[Illustration: Cover art]
[Frontispiece: "'Good heavens!' cried Captain Stanley. 'Dare, my
boy! Are you hurt?'" (_See page_ 160.)]
Contraband
A Tale of Modern Smugglers
By
E. R. Spencer
Author of "A Young Sea Rover," etc.
CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD
London, Toronto, Melbourne and Sydney
First published 1926
_Printed in Great Britain_
TO
SPENCER LAKE
AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES
OF
FORTUNE, NEWFOUNDLAND
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
1. On Board the "Glenbow"
2. First Blood to the Smugglers
3. Ben has a Brain-Wave
4. At St. Pierre
5. On the Trail
6. Dare's Story
7. In the Night
8. The Secret Harbour
9. Checkmate!
10. The Escape
11. Captain Stanley Acts
12. The Closing of the "Oven"
CONTRABAND
A TALE OF MODERN SMUGGLERS
CHAPTER I
ON BOARD THE "GLENBOW"
The mail packet S.S. _Glenbow_, ploughing her way up the south-west
coast of Newfoundland in a beam sea and half a gale of wind, rolled
rail in rail out as she neared St. Lawrence.
Dare Stanley, who had been lying down in his berth, felt the
necessity of fresh air, and slipping on an oilskin coat he made his
way on deck. The air was fresh enough there in all conscience! He
found all but the bridge deserted; the heavy sea made a stay on deck
undesirable. Yet he did not wish to return to his cabin, having a
desire for company of some sort, so, watching his chance, he fought
his way aft to where the smoke-room was situated.
Short as was the trip, he was drenched and had the breath half
knocked out of him before he could gain sanctuary. Once he reached
the smoke-room he had to exert all his strength to open the door,
which was pressed to as with a vice by the weight of the wind. He
managed to get it open enough to slip inside, when the door closed
precipitately behind him and knocked him half-way across the room.
He was helped to his feet by the chief engineer, who was seated at a
card-table with the captain and two passengers. Three other
passengers completed the company.
"Hello, young Stanley!" shouted the captain, who was a friend of
Dare's father. "Bit rough outside, is it?"
Dare showed his teeth in a grin for answer, and stripped himself of
his oilskins, while the company returned to consideration of the game
his entry had interrupted. It was soon finished. The captain, who
was partnered with one of the passengers, showed great good humour as
he drew in his share of the winnings. Not so the chief, who had lost.
"There ye are," said that disgruntled individual as he paid out.
"Man, dear, did ye ever see sich cards in all your born days! If my
luck keeps bad I'll have to follow the lead of the fo'c'sle crew and
play for tobacco."
This humorous sally was greeted by an appreciative guffaw.
"Speaking of tobacco," said one of the passengers during the
conversational lull which followed, "I'm a living witness that the
only way you can get rid of it on this coast is to give it away."
"That's so," agreed his companion. They were both, it seemed,
representatives of tobacco firms. "And of all the places on the
coast Saltern Bay is the worst."
"It's a crying shame!"
This topic in lieu of a better was seized upon as likely to yield
something of interest.
"How's that, Mr. Parsons?" said the captain insinuatingly.
"Smuggling," answered Mr. Parsons tersely, and all the company,
including Dare, pricked up their ears. For although this was a
perennial subject of discussion, it never failed to rouse interest,
for the simple reason that it touched nearly everyone's feelings or
pockets, or both, in one way or another.
"Smuggling, sir," repeated Mr. Parsons. "Saltern Bay is a hotbed of
smugglers. Mind you, I don't mind a man bringing in a little brandy
or tobacco on the quiet free of duty, but when you get a gang of men
organizing a regular supply of the stuff and thus undermining the
legitimate trade of the country, then I say it's time to stop it."
"You're right," asserted his colleague. "If I had my way I'd blow
St. Pierre Colony sky-high out of water. Why we were ever fools
enough to give it back to the French when once we'd won it, I don't
know. It's been nothing but a thorn in the side of the tobacco
business ever since."
"Oh come, Mr. Bayley," protested the captain good-humouredly; "you
wouldn't go so far as that surely. St. Pierre is all right. A jolly
little town in its way."
"And as for giving it back to the French," put in the chief, "man,
there were reasons for that, diplomatic reasons which take no account
of individual likes or dislikes. The English had to smooth down the
French a little at the time, and the cheapest way of doing it was to
cede them St. Pierre and the rights of fishing on the so-called
French coast, an injustice to the islanders if there ever was one."
"I'm with you there," put in a passenger who had hitherto remained
silent, a merchant from Bay de Verde.
"Well, I'm not worrying about the fishing rights," said Mr. Parsons
egoistically; "it's the tobacco rights I'm interested in."
"Of course," said the captain dryly.
"It's come to the time when the Government has got to take action or
be for ever disgraced in the eyes of its electors," declared Mr.
Parson's colleague somewhat grandiosely.
"Bad as that, is it?" said the captain, intent on drawing both men
out.
"Worse," interpolated Mr. Parsons pessimistically. "Do you know the
extent of my order for the district between Point Day and Barmitage
Bay, captain? A measly five hundred dollars, on a route that ought
to yield a three thousand dollar order every month."
"Umph!" The sympathetic articulation came from the chief, who had a
just appreciation of figures as such. "Man, dear, the smugglers must
be doing a roaring trade," he added, "for there's not a man on the
coast that doesna' smoke or chew the weed."
"A true word," said Mr. Parsons sadly. "But what would you? Five
out of ten of them do their own smuggling, and the rest are supplied
by the smuggling gang. It's impossible to compete with their
cutthroat prices."
"A gang, is there?" inquired the captain, who had been up and down
the coast for twenty years and probably knew more about Mr. Parsons'
subject of grievance than that worthy himself did.
"Of course there's a gang, captain. There must be. There's a
regular underground trade."
"What are the Revenue people doing?" put in the merchant from Bay de
Verde.
"Bah!" Mr. Parsons expectorated in disgust, then attacked the
Service in earnest.
"What do they ever do," he declared, "but send a dinky little gunboat
up and down the coast?--a boat that every smuggler recognizes twenty
miles away and avoids accordingly. What they need to do is to place
men on land, not ten miles off it. Saltern Bay is honeycombed with
coves and beaches where the smugglers can land and no one the wiser.
Have a few men spying up and down the land. Let them keep their eyes
open and find out the smugglers' cache--then make a raid. A few
raids and smuggling wouldn't be so brisk, for smugglers can no more
afford to lose their goods than other people."
Mr. Parsons' colleague nodded in agreement.
"I seem to remember hearing that the Customs at Saltern attempted
something of that kind," hazarded the captain.
"Bah!" said Mr. Parsons. "Old man Johnson, sixty if he's a day, made
a daylight trip to 'Madam's Notch' and found half a case of brandy
and a few pounds of tobacco. There's those who believe the smugglers
placed it there on purpose. I'm one of them. There's others who say
that Johnson will never be a poor man if he lives to be a hundred and
that the smugglers have made his inactivity worth while. He ought to
be kicked out."
"He has been." Dare could not resist the opportunity of being the
conveyor of new and interesting information.
Mr. Parsons and his colleague turned surprised looks on their
informant.
"What's that!" ejaculated Mr. Parsons incredulously.
"Didn't you know?" said the captain easily, saving Dare the trouble
of repeating his statement. "Johnson resigned about three weeks ago.
Captain Stanley, this young man's father, has been appointed in his
place."
"News to me," confessed Mr. Parsons.
"We've been on the Northern route this past month," informed Mr. Bay
ley in explanation.
"Seems to me," said Mr. Parsons after an appropriate silence and a
hard scrutiny of Dare's countenance that caused the latter to change
colour, "seems to me that I've heard of Captain Stanley before."
"Well, you ought to have done," the chief declared, "for there's not
a man on the island has done more to rid the Revenue service of graft
and sheer inefficiency."
"Oh, that's the man, is it? There was a question asked in the House
about him, I remember. Well, good luck to him if he's bound on
cleaning up Saltern Bay. All I can say is that he's got his work cut
out, for there's not a cleverer or rougher lot ever swindled the
Government out of revenue."
This point seemed to be mutually recognized as bringing an end to the
conversation. The subject for the time being was dropped. Soon
after, the captain withdrew to visit the bridge, and the chief,
grumbling about cheap engines, went to see how those that were
serving the _Glenbow_ so well were progressing.
Dare was left with the four other passengers, who were soon drawn
irresistibly to the card table. But he paid little attention to his
fellow-voyagers. His mind had been stimulated by the recent
conversation and was busy formulating guesses as to the real
situation in Saltern, and the likelihood of there being some
excitement to relieve the monotony he must otherwise endure in a
small village where he knew no one.
As the captain of the _Glenbow_ had stated, Captain Stanley was
Dare's father, and, more than that, he was something in the nature of
a hero to his son. Bred to the merchant service, Captain Stanley
had, after twenty-five years of the Western Ocean trade, retired from
the sea and accepted from the Government a position as a special
inspector in the Revenue Service.
That was five years ago, and they had been busy years, full of
incident and sometimes yielding adventure. In the past year or two
Dare had been taken a little into his father's confidence, and on one
occasion had proved very useful in the solving of a particularly
stiff problem centring upon illicit trading. When, therefore, his
father had been appointed temporary Customs Officer at Saltern, the
real reason for the appointment being the elimination of the
smuggling rife in the Saltern Bay district, he naturally hoped to be
allowed to take a hand in the affair.
Captain Stanley had gone to Saltern two days after his appointment,
but Dare and the captain's old retainer, Ben Saleby, had been left
behind, Dare to finish his term at Bishop Field's College, and Ben to
attend to the details involved in closing the captain's town house.
Now, however, both were on their way to join the captain.
Dare was an average youth, quick, intelligent, well set up. He had
fair hair which lay close to his head and had a tendency to curl.
His eyes were blue, the colour of those of most adventurers, and he
wore for the most part a winning smile. That smile hovered about his
lips as he sat in the smoke-room thinking of Saltern and the work
ahead. Things promised well.
The blowing of the siren and the sudden realization that the ship was
in smooth water roused him from his pleasant meditations. The ship
was making harbour. A glimpse through the port-hole showed him a low
point of land. He quickly donned his oilskin coat and went on deck.
The ship was now in calm water sheltered by the land. He went
forward and watched the town slowly come into view. While he was
eyeing it someone nudged his elbow. He turned round to face Ben.
"Hello, Ben!" he shouted, pleased. "Well, we're getting there."
"And about time too," Ben grumbled. "I've seen a windjammer work the
coast quicker'n this one."
"What place is this? St. Lawrence?"
"Aye. Weren't you sure? But I fergot; you ain't been this way
before."
"That's so. I say, Ben, there was a chap in the smoke-room spouting
a lot of stuff about the smugglers in Saltern Bay. He said they were
a tough lot. Looks as if there's warm work ahead."
"Reckon the cap'n kin be tough, too," said Ben with an odd touch of
pride.
"You ought to know," laughed Dare.
Ben had sailed with Captain Stanley for years and had left the sea at
the same time, though it must be admitted it had been with
reluctance. Only his loyalty to the captain enabled him to make the
break, for the change from bos'n of a ship to major-domo of a town
house did not appeal to his deep-water tastes. The monotony of town
life was relieved now and then, however, by the captain's Revenue
Service activities, for when there was work of a more than usually
difficult character ahead, Ben's services were always impressed, to
his great content.
"It's only an eight-hour run from here," said Dare.
"Ten on a day like this," declared Ben.
"I hope we'll be able to land," said Dare anxiously. "It's pretty
rough."
"We'll lose this sea when we rounds into the Bay," Ben told him.
"There's smooth water off Saltern. Never fear, we'll land all right."
"I hope so!" ejaculated Dare.
"I say, Ben," he added, a little later, "do you suppose it's true
what that chap was saying about those Saltern fellows being the
hardest lot going?"
"I don't disbelieve it," said the old sailor. He put his hand in his
pocket and drew out a black-bowled clay pipe of incredible age, and
began to fill it dotingly. Dare remained silent while the rite was
being performed, gazing the while on the grizzled veteran.
Ben was also "sixty if he was a day," but hard as nails yet. His
face, tanned the colour of a barked sail, was battered and ugly, but
good nature lit it and made it human and friendly. His short
stature, long arms, bowed legs, and slightly leaning-forward posture
gave him the appearance of a gorilla; but there the resemblance
ended, for under his hardened exterior he had the tender heart of a
child.
"There's one of 'em in the steerage," he said when his pipe was
drawing well.
"One of what?" asked Dare.
"One of them fellers from Saltern Bay."
"A smuggler?" exclaimed Dare, excited at the possibility.
"That's as may be. He hails from Tarnish. He told me a lot about
the smugglin' game."
"Ah!"
"Aye, he knows a thing or two, he do. Know what he said?"
"No."
"He laughed when I asked if there warn't no way of stoppin' the
smugglin', and said, 'Not while there's a oven in Saltern Bay,' said
he.
"'And what eggsactly do you mean by that?" I asked him.
"'Oh,' he said, 'that's a riddle.'
"'But what might ovens which is meant for cookin' have to do with it,
anyhow?' I asks again.
"He laughed a great laugh and he said, 'That's fer you to find out.'"
"Well?" demanded Dare eagerly, as Ben stopped. "What then?"
"Nothing," replied Ben. "That's all."
"It sounds meaningless to me," said Dare. "Do you suppose he was
pulling your leg?"
"He might have been and yet he might not."
"You didn't tell him the business we're on?"
"Trust me," assured Ben dryly.
"Well, we can do little but guess about things yet. I expect father
will have a few things to tell us when we see him."
"Not a doubt of it."
"Let's see. What time ought we to get there? Eight hours' run.
It's two o'clock now. Allow an hour for delay here. We ought to do
it by eleven o'clock."
"Aye, around midnight," said Ben.