LITMIR.BIZ

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for there is no such thing as a vessel returning empty-handed from the Banks, and Bill Boughton stood sponsor for most of them.

      The owners of vessels divided their time between provisioning and overhauling their ships and the securing of crews. One rainy afternoon, when work had been generally suspended, a number of the men gathered inside Bill Boughton’s store to wait for a let-up in the downpour, and the subject of crews was broached.

      “How you comin’ with your crew, Bige?” asked a tall, lanky man of Captain Tanner.

      “First rate. Got a dozen men now an’ that’s about all the Rosan can take care of. At that somebody’ll have to sleep on a locker, I cal’late.”

      “You’re doin’ well, Bige. I hear Jed Martin can’t round up more’n eight, an’ he’s been as fur south as Great Harbor.”

      “D’ye wonder?” put in a third. “Jed ain’t never set up grub that a shark would eat. I sailed with him once five year ago, an’ that was enough fer me.”

      “Twelve men ain’t much,” put in Tanner. “Them Gloucester men sail with sixteen or eighteen right along, and I’ve heard o’ one feller put out of T-Wharf, Boston, carryin’ twenty-eight dories. Of course, them fellers lays to fill up quick and make short trips fer the fresh market. Ain’t many of them briners.”

      “Don’t believe there’s anybody’ll carry sixteen men out of here, is they?” came a voice from over in the corner.

      “Sure!” The rumble and bellow of the reply denoted Pete Ellinwood where he sat on a cracker-box, his six and a half feet of length sprawled halfway from one counter to the other. “There’s Nat Burns’s Hettie B. She’ll carry sixteen, and so will Code Schofield’s Laughing Lass– mebbe more.”

      “Huh! Yes, if he can git ’em,” sneered a voice.

      “Git ’em! O’ course he’ll git ’em. Why not?” demanded Ellinwood, turning upon the other belligerently.

      “Wal,” replied the other, “they do say there’s men in this village, and farther south, too, that wouldn’t sail with Code, not fer a thousand dollars and all f’und.”

      “Them that says it are fools,” declared Ellinwood.

      “An’ liars!” cut in Bijonah Tanner hotly. “Why won’t they sail with the lad? He can handle a schooner as well as you, Burt, and better.”

      “Yas,” said the other contemptuously; “nobody’s ever forgot the way he handled the old May 64 Schofield. Better not play with fire, Bige, or you’ll get your hands burned.”

      Pete Ellinwood got upon his feet deliberately. He was the biggest and most powerful man in the village, despite his forty-five years, and his “ableness” in a discussion–physical or otherwise–was universally respected.

      “Look here you, Burt, an’ all the rest of you fellers. I’ve got something to say. Fer consid’able time now I’ve heard dirty talk about Code and the May Schofield– dirty talk an’ nothin’ more. Now, if any of you can prove that Code did anything but try and save the old schooner, let’s hear you do it. If not, shut up! I don’t want to hear no more of that talk.”

      There was silence for a while as all hands sought to escape the gray, accusing eye that wandered slowly around the circle. Then from back in the shadow somewhere a voice said sneeringly:

      “What ax you got to grind, Pete?”

      A laugh went round, for it was common talk that, since the death of Jasper Schofield, Pete had expressed his admiration for Ma Schofield in more than one way.

      “I got this ax to grind, Andrew,” replied Ellinwood calmly, “that I’m signed on as mate in the Charming Lass, an’ I believe the boy is as straight and as good a sailor as anybody on the island.” This was news to the crowd, and the men digested it a minute in silence.

      “How many men ye got sailin’ with ye?” asked one who had not spoken before.

      “Five outside the skipper an’ me,” was the reply, “an’ I cal’late we’ll fill her up in a day or so. Seven men can sail her like a witch, but they won’t fill her hold very quick. She’ll take fifteen hundred quintal easy, or I judge her wrong.”

      A prolonged whistle from outside interrupted the discussion, and one man going to the door announced that it had stopped raining. All hands got up and prepared to go back to work. Only Bijonah Tanner remained to buy some groceries from Boughton.

      “Steamer’s early to-day,” said the storekeeper, glancing at his watch. “She’s bringin’ me a lot of salt from St. John’s, and I guess I can get it into the shed to-night.”

      Having satisfied Tanner, he went out of the store the back way and left the captain alone filling his pipe. A short blast of the whistle told him that the steamer was tied up, and idly he lingered to see who had come to the island.

      The passengers, to reach the King’s Road, were obliged to go past the corner of the general store, and Bijonah stood on the low, wooden veranda, watching them.

      Some two dozen had gone when his eye was attracted by a pale, thin youth in a light-gray suit and Panama hat. He thought nothing of him at first except to remark his clothes, but as he came within short vision Tanner gave a grunt of astonishment and bit through the reed stem of his corn-cob pipe.

      He recognized the youth as the one he had seen in St. John’s and had referred to as the secretary to the president of the Marine Insurance Company.

      Instantly the old man’s mind flashed back to what he had heard only a week before, which he had told Code. He stood looking after the stranger as though spell-bound, his slow mind groping vainly for some explanation of his presence in Freekirk Head.

      He felt instinctively that it must be in connection with the case of Code Schofield and the May, and his feeling was corroborated a moment later when, from behind the trunk of a big pine-tree, Nat Burns stepped forward and greeted the other. They had apparently met before, for they shook hands cordially and continued westward along the King’s Road.

      A few steps brought them opposite the gate to the Schofield cottage, and Bijonah, following their motions like a hawk, saw Nat jerk his thumb in the direction of the house as they walked past.

      That was enough for Tanner. He was convinced now that the insurance man had come to carry out the threat made in St. John’s, and that Nat Burns was more intimately connected with the scheme than he had at first supposed.

      Bijonah set down his package of groceries on the counter inside and turned away toward the wharf where the Charming Lass was tied up for a final trimming. She already had her salt aboard and most of her provisions and was being given her final touches by Pete Ellinwood, Jimmie Thomas, and the other members of the crew that had signed on to sail in her.

      Tanner hailed Ellinwood from the wharf and beckoned so frantically that the big man swarmed up the rigging to the dock as though he were going aloft to reef a topsail in a half a gale.

      “Code’s in a pile of trouble,” said the old man, and went on briefly to narrate the whole circumstance of the insurance company’s possible move. “That feller came on the steamer this afternoon, an’ if he serves Code with the summons or attachment or whatever it is, it’s my idea that the Lass will never round the Swallowtail for the Banks. Where is the boy?”

      “Went up to Castalia to see a couple of men who he thought he might get for the crew, but I don’t think Burns or any one else knows it. He wanted to make the trip on the quiet an’ get them without anybody’s knowing it if he could. But what do you cal’late to do, Bige?”

      “By the Great Snood, I don’t know!” declared Tanner helplessly.

      “Wal,” said Pete reassuringly, “you just let me handle this little trouble myself. We’ll have the skipper safe an’ clear if we have to commit murder to do it. Now, Bige, you just keep your mouth shut and don’t worry no more. I’ll do the rest.”

      Feeling the responsibility

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