CHAPTER XXXIIIIN HOT PURSUIT
Captain Matthews had obtained the name of the suspicious schooner from the master of theNorsk. It wasPhilomel, and he at once recognized it as that of a well-known craft belonging to a sea-otter trader, which he had frequently seen plying her honest vocation among the islands of the Aleutian chain. “That is a new dodge and a good one,” he muttered. “The rascals knew the risk of bringing a strange vessel into the sea, and so have chartered a well-known craft, thinking that she can go where she pleases without exciting suspicion. I am on to their game, though, and they must be a good deal smarter than I think they are if we don’t have them alongside before many days are past.”
ThePhocafirst ran down to Oonalaska and dropped anchor in Captain’s Harbor on the second day after leaving St. Paul. Here her commander learned, without going ashore, that thePhilomelhad been chartered by one Jalap Coombs, and had cleared five days before for a general trading voyage to Oonimak Island and other Bering Sea points lying to the eastward.
“Ho! ho! my veteran poacher with the medicinal name! It is you, is it? and up to your old tricks!” said Captain Matthews to himself, as he ordered his vessel to be got under way for the eastward.
Late that same afternoon the schoonerPhilomelwas reported at anchor off the northeast point of Oonimak, and close in shore.
“Very good, sir,” said the captain to his first lieutenant, who made this report; “we will anchor for the night a cable’s length outside of her, and you will at once send an officer on board to make a careful examination of her cargo. If he finds anything suspicious about her—any guns, extra boats, or other evidences of a sealing outfit—let him bring her skipper back with him.”
To the surprise of those on board the cutter, she had barely dropped anchor before a small boat containing two men was seen to put off from the schooner and come towards her. Captain Matthews, who was curious to see what sort of a man he had to deal with, stepped on deck in time to receive a genuine surprise. Instead of the old sea-dog whom he expected, he beheld a fine-looking man of middle age, wearing an iron-gray mustache, and clad in the soft hat, corduroy suit, knee-breeches, worsted stockings, and heavy walking shoes of a gentleman tourist or sportsman. Lifting his hat as he stepped on deck and approached the captain, the stranger asked:
“Are you the commander of this vessel, sir?”
“I am,” replied Captain Matthews. Then, thinking to display at once the extent of his information, he added: “And you, I presume, are the person who has chartered yonder schooner?”
“I am, sir,” answered the stranger; “and my name is—”
“Coombs, is it not?”
“Oh no! Mr. Coombs is still in the boat, and we have come off to beg your assistance. As I was about to say, my—”
“Excuse me,” interrupted the captain, “but I fear you are applying to the wrong person for assistance in the business in which you are engaged.”
“Do you know what it is, then?” asked the stranger, with an air of surprise.
“I have reason to believe that you are after seal-skins,” was the reply, given with an air that seemed to say: “Deny it if you can.”
“I am willing to acknowledge that part of our business here was to secure certain seal-skins that had been left on yonder island. That, however, devolved entirely upon Mr. Coombs, and was something with which I had nothing to do. My errand here, and the one in which I hoped for your assistance, is the searching for a lost boy—my own son, in fact. He was known to be on Oonimak Island two weeks ago; but now, though we have scoured the island from end to end, we can discover no traces of him.”
“Bless my soul!” cried Captain Matthews. “And your name is—”
“John Ryder; while that of my lost boy, on whose account I am suffering the greatest anxiety, is Philip—Philip Ryder.”
“Yes, yes! my dear sir! I know him well, the young scamp! And you may instantly set your mind at rest concerning him. He is safe, sound, and hearty, not far from here—in a place from which he cannot possibly escape. Why! he was on board this very ship only a few days ago.”
“But where is he now?” asked Mr. Ryder, eagerly.
“Just over here on one of the Pribyloff Islands, where you will find him as snug as a bug in a rug; only I defy you to distinguish him from a dozen of the other young Aleuts there.”
“Then,” sighed the happily relieved but still anxious father, “he is still three hundred miles away from me.”
“Oh no! not so far as that. Barely two hundred and seventy. A mere step to one who, like yourself, has already covered such great distances in searching for him. You see, I know all about your fruitless tripto Victoria. But how on earth do you happen to be here, and in company with Rhubarb—Hartshorn—Plague take the man’s pharmaceutical name!”
“Perhaps you mean Jalap,” suggested Mr. Ryder, laughing for the first time in many days.
“Jalap! That is it—Jalap Coombs. But never mind now. Come down into the cabin and meet my daughter, and take dinner with us. You can’t imagine what a pleasure as well as a surprise this is to me. And we’ll have Jalap down too. Then all our yarns can be spliced together, and served, until there’s no sign of a break left. Mr. Nelson, will you kindly invite Mr. Coombs aboard, and in my name request the pleasure of his company at the cabin dinner-table. Let one of the men look after his boat. Now, Mr. Ryder, if you are ready.”
Thus it happened that, a few minutes later, the very cabin which had so recently received Phil and Serge into its cheery presence was occupied by a group of those friends who were most deeply interested in or had shared their adventures and experiences. Captain Matthews and Mr. John Ryder were equally pleased with each other, while Miss May found the unique personality of Jalap Coombs so fascinating that she devoted herself to drawing him out and making him feel at home.
The honest sailor was at first shy and embarrassed amid his unaccustomed surroundings, but under the charming influence of his fair hostess his self-possession was soon entirely restored. Thus, when she finally said: “And now, Mr. Coombs, do begin at the very beginning, and tell us how you happened to desert those poor young lads and leave them without any one to take care of them on this desolate island,” he readily replied as follows:
“Wal, marm—that is to say, miss—as old Kite Roberson uster say—”
“I knew he would come in!” cried Miss May, laughing and clapping her hands.
“Who, marm?” asked the mate, turning a bewildered gaze towards the cabin-door.
“Your friend Mr. Robinson, of course.”
“Yes, to be sure. You see, me and him’s been friends so long—it’s going on forty year off and on, boyandman—that now wherever you find one you’re likely to run agin t’other on the next tack. Wal, he uster say, Kite did, that while a word’s a word, it has as many sounds as there be people that uses it. So, while the word desartion has a pleasant sound coming from your lips, it’s mighty ugly from some; and I’m proud of the chance to clear myself of the charge, seeing as I didn’t do it intentional, but with the best of intentions.
“So, to begin with, the day on which I were left, or, as some might ignorantly call it, desarted, by my young shipmates, on that very day along comes a schooner, the samePhilomeelthat is now swinging under our starn. Although she were in charge of a crew of natyves, with a natyve cap’n,andin a powerful hurry, she stopped at my signal and sent a boat ashore to see what was up.
“Do all I could I couldn’t strike no bargain with ’em, nor get ’em to wait till I could go for the boys. The best they would do was to offer me passage to Oonalaska, where her owner lived, who, so they said, would give me a charter in no time. So, seeing as I couldn’t do no better, and thinking I’d be back again inside of three days, I left a note for the boys and went aboard. We made a quick run to Oonalaska, but when I tried to get a charter out of the owner, he wouldn’t hear of nothing but cash down, and as I hadn’t dollars enough to charter a dingy, let alone a schooner, there I was. For the best part of a weekI stayed in that melancholy seaport, wishing as I’d never heered of it, and laboring day by day with the shark what owns thePhilomeel. I offered him a quarter of the seal-skins, then a half, and finally the whole of ’em, only to let his schooner go and fetch off the boys.”
“What a horrid, avaricious old thing he must be!” cried Miss May, indignantly.
“It ain’t no name for it, marm—that is to say, miss. He is a ‘hunks’ if ever there was one, and so I up and told him. He said he didn’t believe I had any seal-skins, but just wanted to get his schooner for a poaching cruise in the sea. While I was thus jibing and filling without making an inch of headway, a Dutch steamer come in, and I offered the skins to him to go and fetch the boys back to Oonalaska; but the Dutchman was suspicious, like the rest of ’em, and said he was in a hurry to get to St. Michael’s, which, of course, I knowed the boys wouldn’t want to go there, anyway, seeing as it would make ’em wuss off than ever.
“Finally, when I was wellnigh desperate and at the end of my cable, the Sitka steamer came in, and I went aboard to see what I could do with her cap’n. There I run across the very Mr. Ryder what sits facing of me at this minute, who, when he heard me say as my name were Coombs, speaks up quick and sez, ‘Jalap?’ and I sez, ‘Jalap it is.’ Then he sez, fierce-like, ‘Where’s my boy?’ With that I knowed for the fust time who he was, and I sez, ‘Don’t ask me, Mr. Ryder, but count on me to help ye find him, for,’ sez I, ‘I’m as bound as you be to do it, ef it takes every seal-skin I’m wuth.’
“That same day we had thePhilomeelchartered for cash, with me in as cap’n, and was cracking sail on to her for this blessed island of Oonimak. We made port in fine style, with our flag a-flying, andwould have fired off our kerosene stove, only we didn’t have any. But it warn’t no use. There wasn’t nary soul in sight, nor hasn’t been from that day to this. The seal-skins was gone, too, and it’s my opinion that blooming Dutchman come along and shanghaied ’em.”
“No, he didn’t,” laughed Captain Matthews. “I seized them in the name of the United States, and they are in the hold of this very ship at this very minute.”
“Wal,” said Jalap Coombs, with a comical air of resignation, “ef government’s got ’em ’tain’t no use, and I might as well do like old Kite Roberson said. He uster say, ‘Jalap, my son, let by-goners be by-goners, and never waste time in fretting over lost fish.’”