A NIGHT’S POACHING
The days that followed were bitter ones for dredging. There came in fog,
through which they drifted, slowly, while it wrapped them about like a
great, frosty blanket, chilling and numbing them. When the wind was
light, the fog would collect for a moment in the wrinkle at the top of a
sail; then, with a slat, the sail would fill out, sending down a shower
of icy water, drenching the crew at their work. But the mate drove them
on, with threats and the brandishing of a rope’s end.
To make matters worse, the yield of the reefs was disappointing. Bad luck
seemed to be with the Brandt; and, though it was the beginning of the
season, and they should have been getting a cargo rapidly, the day’s
clean-up was often less than twenty bushels; which brought a storm of
abuse from Haley, as though it were the fault of the men.
He took his chances with the law, for several days, and ran down into
Tangier Sound, hidden in the fog, on that part of its great extent where
dredging was forbidden, and only smaller craft with scrapers allowed. But
the Brandt went aground, late one afternoon, on a bar off a dreary marsh
that extended for miles—the most lonesome and forbidding place that
Harvey had seen in all his life.
They were half the night getting clear from here, having to wait for the
flood tide, and the Brandt springing a leak that kept them toiling at the
pump till they were well nigh exhausted. The upshot was, that, early one
morning, with the lifting of the fog, the Brandt, followed by the craft
that had taken Harvey and Tom Edwards aboard, stood off from the Eastern
shore, heading northwest for the mouth of the Patuxent.
To Jack Harvey and his friend, sick and weary of the life they were
leading, every new move, every change of ground, keyed them up to renewed
hope. They watched eagerly the distant shore toward which they were
pointing, and rejoiced, in some small degree, that they were going back
to where they had started from. It seemed as though there must be greater
opportunity for relief in that river, with its more friendly appearing
banks, than amid the wilderness of the marshy Eastern shore, to which
winter gave a touch of indescribable dreariness.
For a day or two, however, following their arrival at the entrance to the
river, there was little change from the life they had been leading, save
that the fog had been blown out to sea, and the bitter cold had abated.
They dredged southward from the lower entrance to the river, along an
inward sweep of the shore, returning to the river at night for anchorage.
Then there came a day, overcast but yet favourable, during all of which,
to Harvey’s surprise, they did no work, but lay at anchor in the river.
Also, the craft that had accompanied them likewise rested, alongside, and
the two captains visited and drank together in the cabin of the Brandt.
What was coming? Haley was not the man to lie idle to no purpose. There
was mystery in the air, and in the manner of the men and the mate. Once,
Jim Adams had looked in at the forecastle, where the crew had been
suffered to remain at ease, and said, grinning broadly, “Youse gentlemen
of leisure, ain’t you? Well, you get something to keep you busy bimeby.
So don’t none of you please go ashore.”
“Go ashore!” It was no joke to them. Harvey and Tom Edwards had gazed
longingly at the banks, with their houses here and there—a tantalizing
sight, so near and yet so hopelessly far away.
“What’s the matter? What’s up?” Harvey inquired once of Sam Black.
The other winked an eye, knowingly.
“I reckon the captain’s going to try to change the luck,” he said.
“There’s easy dredging up yonder, if you don’t get caught at it.”
“How’s that?” continued Harvey.
“Why, running the river, that’s what I guess,” replied the sailor. “It’s
jail, if the law gets you; but he’s done it before and got clear. Take it
easy while you can, that’s my advice. There’ll be no turning in to-night,
I reckon.”
Sam Black thereupon set the example, by stretching out in his bunk and
falling soundly to sleep.
“Well, all I can say,” exclaimed Tom Edwards to Harvey, “is that I hope
we get caught right quick and put into jail, or anywhere else out of this
infernal hole. I’d go to jail in a minute, if I could see Haley go, too.
Wouldn’t you?”
Harvey smiled. “I’d rather be outside the bars looking in at Haley,” he
answered.
Tom Edwards impulsively put out his hand.
“Shake on that!” he cried. “Jack, my boy, we’ll put him there yet. We’ll
sell him a line of goods some day, eh?”
The two shook hands with a will.
That evening they fared better than ordinarily aboard the Brandt. There
were pork scraps, fried crisp, with junks of the bread browned in the
fat, and potatoes; and plenty of the coffee. They made a hearty meal, and
went on deck, at the call, feeling better and stronger than for days.
The night was not clear, yet it was not foggy; the moon and stars were
nearly obscured by clouds. It was comparatively mild, too, and the wind
blowing from the East across the river did not chill them, as in the
preceding days. Opposite where they lay, the gleam of Drum Point
lighthouse shone upon the water; while, out to the Eastward, another, on
Cedar Point, twinkled, more obscured. An island of some considerable size
lay to the northwest, from which there came across the water the sound of
voices, and of dogs barking. There were sounds of life, too, from the
nearer shore, coming out from a lone farmhouse.
The captain of the other vessel came aboard presently, and he and Haley
stood together, earnestly conversing.
“She’s up just the other side of Spencer’s wharf, I tell you,” said the
strange captain, once. “We can hug the other shore and slip past.”
Harvey turned inquiringly to the sailor, Sam Black, with whom, somehow,
he had struck up an intimacy that was almost friendly, despite the man’s
evident contempt for the green hands.
“He means the old Folly, the police boat,” said the sailor, softly.
“She’s just a big schooner. She’s got no power in her. The Brandt can
beat her, on a pinch, I reckon.”
The captain returned to his vessel, shortly, and the order was given to
make sail. Harvey sprang to the halyards with a will. If it were a
poaching venture, it was not his fault—and the best that could happen for
him would be capture. The anchor was got aboard, and the Brandt ran
quickly across to the Eastern bank of the river followed by the other
vessel.
They passed close to Solomon’s Island and skirted as near the shores of
that and the land northward as they could go. The wind was almost
directly abeam, and they made fast way of it. Clearly, the course was as
plain as a man’s door-yard to Hamilton Haley; for he passed at times so
close to land, that it seemed, in the darkness, to be near enough for one
to jump ashore. Jim Adams, in the bow, kept sharp watch, however; and now
and again, rather than run the risk of calling out, he ran back to the
wheel and pointed ahead, where the water shoaled.
Just to the north of the wharf which they had termed Spencer’s, the river
made a bend, and a thin peak of land jutted out. They followed the
curving of the shore, peering across the water toward Spencer’s.
“There she lies,” said Adams, darting aft to where Haley stood. “Listen,
they’re getting up anchor.”
Hamilton Haley, after one quick glance, put the helm down and brought the
bug-eye up into the wind. The other bug-eye drew abreast. Haley pointed
in toward the schooner, barely discernible, and showing a light in its
rigging.
“They’re coming out,” he called softly.
The two vessels headed off again and went on, rounding the point and
running up the river. Haley, picking his course, with accuracy, gazed
astern again and again, with an anxious eye. Presently he uttered an
exclamation of anger. The schooner Folly had, indeed, put forth from its
mooring and, with all sail spread, was taking a diagonal course across
the river, following in the wake of the two poachers.
The shore of the river made a bend to the eastward, at this point,
however, and the river broadened to the width of something like a mile
and a half. So that, by following closely the inward curve of the shore,
instead of setting a straight course up stream, the two bug-eyes could
put the point of land between them and the schooner for a time. It would,
moreover, afford them proof, when the schooner should have passed the
point, whether or not they really were being followed. If the police boat
were merely proceeding on its patrol up river, it would not hug the
eastern bank, and might, indeed, go up on the other side.
The vessels were not left long in doubt, however; for, as the two
skippers peered back through the night, they discerned, after a time, the
schooner heading in north by east, having turned the point.
“Haul her a little closer by the wind, and give her a bit more
centre-board,” ordered Haley, noting with a keen eye the more northerly
slant of the wind, as they sailed. “It’s good for us; we can leave her,
if this holds. Curse the luck! There’s no dredging to-night, with her on
our heels—at least, there can’t but one of us work.”
The mate repeated the orders, and the bug-eye heeled a bit more as a flaw
struck her. She was flying fast, and Haley’s face relaxed into a smirk of
satisfaction, as he perceived the schooner was dropping somewhat more
astern.
For a distance of about four miles the chase proceeded, when the Brandt
suddenly swung into the wind again and waited a moment for its companion,
slightly less swift, to come up. There was a hurried conference, and then
the two went on again. The schooner, by this time, was only to be made
out with difficulty.
The result of the conference was soon apparent; for, as they neared a
point on the eastern bank, a broad creek opened up; and into this the
Brandt steered, leaving the other craft to go on up the river alone.
Proceeding only a little way within the confines of this creek, Haley
guided his vessel with consummate skill into one of its sheltering
harbours, ordered all sail dropped, and everything made snug. The bug-eye
was, indeed, completely hidden; with every appearance, moreover, of lying
by for the night, in case their course should be followed and, by any
chance, they were discovered.
Launching the small boat, Haley ordered Harvey and the sailor, Jeff, into
it. He took his seat in the stern at the steering-oar, and was rowed by
them cautiously toward the mouth of the creek, skirting close to the
bank, not to be seen. Again the thought of escape flashed through the
mind of Jack Harvey; but, perhaps with the same contingency in view,
Hamilton Haley drew from his pocket a revolver and laid it before him on
a thwart. If the hint were intended for Harvey, it was sufficient. He
resigned himself once more to the situation and to the duty before him.
It was soon evident that the manœuvre had deceived the Folly, and had
been successful. Through the darkness, it had not been perceived by the
pursuer that the quarry had separated and taken different courses.
Resting on their oars, at a word from Haley, the three watched. The
schooner, almost ghost-like in the shades of night, swept along past the
creek, following the other vessel, which showed only a faint white blurr
far ahead.
Hamilton Haley motioned for the two to turn back, while his small eyes
twinkled; and he said, smiling grimly, “She’s got the right name, sure.
The Folly, eh? Well, she won’t catch us, nor she won’t catch Bill. Come,
shake it up there with those oars! Ain’t yer learned to row yet?”
Within a half hour, the Brandt was stealing out of the mouth of the creek
and heading for the opposite shore. The river was broad here, but the
wind was free and they were soon across.
And now began the work for which they had come; for which they had risked
capture at the hands of the police boat; and for which they would now
risk the penalty of imprisonment, or, as it might appear, even death,
itself.
It was very dark, the density of the clouds increasing as the night wore
on; and the shore showed a vague, dark smear as they turned and went up
the river. But it was all clear to Hamilton Haley. Born in a little
settlement farther up the river, it was an open book to him by night or
day. There was not an eddy, a cross-current, a deepening or a shoaling of
all its waters for fifty miles that he could not have told you, offhand.
A blur on the landscape defined itself to his eye as with the clearness
of sunlight, bred of familiarity and long experience. He knew when to
stand in close to shore; where to make a détour to avoid the long wharves
that made out from the warehouses. He knew where seed oysters had been
planted, by the owners that planned to tong for them when they should
have grown to sufficient size. He knew when the beds had been planted,
and which to leave untouched, and which would afford fat dredging.
There were no long waits between the winding here, as in many of the
places down the bay. When the dredge went down, it was filled almost
instantly. It was wind in and wind again, and the oysters, big and small,
went into the hold almost as fast as they came aboard.
Harvey and his companions, drenched to the skin with perspiration, sore
and lame, toiled on, driven by the threats of Jim Adams. There was no
waiting for rest—only once in the night, when the cook brought out a pail
of coffee, to keep them up to their work.
There was a ruthless, brutal disregard of the rights and precautions of
the owners of the beds. Stakes and branches of brush, that had been
carefully stuck down to mark the boundaries of this and that planter,
were over-ridden and torn away. The Brandt was reaping a rich harvest,
dodging in and out from shore here and there, making up for the time lost
in the reefs off Hooper Island.
The hours passed, and a steamer, delayed by freight on its trip from
Baltimore, passed along up the river. To Harvey, toiling away at the
winch, in a sheltered sweep of the shore, this boat presented a strange
and mysterious picture. Its lights, gleaming through the mists and the
blackness, made a pretty spectacle. Its white wake looked like a scar on
the dusky bosom of the water. It seemed, with its life and noise aboard,
like a living thing.
A little way up the river, the steamboat drew in to a pier at the end of
a long wharf. Harvey saw the doors of the warehouse on the shore and of
the one on the pier open, and emit a glow of light from several lanterns;
and, through the mingled lights and shadows, figures passed vaguely to
and fro. Wagons rattled up along the country road, and the cries of the
negro stevedores added to the noise.
All work had been stopped aboard the Brandt, and Harvey stood and watched
the landing made by the steamer. The sounds told of business and of home
life; passengers going ashore; once, the voices of young folks in
laughter. Harvey gazed, with eyes that moistened.
Hamilton Haley, also, gazed, but with an earnestness of a different
nature. He had not meant to be here, at the passing of the steamer. He
had planned differently, but the steamer had been late and—well, the
dredging at that moment when he had heard the distant whistle had been
particularly fruitful, and he had waited and taken the chance. Now he
wondered if that one sweep of the steamer’s search-light, as it passed,
had found him out. Had he been espied by the watchful eye of the captain,
keen for river poachers? At all events, he would lose no time in getting
away from the place, once the steamer had gone.
The steamer went on its way, and Haley pointed his vessel up river after
it. A mile above, he resumed his unlawful dredging.
The captain of the river steamer, bound for the port of Benedict, some
fifty miles up from the mouth of the river, and already having lost much
time, had urged the engineer to force all speed between the landings. The
steamer’s funnel belched forth clouds of black smoke and sparks, as the
craft churned its way noisily along. But the captain, eager as he was to
end his long run, had something else on his mind; and the search-light
now shot its shaft far ahead up river, now darted to the left or right,
lighting up the banks and hidden places, so that objects along shore
seemed to leap forth of a sudden as if surprised into life.
Then, as they sailed, and the search-light pointed a long ray far up the
river, like a giant finger, the glare fell on a white object flitting
down stream like the ghost of a vessel. The rays of the light were thrown
full upon it, and the schooner Folly was revealed, returning from its
unsuccessful pursuit of the poacher.
A single bell jingled in the engine-room, and the steamer slowed down;
then, as the schooner came close, another bell, and the steamer lay
motionless in the river.
The captain leaned far out of the pilot-house, as the schooner came
within hailing distance.
“There’s a fellow poaching just below Forrest’s,” he called. “I saw him
with the light, as I came up. I’m sure he was dredging. You may pick him
up on the way down. I couldn’t see who he was, though.”
The captain of the Folly uttered an exclamation of disgust.
“It’s one of the two I chased, coming up, I guess,” he replied. “That’s
the way they work it. The other fellow dodged me, too, up the river here,
somewhere. I suppose he’s turned and gone down again by this time. I tell
you we can’t do much with one vessel against that crowd. Much obliged,
captain; I’ll have an eye out going down.”
Some time after midnight, the bug-eye Brandt, poaching near the mouth of
a small creek, was doing great harvesting. It was easy work; for the
oysters, planted with care, came up clean and fat, and free from waste
shells. The crew sweated at the winders. Jim Adams, alternating between
one and the other winch, kept the tired men up to their work. Hamilton
Haley, losing somewhat of caution with the richness of the yield, and
assisting in the stowing away of the ill-gotten harvest, had relaxed a
little of his usual vigilance.
It was nearly fatal to him. Out of the blackness of the river bank, there
poured suddenly a thin stream of fire, and immediately another. A rifle
bullet passed so close to Haley’s head that for an instant it dazed him.
The bullet chipped a piece out of the main boom and went, zing, across
the river. The other bullet struck the hull of the bug-eye and bedded
itself in the oysters, near the deck. At the same time, a volley of
imprecations came from the thicket on shore, from the angry owners of the
oyster bed.
And now a strange coincidence added to the excitement and to the peril of
Haley and his craft. Almost immediately following the firing from shore,
there came another shot from the direction of up the river. Captain
Hamilton Haley, taken all by surprise, and giving one quick, frightened
glance to where the third shot had come from, beheld, to his
consternation, the vague outlines of the schooner Folly bearing down upon
him at full speed.
Haley was all things bad; but he had his merits as a sailor, and he had
the qualities of command that should have won him success in better
employment. Now he showed what he was made of. Darting across the deck,
he seized Jack Harvey by the shoulder, spun him around and sent him
flying toward the wheel.
“Grab that wheel,” he cried. “Keep her straight down stream.”
Harvey sprang aft.
“Jim,” cried Haley, in the next breath, “get the boys on to the sheets,
there—quick, for your life, or we’re good for doing time. Trim her! Trim
her! We’ve got to jump her, if we ever did. Curse that Folly!”
The next moment, Haley was among the crew with a bound, knocking them
like ten-pins away from the winders, and bidding them jump for the fore
and main sheets, if they valued their lives. Snatching a sheath-knife
from his belt, Haley darted for the nearest dredge-line. With an
exclamation of rage at the loss he was inflicting upon himself, he cut it
with a single slash, leaving the dredge behind in two fathoms of water.
In a moment, he was at the other side. Another stroke of the keen knife
and the second dredge-line was severed.
As the bug-eye, cleared of the weight of the heavy dredges, gathered
headway, the sheets were hauled in, under the command and with the
assistance of the mate. The craft heeled to the breeze and sped away.
And for all this, but for the loyalty of Jack Harvey toward a friend,
Captain Hamilton Haley would have lost his vessel and his freedom. A bit
of heroism had been done that he knew naught of—never would know.
When Tom Edwards, in the first excitement, had seen his friend, Harvey,
dart aft, he had slipped away in the confusion, and followed. With him,
the idea ever was that, come what would, they should stick together—and
so they had sworn. Jack Harvey found Tom Edwards by his side, as he
sprang to the wheel and, obeying orders, held the vessel on its course
down the river.
The next instant, the thought of freedom flashed again into Harvey’s
mind.
“Tom,” he said, “strip off that slicker as quick as ever you can. I’m
ready. I’ll swing her into the wind when you say the word. Then we’ll
jump and swim for it. That’s the Folly. She’ll pick us up, and catch
Haley, too. We’ve got to jump the second I swing her, though, or Haley’ll
shoot us both. We’ve got only a minute. Say when you’re ready.”
Tom Edwards, the vision of freedom opening before his eyes in one brief
instant, gave a groan of dismay and disappointment.
“I can’t do it, Jack, old boy,” he said. “I can’t swim ten strokes
without my heart hammering like a threshing-machine. You go, and I’ll
stay. You can tell them what’s doing aboard here, and they’ll hunt Haley
down and get me.”
Harvey shook his head, while he ground his teeth with chagrin.
“No, no,” he said. “I won’t go, if you can’t. They’d kill you if I got
away, and they didn’t get caught. We’ll try it another time. Get out of
here, forward, now, quick. If Haley catches you up here, you’ll get
hurt.”
Jack Harvey stood resolutely at the wheel, and held the bug-eye to her
course. He saw, with some hope, the Folly creep up through the night upon
the fleeing Brandt. He heard the commands for them to come to, and
surrender. Bullets whizzed past him, from the shore and from the pursuing
schooner. They went through the canvas of the bug-eye and did no other
harm.
He saw, next, with a great sinking of heart, the fast craft upon whose
deck he stood gather headway rapidly and eat its way through the night,
gaining on its pursuer. The wind came sharp in flaws from the bank. The
Brandt heeled over till the deck was awash. Hamilton Haley, springing to
the wheel and displacing Harvey, uttered a cry of exultation.
“Get along for’ard; you’ve done well, boy,” was his way of bestowing
praise.
The Folly fell astern, and the chase was lost.
That was a night never to be forgotten by Jack Harvey; the sudden flush
of hope; its swift vanishing, amid the thin fire of rifles; the cries of
disappointed men, and the quick flaws of wind upon the sails. There was a
thrill—even if one laden with disappointed hopes—in the rapid flight of
the poacher, Brandt, and its wild course down the river, past the black,
shadowy shores.
Dazed and disheartened, however, with the passing of the hours, Jack
Harvey and his comrade, by whom he had stuck manfully, turned in, at the
word, and laid their weary bodies down in the forecastle bunks. The
bug-eye, laden with its spoils, sailed away out of the Patuxent, heading
across the bay for the shelter of the Eastern Maryland shore.
Doomed to disappointment, then. Doomed to disappointment even more
bitter, on a day soon succeeding.
The Brandt was in luck at last. A few days of dredging along Hoopers,
and, by the early part of December, she was fully laden. There were a
thousand and more bushels of good oysters in her hold. The time for the
ending of the first trip was nigh.
Jack Harvey slapped his friend, Edwards, on the shoulder.
“We’ve stuck it out, old chap,” he said, “and we’re alive to tell the
tale, in spite of Haley. We’ll get back inside of the month. There’s one
thing that that scoundrel, Jenkins, didn’t lie about. Hooray! Why, you’re
a better man than when you came aboard, Tom Edwards. You’re stronger, if
we have had awful grub.”
“All the same, I’ll make it hot for old Haley, when I get ashore,”
exclaimed Tom Edwards. “I’ll have the law on him for this.”
Thus they talked and planned, but said naught to the others, lest word of
their contemplated revenge should get, by chance, to Haley’s ears. And
then, one evening, another bug-eye hove in sight as they lay at anchor,
and came alongside.
“All hands out, to unload,” called Haley.
“Look alive here,” repeated Jim Adams; “’spects we’ve got an all night
job before us.”
Taken by surprise, Harvey and Tom Edwards obeyed the summons. The work
they were next called upon to do dumbfounded and appalled them. With a
tackle and fall attached to the mast, the work of unloading the cargo of
the Brandt and transferring it to the hold of the other vessel was begun.
“What does this mean? What are they going to do? Aren’t we going up to
Baltimore with our load?” inquired Harvey, falteringly, of Sam Black.
“Why, you fool, of course not,” was the reply. “Did you think you were
going to quit so soon as this? Think old man Haley lets a man go when he
once gets him, with men so hard to catch? Didn’t you know you were booked
for all winter? Baltimore, eh? Well, when you see Baltimore, my boy, it
will be when the Brandt knocks off for the season. Don’t worry, though,
you’ll come through. You can stand it.”
Jack Harvey and Tom Edwards, gazing into each other’s faces with the
blankness of despair, shook hands silently. They could not speak.