Kitabı oku: «Hawtrey's Deputy», sayfa 22
"It's all we could get. There's nobody on our trail," he said.
The last fact was most important, and Wyllard cut him short. "Get the jibs and staysail on to her."
The new arrivals did it while the cable clanked and rattled as the schooner drove astern, but at the first heave the rotten staysail tore off the hanks, and one jib burst as they ran it up its stay. Then for an anxious moment or two the cable jammed, and the anchor brought the schooner up. All four flung themselves upon the windlass levers, and after a furious effort the chain came up again and ran out faster, fathom by fathom, rattling horribly, until the end of it shot suddenly over the windlass. Then there was another check as the schooner brought up by the kedge swung suddenly across the stream.
Her banging canvas filled, she listed over, and it was evident to all of them that if the kedge started she would forthwith drive ashore. Its warp ripped out of the water tense with strain, and she was swinging on it heading for the beach when; Wyllard flung himself upon the wheel.
"Hang on to every inch or break it!" he roared. "Out main-boom; box your jib and staysail up to weather!"
They did it, amidst a great clatter of blocks and thrashing of canvas, in desperate haste, while Wyllard wrenched up his helm, and the schooner, straining on the warp, fell away with her bows down-stream. He was quivering all through, and the sweat of effort dripped from him when he swung up an arm to Lewson, who was standing at the bollard the warp was made fast to.
"Now," he cried hoarsely, "let her go!"
The rope fell with a splash, the schooner lurched forward and drove away down the inlet with the stream running seaward under her, while Wyllard felt a trifle dazed from sheer revulsion of feeling. The rumble of the surf was growing louder, the deck slanted slightly beneath him, and if they could keep her off the beach for the next few minutes there was freedom before them. He hazarded a glance astern, but could see no sign of a boat up the inlet. They had done a thing which even then appeared almost incredible.
The breeze came down fresher, the gurgle at the bows grew louder, and the deck commenced to heave with a slow and regular rise and fall. Then a long, shadowy point girt about with spectral surf slipped by, and they were out in open water. They ran her out for an hour or two and then, though the peak of the mainsail burst to tatters as they hauled her on a wind, let her stretch away northwards following the trend of coast.
"We'll stand on as she's lying until we find a creek or river mouth. We must have water," Wyllard said.
An hour later he called Charly to the wheel, and sitting down in the shelter of the rail soon afterwards went to sleep, though this was about the last thing he had contemplated doing. It was grey dawn when he opened his eyes again, and stood up, aching all over and very cold, to see that the schooner was tumbling over a little spiteful sea with the hazy loom of land not far away from her. Then he glanced at the gear and canvas, and was almost appalled, while Charly, who was busy close by, saw his face and grinned.
"You don't want to look at her too much," he said. "We took a swig on the peak-halliards a little while ago, and had to let up before we pulled the gaff off her. Boom-foresail's worse, and the jibs are dropping off her, while the water just pours in through her topsides when she puts another lee plank down."
Wyllard made a little expressive gesture, and leaned upon the rail. He realised then something of the nature of the task he had undertaken. They had no anchor, no fresh water, no fuel for cooking, and, so far as he was aware, very few provisions, while it seemed to him that the weathered, worn-out gear would not hold the masts in the vessel in any weight of breeze. Still, the thing must be attempted, and there was one want, at least, that could be supplied.
"Anyway," he said, "we'll beat her in. When we come abreast of the first creek you and Tom and the Siwash will go ashore."
It was afternoon when they sighted one, and they took most of the canvas off the vessel before three of them pulled away in the boat, leaving Wyllard at the helm. It was blowing moderately fresh off shore, and it was with feverish impatience he watched them toiling at the oars, two of them pulling while the third man sculled. Then they disappeared behind a point, and an anxious hour went by before the boat, which now showed a very scanty strip of side above the tumbling foam, crept out from the beach again. Having no breakers, they had brought the water off in bulk, sitting in it as they pulled, and it was fortunate that the boat lurched off shore easily before the little splashing seas. They lost some of the water before they hove it into the big and very rusty tank, and then they held a consultation when they had swung the boat in and the schooner was running off to the east again.
"We've about stores enough to last two weeks – that is, if you don't expect too much," Lewson pointed out. "There's an American stove in the deck-house, and while we can't find anything meant to burn in it there's an axe down forward, and we could cut out cabin floorings, or a beam or two, without taking too much stiffening out of her."
Wyllard, who had inspected the stores, fancied that a fortnight was the very longest that could be counted on, though they ate no more than would keep a modicum of strength in them. From their kind and quality he surmised that they had been intended for the officials in charge of the settlement.
"How did you get them, Tom?" he asked.
"The thing," said Lewson quietly, "was simple. It was dark and hazy, and raining quite hard, and the first thing we did was to run the boat down and leave her nearly afloat. Then we crawled back, and lay by listening outside that store. We were figuring how we were to break it in when two men came along. They went in and came out with a bag or two, and as they left the door open we figured they were coming back for more. We humped out a moderate load, and had just got it down to the boat when we saw those men, or two others, in the haze. I was for lying by, but Charly would get out then."
Charly laughed drily. "He wanted to take the rifle and go back to look for Smirnoff. I'd no use for any trouble of that kind, and I shoved the boat off while he was seeing how many ca'tridges there were in the magazine. He waded in and grabbed the boat when he saw I was sure going, but I shoved her away from him. Then it kind of struck him he had to get in or swim."
Lewson's expression grew very grim. "That's the thing that hurts the most – to go away before I got even with that man," he said. "Still, I may get over it if I try to think of him with his nose smashed hard to starboard."
Wyllard made a sign of impatience. He felt that, after all, there was perhaps something to be said for Smirnoff's point of view.
"There is just one plan open to us, and that's to drive her across to the eastward as fast as we can," he said. "We might, perhaps, pick up an Alaska C.C. factory before the provisions quite run out if this breeze and the gear hold up. Failing that, we must try for one of the Western Aleutians."
The others concurred in this, and very fortunately the breeze kept to the west and south, for Wyllard had very grave doubts as to whether he could have thrashed the schooner to windward through a steep head sea. Indeed, on looking back on that voyage and remembering the state of the vessel, it seemed to him that he and his companions had only escaped as by a miracle. In any case, they hove her to one misty evening in a deep inlet behind a promontory, and Wyllard, who sculled up it alone in the growing darkness, badly startled the agent of an A.C.C. factory when he appeared, ragged, haggard, and wet with rain, in the doorway of a big, stove-warmed room.
The agent, however, was, as he admitted, out for business, and when Wyllard produced a wad of paper money stained by wet and perspiration he appeared quite willing to part with certain provisions. He was also told that no questions would be answered, and when he had given Wyllard supper the latter sculled away in the darkness leaving him none the wiser. Half an hour later the schooner slipped out to sea again.
The rest was by comparison easy. They had the coast of Alaska and British Columbia close aboard, and they crept southwards in fine weather, once running off their course when the smoke of a steamer crept up above the horizon. Then they ran for the northern tongue of Vancouver Island in a strong breeze of wind, and Wyllard, who had already decided that the vessel would scarcely fetch five hundred dollars and that it would be better if all trace of her disappeared, pulled his wheel over suddenly as she was scraping by a surf-swept reef.
In another minute she was on hard and fast, and they had scarcely got the boat over when the masts went with a crash. A quarter of an hour later they were thrown up on the beach, and before they set out on a long march through the bush there was very little to be seen of the vessel.
Three or four days afterwards they reached a little wooden town, and Wyllard, who slipped into it alone in the dusk, bought clothing for himself and his companions, who put it on in the bush. Then they went into the town together, and slept that night in a wooden hotel.
Their troubles were over, and, what was more, Wyllard, who pledged the rest to secrecy, fancied that what had become of the schooner would remain a mystery.
CHAPTER XXXI.
WYLLARD COMES HOME
Harvest had commenced at the Range, and the clashing binders were moving through the grain when Hawtrey sat one afternoon in Wyllard's room at the Range. It was then about five o'clock, and every man belonging to the homestead was toiling bare-armed and grimed with dust among the yellow oats, but Hawtrey sat at a table gazing at the litter of papers in front of him with a troubled face. He wore a white shirt and store clothes, which was distinctly unusual in case of a Western farmer at harvest time, and Edmonds, the mortgage jobber, leaned back in a big chair quietly watching him.
The latter had, as it happened, called at a singularly inconvenient time, and Hawtrey was anxious to get rid of him before the guests he expected arrived. It was Sally's birthday, and since she took pleasure in simple festivities of any kind he had arranged to celebrate it at the Range. He was, however, sufficiently acquainted with his companion's character to realise that it was most unlikely that he would take his departure before he had accomplished the purpose which had brought him there. This was to collect several thousand dollars.
It was quite clear to Hawtrey that he was in an unpleasantly tight place. Edmonds held a bond upon his homestead, teams, and implements as security for a short date loan, repayment of which was due, and he was to be married to Sally in a month or so.
"Can't you wait a little?" he asked at length.
"I'm afraid not," was the uncompromising reply. "Money's tight this fall, and things have gone against me. Besides, you could pay me off if you wanted to."
Edmonds turned towards an open window, and glanced at the great stretch of yellow grain that ran back across the prairie. Dusty teams and binders with flashing wooden arms moved half-hidden along the edge of it, and the still, clear air was filled with a clash and clatter and the rustle of flung-out sheaves.
There was no doubt that money could be raised upon that harvest field. Indeed, Hawtrey fancied that his companion would be quite content to take a bond for the delivery of so many thousand bushels in repayment of the loan, but while he had already gone further than he had at one time contemplated doing, this was a course he shrank from suggesting. After all, the grain was Wyllard's, and there was the difficulty that Wyllard might still come back, while if he failed to do this an absence of another few months would entitle his executors to presume him dead. In either case, Hawtrey would be required to account for his property.
"No," he said, "I can't take – that way."
There was a trace of contempt in the mortgage jobber's smile. "You of course understand just how you're fixed, but it seemed to me from that draft of the arrangement with Wyllard that you have the power to do pretty much what you like. Anyway, if you gave me a bond on as much of that grain as would wipe out the loan at present figure, it would only mean that you would have Wyllard's trustees for creditors instead of me, and it's probable that they wouldn't be as hard upon you as I'm compelled to be. As things stand, you have got to square up or I throw your place on the market."
Hawtrey's face betrayed his dismay, and his companion fancied that he would yield to a little further pressure. He had not said anything about the mortgage to Sally, and it would be singularly unpleasant to be turned out upon the prairie within a month or two of his marriage, for he could not count upon being left in possession of the Range much longer.
"I'm only entitled to handle Wyllard's money on – his – account," he objected.
Edmonds appeared to reflect. "So far as I can remember there was nothing of that kind stated in the draft of the arrangement. It empowered you to do anything you thought fit with the money, but it's altogether your own affair. I can, of course, get my dollars back by selling your homestead up, and I have to decide if that must be done or not before I leave."
He had very little doubt as to what the decision would be. Hawtrey would yield, and afterwards it would not be difficult to draw him into some unwise speculation with the object of getting the money back, which he imagined that Hawtrey would be desperately anxious to do. As the result of this, he expected to get such a hold upon the Range that he would be master of the situation when the property fell into the hands of Wyllard's trustees. That Hawtrey would be disgraced as well as ruined naturally did not count with him.
The latter took up one of the papers, and read it through with vacillation in his eyes. Then he rose, and stood leaning on the table while he gazed at the teams toiling amidst the grain. There was wealth enough yonder to release him from his torturing anxieties, and after all, he felt, something must turn up before the reckoning was due. It was not in his nature to face a crisis, and with him a trouble seemed less formidable if it could only be put off a little. Edmonds, who knew with what kind of man he had to deal, said nothing further, and quietly reached out for another cigar.
In the meanwhile, though neither of the men were aware of this, Sally had just got down from her waggon on the other side of the house, and another couple of teams were already growing larger upon the sweep of whitened prairie. As she entered the homestead she met Mrs. Nansen, and the latter informed her that Hawtrey was busy with Edmonds in Wyllard's room. Sally's eyes sparkled when she heard it, and her face grew hard.
"That man!" she said. "Well, I guess I'll go right in to them."
In another minute she opened the door, and answered the mortgage jobber's somewhat embarrassed greeting with a frigid stare. Having some experience of Sally's uncompromising directness, he was inclined to fancy that the game was up, but he said nothing further, and she fixed her eyes on Hawtrey.
"What's this man doing here again?" she asked. "You promised me you would never make another deal with him."
Hawtrey flushed. Had he fancied it would have been the least use he would have made some attempt to get Sally out of the room, but he was unpleasantly sure that unless she was fully satisfied first it would only result in failure. Besides, driven to desperation, as he was, he had a half-conscious feeling that she might provide him with some means of escape. Sally had certainly saved him once already, and, humiliating as it was, he fancied that she did not expect too much from him. She might be very angry, but Sally's anger was, after all, less difficult to face than Agatha's quiet scorn.
"I haven't made another deal. It's – a previous one," he said lamely.
Sally swung round on Edmonds. "You have come here for money? You may as well tell me. I won't leave you with Gregory until you do."
It was quite evident that she would make her promise good, and Edmonds nodded.
"Yes," he said; "about 3,000 dollars."
"And Gregory can't pay you?"
Edmonds reflected rapidly, and decided to take a bold course. He was acquainted with Hawtrey's habit of putting things off, and fancied that the latter would seize upon the first loophole of escape from an embarrassing situation. That was why he gave him a lead.
"Well," he said, "there is a way in which he could do it if he wished. He has only to fill in a paper and hand it me."
He had, however, not sufficiently counted on Sally's knowledge of his victim's affairs, or her quickness of wit, for she turned to Hawtrey with a commanding gesture.
"Where are you going to get 3,000 dollars from?" she asked.
The blood crept into Hawtrey's face, for this was a thing he could not tell her; but a swift suspicion flashed into her mind as she looked at him.
"Perhaps it could be – raised," he said.
"To pay his mortgage off?" and Sally swung round on Edmonds now.
"Yes," the latter admitted; "he can easily do it."
Then the girl turned to Hawtrey. "Gregory," she said with harsh incisiveness, "there's only one way you could get that money – and it isn't yours."
Hawtrey said nothing, but he could not meet her gaze, and when he turned from her she looked back at the mortgage jobber.
"If you're gone before I come back there'll sure be trouble," she informed him, and sped swiftly out of the room.
Then Hawtrey sat down limply in his chair, and Edmonds laughed in a jarring manner. The game was up, but, after all, if he got his 3,000 dollars he could be satisfied, for he had already extracted a good many from Hawtrey one way or another.
"If I were you I'd marry that girl right away," he said. "You'd be safer if you had her to look after you."
Hawtrey let the jibe pass. For one thing, he felt that it was warranted, and just then his anxiety was too strong for anger.
In the meanwhile, Sally ran out of the house to meet Hastings, who had just handed his wife down from their waggon, and drew him a pace or two aside.
"I'm worried about Gregory," she said; "he's in trouble – big trouble. Somehow we have got to raise 3,000 dollars. Edmonds is inside with him."
Hastings did not seem greatly astonished. "Ah!" he said, "I guess it's over that mortgage of his. It would be awkward for you and Gregory if Edmonds took the homestead and turned him out."
Sally's face grew rather white, but she met his gaze steadily.
"Oh," she said, "that's not what I would mind the most."
Hastings reflected a moment or two. He fancied that this was a very difficult admission for the girl to make, and that she had made it suggested that Hawtrey might become involved in more serious difficulties. He had also a strong suspicion of what they were likely to be.
"Sally," he said quietly, "you are afraid of Edmonds making him do something you would not like?"
Though she did not answer directly he saw the shame in the girl's face, and remembered that he was one of Wyllard's trustees.
"I must raise those dollars – now – and I don't know where to get more than five hundred from. I might manage that," she said.
"Well," said Hastings, "you want me to lend you them, and I'm not sure that I can. Still, if you'll wait a few minutes I'll see what I can do."
Sally left him, and he turned to his wife, whose expression suggested that she had overheard part of what was said and had guessed the rest.
"You mean to raise that money? After all, we are friends of his, and it may save him from letting Edmonds get his grip upon the Range," she said.
Hastings made a sign of reluctant assent. "I don't quite know how I can do it personally, in view of the figure wheat is standing at, and I don't think much of any security that Gregory could offer me. Still, there is, perhaps, a way in which it could be arranged, and it's one that, considering everything, is more or less admissible. I think I'll wait here for Agatha."
Agatha was in the waggon driven by Sproatly close behind them, and when he had handed her and Winifred down Hastings, who walked to the house with them, drew her into an unoccupied room, while Mrs. Nansen took the rest into the big general one.
"I'm afraid that Gregory's in rather serious trouble. Sally seems very anxious about him," he said. "It's rather a delicate subject, but I understand that in a general way you are on good terms with both of them?"
Agatha met his somewhat embarrassed gaze with a smile. She fancied that what he really wished to discover was whether she still felt any bitterness against Gregory and blamed him for pledging himself to Sally.
"Yes," she said, "Sally and I are good friends, and I am very sorry to hear that Gregory is in any difficulty."
Hastings still seemed embarrassed, and she was becoming puzzled by his manner.
"Once upon a time you would have done anything possible to make things easier for him," he said. "I wonder if I might ask if to some extent you have that feeling still?"
"Of course. If he is in serious trouble I should be glad to do anything within my power to help him."
"Even if it cost, we will say, about six hundred English pounds?"
Agatha gazed at him in bewildered astonishment. "There are some twenty dollars in my possession which your wife handed me not long ago."
"Still, if you had the money, you would be glad to help him – and would not regret it afterwards?"
"No," said Agatha decisively; "if I had the means, and the need was urgent, I should be glad to do what I could." Then she laughed. "I can't understand in the least how this is to the purpose."
"If you will wait for the next two or three months I may be able to explain it to you," said Hastings. "In the meanwhile, there are one or two things I have to do."
Agatha sat still when he left her, wondering what he could have meant, but feeling that she would be willing to do what she had assured him. His suggestion that it was possible that she still cherished any sense of grievance against Gregory because he was going to marry Sally, however, brought a little scornful smile into her eyes. It was singularly easy to forgive Gregory that, for she now saw him as he was – shallow, careless, shiftless, a man without depth of character. He had a few surface graces, and on occasion a certain half-insolent forcefulness of manner which in a curious fashion was almost becoming. There was, however, nothing beneath the surface. When he had to face a crisis he collapsed like a pricked bladder, which was the first simile she could think of, though she admitted that it was not a particularly elegant one. He was, it seemed, quite willing that a woman should help him out of the trouble he had involved himself in, for she had no doubt that Sally had sent Hastings on his somewhat incomprehensible errand.
Then a clear voice came in through the window, and turning towards it she saw that a young lad clad in blue duck was singing as he drove his binder through the grain. The song was a very simple one which had some vogue just then upon the prairie, but her eyes grew suddenly hazy as odd snatches of it reached her through the beat of hoofs, the clash of the binder's arms, and the rustle of the flung-out sheaves.
"My Bonny lies over the ocean,
My Bonny lies far over the sea."
Then he called to his horses, and it was a few moments before she heard again —
"Bring back my Bonny to me."
A quiver ran through her as she leaned upon the window frame. There was a certain pathos in the simple strain, and she could fancy that the lad, who was clearly English, as an exile felt it, too. Once more as the jaded horses and clashing machine grew smaller down the edge of the great sweep of yellow grain, his voice came faintly up to her with its haunting thrill of longing and regret —
"Bring back my Bonny to me."
This in her case was more than anyone could do, and as she stood listening a tear splashed upon her closed hands. The man, by comparison with whom Gregory appeared a mere lay figure, was in all probability lying still far up in the solitudes of the frozen North, with his last grim journey done. This time, however, he had not carried her picture with him. Gregory was to blame for that, and it was the one thing she could not forgive him.
She leaned against the window for another minute, struggling with an almost uncontrollable longing, and looking out upon the sweep of golden wheat and whitened grass with brimming eyes, until there was a rattle of wheels, and she saw Edmonds drive away. In another minute she heard voices in the corridor, and it became evident that Hastings was speaking to his wife.
"I've got rid of the man, and it's reasonable to expect that Gregory will keep clear of him after this," he said.
"Don't you mean that Agatha did it?"
It was Mrs. Hastings who asked the question, and Agatha became intent as she heard her name. She did not, however, hear the answer, and Mrs. Hastings spoke again.
"Allen," she said, "you don't keep a secret badly, though Harry pledged you not to tell. Still, all that caution was a little unnecessary. It was, of course, just the kind of thing he would do."
"What did he do?" Hastings asked, and Agatha heard his wife's soft laugh, for they were just outside the door now.
"Left the Range, or most of it, to Agatha in case he didn't come back again."
They went on, and Agatha, turning from the window, sat down limply with the blood in her face and her heart beating horribly fast. Wyllard's last care, it seemed, had been to provide for her, and that fact brought her a curious sense of solace. In an unexplainable fashion it took the bitterest sting out of her grief, though how far he had succeeded in his intentions did not seem to matter in the least. It was sufficient to know that amidst all the haste of his preparation he had not forgotten her.
Then, becoming a little calmer, she understood what had been in Hastings's mind during the interview that had puzzled her, and was glad that she assured him of her willingness to sacrifice anything that might be hers if it was needed to set Gregory free. It was, she felt, what Wyllard would have done with the money. He had said that Gregory was a friend of his, and that, she knew, meant a good deal to him.
It was, however, evident that she must join the others if she did not wish her absence to excite undesirable comment, and going out she came face to face with Sally in the corridor. The girl stopped, and saw the sympathy in her eyes.
"Yes," she said impulsively, "I've saved him. Edmonds has gone. Hastings bought him off, and, though I don't quite know how, you helped him. He stayed behind to wait for you."
Agatha smiled. The vibrant relief in her companion's voice stirred her, and she realised once more that in choosing this half-taught girl, at least, Gregory had acted with wholly unusual wisdom. It was with a sense of half-contemptuous amusement at her folly she remembered how she had once fancied that Gregory was marrying beneath him. Sally was far from perfect, but when it was a matter of essentials the man was not fit to brush her shoes.
"My dear," she said, "I really don't know exactly what I – have – done, but if it amounts to anything it is a pleasure to me."
Then they went together into the big general room where Gregory was talking to Winifred somewhat volubly. Agatha, however, fancied from his manner that he had, at least, the grace to feel ashamed of himself. Supper, she heard Mrs. Nansen say, would be ready very shortly, and feeling in no mood for general conversation she sat near a window looking out across the harvest field until she heard a distant shout, and saw a waggon appear on the crest of the rise. Then, to her astonishment, two of the binders stopped, and she saw a couple of men who sprang down from them run to meet the waggon. In another moment or two more of the teams stopped, and a faint clamour of cries went up, while here and there little running figures straggled up the slope. Then her companions clustered about her at the window, wondering, and Winifred turned to Hastings.
"What are they shouting for?" she asked. "They are all crowding about the waggon now."
Agatha felt suddenly dazed and dizzy, for she knew what the answer to that question must be even before Mrs. Hastings spoke.
"It's Harry coming back," she said, and gasped.
In another moment they streamed out of the house, and Agatha found it scarcely possible to follow them, for the sudden revulsion of feeling had almost overpowered her. Still, she reached the door, and saw the waggon drawn up amidst a cluster of struggling men, and by and bye Wyllard, whom they surrounded, break out as if by force from the midst of them. She stood on the threshold waiting him, and in the midst of her exultation a pang smote her as she saw how gaunt and worn he was. He came straight towards her, apparently regardless of the others, and clasping the hands she held out drew her into the house.
"So you have not married Gregory yet?" he said, and laughed triumphantly when he saw the answer in her shining eyes.
"No," she said softly, "it is certain that I will never marry him."
Wyllard drew her back still further with a compelling grasp.
"Why?" he asked.
Agatha looked up at him, and then turned her eyes away.
"I was waiting for you," she said simply.
Then he took her in his arms and kissed her before he turned, still with her hand in his, to face the others who were now flocking back to the house, and in another moment or two they went in together amidst a confused clamour of good wishes.
