IN DISTRESS
The clear night was falling when Jimmy leaned on the bridge-rails as the
_Shasta_ steamed out of the Inlet beneath a black wall of pines. Over
her port quarter the pale lights of the climbing city twinkled tier on
tier, with dim forest rolling away behind them into the creeping mist.
Beyond that, in turn, a faint blink of snow still gleamed against the
dusky blueness of the east. All this was familiar, but he was leaving it
behind, and ahead there lay an empty waste of darkening water, into
which the _Shasta_ pushed her way with thumping engines and a drowsy
gurgle at the bows. It seemed to Jimmy, in one sense, appropriate that
it should be so. He had cut himself adrift from all that he had been
accustomed to, and where the course he had launched upon would lead him
he did not know.
That, however, did not greatly trouble him. His character was by no
means a complex one, and it was sufficient for him to do the obvious
thing, which, after all, usually saves everybody trouble. It was clear
that Tom Wheelock needed him, and he could, at least, look back a
little, though this was an occupation to which he was not greatly
addicted. He understood now how his father, who had perhaps never been a
strong man, had slowly broken down under a load of debt that was too
heavy for him, though the nature of the man who had with deliberate
intent laid it on his shoulders was incomprehensible. Jimmy, in fact,
could scarcely conceive the possibility of any man scheming and plotting
to ruin a fellow-being for the value of two old schooners. The
apparently insufficient motive made the thing almost devilish. Merril,
he felt, was outside the pale of humanity, a noxious creature to be
shunned or, on opportunity, crushed by honest men.
Then he wondered for a moment whether the bondholder's daughter had
inherited any portion of her father's nature, and brushed the thought
aside with a little involuntary shiver. The thing was out of the
question. One could, he felt, perhaps illogically, be sure of that after
a glance at her; and then he straightened himself with a little abrupt
movement, for it was very clear that this was, after all, no concern of
his. He had never met any woman who had made the same impression on him
that Anthea Merril had done, but he had already decided that he had
sense enough to prevent himself from thinking of her too frequently; and
it was evident that if he had not he must endeavor to acquire it.
He strove to divert his thoughts, and listened to the flow of language
that rose through the open skylights from the _Shasta_'s engine-room.
Taken together with the pungent smell of burning grease and a certain
harsh thumping, it suggested that things were not going well down there.
Then, looking forward, he watched the black figure of the look-out on
the forecastle cut sharp and clean against the pale gleaming of the
western sky as the bows swung over the long heave with a rhythmic
regularity, for the _Shasta_ was drawing out into open water now. She
was making eight knots, he fancied, with mastheads swaying athwart the
stars, and a long smoke-trail that was a little more solid than the
dusky blue transparency streaking the sea astern of her. Jimmy pulled
out his pipe when a faint cold breeze fanned his cheek, and lighted it
contentedly, for a steamboat travels fastest in smooth water when what
moving air there is blows against her, and there was every sign of fine
weather.
It lasted several days, and the _Shasta_ stopped only twice at sea: once
to cool a crank-pin, and again for a longer while because there was
something wrong with her condenser. In due time she crept into a deep,
mountain-walled inlet where the little white _Sorata_ lay, and Jimmy
gazed in astonishment when he saw the piled-up produce on the strip of
shingle beach between still, green water and climbing forest. He was
even more astonished when certain bronzed men in battered wide hats and
soil-stained jean came off, and conveyed him almost by force to the rude
banquet laid out in a little frame hotel. Hitherto they had hauled the
few goods they put on the market rather more than eight leagues along an
infamous trail which for a part of that distance led over a mountain
range.
Jimmy feasted that day, for the banquet was repeated with very little
variation three times over, and his last speech was very much to the
purpose as well as characteristic of him.
"Boys," he said, "we've steam up, and in view of the freight we're
charging you Wellington coal is dear. Besides, even to oblige you, I
really couldn't eat anything more."
They paddled him off in state in a big Siwash canoe, and their shouts
rang far across the silent pines when the little rusty _Shasta_ crawled
away into the evening mist; while long after it had hid her from their
sight, Jimmy, standing on his bridge, heard the faint wail of the pipes.
There was, as usual, a North Briton among them, and the wild music of
another land of rock and pine and inlet six thousand miles away crept up
the screw-torn wake in elfin fashion. Jimmy, at least, knew the burden
of it: "Will ye no' come back again?"
His blood tingled a little as he listened. They had held out their hands
to him, and made him one of them, and it was, he vaguely felt, a thing
to be proud of, for there was a certain greatness in these simple,
all-enduring men. They grappled with giant forests and rent stubborn
rocks, clearing the way for thousands yet to come, with limbs that ached
from the axe stroke and hands that bled upon the drill. They feared
nothing, and looked for nothing except the prosperity which they would
hardly share, but which would surely come; and all down the long Slope
their kind are perfecting a manhood that is probably worth more than all
the gold, silver, iron and wheat raised beneath the Beaver or the Stars.
It was the same at the next inlet, for that trip was very much of the
nature of a triumphal procession, only that as yet the battle was not
won; and when at last the _Shasta_ turned her bows southward, she was
full to the hatches and deep in the water. As it happened, she met a
strong southwester, which piled the long Pacific heave upon the reefs
to port in big foam-crested walls, and after the first twelve hours of
it there was scarcely a dry inch on board her. She went into it with
dipping forecastle that swung up again veiled in cataracts of white and
green until her forefoot was clear, and, with complaining engines, made
scarcely four knots an hour. There were inlets that offered her shelter,
but hour by hour Jimmy, clinging, battered by flying spray, to his
reeling bridge, drove her ahead. The time for making speeches, at which
he did not shine, had gone, and it was now his business to keep the
promise he had made the ranchers, that he would not lose an hour in
conveying their produce to the market. That, at least, was a thing he
could do, and, though his drenched limbs grew stiff and his eyesight
dim, he did it with the dogged thoroughness of his kind, standing high
in the stinging drift as he drove her, swept and streaming, at the
tumbling seas. He, too, was one of the enduring toilers, and, like the
invincible men with the axes who had recognized the stamp he bore, he
found a certain grim pleasure in the conflict.
It was toward dusk on the second evening when they steamed into sight of
a little schooner, which showed as a gray smear of slanted canvas
scarcely distinguishable from the crag a couple of miles to lee of her.
Jimmy wondered what she was doing there in that weather with only one
jib and a reefed boom foresail set, until his glasses showed him that
her mainmast was broken off. That made the thing clearer, and in case
more should be wanted, a flag fluttered aloft and blew out half-way up
her foremast upside down. It was an appeal that is very seldom made in
vain at sea, and meant in that particular case that she would be ashore
in an hour or two unless somebody towed her off.
Jimmy closed his glasses with a snap, and hailing a very wet seaman sent
him for the engineer. The latter climbed to the bridge, and nodded when
he glanced at the vessel.
"Well," he said, "you'll have to take them off. She's not going to claw
off shore without her mainsail. There would be a little money in the
thing if we could tow her, but we can't. I'm taking steep chances of
bringing the engines down about my head by shoving her into it as I'm
doing."
As though to give point to the speech, the _Shasta_ flung her stern high
just then, and shook in every plate as with a frantic clanging the
engines ran away. Then she put her bows in, and dim crag and wallowing
schooner were blotted out by a cloud of spray.
"We have got to try," said Jimmy quietly. "There's a point that would
give us shelter twenty miles away."
"Twenty miles!" and the engineer, from whose blackened singlet the water
streamed, laughed scornfully. "It's 'bout as likely we'd tow her to
Honolulu. Still, I guess you're skipper."
Jimmy nodded. He had not troubled to impress the fact upon his crew, but
he invariably acted on it. "You had better raise a little more steam,"
he said; "it is very likely that we'll want it."
Then, as the dripping engineer vanished from the bridge, he seized the
whistle lanyard, and signed to the man behind him who gripped the wheel.
A deep blast rent the turmoil of the sea, and the _Shasta_, swinging
around a trifle, rolled away to the rescue. It was some twenty minutes
later when she stopped, and lay plunging head to sea with the little
wallowing schooner close to lee of her. The light was going, but Jimmy
could see a shapeless figure that clung to her rail gesticulating with
flung-up arm. The wreck of a boat, apparently smashed by the falling
mast, lay across her hatch, and there was another half-seen man at her
wheel. Jimmy stood still for a few moments with his hand on the
telegraph, and he was glad to remember that there were several former
sealing-schooner hands among his crew, for what they do not know about
boat-work is worth no man's learning.
He let the _Shasta_ swing a little to give them a lee on one side of
her, and while the sea smote and spouted in green cataracts across her
weather-rail they swung a boat over, and two men, one of whom was a
Siwash, dropped into her. That was enough to steer her while she blew to
windward, and Jimmy dared risk no more. They got her away, apparently
undamaged, and he sent the _Shasta_ slowly ahead when she plunged over a
seatop veiled in a cloud of spray. It would be beyond the power of flesh
and blood to pull that boat back, and the _Shasta_ swung in a wide
half-circle to leeward of the schooner. Her crew had evidently tried to
heave her to, but without her after-canvas she had fallen off again, and
was forging ahead with the _Shasta_'s boat smothered in foam beneath her
rail. She was going to leeward bodily, and Jimmy fancied she was about a
mile nearer the crag than when he had first seen her. It was evident to
everybody that he had no time to lose.
He shouted with arm flung up, and, though it was doubtful whether
anybody heard him, the schooner's boom foresail came thrashing down,
and two men who leapt upon her rail fell into the boat. Then he thrust
down his telegraph, and, as the _Shasta_ forged by, the boat drove down
on her. She struck the steamer's hove-up side with a crash that stove
several strakes of planking in, and men jumped for the flung-down lines
as she filled. They scrambled up them, four in all, and, for one of them
had hooked on the davit falls, the _Shasta_'s winch banged and rattled
as they hove the boat in with the water streaming out through her
shattered side at every roll. The men had, however, brought a rope with
them, and the winch next hove the schooner's stoutest hawser off. It was
made fast, and rose splashing from the sea when Jimmy touched his
telegraph again, while, when at last the schooner fell into line astern,
a very wet man clambered to the bridge.
"Are you fit to pull her out?" he asked.
"I don't know," said Jimmy; "I'm going to try. How did you get so far
inshore, and have you left anybody to steer her?"
The man made a vague gesture. "Mainmast went beneath the hounds. She's
been driving to leeward since, and she'd have been ashore in another
hour if we hadn't fallen in with you. The old man's at her wheel. Built
her himself 'most fifteen years ago, and nothing would shift him out of
her."
Jimmy glanced astern, and for a few moments saw a gray face of rock loom
out of the haze with the sea spouting dimly white at its feet. Then a
thicker fold of vapor rolled about it, and the daylight faded suddenly.
He could scarcely see the schooner lurching along behind them with jib
still set, though the sail thrashed now and then. Indeed, his eyes were
growing very heavy, and he realized that after forty-eight hours'
continuous watching he could not keep himself awake much longer. A
simple calculation showed him that it would be daylight again before he
could put his helm up and run for shelter, when it would be imperatively
necessary for him to be on his bridge; and calling his Scandinavian
mate, he left the _Shasta_ in his charge.
"Keep her going as she's heading now," he said. "You'll see I've headed
her up a few points to allow for the leeward drag of the tow. You can
call me in a couple of hours, or earlier if there's any change in the
weather."
He clawed his way down from the bridge to the little room beneath it,
and shed only his streaming oilskins before he flung himself into his
bunk. He was asleep in two or three minutes, and slept soundly while the
water oozed from his wet garments, until he was roused by a shouting.
Then his door was flung open, and a man thrust his head in.
"Mr. Lindstrom figures you'd better get up," he said. "The tow has
parted her hawser, and gone adrift."
Jimmy was out of his bunk in a moment, and in a few more had scrambled
to his bridge. Lindstrom, the Scandinavian, shouted something he did not
hear, but that did not very much matter, for the one question was, where
was the schooner, and Jimmy was tolerably certain that nobody knew. His
light had been burning, and for the first few moments he could see
nothing but blackness, out of which there drove continuous showers of
stinging spray. Then he made out the filmy cloud it sprang from at the
_Shasta_'s bows, and swept his gaze aloft toward the pale silver streak
above her mastheads, which showed where the half-moon might come
through. As he did so, the Scandinavian gripped his shoulder, and he saw
a red twinkle widen into a wind-blown flame low down upon the sea. Now
he could, at least, locate the tow.
"Did you get a sight of the beach? How far were we off?" he shouted.
"A low point," said Lindstrom, "which I do not know. One mile, I guess
it, and we head her out more off shore."
Jimmy was a trifle startled. Though the water is deep along that coast,
a mile leaves very small margin for contingencies, and he fancied that
the tow, blowing to leeward, would cover it in half an hour. In that
case there was not the slightest doubt as to what would then happen to
her. She might, perhaps, last five minutes as a vessel, for the reefs
are hard and there is a tremendous striking force in the long Pacific
seas. Another point was equally clear. He had some twenty minutes in
which to overhaul the schooner and take her skipper off, and no boat to
do the latter with. If he failed to accomplish it in the time, it was
very probable that the _Shasta_ would go ashore, and he did not think
that any one would escape by swimming. Still, he meant to do what he
could, and once more he set the whistle shrieking as he shouted to the
helmsman.
The _Shasta_ came round, and drove away into the darkness, for the light
had died out again and there was nothing visible ahead but the dim white
tops of frothing seas. Five minutes passed, and Jimmy felt the tension,
for they were steaming toward destruction, and it was quite possible
that they might run past the schooner or straight over her. Then a shaft
of moonlight struck the climbing pines high up in front of him, and it
seemed to him that he was already almost under them. He set his lips,
and clenched the hand he would not raise in warning to the helmsman
while the pale watery moonlight crept lower and lower. It rested for a
moment on a fringe of creaming foam where the rock met the water, and
then a hoarse shout went up, for as it swept toward him they saw the
schooner.
She was not far ahead of them, with jib thrashed to ribands and the sea
streaming from her swung-up side. Jimmy thrust down his telegraph and
shouted to Lindstrom, who dropped from the bridge as they drove past her
stern. Then, as he raised his hand, the man behind him gasped as he
struggled with his wheel, and the _Shasta_, stopping, lay rolling wildly
beneath the schooner's lee, while a shadowy figure gesticulated to those
on board her from her spray-swept rail. Jimmy glanced shoreward over his
shoulder toward the tumbling surf, and decided that he had at most five
minutes to take that man off. After that it would probably be too late
for all of them.
Mercifully the moonlight still streamed down, and he waited with lips
set and hands clenched on the telegraph while the schooner, being
lighter, drove down upon the _Shasta_. One blow might make an end of
both of them, but something must be hazarded, and he spared a glance for
the wet men who crouched upon the _Shasta_'s rail with lines in their
hands. He had smashed one boat not long ago, and the second and smaller
one had been damaged a week earlier, bringing a Siwash to take them up
a certain inlet off an unsheltered beach.
The schooner was very near them, and, if he stayed where he was, would
come down on top of the steamer in another minute or so. Then Lindstrom
sprang out of the galley with a blue light in his hand, and its radiance
blazed wind-flung and intense on the narrowing gap of foam between the
two wildly rolling hulls. There was a hoarse shouting, and, though he
might not have heard the words, it was evident that the man on board the
schooner realized what he was expected to do. Jimmy set his lips tighter
as he pressed down the telegraph to slow ahead.
The _Shasta_'s propeller thudded, and as the schooner reeled toward her
she commenced to move, and a black figure plunged with flung-up hands
from the latter's shrouds. It struck the seething water, and vanished
for a moment or two, while men held their breath and strained their
eyes. Then there was a hoarse clamor, and lines went whirling down from
the _Shasta_'s rail. In the midst of it black darkness succeeded, as
Lindstrom's light went out. Jimmy gasped, wondering when the schooner
would strike them, while he clenched his hand on the telegraph. There
was faint moonlight still, but it did not seem to touch the schooner,
for his eyes were dazzled by the blaze of the blue light.
A moment later another shout rang out. "He has hold! Get down! Can't you
stop her, sir?"
Jimmy, knowing what the hazard was, pressed his telegraph, and held his
breath until a harsh voice rose again.
"I have a grip of him," it said. "Heave! We've got him, sir. Go ahead;
she's coming down on the top of us!"
Jimmy moved his hand, and the gong clanged out "Full-speed" this time,
while, glancing to windward, he saw the black shape of the schooner
hove-up apparently above him. Still, quivering all through, the _Shasta_
forged ahead, and he leaned on the rails, for now that the tension had
slackened he felt curiously limp.
"The man's all right?" he asked.
Lindstrom, who climbed half-way up the ladder, said that he did not seem
to have suffered very much, and Jimmy, looking around, saw nothing of
the schooner, for there was sudden darkness as the moon went out.