Jack Harvey's Adventures: or, The Rival Campers Among the Oyster Pirates

“Say, was it you two that slept in Warren’s barn?” he asked.

“I guess it was his barn, sure enough,” replied Tom Edwards; “and wasn’t it a piece of hard luck that he didn’t catch us? We’d all be home by this time, – and they wouldn’t have lost the other boy. What a shame!”

“Things do happen queerly, sure enough,” said Will Adams. “But who’s this man asleep here?”

Tom Edwards turned and pointed to Artie Jenkins, shaking his finger at the sleeping figure.

“That chap,” he said, “is the cause of it all. Isn’t it a queer situation, that he should be here too?”

He told the story of their experience with Artie Jenkins.

“And what are you going to do with him?” asked Will Adams.

Tom Edwards knelt by the sleeper and turned down his shirt collar.

“Take a look here,” he said, pointing to the red marks upon the youth’s shoulder. “When I was out aboard Haley’s bug-eye,” he continued, “I used to spend hours thinking what I’d like to do to this fellow, if I ever found him. I had nine hundred and ninety-nine different ways all thought out of making him pay for my troubles. But” – Tom Edwards arose and folded his arms – “I think he’s had his punishment. Somebody put him just where he put us – aboard a dredger; and he must have struck a Tartar as bad as Haley. I think we’ll let him go. That is, if we can. Mr. Stanton, what do you say? We shall not need your help now, to get to Millstone. We’re going with this sloop to the Eastern shore; but we can’t leave this fellow, Jenkins, here, deserted.”

“Leave him to me,” replied Mr. Stanton. “He won’t be the first one we’ve had on our hands. I’ll go back and hitch up the horse and take him to the settlement, and we’ll ship him up the bay the first chance we get. But you ought to prosecute him. Ten to one, if he ever gets his health again, he’ll go back to the business.”

Tom Edwards shook his head vigorously.

“No, he won’t,” he said; “I’d stake my last dollar that he’s had enough of it. He’s been beaten, and he’s had the heart all taken out of him. He hasn’t got the nerve left to try it again.”

And Tom Edwards was right.

They shook hands with Mr. Stanton, took a last look at the unhappy object by the fire, and went down the path to the landing. Soon the sloop Mollie, with her new recruits aboard, was standing away from the creek, tossing the spray as the search for Haley’s bug-eye and for Henry Burns was resumed.

CHAPTER XX

THE PURSUIT OF THE BRANDT

There was a warm welcome for Harvey aboard the sloop, although Arthur and Joe Warren could hardly believe their eyes at first, when they saw him step over the rail on deck. When they did recognize, in the weather-beaten, bronzed and rough-looking figure, their comrade of Benton, they fell upon him and dragged him below into the cabin, followed by Tom Edwards and Will Adams.

And as they sailed across the Chesapeake a little later, on their long course, east by north in the direction of Hooper strait, Harvey recounted his adventures – assisted by Tom Edwards, who filled in the parts which Harvey omitted, recounting in glowing terms how Harvey had stood by him through thick and thin, refusing to desert his friend when the opportunity had offered for him to escape, alone.

Edward Warren looked serious, as Harvey described the life aboard the Brandt, and the treatment of the men at Haley’s hands.

“I wouldn’t have had young Burns taken off on that craft for all the money in Maryland,” he said, gravely. “I feel somehow to blame for it, too,” he added, “though I hadn’t the least idea he would attempt to leave the house at night. Give her all the sail she’ll stand, Will,” he called to Will Adams, who, with George Warren, had returned on deck; “let’s get across as quick as we can.”

“She’s making good time,” replied George Warren, hurrying down below again, to hear the story; “we’ll be in the strait by early afternoon.”

The old Mollie was, indeed, doing her prettiest, and carrying a “bone in her teeth” under a fresh westerly breeze.

George Warren vowed vengeance on Haley, for his hard treatment of Harvey and Tom Edwards. Young Joe groaned in sympathy as Harvey told of the food served to the crew of the Brandt.

“There’s a big chicken pie, over in that locker, Jack,” he said, with a longing look in the direction indicated.

“No, thanks, Joe,” laughed Harvey; “we had a good, square meal before we set out this morning; and we’ve been making up for what we lost, these last few days.”

“No use, Joe, you’ll have to wait till dinner time before you get any more of that pie,” said Arthur Warren, slyly.

Young Joe scowled in high indignation.

“I didn’t want any,” he declared.

“Well, I’ve done all I can,” said Edward Warren. “I’ve put the authorities on the track, and a police boat will pick up Haley, I expect, before we do. We’ll have some news as soon as we get over among the dredging fleet.”

“I’m not so sure about Haley’s being caught right off,” returned Will Adams. “It all depends upon whether he thinks he’s being hunted or not. This bay is a mighty big sheet of water, and there are a thousand and one places to run to for hiding. And as I say, these fellows have a way of warning one another. We may get word of him soon, or we may not. We’ll have to wait and see.”

They ran in through Hooper strait that afternoon, in company with quite a fleet of oyster fishermen; a score of bug-eyes, picturesque and spirited under full sail; several sharp-stern punjies; and, in Tangier Sound, other smaller craft. Harvey, on deck, as lookout, watched eagerly, using Will Adams’s telescope now and then, for the familiar rig of the Brandt. Will Adams, at the wheel, rejoiced in the acquisition of one who would know the craft at a distance, instead of their having to trust to chance report of the vessel from some passing skipper.

But there was no Brandt to be seen that afternoon. They came to anchor in Tangier Sound at dusk, and made ready for the night, impatient to resume the search upon the morrow.

“Not much like the Brandt, old fellow, is it?” remarked Harvey to Tom Edwards, as they turned in on some blankets on the cabin floor.

Tom Edwards gave a yawn and a murmur of satisfaction.

“It’s fine and comfortable,” he said – “but I won’t be sorry to be back in old Boston once more – if we ever get there. I wasn’t cut out for a sailor.”

They started out again in good time, the following morning, following the track of the dredging fleet, cruising in and out among the vessels. Perhaps their appearance cruising thus, apparently idle, with no fishing equipment, may have excited some suspicion. Certain it is, they got little assistance from the captains they hailed, as Will Adams had feared.

“Hello, ahoy there!” Will Adams would call, through a big megaphone.

“Ahoy, the Mollie!”

“Seen anything of the Z. B. Brandt?”

“No.”

The answer would come short and sharp.

Sometimes they would sail along with a dredger, as it heaved and wound in its dredges, making inquiries; but, despite the fact that someone in these waters, of whom they asked, must, it would seem, have known a craft that was a regular dredger thereabouts, no one could, or would, enlighten them.

That evening, however, as they sought a berth for the night, in company with some dozen other craft, in a cove at the upper end of Bloodsworth Island, they got a hint of what seemed like a clue. They had come to anchor and night had fallen. Smoke was pouring out of the funnels of a cluster of oystermen some few rods away, and light shone cheerily from cabin companions. Will Adams lifted his megaphone to his lips and called out his inquiry if anyone had seen the Brandt. The reply came “Who are you?” Will Adams answered. The response to this was vague and unintelligible, but the tone was one of contempt. Yet, amid a confusion of voices, Will Adams caught this remark:

“Reckon Haley’s gone up the Nanticoke again, where it’s easy dredging.”

This was followed by a chorus of rough laughter.

By the light of the cabin lamp, that night, the yachtsmen aboard the Mollie studied the Nanticoke river on their chart. Edward Warren and Will Adams looked at Harvey, inquiringly.

“We never went up there while I was aboard,” said Harvey. “Haley did most of his poaching in the Patuxent and Tangier Sound; but it’s not an unlikely place. We might get word of him there.”

They sailed northeast from Bloodsworth island next day, and started up the Nanticoke river, running by the buoys half-way to Roaring Point. Some tong-men in their canoes were at work in the chilling water, on the east bank at a bend of the river, and the Mollie was swung into the wind for a word with them.

The occupant of one of the canoes straightened up, at their inquiry, and eyed them shrewdly.

“You needn’t look fer no Brandt up this river,” he replied, in a drawling tone; “they do say as she was one of them as had the fight up above here, with the patrol; but if she was, she got away, all right. At any rate, she was going south, by Deal Island, the last I heard of her. If you’re after her, I hope you get her – and bad luck to the skipper that runs her, being as he’s a poacher by reputation in these parts.”

The Mollie headed back down the river, almost due south into Tangier Sound. They had struck the trail at last. But the trail was a winding one. It led some nine miles southward, and then through a great stretch of bay off to the eastward, skirting countless acres of salt marshes, whither they were directed by a passing vessel. The captain knew Hamilton Haley, and added gratuitously that he knew no good of him; by which it seemed Haley had his enemies in the bay, as well as friends.

Then the trail led away in a great sweep, some ten miles to the southwest, toward Smith Island, where the bug-eye had been seen heading. They made this island on the forenoon of the next day. There they got trace again of a bug-eye answering the description of the Brandt; but it had made sail that morning to the eastward. They followed, in turn, across six miles of Tangier Sound to the shore of another broad extent of salt marsh, called Janes Island. They sailed southward along that, about dusk. Below them, by the chart, lay a good anchorage for the night, Somers Cove, at the mouth of a river. Already, in the gathering darkness, a mile ahead, there gleamed the rays of Janes Island lighthouse, marking the entrance to the harbour.

A half-mile ahead of them, making for this same light, sailed a vessel. They had had a glimpse of it before dusk set in, but not clear enough to make it out.

Then, as they sailed, the faint cry of someone in distress came to their ears – a startling, puzzling cry, that seemed to come up from the very depths of the dark waters.

Hamilton Haley, running his vessel out of the mouth of the Nanticoke, on the night of the disastrous fight with the police steamer, was at first about equally divided in mind between exultation and anger. He smiled grimly as he thought of the battle that had been waged with the owners of the oyster beds, and of the several score bushels of oysters plundered before the arrival of the steamer. He chuckled as he pictured again the escape in the fog, from the victorious steamer. But he muttered maledictions on the head of the skipper that had sunk the bug-eye, and who might have surmised, or might now be able to discover who the confederates of the unfortunate captain had been. He crowded on sail, once clear of the river, and went flying southward, in the early morning hours, along the shores of Deal Island.

The bug-eye turned the southern point of Deal Island and passed in through a narrow stretch of water called the Lower Thoroughfare, which ran between Deal Island and a smaller one, known as Little Island. Threading this thoroughfare, Haley sailed east and then northward, into a harbour called Fishing Creek. Here he dropped sail, came to anchor and prepared to lie snug, to rest and reflect upon what course to take.

In spite of his successful escape, Haley was worried – almost alarmed; and, as he considered the situation, throughout the day, his anxiety increased. There were several things that worried him; and, now that troubles began to press, he thought of them all at once, as impending and immediate dangers. Perhaps, unconsciously, he had lost nerve. He thought of possible pursuit from the steamer. He thought of a hunt that might have been set on foot for Henry Burns, the youth he had carried off from the Patuxent. He thought of Harvey and his companion, safely ashore, and perhaps long ere this having set on foot a search of reprisal.

Several times during the day, as Haley encountered Henry Burns about the deck, he stopped abruptly and seemed to be lost in thought. It would have disturbed the calmness of even that youth, could he have read Haley’s mind; could he have known that, of all his troubles, Captain Hamilton Haley regarded Henry Burns as the one that most menaced his safety. But it was so. Other things might be denied. The evidence would be hard to gather; but here was the stolen youth, evidence in himself of Haley’s act.

What Haley decided as best for his safety was expressed by Haley, himself, in answer to a question by Jim Adams, that afternoon.

“I’m going south – farther south,” he said, “down into Virginia waters, across the line. The police tubs won’t follow below that. We’ll stay for a while. I don’t know how long – till the trouble has had time to blow over, anyway.”

Nevertheless, when sail was made again, that afternoon on the bug-eye, the course was not southward, but off to the east, following the shore line of the great sweep of bay leading into a wide river; and Jim Adams, mate, wondered. He was free with Haley, for he had come to be well-nigh indispensable to him; and he made bold to ask the reason for Haley’s change of mind. Haley’s eyes flashed with a hard light.

“That’s my business,” he answered, shortly.

Twilight came early; they had run in past St. Pierre island, rounded a point on the eastern bank of the river, and come to, in a small cove. Haley gave the wheel to Jim Adams.

“Hold her where she is,” he said. He went to the stem, and drew the skiff down alongside. “Come here,” he called to Henry Burns and the sailor Jeff. They came aft, in surprise.

“Get in there!” Haley commanded, roughly. “We’re short of wood. I want you two to come with me and get some.”

It was a strange hour for wood gathering; it was already beginning to grow heavy with the dusk. Furthermore, there was no wood-land in sight. The shore seemed lined with marshes, and barren. But the two started to obey, and Haley prepared to enter the skiff with them. A most unexpected thing happened, however. Jim Adams left the wheel and stepped to the side of the bug-eye.

“Come here, Mister Haley, if you please,” he said, still simulating a politeness of address and manner, but with an insolent expression on his face. “Come back here, Mister Haley, I want to speak with you.”

Haley, glaring at him, ignored his words and started to cast off the line. Jim Adams sprang and caught it. “You jes’ got to come back here a moment, Mister Haley,” he said.

With an exclamation of wrath, Haley sprang back on deck and advanced upon Jim Adams.

“What do you mean, interfering with me, you nigger?” he cried.

Jim Adams, mysteriously beckoning him to follow, retreated across the deck, to the side of the after-house.

“Mister Haley,” he said, softly, “I got something to say to you. I know what you come in here for now. There don’t no wood grow hereabouts. You thinks this would be a mighty fine place to leave that youngster that came from the Patuxent. But I ain’t goin’ to let you do it, Mister Haley – leastways not yet. I reckon Jim Adams wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t for that youngster hauling him back aboard when he came out of the Nanticoke.”

Haley, taken utterly by surprise, glared at the mate for one moment without being able to find words to reply. Then he cried out that he would knock him overboard, and raised his fist for a blow. The agile mate caught his wrist and held it in a grip that Haley could not shake off. They struggled for a moment, and then Haley, breaking loose, stood, trembling with rage.

“Jim Adams,” he said, huskily, “what ails you – have you gone crazy? You’ve always been a good mate. Don’t be a fool now. Don’t you know the boy’s a danger to us, here? Do you want to go to jail on account of him?”

“Sho’ no, I don’t at all, Cap’n Haley,” answered the mate, with assurance. “See here,” – and he assumed a more civil, urgent tone, – “I want to get clear of that young chap just as bad as you do, Mister Haley; but I jes’ don’t like to see him go ashore now, cause there ain’t nothin’ but ma’sh land hereabouts, and I know he’d starve to death, or drown. And I reckon Jim Adams owes him that much, to see as he’s put ashore where he can get away, somehow. That’s all I want. Wait till we get down into Virginny, Mister Haley, and I won’t make no trouble – but I guess you and I will fight pretty bad if he has to go here.”

The mate’s manner was both threatening and wheedling. Clearly, he had no fear of Haley. It was man against man. Haley waited some moments, eying the mate as if to read his mind. Evidently what he saw, in the snapping eyes that returned his gaze, convinced him that Jim Adams was not to be turned aside without a struggle.

“All right,” he said, “but I’ll get square for it. Let your anchor go. Come aboard here, you men. We’ll get our wood down yonder. Drop those sails and turn in.”

Sullenly, leaving the mate to make all snug, Haley went below. Jim Adams, turning his eyes upon Henry Burns as the boy slipped down into the forecastle, muttered softly to himself. He had a queer kind of cold-blooded logic, had Jim Adams.

“There,” he said, “you and I am square, young fellow. You saved my life, and now I’ve saved yours. That makes us even, I reckon. The next time, I guess you’ll have to go ashore.”

Into this bay and out again, the course of the Brandt now continued, as the sloop Mollie traced it later. A vessel that passed here and there, despite Haley’s precautions, sufficed to give the clues he fain would have hid. There is fate in all things, and it was Haley’s now to leave an open trail where he sought concealment. He ran to Smith Island, and the Mollie got trace of him there. He sailed southward, and the Virginia line was not so many miles away. Of an evening, as darkness was shutting down, he perceived far astern a sloop coming in his wake. He noticed it, but gave it little thought. He had one other idea in his mind, and that overshadowed all else. The boy that was a peril to him must be gotten rid of.

The Brandt was running free, with the wind directly astern – a fresh evening breeze that was sending her along at a fair clip. Hamilton Haley had the wheel. Jim Adams was below. Sam Black was on deck, forward. Henry Burns was on deck. Wallace Brooks was on deck. Haley watched and waited. By and by, Brooks stepped to the companion and went below. Haley called to Henry Burns. There was a tangle of gear near the after-house.

“Here you, youngster, straighten out that line and coil it up neat,” ordered Haley. Henry Burns went to work. Haley stood silently by the wheel. The minutes passed, and Henry Burns worked on. His back was toward the captain.

The booms were out on the starboard side. Watching the boy sharply, Haley stooped and grasped the main-sheet, and drew it in a little. The main-sail shivered, as the breeze caught it slightly aback. Cautiously, Haley put the helm up a trifle; the bug-eye headed more to the starboard, and the sail shivered still more. Henry Burns, intent upon his work, however, failed to notice the manœuvre.

Then the main-sheet slackened suddenly in Haley’s hand, as the boom started to swing inboard. Haley dropped the sheet and put the helm hard up. Swiftly the heavy boom jibed across the stern. Haley ducked his head as it swung past. The change of motion in the vessel was now apparent to Henry Burns. One glance, and he saw the shadow of the sail as the boom crashed upon him, with a swiftness he could not evade. He had barely time to dodge when the boom caught him, grazing the top of his head and hurling him overboard into the icy water. He had saved his life, but he was momentarily stunned – and the bug-eye, Brandt, was disappearing in the darkness when he came to his senses, choking, and stinging with the slap of the winter seas.

The bug-eye swerved and laid over, with the jibing of the booms. But the wind was not heavy; the sheets held, and Haley had her on her course in another moment.

Henry Burns’s smothered cry was unheard save by Haley. It was not until another hour, when the Brandt rounded to in Somers cove, that the boy’s loss was discovered. Jim Adams, hardened as he was, faced Haley solemnly.

“Mister Haley,” he said, “I’ve seen you pay two men the wages that was due them, with that ere main-boom, since I’ve been aboard this craft, and they was not much account; but sure I think we’ll have bad luck now, ’cause we could have got rid of that youngster without that.”

For better or worse luck, however, the bug-eye Brandt made snug for the night. There was a good berth to lie in; it was a quiet night, with only a gentle breeze blowing. A lantern was set in the shrouds, and all hands turned.

Henry Burns, knocked overboard by the blow of the boom, sank in the chilling water, then rose again. He was not badly injured, but was choking with the water he had swallowed. He had strength enough to cry out only feebly. There was no salvation in that. He husbanded his strength and struck out, to keep himself afloat. Fortunately, he was not encumbered with oil skins, or he would have sunk.

Terror seized him; there seemed to be no chance for life in the darkness. Yet he struggled to keep afloat. Then the shadow of some object came before his eyes. It was a small cask, rolled off the deck of the Brandt as she had heeled with the jibing of the boom. Henry Burns grasped it, as it floated close, and clasped his arms over it. It sufficed to float him, with the most of his body under water. It was a forlorn hope, yet he clung with desperation.

Minutes that seemed like hours passed. His hold slipped, as his fingers became numbed. He gave a cry of despair, struggled with all his strength and regained his hold. Again he clung for what seemed to him hours. But his strength was waning. The cold was robbing him of strength – of life. In despair, he cried aloud again and again, over the waste of waters. He could not hold out longer.

Then, out of the blackness there came a rushing sound, as of some large body moving through the waves – and then – an answering call.

A cry from the blackness of the sea! Will Adams, at the wheel of the Mollie, felt his hair rise on end. Jack Harvey, forward, on watch, felt the cold perspiration stand out all over him. It seemed something unearthly – impossible.

But the cry came again, and again. The sloop headed in the direction of the sound, and there came into view the vague figure, floating, clinging to the cask. They drew the castaway aboard presently – and then Jack Harvey set up a shout that almost reached to Haley’s bug-eye.

“Henry Burns!”

They had him down in the warm cabin in a twinkling, and between blankets, with hot drink to restore his strength. Edward Warren fairly wept for joy and relief from anxiety. The Warrens and Jack Harvey tried hard to keep the tears from their eyes, but didn’t all succeed. Will Adams stood by the wheel, but called for news every moment from the rescued one, and fairly shouted with exultation when Henry Burns gave the tidings that the Brandt was just ahead, making for Somers Cove.

They turned the point and stood into the harbour. The sight that greeted their eyes made their blood tingle. Under the lee of Long Point, there lay a vessel at anchor, betrayed by its harbour light.

“It’s the Brandt,” exclaimed Harvey, as they neared it.

But, even as they spilled the wind from their sails, luffing, to consider their plan of attack, there came voices from the Brandt, and two men appeared on deck. So, to avoid suspicion, the Mollie ran in past the Brandt for some rods, and came to anchor ahead of her. Quickly, sails were made snug and lights doused in the cabin, a single small lantern being set for a harbour light. Then the crew of the Mollie gathered for a conference in the cabin.