Even after they were miles down the Sound, Boyd remained at his post, sweeping the waters astern in an anxious search for some swift harbor craft, the appearance of which would signal that his escape had been discovered.
"I won't feel safe until we are past Port Townsend," he confessed toCherry, who maintained a position at his side.
"Why Port Townsend? We don't stop there."
"No. But the police can wire on from Seattle to stop us and take me off at that point."
"If they find out their mistake."
"They must have found it out long ago. That's why I've got Peasley forcing this old tub; she's doing ten knots, and that's a breakneck speed for her. Once we're through the Straits, I'll be satisfied. But meanwhile—" Emerson lowered his glasses with a sigh of fatigue, and in the soft twilight the girl saw that his face was lined and careworn. The yearning at her heart lent poignant sympathy to her words, as she said:
"You deserve to win, Boyd; you have made a good fight."
"Oh, I'll win!" he declared, wearily. "I've got to win; only I wish we were past Port Townsend."
"What will happen to Fraser?" she queried.
"Nothing serious, I am sure. You see, they wanted me, and nobody else; once they find they have the wrong man I rather believe they will free him in disgust."
A moment later he went on: "Just the same, it makes me feel depressed and guilty to leave him—I—I wouldn't desert a comrade for anything if the choice lay with me."
"You did quite right," Cherry warmly assured him.
"You see, I am not working for myself; I am doing this for another."
It was the girl's turn to sigh softly, while the eyes she turned toward the west were strangely sad and dreamy. To her companion she seemed not at all like the buoyant creature who had kindled his courage when it was so low, the brave girl who had stood so steadfastly at his shoulder and kept his hopes alive during these last, trying weeks. It struck him suddenly that she had grown very quiet of late. It was the first time he had had the leisure to notice it, but now, when he came to reflect on it, he remembered that she had never seemed quite the same since his interview with her on that day when Hilliard had so unexpectedly come to his rescue. He wondered if in reality this change might not be due to some reflected alteration in himself. Well! He could not help it.
Her strange behavior at that time had affected him more deeply than he would have thought possible; and while he had purposely avoided thinking much about the banker's sudden change of front, back of his devout thankfulness for the miracle was a vague suspicion, a curious feeling that made him uncomfortable in the girl's presence. He could not repent his determination to win at any price; yet he shrank, with a moral cowardice which made him inwardly writhe, from owning that Cherry had made the sacrifice at which Clyde and the others had hinted. If it were indeed true, it placed him in an intolerable position, wherein he could express neither his gratitude nor his censure. No doubt she had read the signs of his mental confusion, and her own delicate sensibility had responded to it.
They remained side by side on the bridge while the day died amidst a wondrous panoply of color, each busied with thoughts that might not be spoken, in their hearts emotions oddly at variance. The sky ahead of them was wide-streaked with gold, as if for a symbol, interlaid with sooty clouds in silhouette; on either side the mountains rose from penumbral darkness to clear-cut heights still bright from the slanting radiance. Here and there along the shadowy shore-line a light was born; the smell of the salt sea was in the air. Above the rhythmic pulse of the steamer rose the voices of men singing between decks, while the parting waters at the prow played a soft accompaniment. A steward summoned them to supper, but Boyd refused, saying he could not eat, and the girl stayed with him while the miles slowly slipped past and the night encompassed them.
"Two hours more," he told her, as the ship's bell sounded. "Then I can eat and sleep—and sing."
Captain Peasley was pacing the bridge when later they breasted the glare of Port Townsend and saw in the distance the flashing searchlights of the forts that guard the Straits. They saw him stop suddenly, and raise his night-glasses; Boyd laid his hand on Cherry's arm. Presently the Captain crossed to them and said:
"Yonder seems to be a launch making out. See? I wonder what's up."Almost in their path a tiny light was violently agitated. "By Jove!They're signalling."
"You won't stop, will you?" questioned Emerson.
"I don't know, I am sure. I may have to."
The two boats were drawing together rapidly, and soon those on the bridge heard the faint but increasing patter of a gasoline exhaust. Carrying the same speed asThe Bedford Castle, the launch shortly came within hailing distance. The cyclopean eye of the ship's searchlight blazed up, and the next instant, out from the gloom leaped a little craft, on the deck of which a man stood waving a lantern. She held steadfastly to her course, and a voice floated up to them:
"Ahoy! What ship?"
"The Bedford Castle, cannery-tender for Bristol Bay," Peasley shouted back.
The man on the launch relinquished his lantern, and using both palms for a funnel, cried, more clearly now: "Heave to! We want to come aboard."
With an exclamation of impatience, the commanding officer stepped to the telegraph, but Emerson forestalled him.
"Wait, they're after me, Captain; it's the Port Townsend police, and if you let them aboard they'll take me off."
"What makes you think so?" demanded Peasley.
"Ask them."
Turning, the skipper bellowed down the gleaming electric pathway, "Who are you?"
"Police! We want to come aboard."
"What did I tell you?" cried Emerson.
Once more the Captain shouted: "What do you want?"
"One of your passengers—Emerson. Heave to. You're passing us."
"That's bloody hard luck, Mr. Emerson; I can't help myself," the Captain declared. But again Boyd blocked him as he started for the telegraph.
"I won't stand it, sir. It's a conspiracy to ruin me."
"But, my dear young man—"
"Don't touch that instrument!"
From the launch came cries of growing vehemence, and a startled murmur of voices rose from somewhere in the darkness of the deck beneath.
"Stand aside," Peasley ordered, gruffly; but the other held his ground, saying, quietly:
"I warn you. I am desperate."
"Shall I stop her, sir?" the quartermaster asked from the shadows of the wheel-house.
"No!" Emerson commanded, sharply, and in the glow from the binnacle-light they saw he had drawn his revolver, while on the instant up from the void beneath heaved the massive figure of Big George Balt, a behemoth, more colossal and threatening than ever in the dim light. Rumbling curses as he came, he leaped up the pilot-house steps, wrenched open the door, and with one sweep of his hairy paw flung the helmsman from his post, panting,
"Keep her going, Cap', or I'll run them down!"
"We stood by you, old man," Emerson urged; "you stand by us. They can't make you stop. They can't come aboard."
The launch was abreast of them now, and skimming along so close that one might have tossed a biscuit aboard of her. For an instant Captain Peasley hesitated; then Emerson saw the ends of his bristly mustache rise above an expansive grin as he winked portentously. But his voice was convincingly loud and wrathful as he replied:
"What do you mean, sir? I'll have my blooming ship libelled for this."
"I'll make good your losses," Emerson volunteered, quickly, realizing that other ears were open.
"Why, it's mutiny, sir."
"Exactly! You can say you went out under duress."
"I never heard of such a thing," stormed the skipper. Then, more quietly, "But I don't seem to have any choice in the matter; do I?"
"None whatever."
"Tell them to go to hell!" growled Balt from the open window above their head.
A blasphemous outcry floated up from the launch, while heads protruded from the deck-house openings, the faces white in the slanting glare. "Why don't you heave to?" demanded a voice.
Peasley stepped to the end of the bridge and called down: "I can't stop, my good man, they won't allow it, y' know. You'll have to bloody well come aboard yourself." Then, obedient to his command, the search-light traced an arc through the darkness and died out, leaving the little craft in darkness, save for its dim lantern.
Unseen by the amazed quartermaster, who was startled out of speech and action, Emerson gripped the Captain's shoulder and whispered his thanks, while the Britisher grumbled under his breath:
"Bli' me! Won't that labor crowd be hot? They nearly bashed in my head with that iron spike. Four hundred pounds! My word!"
The sputter of the craft alongside was now punctuated by such a volley of curses that he raised his voice again: "Belay that chatter, will you? There's a lady aboard."
The police launch sheered off, and the sound of her exhaust grew rapidly fainter and fainter. But not until it had wholly ceased did Big George give over his post at the wheel. Even then he went down the ladder reluctantly, and without a word of thanks, of explanation, or of apology. With him this had been but a part of the day's work. He saw neither sentiment nor humor in the episode. The clang of the deep-throated ship's bell spoke the hour, and, taking Cherry's arm, Boyd helped her to the deck.
"Now let's eat something," said she.
"Yes," he agreed, relief and triumph in his tone, "and drink something, too."
"We'll drink to the health of 'Fingerless' Fraser."
"To the health of 'Fingerless' Fraser," he echoed. "We will drink that standing."
A week later, after an uneventful voyage across a sea of glass,The Bedford Castlemade up through a swirling tide-rip and into the fog-bound harbor of Unalaska. The soaring "goonies" that had followed them from Flattery had dropped astern at first sight of the volcanic headlands, and now countless thousands of sea-parrots fled from the ship's path, squattering away in comic terror, dragging their fat bodies across the sea as a boy skips a flat rock. It had been Captain Peasley's hope, here at the gateway of the Misty Sea, to learn something about the lay of the big ice-floes to the northward, but he was disappointed, for the season was yet too young for the revenue-cutters, and the local hunters knew nothing. Forced to rely on luck and his own skill, he steamed out again the next day, this time doubling back to the eastward and laying a cautious course along the second leg of the journey.
Once through the ragged barrier that separates the North Pacific from her sister sea, the dank breath of the Arctic smote them fairly. The breeze that wafted out from the north brought with it the chill of limitless ice-fields, and the first night found them hove-to among the outposts of that shifting desert of death which debouches out of Behring Straits with the first approach of autumn, to retreat again only at the coming of reluctant summer. From the crow's-nest the lookout stared down upon a white expanse that stretched beyond the horizon. At dawn they began their careful search, feeling their way eastward through the open lanes and tortuous passages that separated the floes, now laying-to for the northward set of the fields to clear a path before them, now stealing through some narrow lead that opened into freer waters.
The Bedford Castlewas a steel hull whose sides, opposed to the jaws of the ponderous masses, would have been crushed like an eggshell in a vise. Unlike a wooden ship, the gentlest contact would have sprung her plates, while any considerable collision would have pierced her as if she had been built of paper. Appreciating to the full the peril of his slow advance, Captain Peasley did all the navigating in person; but eventually they were hemmed in so closely that for a day and a night they could do nothing but drift with the pack. In time, however, the winds opened a crevice through which they retreated to follow the outer limits farther eastward, until they were balked again.
Opposed to them were the forces of Nature, and they were wholly dependent upon her fickle favor. It might be a day, a week, a month before she would let them through, and, even when the barrier began to yield, another ship, a league distant, might profit by an opening which to them was barred. For a long, dull period the voyagers lay as helpless as if in dry-dock, while wandering herds of seals barked at them or bands of walruses ceased their fishing and crept out upon the ice-pans to observe these invaders of their peace. When an opportunity at last presented itself, they threaded their way southward, there to try another approach, and another, and another, until the first of May had come and gone, leaving them but little closer to their goal than when they first hove-to. Late one evening they discerned smoke on the horizon, and the next morning's light showed a three-masted steamship fast in the ice, a few miles to the westward.
"That'sThe Juliet," Big George informed his companions, "one of theNorth American Packers' Association tenders."
"She was loading when we left Seattle," Boyd remarked.
"It is Willis Marsh's ship, so he must be aboard," supplemented Cherry. "She's a wooden ship, and built for this business. If we don't look out he'll beat us in, after all."
"What good will that do him?" Clyde questioned. "The fish don't bite—I mean run—for sixty days yet."
Emerson and Balt merely shrugged.
To Cherry Malotte this had been a voyage of dreams; for once away from land, Boyd had become his real self again—that genial, irrepressible self she had seen but rarely—and his manner had lost the restraint and coolness which recently had disturbed their relations. Of necessity their cramped environment had thrown them much together, and their companionship had been most pleasant. She and Boyd had spent long hours together, during which his light-heartedness had rivalled that of Alton Clyde—hours wherein she had come to know him more intimately and to feel that he was growing to a truer understanding of herself. She realized beyond all doubt that for him there was but one woman in all the world, yet the mere pleasure of being near him was an anodyne for her secret distress. Womanlike, she took what was offered her and strove unceasingly for more.
Two days after sightingThe Julietthey raised another ship, one of the sailing fleet which they knew to be hovering in the offing, and then on the fifth of the month the capricious current opened a way for them. Slowly at first they pushed on between the floes into a vast area of slush-ice, thence to a stretch as open and placid as a country mill-pond. The lookout pointed a path out of this, into which they steamed, coming at length to clear water, with the low shores of the mainland twenty miles away.
At sundown they anchored in the wide estuary of the Kalvik River, the noisy rumble of their chains breaking the silence that for months had lain like a smother upon the port. The Indian village gave sign of life only in thin, azure wisps of smoke that rose from the dirt roofs; the cannery buildings stood as naked and uninviting as when Boyd had last seen them. The Greek cross crowning the little white church was gilded by the evening sun. Through the glasses Cherry spied a figure in the door of her house which she declared was Constantine, but with commendable caution the big breed forebore to join the fleet of kyaks now rapidly mustering. Taking Clyde with them, she and Boyd were soon on their way to the land, leaving George to begin discharging his cargo. The long voyage that had maddened the fishermen was at last at an end, and they were eager to begin their tasks.
A three-mile pull brought the ship's boat to Cherry's landing, where Constantine and Chakawana met them, the latter hysterical with joy, the former showing his delight in a rare display of white teeth and a flow of unintelligible English. Even the sledge-dogs, now fat from idleness, greeted their mistress with a fierce clamor that dismayed Alton Clyde, to whom all was utterly new and strange.
"Glory be!" he exclaimed. "They're nothing but wolves. Won't they bite? And the house—ain't it a hit! Why, it looks like a stage setting! Oh, say, I'm for this! I'm getting rough and primitive and brutal already!"
When they passed from the store, with its shelves sadly naked now, to the cozy living quarters behind, his enthusiasm knew no bounds. Leaving Chakawana and her mistress to chatter and clack in their patois, he inspected the premises inside and out, peering into all sorts of corners, collecting souvenirs, and making friends with the saturnine breed.
Cherry would not return to the ship, but Emerson and Clyde re-embarked and were rowed down to the cannery site, abreast of which layThe Bedford Castle, where they lingered until the creeping twilight forced them to the boat again. When they reached the ship the cool Arctic night had descended, but its quiet was broken by the halting nimble of steam-winches, the creak of tackle, the cries of men, and the sounds of a great activity. Baring his head to the breezes Boyd filled his lungs full of the bracing air, sweet with the flavor of spring, vowing secretly that no music that he had ever heard was the equal of this. He turned his face to the southward and smiled, while his thoughts sped a message of love and hope into the darkness.
Big George had lost no time, and already the tow-boats were overboard, while a raft of timber was taking form alongside the ship. As soon as it was completed, it was loaded with crates and boxes and paraphernalia of all sorts, then towed ashore as the tide served. Another took its place, and another and another. All that night the torches flared and the decks drummed to a ceaseless activity. In the morning Boyd sent a squad of fishermen ashore to clear the ground for his buildings, and all day new rafts of lumber and material helped to increase the pile at the water's edge.
His early training as an engineer now stood him in good stead, for a thousand details demanded expert supervision; but he was as completely at home at this work as was Big George in his own part of the undertaking, and it was not long before order began to emerge from what seemed a hopeless chaos. Never did men have more willing hands to do their bidding than did he and George; and when a week laterThe Juliet, with Willis Marsh on board, came to anchor, the bunk-houses were up and peopled, while the new site had become a beehive of activity.
The mouth of the Kalvik River is several miles wide, yet it contains but a small anchorage suitable for deep-draught ships, the rest of the harbor being underlaid with mud-bars and tide-flats over which none but small boats may pass; and as the canneries are distributed up and down the stream for a considerable distance, it is necessary to transport all supplies to and from the ships by means of tugs and lighters. Owing to the narrowness of the channel,The Julietcame to her moorings not far fromThe Bedford Castle.
To Marsh, already furious at the trick the ice had played him, this forced proximity to his rival brought home with added irony the fact that he had been forestalled, while it emphasized his knowledge that henceforth the conflict would be carried on at closer quarters. It would be a contest between two men, both determined to win by fair means or foul.
Emerson was a dream-dazzled youth, striving like a knight-errant for the love of a lady and the glory of conquest, but he was also a born fighter, and in every emergency he had shown himself as able as his experienced opponent.
As Marsh looked about and saw how much Boyd's well-directed energy was accomplishing, he was conscious of a slight disheartenment. Still, he was on his own ground, he had the advantage of superior force, and though he was humiliated by his failure to throttle the hostile enterprise in its beginning, he was by no means at the end of his expedients. He was curious to see his rival in action, and he decided to visit him and test his temper.
It was on the afternoon following his arrival that Marsh, after a tour of inspection, landed from his launch and strolled up to where Boyd Emerson was at work. He was greeted courteously, if a bit coolly, and found, as on their last meeting, that his own bearing was reflected exactly in that of Boyd. Both men, beneath the scant politeness of their outward manner, were aware that the time for ceremony had passed. Here in the Northland they faced each other at last as man to man.
"I see you have a number of my old fishermen," Marsh observed.
"Yes, we were fortunate in getting such good ones."
"You were fortunate in many ways. In fact you are a very lucky young man."
"Indeed! How?"
"Well, don't you think you were lucky to beat that strike?"
"It wasn't altogether luck. However, I do consider myself fortunate in escaping at the last moment," Boyd laughed easily. "By the way, what happened to the man they mistook for me?"
"Let him go, I believe. I didn't pay much attention to the matter." Marsh had been using his eyes to good advantage, and, seeing the work even better in hand than he had supposed, he was moved by irritation and the desire to goad his opponent to say more than he had intended: "I rather think you will have a lot to explain, one of these days," he said, with deliberate menace.
"With fifty thousand cases of salmon aboardThe Bedford CastleI will explain anything. Meanwhile the police may go to the devil!" The cool assurance of the young man's tone roused his would-be tormentor like a personal affront.
"You got away from Seattle, but there is a commissioner at Dutch Harbor, also a deputy marshal, who may have better success with a warrant than those policemen had." The Trust's manager could not keep down the angry tremor in his voice, and the other, perceiving it, replied in a manner designed to inflame him still more:
"Yes, I have heard of those officers. I understand they are both in your employ."
"What!"
"I hear you have bought them."
"Do you mean to insinuate—"
"I don't mean to insinuate anything. Listen! We are where we can talk plainly, Marsh, and I am tired of all this subterfuge. You did what you could to stop me, you even tried to have me killed—"
"You dare to—"
"But I guess it never occurred to you that I may be just as desperate as you are."
The men stared at each other with hostile eyes, but the accusation had come so suddenly and with such boldness as to rob Marsh of words. Emerson went on in the same level voice: "I broke through in spite of you, and I'm on the job. If you want to cry quits, I'm willing; but, by God! I won't be balked, and if any of your hired marshals try to take me before I put up my catch I'll put you away. Understand?"
Willis Marsh recoiled involuntarily before the sudden ferocity that blazed up in the speaker's face. "You are insane," he cried.
"Am I?" Emerson laughed, harshly. "Well, I'm just crazy enough to do what I say. I don't think you're the kind that wants hand-to-hand trouble, so let's each attend to his own affair. I'm doing well, thank you, and I think I can get along better if yon don't come back here until I send for you. Something might fall on you."
Marsh's full, red lips went pallid with rage as he said "Then it is to be war, eh?"
"Suit yourself." Boyd pointed to the shore. "Your boatman is waiting for you."
As Marsh made his way to the water's edge he stumbled like a blind man; his lips were bleeding where his small, sharp teeth had bitten them, and he panted like an hysterical woman.
During the next fortnight the sailing-ships began to assemble, standing in under a great spread of canvas to berth close alongside the two steamships; for, once the ice had moved north, there was no further obstacle to their coming, and the harbor was soon livened with puffing tugs, unwieldy lighters, and fleets of smaller vessels. Where, but a short time before, the brooding silence had been undisturbed save for the plaint of wolf-dogs and the lazy voices of natives, a noisy army was now at work. The bustle of a great preparation arose; languid smoke-wreaths began to unfurl above the stacks of the canneries; the stamp and clank of tin-machines re-echoed; hammer and saw maintained a never-ceasing hubbub. Down at the new plant scows were being launched while yet the pitch was warm on their seams; buildings were rising rapidly, and a crew had gone up the river to get out a raft of piles.
On the morning after the arrival of the last ship, Emerson and his companions were treated to a genuine surprise. Cherry had come down to the site as usual—she could not let a day go by without visiting the place—and Clyde, after a tardy breakfast, had just come ashore. They were watching Big George direct the launching of a scow, when all of a sudden they heard a familiar voice behind them cry, cheerfully:
"Hello, white folks! Here we are, all together again."
They turned to behold a villanous-looking man beaming benignly upon them. He was dirty, his clothes were in rags, and through a riotous bristle of beard that hid his thin features a mangy patch showed on either cheek. It was undeniably "Fingerless" Fraser, but how changed, how altered from that radiant flower of indolence they had known! He was pallid, emaciated, and bedraggled; his attitude showed hunger and abuse, and his bony joints seemed about to pierce through their tattered covering. As they stood speechless with amazement, he made his identification complete by protruding his tongue from the corner of his mouth and gravely closing one eye in a wink of exceeding wisdom.
"Fraser!" they cried in chorus, then fell upon him noisily, shaking his grimy hands and slapping his back until he coughed weakly. Summoned by their shouts, Big George broke in upon the incoherent greeting, and at sight of his late comrade began to laugh hoarsely.
"Glad to see you, old man!" he cried, "but how did you get here?"
Fraser drew himself up with injured dignity, then spoke in dramatic accents. "I worked my way!" He showed the whites of his eyes, tragically.
"You look like you'd walked in from Kansas," George declared.
"Yes, sir, Iworked! Me!"
"How? Where?"
"On that bloody wind-jammer." He stretched a long arm toward the harbor in a theatrical gesture.
"But the police?" queried Boyd.
"Oh, I squared them easy. It's you they want. Yes, sir, Iworked."Again he scanned their faces anxiously. "I'm a scullery-maid."
"What?"
"That's what I said. I've rustled garbage-cans till the smell of food gives me a cold sweat. I'm as hungry as a starving Cuban, and yet the sight of a knife and fork turns my stomach." He wheeled suddenly upon Alton Clyde, whose burst of shrill laughter offended him. "Don't cry. Your sympathy unmans me."
"Tell us about it," urged Cherry.
"What's the use?" he demanded, with a glare at Clyde. "That bone-head wouldn't understand."
"Go ahead," Boyd seconded, with twitching lips. "You look as if you had worked, and worked hard."
"Hard? I'm the only man in the world who knows what hard work is!"
"Start at the beginning—when you were arrested."
"Well, I didn't care nothing about the sneeze," he took up the tale, "for I figure it out that they can't slough me without clearing you, so I never take no sleeping-powders, and, sure enough, about third drink-time the bulls spring me, and I screw down the main stem to the drink and get Jerry to your fade—"
"Tell it straight," interrupted Cherry. "They don't understand you."
"Well, there ain't any Pullmans running to this resort, so I stow away on a coal-burner, but somebody flags me. Then I try to hire out as a fisherman, but I ain't there with the gang talk and my stuff drags, so I fix it for a hide-away onThe Blessed Isle—that's her name. Can you beat that for a monaker? This sailor of mine goes good to grub me, but he never shows for forty-eight hours—or years, I forget which. Anyhow, I stand it as long as I can, then I dig my way up to a hatch and mew like a house-cat. It seems they were hep from the start, and battened me down on purpose, then made book on how long I'd stay hid. Oh, it's a funny joke, and they all get a stomach laugh when I show. When I offer to pay my way they're insulted. Nix! that ain't their graft. They wouldn't take money from a stranger. Oh, no! They permit me toworkmy way. The scullion has quit, see? So they promote me to his job. It's the only job I ever held, and I held it because it wouldn't let go of me, savvy? There's only three hundred men aboardThe Blessed Isle, so all I have to do, regular, is to understudy the cooks, carry the grub, wait on table, wash the dishes, mop the floors, make the officers' beds, peel six bushels of potatoes a day, and do the laundry. Then, of course, there's some odd tasks. Oh, it was a swell job—more like a pastime. When a mop sees me coming now it dances a hornpipe, and I can't look a dish-rag in the face. All I see in my dreams is potato-parings and meat-rinds. I've got dish-water in my veins, and the whole universe looks greasy to me. Naturally it was my luck to pick the slowest ship in the harbor. We lay three weeks in the ice, that's all, and nobody worked but me and the sea-gulls."
"You deserted this morning, eh?"
"I did. I beat the barrier, and now I want a bath and some clean clothes and a whole lot of sleep. You don't need to disturb me till fall."
He showed no interest whatever in the new plant, refusing even to look it over or to express an opinion upon the progress of the work; so they sent him out to the ship, where for days he remained in a toad-like lethargy, basking in the sun, sleeping three-fourths of the time and spending his waking hours in repeating the awful tale of his disgraceful peonage.
To unload the machinery, particularly the heavier pieces, was by no means a simple matter, owing to the furious tides that set in and out of the Kalvik River. The first mishap occurred during the trip on which the boilers were towed in, and it looked to Boyd less like an accident than a carefully planned move to cripple him at one stroke. The other ships were busily discharging and the roadstead was alive with small craft of various kinds, when the huge boilers were swung over the side ofThe Bedford Castleand blocked into position for the journey to the shore. George and a half-dozen of his men went along with the load while Emerson remained on the ship. They were just well under way when, either by the merest chance or by malicious design, several of the rival Company's towboats moored to the neighboring ships cast off. The anchorage was crowded and a boiling six-mile tide made it difficult at best to avoid collision.
Hearing a confused shouting to shoreward, Boyd ran to the rail in time to see one of the Company tugs at the head of a string of towboats bearing down ahead of the current directly upon his own slow-moving lighter. Already it was so close at hand as to make disaster seem inevitable. He saw Balt wave his arms furiously and heard him bellow profane warnings while the fishermen scurried about excitedly, but still the tug held to its course. Boyd raised his voice in a wild alarm, but had they heard him there was nothing they could have done. Then suddenly the affair altered its complexion.
The oncoming tug was barely twice its length from the scow when Boyd saw Big George cease his violent antics and level a revolver directly at the wheel-house of the opposing craft. Two puffs of smoke issued from weapon, then out from the glass-encased structure the steersman plunged, scrambled down the deck and into the shelter of the house. Instantly the bow of the tug swung off, and she came on sidewise, striking Balt's scow a glancing blow, the sound of which rose above the shouts, while its force threw the big fellow and his companions to their knees and shattered the glass in the pilot-house windows. The boats behind fouled each other, then drifted down upon the scow, and the tide, seizing the whole flotilla, began to spin it slowly. Rushing to the ladder, Emerson leaped into another launch which fortunately was at hand, and the next instant as the little craft sped out from the side ofThe Bedford Castle, he saw that a fight was in progress on the lighter. It was over quickly, and before he reached the scene the current had drifted the tows apart. George, it seemed, had boarded the tug, dragged the captain off, and beaten him half insensible before the man's companions had come to his rescue.
"Is the scow damaged?" Emerson cried, as he came alongside.
"She's leaking, but I guess we can make it," George reassured him.
They directed the second launch to make fast, and, towed by both tugs, they succeeded in beaching their cargo a mile below the landing.
"We'll calk her at low tide," George declared, well satisfied at this outcome of the misadventure. Then he fell to reviling the men who had caused it.
"Don't waste your breath on them," Boyd advised. "We're lucky enough as it is. If that tug hadn't sheered off she would have cut us down, sure."
"That fellow done it a-purpose," George swore. "Seamen ain't that careless. He tried to tell me he was rattled, but I rattledhim."
"If that's the case they may try it again," said the younger man.
"Huh! I'll pack a 'thirty-thirty' from now on, and I bet they don't get within hailing distance without an iron-clad."
The more calmly Emerson regarded the incident, the more he marvelled at the good-fortune that had saved him. "We had better wake up," he said. "We have been asleep so far. If Marsh planned this, he will plan something more."
"Yes, and if he puts one wallop over we're done for," George agreed, pessimistically. "I'll keep a watchman aboard the scows hereafter. That's our vital spot."
But the days sped past without further interference, and theconstruction of the plant progressed by leaps and bounds, whileTheBedford Castle, having discharged her cargo, steamed away to return inAugust.
The middle of June brought the first king salmon, scouts sent on ahead of the "sockeyes;" but Boyd made no effort to take advantage of this run, laboring manfully to prepare for the advance of the main army, that terrific horde that was soon to come from the mysterious depths, either to make or ruin him. Once the run proper started, there would be no more opportunity for building or for setting up machinery. He must be ready and waiting by the first of July.
For some time his tin-machines had been busy, night and day, turning out great heaps of gleaming cans, while the carpenters and machinists completed their tasks. The gill-netters were overhauling their gear, the beach was lined with fishing-boats. On the dock great piles of seines and drift-nets were being inspected. Three miles below, Big George, with a picked crew and a pile-driver, was building the fish-trap. It consisted of half-mile "leads," or rows of piling, capped with stringers, upon which netting was hung, and terminated in "hearts," "corrals," and "spillers," the intricate arrangements of webbing and timbers out of which the fish were to be taken.
It was for the title to the ground where his present operations were going forward that George had been so cruelly disciplined by the "interests;" and while he had held stubbornly to his rights for years in spite of the bitterest persecution, he was now for the first time able to utilize his site. Accordingly his exultation was tremendous.
As for Boyd, the fever in his veins mounted daily as he saw his dream assuming concrete form. The many problems arising as the work advanced afforded him unceasing activity; the unforeseen obstacles which were encountered hourly required swift and certain judgment, taxing his ingenuity to the utmost. He became so filled with it all, so steeped with the spirit of his surroundings, that he had thought for nothing else. Every dawn marked the beginning of a new battle, every twilight heralded another council. His duties swamped him; he was worried, exultant, happy. Always he found Cherry at his shoulder, unobtrusive and silent for the most part, yet intensely observant and keenly alive to every action. She seemed to have the faculty of divination, knowing when to be silent and when to join her mood with his, and she gave him valuable help; for she possessed a practical mind and a masculine aptitude for details that surprised both him and George. But, rapidly as the work progressed, it seemed that good-fortune would never smile upon them for long. One day, when their preparations were nearly completed, a foreman came to Boyd, and said excitedly:
"Boss, I'd like you to look at the Iron Chinks right away."
"What's up?"
"I don't know, but something is wrong." A hurried examination showed the machines to be cunningly crippled; certain parts were entirely missing, while others were broken.
"They were all right when we brought them ashore," the man declared."Somebody's been at them lately."
"When? How?" questioned Boyd. "We have had watchmen on guard all the time. Have any strangers been about?"
"Nobody seems to know. When we got ready to set 'em just now, I saw this."
The Iron Chink, or mechanical cleaner, is perhaps the most ingenious of the many labor-saving devices used in the salmon fisheries. It is an awkward-looking, yet very effective contrivance of revolving knives and conveyors which seizes the fish whole and delivers it cleaned, clipped, cut, and ready to be washed. With superhuman dexterity it does the work of twenty lightning-like butchers. Without the aid of these Iron Chinks, Boyd knew that his fish would spoil before they could be handled. In a panic, he pursued his investigation far enough to realize that the machines were beyond repair; that what had seemed at first a trivial mishap was in fact an appalling disaster. Then, since his own experience left him without resource, he hastened straightway to George Balt. A half-hour's run down the bay and he clambered from his launch to the pile-driver, where, amid the confusion and noise, he made known his tidings. The big fellow's calmness amazed him.
"What are you going to do now?"
"Butcher by hand," said the fisherman.
"But how? That takes skilled labor—lots of it."
George grinned. "I'm too old a bird to be caught like this. I figured on accidents from the start, and when I hired my Chinamen I included a crew of cutters."
"By Jove, you never told me!"
"There wasn't no use. We ain't licked yet, not by a damned sight.Willis Marsh will have to try again."
While they were talking a tug-boat towing a pile-driver came into view.Boyd asked the meaning of its presence in this part of the river.
"I don't know," answered Big George, staring intently. "Yonder looks like another one behind it, with a raft of piles."
"I thought all the Company traps were up-stream."
"So they are. I can't tell what they're up to."
A half-hour later, when the new flotilla had come to anchor a short distance below, Emerson's companion began to swear.
"I might have known it."
"What?"
"Marsh aims to 'cork' us."
"What is that?"
"He's going to build a trap on each side of this one and cut off our fish."
"Good Lord! Can he do that?"
"Sure. Why not? The law gives us six hundred yards both ways. As long as he stays outside of that limit he can do anything he wants to."
"Then of what use is our trap? The salmon follow definite courses close to the shore, and if he intercepts them before they reach us—why, then we'll get only what he lets through."
"That's his plan," said Big George, sourly, "It's an old game, but it don't always work. You can't tell what salmon will do till they do it. I've studied this point of land for five years, and I know more about it than anybody else except God 'lmighty. If the fish hug the shore, then we're up against it, but I think they strike in about here; that's why I chose this site. We can't tell, though, till the run starts. All we can do now is see that them people keep their distance."
The "lead" of a salmon-trap consists of a row of web-hung piling that runs out from the shore for many hundred feet, forming a high, stout fence that turns the schools of fish and leads them into cunningly contrived enclosures, or "pounds," at the outer extremity, from which they are "brailed" as needed. These corrals are so built that once the fish are inside they cannot escape. The entire structure is devised upon the principle that the salmon will not make a short turn, but will swim as nearly as possible in a straight line. It looked to Boyd as if Marsh, by blocking the line of progress above and below, had virtually destroyed the efficiency of the new trap, rendering the cost of its construction a total loss.
"Sometimes you can cork a trap and sometimes you can't," Balt went on. "It all depends on the currents, the lay of the bars, and a lot of things we don't know nothing about. I've spent years in trying to locate the point where them fish strike in, and I think it's just below here. It'll all depend on how good I guessed."
"Exactly! And if you guessed wrong—"
"Then we'll fish with nets, like we used to before there was any traps."
That evening, when he had seen the night-shift started, Emerson decided to walk up to Cherry's house, for he was worried over the day's developments and felt that an hour of the girl's society might serve to clear his thoughts. His nerves were high-strung from the tension of the past weeks, and he knew himself in the condition of an athlete trained to the minute. In his earlier days he had frequently felt the same nervousness, the same intense mental activity, just prior to an important race or game, and he was familiar with those disquieting, panicky moments when, for no apparent reason, his heart thumped and a physical sickness mastered him. He knew that the fever would leave him, once the salmon began to run, just as it had always vanished at the crack of the starter's pistol or the shrill note of the referee's whistle. He was eager for action, eager to find himself possessed of that gloating, gruelling fury that drives men through to the finish line. Meanwhile, he was anxious to divert his mind into other channels.
Cherry's house was situated a short distance above the cannery which served as Willis Marsh's headquarters, and Boyd's path necessarily took him past his enemy's very stronghold. Finding the tide too high to permit of passing beneath the dock, he turned up among the buildings, where, to his surprise, he encountered his own day-foreman talking earnestly with a stranger.
The fisherman started guiltily as he saw him, and Boyd questioned him sharply.
"What are you doing here, Larsen?"
"I just walked up after supper to have a talk with an old mate."
"Who is he?" Boyd glanced suspiciously at Larsen's companion.
"He's Mr. Marsh's foreman."
Emerson spoke out bluntly: "See here. I don't like this. These people have caused me a lot of trouble already, and I don't want my men hanging around here."
"Oh, that's all right," said Larsen, carelessly. "Him and me used to fish together." And as if this were a sufficient explanation, he turned back to his conversation, leaving Emerson to proceed on his way, vaguely displeased at the episode, yet reflecting that heretofore he had never had occasion to doubt Larsen's loyalty.
He found Cherry at home, and, flinging himself into one of her easy-chairs, relieved his mind of the day's occurrences.
"Marsh is building those traps purely out of spite," she declared, indignantly, when he had finished. "He doesn't need any more fish—he has plenty of traps farther up the river."
"To be sure! It looks as if we might have to depend upon the gill-netters."
"We will know before long. If the fish strike in where George expects,Marsh will be out a pretty penny."
"And if they don't strike in where George expects, we will be out all the expense of building that trap."
"Exactly! It's a fascinating business, isn't it? It's a business in which the unexpected is forever happening. But the stakes are high and—I know you will succeed."
Boyd smiled at her comforting assurance, her belief in him was always stimulating.
"By-the-way," she continued, "have you heard the historic story about the pink salmon?"
He shook his head.
"Well, there was a certain shrewd old cannery-man in Washington State whose catch consisted almost wholly of pink fish. As you know, that variety does not bring as high a price as red salmon, like these. Well, finding that he could not sell his catch, owing to the popular prejudice about color, this man printed a lot of striking can-labels, which read, 'Best Grade Pink Salmon, Warranted not to Turn Red in the Can.' They tell me it worked like a charm."
"No wonder!" Boyd laughed, beginning to feel the tension of his nerves relax at the restfulness of her influence. As usual, he fell at once into the mood she desired for him. He saw that her brows were furrowed and her rosy lips drawn into an unconscious pout as she said, more to herself than to him:
"I wish I were a man. I'd like to engage in a business of this sort, something that would require ingenuity and daring. I'd like to handle big affairs."
"It seems to me that you are in a business of that sort. You are one of us."
"Oh, but you and George are doing it all."
"There is your copper-mine. You surely handled that very cleverly."
Cherry's expression altered, and she shot a quick glance at him as he went on:
"How is it coming along, by-the-way? I haven't heard you mention it lately?"
"Very well, I believe. The men were down the other day, and told me it was a big thing."
"I'm delighted. How does it seem, to be rich?"
There was the slightest hint of constraint in the girl's voice as she stared out at the slowly gathering twilight, murmuring:
"I—I hardly know. Rich! That has always been my dream, and yet—"
"The wonderful feature about dreams," he took advantage of her pause to say, "is that they come true."
"Not all of them—not the real, wonderful dreams," she returned.
"Oh yes! My dream is coming true, and so is yours."
"I have given up hoping for that," she said, without turning.
"But you shouldn't give up. Remember that all the great things ever accomplished were only dreams at first, and the greater the accomplishments, the more impossible they seemed to begin with."
Something in the girl's attitude and in her silence made him feel that his words rang hollow and commonplace. While they had talked, an unaccustomed excitement had been mounting in his brain, and it held him now in a kind of delicious embarrassment. It was as if both had been suddenly enfolded in a new and mysterious understanding, without the need of speech. He did not tell himself that Cherry loved him; but he roused to a fresh perception of her beauty, and felt himself privileged in her nearness. At the same time he was seized with the old, half-resentful curiosity to learn her history. What wealth of romance lay shadowed in her eyes, what tragic story was concealed by her consistent silence, he could only guess; for she was a woman who spoke rarely of herself and lived wholly in the present. Her very reticence inspired confidence, and Boyd felt sure that here was a girl to whom one might confess the inmost secrets of a wretched soul and rest secure in the knowledge that his confession would be inviolate as if locked in the heart of mountains. He knew her for a steadfast friend, and he t'elt that she was beautiful, not only in face and form, but in all those little indescribable mannerisms which stamp the individual. And this girl was here alone with him, so close that by stretching out his arms he might enfold her. She allowed him to come and go at will; her intimacy with him was almost like that of an unspoiled boy—yet different, so different that he thrilled at the thought, and the blood pounded up into his throat.
It may have been the unusual ardor of his gaze that warmed her cheeks and brought her eyes back from the world outside. At any rate, she turned, flashing him a startled glance that caused his pulse to leap anew. Her eyes widened and a flush spread slowly upward to her hair, then her lids drooped, as if weighted by unwonted shyness, and rising silently, she went past him to the piano. Never before had she surprised that look in his eyes, and at the realization a wave of confusion surged over her. She strove to calm herself through her music, which shielded while it gave expression to her mood, and neither spoke as the evening shadows crept in upon them. But the girl's exaltation was short-lived; the thought came that Boyd's feeling was but transitory; he was not the sort to burn lasting incense before more than one shrine. Nevertheless, at this moment he was hers, and in the joy of that certainty she let the moments slip.
He stopped her at last, and they talked in the half-light, floating along together half dreamily, as if upon the bosom of some great current that bore them into strange regions which they dreaded yet longed to explore.
They heard a child crying somewhere in the rear of the house, andChakawana's voice soothing, then in a moment the Indian girl appearedin the doorway saying something about going out with Constantine.Cherry acquiesced half consciously, impatient of the intrusion.
For a long time they talked, so completely in concord that for the most part their voices were low and their sentences so incomplete that they would have sounded incoherent and foolish to other ears. They were roused finally by the appreciation that it had grown very late and a storm was brewing. Boyd rose, and going to the door, saw that the sky was deeply overcast, rendering the night as dark as in a far lower latitude.
"I've overstayed my welcome," he ventured, and smiled at her answering laugh.
With a trace of solicitude, she said:
"Wait! I'll get you a rain-coat," but he reached out a detaining hand.In the darkness it encountered the bare flesh of her arm.
"Please don't! You'd have to strike a light to find it, and I don't want a light now."
He was standing on the steps, with her slightly above him, and so close that he heard her sharp-drawn breath.
"Ithasbeen a pleasant evening," she said, inanely.
"I saw you for the first time to-night, Cherry. I think I have begun to know you."
Again she felt her heart leap. Reaching out to say good-bye, his hand slipped down over her arm, like a caress, until her palm lay in his.
With trembling, gentle hands she pushed him from her; but even when the sound of his footsteps had died away, she stood with eyes straining into the gloom, in her breast a gladness so stifling that she raised her hands to still its tumult.
Emerson, with the glow still upon him, felt a deep contentment which he did not trouble to analyze. It has been said that two opposite impulses may exist side by side in a man's mind, like two hostile armies which have camped close together in the night, unrevealed to each other until the morning. To Emerson the dawn had not yet come. He had no thought of disloyalty to Mildred, but, after his fashion, took the feeling of the moment unreflectively. His mood was averse to thought, and, moreover, the darkness forced him to give instant attention to his path. While the waters of the bay out to his right showed a ghostly gray, objects beneath the bluff where he walked were cloaked in impenetrable shadow. The air was damp with the breath of coming rain, and at rare intervals he caught a glimpse of the torn edges of clouds hurrying ahead of a wind that was yet unfelt.
When the black bulk of Marsh's cannery loomed ahead of him, he left the gravel beach and turned up among the buildings, seeking to retrace his former course. He noticed that once he had left the noisy shingle, his feet made no sound in the soft moss. Thus it was that, as he turned the corner of the first building, he nearly ran against a man who was standing motionless against the wall. The fellow seemed as startled at the encounter as Emerson, and with a sharp exclamation leaped away and vanished into the gloom. Boyd lost no time in gaining the plank runway that led to the dock, and finding an angle in the building, backed into it and waited, half-suspecting that he had stumbled into a trap. He reflected that both the hour and the circumstances were unpropitious; for in case he should meet with foul play, Marsh might plausibly claim that he had been mistaken for a marauder. He determined, therefore, to proceed with the greatest caution. From his momentary glimpse of the man as he made off, he knew that he was tall and active—just the sort of person to prove dangerous in an encounter. But if his suspicions were correct there must be others close by, and Boyd wondered why he had heard no signal. After a breathless wait of a moment or two, he stole cautiously out, and, selecting the darkest shadows, slipped from one to another till he was caught by the sound of voices issuing from the yawning entrance of the main building on his right. The next moment his tension relaxed; one of the speakers was a woman. Evidently his alarm had been needless, for these people, whoever they were, made no effort to conceal their presence. On the contrary, the woman had raised her tone to a louder pitch, although her words were still undistinguishable.
Greatly relieved, Boyd was about to go on, when a sharp cry, like a signal, came in the woman's voice, a cry which turned to a genuine wail of distress. The listener heard a man's voice cursing in answer, and then the sound of a scuffle, followed at length by a choking cry, that brought him bounding into the building. He ran forward, recklessly, but before he had covered half the distance he collided violently with a piece of machinery and went sprawling to the floor. A glance upward revealed the dim outlines of a "topper," and showed him farther down the building, silhouetted briefly against the lesser darkness of the windows, two struggling figures. As he regained his footing, something rushed past him—man or animal he could not tell which, for its feet made no more sound upon the floor than those of a wolf-dog. Then, as he bolted forward, he heard a man cry out, and found himself in the midst of turmoil. His hands encountered a human body, and he seized it, only to be hurled aside as if with a giant's strength. Again he clinched with a man's form, and bore it to the floor, cursing at the darkness and reaching for its throat. His antagonist raised his voice in wild clamor, while Boyd braced himself for another assault from those huge hands he had met a moment before. But it did not come. Instead, he heard a cry from the woman, an answer in a deeper voice, and then swift, pattering footsteps growing fainter. Meanwhile the man with whom he was locked was fighting desperately, with hands and feet and teeth, shouting hoarsely. Other footsteps sounded now, this time approaching, then at the door a lantern flared. A watchman came running down between the lines of machinery, followed by other figures half revealed.
Boyd had pinned his antagonist against the cold sides of a retort at last, and with fingers clutched about his throat was beating his head violently against the iron, when by the lantern's gleam he caught one glimpse of the fat, purple face in front of him, and loosed his hold with a startled exclamation. Released from the grip that had nearly made an end of him, Willis Marsh staggered to his feet, then lurched forward as if about to fall from weakness. His eyes were staring, his blackened tongue protruded, while his head, battered and bleeding, lolled grotesquely from side to side as if in hideous merriment. His clothes were torn and soiled from the litter underfoot, and he presented a frightful picture of distress. But it was not this that caused Emerson the greatest astonishment. The man was wounded, badly wounded, as he saw by the red stream which gushed down over his breast. Boyd cast his eyes about for the other participants in the encounter, but they were nowhere visible; only an open door in the shadows close by hinted at the mode of their disappearance.
There was a brief, noisy interval, during which Emerson was too astounded to attempt an answer to the questions hurled broadcast by the new-comers; then Marsh levelled a trembling finger at him and cried, hysterically:
"There he is, men. He tried to murder me. I—I'm hurt. I'll have him arrested."
The seriousness of the accusation struck the young man on the instant; he turned upon the group.
"I didn't do that. I heard a fight going on and ran in here—"
"He's a liar," the wounded man interrupted, shrilly. "He stabbed me! See?" He tried to strip the shirt from his wounds, then fell to chattering and shaking. "Oh, God! I'm hurt." He staggered to a packing-case and sank upon it weakly fumbling at his sodden shoulder.
"I didn't do that," repeated Boyd. "I don't know who stabbed him. I didn't."
"Then who did?" some one demanded.
"What are you doing in here? You'd a killed him in a minute," said the man with the lantern.
"We'll fix you for this," a third voice threatened.
"Listen," Boyd said, in a tone to make them pause. "There has been a mistake here. I was passing the building when I heard a woman scream, and I rushed in to prevent Marsh from choking her to death."
"A woman!" chorused the group.
"That's what I said."
"Where is she now?"
"I don't know. I didn't see her at all. I grappled with the first person I ran into. She must have gone out as you came in." Boyd indicated the side door, which was still ajar.
"It's a lie," screamed Marsh.
"It's the truth," stoutly maintained Emerson, "and there was a man with her, too. Who was she, Marsh? Who was the man?"
"She—she—I don't know."
"Don't lie."
"I'm hurt," reiterated the stricken man, feebly. Then, seeing the bewilderment in the faces about him, he burst out anew: "Don't stand there like a lot of fools. Why don't you get him?"
"If I stabbed him I must have had a knife," Emerson said, again checking the forward movement. "You may search me if you like. See?" He opened his coat and displayed his belt.
"He's got a six-shooter," some one said.
"Yes, and I may use it," said Emerson, quietly.
"Maybe he dropped the knife," said the watchman, and began to search about the floor, followed by the others.
"It may have been the woman herself who stabbed Mr. Marsh," offeredEmerson. "He was strangling her when I arrived."
Roused by this statement to a fresh denial, Marsh cried out:
"I tell you there wasn't any woman."
"And there isn't any knife either," Emerson sneered.
The men paused uncertainly. Seeing that they were undecided whether to believe him or his assailant, Marsh went on:
"If he hasn't a knife, then he must have had a friend with him—"
"Then tell your men what we were doing in here and how you came to be alone with us in the dark." Emerson stared at his accuser curiously, but the Trust's manager seemed at a loss. "See here, Marsh, if you will tell us whom you were choking, maybe we can get at the truth of this affair."
Without answering, Marsh rose, and, leaning upon the watchman's arm, said:
"Help me up to the house. I'm hurt. Send the launch to the upper plant for John; he knows something about medicine." With no further word, he made his way out of the building, followed by the mystified fishermen.
No one undertook to detain Emerson, and he went his way, wondering what lay back of the night's adventure. He racked his brain for a hint as to the identity of the woman and the reason of her presence alone with Marsh in such a place. Again he thought of that mysterious third person whose movements had been so swift and furious, but his conjectures left him more at sea than ever. Of one thing he felt sure. It was not enmity alone that prompted Marsh to accuse him of the stabbing. The man was concealing something, in deadly fear of the truth, for rather than submit to questioning he had let his enemy go scot-free.
Suddenly Boyd paused in his walk, recalling again the shadowy outlines of the figure with whom he had so nearly collided on his way up from the beach. There was something familiar about it, he mused; then, with a low whistle of surprise, he smote his palms together. He began to see dimly.
For more than an hour the young man paced back and forth before the door of his sleeping-quarters, so deeply immersed in thought that only the breaking storm drove him within. When at last he retired, it was with the certainty that this night had placed a new weapon in his hand; but of what tremendous value it was destined to prove, he little knew.