Introductory material (continued 4)

I had expressed to him at once my wish to return to the coast where I could get a chance to work my way north in some vessel. But it was three months before he could spare me a canoe crew to take me as far as Punta Arenas, on the Straits. From that point I would be able to board some vessel bound into the Atlantic, and if I could get back to Buenos Ayres I would be all right.

I had wasted nearly six months in following a will-o’-the-wisp. I might have been at home long ago, had I not come down here on the schooner. More than a year had passed since that September evening when my cousin, Paul Downes, and I had had our fateful quarrel on my bonnie sloop, the Wavecrest, as she beat slowly into the inlet at Bolderhead. I had roved far afield since that time, had seen strange lands, and strange peoples, and had endured hardship and hard work which—after all was said and done—hadn’t belonged to me.

Clint Webb need not be knocking about the world, looking for a chance to work his way home before the mast. As the canoe Tugg had lent me sailed south through the inlet, with Pedro and two gigantic Patagonians for crew, I milled these thoughts over in my mind, and determined that, once at home, I’d stick there. Not that I was tired of the sea, or afraid of work aboard ship; but I was deeply worried regarding my mother and what might be happening to her so far away.

Nothing but the desire to set eyes on the man that looked like me and talked like me had brought me ’way down here in Patagonia; I had never told Captain Tugg my real reason for shipping on the Sea Spell, not even when I bade him good-bye. The old fellow had seemed really sorry to have me go.

“If you git tired of civilization and want to come down this way again, son,” he told me, “you’ll be as welcome as can be. Just come here, walk in, hang up your hat, and you’ll find a job right at hand. I got a big order for ant-eaters, jaguar, tiger-cats, and the like, on hand and I’ll likely be here for a couple of years—off and on. Goin’ to be mighty lonesome, too, without the Professor,” he added, shaking his head, sorrowfully.

Tugg was a money-lover; but I know that he didn’t hold the loss of his animals and outfit as anything to be compared to the miserable end of his partner. I liked him for that.

I can’t say that I enjoyed that canoe trip to the Straits. We had a queer three-cornered sail that was rigged in some native way, and as the wind was free we traveled the hundred or so miles to the mouth of the inlet in good time. But I did not sleep much; Pedro and the giants might easily knock me on the head, take my few dollars and my gun and other traps, and drop me overboard. I couldn’t believe that they were to be trusted.

But nothing really happened until we were within a mile or so of the mouth of the long lagoon. I could see a bit of the strait and over the rocky headland appeared a banner of smoke. It was from the stack of a steamship bound east. I pointed it out to the mate of the Sea Spell and told him how anxious I was to reach that very craft. I had money enough left of my wages to pay my fare to Buenos Ayres at least—perhaps to Bahia; and surely the steamship would stop somewhere along the east coast.

Pedro jabbered to the Patagonians, and the wind having fallen light they got out the paddles and set to work. I showed them each a silver dollar and they went at it like college athletes. Such paddling I never saw before, and it seemed to me we shot out of the inlet about as fast as though we were ironed to a bull whale!

But we were too late. The steamship had a long sea-mile on us and she wasn’t stopping for a canoe. We should have to trim our sail again and make for the West and Punta Arenas. As we swung the canoe’s head around, however, I caught sight of a big ship, with a wonderful lot of canvas set, passing the steamship and heading our way. She sailed the straits like a huge bird, her white canvas bellying from the deck to the extreme points of her wand-like topmasts. She was a pretty sight.

I began to stare back at her more and more as she came up, hand over hand. I saw that she was a bark; then I saw that her crowsnest was occupied by a lookout. Only one manner of craft would have a man in the crowsnest on a clear day like this. She was a whaler.

I had no glass; but I fixed my gaze upon her black bows as they rose and fell as she came through the waves. My heart had begun to beat with excitement. There were the huge white letters as she paid off a bit and I could see part of her run and broadside. I couldn’t be mistaken, and suddenly I broke out with a loud cheer, for I could read the two painted lines:

SCARBORO New Bedford

Chapter XXIX

In Which I Am Not the Only Person Surprised

I yelled to Pedro and then sprang up, tied a handkerchief to an oar and waved it frantically. As the old bark swung down toward us I saw several figures spring into the lower rigging, and by and by their hands waved to me. I spoke again to the mate of the Sea Spell and he said he could bring the canoe in close to the bark if they would throw me a rope. I knew they had identified me, and I was glad to see Ben Gibson standing on the rail and yelling to me.

I gave each of the Patagonians a dollar and Pedro two, shook hands with them all, slung my rifle over my shoulder, hooked one arm through my dunnage-bag (which was fortunately waterproof) and stood ready to seize the rope which was flung me. The Patagonians brought the canoe right up to the looming side of the old bark, and as she dipped deep in the sea, I sprang up and “walked up” her side, clinging to the rope with both hands. So they got me inboard with merely a dash of saltwater to season my venture.

The canoe wore off sharply and I turned to wave good-bye to Pedro and the paddlers. Then a bunch of the old Scarboro’s fo’castle hands were about me. Tom Anderly pushed through the group and grabbed my hand.

“Here ye be, ye blamed young scamp!” he roared. “Leavin’ Mr. Gibson an’ me in the lurch in Buenos Ayres.”

“And ye missed some of the greatest whalin’ ye ever see,” burst in the stroke oar of our old boat. “We got smashed up complete once and lost boat and every bit of gear. Nobody bad hurt, however.”

Within the next few moments I heard a deal of news. How many whales the Scarboro had butchered since I had left for Buenos Ayres (and despite Mr. Bobbin’s croaking the old bark already had half a cargo in her tanks); how long it had taken Bill Rudd and his crew to patch up the hole the bull whale had smashed in the bark’s side; about the gale they had run into which had carried away some of the top gear and much canvas; and what the crew had done during the week or more they had been in port at Buenos Ayres.

Then Ben Gibson came off duty and called me aft. “Awful glad to see you, Webb,” he declared. “I’m fit as a fiddle now. Want you in my boat again. We took on a lout at Buenos Ayres, who’s had your berth; but he isn’t worth a hang in the boat. You’re going to finish out the cruise, aren’t you?”

“I don’t expect to, sir,” I returned. “I would have been home long ago if I had been wise. What I came down here for panned out nothing at all.”

“Well, Captain Hi will be glad to have you finish out the cruise, I don’t doubt. You better go below and see him,” said the second mate.

Mr. Robbins shook hands with me before I went below and welcomed me aboard. “We’re going to make money in the old Scarboro this v’y’ge, Webb,” he said. “You’d better stick to the bark. Captain Hi is going to discharge ile here at Punta Arenas and go into the Pacific with clean tanks.”

And so the skipper told me when I descended to the tiny chart room. There would be a tramp freightship with a half cargo at Punta Arenas, he said, and it had empty tanks aboard. All that was needed was to pump the oil from the bark into the tramp’s tanks.

“And we’ve got a good bit of bone and spermaceti, too,” said Captain Rogers. “I consider you one of the crew still, Webb. Or, if you are so determined, you may pull out here and I will give you your hundred dollars as I promised.”

“I feel that I should go home. Captain,” I assured him. “As I told Ben in my note back there at Buenos Ayres, my money and letters were grabbed at the consulate by another fellow——”

“Yes,” interposed Captain Rogers, beginning to hunt in a drawer, “Ben told me about that. And I went up to the consulate and had a talk with Colonel Hefferan about it. The whole thing was a silly mistake on the part of a clerk of his—a mighty fresh clerk. He went off half-cocked and gave the money and letters over to that fellow without saying a word to the consul himself. And they put you out of the consulate, too, I understand?”

“They most certainly did,” I replied.

“If you go to Buenos Ayres, just step in there and make that cheap clerk beg your pardon. He’s ready to. And here,” said Captain Rogers, suddenly, turning toward me, “is something that belongs to you, I believe, Clint Webb.”

There were several letters which he placed in my hand. The top one was addressed in mother’s handwriting, and I seized it with a cry of delight.

“Know ’em, do you?” he said.

“This is from my mother—and this from Ham—and this one from our lawyer——”

“I reckoned they belonged to you. The crimp gave them to me with the rest of that fellow’s belongings, and I took the liberty of sorting out these and saving them for you.”

“They’ve been opened!” I cried.

“Of course. And why the fellow kept them I don’t see. They’re incriminating. But he was all in when the crimp brought him aboard——”

“Who is the fellow?” gasped I, in amazement.

“Says his name’s Bodfish—young lout! I took pity on him when I saw him in that crimp-shop. He had spent a pocketful of money, or had it stolen. I suppose he is the fellow that represented himself as you at the consulate,” said Captain Rogers.

“Paul Downes!”

“Like enough. Of course, I didn’t suppose Bodfish was his re’l name. But he was an American—and a boy. I couldn’t leave him to be put aboard some coaster where he’d be beaten to death. He hasn’t been much good, though, aboard this bark. But maybe by the time we see Bedford again he’ll be licked into some sort of shape. I put him in Ben’s watch, knowing that Robbins might be too ha’sh with him.”

But I was eager to read my mother’s letter—and the others. I asked the kind old captain’s permission, and dropped right down there and perused the several epistles which good fortune had at last brought to me. Oh, I was glad indeed that I had cabled mother from Buenas Ayres. And now I wished more than ever that I had gone home from there instead of shipping in the Sea Spell.

Mother had cabled me two hundred dollars. Paul had made way with it all, it seemed, and Captain Rogers had found him in the lowest kind of a sailor’s lodging house, helpless, in debt to the keeper of the place, and unable to get away.

But I was not interested in my cousin’s fate just then. I read mother’s long letter with a feeling that all was not as well at home as I could wish. She had been greatly shocked at my disappearance. At first they had thought I had run away. I could guess mighty easily who suggested that idea!

She did not write much of Mr. Chester Downes; but she did mention the fact that when she had returned to Darringford House Mr. Hounsditch had been very officious in attending upon her and in showing her that she was a good deal tied down by the provisions of grandfather’s will and that the lawyer was to advise her at every turn. Especially did she complain that Mr. Hounsditch had been officious since I was heard from.

The tone of her letter hurt me a little. There seemed to be some idea still in her mind that it was my reckless disposition more than the crime of another, that had set me adrift in the Wavecrest. She spoke of “Mr. Downes’ great trouble” and of “poor Paul” as though they were both to be pitied. Otherwise she did not touch on the topic of my having been cut adrift by my cousin, or his emissaries.

It was from Ham Mayberry’s letter I got the facts regarding my cousin and his father. Lampton, the man at the boathouse, and Ham himself had had their suspicions of what had become of me, and how the Wavecrest had been swept away in the storm, before my letters from the Scarboro were received. They had found the cut mooring cable.

Ham, too, had sounded the ne’er-do-wells who were my cousin’s companions, and after the house on the Neck was closed for the season, and the Downeses had departed with my mother for Darringford House, the old coachman had obtained a confession from the young scoundrels to the effect that they had helped Paul nail me into my cabin and had seen him cut the Wavecrest adrift.

At the time I was heard from, Ham put all the evidence into the hands of Mr. Hounsditch, and the old lawyer had gone to the Downeses and threatened procedure against Paul. Chester Downes had flown into a violent passion with his son and had actually driven him out of his house, and Paul had disappeared. Of course, Ham at the time of writing knew nothing of what had become of Paul. There was a paragraph at the end of Ham’s letter that was explanatory, too, and I repeat it here:

“I don’t know what you mean by your questions about Jim Carver—that was his name. He was one of the three Carver boys—Bill and Jonas were as straight as a chalk line; but Jim always was a little crooked. He worked for the fish firm of Pallin & Thorpe, and I remember that he disappeared with some of the cash from their safe about the time poor Dr. Webb was drowned. Do you mean to say you have run across Jim Carver on board that whaling bark? Folks hereabout thought Jim Carver was dead years ago.”

So that settled the mystery of the man I had come clear down here to the Straits of Magellan to find—the man whom Captain Adoniram Tugg knew as Professor Vose and who had met so terrible an end when the savages had destroyed Tugg’s headquarters. It did not need Lawyer Hounsditch’s letter to show me how unwise I had been in not making my way directly home from Buenos Ayres when I had had the chance.

The lawyer reminded me that my mother needed me. He did not say anything directly—for he was a sly old fellow—but he intimated plainly enough that he feared Mr. Chester Downes’ influence in our home. I was almost a man grown, he said, even if I was a minor. “Your place is by your mother’s side. The lust for roving was born in you, I suppose,” he wrote, “your father had it, too; but put Duty before Inclination, and come home at once.”

Had I received those three letters when I visited the consulate at Buenos Ayres, I would have found means of taking the first steamer north thereafter. Even the romantic idea I had of trying to find my father would not have set aside what I plainly knew to be my duty.

I was hurt that mother should so cling to Chester Downes as her friend after all that had happened; yet I could not blame her for what was a weakness, not a fault. She was the best and dearest little woman on earth! And she needed me at that very moment, perhaps. Nothing now, I determined, should keep me from taking passage for home at the very earliest opportunity.

Chapter XXX

In Which I at Last Set My Face Homeward with Determination

When I came up from the captain’s room I stepped out on deck face to face with my cousin, Paul Downes. He tried to sneak past me, but I seized him by the shoulder and jammed him up against the side of the house.

“You lemme go, Clint Webb!” he whined. “I don’t want nothing to do with you—now, I tell you!”

“I bet you don’t want anything to do with me,” I replied, eyeing him with some curiosity.

Paul looked as though he had had a hard time of it. He was dressed in the roughest sort of clothing, he had a bruised face (I fear Ben Gibson had punished him for disrespect, for Paul was just the sort of a fellow to try and take advantage of the second mate’s youth) and altogether he was a most disreputable and hang-dog looking creature.

“I’d never come aboard this old tub if I’d known what whaling was like,” whined Paul. “And now I want you to get this captain to let me off. You’re going home, they tell me.”

“I hope to get away about as soon as we arrive as Punta Arenas,” I declared.

“Then I want you to get me away from this place, too. You’ll have money enough to pay both our fares home——”

“Well, I never heard of such cheek!” I interrupted.

“Now, you do as I say. Father will pay you back. I’ll make him,” said Paul, as though he thought the whole thing was cut and dried.

“Why, you shipped for the voyage, didn’t you?”

“Ye-es. They said something like that. But I didn’t mean it,” said my cousin.

“You’ll find that sea captains expect a man to abide by the ship’s papers. I don’t know as Captain Rogers loves you much, but maybe he’ll want to keep you just the same.”

“He ain’t trying to hold you,” snarled Paul.

“I never signed on,” I replied. “I haven’t been a real member of the crew at all. But you were very glad for Captain Rogers to take you out of the clutches of that crimp at Buenos Ayres. You won’t get away from the Scarboro so easy.”

“I ain’t going to stay,” he declared, bitterly. “I don’t like it. I want to go home.”

“The voyage will maybe teach you something, Paul,” I said, and I must confess I enjoyed his discomfiture.

“You better help me out o’ here,” he threatened. “You can do it.”

“If I could help you, I wouldn’t,” I declared, with some heat. “Think I’ve forgotten what you did to me at the consul’s office?”

He grinned a little; but he was angry, too. “You better help me to a passage home,” he growled.

“Not much!”

“You’ll wish you had,” he declared. “I’ll write your mother and tell her just how you’ve treated me. I’ve had a hard time——”

And he actually acted and spoke as though he considered himself ill-used! I never in my life saw such a fellow. Always blaming somebody else for the troubles he brought upon himself. I was soon tired of listening to him.

“Come! stow all that!” I advised him. “You’re a member of the Scarboro’s crew, and you joined of your own free will. The only reason I see for my trying to get you away from here is to have you arrested and punished for getting hold of my money at Buenos Ayres. I could put you in bad for that. You be thankful you are away down here on the Scarboro, instead of at Buenos Ayres.”

“So you won’t help me get away?” he snarled.

“No, sir!”

“All right. You wait. You’ll be sorry.”

“Now, don’t threaten me any more,” I returned. “I hope this voyage will do you some good. I think you’ll learn something before the Scarboro reaches New Bedford again. We’ll hope so, anyway.”

He only snarled at me as I passed on. I had just as little to do with him as possible while I remained aboard the bark. We were at Punta Arenas in a few hours, and the very next morning the bark was warped in beside the tramp steamer and the oil in the whaler’s tanks was being pumped aboard the steamship. The men were given short shore leave; but Captain Rogers put Paul Downes in the care of Bill Rudd, the carpenter, and made him responsible for him.

“I ain’t got my money’s worth out o’ that greenhorn yet,” declared the skipper. “He ain’t earned yet what I had to pay for his board bill in Buenos Ayres. Don’t you let him get away, Rudd.”

I knew that my cousin would come to no harm with Captain Rogers. The cruise might be the means of making some sort of a man of him, at least. So I put Paul and his affairs right out of my mind.

There was a steamer touching at Buenos Ayres due through the straits in a couple of days, and I prepared to board her. Once in the big Argentine seaport I would take passage on a Bayne Liner for Boston. I was eager for the homeward journey now, although I felt that I never should be tired of the salt water. But, as Lawyer Hounsditch advised, I put Duty ahead of Inclination.

I bade my friends aboard the Scarboro good-bye and went ashore, spending the night before I was to sail for the north in a decent house near the landing. I knew my mother would be glad to see me and I had no fear but that, once beside her, I should find means of keeping Mr. Chester Downes at a distance. I had no reason to doubt the future, or what it might hold in store for me. That it did not prove wholly uneventful the reader may discover for himself in the second volume of this series, entitled: “The Frozen Ship; or, Clint Webb Among the Sealers.”

I was not thinking of either romance or adventure, however, when I began my homeward voyage. I expected it to be quite uneventful, and was only anxious to walk into Darringford House, surprise my little mother, and take her once again in my arms!