Chapter 29

“I've done my trick here, Captain Candage, and it has been a good one. I only ask you to take your trick, as a shipmate should. Keep a dozen of the men here with you. There's plenty of grub. Stand off all comers till I get back.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Make a man's try, sir, before I let 'em dump us. We can always go fishing. But there's only one_ Conomo_.”

“I'll stay. It's only fair to you to have your chance ashore. And I've got an almighty good rifle aboard that schooner,” stated the skipper. “Send it to me by one of the men.”

“You may need it,” stated Captain Mayo, with grim set to his jaw. “You come with me. I want to show you a bird that flew aboard here the other day.”

Outside the stateroom door he halted Captain Candage, who was following on his heels, taking Mayo's statement literally, and showing only mild interest.

“Captain Candage, your man, Art Simpson, is in this stateroom. He came out here on a tug with a bag of dynamite, and intended to blow up this wreck.”

“Gawd-a-mighty, ain't they going to stop at anything?” croaked the old skipper.

“It's about time for us to find out how much of this is reckless devilishness on the part of hired men and how much the big men really know of what is being done on this coast, sir. And that's why I'm holding this man Simpson.”

“Let me at him!” pleaded Candage. “I'll crack his shell for him! I'll get at his meat!”

Mayo unlocked the door and walked in.

“Simpson, you--” bawled the old skipper, and then halted in confusion, his mouth wide open.

“This ain't Art Simpson!” he declared, after amazed survey of the glowering stranger. “Who be ye?”

“None of your infernal business! When you do know who I am you'll discover that you have a tough proposition on your hands.”

“We realize that already, without knowing your name,” retorted Mayo.

“I'm not worrying; it's for you to do the worrying! I have given you your warning! Now take what's coming to you from the men who are behind me.”

“What's your name--that's what I've asked you?” demanded Candage.

“None of your business--that's what I have told you.”

“We'll get some light on that subject after I have you on shore,” said Mayo. “Come on! You're going!”

“Sooner the better!” agreed the stranger. “I'll relish seeing you get yours!”

Mayo wasted no time. He sent his prisoner down the ladder to the dory ahead of him, and put out his hand to the old skipper.

“If I can't do better I'll take that devil, whoever he is, by the heels, and bat out the brains of the other pirates.”

“I reckon that they'll back down when they, see that you've caught him foul,” stated the skipper, consolingly. “I've got a lot of confidence in your grit, sir. But I must say it's a terrible tricky gang we're up against, so it seems to me.”

“This may be just the right string for us to pull,” returned Mayo; “there's no pleading with them, but we may be able to scare 'em.”

“I'm afraid I'm too much inclined to look on the dark side,” confessed Captain Candage. “You're going to find 'em all agin' ye ashore, sir. But the last words my Polly tells me to say to you was to keep up your courage and not to mind my growling. She thinks We have got a sure thing here--and that shows how little a girl knows about men's work!”

And yet, that one little message of good cheer from the main so comforted Mayo that he went on his way with the whimsical thought that girls who knew just the right time to give a pat and bestow a smile did understand man's work mighty well.

XXVIII ~ GIRL'S HELP AND MAN'S WORK

We know the tricks of wind and tide That make and mean disaster, And balk 'em, too, the Wren and me, Off on the Old Man's Pastur'. Day out and in the blackfish there Go wabbling out and under, And nights we watch the coasters creep From light to light in yonder. --The Skipper.

It was the period of January calms--that lull between the tempest ravings of the equinoxes, and the _Ethel and May_ made slow time of it on her return to the main. In Mayo's mood of anxious impatience, hope in his affairs was as baffling as the winds in the little schooner's sails.

His passenger sat on the rail and gave the pacing captain occasional glances in which irony and sullenness were mingled.

“So you're going to put me into court, eh?” he inquired, when at last they drifted past the end of the breakwater at Limeport. “Well, that will give you a good excuse for throwing up your work on that wreck.”

Mayo kept on walking and did not reply. He had been pondering on the question of what to do with this new “elephant” on his hands. In a way, this stranger was an unwieldy proposition to handle in conjunction with the problem of the _Conomo_.

“Just understand that I don't give a hoot in a scuttlebutt if you do turn me over to the police,” pursued the man. “I'm going to be taken care of. So will you! You'll be tied up! Courts like to have chief witnesses attend strictly to the job.”

The young man had only a sailor's vague knowledge of the procedure of courts of law; but that knowledge and considerable hearsay had convinced him that law was lagging, exacting, and overbearing.

All his time, his best efforts, his presence were needed in the gigantic task he had undertaken at Razee. To allow himself to be mired in a law scrape together with this person, even in criminal prosecution of the man, surely meant delay, along with repeated interruption of his work, if not its abandonment for a time.

“Where's your boss?” he demanded, stopping in front of the prisoner.

“Name, please?”

“Don't try to bluff me. Fogg, I mean!”

“You'll probably find Mr. Fogg at the Nicholas Hotel.”

“I'm going to walk you up there. If you try to run away--”

“Run your Aunt Huldah! Piff, son! Now you're showing sense. Take me to Mr. Fogg. You'll be shown a few things.”

They had no difficulty in finding Mr. Fogg. He was in front of the fire in the office of the Nicholas, toasting his back and warming his slowly fanning palms, and talking to a group of men.

He affected non-recognition of Mayo when the young man asked, brusquely, if he might see him in private.

“Certainly, sir. And your friend?”

“Yes.”

The stranger, following up the stairs with Mayo, nudged his companion.

“He's a wonder! 'And your friend?'” he quoted with a chuckle. “No coarse work about that!”

Mayo had firmly decided in his mind that his present business was the only matter he would discuss with Fletcher Fogg. Even though the just wrath of an innocent man, ruined and persecuted, prompted him to assail this smug trickster with tongue, and even with fists, he bound himself by mental promise to wait until he had proofs other than vague words and his own convictions.

“And now--” invited Fogg, when he had closed the door of his room, waiting tmtil his callers had entered.

“Yes, _now!_” blurted Captain Mayo. “Not _then_, Mr. Fogg! We'll have that settled later, when I make you pay for what you did to me. This man here, you know him, of course! He tried to dynamite the _Conomo_. I caught him in the act. He is your man. He has made his boasts that he would be protected.”

Mr. Fogg turned a cold stare upon the man's appreciative grin.

“I never saw this person before, sir.”

“I know better!” Mayo leaped to a conclusion, and bluffed. “I can prove by men here in this city that you have been talking with him.”

“He may have been one of the persons who came to me asking for work on the wreck, providing my concern decided to salvage. But we concluded not to undertake the work, and I paid no attention to him. As far as any memory of mine is concerned, I never saw him before, I say.”

“You don't represent any salvage company,” insisted Mayo. “You have come here to interfere with anybody who tries to salvage that steamer.”

“What is your business with me, sir? Get somewhere!”

“I have come to show you this man. If you'll keep your hands off my affairs, shut your mouth, and stop telling men here that the plan to salvage is hopeless, I'll turn this man over to you. You know what I ought to do to you right here and now, Fogg,” he cried, savagely. “But I'm not going to bother--not now. I'm here to trade with you on this one matter.”

“I'm not interested.”

“Then I shall take this man to the police station and lodge my complaint. When criminal prosecution starts you'll see what happens to you.”

“Go as far as you like,” consented Mr. Fogg, listlessly. “You can't make me responsible for the acts of a person I don't know from Adam.”

“Is that your last word?”

“Of course it is!” snapped the promoter. “You must be a lunatic to think anything else.”

“Very well. May I use your telephone to call the police?”

“Certainly.” Mr. Fogg lighted a cigar and picked up a newspaper.

“Just a moment before you use that 'phone,” objected the third member of the party. “I want an understanding. You please step out of the room, Mayo.”

“Stay where you are,” commanded Fogg. “I'll give no chance for any underhand work.” He scowled when the prisoner winked at him. “This looks to me like a put-up job between you two.”

“There's nothing put up between us,” declared the man. “There'd better be something put up between _you_ two. The thing can go about so far, where I'm concerned, and no farther. I want an understanding, I say!”

Fogg slapped open the pages of his newspaper.

“I have made my talk,” said Mayo.

“By gad, I'm not going to jail--not for anybody!”

Fogg removed his eye-glasses and gave the man a full, unblinking stare.

“Did you try to dynamite that wreck?”

“Is that orders--orders to talk right out?”

“Orders? I don't know what you mean, sir. I have asked you a plain question.”

“And you want an answer?”

“Naturally.”

“What I tried to do didn't work--he was too quick for me. There, now, get together! He has made you a fair offer, Mr. Fogg. There's no need of my going to jail. I won't go!”

“You ought to go, for what you did!” commented Fogg, dryly.

“No, for what he didn't do--from your standpoint,” suggested Captain Mayo.

“And you have been boasting, eh?” Fogg kept up his disconcerting stare, with fishy eyes.

“I ain't going to let men walk over me and wipe their feet on me when I'm obeying orders.”

“Orders from whom, sir?”

“Condemn it all, orders from men who can protect me by saying one word! I ain't going to stand all this riddle-come-ree business! Flat down, now, Mr. Fogg, what say?”

“Not a word! If what this fellow says is true, you ought to be in jail.”

“The advice is good. He'll be there very soon,” declared Mayo, starting for the telephone. Fogg replaced his eye-glasses and began to read.

“I'm ready to blow up!” warned the man. He hurried across the room and guarded the telephone with outspread arms.

“Both of you will be sorry if the police are called,” he cried. To Mayo, who was close to him, he mumbled, “Damn him, if he dumps me like this you're going to be the winner!”

There was so much reality in the man's rancor that Mayo was impressed and seized upon the idea which came to him.

“We'll test your friend,” he whispered, clutching the man, and making pretense of a struggle. “I'll fake a call. Keep wrestling.”

Fogg gave only indifferent attention to the affair in the corner of the room.

With one hand holding down the receiver-arm Mayo called; he was pushed about violently, but managed to say: “Desk? Call police to hotel--lobby--at once!”

“Mr. Fogg,” pleaded the man, giving Mayo an understanding nudge with his elbow, “ain't you going to give me a chance for a private talk?”

“If you ever speak to me or try to see me again I'll have you arrested.”

“But you're dumping me.”

“Get out of this room, both of you! I don't want the police up here.”

Mayo clapped hand on his prisoner's shoulder and pushed him out.

“Go down-stairs slow,” protested the man. “He is bound to come out and call me back! He's got to! He doesn't dare to dump me!”

“He dares to do anything,” stated Mayo, bitterly, “including what he did to me and the _Montana_. I suppose you read about it--everybody else did.”

They walked leisurely, but Mr. Fogg's door remained closed. They waited in the office of the hotel. He did not appear.

“By Judas!” rasped the man, “another two-spot torn up and thrown into the discard along with you! And I helped 'em do it to you! I'm coming across, Mayo! That telephone business was a mighty friendly trick to help me force him. I appreciate it! I was on board the _Montana_ that night you and she got yours! My name is Burkett--Oliver. I was there, though you didn't see me.”

“I heard you were there, afterward,” stated Captain Mayo, grimly. “Captain Wass mentioned you!”

“And probably didn't give me much of a reputation. I can't help that! You needn't put one bit more trust in me, Captain Mayo, than you want to. I don't ask you to have any respect for me. But I want to tell you that when a man promises to back me and then turns round and dumps me so as to cover his own tracks, he will get his if I'm able to hand it to him! I'm generally dirty. I'm especially dirty in a case like that!”

“If you show me any favors, Mr. Burkett, I suppose I'll have to depend on your spite against Fogg instead of your affection for me. You see, I'm perfectly frank. But I have been fooled too much to place any trust in anybody.”

“I don't ask you to trust me. I know how the _Montana_ job was done. I'm not going to tell you right now. I'm going to make sure that I have been thrown down by Fogg. And if I have been--if he means it--I'm going to use you so that I can get back at him, no matter how much it helps you. I can be pretty frank myself, you understand!”

They were silent and looked at each other.

“Well?” inquired Burkett, sourly.

“Well, what?” asked Mayo, with as little show of liking.

“What about this police business--about your complaint against me?”

“I'm not going to say anything about the case! You're free, as far as I'm concerned. I am ashore here to make a raise of money or credit. I can't spend any time in court, bothering with you.”

“I reckon you got your satisfaction out of that beating-up you gave me. I rather began to like you after that,” said Burkett, pulling one corner of his mouth into a grin that was a grimace. “I'm going to stay at this hotel.”

“Fogg will see that our affair just now was a bluff. He will have you into camp once more.”

“You've got to take your chances on it, Mayo. What do you say?”

“I'll take my chances.”

“By gad! sir, you're a square chap, and I'm not meeting many of that sort in these days! Let this thing hang. Before you leave the city, slip word to me here. I'll tell you the news!”

With that understanding they parted.

Three days later, acknowledging to himself that he was a thoroughly beaten young man, Mayo walked into the Nicholas Hotel. He had been unable to secure either encouragement, money, or credit. There were parties who would back him in any attempt to junk the _Conomo_; but his proposition to raise her with the aid of the tribe of Hue and Cry made his project look like a huge joke and stirred hearty amusement all along the water-front. Everywhere he found proof of Fogg's neat work of discouragement. If a real salvaging company had turned the scheme down as impracticable, how could penniless amateurs hope? It was conceded in business and financial circles that they hoped because they were amateurs.

Mayo's outlook on his own strictly personal affairs was as dismal as his view of the Razee project in which his associates were concerned. He went to the hotel merely because he had promised Burkett that he would notify that modern buccaneer regarding any intended departure. He despondently reflected that if Fogg and Burkett had agreed again, the combination against him still existed. If they were persistently on the outs, Burkett was merely a discredited agent whose word, without proofs, could be as easily brushed away as his connection with Fogg in the' matter of the _Conomo_. In fact, so Mayo pondered, he might find association with Burkett dangerous, because demands for consideration can be twisted into semblance of blackmail by able lawyers. He entertained so few hopes in regard to any assistance from Burkett that he was rather relieved to discover that the man was no longer a guest at the hotel.

“Has he left town?”

“I suppose there's no secret about the thing,” explained the clerk. “Mr. Fogg had the man arrested yesterday, for threatening words and actions. Something of that sort. Anyway, he is in jail and must give bonds to keep the peace.”

Mayo's flagging interest in the possibilities of Burkett as an aid in his affairs was a bit quickened by that piece of news, and he hurried up to the jail. If ever a captured and fractious bird of passage was beating wings against his cage's bars in fury and despair, Mr. Burkett was doing it with vigor. Mayo, admitted as a friend who might aid in quelling the disturbance that was making the deafened jailers and noise-maddened prisoners regret the presence of Mr. Burkett, found the man clinging to the iron rods and kicking his foot against them.

“It's the last thing he did before he left town, this what he has done to me. I can't give bonds. I don't know anybody in this city,” raved the prisoner.

“I'm afraid that I don't know the folks here very well, judging from my experiences trying to raise money,” stated Captain Mayo, after he had quieted Burkett. “But I'll go out and see what I can do.”

After some pleading he induced a fish wholesaler to go to the jail with him and inspect Burkett as a risk in the matter of bonds. Mr. Burkett, being a man of guile, controlled his wrath and offered a presentable guise of mildness.

“But how am I going to know that he won't be hunting this enemy up as soon as I give bonds?” asked the fishman.

“Captain Mayo is tackling a job of wrecking, offcoast,” said Burkett, “and I'm out of work just now and will go with him. I'll be a safe risk, all right, out there.”

“Does that go with you, Captain Mayo?”

“Yes, sir.”

After the matter of bonds had been arranged before the commissioner, and when Burkett walked down the street with Mayo, the latter stopped on a corner.

“I'll have to leave you here, Burkett. I'm going aboard the schooner. We're sailing.”

“But how about your taking me?”

“I was willing to help you lie that much, Burkett. I knew you did not intend to go with me.”

“I don't want to put you in bad with anybody after this, Captain Mayo. I need to keep away for a time where I won't be in danger of seeing Fletcher Fogg. If I meet him while I'm frothing like this, I'll kill him, even if it means the chair. Give me a lay aboard that steamer, no matter how bad your prospects are, and I'll be square with you. That's my man's word to you. I realize it isn't much of a word in your estimation--but there are some promises I can keep. I propose to help you get back at Fogg and his gang. That's reason enough for what I'm doing,” he pleaded, earnestly. “You ought to see that yourself. I'm just as good a man with machinery as I am in the pilot-house. I won't set you back any!”

“All right, Mr. Burkett, come along,” agreed Mayo, curtly, without enthusiasm.

There was a fair wind for their departure and Mayo headed the schooner for Maquoit. The few words which Captain Candage had dropped in regard to Rowley's state of mind worried Mayo. His little edifice of hope was tottering to a fall, but the loss of the _Ethel and May_ meant the last push and utter ruin. He decided that he was in honor bound to preserve the schooner for the uses of the men of Hue and Cry, even if it meant abandonment of the _Conomo_ and going back to fishing. Without that craft they would be paupers once more.

The _Ethel and May_ sneaked her way into Maquoit harbor--if a schooner can be said to sneak. A breeze at nightfall fanned her along, and when her killick went down, the rusty chain groaned querulously from her hawse-hole.

Mayo rowed ashore and toiled his way up the little street to the widow's cottage. He was ashamed to meet Polly Candage--ashamed with the feelings of a strong man who has put out every effort and has failed. But, somehow, he wanted to feel that sisterly grip of her hand and look down into those encouraging gray eyes. He remembered that in times past she had soothed and stimulated him. This time he did not come to her expecting to get new courage for further effort; he had exhausted all resources, he told himself. But in his bitter humiliation he needed the companionship of a true friend--yes, he felt, almost, that she was now the only friend he had left. His experiences with those whom he had before looked on as friends had made him feel that he stood alone.

She came running to him in the little parlor, her hands outstretched and her face alight.

He felt at first sight of her, and his face flushed at thought of his weakness, that he wanted to put his head on her shoulder and weep.

“You poor boy, things have not been going well!”

He choked, for the caress in her tones touched his heart. He patted her hands, and she sat down beside him on the old haircloth sofa.

“I've had a terrible week of it, Polly.”

Her sweet smile did not waver. The gray eyes stared straight into his.

“I have talked to 'em till my mouth has been parched and my tongue sore, and God knows my heart is sore. All they do is look at me and shake their heads. I thought I had friends alongshore--men who believed in me--men who would take my word and help me. I'll never be fooled again by the fellows who pat you on the back in sunny weather, and won't lend you an umbrella when it rains unless you'll leave your watch with 'em for security. And speaking of the watch,” he went on, smiling wistfully, for her mere presence and her unspoken sympathy had begun to cheer him, “reminds me why I'm here in Maquoit. Oh yes,” he put in, hastily, catching a queer look of disappointment on her face, “I did want to see you. I looked forward to seeing you after all the others had turned their backs on me. There's something wonderfully comforting in your face, Polly, when you just look at me. You don't have to say a word.”

“I do thank you, Boyd.”

“I hear that Rowley is getting uneasy about his schooner--wants to take it away from us. So I have sold my watch and all the other bits of personal things I could turn into cash, and am here to give him the money and tell him we're going back to fishing again.”

“You'll give up the steamer?”

“Yes--and hopes and prospects and all. I've got to.”

“But if you could win!”

“I'll stay down where I belong. I won't dream any more.”

“Don't give up.”

“There's nothing else to do. We poor devils need something besides our bare hands.”

The girl struggled mightily with her next question, but he did not note her emotions, for his elbows were on his knees and he was staring at the rag carpet.

“Will it cost a lot of money for what you want to do on the steamer?”

“We may need a lot before we can do it all. But I have been sitting up nights planning the thing, Polly. I have gone over and over it. When I was on board the steamer waiting for your father, I examined her as best I could.. If I had a little money, I could make a start, and after I started, and could show the doubters what could be done, I could raise more money then. I am sure of it. Of course the first investment is the most dangerous gamble, and that's why everybody is shy. But I believe my scheme would work, though I can't seem to get anybody else to believe it.”

“Will I understand if you'll tell me?”

“I'd get a diver's outfit and material, and build bulk-heads in her, both sides of the hole in her bottom. Then I'd have an engine and pumps, and show that I could get the water out of her, or enough of it so that she'd float.”

“But the big hole, you wouldn't mend that?”

“I think we could brace the bulkheads so that we could hold the water out of both ends of her and let the main hole in her alone.”

“And she wouldn't sink?”