THE "RESOLUTE" FATHOMS THE PLOT
As the _Resolute_ steamed into Key West harbor, Dan Frazier was on the
lookout for his friend Barton Pringle who almost always ran down to the
wharf when the whistle of Captain Wetherly's tug bellowed the tidings
of her return from sea. This time, however, Dan felt that a shadow had
fallen over their close comradeship which had been wholly frank and
confiding through all their years together. Dan could not forget the
events of the night in which Barton's father had behaved like a man
caught in the act of planning something dark and evil.
But the sight of Barton Pringle waiting on the end of the wharf to
catch the _Resolute's_ heaving lines and welcome him home, made Dan
wonder afresh if he had not been too hasty and suspicious. Barton's
honest, beaming face was in itself a voucher for his bringing up amid
sweet and wholesome influences. Nor was Dan ready to believe that a bad
father could have such a straight and manly son. Before the boys were
within shouting range of each other, Captain Wetherly sent for Dan and
told him:
"You can stay home until you get further orders. I don't expect to
leave port again for several days. Tell your mother that I will run in
for a little while after supper to-night."
Dan thanked him with a grin of delight and ran below to yell to Barton
Pringle on the wharf:
"Hello, Bart. Come aboard and help me scrub decks and get things
ship-shape and I'll be ready to jump ashore just so much sooner."
Barton made a flying leap aboard as soon as the lines were made fast,
and asked as he picked up a pail and broom:
"What kind of a voyage did you have, Dan? Anything exciting happen?"
"Nothing to speak of," replied Dan, and he felt his face redden with a
guilty sense of secrecy. He was about to say that he had met Barton's
father in Pensacola, without mentioning how or where, when the other
lad spoke up:
"I tried to get away for a little trip myself. Father went up the Gulf
on the mail steamer and I begged him to take me along. But he was going
only to Tampa to see about buying a couple of sponging schooners, and
he said he was in too much of a hurry to bother with me."
"Going only to Tampa," echoed Dan with a foolish smile. "Oh, yes, only
as far as Tampa. Sorry you had to miss it, Bart. How's everything with
you? Have you bent the new main-sail on the _Sombrero_?"
Barton plunged into an excited discussion about the fast little sloop
which the boys owned in partnership, while Dan tried to keep his wits
about him, for he was thrown into fresh doubt and uneasiness by the
news that Jeremiah Pringle had said he was going to Tampa instead of
Pensacola. Usually the two boys had so many important matters to talk
about that one could find a chance to break in only when the other
paused for lack of breath, but now Dan found it hard to avoid awkward
silences on his part. He was glad when old Bill McKnight, the chief
engineer of the _Resolute_, waddled up to them and announced with a
sweeping gesture toward the city streets:
"Back again to the palm trees and the brave Cubanos and the excitements
of a metropolis smeared over a chunk of coral reef so blamed small
that I'm scared to be out after dark without a lantern for fear I'll
walk overboard. I'm due to start a revolution in Honduras, and to-day
I enlist a few hundred brave and desperate Key West cigar-makers, Dan.
I'm perishin' for a little war and tumult. Look out for my signal
rockets."
With that Mr. McKnight jauntily twirled his grizzled moustache and
ambled up the wharf. He had been engineer of the _Resolute_ when she
was running the Spanish blockade of Cuba, as a filibuster to carry arms
and ammunitions to the revolutionists, and his cool-headed courage
had fetched the tug out of some perilous places. The ponderous,
good-natured engineer was very fond of Dan and every little while
invited him, with all seriousness, to join some new and absurd scheme
for touching off a Spanish-American revolution, with dazzling promises
of loot and glory.
The boys laughed as they gazed after him, and Barton said:
"Filibustering must keep your hair standing on end, eh, Dan? I reckon
it beats wrecking, though you couldn't get an old Key Wester to admit
it. There hasn't been a wreck on the Reef for goodness knows how long.
Father promised to take me with him on the next wrecking job if it
isn't blowing too hard when the schooners go out to the Reef."
"Well, you can count on seeing Captain Jim Wetherly and the _Resolute_
on the job no matter how hard she blows," smiled Dan with a spark of
the rivalry which flamed high between the tow-boat and the schooner
fleet. Willing hands made short work of Dan's tasks, and he hurried
into his shore-going clothes while Barton swung his legs from the bunk
and retailed the latest news about ships, and the sponge market, and
the High School base-ball team which had won a match from the soldiers
of the garrison. They parted a little later, Dan eager to run home and
see his mother, and Barton anxious to make the _Sombrero_ ready for a
trial spin.
As Dan sped toward the cottage on the other side of the narrow island,
he said to himself with a puzzled frown:
"Everything Bart talked about made me think of the other night in
Pensacola: his father's going away, and the next wreck on the Reef, and
all that. And he thinks his father is the strongest, bravest man that
ever went to sea. Maybe he is, but I wish he wasn't related to Bart."
A slender, sweet-faced woman in black was waiting in a dooryard shaded
by tropical verdure as Dan rounded the corner. She had heard the
far-echoing, resonant whistle of the _Resolute_, and knew that her boy
was home again. Her husband, for many years employed in the Key West
Custom House, had died only two years before, and the love and yearning
in her eyes at sight of Dan would have told you that he was her only
child and her all-in-all if you had never seen them together before. He
was taller than she, and, as her sturdy son stooped to kiss her with
his arms about her neck, she said:
"I wanted to be at the wharf to meet you, Danny boy, but I couldn't
leave home in time. Bart Pringle's mother ran in to talk to me about
sending him away to school. I told her I wanted to do as much for you,
but the way wasn't open yet. They can afford it, and Bart is too bright
and ambitious to settle down in a Key West rut."
They walked to the wide veranda across which the cool trade-wind swept,
and Mrs. Frazier ordered Dan to take the biggest, easiest wicker chair,
after which she vanished indoors and almost instantly reappeared with a
plate laden with pie and doughnuts.
"You had breakfast in that stuffy little galley, I suppose," laughed
she, "but I know you are always hungry. You can stow these trifles away
as a deck-load, can't you?"
Dan confessed that he could carry any amount of cargo of this kind and
then, between bites of a home-made doughnut, spoke very earnestly:
"Bart ought to go North to school, mother, and I will tell him so and
back you up for all I'm worth. It will do him good to break away from
home. And Uncle Jim Wetherly will put up the same line of argument to
Mrs. Pringle whenever you say the word."
"Jim is my dearest brother, but I can't picture him as showing very
much excitement about Bart's education," she responded. "He thinks
there's no finer thing in the world than to be master and owner of a
sea-going tow-boat. Why do you think he will be interested, Dan?"
Her son took her hand in his hard, sun-burned paw and with a stammering
effort began his confession of all that he had heard and seen after
Jerry Pringle and the English ship-master had been run down in their
small boat. The mother listened with wide-eyed astonishment, and then
with something like indignation she cried:
"Why, Dan, you ought to be writing novels for a living! That poor
Captain Bruce of the _Kenilworth_ was out of his head, and you know
that Jerry Pringle has a sour, gruff way with him even when he's on dry
land. I can't believe it of Mary Pringle's husband. It is a dreadful
thing to suspect him of, plotting to wreck a fine, big steamer."
"That's just like a woman," declared Dan with a very grown-up air of
wisdom. "Mrs. Pringle hasn't anything to do with it. And you are like
Uncle Jim, always refusing to think other folks are a bit less square
and decent than you are. Ask him to-night what _he_ thinks about it,
but don't breathe a word to anybody else, will you?"
"I shall scold him for putting such silly ideas in your head," firmly
announced Mrs. Frazier. "You couldn't have pieced this plot together
all by yourself, even if you are as big and strong as a young tow-boat."
"All right," said Dan good-humoredly. "Only I hope Barton will go away
to school before the explosion happens. For if I'm right, Jerry Pringle
may be in disgrace before he's a year older. Captain Jim will never let
up on him if the _Kenilworth_ does happen to be stranded on the Reef."
When Captain Wetherly strolled in after supper, his sister began at
once to cross-question him. He evaded her as far as possible and
finally declared:
"I knew that Dan would tell you. I don't want him to keep anything from
his mother. But it must go no farther than this. I will say this much,
that when the _Kenilworth_ is due in the Florida Straits on her next
voyage outward bound, the _Resolute_ will be a good deal less than a
thousand miles away. And just for curiosity I have cabled to London to
find out if she is really chartered to Vera Cruz for her next voyage,
and what kind of a reputation her owners bear. They may be interested
in losing her, do you see?
"Speaking of cables, Dan," he continued; "I got orders this afternoon
to go to Charleston at once and tow that big suction dredge to
Santiago. We shall be able to get away in a couple of days. You had
better come aboard to-morrow night."
"Why, you'll be gone for weeks and weeks, Dan," sorrowfully cried his
mother.
"I won't waste any time, nor try to save coal on this voyage," said
Captain Jim with a grim smile. "I want to be a good deal nearer the
Reef than Santiago, about two months from now."
"It's a long, long while to have my boy away from me," Mrs. Frazier
murmured with a sigh. "But this tremendous conspiracy will be all blown
out of your heads before you come home again."
After a luxurious night's slumber in a real bed, Dan felt as if the
cobwebs had been brushed from his busy brain and that the bright world
held better employment than brooding over what might happen to somebody
else. He set forth to find Barton and arrange a match race between the
_Sombrero_ and a rival craft, to be sailed before Dan had to go to sea.
The challenge being accepted on the spot, there was much to be done
in a very few hours, and Dan heartily agreed with Barton's opinion
delivered from the cockpit of their rakish craft:
"It is a pity we have anything to do but sail boats for the fun of it.
What a bully sou'west breeze we're going to have this afternoon, Dan!
Can you coax old Bill McKnight to come along for ballast?"
"Yes, if we promise him to smuggle some rifles and dynamite in the
hold," laughed the other.
After dinner, Dan sauntered along the water front in the hope of
finding the mighty bulk of the chief engineer to serve as two hundred
and seventy pounds of desirable live ballast. The south-bound mail
steamer, from Tampa for Havana, had just landed her passengers, and
foremost among them loomed the tail and lanky figure of Jeremiah
Pringle. The wrecking master spied Dan and hurried to meet him in the
narrow street. His manner was no longer hostile and sullen, and Dan
was amazed to have a greeting hand stretched toward him and to hear a
cordial voice:
"How's the boy? You and Bart as busy as ever? I went up the Gulf to
buy a schooner or two, and I found a beauty. I need a mate for her,
Dan. You are young, but you know more about salt water than most men.
It means double the wages of a deck-hand on that sooty old tow-boat. I
want you to go to Tampa and help fetch her down right away, which is
why I spring the proposition on you kind of off-hand and sudden."
It was a chance at which Dan would have jumped a week before. Something
held him back, however, and, although he did not take time to reason
it out, he vaguely felt that Jeremiah Pringle was trying to bribe him
to keep his mouth shut. But he had a natural fear of making an enemy
of such a man as this, and he swiftly decided to make no mention of
the night in Pensacola. That was a matter for Captain Jim Wetherly to
handle. Dan was ready to stand by his guns, however, so far as his own
honesty was concerned, and he stoutly replied:
"That is a big thing to have come my way, Captain Pringle, and I ought
to thank you. But I don't care to take it. My mother wants me to stick
by Captain Jim Wetherly if I'm going to stay afloat, and she knows
best."
Jerry Pringle looked black, but forced a smile as he growled:
"One thing you've got from your Uncle Jim is a swelled head. Well,
we'll say no more about it; _nothing at all about it, understand_?"
The last words were spoken with a threatening earnestness, and Dan
understood what was meant. He nodded and went on his way, for once
anxious to get to sea, away from a situation in which he seemed to
become more and more befogged. He found Bart dancing jig-steps with
impatience, and trying to listen to a long-winded yarn delivered by Mr.
Bill McKnight who had been already kidnapped for the afternoon.
The _Sombrero_ sailed like a witch in the race, the live ballast
shifted himself with more agility than the boys had dreamed he could
display, and the match was won with the lee-rail under and the cockpit
awash. Mrs. Frazier watched the finish from a wharf and invited Bart
and the engineer to come home with Dan for a festive supper party in
celebration. There could be no long faces or heavy thoughts at such
a time, and Dan forgot the shadow and laughed himself into a state
of collapse along with his mother and Bart when Mr. McKnight, with a
wreath of scarlet ponciana blossoms on his bald head, danced Spanish
fandangos until the cottage shook from floor to rafters.
[Illustration: The _Sombrero_ sailed like a witch in the race]
They all escorted Dan down to the _Resolute_ in the starlit evening and
sat on the guard-rail while the chief engineer fished a guitar from
under his bunk and sang Cuban serenades, leading off with "La Paloma."
It was as merry as such a parting hour could be, but there were tears
in the mother's eyes when she kissed Dan good-night, and her voice was
not steady when she whispered, "God bless and keep you, my precious
boy."
When it came to saying good-by to Bart, Dan was more serious than usual
and, he held fast to his comrade's hand for a moment while he looked
him in the eyes and said:
"Blow high, blow low, you will find me standing by, Bart. Good luck and
lots of it."
Shortly after daylight next morning the _Resolute_ churned her way out
of the placid harbor and laid her coastwise course for Charleston. It
proved to be an uneventful run with pleasant weather and a favoring
sea. Captain Wetherly had nothing to say about the steamer _Kenilworth_
until they reached Charleston where he found a cablegram from London
waiting for him. He read it aloud to Dan as soon as they happened to be
alone.
"_Unable to send required information until later. Will communicate
your next port._"
"It might have cleared up this _Kenilworth_ business," said Captain
Jim. "However, we may get a message at Santiago."
But the _Resolute_ was not to see Santiago as soon as her master
expected. There was a week's delay in getting the great suction dredge
ready to begin the voyage. Then, when the _Resolute_ had taken hold of
the clumsy monster, for all the world like a bull-dog trying to drag a
dry-goods box, the captain of the dredge was hurt by a falling bolt and
there was more delay at anchor while a new skipper could be sent for.
When, at last, the unwieldy tow was got to sea, strong head-winds
buffeted her day after day and urged the panting, sea-swept _Resolute_
to her best efforts to keep up steerage way. She crept southward like
a snail, eating up coal at a rate which compelled Captain Wetherly to
put into Nassau, and again into the harbor of Mole St. Nicolas at the
western end of Hayti.
Twice the dredge snapped her hawsers and broke clean adrift. When
the weary tug and her tow crept in sight of the Morro Castle at the
mouth of Santiago harbor, Bill McKnight almost wept as he surveyed his
engines and boilers. Sorely racked and strained they were, and Captain
Jim tried to comfort him by declaring that no other fat engineer could
have patched and held them together to the end of the voyage. Making
temporary repairs was a costly and tedious undertaking, and the crew
of the _Resolute_ tired of the charms of Santiago and grew restless and
homesick for Key West.
While Dan, the captain, and McKnight were eating lunch ashore one day,
a swarthy, dapper clerk from the cable office sought the Venus Café
with a message which he had tried to deliver on board the tug. It was
for Captain Wetherly who read it with an air of mingled surprise and
chagrin. With a glance at the engineer who was blissfully absorbed over
his third plate of alligator pear salad, Captain Jim remarked as he
handed the sheet to Dan:
"It is from London. Well, the cat is out of the bag, and we might as
well let McKnight in. We are going to need him before we get through
with this job, and need him bad. I suppose I ought to have been more
suspicious, but it sounded too rotten to be true. Bill, you must have
that engine room in shape this week if it breaks your back. We are
going to make a record run home to Key West."
Dan read in silence before handing the cablegram to Captain Wetherly.
"_Kenilworth cleared for Vera Cruz. Heavily insured. General cargo.
Owners hard hit by recent losses. Will bear watching._"
Captain Jim hammered the table with his fist and tried to speak in an
undertone as he hotly exclaimed:
"This confidential report makes my suspicions fit together like the
pieces of a puzzle. I couldn't for the life of me understand how the
master of a big steamer could afford to ram her ashore and lose her,
and his berth and his reputation with it, for ten thousand dollars. But
if he knew that his owners would shield him and stand in with him, why,
of course, he might be tempted to clean up ten thousand dollars for
himself when a man like Jerry Pringle crossed his bows and passed him
a few hints. A lot of good it would have done for me to cable Captain
Bruce's owners and give them warning of what we heard that night in
Pensacola harbor. They would have laughed at me as a meddlesome idiot.
Cleared for Vera Cruz, has she? She does her ten knots right along, I
picked up that bit of information at Pensacola. Allow her twenty days
to the Reef."
Bill McKnight had dropped his fork and was purple with suppressed
excitement. When the captain fetched up for lack of breath, he blurted
in a hoarse whisper:
"It doesn't take a axe to drive an idea into my noddle. As near as
I can make out, though your bearings are considerably overheated,
Captain, there is scheduled to be a large and expensive wreck on the
Reef, assisted by her skipper and one Jeremiah Pringle. It sounds
like the good old times before the light-houses crippled the wrecking
industry. And we _Resolutes_ propose to be first on hand to pull her
off and disappoint certain enterprising persons?"
"Disappoint 'em!" fairly shouted Captain Jim. "If the _Kenilworth_
does go ashore, I'll fetch that vessel off the Reef if it tears the
_Resolute_ to kindling wood. I'll break their rotten hearts and show
them what honest wrecking is."
"I didn't throw away that clamp I made to hold the safety-valve down,
Captain," chuckled Bill McKnight. "And I ain't afraid to use it again,
either."