ON SHORE AGAIN.
FOR TEN minutes—it seemed an hour to him—Guy stood there with his hands
on the side waiting for the signal which was to tell him that the moment
had arrived for him to make a strike for his liberty; but Flint did not
give it.
Guy began to get impatient. He looked about the deck, but although the
crew were in sight, none of them seemed to be paying any attention to
him or his movements. The first mate was standing at the head of the
companion ladder, gazing toward the light-house at the entrance of the
harbor, and the second mate, the one he most feared, was nowhere to be
seen. But for all that, he was close by, and on the watch, too. Flint
saw him, and that was the reason he did not give the signal for which
Guy was so impatiently waiting.
The vigilant officer, who seemed to see everything that took place on
board the vessel, knew Guy’s plans as well as he knew them himself, for
he had crouched at the head of the ladder and looked down into the
forecastle while Guy was preparing for his attempt at escape.
The mate’s first thought was to seize him as he came on deck and shake
him out of his superfluous clothing; but after a little reflection he
decided to adopt another mode of punishment. He would wait until Guy was
about to leave the ship and then give him a lesson that he would
remember as long as he lived.
As Flint turned away after taking leave of his young friend, he saw the
mate crouching behind the long boat, holding in his hand a stick of wood
which he had caught up as he passed the galley.
The sailor knew in an instant why he was there, and would have turned
back to warn Guy, but the officer, divining his intention, made an
impatient gesture with his hand, and Flint was obliged to pass on.
Guy waited and listened, growing more and more impatient, until at last
he could no longer control himself. The wharf was almost within reach of
him, and if his feet were once firmly planted upon it, his escape could
be easily accomplished. A few quick bounds would carry him out of sight
in the darkness, and if he were followed, he could creep into some alley
or door-way and remain there until the danger was past. He resolved to
try it.
He put one leg over the rail, paused an instant to make sure that the
movement had not attracted attention, then threw the other over, and
lowered himself slowly toward the wharf. His feet had almost touched it,
and Guy was already congratulating himself on his escape, when a stick
of stove-wood, propelled with all the force of a sinewy arm, whistled
through the air, and striking the rail within an inch of his head,
bounded off, and fell into the water. Had it struck him, as the mate
fully intended it should when he sent it flying from his hand, it would
have knocked him senseless.
While Guy was looking all around to see where the missile came from, the
officer arose from his concealment and showed himself.
“That was a pretty good shot,” said he, “but the next one will come
closer than that. Crawl back, you lubber. Now,” he added, as the boy
tremblingly obeyed, “go below, and stay there till I call you.”
As Guy started off in obedience to the order, the mate hastened his
movements by aiming a blow at him with his fist, and following it up by
a vicious kick with his heavy boot; but the boy, having learned to be
always on the lookout for these favors, nimbly eluded them both.
“I wish I were a man for a few minutes,” thought Guy, as he ran down the
ladder into the forecastle and began pulling off his extra clothing;
“I’d settle with you, Mr. Schwartz, and pay you back in your own coin.
I’ve failed once, but I’ll not fail the next time I try it. I’ll have
more time at San Francisco, for Flint says we’re going to discharge our
cargo there. Perhaps it is just as well, after all,” he added,
determined, to look on the bright side, if there was any, “because when
I reach San Francisco I shall be but a short distance from the Rocky
Mountains, and can begin the life of a hunter as soon as I please. Don’t
I wish I was there now with a good horse and gun, and such a dog as the
boy trappers had? Never mind, I’ll have them one of these days, if I
only live to get off this vessel.”
About the time Guy was ordered below by the second mate, the captain
returned, accompanied by three or four policemen. Guy heard them open
the hatch and go into the hold, and remembering that the robbers had
promised to make a desperate resistance, he listened to their movements
with no little anxiety, momentarily expecting to hear the sounds of a
fierce struggle going on among the freight, but nothing of the kind
happened.
The sight of the locusts and badges borne by the officers of the law
took all the courage out of the burglars, who quietly passed up their
weapons and allowed handcuffs to be slipped on their wrists. The box was
then hoisted off the other burglar, and he was placed upon a stretcher
and carried ashore. It was all done in five minutes, and when Guy was
ordered on deck to assist in getting the vessel under way—or rather to
stand by and look on while the others did it—the policemen and their
prisoners had disappeared in the darkness.
This was the last incident worthy of record that happened while Guy
remained on board the Santa Maria. Nothing occurred to break the
monotony of the voyage, which continued two hundred and ten days, and
which our runaway afterward looked back upon as the dreariest part of
his existence.
With the robbers disappeared all traces of that “other crew” of which
the sailors stood so much in fear. The most superstitious among them
kept a close watch for a few nights, starting at every unusual sound;
and when the wind freshened during the mid-watch, casting anxious
glances toward the main-topsail yard, where the ghost who shouted “Stand
from under!” was accustomed to station himself. But nothing startling
was ever seen or heard, and the men finally ceased to speak or think of
the matter.
Flint came in for some slight punishment for assisting Guy in his
attempt to desert the vessel, and Upham and his crony were hazed for a
day or two for keeping the ship waiting in port for a crew; but the
mate’s ill-will seemed to wear itself out at last, and then things went
on smoothly with everybody except the runaway.
Mr. Schwartz could not forget that Guy had tried to impose upon him by
rating himself as able seaman, when he scarcely knew the maintruck from
the kelson, and he did not intend that Guy should forget it either. He
never allowed him a moment’s peace while he was on duty, and sometimes,
when he felt particularly vindictive, he would keep him on deck long
after the rest of the watch had gone below. Guy’s life almost became a
burden to him. The only pleasure he found was in looking at the pictures
in the “Boy Trappers,” and dreaming of the easy, glorious existence he
would lead when once he became a hunter.
When he tumbled into his bunk he would lie awake for hours building his
gorgeous air-castles. Under the influence of his lively imagination the
walls of his dingy quarters would seem to widen out and loom up until
they became lofty, snow-capped mountains; the dreary forecastle,
smelling of tar and bilge-water, would become a beautiful glade decked
with flowers and embowered with trees; the smoky lantern would grow into
a cheerful camp-fire; the weather-beaten walls would change into tall,
broad-shouldered hunters and trappers; the chests, which were ranged on
one side of the forecastle, would take the shape of horses staked out to
graze; and the clothing hanging about would be transformed into buffalo
humps and juicy haunches of venison.
Then Guy would imagine himself stretched out on his blanket among these
wild, congenial spirits, wearing a coonskin cap and dressed in a full
suit of buckskin, gaudily ornamented (he couldn’t be a full-fledged
hunter without a coonskin cap and a suit of buckskin, especially the
latter, which, according to the cheap novels he had read, always set off
the wearer’s “slender, well-knit frame to such good advantage”), his
“deadly rifle, with which he could drive a nail or snuff a candle at
sixty yards’ distance,” lying by his side; his tomahawk, hunting-knife
and lasso hanging from a tree over his head, his fierce wolf-dog that
could pull down a buck or throttle an Indian with all ease, reposing at
his feet, and his horse, an animal which had carried him safely through
many a desperate fight with savages and wild beasts, and which for speed
and endurance was never equaled, grazing a little apart from the others
and rendered conspicuous by his great size and exceeding beauty.
“And suppose this horse was the celebrated white pacer of the plains,”
soliloquized Guy, carried fairly up to the seventh heaven of happiness
by his wild dreamings; “a horse that no living man had ever ridden until
I caught him with my own lasso and tamed him with my own hands! Ah! And
suppose these men were government scouts and I was the chief of them?
‘The Boy Chief of the Rough Riders of the Rocky Mountains!’ Whew!
Wouldn’t that be a sounding title, though? Oh, I’m bound to make myself
famous before I am ten years older. Dear me, I wonder if this miserable
vessel will ever reach San Francisco?”
When Guy dropped to sleep at last it would be to revel in such scenes as
this, until the hoarse voice of the second mate brought him back to the
realities of earth again. He lived in this way just seven months—how
careful he was to count the days as they dragged slowly by—and when at
last he was beginning to despair and to believe that the voyage never
would have an end, Flint one day pointed out something in the horizon
which looked like a cloud, but which he said was land, adding that he
had heard the first mate say that if they had no bad luck they would
pass the Golden Gate in about three days.
Guy had been waiting most impatiently for this announcement, and now he
could not have told whether he was glad or sorry to hear it. He longed
to feel the solid ground under his feet once more, but there was an
obstacle in the way of his getting there that he dreaded to encounter.
That was the second mate, whose eyes followed every move he made while
he was on deck. Since he detected the boy in his attempt to desert the
vessel, the officer had been more brutal than he was before; and he had
promised, too, that if he caught Guy in any more tricks of that kind he
would knock him overboard the very first good chance he got.
Guy believed that the mate fully intended to carry it out. Flint thought
so, too, and advised extreme caution. He and Guy held many a long
consultation, but could decide upon no definite plan of operations. The
only thing the boy could do was to be governed by circumstances, and
this time be careful not to act in too great a hurry.
On the afternoon of the fourth day after land was discovered the Santa
Maria entered the harbor of San Francisco and came to anchor, where she
was to remain a day or two—so Guy heard—before she was hauled into the
wharf. No sooner had she swung round to her anchor than one of the boats
was put into the water, and when it had been manned the captain came on
deck carrying a basket on his arm.
“Pass the word for Thomas,” said he.
Guy heard the call, and was hurrying aft in response to it when he was
met by the second mate.
“Look here, my hearty,” said the officer, “you’re to go ashore to carry
the captain’s basket. But listen now—no nonsense. I know every hole and
corner in ’Frisco, and if you don’t come back with the old man I’ll be
after you with a sharp stick, and if I catch you—well, you know me.”
The mate finished with a peculiar nod of his head, which had a peculiar
meaning in it.
Guy picked up the captain’s basket in obedience to a gesture from that
gentleman, and followed him into the boat. His mind was in such a whirl
of excitement and uncertainty that he took no note of what was going on
around him. Here was a chance for liberty, but he did not know whether
to improve it or not. He had nothing with him except his money, and that
he always carried in his monk-bag, which was slung around his neck. The
blankets and extra clothing which he would probably need before he could
have time to earn others, were in his bundle in the forecastle, and so
was that book of Henry Stewart’s, which was to him what chart and
compass are to the mariner.
Guy set great store by that book. It would, he thought, be of as much
service to him as the blankets and extra clothing, for he knew nothing
about hunting and trapping; in fact, he had never fired a gun half a
dozen times in his life, and he could make but poor headway until he had
received instructions from some source.
Having no mind of his own and knowing next to nothing outside of school
books, he had leaned upon somebody ever since he had been away from
home—Bob Walker first, and then Flint—and he had expected when he left
the vessel to have the book for a counselor. It told how to build camps,
how to cook squirrels and venison on spits before the fire, how to
travel through the thickest woods without the aid of a compass or the
sun, and how he ought to conduct himself in all sorts of terrible
emergencies, such as fights with Indians and grizzly bears. It would be
a rather risky piece of business for him to depend on his own judgment
and resources, and it would be equally risky to wait for another
opportunity to desert, for it might never be presented.
Guy did not know what to do, and there was no one to whom he could go
for advice.
“Thomas, you stay here till I come.”
These words aroused Guy from his reverie. He looked up and found himself
standing at the foot of a long, wide stairway leading up into a building
which looked like a warehouse. The Santa Maria was hidden from his view
by the masts and rigging of the vessels lying at the wharf, the boat in
which he had come ashore was out of sight, and so was the captain, who
went quickly up the stairs and disappeared through a door, which he
slammed behind him. Now or never was the thought that passed through
Guy’s mind, and without stopping to dwell upon it an instant, he dropped
the basket and darted away as fast as his legs could carry him, turning
down every street he came to, and putting as many corners as possible
between himself and the harbor.
Guy had learned at least one thing during the eight or nine months he
had been on the water, and that was that in all seaport towns the
sailors’ quarters are located near the docks, hence his desire to leave
that part of the city behind him in the shortest possible space of time.
He never wanted to meet a sea-faring man again—he had learned to despise
the name as well as the calling. Besides, he knew that if the second
mate fulfilled his threat of searching the city for him, that part of it
to which the sailors most resorted would be the very first place he
would visit. Guy wondered if there was a hunters’ boarding-house in
town. The officer would never think of looking for him there.
The deserter made remarkably good time for a boy who had been worn
almost to a shadow of his former self by hard fare and harder treatment,
settling down in a rapid walk at intervals, and then breaking into a run
again when he reached a street in which there were but few people to
observe his movements, and was finally brought to a stand-still by a
sign which caught his eye—J. Brown, gunsmith.
The words drove all thoughts of the mate out of his mind, and suggested
to him a new train of reflections. He was out of danger for the
present—he had been running fully half an hour, as nearly as he could
guess at the time—and had leisure to ponder upon a question which just
then arose in his mind. Here was a chance to provide himself with as
much of a hunter’s outfit as his limited supply of money would purchase.
Should he improve it, or wait until some future day? It was a matter
that could not be decided on the spur of the moment, so Guy seated
himself on a dry-goods box in front of a store opposite the gunsmith’s,
and thought about it.
After he had recovered a little of his wind, and got his brain in
working order, Guy walked across the street and looked in at the
gunsmith’s window. He saw there everything a hunter could possibly
need—rifles, shotguns, hunting-knives, revolvers, game-bags, traps, and
fishing-tackle—such a variety, in fact, that Guy could not at once make
up his mind what he wanted most. The window on the other side of the
door was filled with saddles, bridles, blankets, spurs and ponchos. As
Guy looked at them a second question arose in his mind.
“Now, how am I going to get my horse?” he asked himself. “I must have
one, for I never heard of a hunter traveling about on foot. It wouldn’t
look well. Besides, what if I should happen to get into a fight with
Indians or grizzly bears? Why, I’d be rubbed out sure. And if I can
think up some way to get a horse, how am I going to earn the money to
buy a saddle and bridle for him? Great Scott! there’s always some
drawback to my plans.”
And this seemed to be a serious drawback, too. Whenever Guy had indulged
in his day-dreams, he had always imagined himself a prosperous and
famous hunter, with all the comforts and luxuries of his calling at his
command. The question had sometimes forced itself upon his mind, how was
he to get all these things? But it was always an unwelcome one, and was
dismissed with the comforting reflection that it would be time enough to
worry about such little matters when he stood in need of them. That was
the way he disposed of the horse question now.
“I’ll get my gun and other things I need, and think about a horse some
other time,” he thought. “Perhaps I can buy one already trained from
some friendly Indian for a plug or two of tobacco; and, by the way, I
guess I had better get some tobacco for that purpose. Or, I may find a
hunting-ground so well stocked with game that I can trap and shoot
enough beaver and otter in a few days to pay for a good horse. But the
mischief of it is, I don’t know how to hunt and trap those animals, and
there’s that book I need so much on board the Santa Maria. No matter,
I’ll wiggle through some way. What I want just now is a shooting-iron.”
So saying, Guy opened the door and went into the gun-shop.
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