The Merry Anne

His meaning was obvious to the Captain; but he hesitated. This man Beveridge was young and bumptious. Irregular things had sometimes to be done, but it were best that they should be done by a seasoned officer. Still, it was Beveridge’s case. They walked together toward the prisoners.

“Smiley,” said Beveridge, “I’m going to take you along. I guess there isn’t much doubt you could tell your schooner in the dark?”

“Tell her in the dark!” exclaimed Pink. “Why, he knows the squeak of every block!”

So Dick went. The Captain added a fifth sailor for safety, and took time to give him a few quiet instructions before he joined the launch. Then they pushed off and slipped away into the night. For four hours after that, the only sound heard aboard the Foote, where Pink, sleepless, hung over the rail, guarded by a deep-chested sailor, was the occasional puff-puff of one of the launches as it changed its post. A dozen pairs of eyes were searching the dark, looking for any craft that might be coming from Michigan.

As Captain Sullivan suspected, Beveridge’s launch was over the Canadian boundary half an hour after she lost sight of the ship. Then Beveridge drew Dick back near the boiler. “Tell me this, Smiley. Do you think those fellows could possibly have got through before now?”

“I haven’t much doubt of it.”

“What makes you think so?”

“Because of the wind. It has never let down a minute since they started. If they lost no time at Spencer’s, they could have done it easily.”

“That’s what I thought. Will you take the wheel and pilot us into Burnt Cove?”

“Sure, if you want me to.”

Dick took the wheel. The fifth sailor spoke up. “You can’t do that, sir.”

“Can’t do what?” said Beveridge.

“Take the wheel, sir. Powers is to keep the wheel. That’s the orders.”

“There’s nobody but me giving orders here.”

“Sorry, sir; but Powers has got to keep the wheel.”

“We won’t have any talk about this, young man. I’m a special agent of the United States Treasury Department, and I’m running this business. Powers can sit down.”

The sailor’s orders evidently did not warrant him to resist further.

Dick looked about for his bearings. Dimly he could make out the islands to the left. “What does she draw?” he asked.

“Two feet.”

With only two feet of draft he could take chances. He was directly on the course that the Merry Anne had taken in leaving the cove, and he felt as certain, with the compass before him, as if he had made the trip by night a hundred times. There was very little sea, and the launch made good progress. “You might tell the engineer to crowd her all he can,” he said to Beveridge. “It’s quite a run.”

Once Dick glanced back; and he winced. There sat Wilson, on his left hand and not a yard away, with a rifle across his knees. At this moment Beveridge returned from a whispered consultation with the engineer, and scowled at his assistant. “That isn’t necessary, Bert,” said he. “Put it up.”

The overzealous young man laid the rifle on the seat behind him; and Beveridge, after a moment of hard thinking, his eyes fixed on Dick’s muscular back, came up beside the wheel and leaned on the coamings. Dick’s gaze left the compass only for the darkness ahead, where the outline of something that he knew to be a coast line was, to his trained eye, taking shape.

“Say, Smiley,” – the special agent’s voice was lowered; his tone was friendly, – “don’t let that bother you. Nobody is holding a gun on you here. That isn’t my way – with you.”

Dick’s eyes were fixed painfully on the compass.

“I just want you to know that it was a mistake. These guns aren’t for you.”

Beveridge, having said enough, was now silent. Apparently too boyish for his work, often careless in his talk, he was handling Smiley right, and so well did he know it that he was willing to lounge there at his prisoner’s elbow and watch the course in silence. If Beveridge was ambitious, greedy for success and promotion, frequently unscrupulous as to the means to be employed, – as now, when he was deliberately going into English territory, an almost unheard-of and certainly unlawful performance, – hard, even merciless, so long as he regarded only his “case”; he was also impulsive and sometimes warm hearted when appealed to on the personal side. He had, before now, gone intuitively to the heart of problems that stronger minds than his, relying on reasoning alone, had been unable to solve.

Much as a bank teller detects instantly a counterfeit bill or coin, he picked his man. He was quick to feel the difference between a right-minded man who has fallen into wrong ways and the really wrong-minded man. His course tonight was a triumph. He had given his prisoner the means to lead his little party to destruction, but he knew perfectly that nothing of the sort would be done. More, the only man aboard who could prove in court that he had gone over that vague thing, the boundary line, was this same prisoner, who should, by all sensible thinking, be the last man to trust with such information; and yet he felt perfectly comfortable as he leaned out a little way and watched the foam slipping away from the bow.

The launch went on toward the increasing shadows, plunged through the surf, and glided into the cove.

“See anything?” whispered Beveridge.

“Not a thing,” Smiley replied.

“She isn’t here, eh?”

“No, neither of them.”

“Neither of what?”

“Neither the Anne nor the Estelle, Spencer’s schooner. Shall we go back outside?”

“Yes.”

“You speak to the engineer, then. This bell makes too much noise.”

They backed cautiously around and returned through the surf to deep water.

“Lie up a little way off the shore here,” said Beveridge; “we ‘ll cut them off if they try to get in.”

For a moment nothing was said; then this from Smiley, “Do you mind my saying a word?”

“No. What?”

“It has just struck me – we are wasting time here.”

“You think so?”

“I know so.”

“Why?”

“It stands to reason that McGlory would expect to be chased, don’t it?”

“Of course.”

“Well, then, he is not going to put right over here after he has taken off old Spencer, is he? It’s almost like running back on his course – amounts to the same thing.”

“But he is likely to come here, isn’t he?”

“I should think so.”

“Well,” impatiently, “how else could he do it?”

“Easily enough. He could go right on east from Spencer’s place and make for Owen Channel, up near the head of Georgian Bay. That’s at the other end of this island.”

“Manitoulin Island? Is it as big as that?”

“Yes, it lies all across this end of Lake Huron. If he went through Owen Channel, he could get around into the North Channel, and then down into Bayfield Sound and Lake Wolsey. Bayfield Sound, you see, pretty nearly cuts the island in halves. It is right opposite here, only a few miles overland. That would be a long way around, but it is the safe way. You see, I’ve been thinking – ”

“Well – what?”

“Why, he would be likely to think just like I did, that when you had got up here you wouldn’t be able to resist coming on across the line.”

“You seem to know these routes pretty well for a man who has been to Spencer’s only once.”

“I saw it on the chart the other day. A man couldn’t help figuring that out.”

“What would you suggest doing?”

“Putting for Spencer’s, just as tight as your old stationary wash-tub can make it.”

“But hold on, now. If you think they have got away from there long ago – ”

“I think that, but I’m not sure. Supposing they have – then you’ve lost them anyhow. Don’t you see? But suppose there was a delay in getting away there, – it’s more than likely McGlory and Spencer wouldn’t agree. McGlory isn’t the agreeing kind, and I don’t think Spencer is either. It will be daylight before so very long, and with this wind they can’t get here, if they’re coming here at all, without our sighting them on the way over. And there is just a fighting chance of catching them there before they make for Georgian Bay, or some other place we don’t know of.” Beveridge thought a moment. “There is something in that. We ‘ll do it.”

At mid-morning the Foote stopped her engines abreast of False Middle Island, and Captain Sullivan sent for Beveridge.

“You tell me there is a harbor in there?”

“That’s what I understand. But it won’t be necessary to take the steamer in.”

The Captain’s expression showed that he had not the slightest notion of taking her in.

“I think,” Beveridge went on, “that you had better put me ashore with a few men in there north of the island. I ‘ll go around behind the sand-dunes and come on the place from the woods. Then if they should be there, and if they should try to run out, you can stop them. I ‘ll have Smiley guide me.”

“You’re going to take him ashore with you?

“That’s what I’m going to do.”

“I don’t believe in this!”

Beveridge said nothing.

“Oh, very well. I ‘ll have a boat ready.” Smiley was called, and Beveridge drew him aside and outlined his plan. Shortly Wilson joined them, and a half-dozen sailors were picked from the crew. Then, all but Smiley armed with rifles and revolvers, they descended to the small boat and were brought rapidly to the shore.

“Which way?” asked Beveridge, sticking close at Smiley’s elbow.

“I ‘ll show you; come along.” He led the way back among the pines and made a circuit, bringing up squarely on the landward side of the settlement.

“Where is it now, Smiley?”

“Right there.”

Beveridge peered out through the trees, then beckoned his men together. “Come in close, boys, and pick your trees. Keep out of sight – and quiet. Take my rifle, one of you.”

“Shall we go in?” asked Wilson.

“You stay here, Bert.”

“Hadn’t you better take your rifle?”

“No, I don’t want it. Quiet now.”

The men spread out, taking places where they could command the outbuildings.

“Smiley?”

“Yes.”

“Which is Spencer’s house – where he lives himself?”

“The biggest one. You can see the roof over that shed there.”

“All right. Much obliged.”

Beveridge walked rapidly out into the clearing and disappeared around the shed. They heard him mount Spencer’s front steps and knock.

“He’s plucky enough,” muttered Dick.

“Oh, don’t you worry about Bill Beveridge,” said Wilson. “Why, I’ve seen him – ”

But Beveridge was calling for them to join him.

“Nobody here?” asked Wilson.

“Not a soul. I took a look around the house. They left in a hurry. See there.”

He nodded toward the harbor. There lay the Merry Anne at the wharf. The smaller schooner was not to be seen.

“Too late, eh?” said Wilson.

“Too late.”

“Suppose they’ve gone overland?”

“Not a bit of it. They left Smiley’s schooner here and went off in Spencer’s.”

“Oh, he had one too?”

“Certainly he did.”

Dick had made headlong for the schooner. Now they saw him standing on the after deckhouse, reading a paper which he had found nailed to the mast.

“What have you there?” called Beveridge.

“Come and see.”

The special agent joined him and took the paper. “It’s hard enough to read. Whoever wrote this was in a big hurry. What’s this? ‘Left again. You’d better foot it home. Whiskey Jim.’ Whiskey Jim, eh? He’s stealing your thunder, Smiley.”

“Will you let me see it again?” said Dick. He sat down on the edge of the deck-house and read it over, gazing at it with fascinated eyes. The other men watched him curiously.

CHAPTER X – THURSDAY NIGHT – THE GINGHAM DRESS

WELL,” said Wilson, “what do you think?”

“We ‘ll do our thinking later. Take these men and search the place. Smiley and I will wait here.”

“You don’t expect them to find anything, do you?” asked Dick, when the others had gone.

“Can’t say. We’ve lost the men, but we may get some evidence.”

“Where do you think they are?”

“Where could they be but in Canada?”

Dick was silent.

“Say, Smiley, I like the way you’re acting in this business. If anything on earth will make it any brighter for you, it is what you are doing now. You might even go a step farther if you should feel like it any time. It’s plain that McGlory and Spencer are pretty deep in, and if you would come out and tell all you know, it might help you a lot.”

“I have told all I know.”

“Oh, of course, – that’s just as you like.”

They were silent again for a few moments. Then Dick spoke up. “You feel pretty sure about their being in Canada, don’t you?”

“Have you thought of anything else?”

“Yes. Where is the other revenue cutter now?”

“The Porter? At Buffalo, I think, – or Cleveland, or Detroit.”

“And she’s about twice as fast as the Foote, isn’t she?”

“Just about.”

“Well, now, supposing they weren’t sure but what she would be sent up here too? It was as likely as not.”

“It should have been done.”

“Then wouldn’t they have been fools to have put right out again to cross the Lake – with one steamer coming down on ‘em through the Straits and another coming up from Detroit?”

“Fools or not, they did it. We know that much.”

“Do we?”

“Don’t we!”

“I don’t see it.”

“Don’t you see what they’ve done? They have left your schooner here and gone off in Spencer’s.

“Who has?”

“Look here, Smiley, you are on the wrong side of this case. You ought to be working for the government.”

“I may be before I get through with it. You see what I’m driving at, don’t you?”

“About yourself?”

“Hang myself. About Spencer.”

“And McGlory?”

“No, not McGlory. Just Spencer.”

“Why not McGlory?”

“Just this – ”

Wilson approached. “There’s nobody here, Bill.”

“Wait over there a minute, Bert, with the boys. Go on, Smiley.”

“McGlory is a sailor; Spencer isn’t. McGlory would feel safer on a boat; Spencer knows these woods like a book. Do you follow?”

“Go on.”

“Now, I’m just as sure as that I’m sitting here, that when it came to a crisis like this, those two would disagree.”

“And you ought to know them.”

“I know McGlory. He isn’t the kind that takes orders from anybody, drunk or sober. And from the look I had at old Spencer, I don’t think he is either. He looked to me like a cool hand. Quiet, you know, with a sort of cold eye. It doesn’t sound like Spencer to put out into the Lake with revenue cutters closing in all around him.”

“But does it sound like McGlory?”

“Exactly. He’s bull headed.”

“Then you think the other schooner was here?”

“More than likely.”

“And McGlory took it and Spencer didn’t?”

“That’s getting near it.”

“And who wrote that note?”

“I don’t know. I never saw Spencer’s writing, and McGlory’s only once or twice. It’s written rough, but it looks familiar, somehow.”

“McGlory’s work then, likely?”

“Maybe.”

“But what object would Spencer have in staying behind? Where could he go?”

“He could get out of Michigan and down to Mexico without one chance in a hundred of being caught – not unless you had men on every train in the United States.”

“You mean he would make for a railway?”

“Yes.”

“But he would have to go to Alpena to do it.”

“Not a bit. He needn’t go anywhere near the coast. There’s a town called Hewittson, on the Central Road, about fifty miles back in the woods, southwest of here. It’s the terminal of a branch line, and it’s the nearest point.”

“Even then he would have to go through Detroit or Michigan City, where we have men.”

“No, he wouldn’t. He could get over to the Grand Rapids and Indiana with a few changes and without passing through a single big town. When he once got down there in Indiana, you would have a pretty vigorous time catching him.”

Beveridge mused. “This is all very interesting, Smiley, but it is hardly enough to act on.”

“Isn’t it, though? What earthly good could you do on the water that Captain Sullivan couldn’t do just as well without you? There he is with his men, and he ought to do what you tell him.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Beveridge, with a smile.

“Anyhow,” Dick went on eagerly, “the old Foote isn’t going to make any more miles an hour for having you on board.”

“There’s something in that. You seem to be keen on this business.”

“Keen! Good Lord, man! don’t you see the position I’m in? Don’t you see that my only chance is to help you run this down and get at the facts? Honest, I don’t see what you could lose by taking a flier overland to Hewittson. It’s just one more chance opened up for you, and you ought to take it.”

“How did you happen to know so much about these railroads up here?”

“You didn’t suppose I had my eyes shut when I was looking at that chart the other day, did you?”

“It seems to me you took in a lot in a thundering short time.”

“Of course I did. It is my business to take in a lot when I look at a chart.”

“Well, this is interesting, Smiley. I ‘ll think it over. Come on, boys.”

The sailors rowed them back to the steamer; and the special agent was promptly closeted with Captain Sullivan. He laid out the whole situation, suggesting that the Captain keep a close watch on the Burnt Cove region and that he leave a launch at Spencer’s. The fugitives had left nearly all they had, even to clothing, behind, and it was conceivable that they might return.

“I wish,” he added, as he rose to go, “that I could call on the county authorities. Wilson and I may have our hands full if we meet them.”

“You think you’d better not?”

“Hardly. It is even chances that they are mixed up in the business some way. Spencer has known them longer than we have.”

He left the Captain’s stateroom, and found Smiley waiting for him by the wheel-house. “There’s one thing I didn’t say when we were talking,” began the prisoner, looking with some hesitation at the agent.

“What’s that, Smiley? Speak up. I’m starting now.”

“You’re going to try it, then?”

“Yes.”

“Will you take Pink and me with you?”

Beveridge straightened up and flashed a keen, inquiring glance through Dick’s eyes, down to the bottom of his soul. Dick met it squarely.

“By Jove!” said Beveridge.

Not a word said Smiley.

“By Jove! I ‘ll do it!”

Dick turned away, limp.

“Smiley!”

He turned back.

“Where’s Harper?”

“Down below.”

“Bring him to my stateroom. Be quick about it.”

A very few moments more, and Dick and Harper knocked at the special agent’s door.

“Come in.”

They entered, and found Beveridge and Wilson together. Beveridge closed the door, and there the four men stood, crowded together in the narrow space. Beveridge gave them another of his sharp glances, then he drew from his coat pockets two revolvers and held them out, one in each hand.

Dick and Pink looked speechless.

“Well, take ‘em. You boys are to help me see this thing through, now.”

“Do you – do you mean that?”

“I don’t joke with pistols.”

Without more words each reached out. Dick thrust his into his hip pocket; but Pink opened his and looked at the loaded cylinder.

“Now, boys,” said Beveridge, “we’re off.” Wilson descended first to the launch, and Dick was about to follow when Captain Sullivan hurried up and caught his arm. “Here, here! This won’t do!”

Dick turned, and started to speak; then, seeing that Beveridge was approaching, he waited.

“That’s all right, Captain,” called the special agent; “let him go.”

“Let him go!”

Beveridge drew the Captain aside.

“You aren’t going to take him ashore with you?”

“Yes, both of ‘em.”

Anger was struggling with disgust in the Captain’s face. “You’d better hand ‘em revolvers and be done with it.”

“I’ve done that already.”

“Oh, you have!”

“Yes, sir. And I don’t mind telling you that, guilty or not, there aren’t two men I’d feel safer with in the Southern Peninsula.”

“Oh, there ain’t!” A feeble reply, but the old Captain was beyond words. “Very well,” was all he could get out, “very well!”

With that they parted; and the boat, with the strangely selected party aboard, made for the shore.

“Now, Smiley,” said Beveridge, when the boat had left them on the sand, “how about our direction?”

“Exactly southwest from here. I suppose we shall have to make for Hewittson in a straight line, and see if we can’t get there first.” A sort of road led off in a southwesterly direction, and this they followed for an hour. Then it swung off to the left, and they plunged into the forest, from now on to be guided only by the compass. The afternoon wore along. For two hours, three hours, four hours, they tramped through the forest, which now opened out into a vista of brown carpet and cool shade, now ran to a blackened jungle of stumps and undergrowth; but always underfoot was the sand, no longer white but yellow and of a dustlike quality. It gave under the foot at every step; it rose about them and got into their throats and finally into their tempers.

“Say, Smiley,” called Wilson. He had swung his coat over his shoulder; his face was streaked with sweat and dirt; the spring was gone from his stride. “Say, Smiley, where are those streams you were talking about?”

“Give it up.”

“This is a pretty place you’re getting us into.”

“Shut up, Bert!” said Beveridge. “You tend to business, and quit talking.”

“Who’s talking? Can’t I ask a civil question?”

“From the sound, I guess you can’t.”

“You’re saying a word too much there, Bill Beveridge!”

Beveridge stopped short and wheeled around. He had tied the sleeves of his coat through one suspender so that it hung about his knees and flapped when he walked. His waistcoat was open, his collar was melted to a rag; altogether he was nearly as tired and hot as his assistant.

“What do you say to sitting down a minute?” suggested Smiley, diplomatically.

But Wilson returned to the attack. “How long are you going to keep on this way, Bill?”

The obstinate quality in Wilson’s voice roused a counter-obstinacy in Beveridge. He decided not to reply.

“Maybe the sand’s getting into his ears so he can’t hear well,” said Wilson, addressing Harper as nearly as anybody. But Pink, rather than get into the controversy, went off a little way to a spruce tree and fell to cutting off a piece of the gum.

“It’s just as you like, Bill,” pursued Wilson. “Of course, it ain’t any of my business, – but I just thought I’d tell you we passed that big clump of pines over there about two hours and a half ago.”

In spite of him, Beveridge’s eyes sought the spot indicated.

“I don’t care, you understand, Bill. I ‘ll go where I’m ordered. But if you will go on trusting that compass of yours, don’t you think maybe we’d better be thinking about saving up what sandwiches we’ve got left? These Michigan woods ain’t a very cheerful spot to spend the fall, unless you’ve planned that way, you know, – brought tents and things, and maybe a little canned stuff.”

“Oh, go to – !” muttered Beveridge, without turning.

“What’s that you said?” Wilson was on his feet.

Here Smiley broke in with the suggestion that they try marking trees.

And for an hour they were tearing their shirts to strips, and sighting forward from tree to tree; then the early twilight began to settle on the forest. They spoke of it no more, but pushed on feverishly under the leadership of Beveridge, whose spirits, which had reached low-water mark in the difference with Wilson, were flowing again. From rapid walking they took to running; still the twilight deepened. Finally the uneven ground and the deep shadows led them into scratches and tumbles, and they were obliged to stop.

“Bill,” said Wilson, “look over there.”

“Where?”

“That tree – runs up six feet or so, and shoots off over the ground, and then turns square up again.”

“Yes. What about it?” A queer sound was creeping into the special agent’s voice.

“Don’t you remember – about three o’clock – the tree we passed? Harper said it was exactly like a figure four, because of the broken part that stuck up above the branch, – and you said – ”

“Well, but – ”

“Just take a good look at it.”

Beveridge stepped a little way forward and looked and looked.

“Well?”

Beveridge was silent. His eyes left the tree only to fix themselves on the ground.