Thrice Armed

"I think we can make our own terms to-day," he said. "She wouldn't be there with those reefs to lee of her if her engines hadn't broken down. Will you ask the bos'n to have a board ready and a brushful of white lead?"

Then he turned to the man in oilskins who held the steering wheel. "Hard over. Run her right down on them."

The Shasta's bows came round, and the light was growing clearer when she lay with engines stopped as close to windward of the Adelaide as Jimmy dared venture. The latter crawled ahead sluggishly, heaving her bows up streaming out of the long seas that fell away beneath a high wall of slanted iron hull until the blackened strips of sailcloth swung wildly back again. Then her tall side sank down until the line of rail was level with the brine. A couple of shapeless, oilskinned figures clung to her slanted bridge with the spray whirling about them, and ragged wisps of cloud drove fast across the low and dingy sky overhead.

Jimmy watched her with eyes half-closed to keep the spray out, which had a portentous glint in them. This was a moment for which he had waited long months, and now his turn had come. If Jordan were right – and the fact that the Adelaide was there to leeward of him with engines useless certainly suggested it – he had only to play his cards well and deal the man who had ruined his father a crushing blow. He set his lips tight as he remembered that when it fell the man's daughter must bear it too, for he was bound by every honorable tie to do what he could for the men who had entrusted him with the Shasta. That fact, he felt, must stand first with him; but he was also a seaman, and could not stand by while a costly vessel drove ashore as the result of an infamous conspiracy. While he waited, grim-faced, with his wet hand clenched on the telegraph, a string of flags fluttered up between the other steamer's masts, and he laughed harshly as he turned to Lindstrom, who had come up again with a brush and a strip of board.

"That's quite plain without the code," he said. "Engines given out, and he's open for a tow. Well, he shall have it, on conditions. Closer, quartermaster. Lindstrom, hold the board for me."

He painted his answer neatly in big bold letters, and when he had pressed down his telegraph flung up an arm for a sign to the cluster of very wet men below.

"Look at this thing, and remember it," he shouted. "Hold it up before you hang it out, Lindstrom."

The mate did as he was bidden, and one or two of the men made a sign of comprehension, for, as all on board share in salvage, they were keenly interested too. Then the quartermaster pulled over his wheel, and the Shasta crept ahead a little with a message hung outside her bridge rails.

"Half your appraised value, or the court's award."

There was no answer for several minutes, though the flags came fluttering down, and then a thing happened that apparently strengthened Jimmy's hand, which was, as he alone knew, a particularly strong one already. A white streak appeared to leeward, perhaps two miles away beneath the gray loom of land, and it was evident that the Adelaide's skipper knew it was the filmy spray flung up by crumbling breakers. Two or three colored strips ran up between her masts again, and the hard smile crept back into Jimmy's eyes.

"Seems to fancy he'll get off easier through the court," he said to Lindstrom. "Well, he's wrong; but the first thing is to get their rope on board. Strip your lifeboat, and get her clear."

Lindstrom bustled down the ladder, and a handful of drenched men set about getting the boat out. It was not an easy task, for there were times when the Shasta rolled her rail in, and the boat swung in upon her deck as often as over the sea. Then she drove against the streaming plates with a crash, and a big gray comber that swept round the Shasta's stern half-filled her as they lowered her with a run, but the men dropped into her, and she reeled clear with the oars splashing any way on the back of the next one. Jimmy set his lips as he watched her, and pressing down his telegraph sent the Shasta half-speed ahead in a big sweep, until she came up steaming dead slow once more under the Adelaide's lee. He waited there ten anxious minutes until the boat drove down on him bringing a line with her.

Somehow they hove her in not greatly damaged, and the rattling winch afterward hauled a big steel hawser across; but the land was clearly visible, a dark streak of rock that rose above a haze of flying spray, when Jimmy rang for full-speed again. He knew by the chart that it was an island of some extent with a wide sound between it and the next one where he might find shelter, provided he could hold the Adelaide off the rocks that long. This, however, appeared very doubtful in the meanwhile, for it was evident that the larger vessel was rapidly dragging him to leeward. It was simply a question whether she would drive ashore before he towed her around the point he could dimly see on the contracted horizon, but it was a somewhat momentous one. If he failed, the sea that spouted on the shoals would make short work of her.

It became evident that there was a capable helmsman at the Adelaide's wheel, for she crawled along well in line astern, with but little of the wild sheering from the course which in such cases is apt to part the stoutest hawser; but Jimmy grew tensely anxious as the next hour slipped by. The beach was rapidly growing plainer, but the head beyond which there was shelter was still apparently a long way off, and it was not an inviting prospect that unrolled itself to lee. The gray rock, smeared by the whiteness of flung-up spray, dropped sharply to the wide line of tumbling foam, and above it low-flying shreds of cloud blurred the wisps of climbing trees. Still, the head was rising all the time, and the Shasta's engines pounding steadily, except when her screw shot clear, as it frequently did. Another hour went by, and the tension grew worse to bear when a jagged and fissured slope of rock rose under their lee-bow scarcely half a mile away. Beyond it stretched a dim vista of more rock and reedy pines that shut in the sound.

"We could swing her in if there were no tide," said Jimmy harshly. "As it is, the stream is setting us down on the point together, but I'll hold on until she strikes. There's no use worrying Fleming. He can't do any more."

Lindstrom, who glanced at the streak of flame in the dingy cloud that blew down from the slanted funnel, made a sign of concurrence, and Jimmy gripped the bridge rails hard as he gazed ahead. He could see the white smear of tideway that streamed around the head, and the gray wall of rock seemed forging back toward him through the midst of it. The sea hurled itself against its feet and crumbled into a white spouting and streaky wisps of foam that the stream swept away. Then he signed to the quartermaster, and gripping the whistle-lanyard flung out a sonorous blast of warning.

The Shasta's bows swung seaward a little further, and both vessels swept up the tideway toward the deadly slope of stone. It crept a trifle aft from the lee-bow while a narrow strip of water opened up ahead, and then Jimmy held his breath as the Adelaide took a sheer. She swung off at a tangent, rolling until a great slanted slope of rusty iron was clear on that side of her, while the Shasta's poop was held down by the strain on the hawser. A sea smote her on the weather side and veiled her in a cloud of flying spray, but Jimmy could dimly see a man flounder aft up to his knees in water with an axe on his shoulder. It was not the instrument an engineer would have chosen for cutting hard steel wire, but the axe is wonderfully effective in the hands of a Canadian, and the strain would part the rope if one strand were nicked. This was also in accordance with Lindstrom's instructions, but Jimmy flung up a restraining hand.

"Hold on!" He hurled his voice through hollowed hands. "Drop the – thing! If we can't swing her clear we're going ashore with her."

He forgot what he owed the Shasta Company and what Anthea Merril had said to him, for the primitive man had come uppermost under the stress of conflict. Twining his hands in the whistle-lanyard, he hurled out a great blast that the rocks flung back through the turmoil of the tide, and then once more gripped the bridge rails hard, standing rigidly still, with grim wet face and a light in his eyes. For two more minutes the issue hung in the balance, and then, while a wider gap of water opened up ahead, the Adelaide swung back astern. In a few moments there was a hoarse, exultant clamor from both vessels, and the froth-swept rock slid away behind her. In front lay a stretch of less troubled water. Half an hour later the Shasta came around again in a big sweep, and when the anchors went down the two vessels lay rolling uneasily in comparative shelter.

Another hour had passed when Jimmy went off in the lifeboat, and was greeted by a cluster of bronzed men who stood about the Adelaide's gangway and insisted on shaking hands with him. Some of them also pounded his shoulders with hard fists, and though none of them expressed themselves very artistically, Jimmy understood what was implied by the offers of whisky that were thrust upon him. The genuine prospector, the man who, as they say in that country, gets there when he takes the gold-trail, is as a matter of fact usually a somewhat abstemious person and particular as to whom he drinks with; but these miners had made the Shasta's commander one of them and presented him with the freedom of the guild. It was in some respects as great a cause for gratification as if he had been made companion of an ancient order, for no man is admitted to that one who cannot prove that he possesses, among other qualifications, high courage and stubborn endurance. Their codes are not nicely formulated in the frozen wastes and the silent woods of the north, but it is as a rule the great primitive essentials that advance a man in his comrades' estimation there. Jimmy, however, waved the miners back.

"It ought to be quite clear, boys, that I can't drink with you all, especially as I've business with the skipper," he said. "Anyway, I'm pleased to feel I have your good-will."

They still hovered about him until the Adelaide's skipper drew him into his room, and gravely shook hands with him.

"It's not often boys of their kind make a fuss over any one, but in this case the thing's quite natural," he said. "I want to say first of all that we're much obliged."

Then he emptied the contents of a locker on the table, and they included a cigar-case and a couple of glasses, which he filled. "Well, in one way, you made a hard bargain with us, but I'm not going to complain of that. It was made, and, though I felt tolerably sure we were both going up on the head yonder, you carried it out. We owe you a little for hanging on to us."

Jimmy, who sat down and took a cigar, regarded him thoughtfully. The man was, he fancied, opinionated and somewhat assertive; but there was something in his manner which suggested that he was honest, and therefore likely to resent having been unwittingly made Merril's accomplice. Jimmy was far from being a genius, but like a good many other quiet men whose conversation contains no hint of brilliancy, he was at least as far from being a fool.

"How did you come to be where you were when we fell in with you?" he asked.

"That is very much the same thing as I meant to ask you."

"Well," said Jimmy dryly, "I can account for it; but I'll hear what happened to you first."

His companion told him, and Jimmy, who watched him closely, made up his mind as to the course he should adopt. "Has it struck you that your engines couldn't well have given out at a more inconvenient time?" he asked.

"It naturally has;" and the skipper's disgust and bitterness against his engineer were stronger than his prudence. "Still, what could you expect with a whisky-tank of the kind I've got in charge below? The thing has happened before."

"When there was a reef or a shoal close to lee?"

The sudden change in his companion's expression had its significance, and Jimmy smiled suggestively. "Now you were a little astonished to see me turn up just when I was wanted, and you have probably noticed that I have been on your trail lately? Well, supposing we put the two together, what do you make of it?"

It had been little more than a chance shot, for Jimmy had clearly recognized that there was a certain probability of Merril's skipper having acted in collusion with him; but it reached its mark. His companion's face flushed darkly, and he laid a clenched hand on the table.

"Now," he said sharply, "you have got to talk quite straight."

"I think I have done so. Do you suppose I should have lost a day or two every now and then and gone to sea before I was quite ready to keep close on your track, without a reason?"

Jimmy's last uncertainty vanished as he watched his companion, and he saw that the course he had taken was fully warranted. Merril, it was evident, had considered it safer not to tamper with his skipper, perhaps because he shrank from giving two men a hold on him when the thing could be done by one who was in all probability to some extent already in his hands. In any case, the skipper's face was hard with vindictiveness, and a very unpleasant look crept into his eyes. He was young and opinionated, and he saw the pitfall that had been dug for him.

"I guess you're right," he said hoarsely. "It's not the first time my engineer has tried it. He and the other – hog would have broken me."

"It's scarcely likely they could have blamed – you – at the inquiry. In fact, I fancy Merril would have liked you held clear. It would have made the thing look straighter."

The skipper's laugh was very grim. "It wouldn't have counted if they hadn't. One thing would have been certain – I was in command, and that would have been quite enough to stop my getting another steamer. It's always somebody else's fault when you get a boat ashore."

Jimmy knew that his companion had reached the point to which he had been leading him. "Well," he said quietly, "the question is, what do you purpose to do now?"

"I mean to get even with the man who meant to break me, back you up in all you say when you send in your salvage claim, and in the meanwhile wring the whole thing out of that – whisky-tank below."

He stopped a moment. "First of all, I want to say I'm sorry I went by that day without answering your whistle. Merril had worked me up against you, and since I get a bonus on results, every dollar's worth of freight you picked up was so much out of my pocket. Still, you're not going to remember that against me now. We both earn our bread at sea, and you have to stand by me."

Jimmy nodded. "I'm willing," he said. "Hadn't you better send for your engineer?"

The skipper rose and opening the door called to a man outside. "I want Mr. Robertson here," he said. "If he isn't willing or fit to come, you can drag him."

The engineer arrived on his own feet, and stood still, leaning somewhat heavily on the table with one hand, when the skipper closed the door behind him. A curious furtive look of apprehension crept into his eyes when he heard the snap, and Jimmy glanced at him with a sense of disgust. There was a dirty bandage around his head, and his face showed baggy and pallid under it, while his loosely-hung figure draped in greasy serge seemed disproportionately large and clumsy in the little trim room. There was also something in his attitude that vaguely suggested the viciousness of a rat in a trap, and it was evident that he had been drinking hard of late.

"Well," he asked harshly, "what do you want?"

The Adelaide's skipper turned to Jimmy. "This is Captain Wheelock of the Shasta. He and I have been comparing notes, and the game you have been playing is quite clear to me. If you're wise you'll own up to it before we go any further. In the first place, what were you to get for casting this ship away?"

The man showed more courage than Jimmy had expected from his appearance, though it was clearly the courage of desperation. He braced himself stiffly, and his laugh was contemptuous. "I guess you're going to be sorry for this. You've said it before a third party."

"I'll say it before a magistrate in Vancouver," broke in the skipper; but Jimmy stopped him with a sign.

"I don't think what you asked him is very material," he said reflectively. "In any case, he wouldn't get very much. Mr. Merril is not the man to hand over money when it isn't necessary."