An Oregon Girl: A Tale of American Life in the New West

It was late when Corway returned from Rosemont, and strangely coincident, as he stepped down off the car he saw that same “hack” move off, and that same face inside, made plain by a chance gleam of light from a street lamp, that quivered athwart the casement of the door. But except for a thought of “devilish queer, unless ‘me lord’ was expecting some one,” he attached no further importance to it, and dismissed it from his mind.

He proceeded up Jefferson street with head bent low, engrossed in deep meditation, for Mr. Harris was unable to give him any concrete advice on the matter, and he was recalling to memory every conceivable act he had committed, or words he had uttered that could have been possibly misconstrued by Mr. Thorpe to urge the latter to a frenzy and so violent an outburst, when he was abruptly halted by a peremptory order: “Hands up!”

Simultaneously two masked men stepped out from the shadow of a gloomy recess of a building between Second and Third streets, and one of them poked the muzzle of an ugly-looking revolver in his face.

At that moment Mr. Corway had his hands thrust deep in his light overcoat pockets, and the suddenness of the demand made at a time when his mind was in a perturbed, chaotic state, evidently was not clearly comprehended. At any rate, he failed to comply instantly, with the result that he received a heavy blow on the back of his head with some blunt instrument, which felled him like a log. His unquestioned personal courage, and his reputation of being a dead shot at twenty paces availed him nothing. He was not permitted time, short as was needed, to wrest his mind from its pre-occupied business to grasp a mode of defense, before he was struck down. He thought he had met with, what many others before him have met on the streets of Portland after dark, a “holdup.”

When he recovered consciousness the smell of tar and whiskey was strong about him. To his dazed senses, for his brain had not completely cleared of a stunned sensation in his head, this smell was incomprehensible, and suddenly becoming startled, he cried out, half aloud: “For the love of God, where am I?” And then a recollection of the apparent “holdup” dawned on his mind.

He lay still for a moment trying to trace his actions following the blow he had received, but in vain; all was a blank. It was very dark where he was lying, and he fancied he heard the swish of waters. He put out his right hand and felt the wooden side of a berth. He put out his left hand and felt a wooden wall. Then he tried to sit up, but the pain in his head soon compelled him to desist.

He lay quiet again and distinctly heard a sound of straining, creaking timbers. He at once concluded he was on a ship. “Why! Wherefore! Good God, have I been shanghaied?” were the thoughts that leaped to his mind, and notwithstanding the pain in his head, he attempted to sit up, but his head bumped violently against some boards just above him, and he fell back again, stunned. He had struck the wooden part of the upper berth. He, however, soon recovered and commenced to think lucidly again. He knew how prevalent the practice of forcibly taking men to fill an ocean ship’s crew had become in Portland and other Coast cities by seamen’s boarding house hirelings, and he felt satisfied that he was one of their victims.

He put his hand in his pocket for a match; there was none; and his clothes felt damp, then a fresh whiskey odor entered his nostrils. “Have I been intoxicated?” The question startled him, but he could not remember taking any liquor. “No; I am sure of that, but why this odor; perhaps this berth has been occupied by some ‘drunk’.”

A feeling of disgust urged him to get out of it at once, and he threw his leg over the side of the berth and stood upright.

The pain in the back of his head throbbed so fiercely that he clapped his hand over it, which afforded only temporary relief. He then thought of his handkerchief, which he found in his pocket, and though smelling of whiskey, he bound it about his head.

Being now in full possession of his faculties, and feeling strong on his legs, he determined to investigate his quarters. “Oh, for a light!”

Again he felt in his pockets for a match and found none, but he discovered that his watch was gone, and a further search revealed that every cent of his money was gone.

At this time, in addition to occasional indistinct sounds of the swish of waters against the bow, he heard some tramping about overhead, as by barefooted men, acting seemingly under orders from a hoarse voice farther away.

His first impulse was to shout to apprise them of his presence, but on second thought decided to remain silent for a time, or until he could determine their character.

So he proceeded to grope around, first extending his foot in different directions, and then his hands. He found three berths, one above the other, and then, fearful of bumping his head against some projecting beam or other obstacle, put out his left hand as a feeler before him, and slowly worked along by the side of the berths.

Soon his foot struck something hard, unlike wood, for it appeared to give a little, and putting down his hand, felt it to be a coil of rope. It was in an open space at the end of the berths. A little further his foot struck some wood, and feeling about with his hand, found it was a partition wall. On rounding the partition a very thin ray of light issued from a crevice in front, and then he discovered steps.

He crawled up to a door, opened it, and peered out on a pile of lumber. Above it masts towered up into the darkness, with sails hoisted, but unset and flapping lazily to and fro in the wake of the breeze.

It was near the dawn, light clouds almost transparent and partly obscuring the moon, drifted along in the sky, while here and there, through openings of deepest blue, glittered countless stars.

The air was fresh, too, a little raw and chill, but good to inhale after the dead rank odor from which he had just escaped.

An open space in the lumber pile just in front of the forecastle door, and left to facilitate ingress and egress, gave him room to stretch. The light that glimmered faintly through a chink in the door was from a lantern that hung on the fore mast, a few feet above the deck-load of lumber.

By the aid of this light he looked over and along the surface of the lumber aft to where some men were dimly silhouetted against the aft sail, then swinging abeam, by a lantern on the poop.

Without hesitation he mounted the lumber and was immediately accosted by a gruff voice from behind: “Where away now shipmate?”

“That’s something I should like to know,” replied Corway, turning around and facing the questioner.

Then he saw that the ship was being towed down the Columbia River, of which he was certain by its width, by a steamer, and the man who had addressed him was leaning on the boom that swung over the forecastle.

“You’ll know soon enough when your ‘watch’ comes,” said the man with a grunt that may have been meant for a laugh.

“I say, friend,” went on Corway, pleadingly, “I am not a sailor, and as there must be some mistake about me being on this ship, may I ask what means were used to get me aboard?”

“Well, that’s a rummie,” said the fellow, leering at Corway, and after a moment of seeming reflection, he continued: “Well, I reckon it’s not a mate’s place to give out information, but bein’ you’ve a sore top an’ wearin’ city clothes, I will say this much: you had stowed away such a bally lot of booze that you come to the ship like a gentleman, sir. Yes, sir. And nothing short of a hack with a pair of blacks to draw it, would do for you, sir.”

“In a hack, you say!” exclaimed Corway, alertly.

“Yes, sir; in a hack, just as we cast off from the sawmill wharf at Portland.”

“Strange! The hack I saw yesterday afternoon, and again at the depot last night, was drawn by black horses,” muttered Corway to himself, and after a moment of deep reflection, went on: “Looks like a conspiracy to get me out of the way. I say, my good fellow, do you remember the time I was brought on board and how many were in the party?”

“That’s none o’ my business,” replied the mate, turning away.

“Oh, come now,” said Corway, pleadingly, for he believed this man could tell more about the affair than he cared to.

“Well, all I seen was three swabs that said they was from the Sailor boardin’ house, chuck you aboard about two bells,” replied the mate, indifferently, as he straightened himself up.

Corway then noted the huge proportions of the fellow and thought: “What a terrorizing bully he could be to the poor sailors that chanced to anger him at sea.”

“But I never was in a sailor boarding house in my life.”

“Oh, tryin’ to crawfish from your bargain, eh?” laughed the big fellow. “It won’t go; ship’s bally well short-handed, long vige, too, and the capt’n had to do it!”

“Do what?” Corway sharply snapped.

“Why, he pays over the money afore they’d h’ist ye over the rail. Better talk to the capt’n. He’s comin’ for’ard now,” and the mate stepped over and leaned on the bulwark.

Corway at once turned and moved toward the captain, who was approaching with his first officer, from amidships, smoking a cigar.

“Yes, I am the captain. What do you want?”

“To be put ashore!” Corway demanded. “I’ve been sandbagged and robbed, and evidently sold to you for a sailor, which I am not.”

“Not a sailor, eh,” the captain said, taking the cigar from his mouth and looking sharply at Corway. “What did you sign the articles for?”

“I never signed any articles.” By this time Corway was fully alive to his position and spoke with rising heat and ill-suppressed indignation.

“Oh, yes you did!” sneered the first officer, “but you were too drunk to remember it.”

“Repeat that, and I’ll choke the words back down your throat,” and Corway stepped menacingly toward him.

The captain held up his hand warningly and looked at Corway as if he was daffy, then said slowly and meaningly: “Be careful, young man; that is insubordination; a repetition will land you in irons. The boarding-house master swore that he saw you sign the articles, and he had other witnesses to your signature to satisfy me before I paid him your wages for six months in advance on your order.”

“I signed no articles, and I know nothing about it,” fumed Corway. “And I again demand, as an American citizen, that you put me ashore, or I shall libel this ship for abduction.”

“Ah, ah, ah,” sneered the first officer, who was unable to conceal his ill-will to Corway since the latter’s threat to choke him. “Give the dandy a lady’s handkerchief, and he’ll believe the ship’s a jolly good wine cask.”

Corway struck him square on the mouth. “Take that for your insolence, you contemptible puppy,” and following him up with clenched fists, as the officer stumbled back, said wrathfully: “If you speak to me that way again, I’ll break in your anatomy.”

“Here, Judd,” called the captain to the mate on the forecastle. “Take this fellow to the strong room and keep him there on ‘hardtack’ for three days.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” replied Judd.

Hearing the captain’s orders, and seeing the commotion he had created, Corway saw that his only chance for escape was to go overboard, and without further hesitation sprang toward the side of the ship for a plunge, but his toe caught on the edge of a warped board and down he went sprawling.

The big mate jumped on him, and though he fought desperately, he was overpowered, and the last he remembered was being dragged by the collar over the lumber toward the forecastle.

When he next got on deck the ship was far out to sea and bowling along in a stiff breeze.

It is said that it is an ill wind that doesn’t blow somebody good.

So with Mr. Corway, for though the boarding-house toughs had nearly given him his quietus and sent him on a long journey, they had conveniently done him the effective service of quashing an encounter with John Thorpe.

CHAPTER VIII

When Sam regained consciousness it was to find himself on a couch in his uncle’s home, with the odor of ammonia in his nostrils. For a couple of minutes he lay very still, collecting his scattered senses, and then, as the clouds that darkened his brain cleared away, the events of the night dawned upon his memory.

Two men were in the room conversing in low tones. They were standing near the dressing-case, back of the couch, which had been drawn out to the middle of the room to facilitate examination of his injuries. One of the speakers he recognized by the voice as his uncle. The other he soon made out to be the family doctor.

“Then you are quite satisfied he is not badly hurt?”

“So far as I have been able to examine him, yes. The concussion, when he struck the hard roadbed, produced insensibility. The cut of the cuticle covering the left parietal bone, just above the ear, is not dangerous, since there is no fracture. I do not anticipate any serious result, fortunately. It might have been worse – it might have been worse!”

“Quite true; still we should have more confidence in his recovery if we were certain the worst has passed.”

“All passed, Uncle – I guess so!” spoke up Sam, in cheery tones, and he sat up on the couch.

“Ha, ha, Sam, my boy; not so fast. Glad to hear your voice again, but you must rest; you must rest. You need it. The doctor insists,” and Mr. Harris hastened to his side to urge him again to lie down.

Nevertheless Sam arose to his feet and remarked: “All right, Uncle! A little sore up there,” and he motioned to the sore side of his head. “But that’s all – I guess.”

“You must avoid excitement,” cautioned the doctor. “And I advise you at once to take to your bed and remain there until I make a thorough diagnosis of your case, which I shall do in the morning.”

“Not if I know it. Not much – I guess not!” mentally noted Sam.

Turning to Mr. Harris, he asked: “How long have I been unconscious, Uncle, and who brought me home?”

The question was put by Sam with an eagerness bordering on excitement.

It was noticed by both the gentlemen.

“I insist that you go to bed, Sam,” pleaded Mr. Harris.

“The very best thing you can do, sir,” added the doctor.

“Of course, Uncle, I shall do so to please you; but the only soreness I feel is on the side of my head, and I’ve often felt worse. But you have not answered my questions.”

“You were unconscious for about two hours. My Lord Beauchamp brought you home in an automobile. It seems he was returning from a spin out on the Barnes road and accidentally ran his machine against you. He, like the perfect gentleman he is, immediately stopped and went to your aid. He recognized you and brought you home with all speed.”

“Ah! Very queer!” exclaimed Sam, significantly.

“What is queer, Sam?” Mr. Harris interrogated, with a keen, penetrating, yet puzzled look.

“Why, that fellow,” and Sam checked himself from making a grave charge, by indifferently remarking: “Oh, it seems queer to be run over,” and then he looked up and continued: “Doctor, I thank you for your attention; good night.

“Uncle, good night; I’m going to bed.”

“Very sensible, Sam; good night.”

“This powder is an opiate and will act to produce sound sleep, which is very essential to counter the shock your nervous system has received,” said the doctor, as he laid out the potion. “Take it, after getting into bed.”

“Thank you,” and Sam fingered the powder gingerly. “Good night, Doctor.”

“Good night, sir.”

As Mr. Harris and the doctor left the room Sam stood for a moment in deep thought, then muttered to himself: “That fellow out there near midnight. No lights or gong on his machine. Deliberately ran me down – and Virginia about! Did he know she was to be there?” He shook his head – “It looks queer.” And then he lifted his eyes in a quick, resolute way.

“I’ll be back in the park at dawn – I guess so!”

With that he flipped the opiate out of the window.

CHAPTER IX

It was in the gray of the dawn when Sam alighted from the first outbound car at the junction of Twenty-third and Washington streets and immediately struck out for the City park.

He was desirous of being the first visitor there, and he was inordinately curious to examine by the light of day the ground he had traversed a few hours previous, and particularly the spot where Virginia had met the mysterious stranger, as also the tangle of vines in which he was satisfied had lurked most deadly danger.

He had been urged on by an indefinable something, a sort of presentiment that quickened to impatience, his desire for an early trip to the park, and pursuing his way steadily along, afraid of no ambush now, for he was armed, he at length arrived at the spot which he recognized by the clump of firs close to the row of the esplanade benches. He examined the ground as carefully as the uncertain light would permit. Discovering nothing unusual, he was about to abandon the search and make his way over to the tangle of vines, when on second thought he decided to wait awhile for stronger light. Producing a cigar, he contentedly sat on a bench – the very same Virginia had occupied – near a tree.

Sam was not of a romantic turn of mind, yet his attention was arrested by the sublime grandeur of the scene confronting him. The morning was emerging from the deep darkness of night, mild, clean and fresh. The base of the distant eastern hills was yet shrouded in inky blackness – a blackness intensified by a vast superimposed floating mass of thin fog, seemingly motionless in the noticeably still air.

The billowy crest of this fleecy, semi-transparent mass of vapor reflected a mellow chastity, while the irregular points of the rugged mountain tops were sharply defined against the soft emerald, golden-pink light that streaked and massed the sky in the advance of a promising Autumn morn.

The huge, glistening white peaks of Hood and Adams and St. Helens, towered in lofty majesty, clear and individually distinct above the high altitudes of the range that encompassed them, and even as he looked, a soft, rose-red tinge tipped the apex of Mount Hood, which appeared unusually close, and crept softly down the glacis of its snow-covered, precipitous sides.

And nearer, at his feet, in a basin – the city spread out far and wide.

The silvery green waters of the Willamette River, cutting through the city’s center, silently glided along its sinuous course to the Columbia; while patches of thin mist flitted timidly about on its placid surface, to vanish like tardy spirits of a departing night.

The grand panorama gave his usually buoyant spirits pause.

Gradually the light of his eyes changed from absorbing admiration to a reflective mood, in which the strange behavior of Virginia Thorpe was the predominating subject.

That money, possibly blackmail, was the object of the stranger – scoundrel. Sam could think of him in no other light after the night’s experience. There was no doubt, for he had plainly heard her say in a loud, surprised tone, “Twenty thousand dollars.”

Suddenly the hoarse whistle of a far-off industrial establishment vibrated the air and aroused him from his deep reverie. The morning was well advanced.

As the light in his eyes quickened from a pensive stare at the ground a few paces from his feet, he perceived a shred of red peeping between the blades of short grass. He picked it up. It was a narrow piece of soiled and worn ribbon, but attached to it was an old oxidized bronze medal, about the size of a silver quarter-dollar. The inscription upon its rim was in Latin, but Sam clearly made out one word, “Garibaldi,” from which he concluded its late owner must be an Italian.

From the smooth condition of the medal, and unweathered appearance of the ribbon, he judged it must have been recently lost.

“What if it had been accidentally dropped by the man talking to Virginia last night?” The idea was fraught with great possibilities.

“A clue! A sure clue, as I live,” and Sam’s enthusiasm soared with the recollection of seeing the man thrust his hand into the inside breast of his coat to show the knife, when it was quite possible the medal either became unfastened from its clasp, or being loose in his pocket, had been drawn out with the knife and slipped noiselessly to the ground.

Somehow Sam’s thoughts flew back to the night of his uncle’s reception, and connected the old Italian beggar loitering about the grounds with the medal.

“Was he the owner of the medal? And, if so, was he the same party that met Virginia, and whom he had followed last night?”

“Heavens! Could he have kidnapped Dorothy?” A train of thought had been started and rushed through Sam’s brain with prodigious alacrity.

“Was the twenty thousand dollars he had heard Virginia mention with surprise, a ransom?”

“If Virginia knew that Dorothy was in the hands of the Dago, why did she keep it secret? And what business had Beauchamp out on the Barnes road last night?” Sam derided the idea of him being out there alone, for a spin.

With these thoughts, and others, pregnant with momentous possibilities, he continued the search. Finding nothing more, he sprang onto the path that led to the tangle of vines. There was the very spot. No mistaking it. Along that fence he had crept in the darkness of night. Those the leaves he had touched with his hands, and he thrust his stout cane among them, but no hiss, or rattle, or glitter of something sinister, greeted his probing now.

Into the gloomy recess of the jungle he made his way, derisively fearless of any possible lurking danger.

He parted the overhanging foliage to let in more light. Ah, it was all plain now.

There close to his elbow was the artfully concealed exit through the foliage, and the pickets loose at the bottom. There the man had stood – not more than a foot of space separating them when Sam’s hand touched the leaves, and the glitter – well, it was the vicious glint of an ugly knife. Of that Sam now felt perfectly satisfied.

Pushing the leaves further apart to enlarge the opening overhead, so as to admit more light, he discovered several strands of hair of a brownish color clinging to the end of a broken twig in the cavity of the tangle, which he at once conjectured had been torn from the man’s false beard. These strands of hair Sam carefully gathered and placed between the leaves of his notebook. “Maybe, maybe they’ll be useful some day. I guess so,” he muttered.

He resumed the search, but with the exception of a few indistinct shoeprints on the soft soil, found nothing more to interest him, and squeezing himself through the aperture in the fence, he quickly emerged on the Barnes road, well satisfied with his morning’s work.

One hour later, with his hat jauntily set on the side of his head, effectually concealing the wound, Sam was walking on Third street, in front of the “Plaza” blocks, where several vegetable vendors rendezvous preparatory for their morning’s work. Several bustling women, hotel stewards and others were out early, marketing. As he wended his way through the bargain-driving throng, the loud voice of an olive-skinned huckster standing on the rear footboard of his heavily-laden wagon, attracted his attention. It was a covered, one-horse express wagon, common on the city streets, and contained a motley assortment of oranges, bruised bananas, melons and the like.

He was putting in a paper bag some bananas he had sold to a woman, who stood by, at the same time talking volubly – evidently in an effort to fend off her too curiously searching eyes from the over-ripe fruit.

“Eesa good-a da lady. Nice-a da ripe-a.”

“Oh, they are too ripe! Put in those other ones, they don’t look so soft.”

“Eesa note-a da soft-a; only a da black-a da skin. Look-a,” and he peeled a diminutive banana.

“How nice and clean those are in that wagon over there. I think I’ll buy some of them. You needn’t mind putting those up for me.”

“Sacre, Tar-rah-rah! Eesa beg-a da pardon, good-a da lady. Take eem all for a ten-a da cent-a,” and he thrust the bag of fruit into her hands. “Eesa ‘chink’ wagon. Show all-a da good-a side, hide-a da rotten side. Da morrow, Eesa sell-a da turnoppsis, carrottsis, cababages, every kind-a da veg-a-ta-bles. Some-a time Eesa black-a da boots. Saw da ood. Do anyting gett-a da mon. Go back-a da sunny Italy.”

He was so insistent, with fear of being made a subject for coarse remonstrance, she paid him his price and departed. Whereupon he again began to bawl out in his peculiar Dago dialect: “Or-ran-ges! Ba-nans! Nice-a da ripe-a banans. Ten-a cents-a doz-z. Me-lo-nas! War-ter-me-lo-nas! Nice-a da ripe-a Musha Me-lonas!” and he suddenly lowered his voice on observing Sam halt in front of him.