IN WHICH ARE RELATED SEVERAL DISAPPOINTMENTS
The attack on the encampment of the animal trappers had evidently been
made several days before. The fire had devastated the place. All the
animals in cages had been killed or released. And in the blackened ruins
and about the clearing, on the rocks, there lay the bodies of more than
a dozen Patagonians. Tugg showed real feeling when he saw these dead
men.
"Poor boys!" he muttered, standing leaning on his rifle and gazing upon
one fellow who was really a giant. "They was square, jest the same. Ye
see, they fought for the Professor and the traps. But them scoundrels
was too many for them."
It was a dreadful sight. I do not want to write about it. Nor do I wish
to give the particulars of our search of the neighborhood for some trace
of the single white man who had been in the vicinity--the man whom Tugg
called the Professor, but who was the Man of Mystery to me. We found a
place where a huge fire had been built beneath the trees. There was a
green liana hanging from a high limb and the end of the liana had been
tied around the ankles of a man. The feet shod in American made boots
were all of that victim of the savages' cruelty which had not been
burned to ashes.
"It's a way they have," whispered Tugg. "They start the poor feller
swinging like a pendulum, and every time he swings through the flames
he's burned a little more--and a little more----"
I turned sick with the horror of it. There was nothing more to do. Tugg
recognized his partner's boots. The savages had made their raid, burned
the camp, destroyed all they could, and done their best to wreck the Sea
Spell. There must have been one traitor among Tugg's men at the
encampment or the savages would not have known of the schooner's
approach. At least, I shall always believe so.
But when the balance of his Patagonians came in from the swamp where
they had hidden after the attack, the captain seemed to believe all
their stories, took them back into his confidence, and at once set to
work to repair the damage done by the up-river Indians.
I confess that I was desperately disappointed. And I felt depressed,
too, over the death of the mysterious Professor Vose, or Carver, or
whatever his name had been. I could not get rid of the thought that
perhaps the man had been my father. But I should never know now, I told
myself. Whether it were so, or not I need have no doubt regarding my
poor father's death. If he had not been drowned off Bolderhead Neck,
and had been hidden away in this wilderness so many years, he had gone
to his account now.
I was sorry I had come down here in the Sea Spell; but being here I had
to somewhat wait upon Captain Tugg's pleasure before I could get away.
We warped the Sea Spell off the shoal and found her uninjured. She had
scarcely started a plank. Then the animal trapper set us all to work
rebuilding his camp, animal cages, and stockade. We were three solid
months repairing the damage done by the savages; but then Tugg had a
camp that would be impregnable to the wild men from up the river.
I had expressed to him at once my wish to return to the coast where I
could get a chance to work my way north in some vessel. But it was three
months before he could spare me a canoe crew to take me as far as Punta
Arenas, on the Straits. From that point I would be able to board some
vessel bound into the Atlantic, and if I could get back to Buenos Ayres
I would be all right.
I had wasted nearly six months in following a will-o'-the-wisp. I might
have been at home long ago, had I not come down here on the schooner.
More than a year had passed since that September evening when my cousin,
Paul Downes, and I had had our fateful quarrel on my bonnie sloop, the
Wavecrest, as she beat slowly into the inlet at Bolderhead. I had
roved far afield since that time, had seen strange lands, and strange
peoples, and had endured hardship and hard work which--after all was
said and done--hadn't belonged to me.
Clint Webb need not be knocking about the world, looking for a chance to
work his way home before the mast. As the canoe Tugg had lent me sailed
south through the inlet, with Pedro and two gigantic Patagonians for
crew, I milled these thoughts over in my mind, and determined that, once
at home, I'd stick there. Not that I was tired of the sea, or afraid of
work aboard ship; but I was deeply worried regarding my mother and what
might be happening to her so far away.
Nothing but the desire to set eyes on the man that looked like me and
talked like me had brought me 'way down here in Patagonia; I had never
told Captain Tugg my real reason for shipping on the Sea Spell, not even
when I bade him good-bye. The old fellow had seemed really sorry to have
me go.
"If you git tired of civilization and want to come down this way again,
son," he told me, "you'll be as welcome as can be. Just come here, walk
in, hang up your hat, and you'll find a job right at hand. I got a big
order for ant-eaters, jaguar, tiger-cats, and the like, on hand and I'll
likely be here for a couple of years--off and on. Goin' to be mighty
lonesome, too, without the Professor," he added, shaking his head,
sorrowfully.
Tugg was a money-lover; but I know that he didn't hold the loss of his
animals and outfit as anything to be compared to the miserable end of
his partner. I liked him for _that_.
I can't say that I enjoyed that canoe trip to the Straits. We had a
queer three-cornered sail that was rigged in some native way, and as the
wind was free we traveled the hundred or so miles to the mouth of the
inlet in good time. But I did not sleep much; Pedro and the giants might
easily knock me on the head, take my few dollars and my gun and other
traps, and drop me overboard. I couldn't believe that they were to be
trusted.
But nothing really happened until we were within a mile or so of the
mouth of the long lagoon. I could see a bit of the strait and over the
rocky headland appeared a banner of smoke. It was from the stack of a
steamship bound east. I pointed it out to the mate of the Sea Spell and
told him how anxious I was to reach that very craft. I had money enough
left of my wages to pay my fare to Buenos Ayres at least--perhaps to
Bahia; and surely the steamship would stop somewhere along the east
coast.
Pedro jabbered to the Patagonians, and the wind having fallen light they
got out the paddles and set to work. I showed them each a silver dollar
and they went at it like college athletes. Such paddling I never saw
before, and it seemed to me we shot out of the inlet about as fast as
though we were ironed to a bull whale!
But we were too late. The steamship had a long sea-mile on us and she
wasn't stopping for a canoe. We should have to trim our sail again and
make for the West and Punta Arenas. As we swung the canoe's head around,
however, I caught sight of a big ship, with a wonderful lot of canvas
set, passing the steamship and heading our way. She sailed the straits
like a huge bird, her white canvas bellying from the deck to the extreme
points of her wand-like topmasts. She was a pretty sight.
I began to stare back at her more and more as she came up, hand over
hand. I saw that she was a bark; then I saw that her crowsnest was
occupied by a lookout. Only one manner of craft would have a man in the
crowsnest on a clear day like this. She was a whaler.
I had no glass; but I fixed my gaze upon her black bows as they rose and
fell as she came through the waves. My heart had begun to beat with
excitement. There were the huge white letters as she paid off a bit and
I could see part of her run and broadside. I couldn't be mistaken, and
suddenly I broke out with a loud cheer, for I could read the two painted
lines:
SCARBORO
New Bedford