Thrice Armed

"Well," he said reflectively, "though I'm rather fond of Miss Wheelock, I can't help thinking that Jordan is an unusually courageous man. It is fortunate that he is so, considering everything."

Mrs. Forster flashed a keen glance at him, but it said a good deal for her capability of keeping a promise that she contented herself with a simple question.

"Why?" she asked.

"He expects to marry her," said Forster dryly.

In the meanwhile Jordan was riding down the dusty road, and thinking out a scheme which, though he had been reluctant to adopt it in the first case, was now commencing to compel his attention. As the result of this, he spent most of the evening in certain second-rate saloons where sailormen and wharf-hands congregated, which, though he had been well acquainted with such places in his struggling days, was a thing he had not done for several years. However, he came across one or two men there who, while they were probably not aware of it, gave him a little useful information, and he had a project in his mind when he went on board the Shasta on the following morning. She was then in the hands of the ship-carpenters, for, although the treasure-seekers in their haste to reach the auriferous north would if necessary have gone in a canoe, it was evident that the Shasta Company must offer them at least some kind of shelter in view of the opposition of larger vessels. Jordan also knew that niggardliness is not always profitable, and the new passenger deck that was being laid along the beams was well planned and comfortable. He drew Jimmy into the room beneath the bridge, and taking out his cigar-case laid it on the table.

"Take one. We have got to talk," he said. "Now, the Shasta's out after money, and it 'most seems to me that Merril is going to have an opportunity for providing some of it. You don't know any reason why you shouldn't get what he screwed out of your father, and, perhaps, a little more, out of him?"

"No," said Jimmy grimly, though there was a shadow on his face; "I could find a certain pleasure in making him feel the screw in turn."

"Then I'll show you how it can be done. But first of all we'll go back a little. Merril has had to make the road to his pulp-mill, and it's costing him and the other men a lot of money. His particular share is quite a big one. Then he's saddled with an old-type steamer that can't be run economically, and, as you know, we'll have to come down in freight and passage rates now that the other people are putting on new boats. Besides, Carnforth, who was to take a big share in the concern, is going to leave him."

"How do you know that?"

Jordan hesitated for a moment. "Well," he said, "I do, and that's about all I mean to tell you. Anyway, I've cause for believing that Merril is tightly fixed for money, and can't lay his hands on it. There are reasons why he couldn't let up on the pulp-mill if he wanted. Still, there is one way he could get the money, and that is by making the underwriters, who hold the steamboat covered, provide it."

"Ah!" said Jimmy, "it wouldn't be very difficult either."

His companion smiled dryly. "I have a notion how she is insured, and, so far as I can gather, it's under an economical policy. Underwriters face total constructive loss, but don't stand in for minor damage or salvage. Well, I've ground for believing the thing is to be done by the engineer, and he is a man who has to do just what Merril tells him. You and Fleming could figure out how he will probably manage. But one thing is clear: when that steamboat's engines give out you have got to be somewhere round to salve her."

"You are sure of this?" asked Jimmy. "What makes you so?"

Jordan did not answer him for a moment, and once more there was hesitation in his manner.

"Well," he said, "that is my affair, and I've been worrying over it quite a while now. Anyway, I think it's a sure thing."

"What do you purpose if I salve that steamer and we find anything wrong on board her?"

"In that case I'm not sure the salvage will content the Shasta Company. It's admissible to break your trading opponent. As I tried to show you, Merril's tightly fixed, and while the man's quite clever enough to wriggle loose, it will be our business to see that he doesn't."

Jimmy sat still for a few moments with trouble in his face, which was hard and grim, until his comrade turned to him again.

"Jimmy," he said quietly, "that man had no pity on your father. The thing has to be done, and the Shasta Company stood by you. We have got to have that salvage, and you're not going to go back on us now."

Jimmy stood up and straightened himself in a curious slow fashion. "No," he said, "I'm with you. As you say, the thing has to be done – and it naturally falls to me. Well, though it'll probably cost me a good deal, I'm ready. When do you expect him to try it?"

"I don't quite know – you couldn't expect me to. Still, I should figure it won't be until she goes north, after the lay-off, in spring. Guess he'll hold on as long as he can. Freights won't drop much before then."

He rose and laid his hand on his comrade's shoulder as they went out. "I think I understand how you are fixed, but you have to face it," he went on. "There's another thing I want to mention. If you can, get hold of Merril's engineer, and scare him into some admission."

CHAPTER XXVIII

DISABLED ENGINES

Spring had come, and all down the wild West Coast the tall pines had shaken off their load of snow and the rivers were thundering in their misty cañons, but there was very little sign of it at sea when one bitter morning a cluster of deeply bronzed men hung about the Adelaide's engine-room skylights. They were lean and somewhat grim of face, as well as ragged and suggestively spare of frame, for they had borne all that man may bear and live through during the winter they had spent in the ice-bound wilderness. Now they were going back to civilization with many ounces of gold, and papers relating to auriferous claims, to invoke the aid of capital before they once more turned their faces toward the frozen north.

It was noticeable that although they were of widely different birth and upbringing there was the same stamp which revealed itself in a certain quietness of manner and steadiness of gaze upon them all, for these were the pick of the mining community, men who had grappled with the wilderness in its most savage moods long before they blazed a new trail south from the wilds of the Yukon. They had proved their manhood by coming back at all, for that winter the unfit had died. Still, though they had endured things beyond the comprehension of the average city man, they were glad of the shelter of the tall skylights, because the Adelaide's flush deck was swept by a stinging wind and little showers of bitter spray blew all over it. She was rolling viciously across a waste of gray-blue sea which was flecked by livid froth, and her mastheads swung in a wide sweep athwart a sky of curious dingy blue. There was no warmth anywhere in the picture, and apparently very little light; but for all that, every sea stood out from its fellows, and those back in the clear distance were etched upon the indented horizon with harsh distinctness. One of the men shook his head as he gazed at them.

"They look like the pines on the ridge did the day the blizzard struck us down on the Assiniboia Creek," he said. "It was a full-powered one. The boys who'd camped ahead of us were frozen stiff by morning. The two we scraped the snow off were sitting there like statues, and we didn't worry 'bout the others. There was ten feet over them, anyway. I've no use for this kind of weather."

One of his companions swept his glance astern toward the smear of smoke on the serrated skyline, which was blotted out next moment when the Adelaide swung her stern aloft.

"If you're right in your figuring, I'm glad I came along in this boat," he said. "Anyway, she's bigger, though I 'most took my berth in the Shasta. Seems to me we're quite a long while getting away from her."

The others agreed with him, for they had seen that smear of smoke on the skyline since early morning. Then they turned to watch the engineer, who came out of a door close by, and glanced up to weather, blinking in the bitter wind. He was a big loosely-built man in dungarees, with the pallid face of one accustomed to the half-light and heat of the engine-room, but in his case it was also unhealthily puffy. Then he slouched right aft, and stood still again looking down at the dial of the taffrail log which records the distance run, while he fumbled in a curious aimless fashion with the blackened rag in his hand.

"That," said one of the miners, "is a man I'm no way stuck on. Now, you'll most times find hard grit in an engineer, but this one kind of strikes me as feeling that there was something after him he was scared of."

"Well," said one of the others reflectively, "it's not an uncommon thing. There was a man down on the flat where we struck it who had a kind of notion that there were three big timber wolves on his trail. Kept his rifle clean with the magazine ram full for them, but one night they got him. A sure thing. Tom was there."

The man at whom he glanced nodded. "Now and then I wish I hadn't been," he said. "Lister was sitting very sick beside his fire that night. Said he heard those wolves pattering in the bush – there were thick pines all round us – 'most made me think I did."

"Well?" said one of his companions.

The miner made a little expressive grimace. "Longest night I ever put in. Sat there and kept them off him. Anyway, I tried, but he was dead at sun-up."

None of the others showed any astonishment, and the man who had asked the question glanced back toward the engineer.

"Guess the man who runs this steamboat should be getting rich by the way they strike you for a drink," he said. "I'm bringing down 'most two hundred ounces, but I wouldn't like to fill that engineer up at the tariff."

"Never saw him making a traverse, anyway. He walks quite straight," said a comrade.

"Well," said the other, "I've seen his eyes."

Just then the man they were discussing turned toward the bridge, from which the skipper was beckoning him. A minute or two later they went into the room beneath it, and the engineer sat down looking at the man in front of him with narrow, half-open eyes. The latter was young and spruce in trim uniform, a man of no great education, who had a favorable opinion of himself.

"Can't you shove her along a little faster, Robertson?" he said. "We'll be thirty knots behind our usual run at noon."

"No," said the engineer, in a curious listless drawl. "I've been letting the revolutions down. That high-pressure piston's getting on my nerves again."

"Shouldn't have thought you had any worth speaking of," said the skipper, with a quick sign of impatience. "You give one the impression that they've gone to pieces long ago. Take a drink, and tone them up."

He flung a bottle on the table, and watched his companion's long greasy fingers fumble at it with a look of disgust. Robertson half-filled his glass with the yellow spirit, and drained it with slow enjoyment. Then he breathed hard, and, leaning his elbows on the table, looked at the skipper heavily.

"Well," he said, "you want something?"

"I do," said the skipper, and taking down a chart unrolled one part of it. "I want to shake her up until we get away from the Shasta, for one thing. Wheelock has been hanging on to us as far as his boat's speed will allow it the last two or three runs. I can't quite figure what he's after."

Robertson looked almost startled for a moment as though an unpleasant thought had occurred to him, but his heavy, puffy face sank into its usual lethargicness again.

"Wants to scoop your passengers. Done it once or twice," he said. "Well?"

"For another thing, I want to get round this nest of islands before the breeze that's brewing comes down on us. It will be a snorter. If I were surer of your – old engines, I'd try the inside passage, though the tides run strong. Now, if I head her up well clear of the islands I'm throwing miles away, and letting the Shasta in ahead of me. Wheelock has apparently an engineer who will stand by him."

Again a curious furtive look that suggested uneasiness crept into Robertson's eyes.

"He's always just ahead or just astern, and we've altered our sailing bill twice," he said, as if communing with himself.

"I guess you dropped on the reason. Anyway, if you can give me a little more steam, we'll be clear of this unhallowed conglomeration of reefs and tides by this time to-morrow. If it's necessary, you can run her easier afterward."

Robertson laid a grimy finger on the chart. "She'll be feeling the indraught now – it's running ebb," he said. "If I can read the weather, you'll soon have the breeze strong on your starboard bow."

The skipper flung a swift glance at him, in which there was a trace of astonishment. "How'd you come to know just where she is?"

"Taffrail log," said Robertson. "I generally run a rough reckoning in my head. Well, you want another knot or two out of her until you have the big bight to lee of you? See what I can do, though I'd sooner take a knot off her. That high-press piston's worrying me."

He jerked himself heavily to his feet, and when he shambled out of the room the skipper, who made a little gesture of relief, took up his dividers and laid their points on the chart. One of them rested in the middle of the mark left by the engineer's greasy finger. After that he rolled the chart up and stowed it away from the others in a drawer beneath his berth, and the look of annoyance in his face had its significance. He did not like his engineer, and although he had no particular reason for distrusting him he remembered that when the latter had found it necessary to stop his engines at sea, as he had done once or twice during the last trip or two, it had generally been in the last spot a nervous skipper would have desired. Then he went out, and climbed to his bridge.

"You can head her out two points more to westward," he said to the mate.

"Very good!" said the latter. "Still, we decided that the course she was on would keep her off the land."

"We did," said the skipper dryly. "Anyway, you'll head her out. We're going to have a wicked breeze from the west before this time to-night."

In the meanwhile the second engineer was leaning out from a slippery platform that swung and slanted as the Adelaide lurched over the long gray seas, listening to the dull pounding of the high-pressure engine. His face was as near as he could get it to the big cylinder, and after glancing at a little glass tube he looked down at a man with a tallow swab who clung to the iron ladder beneath him.

"I don't like the way she's slamming, Jake," he said. "There's mighty little oil going into her, either. Who's been throttling up the feed?"

"The chief," said the man on the ladder. "He was slinging it red-hot at Charley 'bout heaving oil away. Guess I'd have fed it to her by the gallon after seeing that new piston-ring sprung on."

The second pursed up his face, for there is an etiquette in these affairs at sea which the man, who had come there fresh from a sawmill, apparently did not understand. "Well," he said, "I guess Mr. Robertson bossed the putting in of that ring, and he knows his business. Anyway, if he tells you you will run her dry."

Then a big, loosely-hung figure came shambling down the ladder, and the second withdrew. However, he stood among the columns below, and watched his superior stop and glance at the tube through which the oil flowed before he went about his work again. Robertson was apparently satisfied, and after slouching round the engine-room and unscrewing a little further the throttle valve which turns steam on to the engines, he crawled back to his greasy room. He sloughed off his jacket and boots, and drawing a bottle from beneath the mattress of his bunk poured himself a stiff drink of whisky before he stretched himself out.

He slept soundly, and did not hear the roar of the engines below him when the Adelaide flung her stern out and the lifted screw whirred madly in the air. The thud of green water on her deck passed unheeded too, though the second heard it as he watched the maze of clanking, banging steel, until the young third relieved him. The latter came down dripping, and shook a little shower of brine off him when he stopped beside his superior.

"It's blowing quite fresh, and she seems to be plugging it mighty hard since you shook her up," he said. "The chief must have given up worrying about that piston, or he wouldn't have had you take the extra knot or two out of her."

"Keep your eye on the – thing," said the second. "It's going to make us trouble yet. If I were boss of this job, I'd slow her down right now instead of pressing her."

He went up and also went to sleep, and, since the telegraph stood at full-speed ahead, the young third clung to a greasy rail, all eyes and ears, with one hand on the gear that would throttle down the steam, while the rolling grew more vicious and the plunges steeper. Quick as he was, there was a thunderous clamor every now and then as the big compound engines, which were twice the size of those of a modern boat of equal tonnage, ran away, and he commenced to long for the close of his watch while the perspiration dripped from him. He had not been very long at sea, and there is a responsibility upon the man on watch when the whirring screw swings clear. At last there was a heavier plunge than usual, and, though the third did all he could, the big engines span and clamored furiously as the stern went up. Then there was a harsh, grinding scream, and a crash. After that came sudden stillness, and the third frantically span the wheel that cut off the steam, while grimy men went sliding and floundering over the slippery plates and platforms toward the high-pressure engine.

The sudden portentous silence and the roar of blown-off steam that followed it roused every man on board the ship, and Robertson crawled sluggishly out of his berth. He had reasons for knowing exactly what had happened, and he showed no sign of haste, but there was a furtive look in his eyes, and he sat on the ledge of the bunk shivering a little while he thrust his hand beneath the mattress again. He felt that he needed bracing, for he had once spent several anxious hours in a half-swamped lifeboat after the steamer to which it belonged had gone ashore, and he was aware that somebody is usually held accountable for mishaps at sea. There was not very much left in the whiskey-bottle when he thrust it out of sight again, and shambled out of his room. The Adelaide was rolling viciously, and when he reached the engine-room he came near falling down the slippery ladder. Indeed, most men would have gone down it headlong if they had braced themselves as he had done, but habitual caution made him feel for a good hold, and he descended safely to where his subordinates were clustered beneath the high-pressure cylinder. Their faces showed tense and anxious in the flickering light of the lamps which swung wildly as the steamer rolled, and the young third engineer hastily related what had brought about the stoppage.

"Rig the lifting tackles while she cools," said Robertson. "Get the stud-nuts loose. We'll have the cover off soon as we can."

Then he turned and saw, as he had partly expected, a quartermaster standing just inside the door above him, and with a word or two to his second he crawled back up the ladder and went with the man to the room beneath the bridge. The young skipper who stood there with a furrowed face regarded him grimly.

"How long are you going to be before you start her again?" he asked.

Robertson blinked at him with furtive, half-open eyes. "I don't quite know – it's a heavy job. We have to heave the piston up," he said. "Besides that, she has knocked things loose below."

The skipper appeared to have some difficulty in restraining himself.

"Unless you can get steam on her in the next few hours she'll be breaking up by morning. The reefs to lee of us are not the kind of ones I'd like to put a steamer ashore on, either."

Then he took a bottle from a drawer with a little grimace of disgust, for he remembered that skippers are comparatively plentiful, and the man he could scarcely keep his hands off was for some reason apparently a favorite with his employer.

"Oh, take a drink, and hump yourself," he said. "I guess that's the only thing to put a move on you."

Robertson hesitated for a moment, for he realized that he had still a part to play. Then it occurred to him that his companion might draw his own conclusions as to his reasons for any unusual abstemiousness, and he helped himself liberally.

"Well," he said when he had drained his glass, "I'll be getting back again. Do what I can – but it's a heavy job."

He shuffled out, but his potations were commencing to have their effect, and when he reached the top platform in the engine-room he felt carefully for the rail that sloped as a guide to the ladder. It was as usual greasy and Robertson's grip not particularly sure, while the Adelaide rolled wickedly to lee just then. As the result of it, her engineer went down the ladder much as a sack of coal would have done, and fell in a limp heap on the floor-plates with a red gash on his head. The second stooped down and shook him before he turned to the other men.

"Heave him on to the tool locker, one or two of you," he said. "We can't pack him up to his room with this job in front of us. See if you can fix that cut for him, Varney, and then go up and tell the skipper."

A man went up the ladder, and the skipper, who sent an urgent message back with him, turned to the little cluster of miners who were waiting about his room.

"Something wrong with the engines?" asked one.

"There is," said the skipper, who knew his men and would not have admitted to the ordinary run of passengers what he did to them. "It will probably be some hours before they start again, and the shore's not very far away to lee. If you feel inclined to lend a hand at getting sail on her I guess it would be advisable."

The miners were willing, and set about it cheerfully, though it was blowing hard now and the long deck heaved and slanted under them. There is very seldom an unnecessary man on board a steamer, and the Adelaide's mate was glad of a few extra strong arms just then. That they were drenched with bitter spray and occasionally flung against winch and bulwarks did not greatly trouble them. Things of that kind did not count after facing the wild turmoil of northern rivers and living through destroying hazes of blizzard-driven snow. So they got the canvas on her, forestaysail, gaff-headed foresail, mainstaysail, and a blackened three-cornered strip abaft the mainmast, and the skipper felt a trifle easier when he found that he could steer her. She crawled through the water at perhaps two knots an hour, dragging her idle screw, but she also drove to leeward nearer the deadly reefs.

CHAPTER XXIX

UNDER COMPULSION

It was in the gray of the morning when Jimmy saw her, a dim patch of hull and four strips of sail that heaved and dipped between the seas. He also saw the faint loom of land behind her, and turned to Lindstrom, who stood beside him, with a grim smile.

"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.