THE MAN IN THE BOAT
“Fellows,” said Jack Harvey, one afternoon, a few days following the
return of the _Spray_ from its cruise, “I have decided to enter that
free-for-all race over at Bellport. I’ve just heard that Ed Perkins isn’t
going to race the _Ella_, after all; and, with her out of the race, we
stand a good show. Let’s get the stuff aboard and start while there’s a
wind.”
“Who’ll stay here and watch the camp?” asked Allan Harding.
“Well, I guess you’d better, now you speak of it,” responded Harvey,
quickly. “There ought to be somebody here, sure. Camps have a way of
disappearing around here, you know, Allan,” giving a huge wink as he
spoke.
“I’d just as lieve stay, all right,” returned Allan, a little out of
humour, in spite of his assurance. “But you can’t win the race without
me, you know. You always said I was lucky—and there’s a good deal of luck
in racing, after all.”
“Well, we’ll try to win without luck, that’s all,” said Harvey. “And,
mind, we depend on you to have the camp still standing here when we get
back. I shouldn’t think it would be nice to get back and find one’s camp
gone, eh, Allan?”
“No,” replied the other, shortly.
The crew lost no time in stowing their blankets and camp-kit aboard the
_Surprise_, and, leaving Allan Harding sullenly on guard, they sailed
away for Bellport.
“Looks as though something was missing thereabouts,” chuckled Harvey, as
they sailed past the spot where Tom’s and Bob’s camp had stood. “Doesn’t
it strike you there used to be something there that’s gone now?”
This piece of humour on Harvey’s part seemed to tickle the crew vastly,
for they shouted with derision as they sailed by.
“Guess they must have got tired of camping there,” roared Harvey, at
which the others roared the louder.
Bellport, whither they were bound, lay about four miles down the coast of
the mainland below Mayville. It was not so large a place as Southport,
but was a favourite resort for yachtsmen, as the bay there was free of
islands, and for ten or more miles there was a good sailing course.
The yacht _Surprise_ did not reach Bellport till late that night, but
Harvey and his crew were up bright and early the next morning, as the
race was to come off at ten o’clock, and they wished to have everything
ready for it.
“Hulloa, Harvey!” called a voice from a sloop a few rods away, as the
captain of the _Surprise_ came on deck.
“Hulloa, Jeff!” answered Harvey.
The speaker was Jeff Hackett, who ran a small sloop from the foot of
Grand Island over to the mainland once a day to carry the mails.
“Are you in this race, too?” queried Jeff.
“Rather think I am,” responded Harvey. “Think I’ve got any chance?”
“Looks to me as though you had,” answered the other. “There are only
eight yachts going to start. The others backed out because they didn’t
think the handicapping was fair. It’s all right, though. You will have to
give us fellows a trifle allowance, by just a rough measurement on the
water-line; but you’ll get the same from the _Bertha_ and the _Anna
Maud_. They are the only boats that are bigger than yours. You want to
get measured right away, too, or it will be too late.”
Harvey had soon complied with the requirements of the regatta committee,
as the committee of summer guests chosen to act as judges were pleased to
style themselves, and shortly before the hour for the race the yacht
_Surprise_ sailed out of the harbour at Bellport, and stood off and on
before the starting-line with the others.
Harvey was in high feather, for, by his own estimate of the situation, he
had a fair chance of winning. He knew most of the boats, either by
reputation, or from having seen them sail, and the others he was able to
judge of in a great measure by their general appearance.
The prize to be sailed for was a handsome silver cup, for which a
subscription had been taken up among the summer residents of Bellport.
The _Bertha_, which conceded the greatest time allowance to Harvey’s
boat, was a handsome sloop, about four feet longer than the _Surprise_,
and carrying heavy sail. She had never been considered a fast boat of her
size, but, owing to the discrepancy in lengths, had to allow the
_Surprise_ several minutes over the complete course of ten miles. This,
as the _Surprise_ was really fast for her size and rig, would make it
quite an even race.
The _Bertha_ was under charter by a party of young men from Benton, who
had engaged a sailing-master to pilot her for them during the summer.
This made them an object of contempt in Harvey’s eyes, and he wished all
the more to “take the conceit out of them,” as he expressed it.
The _Anna Maud_ was a big catboat, thirty-three feet long, carrying an
enormous mainsail, and reputed to be one of the fastest boats of her size
in the bay. She was owned and sailed by Captain Silas Tucker, a native of
one of the islands at the foot of the western bay, that formed part of
the main thoroughfare leading out to sea. He was generally accorded the
distinction of being the best skipper on this part of the coast.
All the other boats, except one, were smaller than the _Surprise_. That
one was the Sally, a sloop of exactly the same length as the _Surprise_,
and apparently able to sail about on equal terms with her.
The starting-signal was to be a gunshot, the gun to be fired five minutes
after a first warning shot. In the interval after the first shot the
yachts could manœuvre about the starting-line, ready to cross when the
second shot was fired. As soon as the second shot was fired, it was
allowable for a yacht to cross the line, and all yachts were to be timed
one minute after the second gun, whether they had actually crossed the
line or not. So that it was to the advantage of all nine craft to be as
near the starting-line as possible at the signal, and under headway and
also up to windward as far as possible.
Harvey’s boldness stood him in good stead here. And, moreover, he
certainly did know the working of his yacht to a nicety. After the
warning gun had been fired, he made his calculations carefully, allowing
for the tide which was running out to sea. The race was to be five miles
straight out to windward, and a run home, off the wind. The ebb-tide, and
the southerly breeze rolling a sea in to meet it, made an ugly chop, and
the boats thrashed around, throwing the spray clear aboard.
Just before the second gun the relative positions of the four largest
yachts were as follows: farthest up to windward was the _Surprise_; abeam
of her, and a short distance to leeward, was the _Bertha_; then the _Anna
Maud_, and then the _Sally_. The _Sally_, like the Surprise, had an
amateur skipper, a youth of about Harvey’s age.
The _Sally_ was a new boat, not long out of the shipyard, in fact. She
was perhaps the prettiest craft there. Her hull was beautifully modelled,
with a graceful overhang, bow and stern; her sails snow-white, and mast
and spars were glistening. She steered with a wheel of ornamental
mahogany and brass, and here and there about her cabin and furnishings
brass and mahogany had been used, regardless of expense.
“Willie Grimes has us all beat for beauty,” remarked Harvey, as they
neared the line, “but that boat is too new for racing; that is, he’s too
scared for fear something will happen to her. Most everybody is that way.
I used to be scared of the _Surprise_ all the time for fear something
would knock a bit of paint off somewhere. It takes about a year to get
over that. He handles her as though he was afraid something was going to
break. Just watch me take advantage of that.”
Harvey had seen that the _Anna Maud_ and the _Bertha_ would cross the
line a moment ahead of him, but he did not mind that so much, thinking
his time allowance would give him more than a good chance for the race,
anyway. He had selected the _Sally_ for his particular antagonist, and
now prepared to get what advantage he could from the start.
Easing his sheet a trifle, he headed off the wind somewhat, allowing the
two larger yachts to sail almost directly across his bows. Rushing out
just astern of them, and heading diagonally for the starting-line, under
full headway, Harvey bore down on the _Sally_, as though he meant
deliberately to run her down.
If young Willie Grimes had not been so taken by surprise and so alarmed
at this move of Harvey’s, he would have perceived that the manœuvre was
only done to try his nerve; he would have realized that as good a sailor
as Harvey would not deliberately foul another yacht, when that must lose
him the race, as well as the boat he fouled.
But Harvey had reckoned on the other’s apprehension for his new boat, and
the move was successful. Just at the point where a moment more would have
sent his boom crashing aboard the other yacht as he headed up into the
wind, Harvey threw his yacht quickly about, Joe Hinman hauled in rapidly
on the main-sheet, Tim Reardon trimmed in the jibs, and away went the
_Surprise_ over the line, footing after the two other boats as fast as
full sail would carry her.
At that same moment Willie Grimes, fearful of a collision, threw the
_Sally_ completely off the wind, so that when he had recovered his nerve
and realized that he had been imposed upon, he was so far below the boat
that marked the limit of the starting-line that he had to make another
tack to reach it. Before this, the last gun had been fired to mark the
taking of the time, and the luckless _Sally_ crossed the line with one
full minute counting against her.
The youth’s face burned with indignation, and he had hard work to keep
the tears from springing to his eyes.
“Bye-bye, Willie,” sang out Harvey, looking back and waving his cap
derisively. “Better courage next time. You don’t want to mind a little
paint, you know.”
But the other had regained his spirits and paid no heed. “That’s what
yachtsmen call ‘jockeying,’ I guess,” he said, quietly, to his two
companions in the boat. “It’s within the rules, so I suppose we cannot
complain. That’s like Harvey, from all I hear. He might have given us a
fair show, though, as he knows this is my first summer running a boat by
myself. Perhaps we won’t be far astern of him at the finish, at that.”
“You did that slick, Jack,” said Joe Hinman, admiringly. “We stand a good
chance of winning this race, I think, with the allowance we get.”
“Didn’t he scoot, though, when he saw us coming?” laughed Harvey.
“Thought his new boat was wrecked that time, sure. I’ve seen that trick
played in big yacht races, but I never saw it work better than it did
to-day, if I do say it.”
The yachts were now strung out in line along the course, tacking back and
forth, and making for a small naphtha launch anchored down the bay at the
five-mile mark. They made a picturesque sight, laying well over under all
their canvas and throwing the water high over their bows.
It was soon evident that the _Bertha_, take it all in all, was the best
boat for working up to windward in rough water and a good breeze. The
_Anna Maud_ was a very broad, beamy boat, and had a marvellous reputation
for running free, but now she seemed to feel the waves more than the
_Bertha_, pounding heavily and drenching every one aboard.
The _Bertha_ took the seas cleaner and headed up higher. She was
evidently gaining slowly but steadily. Moreover, although she carried an
enormous club-topsail and a mainsail of big area, she heeled over the
least of any of the boats. She had been built for heavy weather, and this
was exactly the breeze she sailed best in.
The _Surprise_ and _Sally_ were, however, holding their own remarkably
well, and it would not be clear for some time which would come out the
winner.
“Hello!” exclaimed Jack Harvey, suddenly, in a tone of evident surprise.
“What on earth—or, rather, on water—is Cap’n Silas doing? Look where he
is standing. I’ve been looking for the last few minutes to see him tack,
but there he keeps on away off toward shore.”
The _Anna Maud_ had, strange to say, gone way off the course, apparently
heading well over to the westward.
“Why, Jack, don’t you know,” said Joe Hinman, “how we’ve noticed the tide
over along that shore? It makes a swing in there and runs like a
mill-sluice. Don’t you remember one night how we tried to row against it,
and what a time we had?”
“That’s true,” responded Jack Harvey, “and Cap’n Sile Tucker is clever
enough to take advantage of it. He knows more about sailing in one minute
than that captain of the _Bertha_ does in a week. But there must be
something more in it than the tide alone. I’ll tell you, the wind is
changing. It’s heading more and more from the westward, and Captain Sile
will get the full benefit of the slant when he gets down about a mile
further. He knows what he’s doing. We’ll just head over and follow him.”
“Seems to me it’s taking long chances to go so much off the course,”
remarked George Baker.
“Of course it is taking chances,” responded Harvey, quickly. “You have
got to take chances in a contest of this kind. The fellows that take the
chances are the ones that win. But it isn’t taking any great chances,
following Cap’n Tucker. I tell you he knows these waters better than any
man in the bay. He wouldn’t go over there unless he knew he was going to
make something by it. Why, he has sailed that big catboat of his up and
down along this coast for the last twenty years and more, that and other
boats. The skipper in the _Bertha_ comes from away up beyond Millville.
He can sail his boat all right, but he don’t know this coast like Captain
Sile.”
Harvey, accordingly, stood over to the westward, in the wake of the _Anna
Maud_.
Only one other boat followed him. That was the _Sally_.
“I don’t know what they are standing away over there for,” said Willie
Grimes to his companions. “I don’t know whether it is the best thing to
do or not. It may be that they know something about the tide over there.
But I know one thing, and that is, wherever Jack Harvey goes I’m going to
follow. I wouldn’t care if every other yacht here beat me if I could only
beat him. You never can tell, you know. Something may happen to him yet.”
The wisdom of Captain Silas Tucker’s departure from the straight course
soon became apparent. The tide, indeed, at this point made a sweep
inshore, for some reason, flowing far swifter in near the land than it
did offshore. Again, too, the wind had slanted a little, and the yachts
that had taken this course were soon in a better position relative to the
stake-boat than the others.
Slowly the _Anna Maud_ drew ahead of the _Bertha_, the captain of the
latter boat realizing the advantage which the others were gaining too
late to change his own course. As they neared the mark, even the
_Surprise_ and the _Sally_ were leading the _Bertha_, which now seemed to
be hopelessly out of the race.
The race, indeed, seemed narrowed down to these three yachts, with a
slight advantage in the _Anna Maud’s_ favour.
“Hooray!” cried Harvey, “we are holding the _Anna Maud_ in fine style.
She’s gaining ever so little, not enough thus far to cover our time
allowance. They say she is fast off the wind, but so are we. That’s the
best point of the _Surprise_. She sails better running free than any boat
of her size I ever saw.”
“Cracky!” cried young Tim, “I hope we take that silver cup back to camp
with us. We’ll march through the streets with it, if we get it.”
“Yes, if we get it,” replied Harvey. “It don’t do to be too sure,
though.”
Now the _Anna Maud_ was rounding the stake-boat and coming back over the
course, not quite before the wind, owing to the slant to the westward
that it had taken, but with her sheet well out.
“The wind is in our favour,” said Harvey, gleefully. “There’s just enough
slant to it so our jibs will help us some. They will draw a little, and
that gives us an advantage over that catboat. Let that sheet go, now,
Joe, the minute we turn the mark.”
A moment later the _Surprise_ rounded the stake-boat, with a good lead
over the _Sally_, and still near enough astern of the _Anna Maud_ to give
her a good race.
“Up with that centreboard, now, George—lively,” cried Harvey. “It’s a big
board, and we don’t want to drag it a minute longer than we have to. It
counts a whole lot with this tide running against it. What’s the matter?
What are you waiting for? Up with it!”
“Why, hang the thing!” exclaimed George Baker, “I’m trying to get it up
as hard as ever I can. It won’t come. It’s stuck.”
“What’s that?” cried Harvey. “Stuck? Nonsense! Here, you, Joe, hold this
wheel a moment. I’ll have it up in a hurry.”
He sprang forward, brushing George Baker out of the way impatiently.
“Let me get hold there,” he said.
Harvey seized the iron rod, which was fastened to the centreboard, and
gave a strong pull. But the centreboard did not budge. He took a firmer
hold and pulled with all his strength. It was of no avail. The board had
stuck fast in its box.
“I’ll have it up or break something,” cried Harvey, beside himself with
anger, and again he grasped the rod with both hands and gave a furious
wrench. There was a most unexpected and baffling verification of his
threat, for the rod, broken off short at its connection with the
centreboard, did come up, so suddenly that Harvey sprawled over
backwards, still grasping the rod with both hands clenched, and rolled
over on the floor of the cockpit.
There was no such thing as getting the centreboard up now. It was down to
stay.
Harvey, white with rage, sprang to his feet and hurled the rod into the
sea. Then he took his seat sullenly at the wheel again.
“That settles it,” he said, as soon as he could speak for anger. “We
haven’t a ghost of a chance now. I shouldn’t wonder, even, if the _Sally_
overhauled us.” And he looked back helplessly at the yacht astern.
Slowly but surely the _Anna Maud_ forged ahead. The distance between her
and the _Surprise_ grew ever farther and farther.
“That’s queer,” said Captain Silas Tucker, looking back at Harvey’s
yacht. “I thought she was going to give us a harder run home than that.
I’ve heard the boat was good off the wind, but she doesn’t seem to be
doing well. It’s first prize for us this trip, and easily won. Well, your
Uncle Silas hasn’t sailed around these parts all his life for nothing.”
Slowly but surely, too, the _Sally_ was creeping up close astern of the
_Surprise_, to the wild delight of Willie Grimes and his comrades.
“If I can only beat Jack Harvey,” he kept saying, “I don’t care about the
other yacht’s beating us.”
“If Willie Grimes beats us, I’ll run him down and sink him some day,”
muttered Harvey, grinding his teeth.
It was still a close race between these two as the finish-line was
neared. The _Sally_ had crept up until she was almost abeam of the
_Surprise_, and was gaining, ever so slowly, but surely. Harvey, dogged
to the last, waited until the _Sally_ was nearly abreast of him, and
then, as a last resort, tried once more to bully the race from his less
experienced rival.
Throwing his wheel over slightly, he tried the tactic of crowding the
other off the course.
But Willie Grimes was bound to win or sink this time. He kept his own
boat off just enough to avoid the possibility of Harvey’s fouling him,
maintaining the same relative distance between them, and all the while
drawing ahead.
The judges, watching the close finish through their glasses, perceived
this trick of Harvey’s, and were ready to disqualify him in case of any
accident. But their determination was unnecessary. Less than a dozen rods
from the finish-line the _Sally_ had sailed clear of the _Surprise_, and
now cut in on to the course, leaving Harvey astern, and crossed the line
a rod to the good.
Then, as a storm of cheers rang out from the assembled boats, as a
fluttering of handkerchiefs and waving of parasols, a tossing of hats and
shrieking of whistles, saluted the victory of Willie Grimes over him,
Harvey did not deign to cross the line. Angrily he swung out of the
course, and stood over, without a word, for the town of Bellport.
“Takes his licking hard, doesn’t he, Willie?” called out a voice, and a
chorus of laughter mocked at Harvey’s wrath as he sailed away.
The _Anna Maud_ had won the race, but the honours were as much for the
_Sally_ as for the winner. They took substantial form, moreover, for, one
of the committee, vowing the _Sally_ should have a second prize, if he
had to buy one himself, as there had not been any offered, the suggestion
met with a ready response; and the owner and crew of the _Sally_ rejoiced
that night in the unexpected award of a handsome compass for their cabin.
“Now,” said Harvey, as the _Surprise_ neared the landing at Bellport, “I
want to get out of this town just as quick as I step foot in it. I don’t
intend to stay here and have those chaps and those girls laugh at me.
They’ve got altogether too good a chance. You fellows have got to stay
here and take the _Surprise_ up to Billy Coombs’s marine railway. She’ll
have to be hauled out for a day and the ballast come out of her around
that centreboard box. Tell him to put a new iron in, and you can pay for
it, Joe, and I’ll pay you when you come back to camp.”
“But where are you going?” asked the others.
“I am going to foot it down the road for seven miles to Hackett’s Cove,
and wait for Jeff Hackett to come down,” answered Harvey. “Then I’ll go
across to the foot of the island with him in his sloop. I’d walk farther
than that to get clear of the crowd that will be ashore here soon; but,
for that matter, I want to get back to the island to-night, anyway.
There’s a dance in the old town hall at Carter’s Harbour, and I’ll get
there in time for that.”
“He’s all cut up over Willie Grimes’s beating him,” said Joe Hinman, as
Harvey sprang out on the landing and walked rapidly away. “He won’t get
over it for a week. Well, we shall have to catch it for him when the
boats come in. However, we didn’t sail the boat. That’s one comfort.”
Late that afternoon, Jack Harvey, hot and dusty with his long walk,
waited impatiently, seated on a pile of timber by the shore, for the
arrival of Jeff Hackett’s sloop. Five o’clock came, and then six, and no
sloop in sight. Harvey strolled up to the village store and bought some
crackers and cheese for his supper.
“So you’re waiting for Jeff Hackett’s sloop to take you across to the
island, are you?” said the storekeeper. “Well, you’ll wait till morning
now, I reckon. Wish I’d known you wanted to go over sooner. You see, Jeff
engaged Tom Crosby to make his trip this afternoon for him, and he’s been
gone an hour now. You must have seen Tom’s boat off there.”
“I did,” replied Harvey, shortly, “but I had no idea he was going across.
What can I do, now?”
“Nothing that I see,” said the storekeeper, “except to take it
comfortable here to-night, and go over with Jeff in the morning.”
Harvey strode angrily out and walked down to the shore again.
A rod or two out a fisherman was rowing in a small boat.
“Here, you, where are you going?” sang out Harvey.
The man looked up, surprised, but did not answer.
“I say, there, where are you going? Can’t you hear?” cried Harvey,
roughly.
The man stopped rowing. “What’s that to you?” he answered.
Harvey laughed. “You’ve got me there,” he said. “I didn’t mean to be
rude—but I’ve been disappointed. I didn’t know but you might be going to
row across to the island, and I thought perhaps you might like to earn a
dollar. I’ll help row, too, if you like. I want to go, the worst way.”
The man hesitated for a moment, started as though he were going to row
away, and then paused again.
“Where do you belong?” he asked.
“Over on the island,” said Harvey. “I’m camping there.”
“What’s that?” said the man, putting his hand to his ear. “Say it again.”
“I’m camping out over on the island,” repeated Harvey.
The man looked stealthily in at him from under his eyebrows. “Camping
there!” he muttered to himself, and began backing water slowly with his
oars.
“I’ll take you across for—for a dollar,” he said.
“Good!” cried Harvey. “Come on, lively, then. It’s a good five miles, and
I’m in a hurry to get across.”
The man, however, was in no hurry. He came in slowly, as though perhaps
he might still be considering the matter, whether he should take this
passenger aboard or not. He worked the boat inshore, finally, and Harvey
sprang aboard.
“You are going to help row,” said the man.
“Yes,” answered Harvey. “Didn’t I say I would?” He took his seat toward
the stern of the boat, where there were rowlocks for an extra pair of
oars.
The man at the bow oars was a thick, heavy-set, middle-aged man, burned
dark by sun and wind. He was roughly dressed in ill-fitting clothes, that
looked as though they might have come from the dunnage-bag of a fisherman
who had been long at sea. They were patched in one or two places with
cloth that did not match the original garments. He wore a red,
cheap-looking handkerchief tied loosely about his neck, and a rough beard
of several weeks’ growth heightened the effect of his swarthy complexion.
They rowed for some time in silence, making good headway, for the wind
had gone down with the sun, and the man in the bow pulled a powerful
stroke, making even the sturdy efforts of Jack Harvey seem like child’s
play.
The sun sank behind the hills and the shadows deepened across the water,
fading out at length into the darkness that settled over all the bay. A
few lights glimmered out from the shore of the island, some three miles
distant, and the stars appeared in the sky.
“Lucky I fell in with you, just as I did,” said Harvey, as he slowed up
his stroke. “Lucky for both of us, I take it. I should have been stuck
there all night if I hadn’t met you; and I don’t suppose you mind picking
up a dollar, as long as you were going this way.”
“No,” said the man, though there was a queer expression on his face. “I
don’t mind,—and the fishing isn’t any too good these days.”
“Got a smack, have you?” inquired Harvey.
“No,” answered the other. “I don’t own any boat myself. But I sail with a
man as owns his own boat, and I come in for a fair share of the fish.”
“Where does she lie?” asked Harvey.
The man waited a moment before answering. “She’s down among the islands
somewhere,” he said, finally. “She’ll be in for me to-night or to-morrow.
I’ve been visiting some relations of mine back of Bellport a few miles.
So you’re a summer visitor at the island, are you?”
“Yes,” replied Harvey, “I spend my summers there.”
“Pretty quiet place, isn’t it?” said the man.
“Mostly,” returned Harvey, “but not so quiet this year. We’ve had some
exciting times there.”
“Yes?” said the man. “How’s that?”
He had slowed up, himself, in his rowing now. And if by chance the
conversation had turned whither he had intended it should, there was no
way that Harvey should know of that, for his back was toward the man and
he could not see his face.
“Why,” continued Harvey, “they caught the men that stole the Curtis
diamonds over there; that is, they got two of them. A third one escaped.
He was the worst of the three, they say.”
The man in the bow had paused in his rowing.
“The worst one got away, did he?” said he.
“He did,” said Harvey. “It seemed one of them had the diamonds hidden in
a house that every one thought was haunted. He was stopping at the hotel
as a regular guest. And no one suspected him but Henry Burns. Then, when
his confederates came, the detectives were lying in wait for them in the
cellar. They nearly beat the detectives, though, at that. For they
smashed the lanterns out—that is, one of them did, and made a run for it.
The other one was hurt.”
“Did he die?” asked the man, quickly.
“No,” replied Harvey. “He’s all right, waiting trial along with the other
one. We got him, too, just as he was nearly down to shore, where the
other man was waiting to take him off in a boat. The third man escaped in
his yacht. We only captured two.”
The man in the bow had drawn his oars in, now, so that they rested along
the side of the boat. His hands worked nervously together, and he
half-rose in his seat.
“Who’s ‘we’?” he asked, huskily. “Who did it—did you have a hand in it?”
If, by chance, this moment was a crisis in the life of Jack Harvey, and
if, by chance, he was in greater danger at this moment than he had ever
been before in all his life, there was no shadow of it across his mind.
He answered with a laugh:
“No, not I. No such luck. If there’s anything like that going on, I’m
sure to miss it. No, ’twas the other camp and a crowd I have no liking
for that did it all, that got all the glory and all the fun and the
money, too. The reward, I mean. I’d rather have been there at the
capture, though, than get the money for it. And I don’t know why, but I
felt rather sorry for the two chaps that got caught, bad as they were.”
A good speech for you, Jack Harvey, if you did but know it!
“So you missed all the fun, did you?” said the man, quietly. “That was
too bad; too bad.”
He had put his oars into the water once more now, and resumed his rowing.
He did not pause to rest again, but pulled long and steadily. Evidently
he did not care to row and talk too, for he lapsed into silence now, and
Harvey could not draw him into conversation again. At the end of another
hour they had come close to the Grand Island shore, and shortly they had
pulled alongside a ledge, where Harvey could jump out. The man started to
row away.
“Here, hold on, there,” cried Harvey. “Don’t you want your dollar? You’ve
earned it, fair enough.”
The man came slowly back to shore.
“Indeed,” he said, as he stretched out his hand, “I ought not to forget
that, with the fishing as bad as it is.” And then he added, quietly, as
he started to row away again, “And it’s worth a dollar to you to get
here, isn’t it?”
“Indeed it is,” replied Harvey.
“Indeed it is,” said the man to himself.
Then he rowed down the shore for about a mile farther, turned into a
sheltered cove, rowed his boat alongside a black sloop that lay moored
there, climbed aboard, dragged the boat aboard, and waited for an hour or
so, till a faint breeze stole across the water. Then he hoisted sail on
the sloop and drifted slowly out of the cove; drifted slowly away from
the island, and was swallowed up in the night.