Chapter 13

Standing and facing forward as he rowed, he came suddenly upon a big steam-yacht which had stolen into the cove through the fog and was anchored in his course. She was the _Sprite_, and he had formed a 'longshore acquaintance with her skipper that summer, meeting him in harbors where the _Sprite_ and _Olenia_ had been neighbors in the anchorage. He stopped rowing and allowed the dory to drift. He noted that the blue flag was flying at the main starboard spreader, announcing the absence of the owner, and he understood that he could call for the skipper without embarrassing that gentleman. One of the crew was putting covers on the brasswork forward.

“Compliments to Captain Trott, and tell him that Captain Mayo is at the gangway.”

The skipper appeared promptly, replying to the hail before the sailor had stirred. “Come aboard, sir.”

“I'll not bother you that much, captain. I can ask my question just as well from here. Do you know of any good opening for a man of my size?”

The captain of the _Sprite_ came to the rail and did not reply promptly.

“I have left the _Olenia_ and I'm looking for something.”

Captain Trott started for the gangway. “Oh, you needn't trouble to come down, sir.”

“I'd rather, Captain Mayo.” After he had descended he squatted on the platform at the foot of the ladder and held the dory close, grasping the gunwale. “What are you doing for yourself these days?”

Mayo had no relish for a long story. “I'm waiting to grab in on something,” he replied.

Captain Trott did not show any alacrity in getting to the subject which Mayo had broached. “It has set in pretty thick, hasn't it? I have been ordered in here to wait for my folks; they're visiting at some big estate up-river.”

“But about the chance for a job, captain!”

“Look here! What kind of a run-in did you have with the _Olenia_ owner?”

Mayo opened his mouth and then promptly closed it. He could not reveal the nature of the trouble between himself and his former employer.

“We had words,” he said, stiffly.

“Yes, I reckon so! But the rest of it!”

“That's all.”

“You needn't tell me any more than you feel like doing, of course,” said Captain Trott. “But I have to tell _you_ that Mr. Marston has come out with some pretty fierce talk for an owner to make. He has made quite a business of circulating that talk. I didn't realize that you are of so much importance in the world, Mayo,” he added, dryly.

“I don't know what he is saying.”

“Didn't you leave him in the night--without notice, or something of the kind?”

“It was an accident.”

“I hope you have a good story to back you up, Captain Mayo, for I have liked you mighty well ever since meeting you first. What is behind it?”

“I can't tell you.”

“But you can tell somebody--somebody who can straighten the thing out for you, can't you?”

“No, Captain Trott.”

“Well, you know what has happened in your case, don't you?” The skipper of the _Sprite_ exhibited a little testiness at being barred out of Mayo's confidence.

The young man shook his head.

“Marston claims that you mutinied and deserted him--slipped away in the night--threw up your job on the high seas--left him to work to New York with a short crew--the mate as captain.”

“That's an infernal lie!”

“Then come forward and show him up.”

“I cannot talk about the case. I have my reasons--good ones!”

“I'm sorry for you, Mayo. You are done in the yachting game, I'm afraid. He'll blacklist you in every yacht club from Bar Harbor to Miami. I have heard my folks talking about it. He seems to have a terrible grudge--more than a big man usually bothers about in the case of a skipper.”

Mayo set his oar against the edge of the platform and pushed off. The skipper called after him, but he was instantly swallowed up by the fog and did not reply.

On board the _Ethel and May_ his ragged but cheery crew were baiting up, hooking clams upon the ganging hooks, and coiling lines into tubs. The men grinned greeting when he swung over the rail. He scowled at them; he even turned a glowering look on Captain Candage when he met the latter on the quarter-deck.

“Yes, sir! I see how it is! You're getting cussed sick of this two-cent game here,” said Candage, mournfully. “I don't blame ye. We ain't in your class, here, Captain Mayo.” He took the papers which the young man held out to him. “I suppose this is the last time we'll share, you and me. I'll miss ye devilish bad. I'd rather go for nothing and let you have it all than lose ye. But, of course, it ain't no use to argue or coax.”

Mayo went and sat on the rail, folding his arms, and did not reply. The old skipper trudged forward, his head bowed, his hands clutched behind his back. When he returned Mayo stood up and put his hand on the old man's shoulder.

“Captain Candage, please don't misunderstand me. Just at present I feel that the only friends I have in the world are here. Don't mind the way I acted just now when I came on board. I have had a lot of trouble--I'm having more of it. I'm not going to leave you just yet. I want to stay aboard until I can think it all over--can get my grip. That is, if you're satisfied to have it that way!”

“Satisfied! Jumping Cicero!” exploded Captain Can-dage. He took the dory and rowed ashore. He found his daughter gazing into the fog from the porch of the widow's cottage. “He is going to stay a while longer,” he informed her, rapturously. “Something has happened. Do you suppose that girl has throwed him over?”

“Father, do you dare to chuckle because a friend is in trouble?”

“I'll laugh and slap my leg if he ever gets shet of that hity-tity girl,” he rejoined, stoutly.

“I am astonished--I am ashamed of you, father!”

“Polly dear, be honest with your dad!” he pleaded. “Do you want to see him married off to her?”

“I certainly do. I only wish I might help him.” Her lips were white, her voice trembled. She got up and hurried into the house.

“I'll be cussed if I understand wimmen,” declared Captain Candage, fiddling his finger under his nose. “That feller she has picked out for herself must be the Emp'ror of Peeroo.”

Captain Mayo did not come ashore again before the _Ethel and May_ sailed.

The fog cleared that night and they smashed out to the fishing-grounds ahead of a cracking breeze, and had their trawls down in the early dawn. At sundown, trailed by a wavering banner of screaming gulls who gobbled the “orts” tossed over by the busy crew cleaning their catch, they were docking at the city fish-house.

“Lucky again,” commented Captain Candage, returning from his sharp dicker with the buyer. “The city critters are all hungry for haddock, and that's just what we hit to-day.” He surveyed his gloomy partner with sympathetic concern. “Why don't you take a run uptown?” he suggested. “You're sticking too close to this packet for a young man. Furthermore, if you see a store open buy me a box of paper collars. Rowley hain't got my size!”

Mayo, unreconciled and uneasy, hating that day the sound of the flapping, sliding fish as they were pitchforked into the tubs for hoisting, annoyed by the yawling of pulleys and realizing that his nerves were not right at all, obeyed the suggestion. He had a secret errand of his own, yielding to a half-hope; he went to the general-delivery window of the post-office and asked for mail. He knew that love makes keen guesses. The _Olenia_ had visited that harbor frequently for mail. But there was nothing for him. He strolled about the streets, nursing his melancholy, forgetting Captain Candage's commission, envying the contentment shown by others.

In that mood he would have avoided Captain Zoradus Wass if he had spied that boisterously cheerful mariner in season. But the captain had him by the arm and was dancing him about the sidewalk, showing more affability than was his wont.

“Heifers o' Herod! youngster,” shouted the grizzled master, “have you come looking for me?”

“No,” faltered Mayo. “Did you want to see me?”

“Have worn taps off my boots to-day chasing from shipping commissioner's office to every hole and corner along the water-front. Heard you had quit aboard a yacht, and reckoned you had got sensible again and wanted real work.”

“If you had asked down among the fish-houses you might have got on track of me, sir.” Mayo's tone was somber.

“Fish! You fishing?” demanded Captain Wass, with incredulity.

“Yes, and on a chartered smack at that--shack-fishing on shares!” Mayo was sourly resolved to paint his low estate in black colors. “And I have concluded it's about all I'm fit for.”

“That's fine, seaman-like talk to come from a young chap I have trained up to master's papers, giving him two years in my pilot-house. I was afraid you were going astern, you young cuss, when I heard you'd gone skipper of a yacht, but I didn't think it was as bad as all this.”

“My yachting business is done, sir.”

“Thank the bald-headed Nicodemus! There's hopes of you. Did anybody tell you I've been looking for you?”

“No, sir!”

“Glad of it. Now I can tell you myself. Do you know where I am now?”

“I heard you were on a Vose line freighter, sir.”

“Don't know who told you that--but it wasn't Ananias. You're right. She's the old _Nequasset_, handed back to me again because I'm the only one who understands her cussed fool notions. First mate got drunk yesterday and broke second mate's leg in the scuffle--one is in jail and t'other in the hospital, and never neither of 'em will step aboard any ship with me again. I sail at daybreak, bade to the Chesapeake for steel rails. Got your papers?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Come along. You're first mate.”

“Do you really want me, sir?”

“Want you? Confound it all, I've got you! In about half a day I'll have all the yacht notions shaken out of you and the fish-scales stripped off, and then you'll be what you was when I let you go--the smartest youngster I ever trained.”

Mayo obeyed the thrust of the jubilant master's arm and went along. “I'll go and explain to Captain Can-dage, my partner.”

“All right. I'll go along, too, and help you make it short.”

As they walked along Captain Wass inspected his companion critically.

“High living aboard Marston's yacht make you dyspeptic, son? You look as if your vittles hadn't been agreeing with you.”

“My health is all right, sir.”

“Heard you had trouble with Marston,” proceeded the old skipper, with brutal frankness. “Anybody who has trouble with that damnation pirate comes well recommended to me. He is trying to steal every steamboat line on this coast. Thank Gawd, he can never get his claws on the old Vose line. Some great doings in the steamboat business are ahead, Mayo. Reckon it's a good line to be in if you like fight and want to make your bigness.”

Mayo walked on in silence. He was troubled by this added information that news of his affair with Marston had gained such wide currency. However, he was glad that this new opportunity offered him a chance to hide himself in the isolation of a freighter's pilot-house.

Captain Candage received the news with meek resignation. “I knowed it would have to come,” he said. “Couldn't expect much else. Howsomever, it ain't comforting.”

“Can't keep a good boy like this pawing around in fish gurry,” stated Captain Wass.

“I know it, and I wish him well and all the best!”

Their leave-taking, presided over by the peremptory master of the _Nequasset_, was short.

“I'll probably have a chance to see you when we come here again,” called Mayo from the wharf, looking down into the mournful countenance of the skipper. “Perhaps I'll have time to run down to Maquoit while we are discharging. At any rate, explain it all for me, especially to your daughter.”

“I'll tell all concerned just what's right,” Captain Candage assured him. “I'll tell her for you.”

She was on the beach when the skipper came rowing in alone from the _Ethel and May_.

“He's gone,” he called to her. “Of course we couldn't keep him. He's too smart to stay on a job like this.”

When they were on their way up to the widow's cottage he stole side-glances at her, and her silence distressed him.

“Let's see! He says to me--if I can remember it right-he says, says he, 'Take my best respects and '--let's see--yes, 'take my best respects and love to your Polly--'”

“Father! Please don't fib.”

“It's just as I remember it, dear. 'Especial,' he says. I remember that! 'Especial,' he says. And he looked mighty sad, dear, mighty sad.” He put his arm about her. “There are a lot of sad things in this world for everybody, Polly. Sometimes things get so blamed mixed up that I feel like going off and climbing a tree!”

XV ~ THE RULES OF THE ROAD

Now the _Dreadnought's_ a-sailing the Atlantic so wide, Where the high, roaring seas roll along her black side. Her sailors like lions walk the deck to and fro, She's the Liverpool packet--O Lord let her go! --Song of the Flash Packet.

On a day in early August the _Nequasset_ came walloping laboriously up-coast through a dungeon fog, steel rails her dragging burden, caution her watchword.

The needle of her indicator marked “Half speed,” and it really meant half speed. Captain Zoradus Wass made scripture of the rules laid down by the Department of Commerce and Labor. There was no tricky slipping-over under his sway--no finger-at-nose connivance between the pilot-house and the chief engineer's grille platform. No, Captain Wass was not that kind of a man, though the fog had held in front of him two days, vapor thick as feathers in a tick, and he had averaged not much over six nautical miles an hour, and was bitterly aware that the rate of freight on steel rails was sixty-five cents a ton.

“And as I've been telling you, at sixty-five cents there's about as much profit as there would be in swapping hard dollars from one hand to the other and depending on what silver you can rub off,” said Captain Wass to First-mate Mayo.

The captain was holding the knob of the whistle-pull In constant clutch. Regularly every minute _Nequasset's_ prolonged blast sounded, strictly according to the rules of the road.

Her voice started with a complaining squawk, was full toned for a few moments, then trailed off into more querulousness; the timbre of that tone seemed to fit with Captain Wass's mood.

“It's tough times when a cargo-carrier has to figger so fine that she can lose profit on account of what the men eat,” he went on. “If you're two days late, minding rules in a fog, owners ask what the tophet's the matter with you! This kind of business don't need steamboat men any longer; it calls for boarding-house keepers who can cut sirloin steak off'n a critter clear to the horn, and who are handy in turning sharp corners on left-overs. I'll buy a book of cooking receets and try to turn in dividends.”

The captain was broad-bowed, like the _Nequasset_, he sagged on short legs as if he carried a cargo fully as heavy as steel rails, his white whiskers streamed away from his cutwater nose like the froth kicked up by the old freighter's forefoot. He chewed slowly, conscientiously and continuously on tobacco which bulged in his cheek; his jaws, moving as steadily as a pendulum swings, seemed to set the time for the isochronal whistle-blast. Sixty ruminating jaw-wags, then he spat into the fog, then the blast--correct to the clock's tide!

The windows of the pilot-house were dropped into their casings, so that all sounds might be admitted; the wet breeze beaded the skipper's whiskers and dampened the mate's crisp hair. While the mate leaned from a window, ear cocked for signals, the captain gave him more of the critical inspection in which he had been indulging when occasion served.

Furthermore, Captain Wass went on pecking around the edges of a topic which he had been attacking from time to time with clumsy attempt at artful inquisition.

“As bad as it is on a freighter, I reckon you ain't sorry you're off that yacht, son?”

“I'm not sorry, sir.”

“From what you told me, the owner was around meddling all the time.”

“I don't remember that I ever said so, sir.”

“Oh, I thought you did,” grunted Captain Wass, and he covered his momentary check by sounding the whistle.

“Now that you are back in the steamboat business, of course you're a steamboat man. Have the interests of your owners at heart,” he resumed.

“Certainly, sir.”

“It would be a lot of help to the regular steamboat men--the good old stand-bys--if they could get some kind of a line on what them Wall Street cusses are gunning through with Marston leading 'em--or, at leastways, he's supposed to be leading. He hides away in the middle of the web and lets the other spiders run and fetch. But it's Marston's scheme, you can bet on that! What do you think?”

“I haven't thought anything about it, Captain Wass.” “But how could you help thinking, catching a word here and a word there, aboard that yacht?”

“I never listened--I never heard anything.”

“But he had them other spiders aboard--seen 'em myself through my spy-glass when you passed us one day in June.”

“I suppose they talked together aft, but my duty was forward, sir.”

“It's too bad you didn't have a flea put into your ear about getting a line on Marston's scheme, whatever it is. You could have helped the real boys in this game!”

Mayo did not reply.

Captain Wass showed a resolve to quit pecking at the edges and make a dab at the center of the subject. He pulled the whistle, released the knob, and turned back to the window, setting his elbows on the casing.

“Son, you ain't in love with that pirate Marston, are you?”

“No, sir!” replied the young man, with bitterness that could not be doubted.

“Well, how about your being in love with his daughter?” The caustic humor in the old skipper's tones robbed the question of some of its brutal bluntness, and Mayo was accustomed to Captain Wass's brand of humor. The young man did not turn his head for a few moments; he continued to look into the fog as if intent on his duty; he was trying to get command of himself, fully aware that resentment would not work in the case of Zoradus Wass. When Mayo did face the skipper, the latter was discomposed in his turn, for Mayo showed his even teeth in a cordial smile.

“Do you think I have been trying the chauffeur trick in order to catch an heiress, sir?”

“Well, there's quite a gab-wireless operating along-coast and sailors don't always keep their yawp closed after they have taken a man's money to keep still,” stated Captain Wass, pointedly. “I wouldn't blame you for grabbing in. You're good-looking enough to do what others have done in like cases.”

“Thank you, sir. What's the rest of the joke?”

“I never joke,” retorted the skipper, turning and pulling the whistle-cord. _Nequasset's_ squall rose and died down in her brazen throat. “Her name is Alma?” he prodded. “Something of a clipper. If Marston ever makes you general manager, put me into a better job than this, will you?”

“I will, sir!”

The skipper gave his mate a disgusted stare. “You're a devil of a man to keep up a conversation with!” He spat against the wall of the fog and again let loose the freighter's hoarse lament.

From somewhere, ahead, a horn wailed, dividing its call into two blasts.

“Port tack and headed acrost us,” snarled the master, after a sniff at the air and a squint at the sluggish ripple.

“Why ain't the infernal fool anchored, instead of drifting around underfoot? How does he bear, Mr. Mayo?” He was now back to pilot-house formality with his mate.

“Two points and a half, starboard bow, sir. And there's another chap giving one horn in about the same direction.”

“Another drifter--not wind enough for 'em to know what tack they're really on. Well, there's always Article Twenty-seven to fall back on,” grumbled the skipper. He quoted sarcastically in the tone in which that rule is mouthed so often in pilot-houses along coast: '“Due regard shall be had to all dangers of navigation and collision, and to any special circumstances which may render a departure from the above rules necessary, and so forth and et cetry. Meaning, thank the Lord, that a steamer can always run away from a gad-slammed schooner, even at half speed. Hope if it ever comes to a showdown the secretary of the bureau of commerce will agree with me. Ease her off to starboard, Mr. Mayo, till we bring 'em abeam.”

The mate gave a quick glance at the compass. “East by nothe, Jack,” he commanded.

“East by nothe, sir,” repeated the quartermaster in mechanical tones, spinning the big wheel to the left.

It was evident that the _Nequasset_ had considerable company on the sea that day. A little abaft her beam a tugboat was blowing one long and two short, indicating her tow. She had been their “chum” for some time, and Mayo had occasionally taken her bearings by sound and compass and knew that the freighter was slowly forging ahead. He figured, listening again to the horns, that the Nequasset was headed to clear all.

“You take a skipper who studies his book and is always ready to look the department in the eye, without flinching, he has to mind his own business and mind the other fellow's, too,” said Captain Wass, continuing his monologue of grouch. “Dodging here and there, keeping out of the way, two days behind schedule, meat three times a day or else you can't keep a crew, and everybody hearty at meal-time! My owners have never told me to let the law go to hoot and ram her for all she's worth! But when I carry in my accounts they seem to be trying to think up language that tells a man to do a thing, and yet doesn't tell him. What's that?” He put his head far out of the window.

Floating out of the fog came a dull, grunting sound, a faint and far-away diapason, a marine whistle which announced a big chap.

“I should say it is a Union liner, sir--either the _Triton_ or _Neptune_.”

They listened. They waited two long minutes for another signal.

“Seems to be taking up his full, legal time,” growled Captain Wass. “Since Marston has gobbled that line maybe he has put on a special register to keep tabs on tooting--thinks it's waste of steam and will reduce dividends. Expects us little fellows to do the squawking!”

The big whistle boomed again, dead ahead, and so much nearer that it provoked the skipper to lash out a round oath.

“He is reeling off eighteen knots for a gait, or you can use my head for a rivet nut!” He yanked the cord and the freighter howled angrily. The other replied with bellowing roar--autocratic, domineering. With irony, with vindictiveness, Captain Wass pitched his voice in sarcastic nasal tone and recited another rule--thereby trying to express his irate opinion of the lawlessness of other men.

“Article Sixteen, Mr. Mayo! He probably carries it in his watch-case instead of his girl's picture! Nice reading for a rainy day! 'A steam-vessel hearing apparently forward of her beam the fog signal of a vessel, the position of which is not ascertained, shall, so far as the circumstances of the case permit, stop her engines and then navigate with caution until all danger of collision is over.' Hooray for the rules!”

Captain Wass hooked a gnarled finger into the loop of the bell-pull and yanked upward viciously. A dull clang sounded far below. He pulled again and the vibration of the engine ceased.

“Gad rabbit it! I'll go the whole hog as the department orders! If he bangs into me we'll see who comes off best at the hearing.”

He gave the bell-loop two quick jerks; then he shifted his hand to another pull and the jingle bell sounded in the engine-room--the _Nequasset_ was ordered to make full speed astern.

The freighter shook and shivered when the screw began to reverse, pulling at the frothing sea, clawing frantically to haul her to a stop. The skipper then gave three resentful, protesting whistle-blasts.