It was the evening before Aynsley's departure, and he and Clay and the
Osbornes were sitting on the veranda. Not a breath of wind was stirring,
and the inlet stretched back, smooth as oil and shining in the evening
light. The tops of the tall cedars were motionless; not a ripple broke
upon the beach; the only sound was the soft splash of water somewhere
among the trees.
The heat had been trying all day, and Aynsley glanced languidly at the
faint white line of snow that rose above the silver mist in the blue
distance.
"It would be cool up there, and that snow makes one long for the bracing
North," he said. "This is one of the occasions when I don't appreciate
being a mill owner. To-morrow I'll be busy with dusty books, in a
stifling office that rattles with the thumping of engines."
"It's good for a man to work," Miss Dexter remarked.
"No doubt, but it has its disadvantages now and then, as you would agree
if a crowd of savage strikers had chased you about your mill. Then, if
it weren't for my business ties, I'd send the captain word to get steam
up on the yacht, and take you all to the land of mist and glaciers,
where you can get fresh air to breathe."
"Wouldn't you miss the comforts, though I dare say you call them
necessities, that surround you here? One understands that people live
plainly in Alaska."
Miss Dexter indicated the beautifully made table which stood within
reach, set out with glasses and a big silver tankard holding iced
liquor. Round this, choice fruit from California was laid on artistic
plates.
"We could take some of them along; and we're not so luxurious as you
think," Aynsley replied. "In fact, I feel just now that I'd rather live
on canned goods and splash about in the icy water, like some fishermen
we met, than sit in my sweltering office, worrying over accounts and
labor troubles."
"Those fishermen seem to stick in your memory," Ruth interposed.
"Is it surprising? You must admit that they roused even your curiosity,
and you hadn't my excuse because you hadn't seen them."
"What fishermen were they?" Clay asked.
Ruth wished she had not introduced the subject.
"Some men he met on an island in the North," she said with a laugh.
"Aynsley seems to have envied their simple life, and I dare say it would
be pleasant in this hot weather. Still, I can't imagine his seriously
practising it; handling wet nets and nasty, slimy fish, for example."
"It wasn't the way they lived that impressed me," Aynsley explained. "It
was the men. With one exception, they didn't match their job; and so far
as I could see, they hadn't many nets. Then something one fellow said
suggested that he didn't care whether they caught much fish or not."
"After all, they may have been amateur explorers like yourself, though
they weren't fortunate enough to own a big yacht. I don't suppose you
would have been interested if you had known all about them."
"Where was the island?" Clay broke in.
Aynsley imagined that Ruth was anxious to change the subject, and he was
willing to indulge her.
"I remember the latitude," he said carelessly, "but there are a lot of
islands up there, and I can't think of the longitude west."
Clay looked sharply at Osborne, and Ruth noticed that her father seemed
disturbed.
"I guess you could pick the place out on the chart?" Clay asked Aynsley.
"It's possible. I don't, however, carry charts about. They're bulky
things, and not much use except when you are at sea."
"I have one," said Osborne and Ruth felt anxious when he rang a bell.
She suspected that she had been injudicious in starting the topic, and
she would rather it were dropped, but she hesitated about giving Aynsley
a warning glance. His father might surprise it, and she would have to
offer Aynsley an explanation afterward. Getting up, she made the best
excuse that occurred to her and went into the house. She knew where the
chart was kept, and thought that she might hide it. She was too late,
however, because as she took it from a bookcase a servant opened the
door.
"Mr. Osborne sent me for a large roll of thick paper on the top shelf,"
the maid said.
As she had the chart in her hands, Ruth was forced to give it to the
girl, and when she returned to the veranda Aynsley pointed out the
island. Ruth saw her father's lips set tight.
"What kind of boat did the fellows have?" Clay asked.
"She was quite a smart sloop, but very small." Aynsley tried to lead his
father away from the subject. "At least, that was the rig she'd been
intended for, by the position of the mast, but they'd divided the single
headsail for handier working. After all, we're conservative in the West,
for you'll still find people sticking to the old big jib, though it's an
awkward sail in a breeze. They've done away with it on the Atlantic
coast, and I sometimes think we're not so much ahead of the folks down
East--"
"What was her name?" Clay interrupted him.
Aynsley saw no strong reason for refusing a reply, particularly as he
knew that if he succeeded in putting off his father now, the information
would be demanded later.
"She was called _Cetacea_."
Ruth unobtrusively studied the group. Miss Dexter was frankly
uninterested; and Aynsley looked as if he did not know whether he had
done right or not. Osborne's face was firmly set and Clay had an
ominously intent and resolute expression. Ruth suspected that she had
done a dangerous thing in mentioning the matter, and she regretted her
incautiousness; though she did not see where the danger lay. For all
that, she felt impelled to learn what she could.
"Was it the island where you were wrecked?" she asked Clay.
He looked at her rather hard, and then laughed.
"I think so, but the experience was unpleasant, and I don't feel tempted
to recall the thing."
Afterward he talked amusingly about something else, and half an hour had
passed when he got up.
"I expect it's cooler on the beach," he said. "Will any of you come
along?"
They sat still, except Osborne, who rose and followed him, and when they
reached a spot where the trees hid them from the house Clay stopped.
"I suppose what you heard was a bit of a shock," he remarked.
"It was a surprise. I don't think you were tactful in making so much of
the affair."
"One has to take a risk, and if I'd waited until I had Aynsley alone and
then made him tell me what he knew, it might have looked significant. In
a general way, the thing you're willing to talk over in public isn't of
much account."
"There's truth in that," Osborne assented.
"I have no wish to set the boy thinking," Clay resumed. "I take it we're
both anxious that our children should believe the best of us."
His glance was searching, and Osborne made a sign of agreement.
"What are you going to do about it?"
"Trace the sloop. We don't want mysterious strangers prospecting round
that reef. When I've found out all I can, the fellows will have to be
bought or beaten off."
"Very well; I leave the thing to you."
"Rather out of your line now?" Clay suggested with an ironical smile.
"However, I will admit you deserve some sympathy."
"For that matter, we both need it. You're no better off than I am."
"I think I am," Clay replied. "My character is pretty well known and has
been attacked so often that nobody attaches much importance to a fresh
disclosure; in fact, people seem to find something humorous in my
smartness. You're fixed differently; though you slipped up once, you
afterward took a safe and steady course."
Osborne lighted a cigar to hide his feelings; for his companion's jibe
had reached its mark. He had when poverty rendered the temptation
strong, engaged in an unlawful conspiracy with Clay, and the profit he
made by it had launched him on what he took care should be a respectable
business career. Now and then, perhaps, and particularly when he acted
in concert with Clay, his dealings would hardly have passed a high
standard of ethics, but on the whole they could be defended, and he
enjoyed a good name on the markets. Now a deed he heartily regretted,
and would have undone had he been able, threatened to rise from the
almost forgotten past and torment him. Worse than all, he might again be
forced into a crooked path to cover up his fault.
"We won't gain anything by arguing who might suffer most," he said as
coolly as he could.
"No; I guess that's useless," Clay agreed. "Well, I must get on those
fellows' trail and see what I can do."
They strolled along the beach for a while, and then went back to the
others.
While Clay traced her movements as far as they could be learned, the
_Cetacea_ was slowly working north. She met with light, baffling winds,
and calms, and then was driven into a lonely inlet by a fresh gale. Here
she was detained for some time, and adverse winds still dogged her
course when she put to sea again, though they were no longer gentle, but
brought with them a piercing rawness from the Polar ice. Her crew grew
anxious and moody as they stubbornly thrashed her to windward under
shortened sail, for every day at sea increased the strain on their
finances and the open-water season was short.
In the sharp cold of a blustering morning Jimmy got up from the locker
upon which he had spent a few hours in heavy sleep. His limbs felt
stiff, his clothes were damp, and at his first move he bumped his head
against a deck-beam. Sitting down with muttered grumbling, he pulled on
his soaked knee-boots and looked moodily about. Daylight was creeping
through the cracked skylight, and showed that the underside of the deck
was dripping. Big drops chased one another along the slanted beams and
fell with a splash into the lee bilge. Water oozed in through the seams
on her hove-up weather side and washed about the lower part of the
inclined floor, several inches deep. The wild plunging and the muffled
roar outside the planking showed that she was sailing hard and the wind
was fresh.
Jimmy grumbled at his comrades for not having pumped her out, and then
shivered as he jammed himself against the centerboard trunk and tried to
light the rusty stove. It was wet and would not draw and the smoke
puffed out. He was choking and nearly blinded when he put the kettle on
and went up on deck, somewhat short in temper. Moran was sitting
stolidly at the helm, muffled in a wet slicker, with the spray blowing
about him; Bethune crouched in the shelter of the coaming, while
white-topped seas with gray sides tumbled about the boat. An angry red
flush was spreading, rather high up, in the eastern sky.
"You made a lot of smoke," Bethune remarked.
"I did," said Jimmy. "If you'll get forward and swing the funnel-cowl,
which you might have done earlier, you'll let some of it out. I'm glad
it's your turn to cook, but you had better spend ten minutes at the pump
before you go."
Bethune, rising, stretched himself with an apologetic laugh.
"Oh, well," he said; "I was so cold I felt I didn't want to do
anything."
"It's not an uncommon sensation," Jimmy replied. "The best way to get
rid of it is to work. If you'll shift that cowl, I'll prime the pump."
Bethune shuffled forward, and, coming back, pumped for a few strokes.
Then he stopped and leaned on the handle.
"You really think we'll raise the island to-day?" he asked.
"Yes. But it isn't easy to shoot the sun when you can hardly see it and
have a remarkably unsteady horizon. Then, though she has laid her course
for the last two days, I haven't much confidence in the log we're
towing."
He indicated the wet line that ran over the stern and stretched back to
where a gleam of brass was visible in the hollow of a sea.
"What could you expect?" Bethune asked. "We got the thing for half its
proper price, and, to do it justice, it goes pretty well after a bath in
oil, and when it stops it does so altogether. You know how to deal with
a distance recorder that sticks and stays so, but one that sticks and
goes on again plays the devil."
"Talking's easier than pumping," Jimmy said suggestively.
"It is, but I feel like working off a few more remarks. They occurred to
me while I sat behind the coaming, numbed right through, last night. I
suppose you have noticed how the poor but enterprising man is generally
handicapped. He gets no encouragement in taking the hard and virtuous
path. It needs some nerve to make a start, and afterward, instead of
things getting easier, you fall in with all kinds of obstacles you
couldn't reasonably expect. Even the elements conspire against you; it's
always windward work."
"I suppose this means you're sorry you came?"
"Not exactly; but I've begun to wonder what's the good of it all. I
haven't slept in dry clothes for a fortnight. It's a week since any of
us had a decent meal; and my slicker has rubbed a nasty sore on my
wrist. All the time I could have had three square meals a day, and spent
my leisure reading a dirty newspaper and watching them sweep up the dead
flies in the hotel lounge. What I want to know is--whether any
ambition's worth the price you have to pay for gratifying it?"
"I should say that depends on your temperament."
"Bethune does some fool-talking now and then," Moran commented from his
post at the helm. "When you go to sea for your living, you must expect
to get up against all a man can stand for; and if you don't put up a
good fight, she'll beat you. That's one reason you'd better get your
pumping done before she ships a comber."
With a gesture of acquiescence Bethune resumed his task, and presently
went below while Jimmy took the helm. The breeze freshened during the
morning, and the sea got heavier, but it dropped in the afternoon, when
they ran into a fog belt, which Jimmy thought indicated land. As the
days were getting shorter, they set the topsail, and looked out eagerly
until a faint gray blur appeared amid the haze, perhaps a mile away.
Closing with it, they made out the beach, which Jimmy searched with the
glasses after consulting his notebook.
"Luff!" he called to Bethune. "Now steady at that; I've got my first two
marks." Then he motioned to Moran. "Clear your anchor!"
A few minutes afterward he completed his four-point bearing, and the
_Cetacea_ stopped, head to wind, with a rattle of running chain. The sea
was comparatively smooth in the lee of the land, and ran in a long swell
that broke into a curl of foam here and there. Bethune took up the
glasses and turned them on the beach.
"It is some time since high-water, and we ought to see her soon," he
said. "I'm trying to find the big boulder on the point." He paused and
put down the glasses. "Do you see anything?"
"No," said Moran gruffly; "she should be showing."
"That's true," Bethune agreed. "The tallest timber used to be above
water when the top of the boulder was just awash, and now its bottom's a
foot from the tide."
Jimmy said nothing, but seizing the dory savagely, he threw her over the
rail and jumped into her with a coil of rope. Moran followed and lowered
a bight of the rope while Jimmy rowed. Some minutes passed, but they
felt nothing, and Bethune watched them from the sloop with an intent
face. It looked as if the wreck had broken up and disappeared. Then as
the dory turned, taking a different track, the rope tightened and Moran
looked up.
"Got her now! She's moved, and there may not be much of her holding
together."
Jimmy stopped rowing, and there was silence for a moment or two. It
would take time to unpack and fit the diving pumps, and sunset was near,
but neither of them felt equal to bearing the strain of suspense until
daybreak.
"It may blow in the morning," Jimmy said.
"That's so," agreed Moran, pulling off his pilot coat. "I'm going down."
There was a raw wind, the tide ran strong, and the water was chilled by
the Polar ice; but Moran hurriedly stripped off his damp clothes and
stood a moment, a finely poised figure that gleamed sharply white
against gray rocks and slaty water. Then he plunged, and the others
waited, watching the ripple of the tide when the sea closed over him.
Some moments passed before his head broke the surface farther off than
they expected. Jimmy pulled toward him, and after a scramble, which
nearly upset the craft, he got on board and struggled into his clothes.
Then he spoke.
"She's there, but so far as I can see, she's canted well over with her
bilge deep in the sand."
Jimmy and Bethune were filled with keen relief. They might have
increased trouble in reaching the strong-room, but it was something to
know that the wreck had not gone to pieces in their absence.
Jimmy picked up the end of the rope and tied on a buoy. Then he pulled
back to the sloop, where Bethune cooked a somewhat extravagant supper.