Читать книгу The Powder Dock Mystery - Reed Fulton - Страница 5

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Peering down through the glass-green water, Clem could see the hulk of the Gypsy lying on its side ten feet below like some stricken inhabitant of the deep. The thought of raising the launch made it loom larger than before. She had undertaken, empty handed, a task that men might shy at unless amply provided with hoisting tackle. True, she had spent much of her past vacation time on or in the Sound, and her observing eye, together with her ready questions, had done something toward preparing her for such an emergency.

“A tugboat could catch on to the Gypsy and drag it in farther, but pulling it over the stones would scratch it up a lot and probably break the cabin glass,” thought Clem, holding the skiff against the current. “Still, I don’t see how else——”

“Well, gal,” came a voice so close that the girl jerked her head over her shoulder in surprise. “I heerd you be in the salvage business. He-he! Men, kids, en boats.”

Small, dark, and wiry, the speaker seemed lost in the overgrown rowboat in which he stood. Clem smiled as she recognized Bunte, the fisherman who held the queer idea concerning the powder warehouse.

“I’m afraid I won’t be so lucky saving the boat,” she answered.

The old man pulled hard on his oars and then gazed down at the sunken launch. He spat reflectively and squinted up at the sky.

“Ef thet sun could pull ez strong ez the moon, mebbe it ’ud bring the hull off’n the bott’m. Thin it cut drift nigh enuf t’ shore t’ be patched when the tide be out.”

“But Mr. Sun won’t pull——”

“Gal,” interrupted Bunte, as his boat drifted farther away, “thet sun raised trees from seed specks, water helpin’ things along, an’ I reck’n them logs floatin’ over there ’ud be glad t’ pass the favor on by raisin’ yer boat fer ye, ef ye kin git the water t’ help out agin.”

He laughed his high-pitched cackle as he settled to his oars.

Clem sat in perplexed silence. For several minutes she waited, allowing the tide to carry her boat slowly along, while she watched the back-bent fisherman pull his way down the bay in the direction of the Head. Evidently Bunte had seen a way. He had told his plan in his queer fashion. Surely she could make use of the suggestion to get the logs and the water to raise the Gypsy. Her brows knit in the intensity of thought.

“I wonder,” she mused, “how many logs it would take to lift the launch. If I had enough of the drift logs right over this place at low tide, and could get them fastened down close up to the Gypsy, then, when the tide comes in, the water would lift the logs higher and the boat would have to come with them. And the current would take it all in closer to shore to where she’d be exposed when the water went out again at low tide. I’ll bet that’s just what Bunte meant!

“If I’m going to work that scheme, I’ll have to have a good stout rope.”

Her glance traveled back to where a giant alder tree reared its slanting trunks aloft just above maximum tide and in line between the powder warehouse and the water. From a sturdy branch that projected parallel with the beach high up on the main trunk hung two long, heavy ropes that terminated in a swing plank about three feet from the earth. Clementine had gasped two days ago when she had beheld her brother, on the roof of the warehouse, pull the swing seat in its long arc by a cord until he could seize the ropes and step off from the roof upon the dangling plank. Judging by the sweep of the swing far out over the water, its pause at the dizzy height of the ascent, and the sickening backward passage, it had been well christened the Devil’s Swing. Clem had made a fervent, though unvoiced, vow that she would never take that ride.

Her sole interest now lay in the ropes. As soon as her brother was gone she would climb the tree ladder, made by spiking pieces of two-by-fours to the upper part of the slanting trunk; she would slip the iron rings from their fastenings, and later use the ropes to lash the raft to the sunken launch.

It was a big job, all right, but doing it herself would save money and besides there was a wonderful thrill in attempting such an engineering feat. Clem bent to her oars with an eagerness she had not felt in many weeks. Dave would have the surprise of his young life when he returned in the morning.

To chronicle the details of the afternoon would be to picture Clem’s eager energy fading to weariness before unforeseen obstacles. The ropes on the giant swing proved so heavy that it was only after a prolonged struggle at the top of the tree ladder that she managed to unhook the ring closest to the trunk. Back to earth once more, she found it difficult even to drag the rope to the water’s edge. Then, before she had much more than a nucleus for the raft, the bay became so rough she was forced to abandon her attempts. She could do nothing with the uneasy logs.

Nursing her protesting hands, Clem wandered to her favorite seat on the dock. The steamer, plying once a day between Seattle and Whidby Island ports, had picked Dave up some time ago. The small fishing launches had pulled anchor and slipped out to the fishing banks below the island for the flood-tide catch. Twasla had finally withdrawn to the kitchen to prepare the evening meal. As the forlorn girl watched the sun push the cliff shadows out of their noonday retreat, she tried not to think of the remarks Dave would make over the failure of her boasting.

And then the glorious idea took substance from thin air. What a fool she had been to attempt to build a raft when moored to the upper side of the dock was a loading scow of medium size. There was the very lifting power she needed.

With renewed confidence Clem set about to place close in shore an anchor of gunny sacks partly filled with sand that would hold the scow and swing the water-filled boat. With a number of empty sacks and a short-handled shovel, Clem took up a position on the beach somewhat above the place where the Gypsy lay. Then she began shoveling gravel and sand into the bags. In a few minutes three partly filled sacks were ready and a hole in the slanting beach was proof that Clem’s back had a right to ache. She spread open the fourth bag and thrust her shovel deep into the pit. As she raised the load, something in the sand sparkled. Clem dropped the shovel and seized the object with an exclamation of astonishment. She turned it over slowly in her fingers. It was a diamond ring—the gold band dark with tarnish and the stone dulled by its burial, but unquestionably a diamond of value.

For several minutes Clem could do nothing but stand in amazement. What strange turn in Fortune’s wheel had thus bestowed a launch and a diamond ring in the same day?

“I can’t believe it,” muttered Clem, half aloud. “How could that ring have come here? One of the prongs is broken and—yes, there are the initials ‘A. C.’ inside the band. Must have been an engagement ring; perhaps some woman lost it at a picnic.”

And now chance had directed her shovel to the spot where the ring had lain for years. Clem wished that Dave were with her to exclaim over the find. His eyes would pop out in the morning when she laid the ring in his palm and told him where she had found it.

Well, that pleasure must wait. In the meanwhile there was work to be done on the Gypsy.

Reluctantly Clem pocketed the diamond and turned her attention to getting the scow in place. This proved easier than she had expected for, once the flat wooden platform was free from the dock, the current carried it in the right direction. Clem, with a rope around a post on the deck, warped it into a position where she was able to make it fast to the anchor and still have it ride over the Gypsy. Occasionally she paused to rest and to reëxamine the diamond ring.

At last the amateur engineer succeeded in getting the heavy rope aboard the scow. One end she made secure around the stubby side post on the scow; the other, weighted by the iron ring, was allowed to sink in such a way that with the hook on the long pike pole Clem was able to catch the ring and pull the rope under the sturdy shaft between the propeller and the hull. When the ring was once more in her hand, Clem heaved a sigh of relief. At least one end of the boat was now attached to the scow. To draw the rope taut at the other side of the platform and arrange it so that it could be tightened quickly at low tide was a matter of minutes.

Twasla had to beat the steel triangle three times with increasing impatience before Clem heeded the supper call. The rope under the front end of the Gypsy had been obstinate in its determination to slip off each time it was tightened; but finally it caught behind a tying iron and held firm.

“There,” exulted Clem, as she headed the rowboat for shore, “I’m all ready for low tide. I hate to come back here so late at night to shorten those ropes, but it’s the only way.”

Twasla’s supper of oddly flavored brown bread, steamed clams, and boiled potatoes was on the red-clothed table when Clem finally washed her blistered hands and stepped into the dining room. The Indian woman came in from the kitchen as Clem sat down and placed a cup and a pitcher of milk at the girl’s elbow.

“You hungry?” queried the old lady, pausing with her hands on the back of Dave’s vacant chair.

“I am, Twasla,” declared Clem; “hungry and tired. I wish you would sit down and tell me about yourself while I eat this dandy supper. Have you eaten yet?”

“Me no wait. Plenty eat in cook-room,” replied Twasla.

“Well, just sit down to keep me company,” insisted Clem, waving her slice of buttered bread toward the chair. “How long have you lived here, Twasla?”

The Indian woman seated herself on the edge of Dave’s chair obediently. “No can count. Heap moons.”

“Were you here before the powder house was built?”

Twasla smiled. “Long time!”

“What did you do then?”

“Me wife fisherman Jim Novak.”

“You were the wife of a fisherman? What became of your husband?”

“Gone,” replied Twasla, with a dramatic grunt.

“You mean he died?”

“Gone!”

“Do you think he is still alive?”

“No can tell.”

“Well, don’t you worry about him, his being gone so long?”

“Me no worry. What’s use? No bring back.” Twasla laid one wrinkled hand over the other in resignation.

Clem eyed the woman with a new light. Twasla was a philosopher worth knowing if she could speak thus of her husband’s disappearance.

“Haven’t you any idea what became of him?”

“Maybe him go dead in water; maybe get tired powder dock; maybe Wynaults catch him.”

“Twasla, what do you mean—the Wynaults?”

“Injun from Vancouver way. Him no scalp. Him take all head. Him head hunter.”

In her interest Clem almost forgot to eat. “But you don’t mean to tell me that they were real head hunters?”

“Huh!” grunted Twasla, pushing back the calico sleeve of her dress and exposing a ragged scar across her arm at the elbow. “Me know.”

“Did you—did they—did——” Clem’s words stumbled over her tongue. “How did you get that scar, Twasla?”

Twasla’s only answer was to roll up the other sleeve to reveal a companion scar on the other arm.

“But tell me, Twasla.”

“Me no tell. He know.” The Indian woman pointed a fat finger toward the bay.

“What do you mean?” questioned Clem in perplexity.

“Man in water.”

“The man I helped? Mr. Morgan?”

Twasla’s head nodded twice and then she slid from her chair and ambled into the kitchen leaving an astounded girl to finish her meal.

How could Mr. Morgan have any knowledge of the cruel scars that circled the Indian woman’s arms? Was there any connection between Twasla’s scars and the unexplained remark Dave had made to Mr. Morgan regarding some effort made to scare Dave out?

This problem occupied Clem’s mind for the remainder of the meal. Just as soon as supper was over, Clem went into her bedroom, placed the diamond beneath some clothes in the bureau drawer, set the alarm clock for two-thirty, and lay down with her clothes on. The tide book listed the slack water for three o’clock so she would have several hours of rest before the final adjusting of the tackle that was to swing the sunken launch inward with the rising tide. Within three minutes she was lost in sleep in a dream of a moonlit beach spread with diamonds as large as hen’s eggs.

To the girl it seemed but minutes when the insistent alarm brought her to her feet. She rubbed her drowsy eyes and groped through the hall to the porch. In the faint light diffused from the moon already behind the cliff, the warehouse, wharf, and beach objects took on unfamiliar outlines. The mast lights riding on the quiet bay told of the return of the fishing fleet. Most of the owners had no doubt forsaken their boats for their shacks down the beach. Some, perhaps, bunked board the crafts. Within another hour they would commence preparation for the dawn fishing.

Clem hesitated on the porch steps, wishing she had thought to look up a lantern; for some reason her customary confidence had oozed from her, yet she knew that she would go through with her plan now that so much depended upon it.

As she started down the dark path that led past the Devil’s Swing a sudden sound stopped her in her tracks. Low voices were coming from the direction of the Gypsy. Clem’s heart leaped to a pounding rhythm; she strained her glance through the darkness toward the scene of her afternoon labors. Dimly she made out two blurred figures upon the scow.

Instinctively Clem crouched low beside the Devil’s Swing in the night gloom and tried to make out the words coming from the two vague figures. From the sounds, she judged that the marauders had discovered her plan for floating the Gypsy in shore and were now engaged in tightening the ropes.

“The thieves!” thought the trembling girl. “They’re going to drag the launch into deep water and make their getaway with it. All my work, all my plans for nothing! Oh, if Dave were only here! He would—now just what would he do? Would he rush out and shout an alarm? Would he hurry for aid either up bay to the summer colony, or down to the fishermen’s shacks? One thing sure, he would not lie hidden in this fashion and allow the boat to be taken without a protest.”

Suddenly she turned and started back up the path on her hands and knees, prompted by the remembrance of what stood in the corner of her brother’s room. There was an answer to her questions. She could save her untried launch and her rosy dreams—if she possessed the courage. As she neared the steps she half rose erect and slipped like a shadow into the house.

One minute passed—another—and then she reappeared clutching close an automatic rifle. Clem knew that it was loaded for emergency and she was familiar enough with its mechanism to know that she could spray the scow with a dozen bullets before the thieves could more than collect their thoughts. Now the question that bothered was: Ought she to fire at a human being under the circumstances?

“I’ll warn them,” said Clem grimly to herself, “and if necessary I’ll put a shot or two over their heads. They’ll probably row for dear life—I hope they do—I sure don’t want to capture them.”

“That’s done,” came tones of satisfaction from the figures.

Clem steadied herself against a log, with the rifle ready, and shouted in clear accents: “Get off that scow! I’ll give you one minute before I start shooting.”

There was a startled movement out on the water and an astounded voice answered, “Gosh, Sis, don’t shoot. It’s Tom Trent and Dave—that’s all.”

With a little cry of relief, Clem leaned the rifle against the log and plumped down abruptly. For several moments she sat with her head resting upon her drawn-up knees. Then, as her thoughts ceased their dizzy whirl, she listened to her brother’s remarks as the boat came to shore.

“One of the fishermen who stopped at Wilton on his way back from the Straits offered to bring us down. So we came, instead of waiting for morning. His engine broke down and we’ve spent half the night drifting. Finally he got the engine fixed. We spotted the scow when we got here and wanted to look over your arrangement. When we saw your ropes, we figured we’d save your coming out. Thought we’d tighten them and get back to the house before you showed up.”

“You haven’t met Tom Trent, have you, Sis?” continued Dave, when he and his companion stood beside the log. “Tom decided to check up with me before returning to Seattle. He’s from the Pondeux office, you know, but he didn’t expect to have any powder tried out on him.”

Tom Trent laughed as he took Clem’s extended hand.

“Seems an unhealthy spot for boat thieves, Miss Fargar. I don’t blame you, though, for getting out the firearms, after all the work you must have put in on that sunken launch. Smart plan you have for raising her.”

“Fine, Sis, and it’s all ready now to swing in with the tide. I think you have plenty of lifting power to turn the trick. We’ll have to get out early and unhook the scow so that it won’t be left on top of the Gypsy when the water ebbs again.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re here, Dave,” breathed Clementine; “much obliged to both of you for fixing those ropes. I intend to get up in the morning and get the scow away. My, you gave me an awful scare. I thought I’d shake right out of my shoes when I first heard the sounds out there. I never dreamed of your being here or else I might have recognized your voice.”

“By the way, Clem, did you notice any other unusual noises when you first came out, or before?”

“No, I was dead to the world until the alarm went off. Why?”

“Oh, nothing much; hike on to bed like a good girl. We’ll see you at breakfast.”

Clem tried to decipher her brother’s expression in the faint light, but failed. Whatever it was that had occasioned his query, he apparently did not wish to discuss it at present. So she said good-night and retired to her bedroom. Her last impression, as she plunged off to sleep, was that the light from the living room still penciled a crack at the base of the door and that low voices still came from the young men.