“MAMA,” said Bera to me, “Mrs. Ainslee is not nearly so well today, and
Mr. Hathaway said when he came down from the hospital this afternoon
that she wanted to see you sure this evening about seven o’clock.”
Mrs. Ainslee had been desperately ill at Providence Hospital for weeks
and she was a woman of whom I had known in earlier days and whose
sad plight--her husband was dead and she was alone in the world--had
induced me to do all I could for her.
It was scarcely more than a week following the evening that Swiftwater
and Mr. Hathaway was host at dinner at the hotel, that Bera took,
what I realized afterwards, was an unusual and unexpected interest in
Mrs. Ainslee’s case. Since the dinner engagement, Swiftwater had been
just ordinarily attentive to myself and my two daughters, although
frequently asking us to go to the theatre with him and sending flowers
almost daily to our apartments. I had not seen Mrs. Ainslee for two or
three days, and my conscience rather troubled me about her, so that
when, on this day--a day that will never fade from my mind as long as I
live, nor from that of Bera or Swiftwater--I quickly fell into Bera’s
plans and determined to get some things together for Mrs. Ainslee,
including a bunch of roses from a vase on my dresser, and go to the
hospital after dinner.
Providence Hospital was scarcely more than five blocks from our
apartments. I had not seen anything of Swiftwater or Hathaway all day.
Tired even beyond the ordinary--it had been a long, hard fight to get
my affairs in shape for the northern trip--I left the apartments a
little before seven o’clock that fateful evening and walked up Second
Avenue to Madison and thence up to Fifth Avenue to Providence Hospital.
“Mrs. Ainslee is feeling some better, Mrs. Beebe, but the doctor is in
there now and you will have to wait for a few minutes,” the head nurse
told me at the landing on the second floor. The steamer “Humboldt”
was sailing for Alaska that night, and I had managed to get off a few
things consigned to myself at Dawson and had seen them safely placed
aboard ship.
As I sat waiting for the signal to come into Mrs. Ainslee’s room--it
must have been a half hour or more before the nurse came to me and said
I should enter--a curious feeling came over me regarding Bera. I had
never known of her speaking about Mrs. Ainslee and somehow or other I
could not get out of my mind the thought that possibly Swiftwater and
his friend Hathaway might leave for Skagway on the “Humboldt.”
Philosophers may talk of a woman’s sixth sense as some people talk of
the cunning of a cat. Whatever it was, as the nurse beckoned me to come
into Mrs. Ainslee’s room, I quickly arose, went in and said to the sick
woman:
“Mrs. Ainslee, I am awfully glad to see that you are better and I
wanted to visit with you for an hour, but I have overstayed my time
already and I must hurry back to my rooms.”
Then I quickly turned and in another minute I was hurrying down the
Madison Street hill to the Hinckley Block. In every step I took
nearer my home there came a keener and more tense pulling at my heart
strings--a feeling that something had happened in my own home. It was
no wonder that the elevator boy in the Hinckley Block was dumb-founded
to see me rush across Second Avenue and half way up the stairs to the
second floor before he could call to me, saying he would take me up in
the car if I was not in too big a hurry.
The next moment I was in my rooms, and for the life of me I cannot
begin to describe their looks. My clothes and personal belongings were
scattered all over the room, my big trunk had been emptied of its
contents and was missing. The bureau drawers were empty and the place
really looked like a Kansas rancher’s house after a cyclone.
On the dresser was a little note--in Bera’s handwriting, held down by a
bronze paperweight surmounted by a tiny, but beautiful miniature of a
woman’s form. It was Bera’s last birthday gift to me.
“We have gone to Alaska with Swiftwater and Mr. Hathaway. Do not worry,
mama, as when we get there we will look out for your hotel.”
“BERA.”
That was Bera’s note. I looked at my watch. It was 7:25 and I knew the
“Humboldt” sailed at 8 o’clock. I rushed down four flights of stairs,
never thinking of the elevator, gained the street and hailed a passing
hackman.
“You can have this if you get to the ‘Humboldt’ at Schwabacher’s dock
before she sails!” I cried as the cabby drew his team to the curb, and
then I handed him a ten dollar gold piece.
Whipping his horses to a gallop, the hackman drove at a furious pace
down First Avenue to Spring Street and thence to the dock. He all but
knocked over a policeman as the horses under his whip surged through
the crowd which stood around the dock waiting for the departure of the
“Humboldt.”
“My two daughters are on that boat and Swiftwater Bill Gates has
stolen them from me!” I shouted as I grabbed hold of the arm of a big
policeman near the entrance to the dock. “I want you to get those girls
off that boat before she sails, no matter what happens!”
In another minute the policeman was fighting his way with all the force
of his 250 pounds through the mob of five thousand people that hung
around the gang plank of the “Humboldt.” The ship’s lights were burning
brightly and everybody was laughing and talking, and a few women crying
as they said goodby to husbands, sweethearts or friends aboard the ship.
It was just exactly ten minutes before sailing time when we finally
made our way to the main deck through the crowd. I fairly shouted to
the captain on the bridge:
“My two daughters are on this ship hidden away, and I want them taken
off this boat before you leave!”
Capt. Bateman looked at me a moment as if he wanted to throw me
overboard.
“Who are your daughters and what are they doing on my ship?”
“My daughters are Blanche and Bera Beebe and Swiftwater Bill has
stolen them and is taking them to Alaska. I am Mrs. Beebe, their
mother.”
For the moment that ended the discussion with Capt. Bateman. Instantly
turning to a quartermaster, he said:
“Help this woman find her daughters!”
A half an hour and then an hour passed as we worked our way from one
stateroom to another on the saloon deck and the upper deck without
avail. Capt. Bateman was furious at the delay.
“Mrs. Beebe, I do not believe your daughters are here,” he said.
“Swiftwater has engaged one room, but we have not seen him yet.”
Just then the quartermaster turned to unlock the door of a stateroom on
the starboard side near the stern of the ship. The lock failed to work.
“There is somebody in there,” he said, “and the dock is locked from the
inside.”
“Break it in!” ordered Capt. Bateman.
The next instant the door flew off its hinges as the big quartermaster
shoved a burly shoulder against it. The room was dark. I rushed in, to
find Bera lying on the couch, sobbing as if her heart would break.
As quickly as possible, I got the girls out and turned them over to the
custody of Capt. Bateman.
“These are my daughters, and I will not allow them to be taken from me.”
“Take ’em ashore!” ordered Capt. Bateman to the quartermaster.
[Illustration: “COME TO THE STATION WITH US,” SAID THE OFFICER,
DRAGGING FORTH THE SHAPELESS MASS, AND HELPING SWIFTWATER ADJUST HIS
SILK TILE.]
“But I want you to find that scoundrel Swiftwater!” said I, turning on
the policeman, who stood just behind me.
“You’ll not keep us here any longer,” angrily said the ship’s master.
“O, yes, we will!” said the officer, showing more grit than I expected.
Then began the search all over again. The hurricane deck was the last
resort, the ship having been searched from her hold clear through the
steerage and saloon cabins to the main deck.
On the main deck there were a half dozen lifeboats securely lashed
their proper places. It was dark by this time, but, curiously enough,
there was a little fluttering electric arc light near the end of the
warehouse on the dock, close to the after end of the boat.
That lamp must have been burning that night through some of the
mysterious and indefinable laws of Providence or some other thing,
because by its glare I could see a huddled, shapeless, black form
underneath the last lifeboat on the upper deck.
“That’s him!” I said, pointing at the shapeless mass in the shadow of
the lifeboat.
The policeman walked over to the boat, stretched forth a big muscular
arm, grasped the formless object and drew forth--Swiftwater Bill.
“Come to the station with us,” said the officer, as he helped Bill
adjust his silk tile.