“Well, then, we accept,” Sandy Steele said quickly. “When do we start?”
“You can come aboard tonight, if you like. In fact, you probably should. TheJames Kennedyis shoving off in the morning. You’d better not take any chances on missing her.”
“Right,” Sandy said, grinning in delight at his friend Jerry. Then, his face fell and he exclaimed, “Dad! We promised Dad we’d have dinner with him!”
Mr. Kennedy glanced at his watch. “Why, it’s only six o’clock,” he said. “If I know John Steele, he’ll be working well past that.” Looking up, he said, “Don’t tell me two deck hands like yourselves are going to object to eating a second dinner?”
Jerry James grinned sheepishly. “Well, sir, if you put it that way—I guess not. In fact,” he said, rubbing his stomach gently, “I’m not quite as full as I thought I was.”
“I thought so,” Mr. Kennedy said, getting to his feet and leading the way out of the galley. “Now,” he continued, puffing at the exertion of climbing the ladder topside, “you boys had better get your things together and report back here to Captain West. He’ll be notified that you’re shipping aboard. Captain West’s one of the finest skippers on the Kennedy Line.”
They walked together to the lake shore. At the end of the dock, Sandy could see a handsome, well-kept limousine—not flashy and loaded with chrome, like Pepper March’s.
“I’m driving back to Buffalo, boys,” Mr. Kennedy told them. “Getting too old to weather those Great Lakes storms, I guess. I’ve sailed the Kennedy boats since I was fifteen, but now....” His voice trailed off and his kindly face saddened. “Well, now, I guess things are changing. The Kennedy boats will soon be the Chadwick boats. By the time I get home, I suppose Paul Chadwick will have the whole deal drawn up and waiting for my signature.”
He held out his hand. “Goodbye, boys. Have a happy voyage—and remember to give your father my best, Sandy.” He turned and walked slowly to the car and the chauffeur who held a rear door open for him. He was a mournful figure as he got in the back and drove off in silence.
Sandy and Jerry waved as the car departed, and then Sandy said through clenched teeth, “Oh, how I hope Dad can locate some high-grade ore deposits!”
“Me, too!” Jerry James exclaimed. “I’d hate to see a fine old gentleman like Mr. Kennedy forced to sell his shipping line.”
“And to someone he doesn’t trust!” Sandy added, his face serious and his voice grim. “Come on, Jerry, we’d better hurry if we want to get to Dad’s place before dark.”
“Now, supposing I tell you my good news?”
The speaker was John Steele. He asked his question as he and Sandy and Jerry carried their loaded trays from the cafeteria-style mess hall to their table on a terrace outdoors overlooking the lake.
Ever since the two youths had rejoined Sandy’s father—almost bumping into Captain West as he came out of the field shack for the second time that day—they had been eagerly recounting their good fortune. Sandy’s father had been delighted to hear that his old friend John Kennedy had signed on his son and Jerry for the Duluth-to-Buffalo run. At one point, when he asked Sandy how they had met Mr. Kennedy, Sandy flushed and looked away.
Jerry James had proudly jumped into the breach. “Sandy saved Mr. Kennedy’s life, Mr. Steele,” Jerry had said.
Then, of course, nothing would do but that Jerry should relate the entire episode while John Steele listened with shining eyes. At last, Mr. Steele had proposed dinner. Now, as he said, “Supposing I tell you my good news?” Sandy was glad to have someone change the subject.
“Sure, Dad,” he said. “Fire away.”
John Steele drew a deep breath. “I’ve discovered some high-grade ore deposits,” he said.
For the second time that day, Sandy and Jerry felt a wild thrill of joy. For a day that had started out so badly, things were indeed looking up!
“Wonderful, Dad, wonderful! Where?”
“Not too far from Lake Superior. Of course, they’ll have to run the railroad spur a bit farther inland, but that’s really no problem.” John Steele’s voice took on a note of pride. “Matter of fact, these deposits are rather rich. Sixty per cent iron content, I’d say—maybe even more.”
“What a day, huh, Jerry? Just think, this means that Mr. Kennedy may not have to sell his lake boats, after all.”
“That’s right, son. If this vein is as rich as I think it is, he may even have to build a few more boats—to take care of the load.”
Sandy Steele’s eyes sparkled with excitement. “Dad,” he burst out, “I’ve got a great idea!”
“What’s that, Sandy?”
“Where can I get in touch with Mr. Kennedy? He was leaving for Buffalo.”
“Why, I would say he’s heading for Minneapolis first. He won’t be there until quite late. Why, Sandy—what do you have in mind?”
“I’m going to put in a long-distance call and tell him the good news! After all, he’s been pretty good to Jerry and me. This is the least we can do for him.”
“I’d say you’ve been pretty helpful already, Sandy,” Mr. Steele drawled. Then, smiling, he went on, “But you don’t need to worry. That’s all been taken care of. Captain West has been informed, and he will tell Mr. Kennedy.”
“Oh,” Sandy said, a note of doubt mingling with the disappointment in his voice.
“Sandy!” John Steele’s voice was sharp. “What did you mean by that ‘Oh’? You make it sound as though Captain West is not to be trusted.”
“Oh, no, sir,” Sandy rushed on, embarrassed. “Nothing of the kind. I don’t even know him, Dad—except by sight. And I’ve heard Mr. Kennedy himself say that Captain West was a very fine skipper.”
“He is that,” Sandy’s father said, relaxing. “I guess I misunderstood you, son.”
“Anyway,” Jerry James put in, “it will all be in the newspapers, won’t it, Mr. Steele?”
“Not exactly, Jerry. You see, these things take weeks, even after you’ve made your initial discovery. Not that I’m not certain of these deposits. Far from it! I’ve never been more so. But there is always a certain amount of time before a report is properly nailed down—firmly enough for the newspapers to print it, that is.”
“But what you’ve discovered today, Dad—that’s enough to make Mr. Kennedy change his mind about selling?”
“It certainly is!”
“Good,” Sandy said. Then, laying down his knife and fork, he leaned back in his chair with a sigh. He brushed back his cowlick and looked sorrowfully at the slice of roast beef remaining on his plate.
“Honestly,” he said, “I don’t think I’ve got room for another single ounce.”
“Well, well,” Jerry James said, apologetically, as he reached over and speared the morsel with his fork. “I think that I just might be able to handle it.”
The unbelievably long silhouette of theJames Kennedylay long and dark like a great sea serpent against the looming bulk of the ore dock as Sandy Steele and Jerry James returned to the lake shore. They carried suitcases in which they had hurriedly stuffed the few things they’d be needing for shipboard life. Each had put in soap and comb and toothpaste and toothbrushes and two sets of dungarees for working hours, plus a good pair of slacks and a sport shirt for those days when they hoped to go ashore in Great Lakes ports like Detroit or Cleveland.
They had disposed of Old Faithful easily enough. Sandy’s father had been pleased to take charge of Jerry’s jalopy while they were gone. It was just what he needed for the short trips between his field shack and the ore borings.
As the two friends walked up theJames Kennedy’s ramp, their feet were dragging just a trifle. They had had a long and eventful day, and they were tired. When they stepped on deck, Jerry lost his balance and stumbled. Sandy had to shoot out an arm to keep him from falling. Suddenly, out of the dark, a voice growled, “Late, ain’cha?”
Sandy stopped dead, his hand still grasping Jerry’s arm. He heard a low snicker, and then the voice said, “Jumpy, too, ain’cha?”
“Well, no,” Sandy Steele said slowly, his eyes searching the darkness. “Where are you?”
“Over here.”
As their eyes became accustomed to the darkness, the two youths made out the figure of a tall man seated on a canvas chair. He leaned back against the bulkhead and stared at them from unfriendly eyes.
“I guess you two are Ma Kennedy’s little chicks,” he sneered. “That right?”
Sandy Steele felt a quick rush of anger. But he controlled himself and said, “We’re the men Mr. Kennedy signed on, if that’s what you mean.” “Men!” The tall man slapped his feet on the deck and cackled. “‘Men,’ he says! Ain’t that a hot one?” He glared at them. “Which one of you’s named Steele?”
“I am,” Sandy said.
“Go down below and report to the skipper. He’s waiting for you. First deck down, first cabin to starboard.”
“To starboard?” Sandy repeated, and then, remembering that he was aboard ship, he blushed in the dark. The tall man’s cackle of derision didn’t help his self-control any. But Sandy resolved to ignore the man. With a reassuring squeeze of Jerry’s arm, he left his friend and clambered below.
Going down the ladder, Sandy Steele hoped the unfriendly tall man would not make Jerry a target for his ridicule. Jerry James was good-natured enough, but he did have a hair-trigger temper.
When Sandy reached Captain West’s cabin, he stopped and knocked.
“Come in,” a gruff voice called, and Sandy pulled the heavy bulkhead open and stepped inside a small, dimly lighted room. Captain West was seated at a desk. He had his back to the door, but he swung around when Sandy entered. Sandy noticed that he still hadn’t shaved. Apparently he had been writing a letter, for he laid down a fountain pen with the air of a man who has been interrupted.
“Who are you?” Captain West growled, even though Sandy was sure that he had recognized him.
“Sandy Steele is my name, sir.”
“Oh, you’re one of the two kids old man Kennedy—” Captain West stopped and ran a thick stubby hand across his lips. “How well do you know Kennedy?” he snapped.
Sandy was taken aback. “I don’t understand you, sir.”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Steele. You know what I mean. Are you a relative of his, or something? A nephew, maybe?”
“No, sir. I met him today for the first time.”
Captain West showed his disbelief. His thin lips parted and he started to laugh. It wasn’t a friendly laugh. Listening to it made Sandy feel anything but good-humored.
“C’mon, kid.” Captain West stared. “Let’s have the truth. What’s your connection with Old Man Kennedy?”
Sandy Steele was furious inwardly. He hadn’t liked the way the tall man topside had referred to Mr. Kennedy, but to hear Captain West—the valued skipper of the Kennedy Shipping Line—going on in the same disrespectful tone, well, that was going too far.
“Iamtelling the truth, Captain,” Sandy said coldly. “I only metMr.Kennedy today, and that was by accident.” Captain West raised his thick, dark eyebrows quizzically, and Sandy, with great reluctance, launched into the tale of the ore bucket.
When he had finished, he found, to his amazement, that Captain West was regarding him with what could only be disgust!
“Sothat’sthe answer,” Captain West muttered. With a sort of displeasure, he swung around and began writing again.
“All right, Steele,” he said over his shoulder. “Mr. Briggs will show you and the other boy to your quarters. And you can report to Cookie in the morning.”
“Cookie!”
Sandy Steele couldn’t believe his ears. Before he could stop himself, he had taken two quick steps around to the side of Captain West’s desk. With swift, reddening anger, Captain West threw down his fountain pen and slapped two hairy paws over the letter he’d been writing.
“Are you insubordinate already?” he shouted. “Who do you think you are, questioning a skipper’s orders like that? D’ya think I’m going to let a pair of punk kids the likes of you work topside where the men are? Not on your life! You’ll report to the galley where you belong, and leave the men’s work to the men. Now, get out of my sight!”
Sandy Steele felt himself going hot and cold by turns. He clenched and unclenched his fists as he stood there, looking down into the little piggish eyes of Captain West. They seemed to gleam wickedly in the reflected light of the desk lamp. Finally, with a low, mumbled “Aye, aye, sir,” Sandy Steele turned slowly around and left.
Abovedeck, he found Mr. Briggs. Apparently, he had not bothered to make game of Jerry, for the two of them stood against the rail gazing out at the moon that had just begun to rise over Lake Superior. In the light of the moonlight shimmering on the water, Mr. Briggs got a look at Sandy’s whitened face.
“Ho, ho,” he cackled. “Skipper gave you the rough side of his tongue, eh? Well, you’ll get used to it. Here, let me show you two below.”
They went down, down and down, to the lowest hold, and as they descended the ladder, Sandy Steele wondered to himself if he could ever possibly get used to an insulting man like Captain West. He was thinking the same thing as he and Jerry tumbled wearily into the bunks which occupied almost all the space in their tiny cabin. Jerry slept below, and Sandy above.
The more Sandy thought of Captain West, the more convinced he became that he and Jerry should leave the ship before theJames Kennedycast off her moorings and got under way. But, no, he thought again, that would be too much like quitting. Still, what were they to do? For some unexplained reason, Captain West despised them and was determined to make their voyage as unpleasant as he could. But why? Sandy could not understand it. He forced his tired brain to go over all the events of the day. He could recall seeing Captain West twice at his father’s field station. Then, he had seen him again when Mr. Kennedy brought them aboard ship. Apart from that, he had never seen the man before.
Suddenly, in a tiny corner of Sandy Steele’s brain, a light flashed. Astounded, unable to believe what he remembered seeing, Sandy shot erect. His head struck the overhead a painful blow, and below him Jerry James sputtered out of a sound sleep.
“Sandy! Sandy, what happened?”
“I just hit my head, but never mind that, Jerry,” Sandy whispered. “Listen, remember when Mr. Kennedy was saying so sadly that the Kennedy boats would have another name soon?”
“Yes?”
“Can you remember the other name?”
“Sure. It was Chadwick. He said he was completing a deal with Paul Chadwick.”
Jerry James heard a sharp hiss above him, and then the rustling of bedclothes. Then, to his surprise, a pair of long, lean-muscled legs dropped down in front of his eyes. In the next instant, Sandy Steele was crouching in his underwear alongside Jerry’s bunk, whispering excitedly.
“Chadwick! That’s it! Listen, Jerry, when I came in to Captain West’s cabin tonight, I interrupted him as he was writing a letter. I didn’t mean to see who it was addressed to, but I did.” Sandy paused dramatically. “It was addressed to Mr. Paul Chadwick!”
For a long second, there was a silence in the little cabin, a silence broken only by the heavy breathing of the two youths. Then, as Jerry James scrambled quickly from his bunk, Sandy whispered, “We’ve got to get out of here and warn Mr. Kennedy, Jerry. I’m positive that Captain West is working for the Chadwick shipping interests, and against Mr. Kennedy. He’ll never tell Mr. Kennedy about the deposits Dad discovered! And Mr. Kennedy will go right ahead and sell his boats for practically nothing!”
“You’re right, Sandy,” Jerry whispered, hastily pulling on his dungaree pants. “Good thing you found out about Captain West before it was too late. Our ship doesn’t sail until to—”
Jerry James cut short his sentence with a groan. In their mad rush to get dressed, Sandy and Jerry had not noticed the steady shuddering of theJames Kennedy’s sides. They had paid no heed to the regular throbbing of her motors.
TheJames Kennedyhad put out on Lake Superior ten minutes ago.
In the morning, there was no time to make further plans, as the two friends had promised each other before they finally dropped off to sleep. They were awakened by the sound of Cookie’s voice as the little man leaned in the door of their cabin and cried, “Up and at ’em, boys, up and at ’em! It’s five o’clock, and that’s the time to rise and shine!”
Still sleepy-eyed, Sandy and Jerry tumbled out of their bunks and stood looking at Cookie with blank expressions on their faces. Cookie returned their stare with a toothless grin.
“Don’t rightly know where you are, hey, boys? Well, you’re aboard theJames Kennedyand right now we’re out in the middle of Lake Superior.” He cocked a twinkling eye at them and flashed another one of his smiles, and the youths were heartened to find someone, at least, who seemed to want to be friendly with them.
“Go ahead and wash up,” Cookie said. “Be in the galley in fifteen minutes and I’ll have your breakfasts ready. In fact, you might just have the time to go topside and see the sun come up.”
Then he was gone.
Sandy and Jerry obediently headed for the washroom. There, they sloshed cold water on their faces and brushed their teeth. That made them feel better. By the time they had grasped the handrail of the ladder leading abovedeck, they had recovered their normal high spirits.
“Shucks,” Jerry said. “I don’t see what we got so riled up about last night. We’ll be in Buffalo in plenty of time to warn Mr. Kennedy.”
“You’re right, Jerry,” Sandy said. “That’s what I was thinking, too. Funny how you forget that a boat can make good time because it’s moving in a straight line. Driving in an automobile, Mr. Kennedy will have to go through six or seven states.”
“Sure. And don’t forget that a boat keeps moving all the time, like a railroad train. In a car, you have to stop to get some sleep or eat.”
It was still dark as they came out on deck. Far out in front of them, they could see the bulk of the forward superstructure—the navigation bridge and the deck gang’s quarters—rearing out of the black. Beneath their feet they felt the steady throbbing of theJames Kennedy’s engines. All around them, for miles and miles, stretched the flat, black surface of Lake Superior. Ahead of them, for they were sailing due east, there was a light rosy glow that heralded the rising of the sun. Even then, as they looked, a line of horizon was beginning to take shape.
“Isn’t it something?” Sandy whispered. “Here we are, thousands of miles inland. Yet, it’s just like sailing on an ocean.” Sandy Steele stretched his neck and stood on his tiptoes and turned slowly around. “You can’t see anything but water,” he said.
“Boy, what a country!” Jerry James breathed.
The two youths fell silent. Carefully, they looked away from each other, for neither one wished to betray the strong emotions that held him at that moment. Their feelings were a mixture of pride and love of country and a certain awe in the presence of its beauty and grandeur.
“Hey,” Jerry said, suddenly breaking the spell. “What’s that light out there?”
He pointed and Sandy Steele’s eyes followed his finger.
“I’ll bet it’s another lake boat,” Sandy said. “Sure! That’s what it is. And there’s another one. There must be a half dozen of them, Jerry.”
Jerry James chuckled. “Say,” he said, “this lake’s a regular freeway, isn’t it?”
Sandy nodded. “I think I hear Cookie calling us, Jerry,” he said. “Let’s go below.”
On their way down, Sandy went on, “We’d better keep what we know about Captain West a secret. We’ll wait until we get to Buffalo to telephone Mr. Kennedy. Of course, if we’re delayed or a storm comes up, we’ll have to think of something else. Who knows? Maybe we’ll stop in Detroit or some other Great Lakes port, and we can call him from there.”
“Right,” Jerry said, and then, “Hey, do you smell what I smell?”
Sandy did, indeed, and the eyes of both of them went wide with wonder at the sight of the breakfast Cookie had set up for them on a tiny table at the end of his gleaming, spotless, aluminum galley.
“Eat hearty, boys,” Cookie said, bobbing his bald head in the direction of the ham and eggs and stacks of toast and jars of jelly. “Plenty more where that came from.”
“Boy,” Jerry said, “do you always eat like this?”
“On the Kennedy boats, you do,” Cookie said. “Of course, almost all of the lake boats feed good. But there ain’t any to compare with the old white K Line.” Cookie’s face darkened. “Now, if you was aboard a Chadwicker, I don’t think you’d be chowing down so good.”
“How’s that, Cookie?” Jerry said, squaring himself away to attack his fourth egg.
“Humph!” Cookie grunted, as he started to sharpen a long thin knife. After a series of expert, clashing strokes against the sharpening steel he held in his hand, he bent over a haunch of bacon on his board and began to slice it down. “Chadwick’s the cheapest line on the lakes, that’s why,” he went on. “And I ought to know. Sailed on the Chadwickers for five years, I did. And not a night went by that I didn’t have to count the eggs and hand the keys to the icebox over to the skipper.”
Jerry chortled at the notion of a crestfallen Cookie locking up his beloved icebox for the night. “Boy,” he said, forgetting himself, “that’s one more reason why we’ve got to stop Mr. Kennedy from selling—”
Sandy Steele’s foot moved swiftly under the table, and Jerry clutched his ankle with a surprised expression of pain on his face.
“Hey, that hurt!” he started to say, but then, remembering their secret, he flushed in embarrassment.
Cookie had whirled and was looking at them with an expression of bewilderment.
“Selling?” he repeated. “Did you say selling?”
“Oh, no,” Jerry choked, his face getting redder and redder. “I saidsailing. You see,” he rushed on frantically, trying to think of a good story, “what I really meant was....”
Poor Jerry. He had begun to flounder, because he wasn’t used to the strain of making up a good lie on the spur of the moment. But just then one of the crewmen came to his rescue.
“Hey, Cookie,” he said irritably as he poked his head inside the galley. “When do we eat? I’ve been sitting out here for five minutes.”
To the great relief of both Jerry and Sandy, Cookie instantly forgot his question and turned to covering his grill with sizzling slices of bacon and gently popping eggs.
“All right, boys,” he said. “Turn to.”
For the next hour or so, Sandy and Jerry flew back and forth between the mess hall and the galley, bringing the breakfasts of the crewmen and clearing the dirty dishes away. Then, when breakfast was over, Cookie set them to work washing the dishes. When this was done, Cookie opened a cupboard and took out a bucket and mop together with a long-handled, T-shaped instrument that looked something like a window washer’s rubber blade.
“Know what this is, Jerry?” he said, grinning.
Jerry James shook his head.
“This here’s what they call a squeegee. And she’s going to be your sweetheart until we get to Buffalo.”
Sandy laughed at the look of displeasure on his chum’s face, as Cookie gave them a demonstration of how the squeegee is handled. First he filled the bucket with soapy water. This he sloshed over the deck in the mess hall. Then, with the motion of a man raking a lawn, he worked the squeegee across the deck. The rubbery blade made squeaking noises as it moved.
“That’s how the squeegee got its name,” Cookie said. “Hear it? Squee ... gee ... squee ... gee....” He winked at Sandy. “Now, you, Sandy, you go over the deck with this mop after Jerry’s finished. Do the same in the galley. And remember, you do this after every meal.”
“Every meal!” Jerry exclaimed.
“That’s right, boy. A ship’s galley has to be as clean as a hospital. You’ve got men living aboard ship in close quarters and you can’t take any chances with dirt and germs. Now, turn to!”
They turned to.
And by the time they had gotten the mess hall and the galley sparkling again to Cookie’s liking, it was time for lunch! They had to go through the same process again, and Jerry James moaned, “Honestly, Sandy, the water in this bucket is probably the only water we’ll see until we get to Buffalo!”
But the second time they went through their round of chores, they moved with more speed because they were more practiced. By a little after four o’clock, they had finished. Cookie ran an approving eye over their handiwork, and said, “Good job, boys. What say we go topside and have a talk while I smoke my pipe?”
They were only too glad to agree.
Up above, they noticed that Captain West was standing at the starboard rail, talking to his mate, Mr. Briggs. The skipper scowled when he saw the boys. He spoke quickly to his mate, and Mr. Briggs hurried over to them. As he came up, Sandy saw that he did not look so fierce by daylight as he had seemed at night. In fact, his chin was a trifle weak and he had the worried air of a man who suffers from indigestion.
“You,” Mr. Briggs said, aiming a dirty fingernail at Sandy. “Skipper wants you.”
Sandy nodded and followed him to Captain West.
“Ain’t I seen you and your friend somewheres before?” the captain asked.
Sandy nodded. He knew that he shouldn’t have, but he couldn’t help himself. He was not fond of Captain West.
The skipper’s eyes flashed and his face reddened and his hand came up involuntarily. But he held it back, and snarled, “When I ask a question, I want it answered out loud! And when you talk to me, you say ’Sir.’ Now, answer my question.”
“Yes, sir,” Sandy said evenly. “You saw us in front of my father’s testing station.”
“Your father’s testing—” Captain West began to repeat, puzzled. But then his face cleared, and he said, “So that’s it! Certainly, your name’s Steele, too.” Now, a look of cunning crept into his face. He softened his voice. “Young fellow, perhaps I was a bit hard on you last night. Step over here to the rail for a moment. I want to ask you a few questions.”
Sandy followed him.
“Well, well, well,” Captain West said, pretending to be jovial. “You certainly are a chip off the old block.”
Sandy flushed, and the skipper mistook it for a sign of pleasure. Actually, Sandy was disgusted by the man’s attempt to fool him.
“Now, my boy,” Captain West went on. “When did you see your old, ahem, see your father last?”
“Just before we came aboard,” Sandy said stiffly.
“Hmmm. Your father didn’t, ah, that is to say, did your father say anything about—”
Sandy saw his chance and interrupted swiftly. “Excuse me, sir, if you mean did he mention you, the fact is that he did.”
“Ah?”
“He said,” Sandy told Captain West in all truthfulness, “he said that you were one of the Kennedy Line’s finest skippers.”
“Well, well,” Captain West said, plainly pleased. “That was very kind of your father. Did he, ah, by the way, say anything about his work?”
“In what way, sir?” Sandy asked innocently. For a moment, Captain West hemmed and hawed, but then, probably because he was satisfied that Sandy knew nothing of the important information which he was disloyally keeping from his employer, he dropped the question. He sent Sandy back to Cookie and Jerry with the promise that if the two youths worked well enough in the galley, he would bring them topside for the return trip.
Jerry eyed Sandy questioningly upon his return, but Sandy merely shrugged and squatted alongside Cookie to listen to the old man talk.
“You see, boys,” Cookie said, waving his pipe in the air, “we’re within sight of land again. That shoreline way ahead, to either side, means that we’re getting close to the Soo.”
“The Soo?”
“Yup, the Sault Sainte Marie. They call it the Soo, though, probably because nobody but the Frenchies can pronounce it right. That’s where Lake Superior empties into Lake Huron through the St. Mary’s River. That’s where the Soo Locks are, boys. If you’re headed downlake, they float you down to a lower level. If you’re headed uplake, they raise you up.”
“Like the Panama Canal?” Sandy asked.
“Right. Now, you take us. We’re going downlake. So, once we’ve entered Lake Huron from Lake Superior, we can keep on going down Huron and through the Detroit River into Lake Erie, past Detroit and Cleveland and on to Buffalo. Or else, we can sort of double back, head west, that is, and sail through the Straits of Mackinac into Lake Michigan and hit Milwaukee and Chicago.”
Both Sandy and Jerry shook their heads in wonder.
“You know, Cookie,” Sandy said, “it’s hard for us to get used to the idea of Chicago and Milwaukee and Detroit and Cleveland as port cities. We’re from the West, and when we think of a port we think of San Francisco or Los Angeles. Or, if it’s in the East, we think of Boston or New York.”
“Well, that’s only natural. You think of the ocean. But let me tell you, boys, some of these Great Lakes ports are among the biggest in the world! Ocean or no ocean.”
Cookie removed his pipe from his mouth and pointed with the stem at the boat that trailed theJames Kennedyabout a half mile to port. It was not quite half as long as theKennedy, though it seemed to be about as wide. Its decks were loaded with railroad cars.
“See that?” Cookie said. “That’s a car ferry. You won’t see ships like that hardly anywhere else in the world. It’s even a bit out of place on Lake Superior. Usually, they use ’em more on Lake Michigan to carry the new cars from the factories in Detroit. And this,” Cookie went on, pointing his pipe at the long row of hatches separating theKennedy’s stern and bow superstructures, “this is something you’ll never see outside of the Lakes. Put these long boats on the ocean, boys, and those deep ocean swells would break them in two.
“But they’re just right for the Lakes. It’s what your biology teacher might call a perfect example of adaptation. Lake freighters are built for just two reasons, boys—to carry bulk cargoes like ore or coal or grain and to fit through the narrow locks at the Soo. They can build them as long as a city block, but they can’t be too wide or too deep.”
“Do they have storms on the Lakes, Cookie?” Jerry asked.
Cookie’s eyes danced merrily and he jabbed his pipe at Jerry as he said, “Storms, hey! Let me tell you, boy, there’s plenty of rough weather around the Great Lakes. Four months out of the year they’re empty, the weather’s so bad. That’s why the boats are built to load and unload so fast. Sometimes you don’t get more than seven months in a season. Rest of the time, the boats stay in port.”
Cookie puffed thoughtfully in his pipe. He glanced downward. Below them, the dark lake water flowed swiftly past theJames Kennedy’s hull.
“When a lake boat sinks,” Cookie said somberly, “there ain’t many survivors, if any.”
“Why not, Cookie?” Sandy asked, surprised.
“That’s pretty cold water down there, that’s why. You don’t last very long in that water if it happens to be early spring or fall. I’ve seen ice floating in these waters as late as it is now.” He shivered a bit. “Cold water, boys. I remember once a feller I knew broke his leg and we didn’t have no medicines aboard to help ease the pain while we was setting it. So we just hauled up a bucket of cold Lake Superior water and stuck his leg in it a while. By gum, it got numb in no time. He didn’t feel a thing until after we’d got him all fixed up with a splint and bandages.”
Cookie got to his feet. “That’s one reason I never bothered to learn how to swim.” He looked at the sky. “Well, time to go below again. We ought to hit the Soo just before dark.”
He arose and walked over to the leeward, or starboard, side of the ship and began emptying his pipe. He leaned far over the rail to make sure that none of the still-glowing coals would land aboard ship.
As he did, a long, gathering swell from the wake of the car ferry that had overtaken and passed theJames Kennedystruck the ship’s port stern with savage force. TheKennedyheeled slightly to starboard, and poor little Cookie, knocked off balance by the force of the blow, slithered over the rail.
With a long, wailing cry of despair, the little man plunged into the freezing-cold waters of Lake Superior.
“Man overboard!”
From fore and aft, from port to starboard, from every quarter of theJames Kennedy’s great length, that ancient rallying cry of the sea arose.
“Man overboard!”
“Where?” they shouted. “Where?”
“Man overboard off the starboard stern!”
There was a mad scuffling of feet on the steel decks as the crewmen rushed for the rail, some to reach for a line and a life preserver, others merely to stare.
Hardly had Cookie’s body entered the water with a resounding splash, than there was a clanging of bells in the engine room beneath Sandy and Jerry. The ship’s motors roared in a rising crescendo of power. TheJames Kennedyshivered and shuddered like a live thing, and out from beneath its stern there issued a wild, white boiling of angry water.
“Full speed astern!” someone cried.
Then, with another great quiver, theJames Kennedyseemed to come to a halt.
All of this happened quickly, perhaps within only a few seconds. But rapid as had been the reactions of these trained seamen, they were still far behind the swift decisiveness of Sandy Steele.
The moment he had seen Cookie lose his balance, Sandy had braced his steel-muscled legs, ready to go to his aid. When their little friend’s body had vanished, Sandy had raced over to the railing. Jerry was not far behind.
Sandy did not hesitate. He recalled, with dread, what Cookie had been telling them only moments before about the killing cold of the lake water. As he ran, he stripped off his own shirt and threw it to the winds. As he reached the railing, he knelt, swiftly untied his shoes, and pulled them off.
Down below him, Cookie’s bald head had appeared above the surface.
“Help!” he called weakly. “Help!”
Then, before the horrified gaze of all aboard theKennedy, the little man choked on a mouthful of water, threw up his hands and sank out of sight.
Splash!
Straight as an arrow, Sandy Steele’s body had swept out from the ship’s side—hitting the water only a few feet to the side of the spot where Cookie had gone under.
Even as Sandy went beneath the surface, he felt a shiver run through his body from the tips of his toes to the top of his head. It was not only from the impact of having dropped twenty feet. It was from the terrible, numbing drop in temperature. For a moment he felt as though his body were a thing of stone.
But Sandy quickly got his legs and arms working. He surfaced and looked around him. Nothing.
Sandy dove down once more.
It was as black as night under the surface. Still, he forced himself farther and farther down, swinging his arms in front of him in long, slow, underwater breast strokes. He hoped to touch Cookie in this way, if he could not see him.
Sandy’s lungs were bursting.
In another moment or two, he would have to come back up. He dared not go down a second time, either, for the cold was creeping into even his tough young body.
Suddenly, his finger tips brushed against some object....
Sandy felt a thrill of joy. He stretched out his hands and felt something hard and unbending. His heart sang. He had grasped Cookie’s shoe!
It was only just in time.
The little man had swallowed so much water and been in the lake so long that he had lost consciousness. When Sandy discovered him, he was headed down in what might have been his death dive.
Quickly, Sandy slid his hands along from Cookie’s shoes to seize him firmly by the ankles.
With a savage, scissor kick of his long legs, Sandy drove upward to the surface.
How happy he was when his head at last burst into the open air and he could breathe again! Even though his ears had begun to ring, he could hear the great cheer that went up when he came into view, with Cookie safely in his arms.
“He’s got him!” the crewmen cried. “He’s got Cookie! Here, throw him a line!”
There was a splash beside his head and Sandy saw a length of rope floating in the water. Weakly, he put out his hand to grasp it. With the other, he struggled to hold the unconscious Cookie’s head above the water. Sandy felt himself getting weaker and weaker.
Would he make it? He felt a tug at the other end of the line. In despair, he felt the rope sliding through his powerless fingers.
There came another, far heavier, splash beside him.
Jerry James had come to his chum’s rescue.
He had jumped in!
Blowing noisily through his nose, Jerry stroked over to Sandy’s side. There were two more thuds in the water.
Life preservers.
“Here,” Jerry gasped, getting his hands under Cookie’s limp shoulders. “Let’s get one of these doughnuts over his head.”
Together, the two chums slipped the preserver over Cookie’s head. They yanked up his arms and draped them over the ring, to make sure that he would not slip through it. Then, they pushed him over to the side of the gently rolling freighter, winding the rope about his waist.
“Okay,” Sandy called, lifting a hand weakly from the water. “Haul away!”