OLD BURR OF THE FERRY
It was in late November and while the coal carrier _Pontiac_, on which
he was serving as lookout, was in Lake Superior that Alan first heard
of Jim Burr. The name spoken among some other names in casual
conversation by a member of the crew, stirred and excited him; the name
James Burr, occurring on Benjamin Corvet's list, had borne opposite it
the legend "All disappeared; no trace," and Alan, whose investigations
had accounted for all others whom the list contained, had been able
regarding Burr only to verify the fact that at the address given no one
of this name was to be found.
He questioned the oiler who had mentioned Burr. The man had met Burr
one night in Manitowoc with other men, and something about the old man
had impressed both his name and image on him; he knew no more than
that. At Manitowoc!--the place from which Captain Stafford's watch had
been sent to Constance Sherrill and where Alan had sought for, but had
failed to find, the sender! Had Alan stumbled by chance upon the one
whom Benjamin Corvet had been unable to trace? Had Corvet, after his
disappearance, found Burr? Had Burr been the sender, under Corvet's
direction, of those things? Alan speculated upon this. The man might
well, of course, be some other Jim Burr; there were probably many men
by that name. Yet the James Burr of Corvet's list must have been such
a one as the oiler described--a white haired old man.
Alan could not leave the _Pontiac_ and go at once to Manitowoc to seek
for Burr; for he was needed where he was. The season of navigation on
Lake Superior was near its close. In Duluth skippers were clamoring
for cargoes; ships were lading in haste for a last trip before ice
closed the lake's outlet at the Soo against all ships. It was fully a
week later and after the Pontiac had been laden again and had repassed
the length of Lake Superior that Alan left the vessel at Sault Ste.
Marie and took the train for Manitowoc.
The little lake port of Manitowoc, which he reached in the late
afternoon, was turbulent with the lake season's approaching close.
Long lines of bulk freighters, loaded and tied up to wait for spring,
filled the river; their released crews rioted through the town. Alan
inquired for the seamen's drinking place, where his informant had met
Jim Burr; following the directions he received he made his way along
the river bank until he found it. The place was neat, immaculate; a
score of lakemen sat talking at little tables or leaned against the
bar. Alan inquired of the proprietor for Jim Burr.
The proprietor knew old Jim Burr--yes. Burr was a wheelsman on
Carferry Number 25. He was a lakeman, experienced and capable; that
fact, some months before, had served as introduction for him to the
frequenters of this place. When the ferry was in harbor and his duties
left him idle, Burr came up and waited there, occupying always the same
chair. He never drank; he never spoke to others unless they spoke
first to him, but then he talked freely about old days on the lakes,
about ships which had been lost and about men long dead.
Alan decided that there could be no better place to interview old Burr
than here; he waited therefore, and in the early evening the old man
came in.
Alan watched him curiously as, without speaking to any one, he went to
the chair recognized as his and sat down. He was a slender but
muscularly built man seeming about sixty-five, but he might be
considerably younger or older than that. His hair was completely
white; his nose was thin and sensitive; his face was smoothly placid,
emotionless, contented; his eyes were queerly clouded, deepset and
intent.
Those whose names Alan had found on Corvet's list had been of all ages,
young and old; but Burr might well have been a contemporary of Corvet
on the lakes. Alan moved over and took a seat beside the old man.
"You're from No. 25?" he asked, to draw him into conversation.
"Yes."
"I've been working on the carrier _Pontiac_ as lookout. She's on her
way to tie up at Cleveland, so I left her and came on here. You don't
know whether there's a chance for me to get a place through the winter
on No. 25?"
Old Burr reflected. "One of our boys has been talking of leaving. I
don't know when he expects to go. You might ask."
"Thank you; I will. My name's Conrad--Alan Conrad."
He saw no recognition of the name in Burr's reception of it; but he had
not expected that. None of those on Benjamin Corvet's list had had any
knowledge of Alan Conrad or had heard the name before.
Alan was silent, watching the old man; Burr, silent too, seemed
listening to the conversation which came to them from the tables near
by, where men were talking of cargoes, and of ships and of men who
worked and sailed upon them.
"How long have you been on the lakes?" Alan inquired.
"All my life." The question awakened reminiscence in the old man. "My
father had a farm. I didn't like farming. The schooners--they were
almost all schooners in those days--came in to load with lumber. When
I was nine years old, I ran away and got on board a schooner. I've
been at it, sail or steam, ever since."
"Do you remember the _Miwaka_?"
"The _Miwaka_?"
Old Burr turned abruptly and studied Alan with a slow scrutiny which
seemed to look him through and through; yet while his eyes remained
fixed on Alan suddenly they grew blank. He was not thinking now of
Alan, but had turned his thoughts within himself.
"I remember her--yes. She was lost in '95," he said. "In '95," he
repeated.
"You lost a nephew with her, didn't you?"
"A nephew--no. That is a mistake. I lost a brother."
"Where were you living then?"
"In Emmet County, Michigan."
"When did you move to Point Corbay, Ontario?"
"I never lived at Point Corbay."
"Did any of your family live there?"
"No." Old Burr looked away from Alan, and the queer cloudiness of his
eyes became more evident.
"Why, do you ask all this?" he said irritably. "What have they been
telling you about me? I told you about myself; our farm was in Emmet
County, but we had a liking for the lake. One of my brothers was lost
in '95 with the _Miwaka_ and another in '99 with the _Susan Hart_."
"Did you know Benjamin Corvet?" Alan asked.
Old Burr stared at him uncertainly. "I know who he is, of course."
"You never met him?"
"No."
"Did you receive a communication from him some time this year?"
"From him? From Benjamin Corvet? No." Old Burr's uneasiness seemed
to increase. "What sort of communication?"
"A request to send some things to Miss Constance Sherrill at Harbor
Point."
"I never heard of Miss Constance Sherrill. To send what things?"
"Several things--among them a watch which had belonged to Captain
Stafford of the _Miwaka_."
Old Burr got up suddenly and stood gazing down at Alan. "A watch of
Captain Stafford's?--no," he said agitatedly. "No!"
He moved away and left the place; and Alan sprang up and followed him.
He was not, it seemed probable to Alan now, the James Burr of Corvet's
list; at least Alan could not see how he could be that one. Among the
names of the crew of the _Miwaka_ Alan had found that of a Frank Burr,
and his inquiries had informed him that this man was a nephew of the
James Burr who had lived near Port Corbay and had "disappeared" with
all his family. Old Burr had not lived at Port Corbay--at least, he
claimed not to have lived there; he gave another address and assigned
to himself quite different connections. For every member of the crew
of the _Miwaka_ there had been a corresponding, but different name upon
Corvet's list--the name of a close relative. If old Burr was not
related to the Burr on Corvet's list, what connection could he have
with the _Miwaka_, and why should Alan's questions have agitated him
so? Alan would not lose sight of old Burr until he had learned the
reason for that.
He followed, as the old man crossed the bridge and turned to his left
among the buildings on the river front. Burr's figure, vague in the
dusk, crossed the railroad yards and made its way to where a huge black
bulk, which Alan recognized as the ferry, loomed at the waterside. He
disappeared aboard it. Alan, following him, gazed about.
A long, broad, black boat the ferry was, almost four hundred feet to
the tall, bluff bow. Seen from the stem, the ship seemed only an
unusually rugged and powerful steam freighter; viewed from the beam,
the vessel appeared slightly short for its freeboard; only when
observed from the stern did its distinguishing peculiarity become
plain; for a few feet only above the water line, the stern was all cut
away, and the long, low cavern of the deck gleamed with rails upon
which the electric lights glinted. Save for the supports of the
superstructure and where the funnels and ventilator pipes passed up
from below, that whole strata of the ship was a vast car shed; its
tracks, running to the edge of the stern, touched tracks on the dock.
A freight engine was backing loaded cars from a train of sixteen cars
upon the rails on the starboard side; another train of sixteen big box
cars waited to go aboard on the tracks to the port of the center
stanchions. When the two trains were aboard, the great vessel--"No.
25," in big white stencil upon her black sides were her distinguishing
marks--would thrust out into the ice and gale for the Michigan shore
nearly eighty miles away.
Alan thrilled a little at his inspection of the ferry. He had not seen
close at hand before one of these great craft which, throughout the
winter, brave ice and storm after all--or nearly all--other lake boats
are tied up. He had not meant to apply there when he questioned old
Burr about a berth on the ferry; he had used that merely as a means of
getting into conversation with the old man. But now he meant to apply;
for it would enable him to find out more about old Burr.
He went forward between the tracks upon the deck to the companionway,
and ascended and found the skipper and presented his credentials. No
berth on the ferry was vacant yet but one soon would be, and Alan was
accepted in lieu of the man who was about to leave; his wages would not
begin until the other man left, but in the meantime he could remain
aboard the ferry if he wished. Alan elected to remain aboard. The
skipper called a man to assign quarters to Alan, and Alan, going with
the man, questioned him about Burr.
All that was known definitely about old Burr on the ferry, it appeared,
was that he had joined the vessel in the early spring. Before
that--they did not know; he might be an old lakeman who, after spending
years ashore, had returned to the lakes for a livelihood. He had
represented himself as experienced and trained upon the lakes, and he
had been able to demonstrate his fitness; in spite of his age he was
one of the most capable of the crew.
The next morning, Alan approached old Burr in the crew's quarters and
tried to draw him into conversation again about himself; but Burr only
stared at him with his intent and oddly introspective eyes and would
not talk upon this subject. A week passed; Alan, established as a
lookout now on No. 25 and carrying on his duties, saw Burr daily and
almost every hour; his watch coincided with Burr's watch at the
wheel--they went on duty and were relieved together. Yet better
acquaintance did not make the old man more communicative; a score of
times Alan attempted to get him to tell more about himself, but he
evaded Alan's questions and, if Alan persisted, he avoided him. Then,
on an evening bitter cold with the coming of winter, clear and filled
with stars, Alan, just relieved from watch, stood by the pilothouse as
Burr also was relieved. The old man paused beside him, looking to the
west.
"Have you ever been in Sturgeon's Bay?" he asked.
"In Wisconsin? No."
"There is a small house there--and a child; born," he seemed figuring
the date, "Feb. 12, 1914."
"A relative of yours?"
"Yes."
"One of your brothers' children or grandchildren?"
"I had no brothers," old Burr said quietly.
Alan stared at him, amazed. "But you told me about your brothers and
about their being lost in wrecks on the lake; and about your home in
Emmet County!"
"I never lived in Emmet County," old Burr replied. "Some one else must
have told you that about me. I come from Canada--of French-Canadian
descent. My family were of the Hudson Bay people. I was a guide and
hunter until recently. Only a few years ago I came onto the lakes, but
my cousin came here before I did. It is his child."
Old Burr moved away and Alan turned to the mate.
"What do you make of old Burr?" he asked.
"He's a romancer. We get 'em that way once in a while--old liars!
He'll give you twenty different accounts of himself--twenty different
lives. None of them is true. I don't know who he is or where he came
from, but it's sure he isn't any of the things he says he is."
Alan turned away, chill with disappointment. It was only that,
then--old Burr was a romancer after the manner of some old seamen. He
constructed for his own amusement these "lives." He was not only not
the Burr of Corvet's list; he was some one not any way connected with
the _Miwaka_ or with Corvet. Yet Alan, upon reflection, could not
believe that it was only this. Burr, if he had wished to do that,
might perhaps merely have simulated agitation when Alan questioned him
about the _Miwaka_; but why should he have wished to simulate it? Alan
could conceive of no condition which by any possibility could have
suggested such simulation to the old man.
He ceased now, however, to question Burr since questioning either had
no result at all or led the old man to weaving fictions; in response
the old man became by degrees more communicative. He told Alan, at
different times, a number of other "lives" which he claimed as his own.
In only a few of these lives had he been, by his account, a seaman; he
had been a multitude of other things--in some a farmer, in others a
lumberjack or a fisherman; he had been born, he told, in a half-dozen
different places and came of as many different sorts of people.
On deck, one night, listening while old Burr related his sixth or
seventh life, excitement suddenly seized Alan. Burr, in this life
which he was telling, claimed to be an Englishman born in Liverpool.
He had been, he said, a seaman in the British navy; he had been present
at the shelling of Alexandria; later, because of some difficulty which
he glossed over, he had deserted and had come to "the States"; he had
been first a deckhand then the mate of a tramp schooner on the lakes.
Alan, gazing at the old man, felt exultation leaping and throbbing
within him. He recognized this "life"; he knew in advance its
incidents. This life which old Burr was rehearsing to him as his own,
was the actual life of Munro Burkhalter, one of the men on Corvet's
list regarding whom Alan had been able to obtain full information!
Alan sped below, when he was relieved from watch, and got out the
clippings left by Corvet and the notes of what he himself had learned
in his visits to the homes of these people. His excitement grew
greater as he pored over them; he found that he could account, with
their aid, for all that old Burr had told him. Old Burr's "lives" were
not, of course, his; yet neither were they fictions. They--their
incidents, at least--were actualities. They were woven from the lives
of those upon Corvet's list! Alan felt his skin prickling and the
blood beating fast in his temples. How could Burr have known these
incidents? Who could he be to know them all? To what man, but one,
could all of them be known? Was old Burr ... Benjamin Corvet?
Alan could give no certain answer to that question. He could not find
any definite resemblance in Burr's placid face to the picture of Corvet
which Constance had shown him. Yet, as regarded his age and his
physical characteristics, there was nothing to make his identity with
Benjamin Corvet impossible. Sherrill or others who had known Benjamin
Corvet well, might be able to find resemblances which Alan could not.
And, whether Burr was or was not Corvet, he was undeniably some one to
whom the particulars of Corvet's life were known.
Alan telegraphed that day to Sherrill; but when the message had gone
doubt seized him. He awaited eagerly the coming of whoever Sherrill
might send and the revelations regarding Corvet which might come then;
but at the same time he shrunk from that revelation. He himself had
become, he knew, wholly of the lakes now; his life, whatever his future
might be, would be concerned with them. Yet he was not of them in the
way he would have wished to be; he was no more than a common seaman.
Benjamin Corvet, when he went away, had tried to leave his place and
power among lakemen to Alan; Alan, refusing to accept what Corvet had
left until Corvet's reason should be known, had felt obliged also to
refuse friendship with the Sherrills. When revelation came, would it
make possible Alan's acceptance of the place Corvet had prepared for
him, or would it leave him where he was? Would it bring him nearer to
Constance Sherrill, or would it set him forever away from her?