“By jiminy, old man, you certainly can swim,” exclaimed Jack as he
reached the lad from the _Fish Hawk_. But the newcomer to Hood Island
made no reply. Instead, he stood still and eyed Jack suspiciously.
“Oh, that’s all right. You needn’t mistrust me. Here’s my hand on it.
My name is John Strawbridge--Jack Straw for short, you know,” said the
lad from Drueryville, extending his hand toward the big fellow.
“Mine’s Raymond Carroll. Call me Ray; it sounds better.”
“Glad to meet you, Ray. What’s all the fuss about, anyway? What are you
quitting the fisherman for? Had trouble with the master?”
“Trouble? Huh, I never am out of trouble. Yes, I’ve had a row with the
captain. He’s my uncle and I guess a day hasn’t passed in the last
ten years that we haven’t had some sort of a run in. But I’ve left him
for good this time. I’d swim clean from here to the mainland before
I’d go back on board his old vessel. By hookey, I’ve done nothing but
fight with him and his men ever since I started on this cruise. He said
he’d knock the inventive bug out of me or crack my head trying. He’s
thrashed me with rope ends and even mauled me with a belaying pin now
and then when I got my dander up. Look here.”
Ray threw back his wet shirt and exhibited a deep, ragged wound across
his shoulder.
“And you swam ashore with that!” cried Jack incredulously.
“Yep, but if it had been fifty feet further I guess I’d never have come
out of the water alive. My arm feels as if it was paralyzed. I can’t
raise it now.”
“Huh, I don’t wonder. Come on up to camp and get it fixed up,” said
Jack solicitously. But just at this point Mr. Warner and Big O’Brien
joined them. Ray’s shirt was still open and both men saw the ugly cut.
“By George, lad, that’s a bad slash you have there. What have you been
doing for it?” said the marine engineer as he bent closer to examine
the laceration.
“Taking a salt water bath,” said the lad with a plucky smile.
“Yes? Well, if you get it infected, you’ll not smile about it. Come up
to the lighthouse and we’ll see if Eli Whittaker has anything in his
government medicine chest that will help you. A good application of
iodine is the thing to chase away the poison germs and heal it up. Come
along, son.”
And together they climbed the steep path to the camp. Here they were
greeted by a group of workmen who were eager to hear Ray’s story, but
Mr. Warner refused to allow the boy to satisfy their curiosity until
they had reached the lighthouse and done some doctoring.
Old Eli Whittaker, the keeper of Hood Island light for ten years past,
was just getting downstairs from his bedroom on the top floor of the
little dwelling attached to the lighthouse, when Mr. Warner and his
party arrived. The old keeper had been able to get four hours’ sleep
since five o’clock that morning, when he put the light out, and he
figured that he had quite enough to last him until the following
morning.
“’Lo, Mister Warner. T’men told me you was coming. I calc-late ye came
ashore this morning,” said Eli, shaking hands with the engineer.
“Yes, Captain Whittaker,” said Mr. Warner. “We came up on the
_Blueflower_. Say, Captain, how’s the ‘doctor’? We have a patient here.
We wanted to see if you had anything in your medicine chest to take the
pain out of a nasty flesh wound. Some iodine perhaps.”
“Wall, I calc-late ye can have ’bout a pint o’ it. Hope ye ain’t goin’
t’ need moren that ’cause that all’s left in t’ bottle. My two Manx
cats ‘Port’ and ‘Sta’berd’ got fightin’ t’ other night an’ I used a
heap o’ iodine t’ mend up their plegid hides,” said the lighthouse
keeper, a smile playing about the corners of his mouth.
“That will be quite enough,” said Mr. Warner. “Where are your two
famous tailless cats? I guess every man in the service knows about
those cats.”
“Oh, they’re around somewheres, drat ’em,” said Captain Eli. Then he
added:
“All right, come in an’ make yerselfs t’hum, gentlemen, while I consult
t’ ‘doc.’”
They were ushered into the spick-and-span living apartment of the
tiny four-room cottage adjoining the lighthouse tower, while Captain
Whittaker bustled into the kitchen and returned with the portable
medicine chest which the Service furnishes to all lighthouse keepers.
This was the doctor referred to and Eli scrutinized the various bottles
carefully before he brought out one labeled “Poison.”
“Here’s the consarn stuff. Now, let me see this here cut, young
feller,” he said. Then when he had looked at the wound he began bathing
and bandaging with experienced fingers. Of course Ray winced with pain
when the iodine was applied, but he realized that it was the best thing
for him.
“There,” said the light keeper after he had finished, “I guess ye’ll
pull through all right, providin’ no complications sets in, es Old Doc
Chipman sez when he hed stitched up Buck Longyear after t’ red bull hed
carried him clear ’cross t’ pasture lot on t’ p’int o’ his horn. How
did you come to get beat up so? Been gettin’ fresh to t’ skipper?”
“Yes, tell us your troubles, Ray,” said Jack, who was dreadfully
curious to hear the boy’s tale.
“Oh, it isn’t much of a story,” said Ray. “Just a case of my usual
luck. I’ve been living with my Uncle Vance for the last ten years. My
dad died when I was five and mother followed him a year after. I guess
Uncle Vance wasn’t keen on having me on his hands from the first,
leastwise he never showed that he liked the idea at all, so I always
took it for granted that I was sort of in his way.
“He’s a man who believes that every one including himself should work
from dawn until darkness. He says it’s the only way to get along. Just
slave like a horse at the work in front of you. That is all he has ever
done. He don’t believe in progress and he won’t take any stock in a
single new idea. That’s why he and I had most of our misunderstandings.
I like to potter with machinery and build things. He called it all
‘durned nonsense’ and allowed he’d thrash it all out of me if it was
the only thing he ever accomplished.
“Everything I built he broke up for kindling wood or tossed overboard
as useless. Then he’d give me a flogging for not being hard at work on
something more useful. It made me mighty mad. One time I made a corking
fine water wheel in the trout stream back of our house in Ascog. I had
the grindstone hitched to it, and every time I wanted to grind the ax
or a knife or anything, all I had to do was to slip the belt on the
pulley and away she went.
“But when Uncle Vance saw that he was furious. He smashed the
waterwheel and flogged me good. Then he set to work and gathered every
knife and hatchet he could find in Ascog and made me sharpen ’em on an
old foot stone just to teach me that laziness never profited any one.
I was only eight years old, but I never forgot that. Always since then
I’ve taken particular pains to hide everything I made.
“All this Spring I was working on a model of a non-sinkable metal
lifeboat. You see, I had an idea I might have it patented and perhaps
make money enough out of it to go to high school. Uncle Vance says
my schooling days are over and that any more learning would make me
lazier than I am. And I just simply want to go to high school so that
some day I can go to college and study engineering. Well, about the
lifeboat.
“When we started off after swordfish on this last cruise, I smuggled
the model aboard the yawl, because I thought I’d get a chance to do
some tinkering on it when Uncle Vance wasn’t looking. That was the
worst thing I could have done. Last Monday he caught me working on it
and he was thundering mad. He just rushed at me and tore it out of my
hands. Then he threw the thing overboard and got a rope end. And when
he whaled me so I couldn’t stand it any longer and pulled away from
him, he threw a belaying pin at me and hit me on the shoulder. Oh, he’s
a fine uncle, you can bet. Can’t blame me for being bitter, can you?”
“I’m afraid I can’t,” said Mr. Warner.
“That’s sort of tough treatment,” said Jack with sympathy.
“I guess it was. Well, I decided after that I would quit Uncle Vance.
Last night I took the plugs out of all the dories after they had been
hoisted aboard and then made up my mind to skip to the first land we
sighted. And here I am. I guess Uncle Vance will miss me a little at
that. He’ll miss flogging me with a rope end. And he’ll miss me if Old
Bart gets seasick, as he often does. Old Bart is the harpooner and next
to him I was the best harpooner of the--”
Ray stopped talking abruptly and looked with horror toward the door.
There stood a big, burly, black-whiskered individual, who fitted
exactly Jack’s idea of an old-time buccaneer. He was hatless and his
shirt was open at the throat and his great brawny arms were bared to
the elbow. In his hand he gripped two knotted rope ends. For a moment
he paused there, glowering at Ray. Then with a roar he lunged forward
as if he intended to tear the boy in two.
“Oh, it’s Uncle Vance!” screamed Ray, leaping back in fear.
And as quickly as the lad jumped out of the path of the fisherman,
into his path stepped Big O’Brien, the camp foreman. This rapid change
of principals seemed to disconcert the intruder for a moment, for he
stopped abruptly and faced the big Irishman. Both were silent and
tense. Not a word did they exchange, but as they stood there glaring at
each other it was evident that each was ready to crush the other with a
blow. The fisherman’s face was as black as a thunder cloud.
“Let me at t’ whelp,” he hissed.
O’Brien swallowed hard. Then slowly raised his hand and pointed toward
the door.
“Git OUT! Git, or I’ll thrash ye! Ye don’t know how t’ take care o’ a
nephy!” he roared.
The fisherman did not move. Instead his fist drew back for a blow. But
the foreman was too quick for him. Throwing self-control to the wind,
the Irishman reached out and seized the big man around the waist. Then
with a superhuman effort he lifted him from the floor and hurled him
back through the doorway, following after him like a panther.
Now it happened that just at this point one of the fisherman’s
followers, who had come ashore with him, was entering the cottage. The
captain, as he plunged headlong through the open, collided with this
man and both fell into a heap at the very doorstep. But they were on
their feet in an instant and O’Brien had hardly stepped clear of the
room before his bearded adversary was on guard.
O’Brien’s eyes narrowed in anger. He never paused or wavered a moment
but plunged forward like an enraged bull. It was a vicious fight while
it lasted. Strength and brawn against strength and brawn. Two masters
fighting in almost fatal earnestness, one to avenge an insult, the
other to prove his mastery. The grunts that accompanied each trip
hammer blow told the bitterness of the encounter.
There were no preliminaries. O’Brien rushed the bearded man and as
he closed in his arm shot up from his hip like a shaft of darting
lightning. Behind it was every ounce of strength in his great powerful
body. The smack of flesh against flesh sounded and the fisherman
staggered. An instant he swayed, then he lurched forward into a clinch
before the Irishman could deliver a second blow. Desperately he clung
on, swaying to the right and left with the foreman, who tried his
hardest to shake him off.
Men came rushing from the camp. They formed a circle about the two.
They were big burly men and every one of them loved a fight. Jack and
Ray and the engineer and even mild-tempered old Eli Whittaker were
among them, and as they watched the swaying figures before them their
natural love of combat cropped forth and they cheered lustily with the
rest, cheered lustily at each clever move, no matter which one made it.
The fisherman held on to the clinch until O’Brien was almost beside
himself with rage. He held on for his life until his head cleared from
the stinging hammer-like blow he had received on the jaw. Then suddenly
with a catlike movement he broke, dropping low and slipping away from
two terrific blows aimed at his head.
This agility called forth applause from the men in the circle, which
developed into a burst of cheers when the black-bearded one stepped
back again and drove right, left and right against O’Brien’s stomach
and jumped away before the Irishman could get in anything better than a
glancing punch on the head in return. Once again he waded in. But this
time he was not so fortunate. O’Brien’s great ham-like fist smashed
squarely against his nose, and before he could recover himself a left
hook shot up and snapped his head back between his shoulders!
Once more he clinched and held, while O’Brien squirmed and wriggled to
free himself for a final and finishing blow.
But the fisherman’s wits cleared again. Then for a moment his head
rested on the shoulder of his opponent, his mouth temptingly near the
great corded neck of the foreman. An instant later the mariner’s mouth
opened and his short tobacco-stained teeth sunk into O’Brien’s flesh.
He bit and bit deeply and tiny streams of blood trickled out from
between his lips and stained the foreman’s shirt.
With a howl of pain O’Brien hurled the man from him and rained crushing
blows onto his face. The mariner was no match for the infuriated
foreman after that. He dodged this way and that to avoid the terrible
punishment, only in the end to plunge headlong into a mighty swing
that O’Brien meant to be the finishing blow! The fight ended there!
The impact was terrible! The bearded one’s body snapped like a spring.
He clutched blindly for something to support him! Then he pitched
forward into the grass!
[Illustration: “The fight ended there!”]
A moment the great body quivered, then slowly his knees drew upward
almost to his chin, and he lay perfectly still!
O’Brien stood over him, one fist clenched, the other mopping the blood
from his neck.
“There, blame him, I guess that finishes his fightin’ fer t’day,” he
said laconically. Then to the other swordfisherman who stood near
by he said, “There’s yer captain. Lug him out o’ here es fast as ye
kin. I don’t want t’ see his ugly face ’round here any more ner yours
neither.” And still mopping the blood from the wound in his neck,
he elbowed his way through the crowd and disregarding the shouts of
applause made his way into Eli Whittaker’s cottage, where he sought the
iodine bottle so recently used on Ray’s shoulder.
For several minutes Ray’s Uncle Vance lay unconscious on the grass
while the other fisherman worked over him. Finally with the aid of a
bucket of cold water, he was revived. Slowly his eyes opened and he
looked about. Then without a word he struggled to his feet and assisted
by his companion walked slowly down the steep path toward the beach
where his dory lay hauled up above the water line. The crowd on the
promontory watched him go; in fact, they remained until they saw the
small boat reach the yawl. Then O’Brien appeared on the scene again and
sent them all back to their task of building houses.
“Say, your uncle is some fighter, Ray. But he wasn’t a match for
O’Brien,” said Jack, as the two boys watched the fishermen raise the
mainsail of the yawl.
“You bet he wasn’t. That was some of his own medicine applied in a
larger quantity. By hookey, I’ll bet a copper he’s raving mad at me.
Mark my word, this isn’t the last we hear from him,” said Ray.
“Well, it’s the last we’ll hear from him to-day, for his boat is
starting off toward the south,” said Jack.
“That being the case,” said Mr. Warner, “I’m going to look around and
become familiar with my working staff. I want to start a survey of
Cobra Head to-morrow if I can. You boys can come along if you want to.
In fact, I rather think I’ll need you along to help me take stock of
materials and things.
“And, by the way there, son--ah--er--Ray, I mean, what are we going to
do with you?”
“I don’t know, sir,” said Ray, looking anxiously at the engineer.
“Well, ah--er--hum, how’d you like a job clerking here with Jack? Can’t
pay you much, but we’ll give you your board at least. There will be
enough work for the two of you to do, I guess. How about it?”
“That would be slick,” exclaimed Ray, all smiles now.
“All right. You’re hired. Come along with me,” said Mr. Warner.