broken only by the heavy breathing of the two youths. Then, as Jerry
James scrambled quickly from his bunk, Sandy whispered, “We’ve got to
get out of here and warn Mr. Kennedy, Jerry. I’m positive that Captain
West is working for the Chadwick shipping interests, and against Mr.
Kennedy. He’ll never tell Mr. Kennedy about the deposits Dad discovered!
And Mr. Kennedy will go right ahead and sell his boats for practically
nothing!”
“You’re right, Sandy,” Jerry whispered, hastily pulling on his dungaree
pants. “Good thing you found out about Captain West before it was too
late. Our ship doesn’t sail until to—”
Jerry James cut short his sentence with a groan. In their mad rush to
get dressed, Sandy and Jerry had not noticed the steady shuddering of
the _James Kennedy_’s sides. They had paid no heed to the regular
throbbing of her motors.
The _James Kennedy_ had put out on Lake Superior ten minutes ago.
CHAPTER FIVE
A New Friend
In the morning, there was no time to make further plans, as the two
friends had promised each other before they finally dropped off to
sleep. They were awakened by the sound of Cookie’s voice as the little
man leaned in the door of their cabin and cried, “Up and at ’em, boys,
up and at ’em! It’s five o’clock, and that’s the time to rise and
shine!”
Still sleepy-eyed, Sandy and Jerry tumbled out of their bunks and stood
looking at Cookie with blank expressions on their faces. Cookie returned
their stare with a toothless grin.
“Don’t rightly know where you are, hey, boys? Well, you’re aboard the
_James Kennedy_ and right now we’re out in the middle of Lake Superior.”
He cocked a twinkling eye at them and flashed another one of his smiles,
and the youths were heartened to find someone, at least, who seemed to
want to be friendly with them.
“Go ahead and wash up,” Cookie said. “Be in the galley in fifteen
minutes and I’ll have your breakfasts ready. In fact, you might just
have the time to go topside and see the sun come up.”
Then he was gone.
Sandy and Jerry obediently headed for the washroom. There, they sloshed
cold water on their faces and brushed their teeth. That made them feel
better. By the time they had grasped the handrail of the ladder leading
abovedeck, they had recovered their normal high spirits.
“Shucks,” Jerry said. “I don’t see what we got so riled up about last
night. We’ll be in Buffalo in plenty of time to warn Mr. Kennedy.”
“You’re right, Jerry,” Sandy said. “That’s what I was thinking, too.
Funny how you forget that a boat can make good time because it’s moving
in a straight line. Driving in an automobile, Mr. Kennedy will have to
go through six or seven states.”
“Sure. And don’t forget that a boat keeps moving all the time, like a
railroad train. In a car, you have to stop to get some sleep or eat.”
It was still dark as they came out on deck. Far out in front of them,
they could see the bulk of the forward superstructure—the navigation
bridge and the deck gang’s quarters—rearing out of the black. Beneath
their feet they felt the steady throbbing of the _James Kennedy_’s
engines. All around them, for miles and miles, stretched the flat, black
surface of Lake Superior. Ahead of them, for they were sailing due east,
there was a light rosy glow that heralded the rising of the sun. Even
then, as they looked, a line of horizon was beginning to take shape.
“Isn’t it something?” Sandy whispered. “Here we are, thousands of miles
inland. Yet, it’s just like sailing on an ocean.” Sandy Steele stretched
his neck and stood on his tiptoes and turned slowly around. “You can’t
see anything but water,” he said.
“Boy, what a country!” Jerry James breathed.
The two youths fell silent. Carefully, they looked away from each other,
for neither one wished to betray the strong emotions that held him at
that moment. Their feelings were a mixture of pride and love of country
and a certain awe in the presence of its beauty and grandeur.
“Hey,” Jerry said, suddenly breaking the spell. “What’s that light out
there?”
He pointed and Sandy Steele’s eyes followed his finger.
“I’ll bet it’s another lake boat,” Sandy said. “Sure! That’s what it is.
And there’s another one. There must be a half dozen of them, Jerry.”
Jerry James chuckled. “Say,” he said, “this lake’s a regular freeway,
isn’t it?”
Sandy nodded. “I think I hear Cookie calling us, Jerry,” he said. “Let’s
go below.”
On their way down, Sandy went on, “We’d better keep what we know about
Captain West a secret. We’ll wait until we get to Buffalo to telephone
Mr. Kennedy. Of course, if we’re delayed or a storm comes up, we’ll have
to think of something else. Who knows? Maybe we’ll stop in Detroit or
some other Great Lakes port, and we can call him from there.”
“Right,” Jerry said, and then, “Hey, do you smell what I smell?”
Sandy did, indeed, and the eyes of both of them went wide with wonder at
the sight of the breakfast Cookie had set up for them on a tiny table at
the end of his gleaming, spotless, aluminum galley.
“Eat hearty, boys,” Cookie said, bobbing his bald head in the direction
of the ham and eggs and stacks of toast and jars of jelly. “Plenty more
where that came from.”
“Boy,” Jerry said, “do you always eat like this?”
“On the Kennedy boats, you do,” Cookie said. “Of course, almost all of
the lake boats feed good. But there ain’t any to compare with the old
white K Line.” Cookie’s face darkened. “Now, if you was aboard a
Chadwicker, I don’t think you’d be chowing down so good.”
“How’s that, Cookie?” Jerry said, squaring himself away to attack his
fourth egg.
“Humph!” Cookie grunted, as he started to sharpen a long thin knife.
After a series of expert, clashing strokes against the sharpening steel
he held in his hand, he bent over a haunch of bacon on his board and
began to slice it down. “Chadwick’s the cheapest line on the lakes,
that’s why,” he went on. “And I ought to know. Sailed on the Chadwickers
for five years, I did. And not a night went by that I didn’t have to
count the eggs and hand the keys to the icebox over to the skipper.”
Jerry chortled at the notion of a crestfallen Cookie locking up his
beloved icebox for the night. “Boy,” he said, forgetting himself,
“that’s one more reason why we’ve got to stop Mr. Kennedy from selling—”
Sandy Steele’s foot moved swiftly under the table, and Jerry clutched
his ankle with a surprised expression of pain on his face.
“Hey, that hurt!” he started to say, but then, remembering their secret,
he flushed in embarrassment.
Cookie had whirled and was looking at them with an expression of
bewilderment.
“Selling?” he repeated. “Did you say selling?”
“Oh, no,” Jerry choked, his face getting redder and redder. “I said
_sailing_. You see,” he rushed on frantically, trying to think of a good
story, “what I really meant was....”
Poor Jerry. He had begun to flounder, because he wasn’t used to the
strain of making up a good lie on the spur of the moment. But just then
one of the crewmen came to his rescue.
“Hey, Cookie,” he said irritably as he poked his head inside the galley.
“When do we eat? I’ve been sitting out here for five minutes.”
To the great relief of both Jerry and Sandy, Cookie instantly forgot his
question and turned to covering his grill with sizzling slices of bacon
and gently popping eggs.
“All right, boys,” he said. “Turn to.”
For the next hour or so, Sandy and Jerry flew back and forth between the
mess hall and the galley, bringing the breakfasts of the crewmen and
clearing the dirty dishes away. Then, when breakfast was over, Cookie
set them to work washing the dishes. When this was done, Cookie opened a
cupboard and took out a bucket and mop together with a long-handled,
T-shaped instrument that looked something like a window washer’s rubber
blade.
“Know what this is, Jerry?” he said, grinning.
Jerry James shook his head.
“This here’s what they call a squeegee. And she’s going to be your
sweetheart until we get to Buffalo.”
Sandy laughed at the look of displeasure on his chum’s face, as Cookie
gave them a demonstration of how the squeegee is handled. First he
filled the bucket with soapy water. This he sloshed over the deck in the
mess hall. Then, with the motion of a man raking a lawn, he worked the
squeegee across the deck. The rubbery blade made squeaking noises as it
moved.
“That’s how the squeegee got its name,” Cookie said. “Hear it? Squee ...
gee ... squee ... gee....” He winked at Sandy. “Now, you, Sandy, you go
over the deck with this mop after Jerry’s finished. Do the same in the
galley. And remember, you do this after every meal.”
“Every meal!” Jerry exclaimed.
“That’s right, boy. A ship’s galley has to be as clean as a hospital.
You’ve got men living aboard ship in close quarters and you can’t take
any chances with dirt and germs. Now, turn to!”
They turned to.
And by the time they had gotten the mess hall and the galley sparkling
again to Cookie’s liking, it was time for lunch! They had to go through
the same process again, and Jerry James moaned, “Honestly, Sandy, the
water in this bucket is probably the only water we’ll see until we get
to Buffalo!”
But the second time they went through their round of chores, they moved
with more speed because they were more practiced. By a little after four
o’clock, they had finished. Cookie ran an approving eye over their
handiwork, and said, “Good job, boys. What say we go topside and have a
talk while I smoke my pipe?”
They were only too glad to agree.
Up above, they noticed that Captain West was standing at the starboard
rail, talking to his mate, Mr. Briggs. The skipper scowled when he saw
the boys. He spoke quickly to his mate, and Mr. Briggs hurried over to
them. As he came up, Sandy saw that he did not look so fierce by
daylight as he had seemed at night. In fact, his chin was a trifle weak
and he had the worried air of a man who suffers from indigestion.
“You,” Mr. Briggs said, aiming a dirty fingernail at Sandy. “Skipper
wants you.”
Sandy nodded and followed him to Captain West.
“Ain’t I seen you and your friend somewheres before?” the captain asked.
Sandy nodded. He knew that he shouldn’t have, but he couldn’t help
himself. He was not fond of Captain West.
The skipper’s eyes flashed and his face reddened and his hand came up
involuntarily. But he held it back, and snarled, “When I ask a question,
I want it answered out loud! And when you talk to me, you say ’Sir.’
Now, answer my question.”
“Yes, sir,” Sandy said evenly. “You saw us in front of my father’s
testing station.”
“Your father’s testing—” Captain West began to repeat, puzzled. But then
his face cleared, and he said, “So that’s it! Certainly, your name’s
Steele, too.” Now, a look of cunning crept into his face. He softened
his voice. “Young fellow, perhaps I was a bit hard on you last night.
Step over here to the rail for a moment. I want to ask you a few
questions.”
Sandy followed him.
“Well, well, well,” Captain West said, pretending to be jovial. “You
certainly are a chip off the old block.”
Sandy flushed, and the skipper mistook it for a sign of pleasure.
Actually, Sandy was disgusted by the man’s attempt to fool him.
“Now, my boy,” Captain West went on. “When did you see your old, ahem,
see your father last?”
“Just before we came aboard,” Sandy said stiffly.
“Hmmm. Your father didn’t, ah, that is to say, did your father say
anything about—”
Sandy saw his chance and interrupted swiftly. “Excuse me, sir, if you
mean did he mention you, the fact is that he did.”
“Ah?”
“He said,” Sandy told Captain West in all truthfulness, “he said that
you were one of the Kennedy Line’s finest skippers.”
“Well, well,” Captain West said, plainly pleased. “That was very kind of
your father. Did he, ah, by the way, say anything about his work?”
“In what way, sir?” Sandy asked innocently. For a moment, Captain West
hemmed and hawed, but then, probably because he was satisfied that Sandy
knew nothing of the important information which he was disloyally
keeping from his employer, he dropped the question. He sent Sandy back
to Cookie and Jerry with the promise that if the two youths worked well
enough in the galley, he would bring them topside for the return trip.
Jerry eyed Sandy questioningly upon his return, but Sandy merely
shrugged and squatted alongside Cookie to listen to the old man talk.
“You see, boys,” Cookie said, waving his pipe in the air, “we’re within
sight of land again. That shoreline way ahead, to either side, means
that we’re getting close to the Soo.”
“The Soo?”
“Yup, the Sault Sainte Marie. They call it the Soo, though, probably
because nobody but the Frenchies can pronounce it right. That’s where
Lake Superior empties into Lake Huron through the St. Mary’s River.
That’s where the Soo Locks are, boys. If you’re headed downlake, they
float you down to a lower level. If you’re headed uplake, they raise you
up.”
“Like the Panama Canal?” Sandy asked.
“Right. Now, you take us. We’re going downlake. So, once we’ve entered
Lake Huron from Lake Superior, we can keep on going down Huron and
through the Detroit River into Lake Erie, past Detroit and Cleveland and
on to Buffalo. Or else, we can sort of double back, head west, that is,
and sail through the Straits of Mackinac into Lake Michigan and hit
Milwaukee and Chicago.”
Both Sandy and Jerry shook their heads in wonder.
“You know, Cookie,” Sandy said, “it’s hard for us to get used to the
idea of Chicago and Milwaukee and Detroit and Cleveland as port cities.
We’re from the West, and when we think of a port we think of San
Francisco or Los Angeles. Or, if it’s in the East, we think of Boston or
New York.”
“Well, that’s only natural. You think of the ocean. But let me tell you,
boys, some of these Great Lakes ports are among the biggest in the
world! Ocean or no ocean.”
Cookie removed his pipe from his mouth and pointed with the stem at the
boat that trailed the _James Kennedy_ about a half mile to port. It was
not quite half as long as the _Kennedy_, though it seemed to be about as
wide. Its decks were loaded with railroad cars.
“See that?” Cookie said. “That’s a car ferry. You won’t see ships like
that hardly anywhere else in the world. It’s even a bit out of place on
Lake Superior. Usually, they use ’em more on Lake Michigan to carry the
new cars from the factories in Detroit. And this,” Cookie went on,
pointing his pipe at the long row of hatches separating the _Kennedy_’s
stern and bow superstructures, “this is something you’ll never see
outside of the Lakes. Put these long boats on the ocean, boys, and those
deep ocean swells would break them in two.
“But they’re just right for the Lakes. It’s what your biology teacher
might call a perfect example of adaptation. Lake freighters are built
for just two reasons, boys—to carry bulk cargoes like ore or coal or
grain and to fit through the narrow locks at the Soo. They can build
them as long as a city block, but they can’t be too wide or too deep.”
“Do they have storms on the Lakes, Cookie?” Jerry asked.
Cookie’s eyes danced merrily and he jabbed his pipe at Jerry as he said,
“Storms, hey! Let me tell you, boy, there’s plenty of rough weather
around the Great Lakes. Four months out of the year they’re empty, the
weather’s so bad. That’s why the boats are built to load and unload so
fast. Sometimes you don’t get more than seven months in a season. Rest
of the time, the boats stay in port.”
Cookie puffed thoughtfully in his pipe. He glanced downward. Below them,
the dark lake water flowed swiftly past the _James Kennedy_’s hull.
“When a lake boat sinks,” Cookie said somberly, “there ain’t many
survivors, if any.”
“Why not, Cookie?” Sandy asked, surprised.
“That’s pretty cold water down there, that’s why. You don’t last very
long in that water if it happens to be early spring or fall. I’ve seen
ice floating in these waters as late as it is now.” He shivered a bit.
“Cold water, boys. I remember once a feller I knew broke his leg and we
didn’t have no medicines aboard to help ease the pain while we was
setting it. So we just hauled up a bucket of cold Lake Superior water
and stuck his leg in it a while. By gum, it got numb in no time. He
didn’t feel a thing until after we’d got him all fixed up with a splint
and bandages.”
Cookie got to his feet. “That’s one reason I never bothered to learn how
to swim.” He looked at the sky. “Well, time to go below again. We ought
to hit the Soo just before dark.”
He arose and walked over to the leeward, or starboard, side of the ship
and began emptying his pipe. He leaned far over the rail to make sure
that none of the still-glowing coals would land aboard ship.
As he did, a long, gathering swell from the wake of the car ferry that
had overtaken and passed the _James Kennedy_ struck the ship’s port
stern with savage force. The _Kennedy_ heeled slightly to starboard, and
poor little Cookie, knocked off balance by the force of the blow,
slithered over the rail.
With a long, wailing cry of despair, the little man plunged into the
freezing-cold waters of Lake Superior.
CHAPTER SIX
Man Overboard!
“_Man overboard!_”
From fore and aft, from port to starboard, from every quarter of the
_James Kennedy_’s great length, that ancient rallying cry of the sea
arose.
“Man overboard!”
“Where?” they shouted. “Where?”
“Man overboard off the starboard stern!”
There was a mad scuffling of feet on the steel decks as the crewmen
rushed for the rail, some to reach for a line and a life preserver,
others merely to stare.
Hardly had Cookie’s body entered the water with a resounding splash,
than there was a clanging of bells in the engine room beneath Sandy and
Jerry. The ship’s motors roared in a rising crescendo of power. The
_James Kennedy_ shivered and shuddered like a live thing, and out from
beneath its stern there issued a wild, white boiling of angry water.
“Full speed astern!” someone cried.
Then, with another great quiver, the _James Kennedy_ seemed to come to a
halt.
All of this happened quickly, perhaps within only a few seconds. But
rapid as had been the reactions of these trained seamen, they were still
far behind the swift decisiveness of Sandy Steele.
The moment he had seen Cookie lose his balance, Sandy had braced his
steel-muscled legs, ready to go to his aid. When their little friend’s
body had vanished, Sandy had raced over to the railing. Jerry was not
far behind.
Sandy did not hesitate. He recalled, with dread, what Cookie had been
telling them only moments before about the killing cold of the lake
water. As he ran, he stripped off his own shirt and threw it to the
winds. As he reached the railing, he knelt, swiftly untied his shoes,
and pulled them off.
Down below him, Cookie’s bald head had appeared above the surface.
“Help!” he called weakly. “Help!”
Then, before the horrified gaze of all aboard the _Kennedy_, the little
man choked on a mouthful of water, threw up his hands and sank out of
sight.
Splash!
Straight as an arrow, Sandy Steele’s body had swept out from the ship’s
side—hitting the water only a few feet to the side of the spot where
Cookie had gone under.
Even as Sandy went beneath the surface, he felt a shiver run through his
body from the tips of his toes to the top of his head. It was not only
from the impact of having dropped twenty feet. It was from the terrible,
numbing drop in temperature. For a moment he felt as though his body
were a thing of stone.
But Sandy quickly got his legs and arms working. He surfaced and looked
around him. Nothing.
Sandy dove down once more.
It was as black as night under the surface. Still, he forced himself
farther and farther down, swinging his arms in front of him in long,
slow, underwater breast strokes. He hoped to touch Cookie in this way,
if he could not see him.
Sandy’s lungs were bursting.
In another moment or two, he would have to come back up. He dared not go
down a second time, either, for the cold was creeping into even his
tough young body.
Suddenly, his finger tips brushed against some object....
Sandy felt a thrill of joy. He stretched out his hands and felt
something hard and unbending. His heart sang. He had grasped Cookie’s
shoe!
It was only just in time.
The little man had swallowed so much water and been in the lake so long
that he had lost consciousness. When Sandy discovered him, he was headed
down in what might have been his death dive.
Quickly, Sandy slid his hands along from Cookie’s shoes to seize him
firmly by the ankles.
With a savage, scissor kick of his long legs, Sandy drove upward to the
surface.
How happy he was when his head at last burst into the open air and he
could breathe again! Even though his ears had begun to ring, he could
hear the great cheer that went up when he came into view, with Cookie
safely in his arms.
“He’s got him!” the crewmen cried. “He’s got Cookie! Here, throw him a
line!”
There was a splash beside his head and Sandy saw a length of rope
floating in the water. Weakly, he put out his hand to grasp it. With the
other, he struggled to hold the unconscious Cookie’s head above the
water. Sandy felt himself getting weaker and weaker.
Would he make it? He felt a tug at the other end of the line. In
despair, he felt the rope sliding through his powerless fingers.
There came another, far heavier, splash beside him.
Jerry James had come to his chum’s rescue.
He had jumped in!
Blowing noisily through his nose, Jerry stroked over to Sandy’s side.
There were two more thuds in the water.
Life preservers.
“Here,” Jerry gasped, getting his hands under Cookie’s limp shoulders.
“Let’s get one of these doughnuts over his head.”
Together, the two chums slipped the preserver over Cookie’s head. They
yanked up his arms and draped them over the ring, to make sure that he
would not slip through it. Then, they pushed him over to the side of the
gently rolling freighter, winding the rope about his waist.
“Okay,” Sandy called, lifting a hand weakly from the water. “Haul away!”
The men at the rails pulled and Cookie slowly left the water. As they
lifted him, the pressure of the rope around his waist acted like a kind
of artificial respiration. Water streamed from his open mouth as he made
his ascent. At last, he was safely on deck, and then the two friends
were pulled from the lake.
Instantly, they were wrapped in warm blankets. They were both glad that
it was June, and not November, as they realized how cold they were, even
though swathed in wool and bathed in sunlight. Somebody forced Sandy to
swallow a little glass of burning liquid, and he guessed that it was rum
from the heat of it in his stomach and the way his eyes began to water.
“Ugh,” Sandy said, “I’d sooner drink a gallon of lake water.”
“You nearly did,” a harsh voice said; and, opening his eyes, Sandy saw
Captain West forcing his way through the knot of sailors who had
surrounded him. For once the skipper had shaved, though his eyes were
bloodshot.
“That was a foolhardy stunt, boy,” Captain West went on, growling and
not noticing the rush of color into Sandy Steele’s face. “You could have
drowned.”
“But what about Cookie, then? Did you want me to let him drown—sir?”
“Mind your tongue, boy. We’ve got lifeboats for that sort of thing. We’d
have had him out of there in no time.”
“But what about the lake cold?” Jerry James put in hotly. “It might have
killed him before you could get to him.”
Captain West sneered. “I can see you’ve been listening to Cookie’s sea
stories. The Lakes aren’t that cold in June.”
“Oh, n-no?” Jerry James asked wryly, pulling his blankets closer about
him. “Th-then why are m-my t-t-teeth ch-chattering?”
A ripple of laughter ran through the onlooking men and Captain West
swung on Jerry with his eyes sparking fiercely, furious at getting an
argument from any of his crew.
“You young whippersnapper!” he roared. “If I had a brig aboard this
ship, I’d put you in it—just to teach you some respect for your betters.
Here,” he snarled, whirling on the men, “get back to work, you lazy
louts.” He glanced at his watch. “You’ll hear about it if we’re late for
the locks. All this grandstanding over a ship’s cook!” He glared at
Sandy and Jerry. “You two! Down below to the galley! And
remember—jumping in after your bald-headed friend may have made extra
work for yourselves. While Cookie’s in bed for the next day or two, I’m
going to be expecting you to do his work!”
Then Captain West spun around and rolled forward to his bridge.
As Sandy Steele and his friend went down the ladder, hardly able to
believe that any man could be so unfair, they felt the ship’s engines
begin to throb again.