THE SIMON P. BARKER GOES OUT
An hour after the two boys left Garnett and Sayer’s wharf in the
_Sea-Lark_, to go fishing, Cap’n Crumbie went into town. It was, for
him, a momentous occasion, for he intended to have his hair cut. On
the way he met a crony and chatted for twenty minutes. Then, at the
barber’s shop, he had to wait half an hour for a chair. Also, the Cap’n
had a shave, and when, finally, he might have taken his departure,
he met another crony, and there was an interminable argument on the
question of fishermen’s wages. So that, by the time the guardian of
Garnett and Sayer’s wharf took it into his head to stroll back to his
accustomed haunts, a distinct change had taken place in the weather.
The wind was singing in the rigging of the various craft around the
wharves. There were low clouds scudding across the sky, with their
hint of a coming storm.
Cap’n Crumbie thrust his hands into his pockets as soon as he reached
the edge of the wharf, and cast a professional glance round the harbor,
up at the sky, and far out to sea beyond Gull Island.
“I thought this was coming!” he muttered. “Ain’t that corn on my foot
been aching cruel enough?” Cap’n Crumbie never breathed to a living
soul the source of his remarkable weather prophecies, but that corn had
served him faithfully, if irritatingly, for years.
Suddenly he spun around and shot a glance across in the direction of
the Point, remembering that the _Sea-Lark_ had gone out beyond the
breakwater. He was wondering whether or not she had returned.
“By Jiminy, they’re out yet!” he spluttered, showing distinct signs of
perturbation, and screwing up his weather-beaten face as he peered out
beyond Gull Island. He could see nothing of the little sloop, however,
and took several sharp turns, first nor’east and then so’west, on
his regular beat. But his movements were not so slow and measured as
usual. There was agitation written all over him. Each time he turned he
gazed out to sea afresh, and each time, seeing nothing of the sloop, he
grunted.
“By Jiminy!” he exclaimed again, after a while; and then, as a sharp
gust of wind almost lifted his cap off his head, “By _Jiminy_!”
As a matter of fact, Cap’n Crumbie was very seriously upset. He had
every faith in the lads’ ability to handle their craft, even if
something more than a capful of wind came along, provided it was not
too squally. But there was the distinct promise, now, of something more
than mere squalls. And if Jack was far out he would have a hard fight
to beat his way back against this wind.
Cap’n Crumbie stumped his way to and fro for another five minutes and
then, snorting impatiently, walked along the wharf to Messrs. Garnett
and Sayer’s office. There he picked up the telephone receiver and spoke
to the man on duty at the light on the Point.
“This is Cap’n Crumbie,” he said. “Who’s that?... Joe? ’Morning,
Joe.... I just rung you up to ask if you can see anything o’ the
ferry-boat. Them two kids went out fishing in her early.... Saw them
go, eh? Well, ain’t they on their way back?” There was a pause, while
the watchman listened irritably to the voice over the wire. Then, “All
right, Joe. Ring us up at the office, will you, as soon as you sight
’em?”
The man at the light had reported that there was nothing afloat as far
as he could see. With growing impatience the watchman returned to the
end of the wharf, where he now found Martin and Hegan.
“I don’t see the sloop around,” observed Hegan, casually.
“No, an’, dog-gone it, maybe you never will!” snapped Cap’n Crumbie.
“It’s miles away, out to sea,” he went on, waving his arm vaguely over
toward the ocean. “If those two kids don’t get drownded it’ll be a
wonder.”
“They’re in the sloop?” asked Martin, with peculiar concern.
“Aye, fishing, and been blown to anywhere by now.”
Then he stopped suddenly, his eyes having alighted on the tug _Simon P.
Barker_, which lay alongside the adjoining wharf, with smoke emerging
from her stack. The _Simon P. Barker_ was the only tug in Greenport.
Cap’n Crumbie cordially disliked Mr. Barker. In fact, he would have
done almost anything in the wide world rather than ask Mr. Barker to do
him a favor. But personal likes and dislikes had to be sunk, in such
an emergency as this. The watchman stood, running his hand through his
stubbly beard for a minute, and then stumped off toward the little
office.
“Well!” the ship-owner demanded, looking up as Cap’n Crumbie entered.
He was not in a particularly pleasant frame of mind this morning.
“Guess young Holden and the other lad must be in trouble,” said the
Cap’n gruffly. “They’ve gone out fishing, and maybe they’ll have
difficulty getting back.”
“Well, what about it?” asked the ship-owner.
“The tug ain’t doing anything. Can’t you send it out after ’em?”
Mr. Barker put down the pen with which he had been writing, and stared
at the watchman in frank astonishment.
“Say, what d’you take me for? A nursemaid?” he demanded when the power
of speech returned.
Cap’n Crumbie swallowed his anger, swallowed his pride, and swallowed
his desire to tell Barker just what he did take him for.
“P’raps you haven’t noticed,” said the watchman, “there’s quite a bit
of a gale coming up. You don’t want them two lads――”
“Get out of here! I’m busy,” snapped Mr. Barker, rudely. And Cap’n
Crumbie had no choice but to retire. His face, however, was full of
wrath. He could have taken the ship-owner in his gnarled hands and half
shaken the life out of him; only that would not have helped matters any.
“Ain’t there some way of sending off help to those kids?” Martin asked
when the watchman returned.
“Aye, there would be,” retorted Cap’n Crumbie, boiling over with rage,
“if some people had as much feelin’ as a cockroach. That man Barker――”
He shook his fist at the little office in which the ship-owner was
writing.
“What’s Barker got to do with it?” Hegan asked.
“That’s his tug,” said the Cap’n, bitterly. “I just been across and
told him about the sloop, and he’s too dratted mean to send her out.”
Martin and Hegan exchanged glances.
“But surely we ain’t going to let the poor lads _drown_!” Hegan
protested.
“Well, maybe they won’t drown,” the watchman replied. “I guess if it
got much worse the old skinflint would send the tug off, but it’s rough
enough out there now. ’Twouldn’t surprise me to hear they’d capsized
the sloop.”
Hegan was biting his thumb reflectively.
“What does Barker charge to fetch a schooner in when there ain’t enough
wind for her?” he asked at length.
“Oh, about twenty-five dollars,” answered the watchman.
“Well, couldn’t we raise twenty-five dollars somehow?” Hegan asked.
“I’ll chip in, and glad to. Martin will, too, huh?”
“Sure!” replied Martin.
Just as Cap’n Crumbie stuffed his hand into a breast pocket and fetched
out one or two small bills, Tony Santo appeared on the wharf.
“Where’s that boy of mine, Cap’n?” he called out as he approached. “He
never came home for breakfast.”
“You’re the very man I want,” said the Cap’n, brightening. “We’ve got
to get that tug out, quick. The lads went fishing hours ago, and I
guess they can’t get back against this wind. I went to ask Barker about
it just now, and he as good as told me to go and hang myself.”
“Why?” asked Tony, astonished.
“Because he ain’t giving nothing away, if he can help it. It’s money
he’s after, every time and all the time. We were just getting up a
subscription.”
“Don’t worry about that,” said Tony, in a businesslike manner. “I’ll
hire the tug.”
Two minutes later Tony was in the ship-owner’s office, demanding that
the _Simon P. Barker_ should put to sea without any delay, in search of
the _Sea-Lark_.
“It’s all very well you talking to me like that,” said Mr. Barker, “but
you must remember I don’t come down to your place and order you about.
A thing of this kind is a matter of business with me. I can’t interrupt
my men in what they’re doing and send my tug out to sea every time a
couple of lads get sky-larking in a boat.”
“I’m not asking you any favor,” said Tony, coldly. “All I do ask you is
to hustle. I will make myself responsible for your bill.”
“Well, now you’re talking!” exclaimed the ship-owner. “If you’re
prepared to hire the tug, that’s exactly what she’s there for. Where
d’you want her to go?”
Tony was already gently urging Mr. Barker out of his office toward the
tug.
“A few miles beyond the breakwater, to begin with,” Tony replied. “If
we can’t see them, we shall have to cruise around till we pick them up.”
“Thirty dollars is what it will cost you,” Mr. Barker declared. “And,
see here,” he added, “if I fetch them youngsters in I don’t want to
hear any more o’ that nonsense about salvage money for bringing in the
_Grace and Ella_. They’ve been to a lawyer about it, and he’s pestering
me for five hundred dollars and threatening suit. If my tug gives their
sloop a tow back now, I shall reckon we’re quits, understand? But if
the tug don’t pick ’em up, it’ll cost you thirty dollars; see?”
“Yes, yes,” said Tony, willing to agree to almost anything, reasonable
or unreasonable, so long as the _Simon P. Barker_ put off without
further delay.
Mr. Barker instructed Burke, the tug’s skipper, to consider himself
under Tony’s orders. Tony slipped on board, with Cap’n Crumbie at his
heels, and the moorings were cast off.
“Glad you’re coming along, Cap’n,” said Tony. “Another pair of eyes may
be useful.”
“By gravy!” the watchman exclaimed. “I’d ha’ been _rowing_ out soon, if
I couldn’t ha’ found any other way o’ getting there!”
Rain had begun to fall by the time the tug got beyond the breakwater.
Burke steered in the direction of Knife Rock buoy, where by now even
the tug felt the choppiness of the sea. Nothing could be seen of the
sloop, however.
“Maybe they’ve run for shelter to some place down the coast,” Tony
suggested.
“That’s likely what they would do, if they couldn’t make Greenport,”
Cap’n Crumbie agreed, little dreaming that at that moment the
_Sea-Lark_ was helpless and drifting aimlessly, almost half a dozen
miles away to the south.
The tug turned westward, and for several miles the shore was scanned
closely from a distance, without success. With a heavy heart Tony at
last gave Burke word to return to the harbor. It was always possible,
he reflected, that word had been received from some point along the
coast that the sloop had gone ashore there, or been picked up by a
schooner. Further search in the tug, at any rate, was useless.
“Oh, they’ll turn up all right,” said Cap’n Crumbie, as the tug puffed
her way fussily back to her own moorings. He was, however, by no means
certain that he would ever see the lads again.
Jack’s father, having by now heard what had happened, was on the wharf
awaiting the return of the tug. Mr. Holden shook his head gravely as
Tony and Cap’n Crumbie stepped ashore.
“It looks bad, very bad, to me,” he said in a helpless fashion,
addressing Tony. “They must have been blown right out to sea.”
“I hope not, at any rate, Sam,” replied the boat-builder. “All I know
is that those two boys understand how to manage their sloop, and
they’ve both got plain horse-sense. It’s no use trying to guess what’s
happened to them, but you can be sure that they did their best. I’ll
believe they’ve been drowned when we find the _Sea-Lark_ smashed up
somewhere on the rocks, and not until then.”
The news quickly spread through the town that the sloop was missing,
and the fact was duly chronicled that evening in the “Greenport
Gazette.” The reporter who had written the account had few enough facts
to go upon, for there were none except the bare statement that the
_Sea-Lark_ had put off on a fishing-trip and failed to return. But that
did not deter the reporter from writing half a column, in which he told
the story of how the _Sea-Lark_ had come into Jack’s possession, how
the boy had started the ferry and actually made money with it, and how
sincere was the wish expressed by everybody that Jack Holden and George
Santo would soon be back plying to and fro on their regular “trade” in
the harbor. A photograph of Jack and also one of his mate appeared on
the front page, together with a snap-shot of the sloop which some one
had taken in the summer as she lay at the hotel landing on the Point.
Altogether, the boys occupied the post of honor in the “Greenport
Gazette” that evening, even though it was a somewhat dismal honor. To
fill up his half-column the reporter had written glowingly of the
courtesy and intelligence of the ferryman and his assistant, and he
also printed a curiously inaccurate interview with Cap’n Crumbie on the
subject; inaccurate because Cap’n Crumbie, far too worried by the lads’
disappearance to bother about being interviewed, had merely glared at
the man with a note-book and consigned him to oblivion.
One or two of the more venturesome Greenport skippers, including Bob
Sennet, who never stayed in harbor on account of bad weather if it was
humanly possible to get to the fishing-grounds, put off to sea, keeping
a sharp lookout for any sign of the _Sea-Lark_. Captain Jordan, of the
_Grace and Ella_, even went a dozen or more miles out of his way in the
hope of being able to rescue the boys, but though the lads actually saw
the sails of the schooner in the distance, and had high hope of being
rescued until the _Grace and Ella_ went about and disappeared, the
sloop was not seen by any of the fishermen.
Meanwhile even Tony was becoming terribly depressed. He had at first
resolutely declined to admit even to himself the possibility that his
son had been lost at sea, but as the day wore on without word he began
to have grave doubts.
The first intelligence Mr. Farnham received that anything was wrong was
when he picked up the paper that evening and his eyes alighted on the
picture of the sloop.
“By Jove! Rodney, the _Sea-Lark’s_ been blown out to sea!” he said.
Rodney, who, not having seen anything of the sloop all day, had
imagined it had stopped running on account of the storm, threw down the
book he was reading and hastened to his father’s side. Together they
read the printed account of the affair. A few minutes later they were
speeding toward the town, in an automobile. Cap’n Crumbie, Tony, and
Mr. Holden were standing disconsolately at the end of the wharf as the
car approached.
“Any news of the boys yet?” Mr. Farnham asked.
The watchman shook his head.
“Has the tug been off searching for them?”
“I went off in her myself,” said Tony.
Mr. Farnham looked from Tony to Mr. Holden, and read in their faces the
suspense they were enduring.
“Let’s go off in the tug again, Dad,” Rodney urged.
“It can be hired, I suppose?” Mr. Farnham asked.
“Sure!” replied Cap’n Crumbie. “Barker’d be tickled to death.”
“Then please go and tell him to hold it at my disposal until darkness
sets in. We’ll be on board in a little while. Mr. Santo, I want you to
let me help you out in any way I can. I owe it to my boy’s friends, you
know.”
“That’s all right, Mr. Farnham,” replied Tony. “But there isn’t much we
can do, except, as you say, go off in the tug again.”
“If the boys couldn’t make Greenport, isn’t it likely that they’d turn
and run somewhere down the coast?”
“They might, of course. But if they’d done that we ought to have got
word by now. They ought to have run into Penley, by rights. I’ve
telephoned down there twice, and if anything should be heard of the
sloop there I’ll get word over the wire immediately.”
“Well, what’s the next place south of Penley? There isn’t any port for
miles, is there?”
“Nowhere that the _Sea-Lark_ could put in, until you come to Bristow,
and they wouldn’t have to go as far as that for shelter.”
“Bristow, eh? That’s about forty miles off. Too far, isn’t it? Anyway,
I’ll telegraph to the authorities there and at the other places up and
down the coast, so that if any news is heard we shall be advised.”
Mr. Farnham drove off to attend to this matter, and immediately on his
return the _Simon P. Barker_ put off to sea once more, Tony joining
Rodney and his father on board. The tug traveled south almost as far
as Penley, and then, bearing off to the east, zigzagged her course
northward again. Two incoming schooners were sighted, and Mr. Farnham
ordered Burke to head these off, but in neither case had the men on the
vessel seen anything of the sloop.
“It’s been blowing hard all day,” said one weather-beaten skipper in
reply to their inquiry. “An’ if the sloop ain’t been picked up, an’ it
ain’t run into Penley, it’s long odds she’s been swamped afore now.”
Not until darkness made it difficult to pursue their search further did
those on the tug return to Greenport, by which time a crowd of anxious
watchers had assembled on the wharf, hoping against hope that the
_Simon P. Barker_ might bring in the eagerly anticipated news. Neither
Tony nor Mr. Holden slept a wink that night, for there was always a
chance that some vessel might come towing the _Sea-Lark_ back to port.