CHAPTER XXIII

MORE THAN WEATHER INDICATIONS

August seldom breeds such a gale along the Cape Cod coast as this threatened to be. At that date the Life Saving Service was administered more economically than it should have been.

But duty is a high mark--and always has been--to the men in this service. The threat of this mounting gale called the Lower Trillion crew together on their own responsibility. Not long after midnight Zeke Bassett left the Twin Rocks Light, got out his little car, and ran down to the station to see if the captain had need of him.

Zeke returned for early breakfast at the light and to get some of his chattels that he needed. Hurricane signals were out all along the coast, and although Captain Edgar of the Lower Trillion station would not send out beach patrols, he was glad to have his crew within call. The wind was out of the northeast and had already spun the gauge to sixty-five miles an hour.

"We've been overhauling the gear and soaking up the old lifeboat since mid-watch," said Zeke between huge mouthfuls of Tobias's johnnycake and fried pork. "I dunno why the Service don't give us a power boat. They've got one at Upper Trillion. But there's a whole flock of millionaires up there that have got influence with Congress. Huh!"

"I give it as my opinion that money does have some influence sometimes."

"Say, speakin' of money! That reminds me. Jefferson Gallup--he's Number Six on our crew--gave us a different line on that Endicott boy this morning."

"Oh, Ralph?"

"Yes. Seems he did go to sea in the _Gullwing_. Jefferson was out with his brother-in-law in the sloop fishing, and they spied Endicott and the cat going out and coming in last night. He was hanging around the jaw of Cape Fisher. He's a good sailor, Jefferson says."

"I cal'late," agreed Tobias, wagging his head. "But what was he doin' out there?"

"Course," said Zeke, reflectively, "at that time Jefferson Gallup hadn't heard a word about the bank burglary. Comin' in they ran close to the _Gullwing_ and hailed Endicott--asked him what he was loafing around there for. He didn't 'pear to have no fish."

"And what did he say?" asked Tobias eagerly.

"Why, he shouted something about waiting there to spy the _Nelly G._"

"The _Nelly G._?" repeated Tobias. "Why, she's a Banker."

"Yep. Hails from New Bedford. I heard tell she was making an early start for the Georges. And it seems, from what Jefferson Gallup gathered, that Ralph Endicott was cal'latin' on going with her."

"Oh, sugar!" exclaimed the lightkeeper. "Of course. He's said to me more than once that he'd admire to take a trip on one o' them haddockers. But why didn't he go down to New Bedford and board her proper?"

"I cal'late," said the sober Zeke, "that other folks is goin' to ask that same question, Tobias Bassett. If he boards that schooner he's got to abandon the _Gullwing_. And I bet he paid Gyp Pellet every cent she's worth for the use of her. Looks suspicious."

"There you go!" ejaculated Tobias, with heat. "That boy never did value money. If he wanted to do a thing he'd do it, never mind if it cost him his last cent."

"Wal," was the dry response, as Zeke got up from the table, "if Endicott had in that suitcase what folks say he had, I reckon it didn't cost him his last cent to satisfy even such a hog as Gyp Pellet."

Tobias wagged his head and said nothing further. He was more puzzled than ever now. It did look as though there was something peculiar about Ralph's departure from home.

The old-lightkeeper would not believe anything against the character of the boy he had watched grow up and loved so well. He knew Ralph Endicott was not perfect; but he was "toler'ble sure," as he expressed it, that Ralph was no bank burglar.

He was as anxious now over the absent youth as Lorna was, and Lorna had spent a most unhappy night. She arose on this wild and turbulent morning unable to hide from even the casual glance the traces of tears and sleeplessness.

And Miss Ida's glance was never casual. The moment Lorna slipped into the breakfast room--a wee bit late, perhaps--her aunt looked up from behind the coffee percolator. She was saying:

"I do wish John Nicholet would return. All I get is a scrawl here," she tapped the letter beside her plate, "saying that he may be delayed a day or two longer in Boston. I am worried, Lorna, about Prof--about the Endicotts. If only Ralph had not gone away I certainly would put the question to him frankly. If the family is in financial difficulties---- What is the matter, Lorna?"

Her tone was sharp. For once Miss Ida's calm was fretted by her niece's appearance.

"Are you ill?" she cried.

"Why, no, Aunt Ida."

"What is the matter then?"

"I--I--oh, Auntie! The Clinkerport Bank! They say Ralph robbed it!"

"They say---- Are you crazy, child?"

"No, no! It's true!"

"What is true?" demanded Miss Ida, her cheeks actually reddening. "Do you mean to tell me, Lorna Nicholet, that you for one instant believe such a vile calumny about Ralph Endicott?"

"But--but the police are hunting him. He has run away. He hired a boat down at Peehawket Cove and nobody knows where he has gone in it."

"What has that to do with the bank robbery?" asked Miss Ida severely.

Finally Lorna recovered her voice sufficiently to give a detailed account of the events connecting Ralph's name with the burglary. Miss Ida listened with haughty impatience. When her niece had finished the spinster actually snorted--no other word just expresses it!

"Lorna! I think you are a fool," she declared. "If Ralph told me himself he had committed a burglary I should not believe it."

"You do not know what temptation he may have had," faltered the girl.

She would not breathe a word regarding Cora Devine and her fear that Ralph might have been hounded for a sum of money that he could not honestly obtain. It was not that Lorna was really convinced Ralph was a thief. She feared that the general suspicion that had settled upon him might be supported by seeming evidence. If he was brought to arrest, what then?

Miss Ida arose from her seat, leaving her breakfast almost untouched.

"I am going to see Henry Endicott at once. He must take me into his confidence, as John is not here. If this bitter humiliation comes upon him at such a time--when he must be already overwhelmed with trouble--no knowing what the result may be."

"But he is shut up in his laboratory. He even sleeps there. You can't talk to him, Aunt Ida."

For once Miss Ida spoke impulsively. Indeed, she fairly blazed the reply at her startled niece.

"I am not afraid of Henry Endicott or of his foolish orders about being let alone when he is at work. Once I might--well, this is a different matter. I am not a silly girl, I hope. Henry Endicott must be dragged out of his shell if need be!"

She made her exit, leaving Lorna wondering just whom Miss Ida had referred to. Was the "silly girl" mentioned Miss Ida or Lorna? Was it possible that her aunt harked back to an incident of her past association with Professor Endicott that Lorna knew nothing about?

She finished her own breakfast hastily and then got into her storm coat and boots. She had promised the lightkeeper's sister to go this morning and put in order the living rooms in the light tower. But when she stepped out of the side door and felt the blast off the sea, Lorna was almost staggered.

The skyline, where it met and merged with the sea, was blue-black in hue, and the slate-colored clouds hung low. Racing shoreward the lines of white-maned waves seemed striving to overtake each other--running a handicap that left the observer breathless. The thunderous crash of the waves' recurrent breaking on the reefs was all but deafening. Lorna, beaten on like a leaf across the sands, had never experienced such a gale--surely not in midsummer--as this. It was frightful!

The greater powers of both wind and sea were unleashed. Not a spar was visible on all the wide expanse of tumbling sea. The hurricane had been long gathering, and the fishermen and other seafarers were forewarned.

Yet this poignant thought smote Lorna Nicholet's mind: Where was Ralph at this very moment? If he had remained outside in that leaky catboat, surely he had come to grief. Even large vessels must make plenty of searoom in such a gale as this, and the _Gullwing_ surely was not a seaworthy craft.

She staggered to the door of the lighthouse and flung it open. Tobias Bassett was puttering about the stove. There was a smell of scorched toast in the air and the eggs he was trying to poach were being cooked to rags in a saucepan of furiously boiling water.

"My soul and body, Lorny! I sartainly be glad to see you. I thought mebbe you wouldn't get over, it's such a gale."

He did not notice her agitation, for his attention was fixed upon the maltreated eggs.

"I could cook once for a crew of haddockers good enough; but none of them was invalids. An egg is the loosest thing! I vum! how d'ye make 'em stay together, Lorny?"

But the almost breathless girl had that on her mind that precluded her taking any interest in culinary puzzles. She leaned against the door she had closed behind her, and gasped:

"What about Ralph? Have you heard anything more? Do you know if he is safe?"

"Why, I cal'late he is," the lightkeeper rejoined slowly, looking at her now with attention. "I don't know just why he put to sea out of Peehawket Cove 'stead o' going to New Bedford to jine the _Nelly G._----"

"To join the _Nelly G._?" repeated the young woman. "What for?"

"Going to the Banks, I cal'late. He let it be known that he was waiting outside o' Cape Fisher for the _Nelly G._ to come along."

"He is running away, then!" cried Lorna.

"What do you mean?" said Tobias, forgetting the eggs entirely. "You ain't got no reason, Lorny, to think so bad of Ralph. He didn't have nothing to do with that bank robbery--nossir!"

"You cannot prove that, Tobias Bassett," she cried wildly. "You--you don't know all--all that might have tempted him. And he being without money."

"Oh, sugar!" muttered the worried lightkeeper, reddening like a schoolboy caught in a peccadillo. Then: "I tell you there ain't no reason. He ain't poor."

"Why, Tobias Bassett! if Professor Endicott has lost all his money----"

"But he ain't! It's all torn foolishness. I--I just told you I'd _heard_ 'twas so, Lorny. And I did hear it. You know how gossip goes in Clinkerport. Them story-mongers has had Henry Endicott ruined financially because of his inventions a score of times."

"But you told me----"

"Oh, sugar! I didn't have no business to tell you such a thing. I never ought to have said it," stammered the lightkeeper. "I was figgerin' that the matter with you young folks--you and Ralph--was that you both had too much money. If you was poor I cal'lated you'd begin to have pity for each other and, as the feller said, 'pity is akin to love.'"

"Tobias Bassett, you deliberately deceived me? Ralph Endicott is not poor at all?"

Her face was suddenly aflame. Her eyes sparkled with rage. She stamped her foot. Tobias had no difficulty in keeping a straight face now. In truth he could not have called up a grin to save his life.

"That's just what I done, Lorna," he confessed. "I cal'late I trimmed my sails purt' close to the truth and no mistake. Didn't just foresee this difficulty, that's a fact. But you disabuse your mind right now of the idea of Ralph Endicott being anything different from what he's always been--as straight as a main stick and as clean as a whistle."

"But that penknife you found--and his address book?" she gasped.

"I ain't trying to explain them. I don't have to--just like I told that detective feller. I give it as my opinion that somebody is trying to tie something on Ralph. But no evidence they could show me would make me believe he was a bank burglar--nossir!"

Suddenly Lorna shrieked and ran at him. The old lightkeeper skipped out of her path with surprising agility.

"Aw--now--Lorny!" he gasped, "don't be too hard on a fellow."

"Tobias Bassett! Those eggs!"

"Oh, sugar! They be a mess, now, ain't they?" And he chuckled.