XV

Almost at once Captain Skinner recognized the approaching ship as the

_Queen_, one of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s fleet and plainly in her

rights. Barabara Point and all of the Alaskan mainland north to Cape

Spencer was, by right of the treaty of 1839, the great English company’s

trading ground. Skinner noticed also that she was a high-speed ship

compared to his own safe and steady schooner; and it might be that this

observation was a factor in his subsequent conduct. While it was true

that from time to time he had been known to run a race, he firmly

decided that such conduct would now be extremely discourteous to the

British captain. Like an honest man with nothing in particular to do, he

steamed out until he was some three miles offshore, and headed into the

sea with just enough power to hold his own against the tide, waiting for

what might befall.

At length the _Queen_ drew up in easy shouting distance, and she too

headed into the tide. So far as Jeff could see, Captain Skinner was not

even watching her maneuvers. He leaned comfortably on the rail of his

bridge, smoking peacefully and making weather predictions for the next

day. It was not until the stranger captain began to shout through his

megaphone that the old Yankee showed any knowledge of his presence.

“Who are you and where bound?” the _Queen’s_ master called. His angry

tone indicated any one of several things, perhaps that complications had

risen in what had seemed to be a very simple, expeditious, and not to

mention profitable affair, perhaps merely that Skinner’s air of calm and

indifference had grated unpleasantly upon him.

“Schooner _Ethan Allen_, American registry, bound for Sitka,” was

Captain Skinner’s reply. He spoke, so he thought, very softly; yet the

Englishman seemed to understand clearly. “Who are you?”

“Captain Lennox, of Hudson’s Bay _Queen_. You took some of the cargo off

the _Boston Dame_, didn’t you?”

“Yep. All what was any good.”

“We want to see the papers showing that stuff isn’t contraband. Heave

to, we’re coming aboard.”

Captain Skinner took his pipe from his mouth. It is a regrettable fact

that he spat—seemingly with no shame—smack into the sea. “Who’s coming

aboard?” he asked.

He was speaking quite softly now; and there followed a curious rustle

and stir among the men of his crew. They began to think that there might

be something to this business, after all. When the captain used such a

tone of voice it was usually indicative of impending action, often of a

disagreeable sort.

“Myself and some of my men,” was the answer. The decisiveness of his

tone could not be mistaken. Decisiveness is a British quality that

Skinner thoroughly respected; and now he watched like an eagle the

activities on the deck of the _Queen_.

Captain Lennox evidently wished to make good time rowing across. No less

than twelve oarsmen preceded him into the longboat. Skinner waited very

patiently until they had pushed off, and until the morning light

glittered on certain instruments leaning in easy reach of their hands.

The crew of the _Queen_ was plainly prepared for an argument. Each man

carried a carbine and, in case the debate waxed hot, a broad saber, that

time-honored and most effective argument at close range.

At this point Captain Skinner gave certain commands, in a voice not to

be misunderstood. He was not posing now. His men leaped to obey, in a

moment reappearing on the deck with every piece of armament that the

ship’s chest contained. They were told to load their rifles and line up

at the railing to await commands.

Skinner gave just one of his valuable minutes to Jeff. “Go down and get

your rifle, Sharp, if you’ve got one,” he said. “It looks to me like

war. If you ain’t got a gun, get one of those down there and line up

with the others.”

Jeff straightened, looking the skipper in the eyes. “You can’t do that,

you know,” he objected.

“I can’t, huh? Wait and see.”

“Those people are probably in their rights.”

“I’m in my rights, too. This is an American ship. No armed force is

going to board her on the high seas. One war was fought on that point

once before. A proud gent like yourself would look fine in irons, down

below, while the ship went to London with a prize crew!”

The approaching boat was in fair rifle range by now, and again Skinner

put his megaphone to his lips. “If you want to see my papers, go back

and leave those weapons on your deck,” he called. “You can’t come

alongside with that armed force.”

Across the water they heard Captain Lennox speaking quietly to his men;

and for a moment they rested on their oars. “We’re not afraid of

smugglers,” was the reply. “We’re coming alongside and we’re coming

aboard.”

Captain Skinner addressed no further words to them. He turned to his

crew and gave certain instructions. His men were to stand ready with

their rifles, and when the longboat was approximately sixty yards

distant Captain Skinner would command the first volley. Thereafter they

were to fire at will. From their higher position, and being the kind of

riflemen who habitually pick their targets instead of shooting in the

enemy’s general direction, it seemed probable they could inflict

numerous casualties. Since Skinner was no longer careful to lower his

voice, it was likely that his orders were overheard.

When he stopped speaking an ominous silence enveloped all. To Jeff,

standing immediately behind the captain and wondering at his own strange

thoughts, there seemed a valiancy in this water vista, a moving appeal

beyond his immediate analysis. He could not look at it coolly. His

firmest beliefs were powerless to annul it; and his old gods of scorn

and hatred could not shut it out of his heart. Beyond the blue of the

ocean he could see the forest, blue-black under thin October clouds. He

saw the _Boston Dame_, like a ghost ship, in the harbor, then standing

nearer, the _Queen_, one of England’s far-sailing fleet. This side of

her lay the longboat, a most vivid picture as she rolled easily on the

swell and as her brave crew waited for their captain’s command. Their

carbines and their bright sabers made miniature lightning flashes as the

steel reflected the almost hidden sun. On the deck of the _Ethan Allen_

waited the Americans, humble men, most of them, but no less brave than

the men in the longboat—all of them ready to risk death at a leader’s

command and for an old theme they did not begin to understand.

There would not be much more waiting. This was the pause before the

storm; and it could only endure a few seconds more. The affair was

rapidly reaching a crisis; and indeed, it was only the reluctance of

either side to take the offensive that had prevented bloodshed so far.

Both captains realized the possible far-reaching consequences of such an

encounter and therefore hesitated to give the command to fire.

“We’re going to board you,” Lennox called. “If you fire on us, you do it

at your own risk.”

“On our risk let it be!” was Captain Skinner’s answer. His voice was not

without dignity, and indeed it had a deep, sober tone of one who is sure

of his course in a moment of great trial, such a tone as has been heard

now and then in council chambers when men responsible for tribes and

nations have come to far-reaching decisions. “If you come nearer, we’ll

open fire.”

Jeff knew, just as the British captain knew, that Skinner meant what he

said. This was no idle threat; and now there seemed no further hope of

peace. Every alternate man of the longboat’s crew had now picked up his

rifle, holding it ready to aim and fire when Captain Lennox gave the

word. His tactics were now plain: half his crew would keep the enemy

engaged while the other half rowed alongside, whereupon his entire force

would attempt to board. On the deck of the _Ethan Allen_ was heard the

grim sound of the cocking of rifles.

In another moment, it seemed, the first volley would ring out over the

hushed sea; and how many souls would fly and how many women weep before

its far-carrying echoes had died away, no man could dream. At this range

there were certain to be heavy casualties on each side, even though the

battle stopped immediately thereafter. And if there ever was a vain

dream of foolish men it was that any great question can be decided with

a single volley. In a calmer hour Jeff would have remembered that at the

beginning of the Rebellion each side had been sure of early victory; his

people had believed that Bull Run would end the war. Had the leaders

been able to foresee the four red years to come, he believed that both

armies would have withdrawn without firing a shot.

But Jeff could not remember such things now. The deathless curse which

must have been laid upon the race when Cain slew Abel once more fell

upon him, and in the ardor of this moment memory dried up in him as

fallen apples dry under the ardent sun. An old, tragic zeal swept over

him once more.

Could he remember all the things he had held dear? Could he as much as

recall the theme to which he had consecrated his life? Is man no more

than a leaf to be blown in the wind of a savage emotion that blows out

of the savage years? The men in the longboat were Englishmen, and

England had been his friend. They were of a great nation that he

believed in far more than in the government of which he was a subject;

and indeed they were a brave and a great people. The men here on the

deck with him were all of the Northern States, and doubtless many of

them had actually borne arms against the South. In a more sane hour he

could have held to his firm conviction that they were not his people,

that they stood for the things he hated, and had nothing in common with

him. Most of all he would have remembered that the flag which Captain

Skinner had run up was the hated Stars and Stripes, the banner under

which he had never thought to walk, much less to fight.

He was aware of no sharp distinction between right and wrong. Probably

the British captain felt justified in attempting to board, with an armed

guard, a possible smuggler; certainly Captain Skinner believed in the

inviolacy of his deck. As it was in this little dispute, so had it been

in the great Civil War: no one on this lowly earth knew exactly which

side was in the right and which in the wrong. It is part of the old

curse that in hours like these all abstract thought is clouded, and men

know neither right nor wrong: they may only follow the blind dictates of

their hearts. In this stirring moment, as the October clouds darkened

above as if they were the lowering wings of death—in this momentary

hush before the rifles spoke—Jeff’s heart led him into a strange,

unexpected course.

At first the impulse was vague, but as the tension increased and the

crisis neared, the dim urge became an immutable command. It grew within

him as the low whistle of the wind’s breath grows to a yelling climax,

as the long gusts sweep through the trees. Yet not until he heard his

own answer to Skinner’s question did he know his own mind.

“Open fire if they raise their rifles to their shoulders,” he had just

ordered his men. Turning, he looked Jeff full in the face. “You haven’t

your rifle that I told you to get.”

“No, I haven’t got it,” Jeff answered. He spoke in a low monotone, in

the voice of one overcome with wonder.

“Are you going to get it? Sharp, are you with us or against us?”

At these words, and at his answer, a lightning flash seemed to illumine

Jeff’s sky and sea and world. All at once he saw clear and far. The time

might come when the light would dim and die, when bitterness and hatred

would shadow him again, but now he knew the way.

“I’m with _you_, Captain Skinner!” he cried. And he banged a heavy fist

on the railing of the bridge.