BATTLE ORCHARD
We crossed the lake from the south and about nightfall came to the
small island called Battle Orchard, which is so named by the American
settlers from the peach, apple and other trees planted there about 1740
(so many have told me) by Francois Belot, a French voyageur who had
crossed from the Ouabache on his way from Quebec to Post Vincennes near
the Ohio, and, finding the beaver plentiful, brought there his family.
And here the Indians laid siege to him; and here he valiantly defended
the ford on the west side of the little isle for three days, killing
many savages before they slew him.--_The Relation of Captain Abel
Tucker_.
When I called at St. Agatha's the following morning the maid told me
that Miss Pat was ill and that Miss Helen asked to be excused. I
walked restlessly about the grounds until luncheon, thinking Helen
might appear; and later determined to act on an impulse, with which I
had trifled for several days, to seek the cottage on the Tippecanoe and
satisfy myself of Holbrook's absence. A sharp shower had cooled the
air, and I took the canoe for greater convenience in running into the
shallow creek. I know nothing comparable to paddling as a lifter of
the spirit, and with my arms and head bared and a cool breeze at my
back I was soon skimming along as buoyant of heart as the responsive
canoe beneath me. It was about four o'clock when I dipped my way into
the farther lake, and as the water broadened before me at the little
strait I saw the _Stiletto_ lying quietly at anchor off the eastern
shore of Battle Orchard. I drew close to observe her the better, but
there were no signs of life on board, and I paddled to the western side
of the island.
It had already occurred to me that Holbrook might have another
hiding-place than the cottage at Red Gate, where I had talked with him,
and the island seemed a likely spot for it. I ran my canoe on the
pebbly beach and climbed the bank. The island was covered with a
tangle of oak and maple, with a few lordly sycamores towering above
all. I followed a path that led through the underbrush and was at once
shut in from the lake. The trail bore upward and I soon came upon a
small clearing about an acre in extent that had once been tilled, but
it was now preempted by weeds as high as my head. Beyond lay an
ancient orchard, chiefly of apple-trees, and many hoary veterans stood
faithful to the brave hand that had marshaled them there. (Every
orchard is linked to the Hesperides and every apple-waits for
Atalanta--if not for Eve!) I stooped to pick a wild-flower and found
an arrow-head lying beside it.
Fumbling the arrow-head in my fingers, I passed onto a log cabin hidden
away in the orchard. It was evidently old. The mud chinking had
dropped from the logs in many places, and the stone chimney was held up
by a sapling. I approached warily, remembering that if this were
Holbrook's camp and he had gone away he had probably left the Italian
to look after the yacht, which could be seen from the cabin door. I
made a circuit of the cabin without seeing any signs of habitation, and
was about to enter by the front door, when I heard the swish of
branches in the underbrush to the east and dropped into the grass.
In a moment the Italian appeared, carrying a pair of oars over his
shoulder. He had evidently just landed, as the blades were dripping.
He threw them down by the cabin door, came round to the western window,
drew out the pin from an iron staple with which it was fastened, and
thrust his head in. He was greeted with a howl and a loud demand of
some sort, to which he replied in monosyllables, and after several
minutes of this parley I caught a fragment of dialogue which seemed to
be final in the subject under discussion.
"Let me out or it will be the worse for you; let me out, I say!"
"My boss he sometime come back; then you get out it, maybe."
With this deliverance, accomplished with some difficulty, the Italian
turned away, going to the rear of the cabin for a pail with which he
trudged off toward the lake. He had not closed the window and would
undoubtedly return in a few minutes; so I waited until he was out of
sight, then rose and crawled through the grass to the opening.
I looked in upon a bare room whose one door opened inward, and I did
not for a moment account for the voice. Then something stirred in the
farther corner, and I slowly made out the figure of a man tied hand and
foot, lying on his back in a pile of grass and leaves.
"You ugly dago! you infernal pirate--" he bawled.
There was no mistaking that voice, and I now saw two legs clothed in
white duck that belonged, I was sure, to Gillespie. My head and
shoulders filled the window and so darkened the room that the prisoner
thought his jailer had come back to torment him.
"Shut up, Gillespie," I muttered. "This is Donovan. That fellow will
be back in a minute. What can I do for you?"
"What can you do for me?" he spluttered. "Oh, nothing, thanks! I
wouldn't have you put yourself out for anything in the world. It's
nice in here, and if that fellow kills me I'll miss a great deal of the
poverty and hardship of this sinful world. But take your time,
Irishman. Being tied by the legs like a calf is bully when you get
used to it."
In turning over, the better to level his ironies at me, he had stirred
up the dust in the straw so that he sneezed and coughed in a ridiculous
fashion. As I did not move he added:
"You come in here and cut these strings and I'll tell you something
nice some day."
I ran round to the front door, kicked it open and passed through a
square room that contained a fireplace, a camp bed, a trunk, and a
table littered with old newspapers and a few books. I found Gillespie
in the adjoining room, cut his thongs and helped him to his feet.
"Where is your boat?" he demanded.
"On the west side."
"Then we're in for a scrap. That beggar goes down there for water; and
he'll see that there's another man on the island. I had a gun when I
came," he added mournfully.
He stamped his feet and threshed himself with his arms to restore
circulation, then we went into the larger room, where he dug his own
revolver from the trunk and pointed to a shot-gun in the corner.
"You'd better get that. This fellow has only a knife in his clothes.
He'll be back on the run when he sees your canoe." And we heard on the
instant a man running toward the hut. I opened the breech of the
shotgun to see whether it was loaded.
"Well, how do you want to handle the situation?" I asked.
He had his eye on the window and threw up his revolver and let go.
"Your pistol makes a howling noise, Gillespie. Please don't do that
again. The smoke is disagreeable."
"You are quite right; and shooting through glass is always unfortunate!
there's bound to be a certain deflection before the bullet strikes.
You see if I were not a fool I should be a philosopher."
"It isn't nice here; we'd better bolt."
"I'm as hungry as a sea-serpent," he said, watching the window. "And I
am quite desperate when I miss my tea."
I stood before the open door and he watched the window. We were both
talking to cover our serious deliberations. Our plight was not so much
a matter for jesting as we wished to make it appear to each other. I
had experienced one struggle with the Italian at the houseboat on the
Tippecanoe and was not anxious to get within reach of his knife again.
I did not know how he had captured Gillespie, or what mischief that
amiable person had been engaged in, but inquiries touching this matter
must wait.
"Are you ready? We don't want to shoot unless we have to. Now when I
say go, jump for the open."
He limped a little from the cramping of his legs, but crossed over to
me cheerfully enough. His white trousers were much the worse for
contact with the cabin floor, and his shirt hung from his shoulders in
ribbons.
"My stomach bids me haste; I'm going to eat a beefsteak two miles thick
if I ever get back to New York. Are you waiting?"
We were about to spring through the outer door, when the door at the
rear flew open with a bang and the sailor landed on me with one leap.
I went down with a thump and a crack of my head on the floor that
sickened me. The gun was under my legs, and I remember that my dazed
wits tried to devise means for getting hold of it. As my senses
gradually came round I was aware of a great conflict about me and over
me. Gillespie was engaged in a hand-to-hand struggle with the sailor
and the cabin shook with their strife. The table went down with a
crash, and Gillespie seemed to be having the best of it; then the
Italian was afoot again, and the clenched swaying figures crashed
against the trunk at the farther end of the room. And there they
fought in silence, save for the scraping of their feet on the puncheon
floor. I felt a slight nausea from the smash my head had got, but I
began crawling across the floor toward the struggling men. It was
growing dark, and they were knit together against the cabin wall like a
single monstrous, swaying figure.
My stomach was giving a better account of itself, and I got to my knees
and then to my feet. I was within a yard of the wavering shadow and
could distinguish Gillespie by his white trousers as he wrenched free
and flung the Italian away from him; and in that instant of freedom I
heard the dull impact of Gillespie's fist in the brute's face. As the
sailor went down I threw myself full length upon him; but for the
moment at least he was out of business, and before I had satisfied
myself that I had firmly grasped him, Gillespie, blowing hard, was
kneeling beside me, with a rope in his hands.
"I think," he panted, "I should like champignon sauce with that steak,
Donovan. And I should like my potatoes lyonnaise--the pungent onion is
a spurring tonic. That will do, thanks, for the arms. Get off his
legs and I'll see what I can do for them. You oughtn't to have cut
that rope, my boy. You might have known that we were going to need it.
My father taught me in my youth never to cut a string. I want the
pirate's knife for a souvenir. I kicked it out of his hand when you
went bumpety-bumpety. How's your head?"
"I still have it. Let's get you outside and have a look at you. You
think he didn't land with the knife?"
"Not a bit of it. He nearly squeezed the life out of me two or three
times, though. What's that?"
"He gave me a jab with his sticker when he made that flying leap and I
guess I'm scratched."
Gillespie opened my shirt and disclosed a scratch across my ribs
downward from the left collar bone. The first jab had struck the bone,
but the subsequent slash had left a nasty red line.
Gillespie swore softly in the strange phrases that he affected while he
tended my injury. My head ached and the nausea came back occasionally.
I sat down in the grass while Gillespie found the sailor's pail and
went to fetch water. He found some towels in the hut and between his
droll chaffing and his deft ministrations I soon felt fit again.
"Well, what shall we do with the dago?" he asked, rubbing his arms and
legs briskly.
"We ought to give him to the village constable."
"That's the law of it, but not the common sense. The lords of justice
would demand to know all the whys and wherefores, and the Italian
consul at Chicago would come down and make a fuss, and the man behind
the dago would lay low and no good would come."
"When will Holbrook be back?--that's the question."
"Well, the market has been very feverish and my guess is that he won't
last many days. He had a weakness for Industrials, as I remember, and
they've been very groggy. What he wants is his million from Miss Pat,
and he has his own chivalrous notions of collecting it."
We decided finally to leave the man free, but to take away his boat.
Gillespie was disposed to make light of the whole affair, now that we
had got off with our lives. We searched the hut for weapons and
ammunition, and having collected several knives and a belt and revolver
from the trunk, we poured water on the Italian, carried him into the
open and loosened the ropes with which Gillespie had tied him.
The man glared at us fiercely and muttered incoherently for a few
minutes, but after Gillespie had dashed another pail of water on him he
stood up and was tame enough.
"Tell him," said Gillespie, "that we shall not kill him to-day. Tell
him that this being Tuesday we shall spare his life--that we never kill
any one on Tuesday, but that we shall come back to-morrow and make
shark meat of him. Assure him that we are terrible villains and
man-hunters--"
"When will your employer return?" I asked the sailor.
He shook his head and declared that he did not know.
"How long did he hire you for?"
"For all summer." He pointed to the sloop, and I got it out of him
that he had been hired in New York to come to the lake and sail it.
"In the creek up yonder," I said, pointing toward the Tippecanoe, "you
tried to kill me. There was another man with you. Who was he?"
"That was my boss," he replied reluctantly, though his English was
clear enough.
"What is your employer's name?" I demanded.
"Holbrook. I sail his boat, the _Stiletto_, over there," he replied.
"But it was not he who was with you on the houseboat in the creek. Mr.
Holbrook was not there. Do not lie to me. Who was the other man that
wanted you to kill Holbrook?"
He appeared mystified, and Gillespie, to whom I had told nothing of my
encounter at the boat-maker's, looked from one to the other of us with
a puzzled expression on his face.
"All he knows is that he's hired to sail a boat and, incidentally,
stick people with his knife," said Gillespie in disgust. "We can do
nothing till Holbrook comes back; let's be going."
We finally gathered up the Italian's oars, and, carrying the captured
arms, went to the east shore, where we put off in Gillespie's rowboat,
trailing the Italian's boat astern. The sailor followed us to the
shore and watched our departure in silence. We swung round to the
western shore and got my canoe, and there again, the Italian sullenly
watched us.
"He's not so badly marooned," said Gillespie. "He can walk out over
here."
"No, he'll wait for Holbrook. He's stumped now and doesn't understand
us. He has exhausted his orders and is sick and tired of his job. A
salt-water sailor loses his snap when he gets as far inland as this.
He'll demand his money when Holbrook turns up and clear out of this."
Gillespie took the oars himself, insisting that I must have a care for
the slash across my chest, and so, towing the canoe and rowboat, we
turned toward Glenarm. The Italian still watched us from the shore,
standing beside a tall sycamore on a little promontory as though to
follow us as far as possible.
We passed close to the _Stiletto_ to get a better look at her. She was
the trimmest sailing craft in those waters, and the largest, being, I
should say, thirty-seven feet on the water-line, sloop-rigged, and with
a cuddy large enough to house the skipper. As we drew alongside I
stood up the better to examine her, and the Italian, still watching us
intently from the island, cried out warningly.
"He should fly the signal, 'Owner not on board,'" remarked Gillespie as
we pushed off and continued on our way.
The sun was low in the western wood as we passed out into the larger
lake. Gillespie took soundings with his oar in the connecting channel,
and did not touch bottom.
"You wouldn't suppose the _Stiletto_ could get through here; it's as
shallow as a sauce-pan; but there's plenty and to spare," he said, as
he resumed rowing.
"But it takes a cool hand--" I began, then paused abruptly; for there,
several hundred yards away, a little back from the western shore,
against a strip of wood through which the sun burned redly, I saw a man
and a woman slowly walking back and forth. Gillespie, laboring
steadily at the oars, seemed not to see them, and I made no sign. My
heart raced for a moment as I watched them pace back and forth, for
there was something familiar in both figures. I knew that I had seen
them before and talked with them; I would have sworn that the man was
Henry Holbrook and the girl Helen; and I was aware that when they
turned, once, twice, at the ends of their path, the girl made some
delay; and when they went on she was toward the lake, as though
shielding the man from our observation. The last sight I had of them
the girl stood with her back to us, pointing into the west. Then she
put up her hand to her bare head as though catching a loosened strand
of hair; and the wind blew back her skirts like those of the Winged
Victory. The two were etched sharply against the fringe of wood and
bathed in the sun's glow. A second later the trees stood there
alertly, with the golden targe of the sun shining like a giant's shield
beyond; but they had gone, and my heart was numb with foreboding, or
loneliness, and heavy with the weight of things I did not understand.
Gillespie tugged hard with the burden of the tow at his back. I will
not deny that I was uncomfortable as I thought of his own affair with
Helen Holbrook. He had, by any fair judgment, a prior claim. Her
equivocal attitude toward him and her inexplicable conduct toward her
aunt were, I knew, appearing less and less heinous to me as the days
passed; and I was miserably conscious that my own duty to Miss Patricia
lay less heavily upon me.
I was glad when we reached Glenarm pier, where we found Ijima hanging
out the lamps. He gave me a telegram. It was from my New York
acquaintance and read:
Holbrook left here two days ago; destination unknown.
"Come, Gillespie; you are to dine with me," I said, when he had read
the telegram; and so we went up to the house together.