JACK LOSES COMMAND
Jack and his chum, on returning to Greenport, found themselves
overwhelmed with congratulations. They were stopped on the street and
plied with questions, and the reporter of the “Greenport Gazette” who
had, two days before, firmly believed he was writing the boys’ obituary
notices, wrung their hands warmly in the hope of extracting a good
“story.” But neither the captain nor the mate of the _Sea-Lark_ cared
for publicity of this sort.
“You don’t want to print anything more about us in your paper,” said
Jack. “Everybody knows we got back all right, and there’s nothing else
to it.”
More than that he refused to say to the journalist, but to Cap’n
Crumbie he opened his heart, and the watchman nodded understandingly
as the boy recounted their adventures. The reporter, knowing there were
more ways of killing a dog than by drowning it, awaited a favorable
opportunity of tackling Cap’n Crumbie, and that worthy, without the
slightest hesitation, told the reporter all he wanted to know. It was,
therefore, with something of a shock that the boys found two columns of
the local paper filled with a thrilling account of their narrow escape.
Cap’n Crumbie, who at all times was inclined to make a little go a long
way when he was telling a story, had polished up the high lights and
introduced a few bright ideas of his own; and the reporter, who was
none too particular about facts when it came to turning out exciting
“copy,” had let himself go. The combined result was a truly harrowing
yarn, which made Jack and his friend roar with laughter, but which also
had the effect of swelling the number of ferry patrons.
Mr. Farnham, who was a business man to his finger-tips, stood on the
hotel landing with his wife, watching the _Sea-Lark_ discharging an
unusually large load, and he laughed softly.
“Sweet are the uses of advertisement!” he misquoted with a glance at
his wife.
“You mean their adversity has proved an advertisement,” replied Mrs.
Farnham. “Yes, but I should be sorry if they had another advertisement
of the same kind.”
“Surely,” replied the man of business, “but give Jack due credit. Lots
of chaps would have taken a day or two off to rest, after going through
all that. His hands were so sore at first that he could hardly hold the
wheel. But instead of lying back and listening to congratulations, he
got on the job while the rush lasted.”
“He certainly has worked hard this summer.”
“He has,” replied Mr. Farnham, thoughtfully, “and fellows with as much
grit as that aren’t any too plenty. He ought to go a good long way in
this world. But it won’t be as a ferryman.”
“It won’t?”
“No”; and Mr. Farnham smiled. “I have a notion that by the time he gets
through High School he’ll be the sort of chap I shall find very useful
in my office in New York. But there’s time enough to think about that.
“By the way,” he said to Jack, stepping down on to the landing as soon
as the last of the passengers had gone, “I have just got a new dinghy
in place of the one I’ve been using as a tender to the power-boat. I
have no use for the old dinghy now, so if you’d like to hitch it up
behind the _Sea-Lark_, you can have it as a tender.”
“Why――why,” began Jack, who knew the dinghy well enough, and would have
liked nothing better than to own her, but felt that Mr. Farnham had
given him quite enough as it was, “that would be splendid, only――”
“Wait a minute,” put in Mr. Farnham, quickly discerning what was in the
lad’s mind. “I’m not going to make a gift of her to you, exactly. Let’s
put the thing on a proper business footing, eh?”
Jack smiled. “I’d be glad to,” he said; “But how?”
“You can take her on condition that whenever I want to use your ferry
during the rest of my vacation this year, I’m allowed to travel
without paying my fare.”
“But you hardly ever come across,” protested Jack.
“Well, well, I’ll have to make a few special journeys to work off the
price of the dinghy. Not another word, now. She’s yours. Rod will hand
her over to you to-day.”
“Thank you ever so much,” Jack called after Mr. Farnham, who had
already turned and was walking away toward his bungalow.
The proprietor of Holden’s Ferry had but little time for gossip with
his friend the watchman for several days after his return from Bristow,
but early one morning, while Jack was preparing the sloop for the day’s
work, Cap’n Crumbie descended from the wharf and sat on the deck-house
watching the lad use the swab.
“There’s one thing I forgot to tell you,” said the watchman. “I’ve got
a notion that p’r’aps we’ve been misjudging those two fellers Hegan and
Martin.”
“Misjudging them?”
“Well, I dunno,” replied the Cap’n. “P’r’aps it was only me that did
the misjudging, but I surely did think it was either one or the other
o’ them that tried to brain you with a bar o’ steel that night.”
“Well?” said Jack, curiously.
“Well, ’tain’t reasonable to think so now. If they’d wanted to do you
an injury they wouldn’t have acted like they did when we all thought
you was getting drownded out there.”
Jack put down the swab.
“How do you mean?” he asked.
“I watched ’em, watched ’em close, too, when they heard you’d been
blown out to sea,” said Cap’n Crumbie. “An’ if I ever seed a case of
genooine sorrow in a feller’s face, it was then.”
“Really!” said Jack, a little puzzled. He still had a painfully vivid
memory of having been held down to the floor of the cabin by the throat
and almost choked to death. “You can’t always go much by looks, though.”
“It wasn’t only their looks,” said the Cap’n, shaking his head
solemnly. “It was Hegan’s idea to start a subscription to pay Barker
for the hire of his old tug to go and save you. And Martin offered to
chip in, too. They meant it, all right. In another minute or two we’d
ha’ been handing that shark Barker the thirty dollars he asked for
before he’d send the tug out. But just then Tony came along and paid
Barker out of his own pocket.”
“How funny!” said Jack, with a perplexed frown. “I’m glad you told me.
Next time they come along I must thank them for it. They were both down
on the wharf yesterday, but I was pretty busy and they didn’t speak.”
“It just shows you,” observed the watchman, “how you can be mistaken in
folks.”
“Ye-es,” said Jack, a trifle doubtfully. Then, “Hello, here they come,”
he added.
Hegan and Martin strolled to the edge of the wharf and looked down on
the deck of the _Sea-Lark_.
“Good morning,” said Jack. “Cap’n Crumbie has been telling me about
your being kind enough to start a subscription for the tug when we were
blown out to sea. It was awfully kind of you.”
“Subscription?” said Hegan. “Oh, yes, I’d forgotten. That’s nothing.
Forget it! You can’t stand by and see a friend drown, can you?”
“I’m glad it didn’t cost you anything, after all,” said Jack, lightly.
“I don’t mind admitting we should have been mighty glad to see that
tug, and I’m much obliged to you, all the same.”
“Say, to-morrow’s Sunday. You don’t run the ferry Sundays, do you?”
“No.”
“I was just sayin’ to my friend Martin that p’r’aps we might persuade
you to take us for a sail. We’re both going back to New York to-morrow
night, and I’d like one good run in the sloop afore I go. What d’you
say?”
“Why, I’ll be glad to,” said the boy, graciously, feeling that was the
least he could do to repay them for their generous offer of assistance.
“As early as you like. What about seven o’clock?”
“Fine,” replied Hegan. “We’ll be here.”
As George had promised to visit some friends with his mother next
day, Jack arranged with Rod to accompany him on the trip in the sloop,
promising to pick him up at the hotel landing as they sailed.
The men kept their appointment punctually enough. As a matter of fact,
they arrived at the wharf immediately after Jack and George left the
vessel to go home for breakfast; and, finding the cabin door locked,
they asked Cap’n Crumbie where they could get the key.
“I guess Jack must have it,” replied the Cap’n; and he remained there,
chatting with them, until the skipper of the _Sea-Lark_ returned.
Sailing across to the landing, they found Rod awaiting them, and then
the sloop’s bow was turned toward the sea.
“Now, which way do you want to go?” asked Jack. “The water is dead
calm.”
“How about a run down the coast as far as Penley?” Martin suggested,
glancing sideways at Hegan.
“It’s all the same to me,” replied Hegan, airily. “So long as I’m
afloat with a good cigar in my mouth, it don’t make any odds whether
we go north, south, east, or west.”
“All right,” said Jack.
Soon after they got clear of the harbor and round the end of the
breakwater, however, Hegan, for some unaccountable reason, changed his
mind.
“Let’s run up the coast, as far as Indian Head,” he said.
“I thought you didn’t care where you were so long as you were afloat,”
replied Jack, laughing. “We mightn’t be able to get back if this bit of
a breeze dropped, because of the tide.”
“Oh, come on,” said Hegan, with rough good humor. “Let’s take a chance.
I’d like to see the coast around that way, and this wind ain’t goin’ to
drop.”
“Well, if you really want to,” agreed Jack. “But don’t blame me if you
miss your train through not getting back on time.”
“That’s all right,” said Hegan. “I want to see Indian Head from the
ocean. It’s years since I was off there. How far is it to Baymouth from
the Head?”
The question was put with such curious intentness that Jack glanced at
the man before replying.
“Thinking of swimming it?” he asked. “About a couple of miles as the
crab walks.”
“I thought it was about that,” replied Hegan; and then he strolled
forward to where Martin was leaning against the mast. The two men
talked for some time in low voices, watching the coast-line as the
sloop slid slowly past, but neither Jack nor Rodney took much notice
of them. Presently, however, Hegan turned round and shouted aft to the
captain.
“Couldn’t you keep her a bit farther out?” he asked casually. “We don’t
want to hug the shore all the way up.”
Jack waved a hand in reply, and gave a slight turn to the wheel, in
response to which the _Sea-Lark_ headed farther east, and before long a
considerable distance separated the sloop from the shore.
“I guess we had better not go much farther,” he called out then. “It
looks kind of hazy over there.”
“Why, we can’t be so far off Indian Head now, are we?” Martin queried.
“Both of us wanted to have a look at it.”
“There it is,” replied Jack, pointing off on the port bow to a blur on
the coast which was rendered vague by the slight haze.
“All right. You don’t mind going up as far as that, do you?”
Jack hesitated a moment. The wind was so light now that it would barely
be sufficient to carry them back over the tide, and Greenport harbor
was fully seven or eight miles off.
“This is no power-boat, you know,” he said, endeavoring to meet the
wishes of the men in good part. “And I don’t like that haze, either.
It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if there was a regular fog soon. I think
we’ll turn back.”
Hegan walked aft with his companion at his heels.
“Nothing doing!” he said in a tone which astounded the skipper. “Keep
her going just as she is till you get orders from me.”
“Orders!” Jack repeated. “If you talk like that I’ll dump you both out
on the nearest beach and leave you to get back as well as you can.”
“No you won’t,” said Hegan with an ugly expression, drawing a small but
wicked-looking revolver from his coat pocket and pointing it at Jack.
“Put that thing down and stop your nonsense!” said Jack, furious at
such a liberty being taken. Rodney, taken aback for a moment by the
suddenness of the men’s change of front, recovered his self-possession
and quietly reached down to the mast rail for one of the belaying-pins.
[Illustration: “Put that thing down and stop your nonsense”]
“_Drop that!_”
The words came from Martin like the crack of a whip as he swung around,
and Rodney saw that he, too, was armed.
“Is this a joke?” Jack demanded, white to the lips. He was more than
half inclined to let go the wheel and with one quick step forward push
Hegan over the rail into the sea. But there was something about the
man’s manner that showed he meant to fire if he were not obeyed.
“Yes, just our little joke!” Hegan replied. “All the same, you won’t
see any fun in it if you don’t do as you’re told.”
“There won’t be any fun in for you either, soon,” replied Jack,
glancing over his shoulder. “Look at this fog-bank drifting up. We’re
going to be in a nice fix.”
“Just what I want,” replied Hegan. “Now, take it calm, and p’r’aps you
won’t get hurt. I don’t know that it wouldn’t be best to thump you both
on the top of the head and drop you overboard. Nice time you’ve given
us! ain’t you?”
“Given _you_?”
“Never mind about that!” snapped Hegan. “The least said the soonest
mended. Here, give me that wheel, and get for’ard. Keep ’em covered,
Martin. This feller looks as though he was going to try to give us
a bit o’ trouble. What d’you say? Shall we make ’em swim for it? A
two-mile swim on a day like this is good for any one.” He laughed
evilly.
“You stick to the program, Hegan,” replied Martin. “No killin’; that’s
what we agreed on.”
The edge of the fog-bank was already enveloping the sloop, and the
coast-line was now hidden from view.
“But a nice little swim――” Hegan began.
“Shut up!” Martin snarled, losing his temper.
“All right,” replied Hegan. “You always was a chicken-livered cuss,
huh? Now, Captain, oblige me and my friend by steppin’ for’ard up
against your pal, so that if necessary Martin can chip bits off you
both with that gun o’ his.”
“I won’t do anything of the kind,” replied Jack, pluckily, although he
had an uncomfortable feeling that Hegan’s revolver was pointed at the
pit of his stomach.
“Guess you will,” said Hegan, sneeringly, as he stepped back a few
feet. “I’m going to count three. If you ain’t makin’ yourself scarce in
that vicinity by the time I say ‘three,’ I’ll fire past you. I don’t
want to do any killin’, mind. I’ll fire to miss you the first time,
but the second shot won’t miss.”
Jack stared stubbornly at the man, who, however, showed no signs of
wavering. And the shining weapon in his hand was a painfully conclusive
argument.
“One!” said Hegan.
Jack set his lips tightly but continued to hold on to the wheel.
“Two!”
“Three!”
There was a sharp report, and a bullet whizzed within a foot of Jack’s
head. It would have been sheer suicide to hold out any longer against
such odds. The boy frowned and walked forward to where Rod was standing.
“Of course, if you’re going to do that sort of thing,” he said, “you
can have your own way just now. But you’ll have to smart for it later
on.”
Taking possession of the wheel, Hegan steered farther into the
bewildering fog.
“Don’t mind them, Martin,” he said. “But keep your eyes skinned, all
the same, or they’ll slip one over on you.”
Although Jack had found discretion the better part of valor, he was by
no means inclined to take his medicine lying down.
“You bet we will!” he declared truculently. “I was an idiot to let you
come off with us, anyway! It was one of you two who tried to choke
me in the cabin a little while back. I felt pretty certain of it all
along. But after what the watchman told me yesterday I thought I must
have been mistaken.”
“I guess you’re right,” said Hegan. “My friend Martin was to blame for
that. He always makes a mess of things if I’m not along to help him.”
Martin’s revolver went off, and Rod, who had again stooped quickly to
pick up a belaying-pin, straightened himself with a jerk.
“Aw, _would_ you!” grinned Martin. “Next time you try any of that stuff
you’ll get hit; see?”
“What on earth do you chaps want?” Jack asked savagely. “You can’t get
away with this sloop! I’ll have the fishermen hunting all along the
coast for it.”
The two men exchanged glances, and Hegan winked at his companion.
“Wouldn’t they like to know?” he jeered.
“Keep your mouth shut,” Martin growled warningly.