Читать книгу The Powder Dock Mystery - Reed Fulton - Страница 4

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Something above the purr of her motor must have been audible to the child at the steering wheel. She glanced up at Clem, saw her gesticulating arm, smiled, and waved a greeting. At the same moment, the other occupant of the craft pulled himself erect and leaned aside to catch a glimpse ahead. Before he could more than comprehend the danger, the Gypsy struck with a muffled crash and tearing sound. The prow reared sharply into the soft June sunshine as the keel rode the snag; then with a side lurch the boat tilted and slid free.

Clementine screamed again as she saw the man lose his balance, pitch out into the Sound, and go under with a gurgling shout. She knew that the victim’s terrified call would draw the water into his lungs and befuddle his brain still more. As she tore the coat from her shoulders, tossed the amber glasses and eyeshade atop the coat, and poised on the edge of the dock, she noted that the boat was still forging ahead in a groggy fashion, settling more and more with every revolution of the screw. The little girl who had been steering was not to be seen.

Had she been knocked unconscious, to lie imprisoned in the rapidly filling cabin? Could she be gotten out before the launch sank beneath the surface? Could the old man be saved?

When Clementine Fargar struck the water and flashed her arms in the racing stroke that had made her a second-place performer in the Camp Fire water sports she was not sure that she could cope with the desperate situation, but she was sure that she could reach the floundering man well in advance of her brother, who was racing madly from the warehouse. Straight for the terror-stricken face—gasping mouth, popping eyes, plastered white hair—Clem held her pace. The old man could not be far from the submerged tree stump; if she could get him to it, he might be able to hold on and keep his breathing until Dave arrived.

She had heard tales aplenty of the grip of a drowning person, so she ducked under as the man’s fingers writhed toward her. As she dove beneath the thrashing arm, the girl twisted, seized the man’s coat tails and came to the top beyond reach. Backward she towed for the submerged stump. A long minute of tiring effort and the grasping hands of the old man closed on the sharp barnacles perhaps six inches beneath the water. He was choking badly but was still able to keep his head above water.

“Hang on! Dave’s coming!” instructed Clem breathlessly. Then she whirled and was off for the sinking boat drifting a dozen yards away. A feeling of inadequacy pulled at her heart. How could she hope to save the child from the sinking cabin? Then, oddly enough, a phrase from her father’s lips flashed to mind: “Do your best—angels cannot do more.” And with that thought came a swelling courage. She would do her best. Some Power above would give her strength.

When Clem came alongside, the Gypsy’s gunwale was nearly level with the Sound. The hole in the prow had sucked in the water with appalling rapidity. The final plunge could not be far off.

Through the plate glass, Clem caught a picture of the little cabin. In water up to her hips, a girl not more than nine years old was struggling weakly to wrench open the miniature door. Clem was never to forget the look of helpless appeal that was thrown at her in answer to a sharp rap upon the glass. The child rushed through the water to the window and beat frantically upon the pane, screaming aloud with every futile blow.

For a second Clem held to the launch watching the water creep up the wall inside the cabin. She must act quickly. Dave, in the rowboat, was nearly to the sunken stump. It would take him several minutes to get the old man in. He would not be able to save the child from the plunge. Whatever was to be done, she must do.

Two strokes brought Clem to the back of the boat. Half crawling, half swimming, she got herself aboard the back deck. When she struggled to her feet, the water was still around her knees. A moment later she was banging her shoulder against the cabin door.

“I mustn’t get caught myself, in the cabin. The boat’s going down!” she mumbled to herself as she felt the door give.

She half realized the danger she was placing herself in but the rush of action gave her no chance for deliberation. Here was a child to be rescued—she must do all that she could regardless of what might happen.

Seizing the casing to prevent being washed into the trap, Clem swung the door with her foot and leaned in toward the frantic child just as the water swirled over the gunwale. The screaming child fastened a grip of desperation upon Clem’s arm. Clem jerked backward through the cabin door.

The next few minutes went in a whirling haze of clinging child, engulfing water, and down-sucking boat. But somehow Clem managed to free herself and the child from the eddy that marked the sinking of the Gypsy. She did no more than enough to keep them afloat, after the crucial struggle. Fortunately the child had lost consciousness. Clem could hear the encouraging cries of her brother and the laboring sounds of the rescued man. Still, it seemed an age before the rowboat swept alongside and she felt Dave’s strong grip on her arm.

A moment of effort and the child was in the boat in the arms of the white-haired man.

“I won’t try to get in, Dave,” said Clem. “I’ll hang on to the rear. I’m a bit winded, but all right just the same.”

So with words of brotherly commendation, Dave settled to his oars and drove hard for the near-by shore.

Five minutes later Clem sat wrapped in her coat in the hot sun that beat down on the sandy beach. The white-haired man was breathing regularly once more, thanks to Dave’s ministrations. The little girl of the cabin was sitting close to Clem, evidently none the worse for her strenuous experience except for a ruined frock.

“Soon as you feel like it, I’ll row you out to your yacht,” volunteered Dave, with a keen glance at the old man. “Better get into some dry clothes, Mr. Morgan.”

A flash of animation came from beneath the overhanging eyebrows.

“How did you know my name, young man?”

“That’s easy; I’ve seen your boat anchored off the Point a good many times; the Morgan Powder Company’s annual catalogue carried your picture as president. Someone sent me a copy a few days ago.”

“Huh!” snorted Mr. Morgan. “No trouble in guessing the sender. I may as well be frank with you; I’ve been trying to buy this storage place from the Pondeux people for six weeks. They wouldn’t even let me look it over, so I decided to stop off on my cruise back from the San Juan Islands. They sent you my picture and told you to keep me off, I dare say. Huh!”

“Well,” smiled the young dock tender. It was a matter he had no desire to argue over. The letter from the Seattle office had gone so far as to say, “Kick him off if he is insistent,” and Dave was reluctant to save an elderly gentleman one minute and then boot him off the beach while the water was still dripping from his clothing.

“I don’t mind saying, Mr. Morgan, that—of course you may not have had a hand in it—that you can’t scare me into leaving the powder dock.”

Clem looked at Dave in surprise.

“What have I said,” replied Mr. Morgan testily, “that could be interpreted as an effort to scare you?”

“Maybe I’m just shooting in the air, Mr. Morgan, but I’m referring to certain things that have happened since I took over the place.”

“Huh!”

The snort this time was accompanied by an effort to rise. As Dave helped him gain his feet, the little girl ran and took a slightly trembling hand in her warm clasp. The old gentleman turned toward Clementine.

“Who—er—who is that young lady?”

“My sister, Miss Fargar, Mr. Morgan.”

“Er—you’ve done a brave deed to-day, young lady. Er—you’ve saved an old man not much worth risking yourself on, but—er—you’ve saved his chief reason for living when you pulled Helen, here, out of that cabin. I won’t forget it.”

He wheeled about and stumbled in the direction of the boat, leaving Clementine Fargar with a new sensation. She was entirely at a loss for words.

But as Dave was pushing off with his two passengers her questioning powers returned with a rush. She jumped up and ran over the warm sand to the water’s edge.

“Your launch, Mr. Morgan, the Gypsy. Won’t it be stolen or stripped? Low tide will leave it high and dry, you know. Shall we watch it for you until you can send for it?”

The white-haired man gazed out to the spot where the boat had gone down and then glanced back at the girl upon the beach.

“Going to be here all summer, aren’t you?” he questioned.

“Yes, I——”

“Launch is yours. Man will be over to-morrow from Seattle to fix it up. Come, young fellow, get to rowing.”

“Mine!” ejaculated Clementine. “You don’t mean——”

“Good-by, Miss Fargar,” cried the child. “I’m goin’ to make Grandpa bring me to see you sometime this summer. Good-by.”

Dave swung the boat in line for the yacht. He could hardly repress the laughter that showed in his twinkling eyes and twitching lips as he viewed President Morgan hunched in the rear seat shutting his ears to the protestations from Clementine.

Clem watched the boat widen its distance from the beach. The Gypsy was hers! That trim brass and mahogany yacht tender with its powerful engine and englassed prow was hers to use as she pleased. The girl’s countenance beamed in the joy of the moment. Not more than thirty minutes ago she had seen no way clear to carry out the plan she had conceived, and now——!

The languor that had followed the excitement dropped from her like a cloak. The minute Dave returned with the rowboat, they would go out over the Gypsy and get some idea of the condition in which the launch rested. To-morrow the repair man would come and before many hours she would be able to commence her experiment in money making. She would give it a trial despite Dave’s protests. Of course he would put up a howl, but she would show him that she could plan for herself.

The possibilities offered by the summer fairly staggered Clem. No longer need she think of spending her time caring for the chickens and helping keep up the cottage; no longer was there the urge to hire out at the summer colony. Instead, a summer of wonderful adventure, as alluring as any fast-moving tale of the Spanish Main, lay before her.

“Sail on, and on, and on! I am the captain of my fate!” chortled the girl, thereby mixing two very sane poets in a decidedly insane fashion.

“I’ll hoist the Jolly Roger and sail the seven seas until I’ve loaded the good vessel to the guards with loot. Yo ho! Forty men on a dead man’s chest——”

Clem executed a mixture of sailor’s hornpipe and Highland fling with a flurry of bare toes and silvery sand, and with a last wave in response to Helen’s handkerchief she hurried up the path to her dressing room. Twasla, who had seen the rescue from the porch, waddled aimlessly about just outside the bedroom door, evidently intending to speak, but when Clem stepped out in her earlier attire, the old Indian woman wheeled about and hustled back into the kitchen.

“She hasn’t said a dozen words to me in the two days I’ve been here,” smiled Clem to herself; “I wonder if I’ve won her approval. My, I hope I don’t have to go through another such experience in order to bring her to actual words. I guess she thinks I’m just one more to cook for, and really not worth wasting the food on. I’ll show her that I can get food as well as eat it. Just wait until I get started with the Gypsy.”

Clem reached the beach just as her brother stepped out of the rowboat. He stood looking at her as though from a new point of view.

“Sis,” he exclaimed, “you’re a knockout! Better than I thought. Gosh, I was proud of you when I saw you had the little girl. I thought she was a goner. And now that ringtailed speed boat is yours—if it can be gotten out.”

“Why, can’t we get it at low water?”

“I’m afraid not in time for the repair man to-morrow. Tides change to-day. Low tide comes sometime in the small hours of the morning.”

“In the night!” responded the girl. “That’s provoking. Well, you go on about your work, Dave. You’re not to be bothered with my launch.” With a laugh, she pushed the skiff from the beach and stepped in.

“I’ll bet you, Davie dear, there’s some means to get the Gypsy ready to be worked on by to-morrow. I’m going to find a way if I have to dive down and bail the launch out myself!”

“You’ve done enough diving for one day; you——”

“Tut, tut, brother, I may have to wear blinders over my eyes and amber glasses, but I’m no invalid as you’ll see when I start business with the Gypsy.”

“Business! What fool idea have you hatched out now?”

“Never you mind, Mister; you’ll know in plenty of time to get in more than enough kicking. I’m so interested in getting started on the launch I’m not going to ask a single one of the questions about Mr. Morgan that I’m fairly sizzling with.”

“Well, sorry I can’t help you, Sis, but I’ve got to get around in time to catch the afternoon boat up island to Wilton. I want to talk to Tom Trent about Morgan’s visit. I can’t figure out just why Morgan is so anxious to get this warehouse, but something has come up recently to put him on edge. Maybe it’s just a step to expand; maybe there are other reasons. He claims he wants to control this end of the island for a hunting and fishing place even if the legislature does away with the powder warehouse. Maybe so, but I want to get Tom Trent’s idea. I think it’s important enough to run the risk of leavin’ you in charge of the dock. Of course actually I don’t think there’s any risk in leaving.”

“Who’s Tom Trent?”

“He’s sort of a salesman and inspector for the Pondeux people. I’ll bring him back with me, perhaps, so you can ask him yourself. I’ll be back in the morning. You’ll be all right with Twasla, but see to it that you don’t run any crazy risks over that sunken tub.”

“You’ll get gray hairs from worry and then you won’t be half as handsome as you are now, Davie dear,” cooed Clem as she started the skiff from shore.

“You’d better row!” shouted Dave, lunging at the boat. “I’m going to have to strap you in the Devil’s Swing an’ start you from the roof of the warehouse if you don’t cut out that blamed sissy name.”

Clem threw a tormenting glance over her shoulder as she swerved the boat. “Run along and tend your knitting, little boy. I’ll not ride the Devil’s Swing until I’m good and ready.”

“You’re afraid, aren’t you?” grinned Dave.

“Maybe some would call it that, but——”

“But what?” demanded Dave, irritated by her calm indifference to his teasing.

“But others would say I have better sense than to run a risk for nothing.”

“Bah!” exclaimed Dave.

“Sure, ‘Bah’ is just what you should say!”

“Why?” yelled Dave, falling into his sister’s trap.

“Why, because you’re the goat!” laughed the girl at the oars.

Dave waved his hand in a long-suffering gesture and hurried up the beach toward the dock, while Clem pulled for the spot where the Gypsy had bubbled down to the tide flats.