Harold Titus

“ As Eldred's heavy torso was lifted upward, his watch-chain broke and, on hands and knees on deck, he felt the dangling ends and groped hastily for the charm that was missing. He cursed under his breath as he felt along the planks, then peered into the hold, lighted well enough by then, and stared, but could not see the trinket. He stuffed the broken chain into his vest pocket as he began running stealthily up the dock. Behind him, the spars of the schooner commenced to flush from the light in her hold. ”

“ A GREAT joy had come into his heart as he reached for the pistol, and a great sickness as Eve, in that stressed second, made her choice. She would defend against her father the man who had humiliated her! Beyond that, there could be no more complete renunciation of the thing for which Norman Eldred had hoped. And so, as a man who had dedicated every hour and every energy toward one objective, only to see it go beyond his touch, he was rocked to the foundations of his consciousness. ”

“ I sleep on the boat. Sweet dreams!”
Eve found herself standing alone, staring at the knife she held as though it fascinated her. Then, with a gesture that was almost fright, she sent it spinning across the floor.
HOW long a time passed before Norman Eldred moved from the doorway in which Eve had left him he did not know.
It was a seemingly endless interval of suffering, of dumb pain, of confusion and heart-break. He stood there as a man whose whole world has collapsed and who has no further need for the ability to move or think or speak. In an instant his kingdom had become chaos. ”

“ Her courage was failing; she could not fight with the spirit that her father had encouraged. She must flee, must be away, outside—and here was a door!
Her hand found the knob, and in a flutter of excitement and relief she turned it, but before the latch moved, a match scratched and flared. Eve found herself backed tightly against the door, facing him, waiting. But David was turned the other way as he fussed with the bracket-lamp on the wall, burning match in one hand, chimney in the other. ”

“ And one afternoon that hope took fire as Gam Gallagher's Islander banged her way into the harbor and came to anchor in the shallow water by the remains of the Annabelle, and MacKinnon and Fred Mink, one of his Indian helpers, protected by hip-boots, dropped into the charred hulk and began the task of salving what remained of value.
Atremble with excitement, Eve stood by a window to see the men toil. Stood there until darkness came—uneasy, undetermined, seeing the motor slung laboriously aboard, watching David and his man work in the cold water. ”

“ He ran a hand through his hair as he remembered Eldred's collapse when Eve sprang to protect him, and he chuckled when he thought how the story would go over the lakes—that Jode MacKinnon's boy had run away from Garden Island, with Eve Eldred for his prisoner.
That is what she was—his prisoner. He considered her so. For a flash, back there on the beach, he had been conscious of pity, because it was not pleasant to think of any girl with eyes and lips and a body like Eve's left to the mercy of men like her father. ”

“ He looked away, tongue on his lips. “No; you ask him this—ask him when and where he will talk with me, when and where he will—treat with me. Put it that way, Dimmock, in your own words. Let him think he has me beaten; let him think he has me down, and that I've had enough—hear? Understand that? Make it strong, but not too strong. He'll know what I want to talk about. Ask him when and where— Only, it's got to be to-day, because—” The hand which had grasped Dimmock's shirt dropped to his side and then went slowly behind his back, clasping the other. ”

“ Though they had been together for years, sharing hardships and fortunes, and though Dimmock knew many of the secrets which Eldred held in his heart, there was ever between them that gulf which separates conscious master from conscious man, and when he entered the room, the red-haired fisherman closed the door and paused with that hesitancy which may indicate respect or fear or both. ”

“ They went aboard the Kittiwake together and started out of the harbor. Until they made the turn toward Beaver Island, MacKinnon stood on the stern watching the ember that had been his Annabelle. Then he muttered,
“If it's so, you're as black a vixen as you seemed to be a white angel.”
And about that time a Mackinaw boat, which had been making her slow way up Thunder Bay all the afternoon, came to anchor off Alpena. An old man was sailing her alone. His hair was gray, his scraggly beard gray, his skin gray and drawn and wrinkled. ”

“ He had a crude little shelter rigged between the two stubby spars; an oil-stove was there, some pots and pans, a bunk. He lighted the stove and put water on to boil. Then, standing up outside, he scanned the fishing-boats at anchor between him and the lights of the town. His lips worked continually and his eyes roved without cessation with a queer, bright, vacant light.
Ever since the ice moved in Lake Huron he had been doing that—staring at boats with his vacant eyes. ”

“ The clean brasses of the motor gleamed at him and, again in darkness, he knelt beside it, fumbling beneath the gasoline-tank. A grunt and a sigh; another match, but his fingers were not strong enough. By the smoky flare of the match he found the pliers in a closed box. He groped for the pet-cock with their jaws, and clamped his hand and felt the tool bite into the softer metal. ”

“ Eve was in the store, with the usual dozen or more men lounging about the stove. The buying for the evening was practically over, and the girl behind the counter piled stocks on a shelf, acutely aware of the eyes which did not leave her for long.
Dimmock and another stood near the door, conversing lowly, when boots came up the steps in hurried measure and stopped on the threshold. The newcomer was David MacKinnon, and he stopped outside, looking in. About him was that which caused men to stop talking, and it was the hush which attracted Eve and made her turn. ”

“ A Christian, Norman Eldred had heard of him, and all men recognized a fine spirit in the keeper, but there was yet to be one who had heard cant from his lips or who had been urged to change his manner of life. Borden's religion was a personal matter with him, not to be boasted of, not to find outlet in dictation to other men. His business was to guide ships, and he let the spiritual misadventures of men alone. ”

“ The island was Eldred's realm. Here he lived with his daughter Eve, now in the years of early womanhood, and held despotic sway over the rough men that helped him with his fishing industry. Eve was all the world to him. He had taught her to fear the men and kept her to himself, resenting strongly the interest taken in her by Jenny Borden, wife of the lighthouse keeper on near-by Squaw Island, So the girl was quite alone and had no companion but her dog. Her chief duty was tending the island store which her father had established. The arrival of David wakened new interests. ”

“ David MacKinnon did not fear him, and it was fear in the hearts of other men on which Eldred had built his position. And then, this night, he had come upon the trader in the store, with Eve in his arms, fighting and calling for help—the fairest avenue to revenge that even a fair-minded man could ask! ”

“ But I'd rather be in danger from one man than from a lot—and—besides, you were different. I meant it when I said that all I cared about was getting away; I meant that until we got out of my father's harbor. For a long time I've tried to make men think I was a fighter when I knew I wasn't, but last night, when I was alone with you, I thought I sure was going to have to fight. So I got hold of that.” She pointed beneath the stove, and MacKinnon saw the dressing-knife on the floor, where she had flung it. ”

“ There had been no time for regard of truth and honor there on the beach.
At least she had achieved something. The menace was concentrated in one man. She knew that, except for the Indians, he lived alone on High Island; she did not fear Fred Mink and the other. To protect herself from MacKinnon, then, became her sole objective. ”

“ AND so another tale went across the lake—not told with so much interest as the other, not reaching such remote places, but it was a tale which made men who knew Eldred stop and consider, for tongues had it that young Dave MacKinnon, the trader, had not been frightened away by the king of Garden Island—that he had made threats, not as men usually threaten, but only when forced to it by those well-intentioned advisers who would have him make the best of a bad mess. ”

“ Borden placed a marker in his book and stretched and yawned.
“Oh, you could lie to me or you could do something dishonorable. That is, another woman could; you couldn't——”
“Go 'long with you!” she said, but there was trouble in her heart. “Lying would do it, eh? Or something dishonorable?”
Borden was not particularly interested in this discussion of a possible provocation of his distrust, and though Aunt Jen tried in a clumsy manner at intervals to continue talk on the point, conversation rambled into less speculative affairs. It did not lag, however; their talks never did. ”

“ And then it came—a squaring of his feet for a firmer stance, the whipping of a hand toward his hip beneath the jacket he wore, and it came back in the space of an eye-wink, dragging in its clasp the dull blue of an automatic pistol. ”

“ Eldred listened without comment; even his eyes did not change as they rested on Dimmock's face, but once his hand moved on the chair arm jerkily.
Fragments of the tale reached elsewhere—the ears of Eve Eldred, for one; she knew that MacKinnon was fishing on High Island, but when she carried the query to her father, she was met by evidence of displeasure. It was well, he said, that MacKinnon's hooker had burned, because he was a trouble-hunter by nature.
“But Jode—” she began.
“He is not like his father,” Eldred interrupted sharply. ”

“ He tossed the watch-charm that Eldred had worn to the counter. His words were meaningless to the girl, and she could not see Dimmock's face as he studied the pet-cock which had drained the Annabelle's gasoline-tank, with its telltale evidence of treachery.
“What do I want, Dimmock? I'll tell you what I want. I want to tell the man that you call 'king' here that he's been runnin' on a long line, but that now he's used up the slack. I want to tell him that he's tried the MacKinnons once too often. That other”—voice shaking a trifle—“is too long ago, so long that it's all guesswork. ”

“ I grew up with the fishermen, but the older I got the more restless I was—because I was tryin' to dodge my real job, I expect. I went with a trader, and we had a little luck and I got hold of a boat of my own. She made money, carryin' shingles and hay and the like, and finally I had the Annabelle and thought I was satisfied and settled down.
“I'm no better or worse than the run of men on the lakes. Sort of shiftless, maybe. All I cared about, I thought, was to keep my hooker in as good shape as a good boat deserved. ”

“ It showed in his face, too, and in the roving of his tongue along his lips.
Dimmock said,
“No. Sure not!”
“No. Sure not!” Eldred repeated his man's words and then walked the length of the room, steadier than he had been yesterday, pace quickening as his excitement grew. He came back. “Listen to me! If you think or any man on this island or any man on the lakes thinks I'm afraid of him. I'll—I'll”—he drew the one clenched hand up to a level of his chin and stared at it—“I'll ruin him—as I'll ruin this trader before I get through!” ”

“ If she could get away from this island, she might be safe, but what good would an attempt do when stronger arms than hers could propel boats in chase? If a friendly tug should happen in, if that woman from the light should come, if David MacKinnon— She caught her breath. She heard a man on the store steps speak. She was flying through the shadows.
It was only a short distance to the beach, but by the time Eve had emerged from the shadow of the net-house, her breathing was desperately fast. ”