Kitabı oku: «Jack Harvey's Adventures: or, The Rival Campers Among the Oyster Pirates», sayfa 13
“Hello, hello, Captain Bill,” called Artie Jenkins.
The man replied; they saw him step into a small skiff alongside and row toward them. He drew the skiff to shore, a few minutes later, and approached.
“Good evening, Mr. Jenkins,” he said. “Who’s this – somebody that wants to ship?”
“Yes, and a good man, too,” replied Artie Jenkins. “He’s been farming, and thinks he’d like oystering with you better. I’ve known him two years; he’s been at work up in Hillville. His name is Sam Black.”
Captain Bill’s chuckle was unheard by Artie Jenkins.
“You’ll know him a lot better,” he said to himself; and added, aloud, “All right. Kind of you to fetch him down. Come out aboard and have something.”
The three got into the skiff, and Captain Bill rowed them out to the bug-eye.
“I’ll see you in a minute or two,” he said to Sam Black, motioning to him to go forward. “Come on down, Mr. Jenkins;” and he whispered, “I’ve got the ten dollars ready for you, and a drop of something for the cold.”
The two descended into the cabin.
A moment later, Captain Bill’s mate quietly drew the anchor off bottom, took a turn with the rope about the bitts, then stepped to the halyards and raised the foresail a little. The bug-eye drifted out into the current, caught the tide and was carried a way up-stream. The foresail was run up till it was all set. Sam Black had crept cautiously aft to the wheel, and the craft now turned, under headway, and began creeping downstream, slowly.
“Here’s the money,” said Captain Bill, fumbling about in a wallet that he had produced. ”Sit down. Make yourself at home. You’ve had a long walk – ”
Artie Jenkins suddenly sprang to his feet.
“You’re drifting, aren’t you, Captain Bill?” he said. “You’re dragging your anchor, I think.”
“No, I guess not,” replied the other. “Sit down. I’ll ask the mate, anyway.”
He stepped to the companion and called out.
“Give her a bit more scope, mate,” he cried. “Guess she is dragging a bit.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” responded the mate, and went on cautiously and quietly raising the foresail. The bug-eye was nearly in mid-stream.
Artie Jenkins suddenly sprang from his seat again, and started for the companion. A powerful hand on his shoulder restrained him.
“Let me go!” he cried, fiercely. “What kind of a trick do you call this?” He wrenched, to free himself from the other’s grasp; but he was drawn back. Captain Bill seized him by the throat and forced him down on one of the bunks.
“You’re not going ashore this trip,” he said, sharply. “Captain Ham Haley and I have got a bone to pick with you.”
Trapped at last, Artie Jenkins fought with all his strength; but he was no match for the stalwart captain. Exhausted, battered and thoroughly terrified, he sank back on the bunk and begged for mercy.
“It isn’t right, Bill,” he pleaded. “You ain’t playing the game fair. How are you going to get men, if you go and nab a man that’s in the business with you? Nobody ever did that before? Haven’t I always used you right?”
“No, you haven’t,” exclaimed Captain Bill; “and you’re going down the bay. Now you just keep below and stay quiet. You know what they get if they holler.”
Captain Bill, with this parting injunction, went on deck. The bug-eye’s sails were all set and she was going down the river.
Several hours later, a forlorn figure appeared at the companion-way, cautiously, ready to dodge a blow from Captain Bill’s boot.
“Bill,” said Artie Jenkins, plaintively, “Haley won’t stand for this. He knows it isn’t the way to play the game.”
“No?” queried Captain Bill, contemptuously, “you can ask Haley, yourself. Here he comes now.”
The bug-eye, Brandt, was indeed coming up the river, near at hand, standing out from behind a point of land. The two vessels were soon side by side, drifting for a moment up with the tide.
CHAPTER XVII
ARTIE JENKINS AT THE DREDGES
Captain Hamilton Haley, stepping eagerly aboard the other bug-eye, accosted Captain Bill.
“Have you got him?” he asked.
“Reckon I have,” said Captain Bill; “and he’s been squealing like a baby. Just like those chaps as are always trapping other chaps; once they get it, themselves, they go all to pieces. You met Tom Noyes, then, all right? I sent word down by him. I thought I’d get Artie.”
“Yes, and I’ve got another one, too,” said Haley. “He’s stowed in for’ard; I haven’t got a good look at him yet. Caught him trying to rob the men in the forecastle; he’d sneaked out from shore. I reckon he won’t be any great hand at the dredges, but I’ll make him work his passage, all right. Bill, you’ve done me more good catching that little crimp, Artie Jenkins, than it would to find a brand new reef that no dredger had ever touched before. Get ’em to fetch him aboard.”
Jim Adams escorting him, with a big, black hand at the scruff of his collar, and Sam Black walking alongside, grinning at the success of his part of the plot – admonishing the youth as to what would befall him should he utter a cry – there appeared Artie Jenkins, his knees wabbling under him, the drops of perspiration standing out on his forehead. They marched him down into the cabin, where, a moment later, descended Captain Hamilton Haley. The other bug-eye cast off, and the two vessels resumed their course down the river at full speed.
Hamilton Haley, standing with arms akimbo, his great round head thrust forward, his gray eyes twinkling with a cruel light, surveyed the young man before him, much as a spider might eye a fly that had become entangled in its web. A look of intense satisfaction overspread his face.
“Well,” he said, hoarsely, “thought you’d come aboard, did you, Artie?”
Artie Jenkins, the heart all taken out of him, trembling and weak-kneed, essayed a feeble smile, which made his sallow face take on a more unprepossessing expression than ever.
“I say, Haley,” he said in a shaking voice, “this is a beastly joke you and Bill are playing – a joke I don’t like. It’s got on my nerves. You wouldn’t lug me off down the bay – you know you wouldn’t, Haley. ’Twouldn’t be the square thing. Nobody ever did a trick like that. Come on, old man, say you’re going to put me off down below. I’ll stand for the joke all right. Just say it’s a joke, will you?”
The tears were rolling down Artie Jenkins’s cheeks, and he was begging like a child. Hamilton Haley eyed him with a contempt that could not be expressed in words. But there was no suggestion of relenting in his gaze.
“Of course it’s a joke, Artie,” he said, sneeringly. “It’s a joke, all right, and it’s what I call a downright good one. Ha! ha! A joke, eh? Well, if it isn’t a joke, I’d like to know what they call one.” Then his voice grew louder and more threatening as he continued. “It’s a joke like some of those jokes you’ve been a-playing on Bill and me for the last eight years.”
Haley clenched his fist and shook it at the cowering youth. “That’s the sort of a joke it is,” he continued; “it’s like them ere jokes of yours as have been costing me and Bill ten dollars apiece. Good, able-bodied, rugged men for dredging that we’ve paid for in honest, hard-earned money – and what have they turned out to be when we gets ’em down the bay? A lot of counter-jumpers and boys that get sick on us with a week’s work at the winders. That’s what!
“Now you get up and quit snivelling and go for’ard; and don’t you make any fuss, or you’ll never get back to Baltimore, as sure as my name’s Haley. Here, Jim, show him where he’ll bunk.”
Jim Adams, seizing the shrinking form of Artie Jenkins by the convenient collar, dragged him forth from the cabin. True to his method, Jim Adams assumed his customary mock politeness.
“Be jes’ so kind as to walk for’ard, Mister Jenkins,” he said, and turned the young man toward the forecastle. A recklessness, inspired by desperation, seized upon Artie Jenkins. He wrenched violently at the hand that held him, and for a moment freed himself.
“I won’t go down into that dirty forecastle,” he cried. “You can’t make me.”
Jim Adams’s bony hand again grasped him and spun him around till his head swam. At the same time, a short piece of rope swung by the mate sang in the air, and Artie Jenkins felt the sharp sting of it across his shoulders. A series of blows followed, mingled with the scoffing words of the mate.
“Won’t you please ’blige me by stepping down into that fo’castle, Mister Jenkins?” he said. “I’s sorry to trouble you, but I wish you’d jes’ step down to ’blige me.”
Artie Jenkins, under the merciless lash of the mate, lost little time in obeying. Cringing and crying, he darted down into the dark, damp forecastle and stowed himself away in the first available bunk. The taunting words of the mate sounded in his ears for a moment: “Thank you, Mister Jenkins; I’m much ’bliged to you, sah. You saves me the trouble of using force to carry out the orders of Cap’n Haley, sah.”
The bug-eye, Brandt, with its companion craft, skimmed down the Patuxent like a bird. Captain Haley, with a huge satisfaction in his heart, turned into his own bunk, leaving the wheel to Jim Adams, and slept the sleep of the just. The night had been satisfactory. Life was not all one disappointment. He could sleep well.
The bug-eye, with its trim lines, its picturesque rake of masts, its sails filled with the smart breeze that made the vessel heel gracefully, and the now waning moonlight casting a faint gleam on its sails, made a pretty picture as it glided down the river. One standing on the Drum Point shore, as the vessel went by in the early hour before dawn, would have admired the sight. Jim Adams hummed a jolly rag-time tune as the Brandt passed out by the lighthouse, into the open bay, and headed for Tangier Sound.
Some time later, a shaft of sunlight streaming down the companion-way awoke Henry Burns. Once asleep, he had slept soundly, the blow he had received having only stunned him and done him no great harm. The bug-eye was pitching in a heavy chop-sea, and a youth in the bunk near him was groaning; but Henry Burns, accustomed at home to bay sailing, felt no ill effects from the thrashing of the boat.
For a moment he wondered what was the matter with the old Warren farmhouse. Then the memory of the events of the night came back in a flash. Henry Burns sprang up and darted out on deck. It was all too true. He was a prisoner aboard the bug-eye; they were leaving Drum Point far astern.
Henry Burns shrugged his shoulders and seated himself on the forecastle hatch. He was in for it – whatever might happen – and it was not in his make-up to worry over what he could not help.
A step on the deck, as a man emerged from the cabin, caused him to look up. The figure that his eyes rested upon gave him a start of surprise. Where had he seen the man before? Then he remembered. It was the man whom Young Joe had butted in the stomach in darting out of the Warren door – the Captain Haley, of whom he had an unpleasant recollection. Henry Burns gave a low whistle of evident concern.
Seeing the boy sitting, watching him, Hamilton Haley strode forward. When he had approached near, he, too, stopped and eyed him with surprise. Then his face darkened.
“Well, I’m jiggered!” he exclaimed. “It’s you, is it, Young Impertinence? What sent you sneaking aboard here in the night? Confound you, if I’d a-known it was you, I’d just have chucked your overboard neck and crop.”
For once, Hamilton Haley seemed perplexed. Here was someone he evidently didn’t want. He glanced back toward the harbour, as if estimating how far they had come from land. Then he shook his head. To Henry Burns’s surprise, Captain Haley turned abruptly, without another word, and went back to the wheel, where Jim Adams was seated, yawning.
The two men talked together, earnestly. It was clear Haley did not wholly favour the idea of carrying off a boy from the Patuxent harbour, from people that would make trouble. It was risky business; there was bound to be trouble. Jim Adams seemed not to encourage it, either; but the bug-eye was miles out from the river now, and the breeze was favourable. After further conversation with the mate, Haley went forward again.
“See here, youngster,” he said, “I’m a man as does an honest business of dredging, and I don’t kidnap boys for the work. But here you are, come aboard, and it ain’t my fault. You know that for yourself. Hang me, if I didn’t take you for one of them little rats as steal stuff when they gets a chance. I’d have chucked you overboard quick, if I’d a known it was you – what were you doing out here, anyway? That’s what I’d like to know.”
Henry Burns thought quickly. To say that he had come to look for Jack Harvey would be to reveal the fact that he was aware of Haley’s character; that he was a witness who would appear against Haley when the time came; that his very existence was a danger and a menace to Haley, who was now bound for the wilderness of the Eastern shore.
“I was just looking around,” he said.
“You’re a little, meddlesome fool!” cried Haley. “I don’t want you here, confound you! But you’re here. You came aboard, yourself. I didn’t carry you off. You’ve got to stay now. I won’t turn back, if I go to jail for it. But I tell you what I will do; I’ll fetch you back the first time I come. You’ll fare no worse than the rest of the crew. But you’ll work your passage, mind you. This is no free lodging house. Go on and get something to eat.”
“Better set me back,” said Henry Burns, calmly.
“No, I’m busted if I will!” cried Haley. “You’ll go the trip now, though if I hadn’t cut your skiff loose I’d set you adrift in it. It’s your own fault.”
Henry Burns saw it was useless to argue. He went aft, as indicated by Haley, and ate his breakfast. It was sorry stuff, but he was hungry and he ate what was set before him.
Henry Burns was not a youth to remain inactive, although carried off against his will. Having finished breakfast, he went on deck and walked forward, to where Jim Adams was at work with a piece of rigging, attempting, at the same time, to explain to two sailors what he was doing.
“You unlay that strand,” he was saying, “and you lead him back, so fashion. Then you picks up that ere strand, and you lays him up in the place where t’other strand came from. See?”
The two men looked on, blankly. It was evident the process was blind to them.
“Why, hello, sonny,” remarked Jim Adams, as Henry Burns came up. The mulatto, tireless and hardened to the life, after three hours’ sleep on relief from the wheel, happened to be in a good humour. He continued, “Reckon you’s the new boarder at our hotel, eh? Ha! ha! Specs you never saw nothin’ like that befo’?” He held up the work he was doing.
“Oh, yes,” replied Henry Burns, “you’re putting a long splice in that halyard so it will reeve through that block. You’ve parted your throat halyard.”
Jim Adams dropped his work, put both hands on his knees and stared at Henry Burns, while a broad grin overspread his face.
“Sho now,” he exclaimed, “I jes’ wonder what Boss Haley he’ll say when he finds he’s got another cap’n aboard here. I guess you’ll get my job pretty quick an’ I won’t be first mate no mo’. Where you larn all that, sonny?”
Henry Burns smiled. “I picked it up, yachting,” he said.
“That’s a smart little kid,” said the mulatto. “Reckon you might go and finish up that splice, eh?” He held up the rope, half skeptically, to Henry Burns. The youth took it, seated himself on the deck, removed a pair of heavy gloves he wore, and took up the splicing where Jim Adams had left off. He found it hard work, in the chilling winter air, and his hands were nearly numbed before he had finished. But he beat them against his body until they tingled, went on with the work, divided his strands neatly at the finish, cut the ends and handed back the piece of rigging, neatly spliced.
Jim Adams burst into a roar of laughter.
“That sho’ is the funniest thing I ever saw,” he said. “Why, youse nothin’ but a little kid.”
Henry Burns had at least found some favour in the mate’s eyes. Some time later, he was accosted by one of the men that had been standing by.
“I wish you’d show me some of those tricks,” said the fellow. “I’m having it pretty rough aboard here. I can’t understand when that mate shows us a thing. He does it so quick, you can’t see how it’s done; and then he curses us for not understanding. Maybe if I learned a few things like that, I’d get treated better.”
Henry Burns looked at the speaker, and found him a young man of about twenty years, thick set, a good-natured expression, somewhat dulled and set by rough usage at Haley’s and the mate’s hands.
“My name’s Wallace Brooks,” continued the young man. “I got carried off, too, from Baltimore. I can stand the winter out, I guess, because I’m tough; but it’s the hardest work I ever did.”
“I’ll show you anything I know,” replied Henry Burns, “and I’ll be glad to do it. I guess I’ll need a friend to stand by me. I don’t know how I’ll last at this sort of work.”
They shook hands on the friendship.
Henry Burns saw another side of the mate’s nature, not long after. There was a commotion in the forecastle, and there emerged Jim Adams dragging Artie Jenkins by the scruff of the collar. He threw him sprawling on the deck, caught up a canvas bucket, with a line attached, threw the bucket overboard, drew it in half-filled with sea water, and dashed it in the face of the prostrate youth.
“You mustn’t go gettin’ balky, Mister Jenkins,” he said. “Youse goin’ to work, like the rest of the folks. Won’t you please jes’ go down and get you’ breakfas’ now, cause I want you pretty soon on deck, when we get off Hooper’s.”
Artie Jenkins, bellowing with rage and fright, scrambled to his feet and fled as fast as his legs would carry him for the cabin. The mate gave a grin of delight.
“They sho’ can’t fool me,” he said. “Reckon I knows when a man is seasick and when he’s shamming.”
They arrived at the dredging grounds within two hours, and the work began. Henry Burns was not set at the winders at first. There seemed to be some understanding between Haley and the mate that he should not be treated too harshly. He was put at the work of culling the oysters that were taken aboard – a dirty and disagreeable task, but not so laborious as the winding.
Artie Jenkins got his first taste of the work, however. He was driven to it by the threats and blows of Jim Adams. He was a sorry sight. Clad in oil-skins too big for his lank figure, a flaming red necktie showing above the collar, and a derby hat out of keeping with the seaman’s clothes, he presented a picture that would have been ludicrous if it had not been miserable.
The mate suffered him not to lag; nor did he cease to taunt him.
“Youse a sho’ ’nuff born sailor, Mister Jenkins,” he said, and repeated it over several times, as the unwilling victim worked drearily. “You looks jes’ like one of them able-bodied seamen that you been sending down from Baltimore.”
Artie Jenkins groaned, and toiled, hopelessly. He gave out, some time in the afternoon, and Henry Burns was made to take his place. At dusk they stowed away the gear and ran for harbour, in through Hooper strait.
The next day, unusual in the winter season, there fell a dead calm. There was no getting out to the grounds, and the day was spent in overhauling the gear, wrapping parts that were worn with chafing, etc. It was some time that forenoon that Henry Burns, getting a good look at Artie Jenkins, recognized him. It was the young man he had seen on the river steamer, and whose invitation he had resented. Something about the youth repelled him more than before, and he made no attempt to renew that brief acquaintanceship. Yet, observing the treatment Artie Jenkins was receiving, he was sorry for him.
“What makes them so hard on that chap, Jenkins, I wonder?” he asked of Brooks, as they stood together, that afternoon. “It makes my blood boil, but I don’t dare say anything.”
“Hmph!” exclaimed Brooks. “Don’t you let your blood boil for him. He’s getting what he deserves, all right. Didn’t you hear what Jim Adams called him? He’s a crimp.”
“A what?”
“A crimp. Don’t you know what that is? It’s a fellow that drugs men up in Baltimore, and ships ’em down here for ten dollars apiece, when they don’t know it. They wake up aboard here. That happened to me, though this chap didn’t do it. He did the trick, though, for two men that got away the other day. I heard them say it was a fellow named Artie Jenkins that trapped them. One was named Edwards; he was a travelling man of some sort. My, how he did hate the winders. T’other was a young chap; Harvey was his name.”
Henry Burns gave a cry of astonishment.
“Then Jack was aboard here – and he got away, do you say?”
It was the other’s turn to be surprised.
“Why, yes, Jack Harvey was his name,” he said. “Did you know him?”
Henry Burns briefly told of his friendship and his hunt for his missing friend. “I thought there must be some mistake,” he said, “when I didn’t find him aboard here. But tell me, how did he get away?”
Wallace Brooks related the circumstances of the escape, as George Haley, the cook, had told of it; of the flight to shore on the hatch, and of Haley’s rage at losing both men and property.
Henry Burns smiled at that part of the adventure, despite his chagrin. Then he grew serious.
“I’ll bet it was poor old Jack and Edwards who slept in Edward Warren’s barn,” he said. “There were two strangers seen about the landing the next day. Where could Jack have gone to? Up river, I suppose, on a steamer – and here I am in his place! Isn’t that a mess?”
That same afternoon, Artie Jenkins, in passing Henry Burns, remembered that his face seemed familiar. He halted and stared for a moment. Then his face lighted up with a certain satisfaction in the other’s plight.
“Hello,” he said, “so you landed here, too, eh? I reckon you’re not quite so smart as you thought you were, coming down the river.”
“Yes, I’m here,” answered Henry Burns, coolly; “too bad you didn’t make ten dollars out of it; now wasn’t it?”
“What’s that to you?” snarled Artie Jenkins, angrily. “I don’t know what you mean, anyway.”
“Oh, yes, you do,” replied Henry Burns. “I know what you are, and so do the crew. It’s almost worth while being here, to see a crimp work at the dredges.”
Artie Jenkins, furious at the reply, and observing that the speaker was younger and smaller than himself, darted at Henry Burns and struck out at him. Henry Burns easily warded off the blow and, unruffled, returned one that sent Artie Jenkins reeling back. The next moment Jim Adams rushed between them.
“What’s all this about – fighting aboard here?” he cried.
But Captain Hamilton from the other end of the vessel had likewise observed the quarrel. He came forward now, blustering, but with a shrewd twinkle in his eyes.
“Let ’em fight, Jim,” he said; “let ’em have it out. Peel off those oil-skins, you young rascals. I’ll teach you both to disturb the peace and quiet aboard this ere respectable and law-abidin’ craft. You’ll fight now, till one or t’other of you gets his licking. Rip ’em off, I say.”
But Artie Jenkins, having felt the force of Henry Burns’s blow and noted his skill in avoiding his own, was not so eager for the fray.
“I don’t care about fighting a boy smaller than I am,” he stammered, fumbling at the strings of his slicker. “I don’t want to hurt him.”
Haley bawled in derision. “Oh, you don’t, eh?” he cried. “Well, you look out he don’t hurt you. Do you see that piece of rope?” He dangled an end of rigging in his hand. “Well, the first one of you that tries to quit, gets a taste of that.”
Henry Burns had not expected to be drawn into a fight with Artie Jenkins, but he had no fear of him. He had observed the youth’s cheeks pale as he returned his blow. He knew he was cowardly. He thought of Jack Harvey, tricked into the slavery of dredging at Artie Jenkins’s hands. He threw off his oil-skins and waited for the word. He looked Haley squarely in the eyes and remarked, calmly, “If you see me quitting, just lay it on good and hard.”
“You bet I will!” blustered Haley; but he knew, full well, there would be no need.
Artie Jenkins was cornered and desperate. He dared not wait till his courage should cool, but made a rush at Henry Burns the moment he had divested himself of the heavy oil-skins. They struggled for a moment, exchanging blows at short range. They were both hurt and stinging when they broke away, to regain breath. The difference was, however, that Henry Burns was smiling in the most aggravating way at his antagonist. The blows meant little to him. He was avenging Jack Harvey – and he had a most extraordinary control of his temper. Artie Jenkins was smarting and furious.
“Get to work there,” bawled Haley, swinging the rope.
They were at it again in earnest. But the advantage even now was with Henry Burns. He was wiry and athletic; a strong runner, and a baseball player; and he had boxed with George Warren and Tom Harris by the hour, in the barn they used as a canoe club in Benton. Artie Jenkins’s training had consisted largely of loafing about the docks, smoking cigarettes.
Seeing that his adversary was no longer strong enough to rush him, Henry Burns tried tactics to tire him out. He darted in, delivering a quick blow, and stepping back out of reach of the other’s arm. He warded off the other’s wild blows, and left him panting and bewildered. Worse than all, he continued to smile at him, provokingly.
In an unfortunate moment, Artie Jenkins rushed in, clinched and tried to throw his smaller adversary. It was the worst thing he could have attempted. A moment more, and he lay, flat on his back, half stunned.
Henry Burns waited for him to arise; but Artie Jenkins lay still. He had had enough.
“Get up there; you’re quitting!” cried Haley, standing over him and brandishing the rope’s end. But Artie Jenkins only half sat up and whined. “I can’t go on,” he whimpered; “I’m hurt.”
Haley swung the rope and brought it down across Artie Jenkins’s shoulders. The youth howled for mercy.
“Get up and fight, or you’ll get more of it!” cried Haley.
Artie Jenkins suddenly scrambled to his feet. But he did not face Henry Burns, who was waiting. Beaten and thoroughly humbled, Artie Jenkins sought relief in flight. Dodging the uplifted arm of Haley, he darted for the forecastle, tumbled down the companion and dived into a bunk.
Hamilton Haley, undecided for a moment whether to follow or not, finally turned and walked aft. There was a hard smile of satisfaction on his face.
The next day was as wild as the preceding had been calm and placid. The wind came up from the east with a rush, in the early morning, and the bay was tossing and white-capped as the crew of the dredger came on deck. There would be no work that day, they thought. But they were disappointed. Haley ordered sail made, and the bug-eye, with reefs in, bore up under the lee of Hooper island.
It was cruel work at the dredges that day. The men toiled by turns till exhausted, when Haley allowed them a reluctant refuge, to thaw out, by the cabin fire. Then he drove them to work again. The storm brought mingled sleet and snow. It caught in the folds of the sails and came down upon their heads in little torrents with the slatting of the canvas. Sleet and snow drove hard in their faces. But the work went on.
Artie Jenkins shivered at the winders, even as the perspiration was wrung from him with the unusual exertion. He suffered so that Henry Burns and the crew pitied him; but Haley and the mate showed no mercy. They had seen men suffer before – men that they had paid ten dollars apiece to Artie Jenkins for. He gave out by afternoon, however, and the mate had fairly to drag him below. He moaned that he was sick, but they did not believe him.
That night he ran out of the forecastle on deck, delirious, and wakened Haley out of sleep. Haley saw that he was really ill, and gave him something to take, from a chest of patent stuff he had aboard. Artie Jenkins fell in a heap on the cabin floor, and Haley let him lie there the rest of the night.
The next morning, Haley and the mate, standing over Artie Jenkins, looked troubled. The sufferer lay moaning and feverish. Jim Adams bent over and examined him.
“He’s bad – downright bad, boss,” he said, looking up at Haley. The other scowled, but with some anxiety in his face. “He’ll come around all right, won’t he?” he asked. “Specs he may,” replied the mate; “but I’ve seen ’em like that, feverish, before, and it’s a bad sign down here.”
“Hang him!” exclaimed Haley. “What’ll we do with him?”
“Well,” replied Jim Adams, “if he was mine, I’d let him go, seeing as he didn’t cost any money. Tom’s going across to t’other shore to-day. Why not let him have him and leave him? We don’t want to land him down here.”
Haley grumbled, but acquiesced.
“Take him out,” he said. “He’s no good, anyway. I’ve got square. That’s what I wanted.”
Jim Adams lifted Artie Jenkins bodily and carried him out of the cabin.
A bug-eye that ran across from the eastern shore that afternoon carried the unfortunate Artie Jenkins as a passenger. He lay asleep in the cabin. Toward dusk the bug-eye reached the other shore, and anchored near land. A skiff left the side, with Artie Jenkins in the bottom of it. It landed, and two men carried the youth up to an old deserted shanty by the shore of a small creek in St. Mary County, some five or six miles above Otter Point. They left him there, alone, threw some mouldy blankets over him, and departed.
Artie Jenkins’s dredging experience was over.
