WHEN Hiram returned late that night he looked as disreputable as a bull
dog that had been out all night in the rain and mud, defending his title
as a neighborhood boss. He had evidenced some cleverness in preparing
for such a trip, but when he got through he looked as though he had
overdone it. An unbecoming cap of Bolshevik origin, nine cents pre-war
push-cart cost, flannel shirt, open at the neck, and covered with mud
from head to foot, he reminded me of a smuggler or bootlegger who had
taken to the swamps to avoid capture. But his enthusiasm seemed to blind
him to his appearance and to the fact that he had not eaten since
morning.
"Well," he began, "I believe I am right--not so much on account of what
I saw to-day, but of what I didn't see."
"Yep," said I. "Go on with it."
"Their plant is on an island except at very low stages of the river and
then it's swamp on one side. It is a big place but mostly one-story.
Their switch, of course, is on a trestle built by them, and some one has
to come out and unlock a high gate before a car can be set in. The man
at the gate stated that they do this so that there will always be a man
there to warn the train crew that the trestle is not strong enough to
support the engine." He looked at me somewhat knowingly while filling
his pipe.
"Well, I went inside on the car we had for them and saw all there was to
see--which wasn't much. Their black help live in cabins on the island.
Becker is building a big addition--the car we set in contained cement
for that purpose, presumably. All of the train-men believe that the
place is phony.
"We saw a packet coming down the river and the train boy slowed up a
trifle to let me off near a landing, but I made a bad jump, rolled over
twice in soft mud and came out like a cray-fish, but I made the packet
coming to town and just arrived."
"Fine, go on," I encouraged.
"The fertilizer plant shows nothing from the river but a floating wharf.
On the way down we passed Becker's boat going up. It isn't much of a
craft, and the packet captain said it wouldn't carry five tons and has
hardly power enough to beat the five-mile current of the river, even
when empty. A boat, Ben!--a boat is all we need to catch that fellow,
and he's the boy we're after. If some one would offer to carry all the
material he will need for that new construction he will fall for it--and
say, I believe I am on track of one."
"But you are not sure of anything yet."
"Yes--I am sure they got the two refrigerator cars that sat alongside
the car that was robbed of fifteen tons of sausage, and that they use
anything that contains grease. Of that I am as certain as any one can be
without being able to prove it, and we've got to get him, and we can't
get him until we get inside of the plant," he insisted, his jaws coming
together with a snap.
"He has a regular castle--moat and all," Hiram continued, "and we can't
storm it. His people are all black and speak only Creole."
"What about this boat you are on track of--but wait, Hiram, don't you
want something to eat?"
"Yes, I'm hungry as a wolf. I've seen the time I would give ten dollars
for the appetite I now have--but wait till I tell you about the boat.
For some time past there has been an old fellow coming down to the
wharf to pick up bananas, those that break from the bunches when they
come out of a ship on the carriers. After a while I noticed that he
talked good English, Creole, Spanish, French, in fact he seemed to be
able to talk with almost any of the rats that work on the fruit
steamers. After I had talked with him I asked what he did with the
bananas. He said he kept them until ripe and ate them. Later he told me
he lived on a boat as caretaker and had not seen his boss lately.
Evidently he has run out of money. He hinted that if he could get his
back wages he did not care what became of the boat. I saw him again
to-day and he says he has starved long enough, and I am going to see the
boat in the morning. It is not in the river, but is in the canal just
above the Yazoo station. And say, I've got another scheme to make all
the money we want after this matter is settled," said he, coming to his
feet as though unloosed by a steel spring.
"What is it, Hiram?" I asked, amused.
"Wait until I clean up a bit. Then I want you to come out with me and
watch a real hungry man eat. I have a long story, and a good scheme.
Your blood will be on my hands if you say it isn't. How much is a
thousand feet of lumber?" he called to me through the communicating
door, just after I heard his wet, muddy shoes go down like a cord of
wood on the floor.
"A thousand feet of lumber is a thousand square feet an inch thick. In
boards a foot wide and an inch thick they would reach a thousand feet,"
I explained.
"That's what I thought, but I can't recall ever having been told."
After seating ourselves in the restaurant, Hiram, his mind filled with
many notions, began to talk.
"I never see a cargo of lumber go by that I don't think of it as
something immensely valuable. I don't understand it, unless--well--of
course, I can't figure out who is to blame, but do you realize I
actually don't know what business my--I mean the Gold-Beater--is in? I
never knew whether he ran a pawn-shop, a gambling-house, or a real
business; my knowledge of his activities is limited to a vague
impression I have, an indistinct memory of hearing him talk one night at
our house with some man--and he was some man, too, if the Gold-Beater
brought him home--about stumpage, stump land and market conditions. I
don't recall much, for then I was about as much interested in it as I
would now be in a divinity student's theory on Heaven and the other
place.
"I don't know whether it's in my blood, but anyhow, a nice, newly sawed,
clean board of timber looks better to me than anything--except a certain
girl. I figured it out to-day, that she is the only one I don't want to
disgrace. The Gold-Beater has nothing better coming to him--if I have to
go to jail in the clean-up of this gang----"
"Come to the point, Hiram. You're wandering all around Robin Hood's
barn," said I laughingly.
"I know I'm long-winded, Ben, but I've got to speak my prologue, or you
won't understand. You know I have stood on the dock day after day and
have seen the river carry down big trees and big logs, some real
saw-logs, some days lots of them, and to-day, up the river, I saw a
great many floating along down stream. Some of the bayous are full of
them. There's a mass of logs in that moat back of Becker's smell
factory."
"Well,--what is the answer?" I asked languidly.
"Here's what I propose: Arrest these fugitive logs, cut 'em into lumber
and put 'em to work. I saw logs up the river that will make a thousand
feet of lumber and they tell me even rough lumber is worth fifty dollars
a thousand. It won't take many of them to amount to the hundred and
twenty-five dollars per that I'm pulling down monthly from the
railroad--eh? You know, just as soon as I get out of this I'm going to
marry, and----"
"But they tell me those logs have been in the water so long they are
dead sea fruit, rotten in the center?" I interposed.
"I noticed that in some of them, but many are first class--you watch me
after I get out. Do you know, I feel sure this river is going to make me
some money. I'm going to be out to-night, down on the wharf. The packet
men say that Becker's old tub, the one we met going up this
afternoon,--called the _Turgia_--and she is well named--goes up there
every afternoon and brings down a load in the night. I've got to find
out where she lands and what she brings down. I forgot to tell you he
gets dead animals from the city, in barges, and has to hire a tug to
take them up. A good chance for a deal there, if we have a boat big
enough to do his work, don't you think so?" he asked, pausing from his
food.
"He seems to have an eye for bargains--why not in towing?" I agreed,
much impressed with his determination, amounting to a mania.
"Now, there is another thing, Ben. Suppose this old half-starved
geezer's story is right, and they owe him a lot of wages, and the boat
is something we can use, isn't there some quick, legal way in which we
can get possession of it?"
"He would be classed as a seaman, with wages due, and I think there is a
Federal statute to reach such a case quickly--I will find out, Hiram."
"Do that, Ben, and if I don't show up in the morning you will know I got
knocked in the head by the water-front gang, but I'm going to see what
Becker sends down here in the night, or die in the attempt."