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

“Why, you fool, of course not,” was the reply. “Did you think you were going to quit so soon as this? Think old man Haley lets a man go when he once gets him, with men so hard to catch? Didn’t you know you were booked for all winter? Baltimore, eh? Well, when you see Baltimore, my boy, it will be when the Brandt knocks off for the season. Don’t worry, though, you’ll come through. You can stand it.”

Jack Harvey and Tom Edwards, gazing into each other’s faces with the blankness of despair, shook hands silently. They could not speak.

CHAPTER IX

FACES THROUGH THE TELESCOPE

It was after school hours in the little city of Benton, on a day near the middle of December, and a party of youths, with skates under their arms, were walking toward the bank of Mill stream. A huge fire, of pieces of logs and brush-wood, blazed cheerily by the shore, and welcomed their approach. The frozen surface of the stream, swept clean by high winds of previous days, shone like polished ebony, and stretched away to the northward for a mile before it became lost to view amid high banks, on its winding course.

The sun, a great red ball, nearing the western horizon, sent a rose-tinged pathway across the black ice from shore to shore. A score or more of skaters, some engaged in cutting fancy figures, others swinging along on the outward roll, others having an impromptu race, made the air ring with their shouts of hearty enjoyment.

Seated on a log, by the fire, one of the party of boys addressed his nearest comrade.

“Say, Henry Burns,” he asked, “have you heard anything from Harvey, yet?”

Henry Burns, a rather slight but trimly built and active youth, apparently a year or two younger than the boy who had spoken, paused in the adjustment of the clamp of his skate, and looked puzzled.

“No,” he answered, “and, what’s more, I don’t expect to, now. Jack Harvey rather take a licking than write a letter, anyway. And, another thing, he’s having too much fun, I suppose, to stop to write.”

“Still, it’s queer,” he continued. “I didn’t think he’d go off the way he did. He told me he wouldn’t go, no matter how much his folks urged him. Said he knew he’d have more fun here with us this winter than poking ’round Europe with his father and mother; said his mother wouldn’t let him wear his sweater in art galleries and in stores – rather skate, and fish through the ice, than dress up and go around looking at things in shop windows and museums.”

“Well, they must have got him to go, after all,” said the first boy.

“Too bad,” commented Henry Burns, standing up on his skates. “He’s missing lots of fun. It scared my aunt, too, for a few days. She thought he might have got lost. Just as though Jack couldn’t take care of himself. But she remembered they said if he didn’t come back she could know he’d gone on the steamer to Europe. So she’s feeling all right now. I’d like to know what they offered Jack, to get him to go, though.”

Henry Burns’s companion, George Warren, having adjusted his skates, arose and glided down the bank to the ice.

“Come on, Arthur,” he said, calling to a brother, a year or two younger, who was still lingering by the fire; “we’ll give Henry a race up to the bend. He thinks he knows how to skate.”

The brothers started off, with Henry Burns soon in swift pursuit; the three went rapidly up the stream, the keen edges of their skates cutting the glare ice with a crisp, grinding hum. Henry Burns caught the two by the time they had gone half a mile, for he was a youth whose wiry muscles seemed never to tire; and the three linked arms and went on together.

Presently a still younger boy came hurrying down to the shore, in a state of activity that had left him short of breath. He was smaller, but heavier of build than the others who had gone before, with a plumpness of cheeks that told of evident enjoyment of good dinners; also, his was a temperament, one would have guessed, that was more inclined to ease than to any great exertion. But now he fastened on his skates hastily and joined the party of skaters in mid-stream.

“Seen George and Arthur?” he inquired of a group of boys.

“Gone up-stream with Henry Burns,” was the reply.

The boy started off, bending forward and making his best time. Some fifteen minutes later, the three, returning, saw him coming.

“There’s Joe,” said George Warren. “Looks as though he was skating for a dinner. He’ll get thin if he doesn’t take care. Let’s give him a surprise.”

The three quickly hid themselves behind some alder bushes and cedars that fringed the bank. Young Joe Warren came on, unconscious of their presence. He realized it presently as he came abreast. A snow-ball, thrown with accuracy by Henry Burns, neatly lifted his cap from his head; one from George Warren attached itself in fragments to his plump neck; the third smashed against his shoulder. The combined effect of which, with the surprise, so disturbed the equilibrium of the skater that his feet suddenly flew out from under him, and he came down with a thump, seated on the ice, and slid along in a sitting posture for nearly a rod.

“Too bad, poor old Joey,” said George Warren, sympathetically, gliding out to his brother’s assistance; “somebody threw a snow-ball and hit you, I guess. Get up on your feet and we’ll all go after him.”

Young Joe, angry at first, was not wholly unmindful of the humour of the situation, as viewed from the position of the group that now tenderly offered their assistance. Moreover, he had had a taste of this sort of thing before.

“That’s all right,” he said, “never you mind about helping me up. I don’t need any help. I’ll pay that fellow off some other time.” He reached a hand in his coat pocket and drew forth an envelope, eagerly.

“You don’t deserve this, George,” he said, “and like as not you wouldn’t get it until you got home, if I didn’t want to see what’s in it. Gee! fellows, what do you think? It’s a letter from Jack Harvey. Oh, I haven’t read it, George. It’s for you. But I know it’s from Jack, because it’s from Baltimore. That’s the post-mark.”

“Baltimore!” exclaimed Henry Burns. “Then there’s something the matter. Why, he ought to have left Baltimore weeks ago. Whew! You don’t suppose he’s got hurt, after all?”

“And say,” he added, wonderingly, “what’s he writing to you for? Why didn’t he write to me or my aunt? Perhaps someone is writing for him.”

The boys, in a high state of excitement, gathered close to George Warren while he tore open the envelope, which was, sure enough, stamped with the Baltimore post-mark, and was addressed in a bold, plain hand to George Warren.

George Warren gave a whistle of surprise the next moment; Henry Burns, an exclamation of mingled relief and disappointment.

“It isn’t from Jack, nor about him,” they cried almost in the same breath. And George Warren added, buoyantly, “Say, it’s all right. Fellows, Cousin Ed wants us to come down for the holidays and visit him. My! But I’m glad there’s nothing the matter with Jack. Here’s what Ed says:

“Dear Cousin George: – Isn’t it about time you youngsters made me that visit you’ve been promising? You’ve never been here, and you ought to see the place, though it isn’t what it used to be in the old days. This isn’t just the time to see the country at its best, of course, but it’s a dull time with me, and I won’t have anything to do but give you youngsters a good time.

“I’m all alone for the next two months, except Old Mammy Stevens to keep house for me. She can cook a turkey so it will just jump right down your throat; and corn fritters, the way she fries ’em, just melt in your mouth – ”

Young Joe interrupted with a squeal of approval. “Let’s go, George,” he exclaimed.

“Shut up! Joe, and let George go on,” admonished his brother, Arthur. George Warren continued:

“We’ve got plenty of room for you and Arthur, and if Joe should come, why he could sleep out in the stable with the cattle – ”

A howl of indignation from Young Joe.

“Let’s see,” he cried, reaching for the letter. “He doesn’t say any such thing, I’ll bet.”

“Well, perhaps not,” admitted George Warren. “Here’s what it is.” He began again:

“There’s plenty of room in the old house for you three, and anybody else you’ve a mind to bring. I’ll be glad to see any friend of yours. We’ll shoot some rabbits and have a high old Christmas. Make Uncle George let you chaps all come for the winter vacation. I’ll look out for you. I’m going back home from the city to-morrow.

“Affectionately your cousin,“Edward Warren,“Address, Millstone Landing,“St. Mary County, Maryland.”

“Whee!” yelled Young Joe. “I’m going to put for home, and ask father. Say, I wonder what kind of syrup they have on those corn fritters.”

“Tobacco syrup,” replied George Warren, solemnly. “That’s what they raise on all the farms down there. It’s awful bitter, too, at first, but you get used to it, so they say.”

“You think you’re funny, don’t you?” said Joe. “It’s corn syrup; that’s what it is. I want to go, don’t you?”

“Well, perhaps so,” replied George Warren. And, turning to his companion, asked, “What do you say, Henry?”

“Why, I’m not invited,” replied Henry Burns.

“Oh, yes, you are, isn’t he, fellows? Ed said bring anybody we wanted. Well, we want you.”

The brothers chimed in, heartily.

“Why, I’d like to go, first rate, if I can,” said Henry Burns.

“Then we’ll do it,” said George Warren – “that is, if the folks will let us. You’ll like Ed. He’s older than we are – about twenty; but he likes fun as much as we do. It’s a big old farm house, with open fire-places and things. We’ll make the place hum. Come on, let’s go home.”

There was little peace in the Warren household that night until the matter had been duly discussed in all its phases, and the coveted permission granted; whereupon, there was a departure in force for the home of Miss Matilda Burns. There, however, the resistance was stronger.

Henry Burns’s aunt did not yield consent without reluctance nor without a struggle. There was Jack Harvey, she said, who went to Baltimore and never came back. Goodness knew where he might be. She didn’t believe in boys going off without someone to look after them.

There was, in reply, positive assurance from all hands that Jack Harvey was all right and having the finest time of his life, travelling about Europe.

It was an unequal contest, and the opposition was finally overcome.

“See that you don’t run off to Europe – or anywhere else, though, except to Mr. Warren’s,” Miss Matilda added, smiling. “And, Henry, you’ve got to write me twice a week.”

Henry Burns groaned, but promised.

“She didn’t say how much to write,” he commented, inwardly, with a vision of a sheet of paper bearing the words, “Dear Aunt, I’m all right,” in his mind.

With which successful turn of affairs, the four let out such a series of shrieks of triumph that poor Miss Matilda Burns nearly fell out of her chair.

Four days later, there arrived in Baltimore four smiling youths, vastly elated at their freedom; vastly puffed up with the importance of being travellers at large, without a guardian.

It was a sharp, crisp winter morning, of the 15th of December, to be precise; the old river boat of the Patuxent line lay in its berth at Light street, making its own hearty breakfast off soft coal, and pouring out clouds of black smoke from its funnel, with vigour and apparent satisfaction. The cabins were warming up, and the last of a huge pile of freight was being stowed away below. The four boys, shortly before half past six – the early hour of departure – made their way aboard.

There was a jingling of bells, the lines were cast off, the gang-planks drawn in, and the steamer was on its way down Chesapeake Bay.

The day passed pleasantly, for it was all new to them, and the bay, with its peculiar craft, presented many attractions. They were hungry as tigers, too, as they seated themselves at the cabin table for dinner.

“You’ve got the wrong side of the cabin, young gentlemen,” said the coloured waiter, politely. “That other side’s the one for white folks.”

They changed places, accordingly.

“Wonder what would happen to us, if we sat over there?” remarked Arthur Warren.

“Perhaps we’d turn black,” said Henry Burns.

“Well, Joe always eats till he’s black in the face when he gets a good dinner,” said George Warren.

Young Joe sniffed, contemptuously.

After dinner they strolled about the boat. There were not a great number of passengers aboard, and the four kept their own company. The only exception for the afternoon was in the case of a young man, who accosted the party as they happened to pause for a moment in front of the open door of his state-room. He was a youth of about nineteen years, but with the manner of a man of the world. He sat, with his feet up on the foot of the bed, smoking a cigar and filling the room with clouds of smoke. A derby hat was perched rakishly on the back of his head. His dress was smart in appearance, though not new, and his coat thrown back revealed a waist-coat of brilliant hue and flaring design.

“How’d do,” he said, removing his cigar, and waving a hand rather patronizingly to them. “Step in. Strangers down this way, I see. Have a smoke?”

He motioned to a table on which there was a box of the cigars.

“No, thanks,” replied George Warren. “Don’t smoke.”

They would have passed on, but the young man was not to be wholly denied. He had a free and easy flow of conversation, which would not be stopped for the moment, and which culminated in the offer – indicating his design from the first – of a game of cards with them, which, he assured them, should not cost them but little, if anything, with the alluring alternative that they might be fortunate enough to win his money.

“Say,” interrupted Henry Burns at this point, “why don’t you fix your neck-tie?”

The youth, surprised at the interruption, paused and laid down his cigar on the edge of the table. He put both hands to the tie, a gaudy one tied sailor fashion, and turned to Henry Burns.

“Why, what’s the matter with it?” he asked, in a tone of wonderment. “Isn’t it all right?”

“Why, yes, it looks so,” replied Henry Burns, coolly and without changing countenance; “but I thought perhaps you might like to untie it and tie it over again. Come on, fellows.”

The consciousness that he had been made game of by the youth flashed upon the stranger, as the boys moved on. He half arose from his seat, while a flush of anger spread over his sallow face. A person on the threshold accosted him at this moment. He looked into the face of a tall man, who was smiling in at him.

“Why, hello, Jenkins,” said the man. “What’s up? You look as though your dinner didn’t set right. What are you doing down this way?”

Mr. Jenkins returned the man’s smile with a scowl.

“Nothing’s the matter,” he said, surlily. “Come in and have a smoke. I’m going up the river for a week. I used to live up that way, you know. Business is dull, and I’m going up to the old place for Christmas. Shut that door, and we’ll have a talk.”

The four boys from Benton had had their first meeting, brief and fleeting, with Arthur Jenkins.

It was still daylight when the steamer turned the Drum Point light-house and headed into the Patuxent river. It was a picturesque sight that the four boys looked upon. Scattered here and there over the water, and coming into harbour for the night, was a fleet of dredging vessels. Some of them, rivals in speed, were racing, with all sail set, heeling far over and throwing up little spurts of water at their bows. The sight captivated Henry Burns, and he gazed with interest.

“My! but I’d like to be aboard that fellow,” he cried, as a fleet bug-eye crept up on a rival craft and swept proudly and gracefully past.

“Not much you wouldn’t,” exclaimed a voice beside him.

Henry Burns turned. The genial, kindly face of the steamboat captain met his gaze.

“It looks very pretty and all that, young man,” said the captain; “but it’s a hard life they lead aboard the dredgers. It’s knock-down and drag out all winter long, with bad food and little to show for it in wages when the winter’s done – that is, for the most of them. It’s not much like what you think it is, I reckon. But they do look pretty coming in; that’s a fact.”

The dredger, Z. B. Brandt, coming in from down along shore, may have, with others of its kind, presented a pretty sight as viewed from the deck of the river steamer. Most assuredly, the steamer, viewed from the deck of the dredger, looked good and inviting to the weary crew of the sailing vessel. To them, watching its approach, it represented all that they longed for – comfort, good food, freedom from abuse; and was a thing that would transport them home – if they could only, some day, reach it.

Hamilton Haley, eying the steamer from a distance, suddenly uttered an exclamation of amazement. A figure that, in dim outline, suggested someone whom he had seen before, stood out against the sky, as the person leaned against the steamer’s rail.

“I’m blest if I wouldn’t swear that ere was young Artie Jenkins!” exclaimed Haley. “It’s him or his ghost. I’ll have a look at the chap. Here you, Harvey, skip down into the locker, starboard, forward, and fetch me up that glass. Lively now. I want it quick.”

Jack Harvey, who had long ere this learned the necessity of quick obedience aboard the dredger, hastened to obey. He brought the telescope and handed it to Captain Haley.

The latter, adjusting it to suit his eye, gave one long, careful look through the glass, then took it from his eye with another muttered exclamation.

“Well, I swear!” he said. “I knew it was him the minute I clapped my eye on him. I’d know his rakish rig anywhere. I wonder what mischief he’s up to down here.”

And he added, as he looked angrily at the steamer, “Wouldn’t I like to have you aboard here, young feller! Wouldn’t I have it out of you, for some of the counter-jumpers you’ve made me pay high for.”

Jack Harvey, watching Haley with curiosity as the captain surveyed the steamer and as his face wrinkled with anger, wondered what he had seen aboard to excite his wrath. It could not be anybody that Harvey had ever known, but still he had a curiosity, an over-mastering desire, to take a look for himself. As the glass was returned to him by Haley, he paused a moment and asked, “May I have a look, sir?”

Haley nodded.

“Handle that glass easily, though,” he snarled. “Break that, and you’ll wish you’d never been born.”

Harvey raised the glass to his eye, and levelled it at the deck of the steamer. He had never looked through a large telescope before, and it was wonderful how clear it brought out the figures aboard. He seemed to be looking into the very faces of men and women – all strangers to him.

Strangers? Strangers? The telescope, as it was slowly moved in Harvey’s hand, so that his glance took in the row of faces from one end of the boat to the other, rested once on a group of four boys standing close by the rail. For a moment Jack Harvey stood, spell-bound. The next moment he forgot where he was; forgot the presence of the wrathful Haley; forgot all caution. Taking the glass from his eye, he brandished it in the air, and yelled at the top of his voice:

“Henry Burns! George Warren! Hello, it’s – ”

The sentence was unfinished. Hamilton Haley, springing from the wheel-box, was upon him in an instant. He snatched the telescope from Harvey’s hand and, stooping, laid it on the deck. The next instant he had dealt Harvey a blow in the face that knocked him off his feet. Harvey fell, rolled over, half slid off the deck into the water; but he clutched at the inch of plank that was raised at the edge, held on, and Haley dragged him aboard again.

Holding him at the edge of the vessel, Haley shook him like a half drowned dog.

“Another cry out of you, and down you go!” he said. “I’d put you under now, if you hadn’t made good, up the river the other night. You get below, and don’t you let me hear a yip out of you. What’s the matter with you – crazy?”

Jack Harvey, half out of his wits with amazement, dazed from the blow, and chilled with the sting of the icy water that had wet him to the shoulders, stumbled below, without reply.

And aboard the steamer, Henry Burns turned to the captain, in dismay. Neither he nor his companions had distinguished the cry sent forth to them from the deck of the bug-eye, but they had seen a strange thing happen aboard the vessel they were watching.

“Captain,” said Henry Burns, his face flushing with indignation, “I guess what you said about rough treatment aboard those vessels is true. Why, I just saw the man at the wheel strike some one and knock him down.”

“The brute!” exclaimed the steamer’s captain. “I told you so. But it’s nothing new. It happens every day.”

“I’m sorry for the chap that got it,” remarked Henry Burns. “I hope he gets square with the captain, some day.”

And for half that night, Jack Harvey, tossing in his bunk, unable to sleep, wondered if what he had seen could have been true; wondered if his eyes had deceived him; wondered, even, if his brain was going wrong under his hard treatment.

Once he got up and roused Tom Edwards.

“Tom,” he said, “have you noticed anything queer about me lately?”

Tom Edwards sat up and looked at his friend in astonishment.

“Queer!” repeated Tom Edwards. “Of course I haven’t. You’ve been just the same as ever. Why, what’s the matter, Jack? Are you sick?”

“I guess perhaps I am,” replied Harvey, dully. “I’ve heard about sailors seeing mirages and things that didn’t exist. I saw something on a steamer, as we came in, that couldn’t have been true. I thought I saw some friends of mine that live way up in Benton in the state of Maine. They can’t be down here in winter – hold on, though. They might be, after all. Yes, sir, perhaps they’ve come to look for me. I’ll bet that’s it!”

“But,” he added, ruefully, “I don’t see how that can be, either. They’d have come long before this, if they were looking for me. But I saw them. I saw them, Tom Edwards, just as clear as I see you now.”

“Well, you don’t see me very clear in this dark forecastle, Jack, old chap,” replied Tom Edwards. “Turn in and go to sleep, and see what you can make out of it to-morrow.”

CHAPTER X

FLIGHT AND DISASTER

When Jack Harvey awoke, the next morning, it was in a confused state of mind that he turned out of his bunk. The reason for this was at once apparent. A heavy south-easter was on, and a rough sea was tumbling in between the two projections of land that marked the entrance to the river from the bay – Drum Point and Hog Point. Lines of white breakers were foaming and crashing about the light-house.

The bug-eye, Brandt, lying well out in the river, and exposed to the sea, had been tossing about violently, although Haley had given the anchor-rode good scope, in order to ease the strain. The unconscious sleepers in the forecastle had been thrown about against the hard wooden sides of the bunks in which they lay; and Harvey found himself bruised and lame. He put his head out of the companion-way just as a sea sprayed over the vessel, wetting him. He rubbed the salt water from his eyes and hair, and looked out into the bay beyond.

It was certainly rough, outside. As far as he could see, the broad expanse of water was rioting in high frolic. Seas leaped and tumbled in wild confusion. The sharp flaws of the south-easter whipped the white caps from the curling breakers and sent the scud and spindrift flying.

Far out, a few stray vessels, close reefed and rolling heavily as they ran, were making for the harbour; the ends of their lean booms, with sails tied in, looked like bare poles. Jack Harvey noted one thing, with especial satisfaction. Not a single craft in all the harbour fleet was going out, or making any preparation therefor. Harvey gave a sigh of relief, as he went below again.

“Tom,” he said, as he stepped to his comrade’s bunk and roused him, “Tom, we’re in luck. It’s blowing a gale outside. No dredging to-day. Hooray!”

Tom Edwards sat up, and groaned.

“Oh, but I’m lame,” he said. “What with that tough day’s work, yesterday, and this confounded slatting about, I’m just about done for. Haley’ll kill us yet, if we don’t get away.”

Tom Edwards, erstwhile travelling man and frequenter of good hotels, stepped stiffly out on to the floor and proceeded to rub his arms and joints, to limber them up.