnedly on the distorted strata before them, when suddenly he broke off in the midst of a word, and yelled:
“A reef right ahead! Bring her about, quick!”
But Reube had seen the danger at the same instant. With one hand he jammed the helm hard down, and with the other loosed the main sheet, at the same time shouting to Will:
“Let go the jib!”
Will sprang to obey. But the stiff new rope, pulled taut during the long run and shrunken hard by the spray, would not yield at once even to his strong fingers. It had got jammed fast in some way. Meanwhile theDido, broadside on and beaten mightily by the waves, was heeling as if she would turn over in the trough. The jib pulled terrifically, and the water hissed above the cleaving gunwale.
“Quick! Quick!” yelled Reube; and Will, snatching his knife from his belt, severed the rope at a slash and released the sail. Gracefully theDidoswung up, righted herself, and bowed on an even keel.
“That was something of a close shave,” remarked Reube.
“It was,” said Will, studying with angry eyes the rope which had baffled him.
After this they took a long tack which brought them once more into smoother waters above the cape. As the sun got higher the wind fell lighter, and at length Reube announced that it was time to get out the net. The mainsail was hauled down, and under a close-reefed jib theDidolay to while the net was slowly and carefully paid out over the stern. The helm was so delicately manipulated that the floating net was not allowed to bunch, but formed its line of blocks into a wide, shallow crescent with theDidoat one horn. This accomplished, the remaining bit of canvas was furled and the long, slow process of “drifting” was fairly begun. The tide ran fast, and the shores a half mile distant slipped smoothly by. The rudder swung loose while Will and Reube ate their breakfast, and congratulated themselves on the sailing qualities of theDido. After breakfast they basked in the sweet June sun, told stories, wondered idly if the net was capturing anything, grew sleepy, and at last began to get impatient. A great gray gull flew over, and Will raised his rifle. But he lowered it instantly.
“I was on the point of dropping that poor old grayback,” said he, penitently, “just for lack of something better to do.”
“I wondered why you were going to shoot it,” said Reube, “when I knew it was no good as a specimen.”
“I say,” exclaimed Will, a few minutes later, yawning, “this sun’s getting mighty hot! How long have we been drifting?”
“A little over two hours,” replied Reube.
“How long is one expected to drift?” asked Will.
“O, say four, or maybe five,” was the reply.
“Well, as this is just a sort of trial trip and picnic,” suggested Will, “I move we haul in the net and count our fish. Then we can sail round yonder point to a big creek I know of with a fine, shelving sand spit at its mouth. The sand is covered at high water; but about the time we get there it will be just right for you to go in swimming from. A swim will go fine this hot day, eh?”
“All right!” assented Reube. He was himself consumed with impatience to see what was in the net.
As the first two oars’ lengths came over the side there was nothing, and the fishermen’s faces fell. Then came the shining, silvery sides of a dozen shad, and they grew exultant. Then a small salmon, and they chuckled. Then two or three large jellyfish slipped through the meshes in fragments. And then the shad really began. It was a noble haul, and excitement ran high in theDido. The huge tub amidships was nearly half full of the gleaming spoils by the time the last fathom of net came over the side; and there was also another and larger salmon to show. The water in the tub was thrown overboard, as the shad made sufficient ballast.
“If theDidokeeps it up like this she’ll be as good as your diked marsh,” cried Reube, gloating over his prizes.
“Right you are!” said Will, heartily, washing his hands with vigor over the side. “And now for that swim. We’ve earned it, and we need it.”
Forthwith the sails were got up, and theDidomade all haste for the swimming place which Will had indicated. She rounded the point, skirted the shore for nearly a mile, ran into the creek’s mouth, and dropped anchor beside the tempting yellow sand spit.