W. Bert Foster

“ Was some poor creature adrift in the half wrecked boat?
I wondered what Cap’n Si would do. To ignore a flag of distress—to pass by the opportunity of rescuing a fellow-creature from death—would be an awful thing. Yet there might be nobody in the boat. I could see the old man doubted.
And then the lookout hailed again:
“The Gullwing’s dropping a boat, sir!”
“That’s enough!” roared Cap’n Si, all in a bluster at once. “I won’t let Cap’n Joe do more’n me. Mr. Barney!” The second mate had followed him on deck. “Call away a boat’s crew.” ”

“ Altogether the cabin of the Wavecrest was cozy and not a bad place at all in which to spend a night.
It was still early in the evening. The tide had not long since turned and was running out, while the wind out of its present quarter was with the tide. Any craft could sail out of Bolderhead harbor this night with both gale and sea in its favor; but heaven help the vessel striving to beat into the inlet! The reefs and ledges along this coast are as dangerous as any down on the charts. ”

“ With the moose hoofs strapped upon his feet the Yorker had crept through the forest on the trail of the unconscious Jonas Harding; had seen him shoot the doe; and then falling upon him suddenly had beaten him to the earth with his clubbed rifle and had bruised and mangled him so terribly that the neighbors, at first glance, pronounced the poor man killed by a mad buck. Hurrying from the vicinity, dress and hands covered with blood as Crow Wing had seen him, Halpen had hidden the deer hoofs in the hollow of the tree, and escaped to Albany, his vengeance accomplished. ”

“ Pepper would know the locality of the New England Hotel, and therefore Brandon crossed the street and entered the dingy little front office.
On a high stool by a high desk just beside the window, sat a man with a wonderful development of leg, a terrific shock of the reddest hair imaginable, and a shrewd, lean face, lit up by sharp, foxy eyes. His face was smoothly shaven and the yellow skin was covered with innumerable wrinkles like cracks in the cheeks of a wax doll; but whether this individual was twenty-five, or fifty-five, Brandon was unable to guess. ”

“ Instantly the whole crew were in a pandemonium of excitement; but the captain’s shrill orders were obeyed like clockwork. I felt the blow of the great bark give a convulsive jerk. The whale had gone straight downward and the cable attached to the harpoon shot over the bow so fast that the eye could not follow its course. Where the hemp touched the rail a column of smoke arose. Two men sprang with buckets to dip up the sea-water and pour it upon the shrieking line. The windlass spun around like a boy’s top. ”

“ Then it was just as Job Perkins had told me! The rivalry between the Barney twins was fostered by their rich uncle. I had no comment to make—it wasn’t my place. But Mr. Barney seemed to wish to talk to somebody, and perhaps because I was so near his own age (he could not have been twenty-three yet) and came from people who were more like his own class, he warmed toward me for the moment. Perhaps, too, I am a sympathetic listener.
“Alf and I,” said Mr. Barney, thoughtfully, “have always been more than brothers. We’ve been friends. There’s a difference. ”

“ Amid cheers the column moved forward into the forest and took up its line of march toward the shore of Lake Champlain. Never had the Green Mountain wilderness echoed to the tread of such a body of men. And they were worth more than a passing glance for they represented the spirit which made the American Revolution one of the greatest struggles of the ages. Like the campaigns of Joshua of old, the battles of the American yeoman with the trained military of King George proved that, when guided by the God of Battles, the weak can overcome the strong. ”

“ Up came a second wave. The lulling of the wind gave the waves a chance to gather force and height. This one curled fairly over my head and, looking up and over my shoulder at the great, green, foam-streaked wall of water, I thought my last minute above the surface had come!
It broke. I can remember nothing at all of the ensuing few moments. I only know that I was smothered, drowned, completely overwhelmed by the deluge of water that came inboard. The force of it burst open the slide of the hatch and barrels of water flooded into the cabin. The Wavecrest settled. ”

“ There the sister of the Gullwing sailed, her canvas spread to the freshening morning breeze, her prow throwing off two high foamy waves as she tacked toward us.
[69] She was on one tack; we were on the other. Therefore we were approaching each other rapidly. And what a sight! If a marine artist could have painted the picture of that beautiful ship, with her glistening paint, and pearl-tinted sails, and her lithe masts and taut cordage, he would have had a picture worth looking at. And from her deck the Gullwing must have seemed quite as beautiful to those aboard the Seamew. ”

“ In the midst of the good time, while the fun waxed furious, the door of the hovel opened and there stood in the opening the tall, slim figure of Crow Wing. As he had come unbidden to the stump burning, so he came now unexpectedly to this frolic. The white children welcomed him boisterously, for his people had moved away from the Walloomscoik and for months he had not been seen near Bennington. But Crow Wing had evidently not come to join in the merrymaking. His face was impassive and much older in expression than it had been the year before. ”

“ Every moment they were getting farther and farther away from the doomed derelict.
Caleb roared something to them through the trumpet, but the distance and the howling of the gale prevented them from making out what he said. The wind and spray beat upon them alternately as they crouched together in the high bows, and every other sound but that of the elements was drowned.
“Come back in the shelter of the mast,” Brandon shouted at last. “We can do nothing further here. Our position is so exposed that we may be washed off before we know it.” ”

“ As Tom said, it looked as though a harpoon thrown into the air in almost any direction would hit a whale when it came down!
I was eager to throw an iron myself. I had the physique for it, being such a stocky fellow. And the hard life I had lived since being swept out to sea in my Wavecrest had agreed with me. My muscles were like wire cables, I was burned as black as a negro, and there was scarcely a man aboard the bark whom I could not have flung in a fair wrestle.
“Give Clint his chance, Tom,” said Mr. Gibson, as the boat-steerer came forward. “If he misses, you can throw a second iron.” ”

“ Suddenly the rescuer saw the upturned canoe and the almost exhausted boy clinging to it. He drove his own craft alongside and reaching quickly seized Enoch’s shoulder, bearing him up as the youth’s own hands slipped from their resting-place on the keel of the canoe. “Courage–courage!” cried the scout, heartily. “You are not goin’ down yet, Nuck Harding! Where’s the other?”
“Gone–gone!” gasped Enoch, horrified by the death of Simon Halpen.
“Who was it?”
“The spy.”
“Ah! I thought so. Well, we can’t help the poor wretch now. Can you aid yourself at all? Brace up, man!” ”

“ I was mainly giving my attention to the wheel.
But the ship came to an even keel for a minute and I was able to hold her on her course, and get my breath. Then I beheld the strange lights shining here, there, and everywhere about the rigging, and I was amazed. Not that I was frightened, as Bob and some of the others of the watch appeared to be. The sailor is a very superstitious person; and let him tell it, there are enough strange things happen at sea to convince a most philosophical mind that there is a spirit world very, very close to our own mundane sphere. ”

“ Otherwise it would not have been at the surface so long in such a gale. And being dead, and the seabirds and shark-fish having got at its carcass before the storm, there was good reason for the waves not breaking over it.
The dead whale lay in a slick, or “sleep,” as some old whalemen pronounce the word, and hope revived in my troubled mind the instant I realized what the object was, and its condition. The waves were following me as hungrily as ever; at any moment the sloop might be overwhelmed. But once let me get the Wavecrest in the lee of this dead whale, I could bid defiance to the storm. ”

“ The waves were tossed toward the wind driven, leaden clouds with awful fury, breaking like surf over the whaleback; but the steamer withstood the fearful [232] shocks as easily as she had the choppy waves which preceded the gale.
She kept but little headway, however, and as the black night shut down about the craft, Brandon realized fully the terrible risks and hazardous chances taken by “those who go down to the sea in ships.” ”

“ Enoch was confident of that.
“He is there!” whispered the youth, and he crouched lower between the roots. His eyes, sharp as they were, could not penetrate the gloom of the brush clump, and the glittering metal had now disappeared. But he was sure that the intruder was still there, reconnoitering the camp. Would he suspect the ruse? Would he observe that the body lying by the fire was simply a dummy? The youth was glad to see that the log with his jacket and cap upon it lay almost entirely in the shadow and that one coat-sleeve was stretched out upon the ground in a very natural manner indeed. ”