DANGER
Feverishly, Skippy set to work and pushed the stolen goods overboard
piece by piece. Most of them floated but a moment, then sank out of
sight, and the rest floated at a safe enough distance from the oncoming
launch to escape the eyes of the police.
[Illustration: FEVERISHLY SKIPPY PUSHED THE STOLEN GOODS OVERBOARD.]
When the last piece had been disposed of he rushed to the shanty,
awakened Big Joe and told him what he had done.
“’Tis a good boy ye be, Skippy,” he praised. “Sure th’ bulls give me a
chase tonight so they did and I couldn’ unload the goods on me customer
so I brought thim here till tomorrow night. Ye’re a broth of a lad to be
droppin’ thim over, so ye be.”
“Sh!” said Skippy, frightened. “Ain’t that them boardin’ us now?” He got
out of his clothes and back into his bunk.
They listened in silence while the soft tramp of feet came along the
deck. Skippy had reason to remember another terrible occasion when the
police boat had come to take his father. He had thought then that it was
only for a day.
He had only Big Joe now, his only friend in a singularly callous world.
Would the law take him too? He couldn’t bear it—he wouldn’t bear it! He
would like and protect Big Joe even if he was a murderer, the police
wouldn’t take the one thing he had left!
They knocked insistently and Big Joe padded to the door, barefooted and
feigning complete surprise. He invited them in, hurried ponderously to
the rickety table and lighted the lamp. Mugs growled ominously.
The officers told Tully that a certain warehouse had been broken into
that night. The watchman who had surprised the intruder thought he had
recognized Big Joe Tully.
“Tonight?” Skippy piped up from his bunk. “It ain’t so ’cause Big Joe’s
been here takin’ care of me since noon. I got one of my bad throats
again an’ he wouldn’t go out ’cause I was feelin’ so bad.”
Who of the river front police hadn’t heard of Skippy Dare’s bad throat?
None that had patrolled the harbor during the past four months. Hadn’t
it been because of his frail boy that Toby Dare had fought his prison
sentence so hard? The papers had been full of it too.
“So the throat’s cutting up again, eh Skippy?” asked Inspector Jones. He
was the same man who had taken Toby away from his son.
Skippy, always a bit wan looking when he lay in his bunk, looked more
wan than ever then. His pallor was not simulated; it was terribly real,
for he was not only frightened at the prospect of losing Big Joe; he was
frightened because of the barefaced lie he had just told—the first in
his life.
“I always gotta be careful of my throat, Mister,” he said to the officer
when the worst of his emotion had passed. “’Specially when it gets cold.
Sometimes I get fever right away an’ the doctor told Big Joe the last
time that I gotta right away have attention.”
“Sure and the lad’s right,” Big Joe interposed with genuine feeling in
his voice, “he’s got only me to be lookin’ after him now.”
“What you doing for a living, Big Joe?” asked the officer a little
pointedly.
Big Joe stifled a yawn and sat down on a chair.
“Me?” he asked innocently. “Ye mean what’ll I do when the money I saved
from me barge gives out, is it? With the way Flint blackballed me ’fore
he died, I guess I’ll have to be workin’ out o’ the bay next summer, so
I do.”
“Got enough for you and the kid till next summer?” the officer
persisted.
“Sure and ’tis lucky I have, the way things be,” answered Big Joe.
The officer leveled his eyes at Tully.
“For the kid’s sake, watch your step, Big Joe,” he said with a warning
note. “For the kid’s sake....”
Skippy couldn’t believe they had gone. It seemed too good to be true,
and in order to reassure him, Big Joe put something around him and went
out on deck to see that the launch had actually gone.
“Sure she’s aisy out to the river by this time,” he assured Skippy when
he came back. He lighted a cigarette and sat down. “Now was that a close
shave I’ll be askin’,” he exclaimed. “And I can be thankin’ ye for it,
kid. I never expected thim to come stealin’ up on us here, no, I
didn’t.”
“See it don’t pay, Big Joe!” Skippy said gently. He seemed spent with
the great strain. “People know a big guy like you anywheres an’ besides
like I say, it don’t pay anyhow. Gee, if you can’t get honest work
’cause Flint blackballed you then I gotta work myself. I can get a job
as office boy in a warehouse. I bet I can!”
“Nix, kid, nix, ye ain’t well enough,” Big Joe protested hotly. “Besides
I don’t niver take things from folks what are hard up, Skippy. I——”
“Lemme try it, Big Joe, huh? I’m better now’n I been in a long time, so
lemme try it! I’m not kickin’ ’bout you. Gee, I can see how it is now.
Even Pop once told me how hard it was for a blackballed man to get back
along the river. You spent all your money on Pop an’ me an’ we hadda eat
an’ live, so what was you gonna do! I shoulda known before that your
money couldn’t last forever—gee! All you’ve done for me, Big Joe—lemme
try!”
Tully was still protesting at daylight, but Skippy, having made up his
mind, fell peacefully to sleep with the dog tucked snugly under his
outstretched arm. Big Joe sat watching them until long after the sun
came up.
“Sure and the kid lied for me,” he said as he climbed back into his
bunk. “Sure and that nice kid lied for me—_me_!”
And as his large features settled in slumber, they looked strangely
troubled.