Nelly Callahan was the only one to see just what happened. Everyone
else in camp had gone down the island that day to get a count of the
half-wild cattle among the blueberry swamps.
The wild drive of rain and low clouds to the westward hid Garden
Island from sight and lowered all the horizon, until Lake Michigan
seemed a small place. Beaver Island was clear vanished, and so was
High Island with its colony of Israelites. Nothing was to be seen
from this north end of Hog Island except the foaming shallows and
the deeper water beyond, and the huge rollers bursting in from the
Wisconsin shore--with two other things. One, as the keen blue eyes of
the watching girl could make out, was or had been a boat; the other
was a man.
She had heard shots, faint reports cracking down the wind, drawing
her to the point of land to see what was happening out there toward
Garden Island. For a long while there was nothing to see, until the
boat came into sight. It was only a blotch, rising and then gone
again, gradually sinking from sight altogether. Few would have seen
it. Nelly Callahan, however, was an island girl, and her eye was
instantly caught by anything outside the settled scheme of things.
So she knew it for a boat, and after a time knew that it had gone
down entirely.
Presently she made out the man. To her intense astonishment he was
sitting in the stern of a canoe, and paddling. Canoes are rare
things in the Beaver Islands these days; here in the center of Lake
Michigan, with the nearest land little more than a mirage above the
horizon, there are other and safer playthings, and life is too
bitter hard to be lightly held.
Yet here was a canoe driving down the storm, a rag of sail on a
stumpy mast forward, tarpaulins lashed over freight-rolls amidships,
the man paddling in the stern. What connection was there between him
and that sunken boat, and those shots behind the curtain of rain and
mist?
That he was trying to get in under the curving line of exposed ledge
and shoal that ran out from the point was obvious. If he missed, he
would be carried on out to the open lake, for once around the point
his chances of getting to land were slim. Nelly Callahan watched him
admiringly as he fought, gaining inch by inch, now leaning hard on
his paddle, now stroking desperately as the gusty wind threw off the
canoe’s head. The odds were worse than he could realize, too; all
along the point there were shoals, running only two to three feet of
water, and his canoe evidently carried a centerboard.
* * * * *
Suddenly she saw the paddle snap in his hands. The canoe swayed
wildly over, swayed back again, rose on a sweeping foam-crest and
was flung forward. Another instant, and she would have been rolled
over, but the man snatched out another paddle and dug it in. Again
the stubborn, straining fight, but he had lost ground, and the
current was setting out around the point of land.
Still, he had a good chance to win. He was closer, now; Nelly
Callahan could see that his shirt was torn to ribbons, that his
mouth was bleeding; and those things did not come from wind and rain
alone. The canoe was a wide lake-cruiser, safe enough in any sea
except for her heavy load--but this rock-studded shore water was safe
for no craft. All the wide expanse around the Beavers is treacherous
with rocks barely awash.
An invisible hand seemed to strike the man suddenly, knocking him
forward on his face. The canoe staggered, lay over on one side--she
had struck bottom. Frantically the man recovered, jerked up the
centerboard, threw in the pin. But he was too late; he had lost the
game. The bow, with its scrap of sail, bore off before the sweep of
wind, and like an arrow the canoe darted out around the point and
was gone.
For a moment Nelly Callahan stood motionless at the edge of the
trees. Then she turned and started to cut across the base of the
long point, to get a view of the north shore beyond. There was no
trail, however. Nobody lived on Hog Island; the brush was heavy and
almost impenetrable. Excited, breathless, the girl struggled on her
way, but knew that she was too slow. However, she kept on. Presently
she burst through the final barrier, her feet slipping and sliding
on the ground-pine that trailed across the sand, and came out on the
northern stretch of shore. Nothing was in sight.
For a little while she stood there, dismayed, agonized, incredulous.
She had been a long while getting here, of course; yet some sign of
man or canoe, even had the latter capsized, must have been within
sight. Here around the point the force of the rollers was lessened,
too. Yet everything was empty. Man and canoe had vanished.
* * * * *
A shout roused the girl. She glanced over her shoulder, fear
flitting into her blue eyes; then she turned and retraced her steps.
When she stepped back into the clearing of the camp, the others had
returned. She shrank within herself slightly, as always, as her eyes
swept them; for though Nelly was a Beaver girl, she was also
something more. Her mother had come from the mainland, and there was
none of the closely interbred strain in Nelly Callahan.
“Where ye been?” called Matt Big Mary, her father, combing out his
tangle of black beard with knotted fingers. “Get the coffee on,
girl! It’s needin’ it we are, the day.”
It was something of a tribute to Matt Callahan that he was not known
by the usual island diminutive, though the peculiar system of
nomenclature obtained to distinguish him from his cousin Matty
Basset Callahan. He was a giant of a man, massive as an oak, in his
deep eyes a brooding, glooming shadow that had lain there since his
wife died.
The others were merry enough, however, for Hughie Dunlevy had fallen
into the swamp and mired himself head over ears; small wonder that
Jimmy Basset and Willy Tom Gallagher made sport at that, since
Hughie Dunlevy was a great man on the island, holding a second
mate’s ticket, and strong as any two men except Matt Big Mary. He
was fishing this summer, going partners with Matt, and had bought a
half-interest in the Callahan cattle that ran here on Hog Island.
Men said in St. James that he would make a good son-in-law to Matt,
for it is always the wildest who settle down the best, and if he
would but leave Jimmy Basset’s moonshine liquor alone, he had a
great future fronting him.
Here for a week they were, pulling the long stakes that had held
pound-nets all the spring out at the edge of deep water where the
great trout and whitefish ran, and working the north island shore
with trap-nets and bloater lines. Here for a week were the four men,
with Nelly Callahan to cook and mind camp. She and her father
occupied the old shanty at the edge of the clearing; the other three
slept in the brown tent near by.
Now, any other Beaver girl would have at once drawn general
attention to the sunken boat, which would wash in and make salvage,
and to the presumably drowned man and his canoe. But Nelly Callahan
kept quiet. She had become a changed girl since getting home from
her school-teaching this spring, and finding that her father had
made a match with Hughie Dunlevy for her; much had happened;
sorrowful things had transpired; and Nelly Callahan was biding her
time.
Half an hour passed by, and the noon meal was over; and since the
weather was too bad for work, there was naught to be done but sit
and smoke. Then Matt Big Mary took Jimmy Basset and Willy Tom
Gallagher with him, and a trap-net from the big launch dragged up
under the trees, and set off down the shore. He gave Hughie Dunlevy
a significant wink.
“We’ll take the skiff down to Belmore Bay,” said he, “and be setting
a trap out beyond the old wreck, and maybe pick up a fifty-dollar
box o’ bass come Saturday. Hughie, me lad, keep your eye on the
camp.”
“Aye,” said big Hughie, grinning all over his broad, good-natured
face; and they filed off down the shore on their two-mile tramp to
Belmore Bay. Nelly was keenly aware of the strategy, but made no
comment. She was afraid of Hughie, as well she might be. A fine,
strapping lad he was except when he was crossed, and good-humored
while he had his own way and there was no liquor in him; yet he was
one to be afraid of.
“There’s more cattle down the island than we looked for, Nelly,”
said he, chewing at a cigar and watching the girl as she cleaned up.
“The buyer will be over from East Jordan next week, and then
there’ll be doings. What’s more, there’s some big pine in yonder
that’s never been cut out. I’m thinkin’ of raftin’ it over to the
mill.”
“Good idea, if you owned it,” said a strange voice. “But you don’t.”
* * * * *
Hughie Dunlevy turned, stared, came to his feet with a leap. There
at the edge of the trees, his approach unheard, stood the man whom
Nelly Callahan had seen in the canoe. He wore nothing but his ragged
shirt, the most essential half of a pair of overalls, and canvas
shoes. Short, curly red hair crowned a face that was
weather-hardened, humorous, strongboned; one glimpsed sparkling gray
eyes that could either laugh or glitter, and a wide, generous mouth.
Dripping wet as he was, the stranger showed bruises and a cut lip,
and a red streak ran across his half-exposed chest.
“If you could spare me a bite to eat, young lady, I’d appreciate
it!” exclaimed the stranger genially. “Did I scare you folks? Sorry!
My boat went down, and I was washed ashore, saw the smoke of your
fire, and came for it. Is that a fish mulligan I smell? Then if
there’s any left, have pity on a starving man!”
Nelly, with a smile at his laughing words, turned to the big pot.
Hughie Dunlevy regarded the stranger with a frown on his wide
features.
“Where’d ye come from? Who are ye?”
“Callahan’s my name,” said the stranger, coming forward.
“You’re no island Callahan!” said Dunlevy promptly. The other
laughed.
“No, I haven’t that honor; but our ancestors were kings in Ireland
at the same time. I don’t go by that name either; mostly folks call
me Hardrock.”
“Hardrock Callahan, eh?” exclaimed the girl, not liking the general
aspect of Hughie Dunlevy. “Well, I’m Nelly Callahan, and this is my
father’s camp, and you’re welcome. Shake hands with Hughie Dunlevy
and make yourself comfortable. I’ll have this mulligan hot in a
minute, and coffee’s all ready.”
Hardrock stepped forward and extended his hand. Dunlevy accepted it,
though not with any marked warmth, and for an instant the two men
measured each other.
“What was that you said when you showed up?” demanded Hughie. “About
me not owning this timber?”
“Something like that, I guess.” Hardrock Callahan laughed
cheerfully. “I happen to own it myself. Oh, coffee ready? Thanks,
Miss Callahan--or if I may say so, Miss Nelly! I hate to use the name
of Callahan on the Beavers--too many other Callahans here already.”
He sat down, turned his back to the scowling, indeterminate Hughie,
and sipped the hot coffee. Nelly Callahan did not smile, however, as
she put the mulligan pot in the embers. It had come to her that
while she was crossing the point, this man must have worked his
canoe in to the shore, have dragged it up, and have made camp. And
what was this story of owning the timber?
“You and me will have a talk,” said Hughie Dunlevy, “when you’ve had
a bite to eat.”
“Right,” said Hardrock Callahan. “I’ve had one or two talks already
this morning.”
The girl looked at him, met his twinkling gray eyes, and smiled
despite herself.