ON THE COURSE
"All dories aboard? All hands set tops'ls! Jimmie Thomas, ease your
mainsheet! Now, boys, altogether! Yo! Sway 'em flat! Yo! Once more!
Yo! Fine! Stand by to set balloon jib!"
It was broad daylight, and the early sun lighted the newly painted,
slanting deck of the _Charming Lass_ as she snored through the gentle
sea. On every side the dark gray expanse stretched unbroken to the
horizon, except on the starboard bow. There a long, gray flatness
separated itself from the horizon--the coast of southern Nova Scotia.
There was a favorable following wind, and the clean, new schooner
seemed to express her joy at being again in her element by leaping
across the choppy waves like a live thing.
While the crew of ten leaped to the orders, Code Schofield stood
calmly at the wheel, easing her on her course, so as to give them the
least trouble. Under the vociferous bellow of Pete Ellinwood, the crew
were working miracles in swiftness and organization.
The sun had been up two hours, and now, as Schofield glanced back at
the wake that foamed and bubbled behind them, his eyes fell upon the
white sails of a vessel far astern. Even at the distance, it was plain
that she was of schooner rig, and probably a fisherman.
"Wonder who she is?" asked Code, pointing her out to Ellinwood.
"Don't know. Thought perhaps you'd seen her before, skipper. I've had
my eye on her for an hour. Fisherman, likely; you'll see 'em in all
directions every day afore we're through."
The explanation was simple and obvious, and it satisfied Schofield. He
promptly forgot her, as did every one else aboard the _Lass_. And
reason enough. The cook, sticking his head out of the galley, bawled:
"Mug-up! First ta-a-able!" and the first table made a rush below.
When the five men sat down it was the first time they had been able to
relax since the evening before, when, without lights, and under
headsails only, the _Charming Lass_ had stolen out between the reefs
of Freekirk Head to sea.
"Wal, boys, I cal'late we're safe!" ejaculated Ellinwood with great
satisfaction. "The _Lass_ is doin' her ten knot steady, an' I guess
we'll have left Cape Sable astern afore the sleepy heads at home find
out what's become of us."
"You saved the day, Pete. If it hadn't been for you I would never have
got beyond St. John's." It was Code who spoke.
"And you pretty near spoiled what I _did_ do," rumbled Pete.
"How's that?" interrupted Thomas interestedly. "I don't know
everything that happened to you fellers. I was busy at the time givin'
a friend of ours a joy-ride. Tell me about it!"
"It wasn't me that nearly broke up the show, Pete," protested Code.
"It was mother. Of course, when Jimmie was taking her over to Castalia
in his dory he told her what was in the wind. They found me at the
Pembroke place, and we all went into Pembroke's ice-house, where I was
to stay until after dark. Then ma started in to find out everything.
"She allowed it wasn't honorable for me to run away when the officer
or lawyer was after me. She said it proved that I was guilty, and
thought I ought to stay and be served with his paper. If I wasn't
guilty of anything, it could be proven easily enough, she said. Poor,
honest mother! She forgot that the whole matter would take weeks, if
not months, and that all that time I would be idle and discontented,
and spending most of my time before boards of inquiry.
"I suppose it _will_ look queer to a lot of people at the Head
because I've gone. They'll say right off: 'Just as we thought! All
this talk that has been going around is true,' and put me down for a
criminal that ought to go to jail. That's what mother said, and the
worst part of leaving her now is that she will have to stay and face
the talk--and the looks that are worse than talk.
"But, Jimmie, I couldn't do it. Grande Mignon is in too bad a hole.
She needs every man who owns a schooner or a sloop or a dory to go out
and catch fish and bring 'em home. The old island's got her back
against the wall, and I felt that when all the trouble and danger were
over for her I would go to St. John's, and let those people try and
prove their case.
"They can't prove anything! But that doesn't say they won't get a
judgment. I'm poor and unknown, and ignorant of law. The company is a
big corporation, with lawyers and plenty of money. If somebody there
is after me I haven't a chance, and they will gouge me for all they
can get. You, Jimmie, and Pete know that this is so, and it was for
all these reasons that I wouldn't stand my ground and let that feller
serve me.
"Ma is dependent on me, and when I have sold fifteen hundred quintals
of fish she will have enough to carry her along until that trouble is
over. So I'm going out after the fifteen hundred quintals. Now,
that's my story. We've heard Jimmie's; but how did you manage
everything so well, Pete?"
Ellinwood was flattered and coughed violently over the last of his
victuals.
"Hey!" yelled some hungry member of the second half. "If you fellers
eat any more you'll sink the ship. Get up out o' there an' give yer
betters a chance!" Ellinwood rolled a forbidding eye toward the
companionway.
"Some clam-splitter on deck don't seem to know that in this here
packet the youth an' beauty is allus considered fust," he rumbled
ominously. No reply being forthcoming, he turned to Code.
"When ol' Bige Tanner come to me shakin' like a leaf an' said they was
a feller on the steamer that would attach yer schooner an' all that ye
had, because of some business about the sinkin' of the ol' _May_, I
says to myself, sez I:
"'Pete,' I sez, 'we don't allow nothin' like that to spoil our cruise
an' keep the skipper ashore.' Now, Mignon isn't very big, an' I knew
he would git you in a day or two if you didn't go back into the forest
and hide. But I cal'lated you wouldn't want to do that, an' so I
figgered the only way to beat that lawyer was to fool him before he
got fair started on his search.
"I knowed you was in Castalia, an' so I thought your mother better get
you some clothes an' bring 'em there. I found out that Nat Burns had
taken the feller to Mis' Shannon's boardin'-house, an', knowin' that
Jimmie was livin' there, I got an idee. Jimmie's told about that
already. The feller bit, an' that was the end of him.
"But that wasn't the wust of it. I knew we had to get out the same
evenin' if we was to git out at all, so what did I do but get Bill
Rockwell here to hitch up his big double buckboard an' go out after
the five men that weren't on the job.
"He had to drive clear to Great Harbor for one, but he got back with
all hands about seven o'clock. Everybody in town was at supper, an'
didn't see us when we clumb aboard the _Lass_. When it was pitch-black
we cast off the lines, an' she drifted out on the ebb tide, which just
there runs easy a knot an' a half. Then we got up our headsails so as
to get steerage-way on her, and bless my soul if the blocks made a
creak! Might have been pullin' silk thread through a fur mitten, for
all the noise.
"I was afraid fer a minute that the flash of Swallowtail Light would
catch her topm'sts, but it didn't, and after an hour we were outside
and layin' in sixteen fathom off Big Duck. The tide there runs three
knot, and, with our headsails an' the light air o' wind, we just
managed to hold her even.
"Of course, you fellers know the rest. As soon as Jimmie landed his
passenger on Long Island he came out an' straight south to where we
was. I had told Jimmie to tell Code in the afternoon where to meet us;
and so, when it was black enough, the skipper got into his motor-dory
and came out, too.
"When they climbed aboard we got up sail and laid a southwest course
to round Nova Scoshy; an' here we are, nearin' Cape Race already, and
dummed proud of ourselves, if I do say it."
"Proud of you, Pete, you old fox," said Schofield, getting up from the
table with a sigh of immense relief. "Come on; let the second half
in."
"All right, skipper," said Pete, rising to his great height and wiping
his mouth with the back of his huge hand. "But wait! I almost fergot
this!"
He unpinned the pocket of his waistcoat and drew forth the flimsy
sheet of paper that he had picked up when Templeton had mistakenly
tried to serve him.
Briefly he told the skipper its history and handed it to him.
Schofield's eyes opened wide as he saw that the paper was that of the
Dominion Cable office in Freekirk Head, and he read:
"To A. TEMPLETON,
"Marine Insurance Company,
"St. John's, N.B.
"Come at once with summons for Cody Albert Schofield and
attachment for schooner Charming Lass, as per former arrangements.
"BURNETT."
For a moment the signature puzzled him, and Ellinwood, grinning, stood
watching his puzzled efforts to solve it.
"Skipper, if it was a mule it would kick you in the face," he
remarked. "If you can't see Nat Burns in that, I can. And now you've
got an idea just who's at the bottom of this thing."
Code Schofield went aft to his cabin companionway, and prepared to go
below and open his log. Kent took the wheel, and Ellinwood lurched
about with a critical eye upon the lashings, sheets, and general
appearance of the deck.
Schofield, remembering the schooner that had attracted his eye before,
looked astern for her. She had gained rapidly upon them in the
half-hour he had been below. Now he could see her graceful black hull,
the shadows in the great sails, and the tiny men here and there upon
her deck.
"What a sailer!" he cried in involuntary admiration. "She must be an
American!"
It was clear that the other schooner, even in that moderate breeze,
must be making the better side of twelve knots. Schofield gave her a
final admiring glance and went below.