LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

forest rangers. They don't do much in the winter, it's true; but a few are kept going. Or you might go along with a gang to a lumber camp. It'll keep you from rusting. Next spring you could work again on a farm, and come the following cold weather you ought to be able to look to yourself. We're off to seek a location in this here New Ontario."

      "Then why couldn't I come with you?" asked Joe, for he liked the look of this Sam Fennick.

      "And so you shall, but not at first. It'll take us best part of two months to find a likely location. Then we've to make a heap of arrangements, so I doubt our getting to at the job till late in the year. So you'd better fix elsewhere; you can come along when we're ready."

      It may be imagined that Joe spent many an hour discussing matters with Sam, and soon began to long for Canada to heave in sight. However, there were many miles of sea stretching between the ship and the Gulf of St. Laurence, and they were not passed before he was involved in another adventure.

      CHAPTER III

      Volunteers called for

      It was rather late on the third morning of the voyage when Joe had his attention attracted to one particular portion of the huge ship in which he had taken passage to Canada. Not that this one particular portion had escaped his notice; for, like the majority of young fellows nowadays, our hero was certainly quick at observation.

      "Them things hum and squeak and flicker most of the day," said Sam Fennick, withdrawing a somewhat dilapidated brier pipe from his mouth and pointing the bowl at a deck house situated on the upper deck. "What's it all about, youngster?"

      "Marconigrams coming and going," answered Joe; for the little house alluded to was given up to that recent wonderful invention which allows of messages being sent across space, without the aid and intervention of the customary wires. "The young officer there used to live in our neighbourhood. I once thought of becoming an operator myself, and, in fact, had many lessons from him."

      "You had?" asked Sam, staring at Joe; for every hour that the two conversed revealed to Sam that Joe was a little better than the ordinary. Indeed, it is only reasonable that we should be fair, and admit that in coming to such a conclusion Sam was strictly right. After all, emigrants are not made up of the most intelligent or of the highest educated of our population. Too often they are men and women seeking a new life because of the failure of that which they had previously followed; or they are young people with a fair education, and with little else. In Joe's case, thanks to his own restless ambition, and to the fact that his father had devoted many an hour to him, the lad was acquainted with much unknown to the average emigrant. And here was something. To Sam a marconigram was neither fish, flesh, nor fowl; he didn't precisely know what it was, whether it had actual shape, nor what was its colour.

      "Eh?" he asked. "You know the chap as works up there? And you've had lessons? What's a marconigram, anyhow?"

      Joe explained with enthusiastic lucidity.

      "I've sent 'em, too," he said. "There was a station not so far from us, and that's where I met Franc. It's nice having him aboard the same ship. But he is busy, isn't he? There must be something happening out of the ordinary. Wish I could go up there and join him; but it's forbidden. He told me that particularly."

      It was only natural that our young hero should wish to see something of a chum associated with former days. But Franc, the young Marconi operator, was never get-at-able when on duty. It was only between the spells of work in his office that he met Joe down on the emigrant deck for'ard. Now, at the time when Sam and Joe were together, Franc was undoubtedly busily engaged. Moreover, there was a subdued air of mystery, if not of anxiety, about the officers who occasionally passed amongst the emigrants.

      "What's up?" demanded Sam bluntly of one as he passed. "That thing yonder" – and he again withdrew his pipe and pointed the bowl at the Marconi office – "that thing's busy, I guess. Sending messages as fast as the air'll take 'em. What's up, mister? Revolution back in the Old Country, eh? What?"

      He received merely a curt answer; the officer hurried on, leaving Sam none the wiser.

      "All the same, there's a ruction stirring somewhere," he said; "I can see it with half an eye. The captain's walking up and down his bridge as if there was lions after him. What's it all mean?"

      It became clearer, as the hours passed, that there was something seriously wrong in some direction, though where or what the trouble might be none could guess. Joe descended with his friend to dinner, and it was not till he mounted to the deck again that he gained tidings of what was happening. A huge column of pungent smoke was rising from the fore hold of the ship as he gained the deck, while sailors were moving about with wet cloths tied round their mouths.

      "A fire down below," said Sam, with a catch in his voice. "Lor'!"

      "Fire!" shrieked one of the passengers, a woman, as her eyes lit on the smoke. Then the alarm was echoed from a hundred quarters. Men came rushing up into the open. Women screamed, and one huge fellow, a Russian by his appearance, came rushing across the deck and cast himself into one of the boats.

      "Silence!" commanded the captain through his megaphone, coming to the front of the bridge. "Quartermaster, turn that man out of that boat."

      "Aye, aye, sir!" came from a burly individual, already advancing on the spot in question. "Now then," he said, when he had reached the boat, "you hop out, quick."

      But the Russian was not inclined to do so. Terror had taken firm hold on him, and he sat clutching the thwarts, heedless of the quartermaster and of the fact that the boat sat firmly upon its guides on the deck, and offered as yet no sort of protection. But he remained there for only a minute, for the quartermaster hopped over the thwarts, seized the Russian by his coat and by the seat of his trousers, and threw him out without ceremony.

      "Passengers," called the captain, in a voice so steady that he might have been inviting them to dinner, "there is nothing as yet to be alarmed at. Please go on with your work or your pleasures as if nothing were happening. I call upon every man and woman to set a good example, remembering that there are children amongst us."

      That was enough. Men who had run forward with alarm written on their faces went back to their wives and children at once. Others gathered into anxious knots and went on with their pipes, while the children, unconscious of their danger, romped about the decks.

      "All the same, it's a ticklish business," said Sam, after a while. "They've got the hatches off, and I expect they're trying to clear out the stuff that's afire. That looks bad, for as a rule they'd leave the hatches on and turn steam sprays on to the burning cargo. Perhaps the sprays can't get at the stuff that's afire."

      "In any case, the crew won't be able to continue for long at the work unaided," added Joe. "Look! There's one overcome by the smoke; they've carried him off along the deck to the doctor."

      In the course of the next hour four men were rendered incapable by the pungent smoke issuing from the hold, while the smoke itself had become even denser. Huge clouds arose through the hatchway and, caught by the breeze – for all this while the ship was forging ahead at her fastest pace – went billowing out behind her. So dense, in fact, was it, that the passengers for'ard could not see the bridge nor any other part of the giant vessel.

      "Want volunteers?" asked Joe of an officer hurrying along the deck.

      "Eh?" came the curt and hurried answer.

      "Do you want any help?" repeated Joe. "There are plenty of us who would be eager and willing. That would free the men who are needed for the usual work of the vessel."

      "Well now, that's a fine idea. See here," said the officer hurriedly, "I'll get along to the skipper and ask him what his wishes are. Of course he may say he's right as things are, but then the 'Old Man' may think differently. Meanwhile, you get a few likely chaps together. If they're wanted, everything'll be ready."

      He went off at a quick pace, striding over the deck, and Joe saw him clambering to the bridge, where he sought the anxious captain.

      "Well?" demanded Sam, for the idea of volunteers being called for had never occurred to him. "What'll you do?"

      "Get a few men together at once," said Joe. "You stop here, and I'll send 'em over to you.

Скачать книгу