MAN OVERBOARD
For a moment there was pandemonium on the ship. No one seemed to
know exactly what had happened, and shouts and cries rent the air as
people blocked the stairs and companionways in a mad scramble for the
deck.
Helen and Ruth were among the first to reach the deck, with Chess and
Tom close behind them. There they were jostled by a seething mass of
humanity and swept on toward the railing.
At the cry of “Man overboard” power had been shut off in the engine
room. Fortunately the ship had been proceeding cautiously because of
the storm, so that momentum carried it only a short distance from the
scene of the accident.
Several lifeboats were lowered and rushed to the spot where life
savers had already been thrown to the victim.
A small object was seen bobbing up and down on the water for several
seconds and then disappeared.
“Oh, he will drown before they reach him!” cried Helen, putting a
hand over her eyes.
“No,” cried Ruth, gripping the rail till the knuckles of both hands
showed white, “there he is again! See? One of the life preservers has
reached him. He can hold on now.”
“The boats are making good time,” said Tom, behind her. “He’s as good
as rescued now.”
“Wonder who it is,” said Chess, and an obliging pleasant-faced man
behind him volunteered the information:
“Old chap named Knowles. He was standing near the rail when we grazed
the shoal——”
“Oh, so that’s what we heard below decks!” cried Helen.
“Yes’m,” said the stranger. “There was a grinding shock, if you
remember, and this old boy was jarred loose from his hold on the rail
and went overboard.”
The passengers watched with interest while the first lifeboat reached
the elderly victim and lifted him aboard. The men in the other boats,
seeing that the work of rescue had already been accomplished, turned
back toward the steamer.
“Poor old fellow,” said Ruth commiseratingly. “The shock and the
exposure are enough to kill an elderly man. I wonder,” she added
thoughtfully, “if I couldn’t get him to take some of the tonic I
have in my medicine kit. It might ward off a serious illness.”
Tom grinned.
“There’s the Red Cross nurse on the job again,” he said.
But Ruth did not smile with the others. She meant what she said, and
when the lifeboat reached the ship and the victim was lifted to the
deck, Ruth was one of the first at his side.
The ship’s doctor was already at the spot, well-supplied with
restoratives, and when Ruth begged him to let her help, saying that
she had had experience in nursing with the Red Cross, the physician
smiled indulgently and invited her to the old gentleman’s cabin below.
Ruth ran for her favorite prescription, ignoring the good-natured
rallying of her friends, and entered the old gentleman’s cabin just
as they had made him comfortable in his berth.
The doctor examined the label on the bottle Ruth held out to him and
nodded approvingly.
“Haven’t I met you somewhere before?” he asked, keen eyes narrowed
thoughtfully.
The question surprised Ruth. But as she regarded the kindly,
intelligent face of the physician, memory flashed back to her the
vision of an emergency hospital somewhere back of the firing line;
still figures on narrow cots of pain; soft-footed, busy nurses;
grim-faced, competent surgeons, tireless in their service to humanity.
“I was with the Red Cross in France,” she suggested.
“Of course!” exclaimed the doctor. His manner was immediately cordial
and he spoke as one member of the profession to another. “I have a
fine memory for faces; but as to names—” He waved a deprecating hand.
“Mr. Knowles is lucky in having so capable and willing a volunteer
nurse,” he finished pleasantly.
At the mention of his name, the old gentleman on the bed opened his
eyes wearily. His gaze rested on Ruth and an expression of pleasure
overspread his face.
“This is Miss Fielding, isn’t it?” he asked, as Ruth came toward him
hesitantly.
“Yes,” she said, surprised. “How did you know?”
The old gentleman smiled.
“Your fame has probably traveled faster than you think, my dear,” he
said kindly. “A good many people are interested in the work you are
doing.”
So it happened that Ruth stayed longer than she had intended with Mr.
Knowles and visited the cabin oftener. The more they talked the more
subjects of mutual interest they seemed to discover.
The indulgent doctor, seeing what a beneficial effect the girl’s
presence was having upon his elderly patient, encouraged Ruth to
visit him often and stay on and chat with him.
So started the friendship between Ruth and the lonely old man, a
friendship that was destined to last throughout that long trip to St.
Michael and for some time after, as well.
Mr. Knowles had received no serious injury from his fall overboard.
The shock of the fall and the consequent exposure had to a large
extent been counteracted by the prompt medical attention of the
ship’s doctor and by Ruth’s careful nursing, so that in a day or two
he was able to be on deck much the same as usual.
It was not until Ruth’s friendship with the old gentleman was some
four days old that she learned the history of the Chase girls.
The story must have been very close to the old gentleman’s heart, for
Ruth had several times sensed that he was on the point of making her
his confidante.
On this particular occasion they were both chatting idly and
pleasantly about some trivial amusing incidents that had happened
aboard ship when the old gentleman turned to her suddenly and said:
“Miss Fielding, I am a lonely old man and I was wondering if you
would mind my telling you something that has worried me greatly for
some time past.”
Ruth felt surprised but professed her genuine interest in anything he
might have to say to her.
“Thank you, my dear,” he said gratefully, and for a moment his eyes
sought the hazy horizon where it merged with the gray of the sea.
“If you were not going fairly into their territory, I might not
tell you this,” he said at last. “But since you are going there and
because, being a girl, I feel that you may be interested in the
troubles of two other girls nearly your own age, I would like to tell
you about Mary and Ellen.”
“Mary and Ellen,” Ruth repeated softly. “How pretty they sound when
you put them together, like the names in a story book.”
“Their adventures would read like a story, too.” The old man nodded,
his face grave. “Only in real life these adventures are not so
pleasant.
“These two girls,” he went on after a short pause, “are the daughters
of a very dear friend of mine. His name was Maurice Chase. As young
men together, he and my son were practically inseparable, and
later—later Maurice took the place of a son to me.
“It was only when his health failed and he was threatened with
tuberculosis that he thought of going to Alaska, not only for his
health’s sake but with some wild scheme for making his fortune in
the gold fields.”
“Lots of people have done that before him,” said Ruth.
“Yes; but not middle-aged men with two nearly grown daughters to
support, and with lung trouble to combat, too. It was an unequal
fight, so unequal that death conquered after only two years of
experiment in the gold fields.”
“Oh, and so your friend is dead!” said Ruth, in a hushed voice. “And
the girls—how about them?”
“It was about them that Maurice wrote me just before his death,”
replied Mr. Knowles. It was plain from the emotion in his voice that
he and Maurice Chase had been very good friends indeed. “He had
located a mine, he said——”
“Gold?” interrupted Ruth eagerly, leaning forward in her steamer
chair.
“He thought there was gold,” said the old man soberly. “And that one
thought helped him,” his voice trailed off almost to a whisper, “to
die happy!”