A FRUITLESS CHASE
While the party of three ate the meal prepared for them, Larry worked
at the rear of the wayside resort, chopping the wood Harmon had pointed
out.
With five dollars in his pocket the youth felt easy again. In Honolulu,
where accommodations were cheap, five dollars would last a long while,
and he felt that his luck was bound to change before the money was
entirely gone.
Close to where he worked was an open window, and from the conversation
of the three he learned that Captain Nat Ponsberry was the commander
and part owner of the _Columbia_, a three-masted schooner, which had
just come into Honolulu from Panama, and was to leave the following
week for Hong Kong, China. Tom Grandon was first mate of the schooner,
and evidently he and the captain were old friends, both hailing from
Gloucester, the original home of the schooner build of sea-going
vessels. The Rev. Martin Wells was to be a passenger, bound also
for Hong Kong. He had been picked up in Honolulu, where he had been
attached to the English missions. He was in no hurry to get to Hong
Kong and had chosen the sailing-vessel because it was cheaper than the
regular steamer, although, of course, not nearly so fast.
The three made a pleasant party, both the captain and Tom Grandon being
full of fun, and the clergyman not being above a joke himself, although
never forgetting his cloth. More than once Larry found himself laughing
at what was said, as each quizzed the others about being scared to
death.
“I’ll wager life on the _Columbia_ isn’t as dull as it is on some
vessels,” thought Larry, as he finished cutting the wood and hung up
the axe. “I wish she was bound for San Francisco――I’d give the _Rescue_
the go-by and strike Captain Ponsberry for a position. Even as it is
I may strike him, if nothing better turns up, although I’ve no great
hankering to visit the land of the heathen Chinee.”
“Well, Larry Russell, if that’s your name, I reckon as how it’s
about time we boarded ship and sailed for Honolulu!” cried Captain
Ponsberry, after he and his companions had made a brief tour of the
Pali. “I promised to be back to the _Columbia_ by seven o’clock, and
I’m a man as never breaks my word.”
“I’ll have the team out in a jiffy,” answered the youth, and rushed
around to the stable. The horses had been left in harness, and it was
an easy task to hook them up. He drove around to the front of the
resort, the three clambered in, and with a farewell to Ralph Harmon,
and a rather unnecessary crack of the whip upon Larry’s part, they
bowled off down the sweep of the road across which the stately palms
were now casting long, wavering shadows.
It was a beautiful drive, that down the Nuuanu Valley and into Nuuanu
avenue, past lovely homes that have a perpetual summer, homes hedged in
by palms and cacti, and here and there a field of bamboo, with vines
clustering everywhere. In two places they passed large cemeteries,
surrounded by tall, gray walls, overgrown with moss and guarded by long
rows of solemn-looking cypresses; and then they came whirling down
into the town proper, now silent and almost deserted, for the time for
business was over, and the workers had hied themselves to their homes,
to the bathing-beach at Waikiki, or to some other place of amusement.
“Oh, had we some bright little isle of our own,
In the blue summer ocean, far off and alone,”
quoted the Rev. Martin Wells, and then, as if fearing he was getting
too sentimental, he quickly changed the subject. “Larry, you drive like
a veteran. Do you own a horse?”
“A horse? I? Hardly. Why, I’m――I’m――that is, I don’t own much of
anything in this world――just now,” stammered the youth. “Steady, boys,
steady; you’ve behaved well so far; don’t spoil your record,” he went
on, to the team.
“Do your family live here?” went on the inquisitive man in black.
“No, sir, I have no family, only two brothers, who are miles and miles
away from here. I am a sailor boy, but my boat is laid up for repairs,
and so I’m knocking about earning a living as best I can.”
“A sailor boy, eh?” put in Captain Ponsberry. “Why didn’t you say so
afore, youngster? A sailor boy, and stopped those hosses that way!
Well, I never! Reckon you’re a putty good hand afore the mast. What
ship did you sail in?”
“The _Rescue_――Captain Morgan.”
“Oh, yes, I heard tell she was laid up here――got knocked out in a
southeaster――they’re putty bad around these parts, though they be wuss
off the coast of Chili. So you’re one of his boys? Well, if you ain’t
got much to do, come down and see me. We’re loading and unloading, you
know.”
“If you can give me work at that, I’ll jump at the job,” answered
Larry, quickly. “I’d like to work out that five dollars, if nothing
else.”
“Now jess you stow it about the gold, lad; ye earned that fair and
square, an’ more, too――eh, Parson? eh, Tom? Don’t you think our lives
was worth――let me see――less’n two dollars each?”
This was said so drolly Larry was compelled to laugh. “I wasn’t looking
at it that way――it was a big price for stopping a team――I’d like to
stop ’em every day in the week at that figure.”
“God forbid!” murmured Mr. Wells. “You might slip down, and then――” he
shook his head seriously. “Yes, yes, Captain Ponsberry, give him work
by all means, if he wants it, and you have room for an extra hand.”
“We’ll make room,” put in the mate of the _Columbia_. “There is one
Kanaka in the gang isn’t worth his salt. I’ll discharge him and Larry
can come on first thing in the morning.”
So it was arranged; and at the livery stable where the turnout had been
hired the boy left the three men, feeling lighter in heart than he had
for a long while. A week’s work would mean at least six to nine dollars
in addition to the five given him, and who knew but that his newly
made friends would put in a good word for him elsewhere, or Captain
Ponsberry might even ask him to go on the Hong Kong trip. The more he
thought of the trip, the more strongly did it appeal to him.
“I might just as well see all of the world I can while I am at it,” he
argued mentally. “It won’t do me much good to go back to San Francisco
right away; for I can’t help Ben or Walter, and none of us can bring
Uncle Job to terms until we are of age and can apply for a legal
settlement of mother’s estate. If I went to Hong Kong with Captain
Ponsberry, and he promised to bring me back here or to San Francisco, I
know he would do it.”
As I have mentioned, the business streets of the thriving seaport
city were practically deserted, but up at Emma Square, a few blocks
off, the native brass band was giving its weekly evening concert.
Although not a musician himself, Larry loved to hear a band play, and
he wandered off in the direction, to join the crowd that stood close
to the performers. They were playing a popular air, which had drifted
hither from London by way of New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, as
such airs are bound to do. Larry had heard the same tune in Buffalo,
ground out on a mechanical piano, and for a brief instant a spasm of
homesickness passed over him.
“Music seems to be the same, no matter where a fellow goes,” he
thought. “What a conglomeration of people and what a lot of native
children! The Kanakas must love music. Well, it’s nice enough for
most――ha!”
Larry broke off short, and pushed his way through the crowd to the
other side of the bandstand. He had seen a face that he recognized
only too well. It was the face of the foreign sailor who had been his
room-mate on the night he had been robbed.
“See here, I want to talk to you,” he said, catching the fellow by the
sleeve of his pea-jacket.
The man turned and cast a heavy pair of eyes upon him, eyes which
peered from under bushy eyebrows. He was a Norwegian, Olan Oleson by
name, and his reputation well fitted that which Larry had given him.
“What you want?” asked Olan Oleson, grimly, evidently well understanding
what was coming.
“I want my money, that’s what I want,” demanded the youth, firmly.
“Your money? I know notank about your money,” and the Norwegian
shrugged his huge shoulders and attempted to turn away.
“I say you do know,” cried Larry. “You just give it back to me, or I’ll
have you locked up.”
At this Olan Oleson scowled darkly. “You mak one mistak; I no tak your
money,” he growled. “Let go!”
He jerked himself free, and slipped through the crowd. But Larry was
not to be shaken off thus easily, and he quickly followed, to catch the
Norwegian again by the jacket just as the crowd was cleared.
“You’ve got over six dollars belonging to me, and I’m bound to have it,
you rascal,” he said. “Come, now, no more fooling. I’m not in the humor
for it.”
“You go way, boy, or maybe you get hurt,” returned the Norwegian. “You
mak big mistak――I never see you before.”
“That isn’t true. You slept in the same room with me,――down to the
Traveller’s Rest,――and you went through my clothes while I was asleep,
and then got out. I’m going to have my money, or have the first
policeman we meet lock you up.”
The last words had scarcely left Larry’s lips when Olan Oleson drew
back, at the same time putting forth one of his broad feet behind the
youth. Then came a sudden and heavy shove, and Larry tripped over
backwards, to fall with great force at full length.
As the youth went down, his head struck the ground, and for a few
seconds he was stunned and bewildered. Then he leaped up and gazed
around him. The Norwegian was running down the highway as rapidly as
his heavy weight and natural awkwardness would permit. He was off in
the direction of the shipping.
“He’s going to get aboard of his boat and hide, if he can,” thought
Larry, and made after the man.
Several squares were passed, and Larry was slowly gaining in his
pursuit, when Olan Oleson turned and darted into a side street which
was but little better than an alleyway. In a few seconds more the boy
reached the spot, to find the fellow had disappeared as completely as
though the earth had swallowed him up.
The side street was filled with little shops, kept by Chinese and
the poorer class of Kanakas. It was a foul-smelling and vile-looking
district, and Larry went in but the distance of a block.
“I’ll not run any more risks,” he reasoned, as he retraced his steps.
“Some of those chaps look evil enough to knock a fellow down on the
slightest provocation. I might be robbed again, and that wouldn’t pay.”
Nevertheless, as he walked away, and sought a respectable lodging-house
in another part of the city, he determined to keep his eyes open for
the Norwegian so long as he should remain in Honolulu. But never once
did Larry dream of the important part Olan Oleson was to play in his
future life, causing him some amazing adventures, and placing him in
a position to take part in one of the greatest naval engagements of
modern history.