The Merry Anne

“Beveridge, special agent of the United States Treasury Department.”

“Well, what do you want me for?” Dick was peering forward, trying to make out the figure in the background.

“I guess it isn’t necessary to tell you that; I ‘ll give you a minute to get what things you need.”

“Who have you got there?”

“It’s me, Dick.”

“Annie!” Dick leaped up to the pier. “Have you dragged her out here to see – ”

“Get back there on your schooner, Smiley. It won’t be necessary to do any talking. Anything you say is likely to be used against you. Get back there.”

Dick looked at him a moment, then jumped down. Beveridge followed, helping Annie, none too gently.

“Where’s your man Harper?”

“Pink,” called Dick. “Pink, come up here.”

In a moment the sleepy mate appeared.

“Harper,” said Beveridge, “get an axe. Be quick about it.”

Pink looked at Dick, who said, “Go ahead. Do whatever he tells you.”

The axe was brought and handed to Beveridge.

“Now, Smiley, you and your man go below, please.”

“Below?”

“To the hold. I ‘ll follow.”

“Pink,” said Dick, “get a lantern.”

They had to wait a minute, while Pink was lighting the lantern. There they stood, without speaking, each watching the other. Finally Pink led the way to the open hatch, and descended the ladder. Dick followed. Beveridge led Annie to the opening. “Wait,” he said; “I ‘ll go first, and help you down.”

Dick, standing below on the timbers, looked up like a flash. “I wouldn’t try to bring her down here if I were you.”

“I’m not talking to you, Smiley.”

“No, but you will be if you bully her much longer. Just try to make her go down that ladder. Try it!”

Beveridge, without heeding, turned to Annie.

When he turned back, Dick, with itching fingers, stood on the deck beside him.

“What are you doing here? Didn’t I tell you to go below?”

“Annie,” said Dick, “just say the word – just look at me – if you want – look here, Mister Beveridge, I don’t know much about law, but it seems to me you haven’t shown me any papers, and, until you do, you can have your choice of letting go of her hand or losing your front teeth. Just whichever you like.”

But Beveridge did neither. “No, Smiley,” said he, “we won’t get into that sort o’ talk.” After which remark, he stooped over and looked down at Pink and his lantern, and at the timbers on which Pink was standing. “I guess maybe you can see without going down, Annie. Sit down here, and watch what I do. Go ahead, Smiley.”

Dick again descended the ladder, and the special agent followed, axe in hand. Annie, with horrified eyes, sat limp against the hatch and took in every motion in that dimly lighted group below. She saw Dick and Harper stand aside; she saw Beveridge raise the axe a little way and bring it down sharply on the end of a stick of timber, – an end that was marked with a circular groove; she saw the timber split open, and a plug fall out; she saw Beveridge stoop and dip his fingers in a brown liquid that was flowing from some sort of a broken receptacle; she smelled whiskey. She was confused, she had only a half understanding of what it meant, but she shivered as if a cold wind were blowing upon her; and when they had all three mounted to the deck and were standing about her, she was still sitting there, holding to something, she knew not what, and gazing with fascinated eyes into the square black hole, – blacker than at first, now that Harper was holding the lantern before her on the deck. But she knew when Beveridge stepped forward to help her up, only to be brushed aside by Dick, who raised her gently, with a low exclamation of pity, and helped her across the deck.

The three men gathered about her at the rail.

“Before we go any farther,” said the agent, in a conversational tone, “will you men walk into Cap’n Fargo’s house with me and sit down while we talk this over a little? If you say you will, I’m willing to take your word. But if not, I have men on the pier and on the bank that might help you to make up your minds.”

“That’s not necessary. We ‘ll go with you. Just a step up, Annie. Put your hand on my shoulder.”

“All right, Mister Smiley. Come, Harper.” In passing his assistant, Beveridge paused to whisper: “I ‘ll be at the house. See that McGlory doesn’t try to get ashore. If he gives you any trouble, whistle.”

A few moments more, and they were seated around Mrs. Fargo’s dining table, Beveridge, Dick, Pink Harper, and the old fisherman. Annie was shut in her room, refusing admittance even to her mother.

“There’s one question that comes up right here, Mr. Smiley,” began Beveridge, “before we go any farther. Is this man Harper one of your accomplices?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Don’t take my time by evasions. You have given me trouble enough now. If you will tell me he has had little or nothing to do with this business, and if he can give a good account of himself, I ‘ll let him go. What do you say?”

“Will you tell me what you mean?”

“That’s enough. I won’t waste any more time on it. We ‘ll hold him. Cap’n,” turning to Fargo, “there’s one thing – I guess you can understand my position – I shall have to call on Annie for a witness, a little later.”

Here Dick broke out. “So that’s why you dragged her into this, is it?”

“Be careful what you say, Mr. Smiley.” Dick looked hard at him, then glanced around the group, then settled back in his chair. After a short silence, Captain Fargo spoke.

“This isn’t all settled, is it, Mr. Beveridge? Dick hasn’t told you that what you thought was so?”

“It was hardly necessary. I found the proofs right there on his schooner.”

“Is that right, Dick?”

“It seems to be.”

“You don’t mean to say right out that you’re a smuggler, Dick?”

“No, I’m not.”

Captain Fargo was puzzled. He looked from one to the other of the two men, until Beveridge, with an air of settling the matter, rose. “You’d better not throw away any sympathy there, Cap’n. You can be thankful to find out in time that he’s a bad one. I’m only sorry to have to draw your family into it. I tried hard enough not to.”

“Yes, I know that.”

There was a shout outside, a noise on the steps, and a hammering on the door. Then before the fisherman could get out of his chair, the outer door burst open, and down the hall and into the dining room came Wilson, breathless, his hat still on his head.

“Well, Bert – ”

“He’s skipped!”

“McGlory? What were you thinking of? Where’d he go?” Beveridge was on his feet.

“No use, Bill; sit down. It ‘ll take a steamer to catch him.”

“You didn’t stand there and let him sail off.”

“Wait ‘ll I tell you. I was back a little way, where the pier narrows, so’s he couldn’t slip by through the lumber. The schooner he was on, the – the – ”

“Schmidt,” put in Pink.

“The Schmidt was on the south side, the – the – ”

“Merry Anne” said Pink, “ – was on the north. There’s a south wind, you see. And the first thing I knew I heard the tackle creaking off to the left. Thinks I, that’s from the Merry Anne, only there ain’t a soul aboard her. I ran out and looked, and sure enough, there she was, with two or three men hauling away on the sails.”

“And you didn’t stop ‘em?”

“How could I, Bill? You see, they’d cut the ropes and let her drift off down the wind. She was a hundred feet out before they made a move.”

“But what were they doing on the Merry Anne?”

“Don’t you see?” said Pink; “she can beat the old Schmidt hands down.”

“They’d sneaked across out by the end,” added Wilson, “while I was nearer shore.” Beveridge sat down again, and tapped the table nervously as his eyes shifted from one to another of the faces before him. “How’re they sailing, Bert?”

“Right off north.”

“Before the wind?”

“Yes, sure,” said Pink; “how could they help it with a south wind?”

“Smiley,” – Beveridge had turned on Dick, and was speaking in a keen, hard voice, – “where are they going?”

“I couldn’t tell you.”

“Think a little. Your memory’s poor, maybe.”

But Dick was stubborn. Pink, however, was struck by a flash of intelligence. “I ‘ll bet I know.”

“Where, Harper?”

“Why, to Spencer’s, where we just come from.”

“Where’s that?”

“Around in Lake Huron. If I had a chart here – Cap’n, ain’t you got a chart o’ Lake Huron?”

Except for Pink’s eager voice, the room was still. The four other men sat like statues, leaning forward. As he waited for the reply, the boy became suddenly conscious of the odd expression of their faces. He had meant to help both Dick and himself – was he helping?

The thought that had already found a place in Dick’s mind, the thought that they were in the hands of a merciless agent, whose whole object was to prove them guilty, whose own advantage, whose future perhaps, lay in proving them guilty – and that the course to be followed was not a matter for offhand decision, came now to him, and he faltered.

Captain Fargo shook his head. “No,” said he, huskily, “not even of Lake Michigan.”

“Go on, Harper. Perhaps you can tell us. Your memory’s better than Smiley’s.”

When Beveridge spoke that last sentence, he made a mistake. Pink glanced at Dick, and dropped his eyes. When he raised them, his lips were closed tight, as if he were afraid to open them at all.

“Well, go on.”

Pink shook his head.

“Don’t be a fool, Harper. If you can help me get McGlory, it may make it easier for you.”

“But him – ” Pink motioned toward Dick – “would it make it easier for him?”

Beveridge shook his head. “I don’t believe the Lord a’mighty could save him.”

“Then,” said Pink, with a flash of anger, “you can go to hell for all o’ me!”

Beveridge sat thinking. He looked at Dick from under his eyebrows, studying the man with shrewd eyes. With the same scrutiny, he looked at Pink. Then he drew an envelope from his pocket and consulted a list that had been jotted on the back; and followed this with a Milwaukee time-table, which he studied with eye and finger. “It’s now – ” he looked at his watch – “nine-twelve. We ‘ll make the nine-forty. Come along with me, Smiley.” Captain Fargo asked the question that Dick would not ask. “What are you going to do with the boys, Mr. Beveridge?”

“We’re going to Milwaukee now, on the nine-forty.”

“To Milwaukee!”

“Yes. I’m afraid that’s all I can tell you.” Dick and Pink took their hats and rose. Wilson stepped back to fall in at Pink’s shoulder, leaving Smiley to his superior. Suddenly Captain Fargo, after a moment of puzzled silence, broke out with, “Wait – has anybody seen or heard of Henry?”

All looked blank.

“Where was he seen last?” asked the Special Agent.

“He was here on the beach after supper. We had a little chat together. He’d been uptown after some tobacco, and said he was going right out to the Schmidt, and would be spending the night there.”

“He hasn’t been around since?”

“No – not here.”

“You haven’t seen him?” This was addressed to Pink. Beveridge wheeled suddenly on him in asking it, and raised his voice with the idea of bullying him into a reply. But Pink shook his head.

“They wouldn’t likely have lugged him across the pier with them. He may be on the Schmidt yet. How about it, Bert?”

“I don’t think so. I looked around the cabin. Shall I look again?”

“Yes. We ‘ll wait here. You ‘ll have to hurry with it. We can’t stay here more than ten minutes longer.”

Wilson was out of the room at a bound, down the steps and across the beach and running out on the long pier. In five minutes he was back.

“Well – ”

“Not a soul there.”

“How many men did he have aboard? Do you know, Cap’n?”

“Only one or two, I guess, besides Mc-Glory.”

“They’ve gone along, of course. The only question is, did they take him with ‘em?”

“How could they?” said Wilson. “He is a strong man, and there wasn’t any sound of a scuffle. No, if there had been anything like that, I should have heard it.”

“I ‘ll tell you what I think,” said Fargo. “It isn’t what I think, either; but it keeps coming up in my mind. He didn’t seem quite himself when he was talking to me.”

“How – nervous?”

“Oh, no, but kind of depressed. He never says a lot, but then he isn’t generally blue like he certainly was to-night. He talked about McGlory, too.”

“What did he say about him?” asked Beveridge sharply.

“He said that McGlory and Dick had disagreed, and Dick had ordered him off his schooner, and he had taken him in for the night. McGlory, he said, was so ugly there was no getting on with him. He had sort of made an errand up-town so he could get away and cool down a little. I guess he felt so glum himself he was afraid to trust himself with a man that acted like McGlory was acting.” Beveridge was standing by the door, ready to start, watching the Captain closely during this speech. Now a look of intelligence came to his face. “How are Henry Smiley’s affairs – money and that sort of thing?” he asked.

“Oh, all right, I think. He has always been saving. He must have a neat little pile tucked away by this time.”

“And he wasn’t married, or – ” Beveridge paused.

“Not Henry. No, he was a woman-hater, pretty nearly.”

“Was he pessimistic – kind of down on things? Did he have any particular object in living – anything to work for specially?”

“He was pessimistic, all right. Didn’t believe in much of anything. I – I know what you’re thinking, Mr. Beveridge, but I – I can’t hardly think it’s possible. I don’t know, though, I guess his schooner was about the only thing he cared for, except maybe Dick here.”

“Oh, fond of his cousin, was he?”

“Yes, I think you could say he was that.”

“Had you dropped him any hint of what I told you?”

“Well, now you speak of it, I don’t know but what maybe I did let him see that I was a little worried about Dick.”

Beveridge nodded. “I can’t wait any longer. Come, Bert. You, I suppose,” turning to Dick and Pink, “will come along without any trouble?”

“Certainly,” said Dick.

“Good-by, Captain – and say, by the way, Captain, if I were you, I would send right up to the life-saving station and have them set a few men to dragging out there.”

“Do you really believe that – ”

Beveridge nodded. “If he is found anywhere, it will be within fifty feet of the pier. Good-by. Come, Bert.”

They hurried over to the railway station, Beveridge walking with Dick, Wilson with Harper. In the minute or two that they had to wait, Beveridge scrawled the following message, and had it put promptly on the wire: —

“To Captain B. Sullivan, on board U.S. Revenue Cutter Foote, Milwaukee.

“Am coming Milwaukee with two of our men. Third has stolen schooner and headed Lake Huron. Will be aboard for chase about midnight. Kindly have all ready.

“Wm. Beveridge.

“To Operator: – If not there, try Sheboygan, Manitowoc, Sturgeon Bay, and Marinette, – in order named. Beveridge.

“RUSH!”

CHAPTER IX – THE CHASE BEGINS – THURSDAY MORNING

THE four men were in the smoking-car, spinning along toward Milwaukee. Beveridge handed Dick a cigar. Then, after a little: —

“Say, Smiley, I’m doing a rather odd thing with you.”

“Are you?”

“Yes – in taking you off here instead of having you locked right up in Chicago.”

Dick waited.

“You see, I have thought this business over pretty carefully; I have thought you over pretty carefully – and I like you. Now I have been some time on this case, and I understand it, I think. I understand you, and McGlory, and Stenzenberger, and the lot of you. But there is one place where I’m still weak, – that is Spencer and his places up there in Lake Huron. That is the only thing we haven’t run down. I could get it of course in time, but it would take time, and that’s just what I don’t want to take now. I’m depending on you to set me right. Of course it’s your privilege, if you want, to shut your mouth up tight. But I don’t take you for that sort of a chap. I have a way of my own of going at these things. There are some of our men would bully you, but that isn’t my way – not with you. I ‘ll tell you right here, that any help you can give me will be a mighty good thing for you in the long run.”

“What do you expect me to tell you?”

“You will know at the proper time. All I want to find out now is whether you are going to stand by me and help me through with it or not.”

“Why, I will do what I can.”

“What does that mean exactly?”

“I will tell you all I know.”

“All right, sir. Now we understand each other. And I ‘ll do what I can to make it easy for you.”

“There’s one thing – ”

“What is it?”

“What are you going to do with us in Milwaukee?”

“If we have to stop over night, why, we ‘ll go to a hotel.”

“Not the jail, eh?”

“No,” – Beveridge gave his prisoner a keen glance, then shook his head, – “no, that won’t be necessary.”

The Foote was not at Milwaukee; apparently she was not at Sheboygan, Manitowoc, Sturgeon Bay, or Marinette. Throughout the night, while Dick and Harper were shut up with Wilson on the top floor of the hotel, Beveridge haunted the telegraph office downstairs. Simultaneous messages went out to Cedar River, Green Bay, Two Rivers, Kewaunee, – to every little town along the west shore, even back to Kenosha, Racine, and Waukegan. Then Beveridge thought of the east shore, and tried all the ports from Harbor Springs down to St. Joseph, but with no success. He dropped on the lounge in the hotel office for a cat nap now and then. And finally, at half-past five in the morning, he was called to the telephone and informed that the Foote had just been sighted heading in toward the breakwater.

Promptly he aroused his prisoners, who obligingly tumbled into their clothes; and the party drove down to the river and boarded a tug. A little time was to be saved by meeting the revenue cutter before she could get in between the piers. So out they went, past silent wharves and sleepy bridge keepers, out into the gold of the sunrise.

There was the Foote nearly in, her old-fashioned engine coughing hard, her side wheels beating the water to a foam, making her very best speed of nine miles an hour. She caught the signal from the tug, stopped, backed, and let down her companion ladder. Captain Sullivan, a grizzled veteran, bearing evidences of hasty dressing, was at the rail to meet them.

“Well,” said Beveridge, “I’m mighty glad to see you, Captain. I didn’t know whether you were on earth or not.”

“I got your message at Sturgeon Bay, and came right down.”

“Did you answer?”

“Of course,” somewhat testily. “You gave me no Milwaukee address. I sent it to Lakeville.”

“That so? They should have forwarded it. They must have gone to sleep down there.”

“I know nothing about that. All clear down there? All right, Mr. Ericsen!”

The tug backed away, the paddle-wheels revolved again, and the old steamer swung around in a wide circle.

“You haven’t told me where you want to go, Mr. Beveridge.” Captain Sullivan was taking in Smiley and Harper with an eye that knew no compromise.

“We ‘ll do that now, Cap’n. Mr. Smiley here is going to help us out a little if you will show us your chart of Lake Huron.”

“He is!” was the Captain’s reply. Then he turned abruptly and led the way up to the chart room.

The chart was spread out, and the three men bent over it.

“Now, Mr. Smiley,” said Beveridge, “can you put your finger on Spencer’s place?”

Dick did so.

“There’s a harbor there, you say?”

“What’s that nonsense,” broke in Captain Sullivan, “a harbor behind False Middle Island?”

“Yes,” Dick replied, “a good one.”

“You’d better tell that to the Hydrographic Office.”

“I don’t need to tell it to anybody. I’ve been in there with my schooner.”

“When was that, young man?”

“This month.”

The Captain turned away with a shrug, and joined his lieutenant on the bridge. “We ‘ll make for False Middle Island, Mr. Ericsen, just beyond Seventy Mile Point.”

“Very well, sir.”

Deliberately, very deliberately, the Foote coughed and rumbled northward, and Milwaukee fell away astern. She could not hope to catch the Merry Anne if the southerly breeze should hold. The schooner was running light, and even though she might have made but eighty or ninety miles during the night, she was by this time more than abreast of Milwaukee, and on the east side of the Lake, where she had the advantage in the run for the Straits of Mackinac.

“Do you think,” asked Beveridge, when the Captain had gone to the bridge, “that we can overhaul her in the Straits?”

Dick shook his head. “Hardly. She has had a pretty steady breeze all night.”

“But it isn’t very strong.”

“It doesn’t need to be. There is nothing she likes better than running before just such a breeze. And when the sun is well up, it will blow harder.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“This here is sort of an old tub, too.”

Dick sniffed. “You have to watch the bubbles to see which way she’s going.”

Beveridge studied the chart. “See here,” he said, “where’s the Canadian hangout?” Dick laid his finger on the indentation that represented Burnt Cove.

“Beyond the – what’s this – Duck Island?”

“Just beyond the Duck Islands.”

“Which place do you think he will make for?”

“Well – I can only tell you what I think.”

“Go ahead.”

“What McGlory will do will be to head for Spencer and take off the old man.”

“And then run over to Burnt Cove?”

“That’s what I think. Burnt Cove is in Canada, you see.”

“Yes, I see it is. The boundary line runs down west and south of Manitoulin Island.”

“If you want to stop him very bad, you’d better have Captain Sullivan go over to the boundary, close to Outer Duck Island, and then head for Spencer. In that way we shall be approaching Spencer along the line that McGlory must take if he tries to make the cove; and if it is not night, we ought to stand a good chance of sighting him. I figure that we ought to get up there just about in time.”

“Of course, he doesn’t know that we’re so hot on his trail,” mused Beveridge.

Dick sniffed again. “If you call this hot.”

The Captain returned from the bridge, and Beveridge repeated Dick’s suggestion.

“How are we to know this schooner?”

“She’s sky-blue with a white line.”

“Is she fast?”

“She don’t need paddle-wheels to beat this.” This remark did not please Captain Sullivan. He turned away.

“I don’t know how you feel, Smiley,” said

Beveridge, “but I didn’t get much sleep last night. Did you?”

“Precious little.”

Within a few moments, while the colors of the dawn were fading, while the Foote was pounding heavily along northwest by north, the special agents and their two prisoners were sleeping like children.

At two o’clock Thursday morning the Foote lay, with motionless engines and lights extinguished, to the southward of Jennie Graham Shoal, near Outer Duck Island. Smiley and Harper, with Wilson close at hand, stood leaning on the rail, watching a launch that the crew were lowering to the water.

“Well,” said Dick, in a low voice, “it looks as if we might get them.”

“Shouldn’t wonder,” Wilson replied. He, too, was subdued by the strain.

“Pretty dark, though.”

“That isn’t all on their side.”

“No, perhaps it isn’t. Going to put out both launches, eh?”

“It looks that way.”

Cautiously and swiftly the sailors worked. One launch, and then the other, was lowered into the water.

“Pretty neat, ain’t it?” whispered Pink. “Why, with this wind they’ve got to run in right by one or other of the boats to get to Burnt Cove. Would they let us sail the Anne around, think, if they get her back?”

Dick shook his head.

Farther aft Beveridge was talking to Captain Sullivan. “It’s the only thing to do, Captain. With him along, we can’t miss her.”

“I’ve nothing more to say. I don’t like it; but he’s your man.”

“One thing more, Captain. It won’t hardly be necessary to send an officer with me.”

“But – ”

“You see Wilson and myself, and about four husky sailors, a couple of

‘em to run the launch, will be enough, Why not just leave it that way?

You might tell your men they’re to take my orders.”