IN WHICH A MUTINY IS THREATENED
Even after they were miles down the Sound, Boyd remained at his post,
sweeping the waters astern in an anxious search for some swift harbor
craft, the appearance of which would signal that his escape had been
discovered.
"I won't feel safe until we are past Port Townsend," he confessed to
Cherry, who maintained a position at his side.
"Why Port Townsend? We don't stop there."
"No. But the police can wire on from Seattle to stop us and take me off
at that point."
"If they find out their mistake."
"They must have found it out long ago. That's why I've got Peasley
forcing this old tub; she's doing ten knots, and that's a breakneck
speed for her. Once we're through the Straits, I'll be satisfied. But
meanwhile--" Emerson lowered his glasses with a sigh of fatigue, and in
the soft twilight the girl saw that his face was lined and careworn.
The yearning at her heart lent poignant sympathy to her words, as she
said:
"You deserve to win, Boyd; you have made a good fight."
"Oh, I'll win!" he declared, wearily. "I've got to win; only I wish we
were past Port Townsend."
"What will happen to Fraser?" she queried.
"Nothing serious, I am sure. You see, they wanted me, and nobody else;
once they find they have the wrong man I rather believe they will free
him in disgust."
A moment later he went on: "Just the same, it makes me feel depressed
and guilty to leave him--I--I wouldn't desert a comrade for anything if
the choice lay with me."
"You did quite right," Cherry warmly assured him.
"You see, I am not working for myself; I am doing this for another."
It was the girl's turn to sigh softly, while the eyes she turned toward
the west were strangely sad and dreamy. To her companion she seemed not
at all like the buoyant creature who had kindled his courage when it
was so low, the brave girl who had stood so steadfastly at his shoulder
and kept his hopes alive during these last, trying weeks. It struck him
suddenly that she had grown very quiet of late. It was the first time
he had had the leisure to notice it, but now, when he came to reflect
on it, he remembered that she had never seemed quite the same since his
interview with her on that day when Hilliard had so unexpectedly come
to his rescue. He wondered if in reality this change might not be due
to some reflected alteration in himself. Well! He could not help it.
Her strange behavior at that time had affected him more deeply than he
would have thought possible; and while he had purposely avoided
thinking much about the banker's sudden change of front, back of his
devout thankfulness for the miracle was a vague suspicion, a curious
feeling that made him uncomfortable in the girl's presence. He could
not repent his determination to win at any price; yet he shrank, with a
moral cowardice which made him inwardly writhe, from owning that Cherry
had made the sacrifice at which Clyde and the others had hinted. If it
were indeed true, it placed him in an intolerable position, wherein he
could express neither his gratitude nor his censure. No doubt she had
read the signs of his mental confusion, and her own delicate
sensibility had responded to it.
They remained side by side on the bridge while the day died amidst a
wondrous panoply of color, each busied with thoughts that might not be
spoken, in their hearts emotions oddly at variance. The sky ahead of
them was wide-streaked with gold, as if for a symbol, interlaid with
sooty clouds in silhouette; on either side the mountains rose from
penumbral darkness to clear-cut heights still bright from the slanting
radiance. Here and there along the shadowy shore-line a light was born;
the smell of the salt sea was in the air. Above the rhythmic pulse of
the steamer rose the voices of men singing between decks, while the
parting waters at the prow played a soft accompaniment. A steward
summoned them to supper, but Boyd refused, saying he could not eat, and
the girl stayed with him while the miles slowly slipped past and the
night encompassed them.
"Two hours more," he told her, as the ship's bell sounded. "Then I can
eat and sleep--and sing."
Captain Peasley was pacing the bridge when later they breasted the
glare of Port Townsend and saw in the distance the flashing
searchlights of the forts that guard the Straits. They saw him stop
suddenly, and raise his night-glasses; Boyd laid his hand on Cherry's
arm. Presently the Captain crossed to them and said:
"Yonder seems to be a launch making out. See? I wonder what's up."
Almost in their path a tiny light was violently agitated. "By Jove!
They're signalling."
"You won't stop, will you?" questioned Emerson.
"I don't know, I am sure. I may have to."
The two boats were drawing together rapidly, and soon those on the
bridge heard the faint but increasing patter of a gasoline exhaust.
Carrying the same speed as _The Bedford Castle_, the launch shortly
came within hailing distance. The cyclopean eye of the ship's
searchlight blazed up, and the next instant, out from the gloom leaped
a little craft, on the deck of which a man stood waving a lantern. She
held steadfastly to her course, and a voice floated up to them:
"Ahoy! What ship?"
"_The Bedford Castle_, cannery-tender for Bristol Bay," Peasley shouted
back.
The man on the launch relinquished his lantern, and using both palms
for a funnel, cried, more clearly now: "Heave to! We want to come
aboard."
With an exclamation of impatience, the commanding officer stepped to
the telegraph, but Emerson forestalled him.
"Wait, they're after me, Captain; it's the Port Townsend police, and if
you let them aboard they'll take me off."
"What makes you think so?" demanded Peasley.
"Ask them."
Turning, the skipper bellowed down the gleaming electric pathway, "Who
are you?"
"Police! We want to come aboard."
"What did I tell you?" cried Emerson.
Once more the Captain shouted: "What do you want?"
"One of your passengers--Emerson. Heave to. You're passing us."
"That's bloody hard luck, Mr. Emerson; I can't help myself," the
Captain declared. But again Boyd blocked him as he started for the
telegraph.
"I won't stand it, sir. It's a conspiracy to ruin me."
"But, my dear young man--"
"Don't touch that instrument!"
From the launch came cries of growing vehemence, and a startled murmur
of voices rose from somewhere in the darkness of the deck beneath.
"Stand aside," Peasley ordered, gruffly; but the other held his ground,
saying, quietly:
"I warn you. I am desperate."
"Shall I stop her, sir?" the quartermaster asked from the shadows of
the wheel-house.
"No!" Emerson commanded, sharply, and in the glow from the
binnacle-light they saw he had drawn his revolver, while on the instant
up from the void beneath heaved the massive figure of Big George Balt,
a behemoth, more colossal and threatening than ever in the dim light.
Rumbling curses as he came, he leaped up the pilot-house steps,
wrenched open the door, and with one sweep of his hairy paw flung the
helmsman from his post, panting,
"Keep her going, Cap', or I'll run them down!"
"We stood by you, old man," Emerson urged; "you stand by us. They can't
make you stop. They can't come aboard."
The launch was abreast of them now, and skimming along so close that
one might have tossed a biscuit aboard of her. For an instant Captain
Peasley hesitated; then Emerson saw the ends of his bristly mustache
rise above an expansive grin as he winked portentously. But his voice
was convincingly loud and wrathful as he replied:
"What do you mean, sir? I'll have my blooming ship libelled for this."
"I'll make good your losses," Emerson volunteered, quickly, realizing
that other ears were open.
"Why, it's mutiny, sir."
"Exactly! You can say you went out under duress."
"I never heard of such a thing," stormed the skipper. Then, more
quietly, "But I don't seem to have any choice in the matter; do I?"
"None whatever."
"Tell them to go to hell!" growled Balt from the open window above
their head.
A blasphemous outcry floated up from the launch, while heads protruded
from the deck-house openings, the faces white in the slanting glare.
"Why don't you heave to?" demanded a voice.
Peasley stepped to the end of the bridge and called down: "I can't
stop, my good man, they won't allow it, y' know. You'll have to bloody
well come aboard yourself." Then, obedient to his command, the
search-light traced an arc through the darkness and died out, leaving
the little craft in darkness, save for its dim lantern.
Unseen by the amazed quartermaster, who was startled out of speech and
action, Emerson gripped the Captain's shoulder and whispered his
thanks, while the Britisher grumbled under his breath:
"Bli' me! Won't that labor crowd be hot? They nearly bashed in my head
with that iron spike. Four hundred pounds! My word!"
The sputter of the craft alongside was now punctuated by such a volley
of curses that he raised his voice again: "Belay that chatter, will
you? There's a lady aboard."
The police launch sheered off, and the sound of her exhaust grew
rapidly fainter and fainter. But not until it had wholly ceased did Big
George give over his post at the wheel. Even then he went down the
ladder reluctantly, and without a word of thanks, of explanation, or of
apology. With him this had been but a part of the day's work. He saw
neither sentiment nor humor in the episode. The clang of the
deep-throated ship's bell spoke the hour, and, taking Cherry's arm,
Boyd helped her to the deck.
"Now let's eat something," said she.
"Yes," he agreed, relief and triumph in his tone, "and drink something,
too."
"We'll drink to the health of 'Fingerless' Fraser."
"To the health of 'Fingerless' Fraser," he echoed. "We will drink that
standing."
A week later, after an uneventful voyage across a sea of glass, _The
Bedford Castle_ made up through a swirling tide-rip and into the
fog-bound harbor of Unalaska. The soaring "goonies" that had followed
them from Flattery had dropped astern at first sight of the volcanic
headlands, and now countless thousands of sea-parrots fled from the
ship's path, squattering away in comic terror, dragging their fat
bodies across the sea as a boy skips a flat rock. It had been Captain
Peasley's hope, here at the gateway of the Misty Sea, to learn
something about the lay of the big ice-floes to the northward, but he
was disappointed, for the season was yet too young for the
revenue-cutters, and the local hunters knew nothing. Forced to rely on
luck and his own skill, he steamed out again the next day, this time
doubling back to the eastward and laying a cautious course along the
second leg of the journey.
Once through the ragged barrier that separates the North Pacific from
her sister sea, the dank breath of the Arctic smote them fairly. The
breeze that wafted out from the north brought with it the chill of
limitless ice-fields, and the first night found them hove-to among the
outposts of that shifting desert of death which debouches out of
Behring Straits with the first approach of autumn, to retreat again
only at the coming of reluctant summer. From the crow's-nest the
lookout stared down upon a white expanse that stretched beyond the
horizon. At dawn they began their careful search, feeling their way
eastward through the open lanes and tortuous passages that separated
the floes, now laying-to for the northward set of the fields to clear a
path before them, now stealing through some narrow lead that opened
into freer waters.
_The Bedford Castle_ was a steel hull whose sides, opposed to the jaws
of the ponderous masses, would have been crushed like an eggshell in a
vise. Unlike a wooden ship, the gentlest contact would have sprung her
plates, while any considerable collision would have pierced her as if
she had been built of paper. Appreciating to the full the peril of his
slow advance, Captain Peasley did all the navigating in person; but
eventually they were hemmed in so closely that for a day and a night
they could do nothing but drift with the pack. In time, however, the
winds opened a crevice through which they retreated to follow the outer
limits farther eastward, until they were balked again.
Opposed to them were the forces of Nature, and they were wholly
dependent upon her fickle favor. It might be a day, a week, a month
before she would let them through, and, even when the barrier began to
yield, another ship, a league distant, might profit by an opening which
to them was barred. For a long, dull period the voyagers lay as
helpless as if in dry-dock, while wandering herds of seals barked at
them or bands of walruses ceased their fishing and crept out upon the
ice-pans to observe these invaders of their peace. When an opportunity
at last presented itself, they threaded their way southward, there to
try another approach, and another, and another, until the first of May
had come and gone, leaving them but little closer to their goal than
when they first hove-to. Late one evening they discerned smoke on the
horizon, and the next morning's light showed a three-masted steamship
fast in the ice, a few miles to the westward.
"That's _The Juliet_," Big George informed his companions, "one of the
North American Packers' Association tenders."
"She was loading when we left Seattle," Boyd remarked.
"It is Willis Marsh's ship, so he must be aboard," supplemented Cherry.
"She's a wooden ship, and built for this business. If we don't look out
he'll beat us in, after all."
"What good will that do him?" Clyde questioned. "The fish don't bite--I
mean run--for sixty days yet."
Emerson and Balt merely shrugged.
To Cherry Malotte this had been a voyage of dreams; for once away from
land, Boyd had become his real self again--that genial, irrepressible
self she had seen but rarely--and his manner had lost the restraint and
coolness which recently had disturbed their relations. Of necessity
their cramped environment had thrown them much together, and their
companionship had been most pleasant. She and Boyd had spent long hours
together, during which his light-heartedness had rivalled that of Alton
Clyde--hours wherein she had come to know him more intimately and to
feel that he was growing to a truer understanding of herself. She
realized beyond all doubt that for him there was but one woman in all
the world, yet the mere pleasure of being near him was an anodyne for
her secret distress. Womanlike, she took what was offered her and
strove unceasingly for more.
Two days after sighting _The Juliet_ they raised another ship, one of
the sailing fleet which they knew to be hovering in the offing, and
then on the fifth of the month the capricious current opened a way for
them. Slowly at first they pushed on between the floes into a vast area
of slush-ice, thence to a stretch as open and placid as a country
mill-pond. The lookout pointed a path out of this, into which they
steamed, coming at length to clear water, with the low shores of the
mainland twenty miles away.
At sundown they anchored in the wide estuary of the Kalvik River, the
noisy rumble of their chains breaking the silence that for months had
lain like a smother upon the port. The Indian village gave sign of life
only in thin, azure wisps of smoke that rose from the dirt roofs; the
cannery buildings stood as naked and uninviting as when Boyd had last
seen them. The Greek cross crowning the little white church was gilded
by the evening sun. Through the glasses Cherry spied a figure in the
door of her house which she declared was Constantine, but with
commendable caution the big breed forebore to join the fleet of kyaks
now rapidly mustering. Taking Clyde with them, she and Boyd were soon
on their way to the land, leaving George to begin discharging his
cargo. The long voyage that had maddened the fishermen was at last at
an end, and they were eager to begin their tasks.
A three-mile pull brought the ship's boat to Cherry's landing, where
Constantine and Chakawana met them, the latter hysterical with joy, the
former showing his delight in a rare display of white teeth and a flow
of unintelligible English. Even the sledge-dogs, now fat from idleness,
greeted their mistress with a fierce clamor that dismayed Alton Clyde,
to whom all was utterly new and strange.
"Glory be!" he exclaimed. "They're nothing but wolves. Won't they bite?
And the house--ain't it a hit! Why, it looks like a stage setting! Oh,
say, I'm for this! I'm getting rough and primitive and brutal already!"
When they passed from the store, with its shelves sadly naked now, to
the cozy living quarters behind, his enthusiasm knew no bounds. Leaving
Chakawana and her mistress to chatter and clack in their patois, he
inspected the premises inside and out, peering into all sorts of
corners, collecting souvenirs, and making friends with the saturnine
breed.
Cherry would not return to the ship, but Emerson and Clyde re-embarked
and were rowed down to the cannery site, abreast of which lay _The
Bedford Castle_, where they lingered until the creeping twilight forced
them to the boat again. When they reached the ship the cool Arctic
night had descended, but its quiet was broken by the halting nimble of
steam-winches, the creak of tackle, the cries of men, and the sounds of
a great activity. Baring his head to the breezes Boyd filled his lungs
full of the bracing air, sweet with the flavor of spring, vowing
secretly that no music that he had ever heard was the equal of this. He
turned his face to the southward and smiled, while his thoughts sped a
message of love and hope into the darkness.