HOW THE LAUNCH CAME BACK TO SMUGGLERS’
When the Hadleys had left Mexico they had turned their steps toward
California. They had some friends there, but the place they finally
bought was not near any of them. It was many miles inland, too, for
Mrs. Hadley had said she did not want to live by the ocean.
“All my life I have been fond of it,” she said, “but now I don’t want
ever to have to see it again.”
So they had settled down on a little fruit farm in the interior.
They are not cheap, those little fruit farms of California. The price
asked per acre is usually enough to make your head swim till you get
used to it, and the Hadleys were not rich, which explains the fact that
every cent they had in the world was not enough to pay for that farm.
But they paid over what they had and set out to raise the rest from the
farm itself. In a few years they had succeeded.
Neither of them was old yet; they could still work, and did work. But
Mrs. Hadley’s face was quieter than it had been in former years, though
she went about patient and cheerful, a busy, kindly woman much beloved
by her neighbors.
Mr. Hadley was older than his wife by a number of years. He was
beginning to turn gray when their sorrow came to them, and his hair
whitened rapidly after that, and somehow he did not seem so tall as
he had been; but, aside from that, one would not have seen any great
change in him.
They made a fair living, nothing more, out of the farm. Sometimes
there is drought, you know, or there is failure of crops for some
other reason, or the crop is too large and then prices go down, and
transportation takes most of the profits in any case. And because of
all these things the Hadleys had been in California over six years
before they felt free to take a little visiting-trip among their
friends who lived in the State.
They had to plan most carefully then to keep within the limits of their
very modest income, for already there loomed on the horizon of the
future the expenses of the coming season. But they went and had a good
time, being heartily welcomed everywhere, and nowhere more heartily
than at the Harrises’, the last place on their list. The Harrises had
been old neighbors at the Port, being in fact none other than the
family who numbered among its members the Clarence to whom the Island
Hawks felt that they owed so much.
Clarence was not a boy now; he was a man grown, but he still lived at
home and helped his father run a fruit ranch of about four times the
size of that of the Hadleys. A man grown he was, but in many respects
the same boy, as was proved by the way his widowed sister’s children
trailed at his heels all day.
The Hadleys arrived in the evening, and it was not till the next day
at noon that the conversation turned upon their loss at the Port. The
Harrises had heard about the happening at the time, for Mrs. Harris
corresponded with Bobbie’s mother, and they had received, too, several
newspapers containing reports of the occurrence, these having been
marked and sent out by Mr. Cunningham to various persons to whom he
knew the event would be of interest. But there were, of course, details
that they had never heard, and it was only natural that they should ask
for the story and that Mr. Hadley should tell it over as they sat about
the table after the main part of the meal had been eaten.
Clarence was sitting between his lively little niece and nephew,
cracking walnuts for them, picking the meats out into their eager
little hands, and making little boats and turtles of the shells. The
little boy had slipped down and brought him the mucilage-bottle, a
piece of stiff paper, and his grandmother’s best shears, purloined from
her basket with many sideways glances.
Mr. Hadley told the tale quietly. They were undemonstrative people, and
after these years they could talk of this quite without emotion. He
told it all,--all the little incidents,--how Esther had been sent for
the forgotten bathing-suits the evening before; how Marian had started
out without sufficient wraps and Bobbie’s mother had made her take her
big cape; of the question Mr. Faston put to them as they were going
down to the pier and Delbert’s answer. Of the long search and nothing
to pay for it save the little handkerchief beaten into the sand. The
others asked a question now and then during the recital, but Clarence
sat silent, letting no word of the story escape him, but making no
comments as he worked quietly on the little shell boats.
When Mr. Hadley finished, he laid his shipbuilding tools down by his
shell-littered plate, and, looking into the white-haired father’s eyes,
spoke.
“Mr. Hadley,” he said, “Smugglers’ Island was not within fifty miles of
the Rosalie Group.”
* * * * *
In one of the busy seaport towns of our Pacific Coast Mr. Hadley sat
at a little restaurant table, eating an inexpensive meal alone. Every
cent that he and his wife possessed in the wide world had gone into
that little fruit farm up in the hills, and now by means of a mortgage
on it he had raised money enough to carry him back to the coast to take
up the old heart-breaking task. His passage was already engaged on a
steamer to sail for the Port the next day. Mrs. Hadley remained on the
farm to carry on the work there as best she could alone.
If this were a model story, Clarence would most assuredly have gone
with his old neighbor, but in real life people do not start on journeys
unless they have the railroad or steamship fare, which Clarence did not
have. It takes money to travel, and ordinary people cannot get money
so easily that they can afford to spend it on anything that is not
strictly necessary. Certainly Clarence wanted badly enough to go and
show the way to Smugglers’ and search for his old playmates, but the
best he could actually do was to make a map of the coast and San Moros
as well as he could remember it, and give it to Mr. Hadley, with the
name of the old Indian who had told him about Smugglers’ in the first
place, but who, doubtless, had slept with his fathers for years now.
What did Mr. Hadley expect to find on Smugglers’? Certainly not his
living children, for had they lived through the storm, even though the
launch were disabled or destroyed, Pearson would have found some way
to get back. No; it was only a confirmation of death which the father
looked for at best, something to show where and how his children had
perished,--some fragment of the launch, perhaps, all but buried in the
sand.
As he sat eating, there came slowly into his consciousness a face at a
table near him. He looked at it. Surely it had not been there when he
came in. Whose was it? Why did it seem to claim his attention more than
the dozen others on all sides? He tried to resume his meal, but--who
was that man? where had he seen that face before?
In a blinding flash it came to him. It was Pearson! Pearson, the man
whom Cunningham had sent with Marian and the children in the launch.
But, of course, that could not be. Pearson was dead,--dead these nearly
seven years ago,--but this fellow--
Just then the man looked up and met his gaze. It was the look of a
complete stranger. Mr. Hadley politely dropped his eyes. But he did not
drop his thinking, and so keenly conscious was he of that face that he
knew instantly when the other rose from the table.
Mr. Hadley glanced up again. The other was leaving his dinner
almost untouched. Mr. Hadley himself arose. His memory for faces was
remarkably good; that man had Pearson’s face, he might be a brother; at
any rate, he would speak to him; it could not be Pearson, but why was
he leaving his dinner uneaten?
The man, who was sauntering out apparently without haste, glanced back
and saw Mr. Hadley advancing toward him, and a look came over his face
that Mr. Hadley did not mistake. In a flash he knew it _was_ Pearson;
impossible as it seemed, it _was_ Pearson, and he was afraid!
A moment or two later a placid policeman just turning a corner was
knocked nearly off his feet and out of his dignity by a man coming
from the opposite direction, a man past middle age with white hair and
flashing eyes.
“Officer,” he cried, grasping the representative of the law by the arm,
“arrest that man! the one in brown with the striped coat!”
“What’s the charge?” inquired the policeman.
“There will be charge enough,” cried the other; and from his
earnestness and the rapidity with which the striped coat was
disappearing down the street, the policeman concluded that the owner
of it needed arresting and started forthwith in pursuit.
Within two blocks he had two of his brother officers chasing with him,
and farther on they gathered up another one, to say nothing of the
several onlookers who joined for the pure pleasure of the chase.
The policemen were used to chasing men, but Mr. Hadley was not, and
in spite of his utmost efforts he was soon left in the rear. As he
kept on, panting and puffing, and seeing more and more ground stretch
between himself and the bluecoats, and was finally left out of sight
altogether, it came over him what a good idea it would have been for
them to have carried paper scent, as the boys used to when they played
hare and hounds, for now they were like to catch their man so far away
that he would never be able to find them.
And, indeed, it was a long and merry chase, and when it came to an end,
as luck would have it, a patrol-wagon was just passing, and into it the
triumphant bluecoats thrust their man in the striped coat, one of them
going with him while the rest dispersed, the first retracing his steps
till he met the breathless Mr. Hadley.
“Got him? Of course we got him. He’s safe enough, never you worry. You
can go down and appear against him in the morning.”
“In the morning!” gasped Mr. Hadley. “In the morning! I’m not waiting
till morning. It’s right now that I want to talk to him!”
The officer regarded him a moment, and then, “Would yer mind tellin’ me
what the man has been doin’?” he inquired.
Mr. Hadley leaned against a building till he had regained his breath
and his self-control.
“Six or seven years ago,” he said, “my five children went out in a
little gasoline launch for a day’s excursion. That man went with them
to run the launch for them. We never saw them again and could get no
trace of them, and supposed they had all drowned together. But to-day
I ran across him, and when he saw that I recognized him and was going
to speak to him, he ran. You will understand that I can’t wait till
to-morrow to know what became of my children.”
The officer glanced at his watch. “My own time is up,” he said. “I’ll
walk up with you.”
“Take your time an’ get your breath back,” he added presently. “He is
safe enough; ’twas Larry O’Flannagan had him by the shoulder, an’ no
man ever yet broke from Larry’s grip when he once got a good grip on
’im. He’s safe enough.”
Safe enough he certainly was, and an hour later he stood face to face
with the father of the Hadley children.
“You’ve made a mistake,” he repeated. “You’ve made a mistake. My name
is not Pearson. My name is Franks, John Franks. I never lived in the
Port; never was across the line into Mexico at all, in fact. No, I
never saw you before, not to my knowledge at least.”
He said it all over again stubbornly, and, with dark and scowling face,
he declared that Mr. Hadley would be sorry for this trouble he was
making him, and he wanted it understood most emphatically that he had
never been in Mexico six years ago or at any other time and that his
name was John Franks.
But Mr. Hadley knew he was _not_ mistaken, he knew the man _was_
Pearson, and he would not back down or give one hair’s breadth, and
under his steady, stern gaze Pearson suddenly threw up the game with
a vehement burst of profanity, winding up with the inquiry as to what
earthly difference it made to Hadley about the launch, anyhow?
Mr. Hadley stared at him a moment.
[Illustration: “WHAT DID YOU DO WITH MY CHILDREN?”]
“Launch!” he said slowly,--“launch! What do you suppose I care about
the launch? What I want to know is, what did you do with my children?”
It was now Pearson’s turn to stare. His jaw dropped, and his face
turned ashy.
“Your children? What do you mean? Didn’t they find Miss Marian and the
kids all right?”
“Find them! Where? Where did you leave them? They’ve never been seen
from that day to this. Speak up! What did you do with them?”
Pearson crumpled down into a chair. There was no more resistance in him.
“Good Heavens! Hadley, I never dreamed of any harm coming to them. I’ll
tell you all I know about it.”
And tell it he did, holding nothing back. He told it all,--how
Cunningham had discharged him for no fault of his, so he declared, and
how he had vowed that he would get even with the dude; he wouldn’t
take dirty treatment from no man. He had nothing against the girl and
the kids; he wouldn’t have hurt them, but he didn’t suppose it would.
People were going out to those picnics every day, and they often camped
overnight, and when he saw what a daisy the launch was,--she ran like
oil,--it just came to him that he could leave them there on the Island
and run the launch over to Santa Anita, where he knew a couple of
fellows who would take it off his hands.
So he did it; he was owing the fellow at Santa Anita about seventy-five
dollars that he would have paid long before if Cunningham had not fired
him; and he got there before the storm got really bad and hunted up his
friend that night and found he would be glad to take the launch on the
debt and pay him the difference.
The storm was sure a bad one, but he had thought that Miss Marian and
the kids would be all right, for the boy had been telling about a house
on the Island around on the sheltered side and a cave, too, and he
left them all the food and blankets, and he thought Cunningham would
be after them the first thing in the morning. He’d left Santa Anita as
soon as the storm was over so anybody could leave, and, of course, he
had not heard anything about the tragedy at the Port, but he’d swear by
everything holy that he never dreamed of any harm coming to them.
Mr. Hadley explained then; he told the man huddled up before him of
the search that had been made, and how he himself had just in the last
week learned what and where Smugglers’ Island was, and how he was even
then on his way to see if after all these years there was some trace
still to be found in San Moros.
When he had finished, Pearson straightened up a little.
“Look a-here, Hadley,” he said, “I’ve been some tough, but I’d never
’a’ done a thing like that if I’d ’a’ known it, and since then I’ve
been straight. I told you the truth when I said my name was Franks;
that is my name; I used Pearson at the Port for other reasons, but when
I got back to God’s country I went back to my own name. I was married
under it about a year later. My wife is a fine woman, and we’ve got two
fine children. I’ve been as straight as a string and we’ve got some
ahead. O Hadley, don’t put me through for this!--it will come harder on
my wife and the kids than it will on me if you do,--and I’ll go down
with you and help you hunt, show you the way and all; and you can use
my money to the last cent; it ain’t much, but it’s all yourn to carry
on the search; and I’ll stand by you and help you as long as there’s
life in me, for, as God is my witness, Hadley, I never meant no harm
to Miss Marian and your kids. I wouldn’t ask it if’t wasn’t for my own
kids.”
Mr. Hadley was thinking. He believed the man was telling the truth, and
no punishment meted out to him would bring back the dead. As far as
that went, what punishment would be fitter than to take him back with
him and let him see, if, indeed, there was anything left to see, the
terrible suffering his act had caused? And there would be something
left; not six years nor seven would destroy what five deaths had left
on that grim island in San Moros.
Before they sailed, Mr. Hadley had time to write to his wife and tell
her of his finding Pearson and of what he had learned from him and of
the latter’s agony of remorse. After receiving the letter, Mrs. Hadley
sat down and wrote most of its contents to Mrs. Harris, for she knew
their old friends would be anxious to hear any news. After hearing that
letter read, Clarence declared that he could have lived seven years, or
twice seven years on Smugglers’, and he dared bet Marian could. But
his father and mother were quite sure there was no hope of that.
“Why,” said Mrs. Harris, “Jennie would not have lived three days after
exposure to that storm. I never knew such a delicate child.”
“And,” Mr. Harris declared, “if they had lived any length of time at
all, some one would have seen some sign of them in all this time.
Probably they took refuge in that cave and were washed out and drowned
the first night.”
“Perhaps,” he admitted. “I’d forgotten about Jennie being so sickly,
and Delbert himself was not what you would call rugged, but if they
lived through the storm there’s a chance, I tell you. Their not being
seen since doesn’t cut any figure. There was a reason for that. I never
told Delbert, for I didn’t want to frighten him, and he was a nervous
little chap, but no Indian ever went to Smugglers’. You couldn’t have
hired one to, and I tell you, if they lived through the first night,
there’s a chance! and oh, glory! _wouldn’t_ I have liked to go along?”
The steamer that Mr. Hadley and Pearson had taken passage on was pretty
well filled up with passengers. Among others there was a group of
mining men going to the Port, whence they would make their way inland,
and there was a wealthy Mexican family also bound for the Port, with a
half-dozen fine-looking daughters who reminded you of all the Spanish
romance you had ever read every time you looked at them.
There were various others, and among them all Mr. Hadley and Pearson
attracted no particular attention until the morning they were nearing
the Port, when it was learned that Mr. Franks and the white-haired
gentleman with him had a launch aboard and were going to be set down in
it out in the Gulf and were not going into the Port at all. It seemed
that the captain had known about it all the time, but to the passengers
it seemed like a very queer thing to do.
However, some one made the announcement that the two were going to
examine some guano caves for a rich company, and that seemed to explain
everything, and the passengers watched with interest while the launch
was being made ready and lowered, and the mining men all hung over the
rail and cheered as she shot off across the water, and the pretty
señoritas waved their handkerchiefs, and then everybody turned his
attention to watching the channel, for if the passengers did not keep a
sharp lookout, what was to hinder the captain from forgetting himself
and coming up sharp on the rocks?
[Illustration: THE PRETTY SEÑORITAS WAVED THEIR HANDKERCHIEFS]
They passed the Rosalie Group before long. On dark and cloudy nights
people on boats passing there can hear children crying, and if the
night is actually stormy, you are likely to see Marian Hadley walk
across the white-capped waves wrapped in a long cloak. This is a solemn
fact. The captain told it himself. He said he did not tell the tale at
night. No one connected the name of Hadley with the white-haired Mr.
Hadley who had left them in the launch.
Pearson was running the launch. Mr. Hadley had Clarence’s map spread
out on his knee. There was silence between them. Pearson’s face looked
drawn and old. Mr. Hadley was tired and patient; he was looking at the
map, but he was not thinking of it.
Pearson leaned forward to look at the little map.
“I don’t remember just what the shore-line looked like along here,” he
said, “but I guess I shan’t miss San Moros.”
He did not, either. About noon he turned into the place, remembering
Delbert’s instructions which tallied with the map correctly. The tide
was high just then, anyway, and there was no danger of sandbars or
sunken rocks. In a little more he could point out to Mr. Hadley the
outline of Smugglers’ Island as he remembered it.
Afterwards, as they got pretty close to it, he said in a low voice,
“Maybe we’d better go in back of it. That’s where they said the harbor
and the pier were, and it will be a better place to moor the launch
than this pile of rocks ahead.”
Mr. Hadley assented; so they turned her nose and ran out by the sandy
point and round it in back into the harbor.
It seemed shadowy in there. It was dark and uncanny, Pearson thought.
He shuddered. Not a sign of life had they seen other than the seabirds,
for the old canoe was too far up the beach to catch the eye, and the
wickiup was so covered with vines that it blended perfectly with its
background, especially as the doors and window were shut.
Had they landed, they would have seen the path. Had Marian’s
watermelons been a little higher, they would have attracted attention
by reason of their regular rows, but they were scarcely above the holes
yet. At the pier, too, there was nothing to tell them anything. The
raft was farther along, back of some mango bushes.
There were the bananas and the palms. The corral fence was so
overgrown that, like the wickiup, it attracted no attention till one
was very close to it.
They stepped out of the launch and moored her to the pier. Mr. Hadley
noticed that Pearson’s face was gray again. He was losing his nerve.
It seemed to him as if the air in this narrow slit in the hills were
suffocating him.
“I’ll take the things out,” he said to his companion.
“All right,” said Mr. Hadley. His voice was quiet and even, and,
turning, he walked toward the hill.
Pearson stepped back into the launch, cursing himself under his breath
for his own lack of self-control, for he was trembling; but taking the
things out and carrying them up past the pier steadied him a little.
Then he started to follow Mr. Hadley, and was glancing about wondering
if there was any particular choice of spots to pitch camp in, when
something on the hilltop caught his eyes. He stopped and stared with
his mouth open. Out from among the bushes into an open space came
one, two, three, four, five persons, and some of them were children!
A sudden weakness came over him. He dropped where he was, and for a
moment everything went whirling black. When he came to himself he was
sitting on the ground, his knees clasped in his arms, as he rocked back
and forth, repeating over and over his wife’s name, “Rose, Rose, Rose,
it’s them! O Rose, it’s them! I ain’t killed ’em, Rose! Rose!”
[Illustration: SUDDENLY CAME A CHORUS OF CLEAR YOUNG VOICES]
Mr. Hadley had scanned the hillside to no avail as he started to walk
toward it, and then he noticed what seemed to be a path leading to a
mass of brilliant bloom beyond. He followed in the path. The tracks
seemed to be those of deer.
But when he came to the blossoms he was surprised. There were
nasturtiums and poppies, a wild riot of them beside a little spring,
or shallow, scooped-out well, that was walled with rocks except at one
place where stepping-stones led down. And there, sitting half buried in
the clear water, shaded by overhanging bloom, was a two-quart Mason jar
about half full of oysters.
A most charming refrigerator truly, and Mr. Hadley stared at it
stupidly, not even yet understanding, when suddenly came a chorus
of clear young voices calling to him from above, and, turning, the
father saw what he had never hoped to see again this side the gates of
heaven,--his five children racing down the hill to meet him.