BAD NEWS
Skippy had food and plenty of it during the next month. Big Joe saw to
that though it kept him away from the barge many hours at night, hours
when he lived in mortal fear that the boy would develop a “bad throat”
and be seriously sick before he could get back.
Skippy’s “bad throat” had become a veritable bugaboo to Tully and though
he had no definite idea of what it was, the fear of its recurrence
stalked every hour that he spent away from the boy. And when he did
return he would tiptoe into the silent shanty and up to the boy’s bunk,
sighing with relief to find him sleeping quietly. Then, when he had made
sure there was no sign of the pinched look and feverish cheek, he would
climb into his own bunk with a light on his face that would have
surprised his rough comrades.
Skippy saw this light on Tully’s face one early morning. He saw it from
under half-opened lids and it made him glad until he noticed the quick
look of concern that passed over the man’s tanned brow.
“What’s up, Big Joe?” he asked anxiously.
“So it’s awake ye be?” Big Joe returned nervously. “Well now I was just
lookin’ and seem’ if ye was all right. Sure an’ the weather’s gittin’
cold and all and I got wonderin’ how the throat was. I bought a new
stove what’ll give ye lots o’ heat—it’s comin’ in the mornin’.”
“Gee whiz!” Skippy said gratefully, then: “You sorta looked worried.”
Big Joe turned his back and started to undress.
“I’ve got to be tellin’ ye sometime, kid—I—listen....”
“You’ve heard about Pop, huh?” Skippy sat up.
“Yes—they....”
“They what?” said Skippy anxiously.
“They turned down the appeal. But don’t be takin’ on about it, Skippy.
Sure an’ next year we’ll be diggin’ up new evidence. Now....”
“I ain’t gonna take on, Big Joe, honest I ain’t,” said Skippy bravely.
“On accounta you I ain’t. You been so good—all the money you spent
tryin’ to get Pop free. An’ now—well, maybe if I don’t hope about it
sumpin’ll happen, sometime.”
“Sure now that’s bein’ a good kid, takin’ it so aisy like. We’ll be
tryin’ agin like I said. Some time Marty Skinner’ll get over his crazy
notion that iverybody in Brown’s Basin’s agin him and that Toby did the
job. Sure he hates iverybody here so much I hear he’s got Buck Flint to
agree to buy the whole inlet. And thin he’ll be drivin’ us squatters
out, so he will.”
“But he can’t do that!” Skippy protested indignantly. “He can’t drive me
outa the _Minnie M. Baxter_ ’cause it’s Pop’s home—gee, the only home we
got. I gotta stay here till—well, when I leave it, I’ll know I ain’t got
any hope that he’ll come back.”
“And don’t I be knowin’ how ye feel, kid? But if Skinner’s put it in
Buck Flint’s head that the inlet’s a good buy and the deal goes through,
he’ll be orderin’ us out and we’ll be likin’ it. Buck ain’t a bad egg,
but Skinner’s runnin’ the works and what he says goes, so it does. Now
if he tells us to beat it I’m wonderin’ who’ll be towin’ a barge out o’
this mud whin she’s settled. Why, it’d take a derrick, so it would, an’
even then it’d be a chance.”
Skippy was deeply affected by this news. He could not sleep because of
it and long after Big Joe was snoring comfortably he rolled and tossed
in his bunk. Then, after a time, he thought of what Tully had said about
the barges being too deeply settled in the mud to get them out, and he
was so curious about it that he got up to see for himself.
He bundled himself up and slipped out onto the deck in the cold, damp
air of an early fall morning. It was not yet dawn but the deep black of
night had gone and Brown’s Basin lay silent in a dark gray mist.
Skippy leaned far over aft where the _Minnie M. Baxter_ was settled
deepest in the mud. Up forward, the slinking waters of the inlet gurgled
plaintively against the keel at high tide. Big Joe was right, he decided
with sinking heart; it would take a derrick and more to pull the barge
out of her muddy berth.
As he started to step back he noticed a tarpaulin to his right which
seemed to be covering some bulky objects. Something that Big Joe had
brought aboard, he thought, and curiously he raised one end of it. One
glimpse told him enough.
They were stolen ships’ supplies, things that his father had told him a
river pirate could easily dispose of to some unscrupulous ship captain.
Skippy knew instantly how they had come there and he turned on his heel
and had started back for the shanty when a searchlight suddenly fell
full upon him.
He crouched out of its glare and needed but to look hastily up the inlet
to see that it was the police boat bearing down upon the _Minnie M.
Baxter_.