GEORGE did not go to the club that night. He went straight home and sent Farintosh out to buy all the evening papers and Farintosh returned with a bundle of everything from theEvening Sunto thePolk Street Pikers’ Messenger. Every paper had the news, under all sorts of scare headlines. Some of these headlines referred to Fisher and some to himself; through all the notices ran a gentle and breezy humour, and in them all, with one exception, Joe Barrett had his advertisement and walked protected from laughter as Shadrac from flame.
The one exception was thePolk Street Piker, a free spoken organ that generally kept to ward politics. ThePiker, whilst allowing that Rat Trap Fisher had swelled head and had better stick to rodents, was frankly libellous about Barrett, said the whole thing was a fake got up by Barrett to help his sale of damaged goods then on, said a business must be pretty rocky to adopt such means, said that it was likely the whole Dutchman business was a business fake.
George read this horrible libel with a chill at his heart, for he knew that Hennessy, the editor of thePiker, was a led captain and creature of Barrett’s. No one of any account read thePiker, but everyone of any account would read the abject apology of thePikersure to be published in a day or two in every newspaper in California, together with editorial comments and a full statement about the Fisher Expedition supplied by Scudder. The thing would probably reach New York and London. With Vanderdecken as engine and Barrett as driver and stoker, there was no knowing where it might not reach or how long it might not keep running, and he, George du Cane, was tied to the tail of it. He was already in the blaze of the limelight and at that moment men in the clubs, people at dinner parties, people in restaurants and people in cars were talking of him. The fact of his wealth would give him a little place, all his own, in this show. There was only one way of escape—justification. “We’ve gotta get the Dutchman.” Hank’s words came back to him. If they did not get the Dutchman, it would be much better not to come back to San Francisco. George had a fine feeling for Pacific Coast temperament; leaving that alone, half frozen Icelanders would see the point and the joke of a much advertised amateur expedition such as theirs returning empty handed.
He went to bed early but he could not sleep for a long time. It was all very well talking aboutgetting the Dutchman, but how were they to get him? When the getting of him had been only a matter of sport, the thing seemed fairly easy; now that it was a matter of dire necessity, it seemed next to impossible. A nightmare task like hunting for a lost needle in Kearney Street.
He jumped out of bed, fetched an atlas, and, taking it back to bed with him, looked up the California coast, running his eye along from San Francisco to Cape San Lucas, exploring the sea from the Channel Islands to Guadaloupe and from Guadaloupe to the Tres Marias Islands. Somewhere in that vast stretch of sea, somewhere on that line of coast that ran from the Golden Gate to Cancer, they had to find a man who most certainly did not want to be found by searchers. He went to sleep on the thought and awoke to it.
Farintosh was entering the room; he was carrying a bundle of morning papers.
“Pull up the blind,” said George.
Propped on the pillows, he opened the first paper to hand expecting to see his name in double leaded type. Not a word. In all the paper not a word of him or Hank or the Dutchman or the expedition. The next paper was the same and the next. The great San Francisco dailies and the little San Francisco dailies had treated the matter with the most absolute contempt. George felt curiously flat, he even looked at the dates of the papers to make sure there was no mistake andthat Farintosh had not by some accident brought him yesterday’s press.
He had dreaded seeing his name and now he was disappointed because it was not there. Human nature is a funny thing.
He rose, bathed, dressed and came down to breakfast, but still the depression clung. He felt small and of little account, he felt weak and irritable. What was wrong with him? He had tasted Publicity, that is all. Publicity, the wine of the Barretts, is also the wine of the poets; its fascination is universal and of whatever brand it is, from abusive to laudatory, it is always Publicity. Even the pillory, I expect, had its compensations in the old days, and to be recognized with a bad egg or a dead cat was, at all events, to be recognised.
And what a blaze-up that was last night, with every paper screaming round the bon-fire,—and now this frost—why, that alone was in the nature of an insult.
Suddenly and in the act of pouring himself out a second cup of coffee, his mind cleared and his energy returned. “We’ve gotta get the Dutchman.” Hank’s words had come back to him. “And by God we will,” said he.
He finished his breakfast, rang for the car and started for the wharves. The deck of theWear Jackwas empty, he dropped down to the cabin and there was Hank surrounded with newspapers.Hank had evidently purchased largely last night as well as this morning.
“Well,” said George lightly, “there’s not a word in the morning papers and that’s a good thing.”
Hank grunted.
“That’s Barrett,” said he. “He’s cut the news off plunk. Why, a blaze in the morning papers would have been out by to-night; as it is every man from Pacific Avenue to Polk Street is saying, ‘Why, there ain’t no news about Hank.’ Barrett’s being ’phoned to death at the present minute asking what it all means. People will be talking all day, wanting news of the business and inventing lies to fill the gaps, till it’ll get about that the Dutchman’s been caught by Joe Barrett an’s being exhibited at his stores. By to-night all the ’phones will be humming with lies and all the South Coast papers shouting for information. Why, Bud, where were you born not to know that advertising isn’t printing stuff in the papers but making men talk. One big rumour, if you set it going, bumbling away like thunder in the foot hills, is worth all the printed stuff from here to Nome. We’re fair handicapped. If I was advertising liver pills, I’d be joyful, but I’m not.”
“Think it will queer our pitch?”
“Well, you don’t go duck-shooting with a brass band, do you? But there’s no use in talking, we’re on the slide and we’ll have to slither, and brassband or no, I’m going to get him. Come on, we’ve gotta get to work.”
He had been at work since six o’clock, it seemed, on the ratlines, and he was now overhauling all the standing rigging. That done, they attacked the running.
In the middle of these operations it began to dawn on them that they were observed. Sometimes there was quite a little group on the wharf watching and criticising. George noticed it first.
“How the devil have they got to know the whereabouts of the boat?” asked George. “The papers said nothing about Sullivan’s Wharf.”
“It’s Jake,” said Hank. “He’ll have been all over the wharves talking; take a pull on that halyard. Lord, these blocks will never do, I’ll have to go hunt in the sail-room to see if I can’t turn out some better. What’s the time? Getting on for one? Well, I’ve got some grub down below and I vote we have a bite, and after that, if you don’t mind, will you skip ashore to the club and see if there’s any letters for me. I’m expecting a business letter from N’ York about a patent I’ve got an interest in.”
“Right,” said George.
The galley of theWear Jackwas well fitted up. Jake had done his cooking there and had left half a can of kerosene behind him. Hank had got eggs and a great chunk of bacon from somewhere out of the blue, and there was the remains of last night’s German sausage. In a few minutes the fryingpan was shouting over a Primus stove and Hank, in his shirt sleeves, was directing George. There was a let-down table in the galley and plates and knives and forks in a locker.
“I’ve overhauled the crockery and table and bed linen,” said Hank. “Did it last night. There’s enough on board for a family—pass me your plate. We’ll have a Chink for cook.”
“How about the crew?”
“Time enough about them—maybe we’ll have Chinks.”
To George, pondering as he ate, suddenly came the fact that Vanderdecken—the Dutchman—Dutch Pete, or whatever his name might be, certainly had behind him a crew of the same colour as himself, coupled with the fact that a crew of Chinks wouldn’t be of the same fighting colour as Vanderdecken’s lot.
He said so.
“Oh, it won’t come to fighting,” said Hank. “If it did I can hit a dollar with an automatic at twenty-five paces once a second, and I’ll learn you to do the same—but it won’t. We’ve got to take that chap with our wits, not with guns, though they’ll be useful maybe for bluff. Did y’ ever see strategy and tactics combined in the concrete?”
“No,” said George.
“Then you’ve never seen my rat trap,” said Hank.
An hour later George returned from his visitto the club with two letters for Hank. One was the expected letter from New York; the other, which bore only the San Francisco post-mark, was addressed to R. T. Fisher, and ran:
11 West Lincoln Street,San Francisco.Sir,As a lover of the sea and all that therein is, I take this opportunity to beg leave to apply for a post in your expidition, can turn my hand to anything that isn’t crooked. Was gold-mining at Klondike two years but give it up owing to a frost bight but am used to dealing with rough characters. Seeing the piece about you in the evening paper to-night I make haist to apply and you will find me equal prompt in my dealings I have to do with you, and satisfactory. A line to above will oblige.Yours, truly,J. B. Yonkers.P. S. Terms can be arranged.
11 West Lincoln Street,San Francisco.
Sir,As a lover of the sea and all that therein is, I take this opportunity to beg leave to apply for a post in your expidition, can turn my hand to anything that isn’t crooked. Was gold-mining at Klondike two years but give it up owing to a frost bight but am used to dealing with rough characters. Seeing the piece about you in the evening paper to-night I make haist to apply and you will find me equal prompt in my dealings I have to do with you, and satisfactory. A line to above will oblige.
Yours, truly,J. B. Yonkers.
P. S. Terms can be arranged.
“That’s the bill-mackerel,” said Hank. “Did you ever see a mackerel? Well, it’s always headed by a couple or so of freak mackerel. Chaps with bills like ducks. This is the first of the shoal of chaps that’ll be wanting to come along, with us—you’ll see.”
GEORGE did.
An abject and crawling apology from thePiker, published and paid for in next morning’s papers, restarted the publicity campaign, and, though the press never recovered its first careless rapture, the thing had made good and was established in the mind of the public. The letters came in day by day, some addressed to the club, some care of Joe Barrett, all of the same tenor. The expedition that had aroused mild merriment in the upper circles of San Francisco was received in dead seriousness by the middle and lower circles—even with enthusiasm. The thing had vast appeal to the movie-red mind; the exploits of the Dutchman, inconsiderable enough in a world where criminal license had suddenly added cubits to its stature, had been boomed by the press. Hank Fisher had already a name to embroider on and “Bud” du Cane was not unknown. Letters came from all round the Bay; from Oakland, Berkeley, Port Costa, New York, California, Antioch, Benicia, SanRafael and Tiburon; letters came from Monterey and all down the coast. Letters from “all sorts and sexes” to put it in Hank’s words. Women offered to come along as cooks, boys as “deck-hands,” a retired banker at San Jo offered to pay to be taken along. Never in any letter except that of the “bill-mackerel” was there a reference to terms, all these people were ready to go for nothing but their “grub and bunk” as one gentleman put it, and, if you wish to gauge the utility of a personality like Hank’s, this vast and healthy wave of adventure-craving which he had set going amongst the populace of the state is an index.
“And not one of the lot is any use,” said Hank, as he sat in the cabin with George one day about a week before the projected start. “I saw those people I wrote to yesterday, one had consumption, another one had swelled head, fancied himself a duke to judge by his talk, another was six foot seven or thereabouts, couldn’t have taken him aboard without his head sticking out of the saloon hatch, another guy was on a tramp from Oskosh to S’uthern California and wanted to take the expeditionen route, he was an oil prospector and troubled with something that made him want to scratch; then there was an Italian who’d been a count and an Irishman who’d served in the Irish rebellion under Roger Casement, a decent chap, but I’d just as soon take aboard a live bomb shell. We’ll just have to make out, you and me,as after-guard—four Chinks will be enough for a crew and I can pick them up by the handful.”
“When are the provisions and stuff coming on board?”
“Tomorrow or next day. I saw J. B. yesterday—”
“Wear Jack, ahoy!” came a voice from the wharf through the open skylight.
“Hullo!” cried Hank. “Who’s that and what d’you want?”
A thud came on the deck followed by the voice at the companion hatch. “May I come below?” The stairs creaked and at the saloon door appeared a man.
The sun glow from the skylight struck him full as he stood there, a huge, red-bearded, blue-eyed sailor man, neatly dressed in dark serge and wearing a red necktie. His eyes were most taking and astonishing liquid sparkling blue—the eyes of a child.
Contrasted with the hatchet-faced Hank and the sophisticated Bud, he seemed youthful, yet he was older than either of them.
“HULLO!” said Hank. “What the devil do you want?”
“Am I speaking to Mr. Fisher?” asked the newcomer, addressing himself to the town lot speculator.
“You are.”
“You’re the man that’s going after the Dutchman?”
“Yep.”
“D’you want to catch him?”
“Oh, Lord, no,” said Hank. “I’m only going to inquire after his health. Go on, what are you getting at?”
“Well, if you want to catch him, get on deck this instant minute and see I’ve not been followed. Go up casual and have a look round. Keep your eyes skinned for a man with a patch over his left eye. I’m not funning. I mean business. Get a-deck. I tell you I’ve no time to explain.”
Hank stared at the other for a second, then he uncoiled himself, crossed the cabin and vanished up the companion way.
Neither George nor the bearded one spoke a word. They were listening. Then they heard voices.
“Say, you,” came a voice from the wharf, “did y’ see a guy goin’ along here—red-whiskered fella?”
“Man with a red necktie?” came Hank’s voice.
“Yeh—he’s my pal—which way was he goin’?”
“He was making along towards the union dock.”
Silence. The companion way creaked and Hank reappeared standing in the cabin doorway.
“Well,” said Hank, “that’s done. I’d no sooner got on deck than a fellow with a patch on his eye came along with kind inquiries. I’ve sent him along. Now I must ask you for your visiting card—and explanations.”
The stranger laughed.
“Candon’s my name,” said he. “Bob Candon. I’ll take a seat for a minute, if you don’t mind, to get my wits together. I only blew in yesterday afternoon, came up from S’uthard and anchored off Tiburon and first news I had when I got ashore was about you and the Dutchman.”
“What was your ship?” cut in Hank.
“Heart of Ireland, thirty-ton schooner, owned and run by Pat McGinnis, last port—” Candon cut himself short. “That would be telling,” said he, with a laugh.
Hank handed him a cigarette and lit another.
“I’m not wanting to bore into your business,” said Hank, “only I’m giving you this straight, I’ve no time for blind man’s buff. You were proposing to come along with us to hook the Dutchman?”
“That’s what I’m here for,” said Candon. “I don’t want you to lose wind or time over me, I’d have you know I’m dealing straight, but I’m mixed with a crowd that’s not straight, get me? Don’t you bother where theHeartdropped her mud-hook last, nor how much her business was mixed up with the Dutchman’s business. Don’t you bother about one single thing but the proposition I’m going to put before you, and it’s this. Ship me out of this port down south and I’ll put in your hand every last ounce of the boodle the Dutchman’s been collecting, for I know where it’s hid; on top of that I’ll make you a present of the man himself for I know where he’s to be found. That’s my part of the bargain. And now for yours. I ask nothing but five thousand dollars in my fist when the job’s done, and to be put ashore somewhere safe, so that those chaps on theHeartwon’t be able to get at me.”
He had been holding the cigarette unlighted. He struck a match, lit it, took in a great volume of smoke and slowly expelled it.
“Well,” said he, “what’s your opinion on that?”
Hank was sitting almost like Rodin’s Thinker. Then he uncoiled a bit.
“Do those guys on theHeartknow where the Dutchman’s to be found?” asked he.
“No, they don’t.”
“Do they know where the boodle is?”
“N’more than Adam.”
“Do they know you know where it is?”
“They suspect. That’s my trouble—what’s this I’m saying, ‘suspect’. Why it’s more than that now. Now I’ve run away from them they’ll know for certain.”
“And if they catch you?”
“They’ll drill me, sure.”
“Was that guy with the patch, McGinnis?”
“Nope—Thacker, McGinnis’s right hand man.”
Hank brooded.
Then said he: “Were you a friend of the Dutchman?”
“What you mean to ask,” said the other, “is, am I letting him down? I’ll just tell you, the Dutchman has been my enemy, but I’m not moving in this because I have a grouch against him. I’m playing my own game, but it’s a straight game.”
Hank brooded a second more.
“We’d have to hide you aboard here till we start,” said he.
“You will,” replied the other.
“Right,” said Hank. “Now will you take arag and clean the engine for two minutes while I have a talk to my friend here in private.”
He led the way out and came back.
“Well,” said he, “what do you think of that guy?”
“I like him,” said George.
“I like him well enough,” said Hank, “Question is about his story. It seems plain enough. He’s come up with a crew of hoodlums who’ve been in touch with Vanderdecken, they’ve been hunting for old man Vanderdecken’s boodle. Nothing doing. Then they’ve left the hunt and put in here. They had big suspicions he was in the know and wanted the boodle for himself. He’s only been let ashore with a nurse and he’s given her the slip. It’s all plain. Then Providence comes in, which is us. Seems extraordinary, don’t it? Barrett advertising us like that and all, for here we are, a sure bolt-hole for him, advertised bigger than Heinz’s Pickles.”
“How do you mean a bolt-hole?”
“Well, look at it. Those crooks are after him like a coyote after a prairie dog. He’s got to get out of here, he might get out in a foc’sle if he wasn’t knifed before the ship sailed, but that wouldn’t lead him anywhere except maybe round Cape Horn,whereashe gets a lift back down the coast to where he knows the Dutchman has hid the boodle and he gets five thousand dollars in his fist and a set ashore. Then Providence comesin again, seems to me. I reckoned I’d have to spend five thousand on this expedition and between Tyrebuck and Barrett it won’t cost me a cent, bar the hire of four Chinks for crew, so I can easy afford to pay him five thousand and come out winners. Besides, he’s an extra hand himself and a good sailor man, if I’m any judge.”
“It does seem all to fit in,” said George.
“Well, shall we take him?” said Hank. “It’s a risk, but I reckon we’ve got to take risks.”
“Take him,” said George.
Hank went out and returned with the other. Candon had taken off his coat and his shirt sleeves were rolled up and his hands showed the engine-room business he had been put on.
“Come right in,” said Hank. “We’ve concluded to take you along, but there’s conditions.”
“Spit them out,” said Candon.
“Well, first of all I haven’t five thousand dollars to be taking down the coast with me, but I’ll put a thousand in your fist when the job’s done and mail you the other four to any address you like.”
“Oh, I’ll trust you for that,” said Candon. “What else?”
“Second, if we find the Dutchman’s property, it will have to go back to the owners.”
“That’s just what I’d like best,” said Candon. “I tell you straight it would have been a conditionwith me, only I took it for granted seeing you’re out, so to speak, in the name of the law. I’m no pirate. I’m not saying I was always of the same way of thinking, but I reckon those ballyhooleys I’ve just left have given me a shake.”
“Well then,” said Hank, “there’s only one more condition. You’ll help to work the ship for your bunk and board without pay.”
“Right,” said Candon, “and now, if you’ll take that styleographic pen I see sticking out of your vest pocket and give’s a bit of paper, we’ll draw the contract.”
Hank produced the pen and an old bill on the back of which the “contract” was made out, under the terms of which Candon was to receive five thousand dollars and a set ashore after the Dutchman had been brought safe aboard theWear Jack, also he was to take the expedition to the spot where, to the best of his belief, was cached the Dutchman’s plunder.
This done, Candon went back to his engine cleaning, having produced and handed over to Hank four ten dollar notes.
“I’ll want a toothbrush and a couple of shirts and a couple of suits of pyjamas,” said he. “Maybe, as I can’t get ashore, you’ll get them for me. All my truck’s on board theHeart.”
“Bud,” said Hank to his partner that night, “I hope to the Lord we ain’t stung. Supposethe chap’s some practical joker put on us by Barrett, or the boys at the Club.”
“Nonsense,” said George. “Where’d be the sense? Besides the chap’s genuine. You have only to look at his face....”
THE week before the sailing of theWear Jackwas a busy time for the Fisher Syndicate and business was not expedited owing to the fact that Candon had to be kept hidden. The red-bearded one seemed happy enough, spending most of his time in the engine room smoking cigarettes. At nights, safe with Hank in the “saloon,” his mind disclosed itself in his conversation.
No, this was no wasp let in on them by Barrett or the Club boys. The mind of Candon, as revealed to Hank, was as free from crookedness as the eyes through which it looked, and on most topics from the League of Nations to Ella Wheeler Wilcox, it was sound. And it was not unlike the mind of Hank. It was self-educated and their enthusiasms, from the idea of Universal Brotherhood to the idea of the sanctity of womanhood, matched, mostly.
Candon, from what one could gather, had been a rolling stone, like Hank, but he gave little away about himself and he was quite frank about it.
“I’d just as soon forget myself,” said he. “I’ve been in a good many mix-ups and I’ve missed a fortune twice through my own fault, but I’ve come through with all my teeth and no stomach worries and we’ll leave it at that.”
Barrett’s stores came on board and were stowed, and Hank, through a boarding-house keeper, got his crew, four Chinamen all of the same tong, all Lees, and bossed by a gentleman rejoicing in the name of Lee Wong Juu. Champagne Charley, Hank labeled him. They came tripping on board with their chests the night before starting, vanished like shades down the foc’sle hatch and were seen no more.
Hank, standing on the deck with George, heaved a sigh of contentment. “Well, that’s done,” said he. “There’s nothing more to take on board and we’re all ready for the pull out in the morning.”
“What time do you propose to start?” asked the other.
“Sunup. Barrett has got it into his head, somehow, we’re going at noon. I didn’t tell you, but I got wind he’d arranged for a tug with a brass band to lead us out and josh us. Can you see his face when he finds us gone?”
They went below where the cabin lamp was lit, with Candon reading a newspaper under it.
“The Chinks are come,” said Hank, taking his seat at the table, and fetching out his pipe. “There’s nothing more to come in but the mud-hook.Well, how do you feel, now we’re starting?”
“Bully,” said Candon. “I was beginning to feel like a caged canary. You chaps don’t know what it’s been the last week. Well, let’s get finished. There’s some truck still to be stowed in the after cabin and I want to do a bit more tinkering at the engine. There’s a day’s work on that engine—them cylinder rings were sure made in Hades.”
“Well, you can leave it,” said Hank. “I’m putting out at sunup. I don’t count on that engine and you’ll have time to tinker with her on the way down.” He stopped suddenly, raised his head, and held up a finger. The night was warm and the skylight full open. In the dead silence that fell on the cabin they could hear through the open skylight the far-away rattle of a cargo winch working under the electrics, the whistle of a ferry boat and away, far away, though great as the voice of Behemoth, the boo of a deep sea steamer’s siren.
“Yes,” began Hank again, gliding to the door of the saloon as he spoke, “you can tinker with it on the way down.” He vanished, and the others, taking his cue, kept up the talk. Then they heard him pounce.
“What you doing here?”
“Hullo! me—I ain’t doin’ nothin’—what you gettin’ at? You lea’ me go.”
“What you doing here, you low down scow-hunker? Answer up before I scrag you.”
“Tell you I was doin’ nothin’. I dropped aboard to see if I couldn’t borry a light, seein’ the shine of your skylight.”
“I’ll give you a light.”
Then they heard the quite distinctive sounds of a man being kicked off the ship, blasphemous threats from the wharf-side—silence.
A minute later Hank appeared, his lean face lit with the light of battle.
“Popped my head on deck,” cried Hank, “and saw a fellow on the wharf-side—I’ll swear it was Jake. He lit, and then I saw another one hunched down by the skylight. You heard me kicking him off.”
“Who’s Jake?” asked Candon, who had taken his seat again at the table.
“Watchman I fired for handing me lies more’n a fortnight ago.”
“Well,” said Candon, “the other man was Mullins, if I have my ears on my head.”
“Who’s Mullins?”
“Black Mullins, McGinnis’ left hand. Boys, we’ve gotta get out. How’s the wind?”
“Nor’west,” said Hank.
“And there’s a moon. Boys, we’ve gotta get right out now, get the whaleboat over and the Chinks ready for a tow clear of the wharf. Let’s see, the whole of theHeartcrowd will be over at Tiburon, the oldHeartwill be in dry dock, forshe’d started a butt and there’s weeks’ work on her, so they won’t be able to use her to chase us for another fortnight, get me? Well, see now, that guy will be back in Tiburon somewhere about two hours or more and he’ll rouse the hive. He’ll have seen me, lookin’ down through the skylight, and he’ll know you’re starting to-morrow. Not having a ship to chase us, they’ll board us. You’ll have a boatload of gunmen alongside somewhere about two in the morning.”
“You mean to say they’ll board us?” cried George.
“Yep.”
“But what about the police?”
“Police! Nothing. Why they’d beat it in a quick launch before the cops had begun to remember they weren’t awake.”
“Well, let’s notify the police and have an ambush ready for them.”
“Not me,” said Candon. “I don’t want to have any dealings with the law. Why if McGinnis and his crowd were taken, they’d swear Lord knows what about me. Besides I’m not friends with the bulls. I’m no crook, I’ve never looked inside a jail, but I’ve seen enough good men done in by the law to make me shy of it.”
“But see here,” said Hank. “I can’t take her out at night. I don’t know the lights, I’d pile her up sure.”
“I’ll take her out,” said Candon, “I’d take herout with my eyes shut. It’s near full moon and we’ll have the ebb, what more do you want?”
Hank turned to George.
“Let’s get out,” said George. “We don’t want a mix-up with those people; if we get piled, why we have the boat.”
Hank turned to Candon.
“You’re sure you can do it?”
“Sure.”
“Then come on,” said Hank. He led the way on deck.
The wharf was deserted. To the left of them lay the bay, silver under the moonlight and spangled here and there with the lights of shipping at anchor. Whilst Hank trimmed the side lights and Candon attended to the binnacle light, George went forward to rout out the Chinks. He found them finishing their supper. Lee Wong Juu was their cook as well as boss, he had lit the galley stove on his own initiative and made tea. They had brought provisions enough for supper. Their chests were arranged in order, everything was in apple-pie trim and as they sat on their bunk sides with their tin mugs in their hands and their glabrous faces slewed round on the intruder, they looked not unlike a company of old maids at a tea party.
George gave his order and they rose, put away their mugs and followed him on deck.
The whaleboat had cost Hank ninety-five dollars, second-hand. It was not a real whaleboat,either in size, make or fittings, but good enough for their purpose, carvel built, four-oared, with tins fixed beneath the thwarts to help float her in case of a capsize.
Candon was standing by the boat as George came on deck.
In the rapid moments that had come on them since the spy had been kicked off the ship, Candon had gradually gained supremacy, without effort, one might say. The man had arisen and was rising to the emergency like a swimmer on a wave, bearing the others with him. He was giving orders now quietly and without fuss.
They got the boat afloat with the four Chinks in her, and, the tow rope having been fixed, Candon got into her, having cast off the mooring ropes. Hank took the wheel of the schooner. George, standing silent beside Hank, heard the creak and splash of the oars. Then came the chug and groan of the tow-rope tightening, then slowly, almost imperceptibly the bowsprit of theWear Jackbegan to veer away from the wharf. And now to port and starboard lay the glittering harbour water and astern the long line of the wharves began to show with the electrics blazing here and there where they were working cargo overtime. As the wharves receded, they stole into a world of new sounds and lights. San Francisco began to show her jewelry, glittering ribbons of electrics, crusts of gems; on the port bow the lights of Oakland, far across the water, answeredto the lights of San Francisco, and across the scattered silver ferry boats showed like running jewels. The wind from the north west came steady and filled with the breath of the unseen sea.
“Lord!” said Hank, “how much further is he taking us? Seems like as if he were making for Oakland.”
“He knows what he is doing,” said George.
“Sure.”
They held on.
A Chinese junk passed, with her lateen sail bellying to the wind, and then came along a yacht, lighted and riotous as a casino, with a jazz band playing “Suwanee.” It passed and the great quietude of the night resumed. Still the tow kept on.
Then came a voice from alongside. Candon had cast off the rope and was coming on board.
To George, just in that moment, the whole scene and circumstance came as an impression never to be forgotten; the silence following the casting off of the rope, the vast harbour surface, glittering like a ball-room floor, where the helplessWear Jacklay adrift, the lights of ’Frisco and the lights of Oakland and the secrecy and necessity for despatch lest, drifting as they were, they should be side-swiped by some Bay boat in a hurry. But he had little time for thought. Candon was on board, the boat was got in and the slack of the tow-rope, and Candon at the wheel began to give his orders with speed but without hurry.
The mainsail rose slatting against the stars, then the foresail; a Chink cast the gaskets off the jib, whilst theWear Jack, trembling like an undecided and frightened thing, seemed to calm down and take heart. The slatting of the canvas ceased. They were under way.
Candon seemed steering for Oakland, then the Oakland lights swung to starboard and passed nearly astern. They were making for Alcatraz. The lights of San Francisco were now to port and the city showed immense, heaving itself against the moonlight; Nobs Hill, Telegraph Hill, Russian Hill, all ablaze beneath the moon, slashed with lines of light. Away beyond Angel Island showed the lights of Tiburon.
Right under Alcatraz, Candon put the helm hard over; the canvas thrashed and filled again and theWear Jacksettled down on her new tack, heading for the Presidio. Close in, the helm went over again, the canvas fought the wind and then filled on the tack for Lime Point, the northern gate post of the Golden Gate.
The breath of the sea now came strong, spray came inboard from the meeting of wind and ebb tide and theWear Jackbegan to thrash at the tumble coming in from the bar.
Under Lime Point she came about on the port tack, taking the middle passage. Then beyond Pont Bonito came the tumble of the bar. The wind was not more than a steady sailing breeze but the long rollers coming in from Japan gavethem all the trouble they wanted, though theWear Jack, proving her good qualities, shipped scarcely a bucket full. Then the sea smoothed down to a glassy breeze-spangled swell and the schooner, with the loom of the land far on her port quarter, spread her wings beneath the moon for the south.
CANDON handed the wheel over to Hank. “Well, we’re out,” said he. “Keep her as she goes, the coast’s a straight line down to Point San Pedro, and I don’t want to clear it by more than ten miles.” He lit a pipe and walked to the port rail, where he stood with the pipe in his mouth and his hands on the rail looking at the land.
George stood beside him. The crew had vanished to the foc’sle, now that everything was comfortable, leaving the deck to the three white men; no watches had been picked nor was there a look-out. George remarked on the fact and Candon laughed.
“I’d just as soon leave the Chinks below,” said he, “and run her ourselves for the rest of the watch. Half a man could handle her as the wind is, and as for a look-out, why I reckon nothing could sink us to-night. Boys, I’m sure bughouse, I never took a ship out of ’Frisco bay before two hours ago.”
“You what!” said George.
“What I’m telling you. It came on me to do it and I did it. I’ve been in and out often enough, but never at the wheel nor navigating. I had the lay of the place in my head but it was a near touch.”
Hank at the wheel gave a laugh that sounded like a cough.
“I felt it in my bones,” said Hank.
“What?” asked Candon.
“Why that you were driving out half blind; as near as paint you had us on to Alcatraz and you all but rammed the Presidio. I was standing on my toes wanting to yell ‘Put your helm over,’ but I kept my head shut, didn’t want to rattle you.”
“Bughouse, clean bughouse,” said Candon. “Makes me sweat in the palms of my hands now I’ve done it, but I tell you boys, I couldn’t have missed. Going by night like that one can’t judge distance and as for the lights, they’d better have been away, but I couldn’t have missed, I was so certain sure of myself. It comes on me like that at times, I get lifted above myself, somehow or another.”
“I’m the same way myself,” said Hank, “it comes on me as if I got light-headed and I’m never far wrong if I let myself go. Bud here will tell you I rushed this expedition through more by instinct than anything else—didn’t I, Bud?”
Bud assented, unenthusiastically.
George Harley du Cane, out and away now with the Pacific beneath him and his eyes fixed on thefar-off loom of the land, was thinking. He had recognized, even before starting, that Hank and Candon were, temperamentally, pretty much birds of the same feather. Not only had their discussions as to socialism and so forth seemed to him pretty equally crazy, but he had recognized, in a dim sort of manner, that they infected one another and that their “bughouse” qualities were not diminished by juxtaposition. However, safe in port, the sanity or insanity of his companions, expressed only in conversation about abstract and uninteresting affairs, did not seem to matter. Out here it was different, somehow, especially after the exhibition Candon had just given them of daring carried to the limits of craziness. And who was Candon, anyhow? A likable man, sure enough, but the confessed associate of more than shady characters, and they had accepted this man on his face value, as a pilot in an adventure that was sure to be dangerous, considering the character of the man they were out to hunt.
Well, there was not a bit of use bothering. He had gone into the business with his eyes open. There he was, wealthy, at ease with all the world, talking to those men in the club, when in came Hank with his lunacy, saying he was going to catch Vanderdecken. He had followed the Rat Trap Inventor out, taken his arm and insisted on becoming part and parcel of his plans. Why? He could not tell why. And now he was tied up in a venture with Chinks and two cranks; a venturewhich, if it failed, would make him ridiculous, if it succeeded might make him a corpse. He might now have been respectably shooting in the Rockies only for his own stupidity.
Then, all of a sudden, came a question to his mind, “Would you sooner be respectably shooting in the Rockies or here?” Followed by the surprising and immediate answer, “Here.” Bughouse—clean bughouse—but the fact remained.
It was now getting on for two in the morning, and he went below, leaving the deck to the others. They intended carrying on till four, and then rousing the crew up for the morning watch.
They told him they would call him when they wanted him and he turned in, dropping to sleep the instant his head touched the pillow. When he awoke it was daylight, water dazzles were at play on the Venesta panellings, as the early sunlight through the portholes shifted to the lift of the swell, snores from the two other occupied bunks seemed to keep time to the movement of theWear Jackand from the topmost starboard bunk, Hank’s pyjama-clad leg hung like the leg of a dead man.
The whole of the after-guard had turned in, leaving apparently the schooner to run herself. He turned out and without stopping to wake the others came hurriedly up the companion way on deck.
THE sun was up and away to port lay California, lifting her hills to heaven against the morning splendour, to starboard, a mile or so away, a big freighter, in ballast and showing the kick of her propeller, was pounding along north with the sunlight on her bridge canvas. Even at that distance George could hear the thud of her screw like the beating of a heart.
A Chinaman was at the helm of theWear Jack, Champagne Charley no less, and forward another celestial was emptying a slush tub over the port rail.
George nodded to the helmsman, and then, taking his seat on the skylight edge, contemplated the coast.
George’s yachting experience had been mainly confined to the Bay. He could steer a boat under sail, but of deep sea work and cruising in big yachts he knew practically nothing. Still, even to his uninitiated mind, this thing seemed wrong. Candon and Hank had evidently left the deck at the beginning of the morning watch, that is to sayfour o’clock, leaving the Chinks to run the show. They had been running it for three hours or so and doing it satisfactorily, to all appearances. Still it didn’t seem right.
He determined to go for the other two and give them a piece of his mind and then, when, a few minutes later, they came on deck yawning and arrayed in their pyjamas, he didn’t. They seemed so perfectly satisfied with themselves and things in general that it was beyond him to start complaining. Instead he went down and tubbed in the bathroom. An hour later, as he was seated at breakfast with the two others, his whole attitude of mind towards “Chinks” had changed, for the schooner was running on her course with scarcely a tremor of the tell-tale compass, the breakfast was set as if by a parlour-maid, and the ham and eggs were done to perfection. More than that, they were waited upon by a waiter who knew his business, for when he had done handing things round, he vanished without a word and left them to talk.
“Oh, that’s nothing,” said Candon, in reply to a remark of George’s. “Those Chinks could run this packet by themselves. When a Chinaman signs on as an A. B., he is one. He doesn’t pretend to be what he isn’t, not on a ship running out of ’Frisco anyhow, and he’s more, every Chinaman’s a cook and a laundress and it’s ten to one he’s a tailor as well. I tell you, when I think of what one Chink can do and what onewhite man generally can’t, I get frightened for the whites.” Hank was cutting in, and an argument on the colour question between these two was prevented only by George remembering something of more immediate moment.
“Look here,” said he to Candon, “can’t you tell us more about Vanderdecken now we’re out. What I mean to say is the plans you have about him. Where are we going, anyway?”
“South,” said Candon.
“I know that,” said George, “but where south? South’s a big place.”
“It is,” said the other; “too big for guessing, but now we’re out and I’m going to put you wise. First of all, I promised you to put this guy’s boodle into your hands, and second I promised you the guy himself. I hung off from telling you the location till you’d done your part of the contract and got me out away from the McGinnis crowd. Well, you’ve done your part and here’s mine. The place I’m taking you is known by the Mexicans as the Bay of Whales.”
“The Mexicans!” said George.
“Yep. We’ve got to turn the corner of Lower California, that’s to say Cape St. Lucas, then out across the Bay of California for the Mexican coast and the Bay of Whales. It’s away above Jalisco. It’s worth seeing. I don’t know how it is, maybe it’s the currents or the winds or just a liking for a quiet burying ground, but every old sulphur bottom that’s died between here and Timbuctooseems to have laid his bones there. There’s a Mexican superstition about the place, maybe on account of the bones, but no one ever goes there. It’s the lonesomest place on God’s footstool, the shore-along ships keep clear of it and it’s all reefs beyond the sand of the bay so you don’t get ships putting in. I tell you, you could photograph the lonesomeness. Well there the boodle is and there you’ll put your hands on the guy you want.”
Said Hank: “Look here, B. C.”—Candon had come down to initials after the manner of ’Frisco. “How did old man Vanderdecken make out, anyway. What I’m getting at is this: I figured his fishing grounds to be the Channel Islands and north and south of there, but that’s a good long way from St. Lucas.”
“That’s so,” said Candon. “Well, I’ll tell you, right along till near the end he used to keep the stuff he got aboard his own hooker. You’re right, his lay was the Channel Islands. But finding he’d made the place too hot for himself all right along down the American seaboard, and expectin’ to be searched, he did a dive for the bay I told you of and there he cached the stuff, and I’m the only man beside himself that knows where the cache is.
“There, I’ve told you that much. I’m not going to say how I got so thick with him as to know his plans and dispositions. I just ask you to take B. C.’s word that the goods are according to the manifest.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Hank, “I don’t want to dig into your business, all I want’s the Dutchman, and to put my hand on his shoulder.”
“And so you shall,” said B. C., “’less he dies before we get there.”
They came up and, Candon taking the wheel, the two Chinamen who were holding the deck dived below. An hour later, the Chinks being called up, watches were picked, George falling to Hank, Champagne Charley to Candon.
Candon being the most knowledgeable man and the best sailor, it was agreed that he should work the ship.
“You can’t have two heads,” said Hank, “and I reckon yours is better than mine where navigating her is concerned.”
THE Kuro Shiwo current drives northward up the coast of Japan, crosses the Pacific and comes down the Pacific Coast of America, bathing the Channel Islands and giving them their equable temperature. This great current is a world of its own; it has its kelp forests, where the shark hides, like a tiger, and its own peculiar people, led by the great swordfish of Japan. Japan not only sends her swordsmen of the sea to keep this moving street-like world, she lends her colours, in blues vivid and surprising as the skies and waters of her shadowless pictures.
One morning, shortly after sunrise, George, fast asleep in his bunk, was hauled out by Hank to “see the Islands.” He tumbled out and, just as he was, in his pyjamas, followed on deck.
Between the Kuro Shiwo and the wind theWear Jackwas making a good ten knots. Pont Concepcion on the mainland lay almost astern, and the sun, with his feet still on the mountains beyond Santa Barbara, was chasing to death a fog whose last banners were fluttering amidst the foot hills.
Away ahead, like vast ships under press of sail, rode the San Lucas Islands, San Miguel, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, their fog-filled cañons white in the sunlight.
Later in the morning, with the San Lucas Islands far astern, San Nicolas showed up like a flake of spar on the horizon to the south; to the sou’-east appeared a trace of the mountains of Santa Catalina.
Candon, who was on deck talking to George, pointed towards Santa Catalina. “Looks pretty lonely, don’t it?” said he. “Well, that place is simply swarming with millionaires. Say, you’re something in that way yourself, aren’t you? So I ought to keep my head muzzled, but you’ll understand. I’m not going against you, but things in general. I reckon if you’d ever roomed in Tallis Street, ’Frisco, you’d know what I mean. I’ve seen big poverty and when I see millionaires sunning themselves, it gets my goat—now you know what I’m gettin’ at.”
“Look here, B. C.,” said George, “cut it out. Most of the millionaires I know live on pap and pills and work like gun mules—”
“Do you?” asked Candon laughing.
“No, I don’t, but I expect I will some time; anyhow, one fool exception doesn’t count. What I’m getting at is this, chaps like you and Hank get it in your heads that the bigger a man’s pile is, the more he enjoys himself. It’s the other wayabout, seems to me; also that the rich man lives in a world of his own with laws of his own—”
“So he does,” said the other. “Now you listen to me. When Prohibition started, how did the poor man stand? Dry, that’s how he stood, looking at the other people with their cellars full of drink. They knew the law was coming and they laid in.”
“That’s true,” said George.
“It is,” said Candon, “and some day, maybe, I’ll tell you a yarn about how it hit me once.”
Hank came on deck and stood with eyes shaded, looking at the ghost of Santa Catalina on the sky line. “There she is,” said Hank. “You can almost see the flags waving and hear the bands playing. Bud, didn’t you ever go fishing down that way? I reckon it was that place gave Vanderdecken his first pull towards thievery, seeing the water is thick with Bank Presidents and Wheat Cornerers only waiting to be collected for ransom. Say, B. C., if you know anything about old Vanderdecken, tell us why he didn’t hold the folks he caught to ransom as well as picking the diamonds and money off them. That’s what I’d have done. I would sure. Hullo!”
A leaping tuna, as long as a man and curved like a sword, left the sea on the starboard bow, showed its colours to the sun, and vanished with a splash.
“Tuna,” said Candon.
“Well, what’s he doing here?” asked Hank,“he’s out of his waters, this ain’t the tuna grounds.”
“How do you know?” asked George.
“Lord, oughtn’t I to know,” replied Hank. “Why I was on the fish commission ship on this section of the Pacific Coast, sounding and dredging and taking specimens of the fish and the weeds and Lord knows what all. That was five years ago, but I reckon the tuna grounds haven’t altered since then.”
“They lie south of San Clemente, don’t they?” said Candon.
“They do not, you’re thinking of albacore. The tuna grounds are east of Santa Catalina mostly, close to Avalon. Why, I know all that place’s well as I know my own office. I’ve got a hellnation memory for facts and I could reel off to you the lie of the fishing grounds most all along the coast. Right from Rocky Point on the mainland the fish begin running in shoals. Benito you get mostly at Rocky Point, then albacore; but if you strike out for the Islands you’ll begin to get big things.”
“Whales?” asked George.
“Whales mostly stick to the Santa Barbara channel, there aren’t many now, but you get killers and sulphur bottoms and gray whales—sharks, too.”
Hank lit a cigarette and leaning on the port rail looked across the water to the east. Then he came forward a bit and looked ahead.
Away ahead and a bit to westward something showed. It was San Nicolas, San Nicolas no longer sharply defined like a flame of spar, but with its head in a turban of new-formed cloud. This island, eight or nine miles long, forms the western outpost of the Channel Islands. Unprotected, like them, by Port Concepcion, it receives the full force of wind and weather.
The others came close to Hank.
“That’s her,” said Hank, “that’s San Nicolas. Ever been ashore there, B. C.?”
“Not such a fool,” said Candon. “I’ve cruised about these waters a good bit, but I’ve never met a man who wanted to put his foot there. It’s all wind and sand for one thing.”
“Well,” said Hank, “I’ve been thinking, from what I know of the place, that Vanderdecken may have used San Nicolas for one of his ports of call. What do you say, B. C.?”
“Who knows?” said Candon.
“Did you land on San Nicolas?” asked George.
“Oh yes; we were hanging off the kelp beds three or four days.”
“I’d like to land there,” said George.
“Well, it’s easily done,” said Hank. “We could tie up the kelp for the matter of that, only I’m afraid theWear Jack’sa bit too big. She might drag out. Away down, further south, the kelp vines run to a thousand foot long and you could most moor a battleship to them, but it’sdifferent here. However, we can anchor if you want to. What do you say, B. C.?”
“I’m with you,” said Candon. “We have plenty of time and a day won’t matter.”
“Not a cent,” said George.
Candon went and leaned on the starboard rail. For the last two days, in fact, ever since he had given away the whereabouts of Vanderdecken’s cache, he had seemed at times depressed. Sometimes he would be in high good spirits and sometimes moping and silent. Hank had noticed it first and he spoke of it now as he and George went forward to the bow, where they hung watching the boost of the water and the foam gouts like marble shavings on lazalite.
“Notice B. C. has the dumps again,” said Hank. “I wonder what’s working on him? Maybe he feels himself a skunk leading us on to old man Vanderdecken.”
“He said that was all right,” said George, “said he was acting perfectly straight and that the man was his enemy. Y’know, I believe in B. C.”
“So do I,” said Hank, “but what in the nation’s he moulting about, that’s what I want to know. I take it it’s just sensitiveness; even though the Dutchman is his enemy, he don’t like giving him away. I can understand it.”
“I can’t quite make him out,” said George, “he’s intelligent and has fine ideas about things, yet he always seems to have lived pretty rough—”
“And what’s the harm of that,” cut in Hank. “Why, it’s the guys that have lived pretty rough as you call it that are the only educated citizens as far as I can make out. They’ve had their noses rubbed into the world. Why look at me—I’m not saying I’m much, but all I’ve learned of any good to me hasn’t come out of class-rooms or colleges. Mind you, I’m not against them, I don’t say they’re no use, but I do say what makes a man is what he rubs against.”
“He seems to have been rubbing against some pretty queer characters to judge by theHeart of Irelandlot,” said George.
“That’s my point,” said Hank. “They’ve turned him respectable. There’s many a man would have gone to the bad only he’s been frightened off it by the toughs he’s met. They’re better than Sunday school books. I know, for I’ve been there.”
An hour later, San Nicolas was plain before them and an hour before sunset Beggs Rock was on the starboard bow and only a mile away. San Nicolas, itself close to them, now showed its peak, nine hundred feet high with its changeless turban of cloud, rosy gold in the evening glow. From the peak the island spilled away showing cleft and cañon and high ground treeless and devoid of life.
They cast anchor just outside the kelp ring. The sun was just leaving the sea. Nothing showed but the brown lateen sails of a Chinese junk,standing in shore about two miles away. She rounded a promontory and vanished from sight.
“That’s a Chow fishing boat,” said Hank. “They go scraping along all down this coast, hunting for abalones and turtle and whatever they can lay their hands on.”
“That’s so,” said Candon, “I’ve met in with them right down to the Gulf of California and beyond. It’s against the law to take abalones in most places round here, but much they care.”
“They’d lay hands on any old thing,” said Hank. “Wonder what that crowd is doing here?”
The morrow was to tell him.