Читать книгу By Bursting Flash Bulbs - Roy J. Snell - Страница 3

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Jimmy Drury stirred in his sleep, then lay on his cot half-awake. His surroundings were strange, perhaps the strangest he had ever known. He realized this only as in a dream. Eyes half-open, he saw a beam of light. Crossed by this beam was a face. Jimmy had never before seen that face. The man was an Oriental, no doubt of that, though he wore a blue shirt and a bright red tie.

Jimmy wondered vaguely why the man was there. On his cot, not an arm’s length away, slept old Tim MacMurray.

Before they fell asleep Jimmy had said to Tim:

“Don’t you lock your cabin before you go to bed?”

Tim had laughed as he exclaimed:

“Bless you no, lad! There’s nothin’ to steal in this cabin. An’ besides, up here in the North there’s not a soul would steal.”

This memory was enough for Jimmy. “Nothing to steal? No one to steal it,” he thought. He looked at the beam of light. The face was gone. Probably one of Tim’s many friends had looked in to see if he were asleep. In this summer land of short nights, or no nights at all, people did things like that. With a sigh of content Jimmy journeyed back to the land of dreams. But his awakening was to be of quite a different nature—not at all happy and peaceful.

Jimmy was far from home, the farthest he had ever been. He had graduated from high school early in the spring. It was still spring in Alaska, five thousand miles from his home. Such is the magic of travel by air.

Jimmy’s uncle, John Drury—“Captain Jack” every one called him—was captain of a small coast guard cutter serving the coast of Alaska. As a graduation present he had arranged the trip for Jimmy from his home in Illinois to Nome, far north in Alaska.

Jimmy was in Nome now, sleeping in Tim’s cabin. Tim spent little time in this cabin. He lived for the most part on a stern-wheel river steamer. The steamer had not traveled a knot in ten years, but that did not matter to Tim. The Sally Ann was still his ship and he was proud of her. Jimmy had met Tim, who had come to Nome in ’97, in a small village below Nome, and had liked him. Tim had come to Nome on Jimmy’s boat. Jimmy had begged permission to come ashore and stay with Tim in his cabin. So here he was. And the strange face had disappeared from the beam of light.

The beam of light came, not from a street lamp, but from real daylight. There was still a short night in Nome, three or four hours long, but that’s not enough for a night’s sleep. So Tim’s windows were darkened, and that beam of light had stolen in from the outside.

Tim’s cabin was a half mile from the edge of the little city. There was nothing to disturb Jimmy, nothing but that face, and it hadn’t disturbed him much. He and Tim slept on.

On board the coast guard cutter Seminole Jimmy’s uncle, Captain Jack, was saying to Louis McCarthy, his able first mate, “I hope Jimmy has not forgotten to mail those letters. They’re rather important, secret government stuff, you know.”

And Louis McCarthy, who seldom made a mistake, said, “He can’t have mailed them yet, sir. The post office is closed.”

“That’s a fact,” the captain agreed.

Just about that time in the cabin on shore Tim MacMurray began to stir. He sat up and looked around. “Still sleepin’!” he murmured, looking at Jimmy. “It’s great to be young. It sure is.”

At that Jimmy too stirred a bit in his bed. Then he sat up.

“Tim,” he said, “did I see some sort of Oriental chap here while you were asleep, or was I dreaming?”

“Dreamin’, you sure was,” said Tim. “There’s been no one here.”

“But you’ve got a friend, an Oriental, or something, for a friend?” Jimmy insisted.

“Never an Oriental,” Tim insisted. “I don’t exactly like ’em.”

“Tim, when does the post office open?” Jimmy’s mind had taken another turn. He sprang out of bed.

“Open right now,” said Tim, reaching for a crock of sourdough batter.

“O.K. I’ll hurry into my clothes and race right down there,” Jimmy said. “Boat sails today. Got some letters to mail for Captain Jack. Should have mailed them last night but the post office—” Jimmy stopped short to dig deep into the pocket of his leather coat.

“Say-ee!” he whispered hoarsely. “Those letters are gone! And they were franked letters, not just stamped. Government messages, that’s what they were. Important. Say, now!” He dropped into a chair. “Now I’m in for it!”

“Look good.” The old man’s brow wrinkled. “Look into all your pockets. You’re foolin’,” said Tim. “Foolin’ yourself, maybe.”

“No.” Jimmy was sure about it. “That man took them. That Oriental.”

“What man? I tell you there wasn’t anybody,” Tim insisted.

“All the same,” said Jimmy after a thorough search, “they’re gone, those letters are gone. And that means no sourdough pancakes for me. I’ve got to get right out to the boat and report.”

“I’ll row you out,” said Tim.

“There’re two pairs of oars. We’ll double up,” Jimmy suggested.

Arrived at the sandy beach they found something of a surf rolling in. By the time they had launched the heavy boat they were both soaked to the skin.

“It—it’s them Orientals,” Tim breathed as he pulled at the oars.

Jimmy made no reply. He was thinking hard. Nor were his thoughts happy ones. How he had anticipated this visit to arctic shores! A whole summer on a coast guard cutter! What a grand experience! And now? Right off the bat he had pulled an unforgivable boner. He had forgotten those letters. Tim’s assurance that there was nothing to steal, and no one to steal it, had disarmed him.

“Nothing to steal!” he exclaimed softly. “Only those letters. But then—” He started, and almost lost an oar. He got out of step and hit Tim’s oar a resounding thwack. Then he recovered his thoughts and resumed his steady pull at the oars.

The question that had struck him all of a heap was “Why would anyone steal those letters?” There was no money in them, he was sure of that. He had seen them sealed. It looked like the work of spies. With a sudden turn his thoughts went back to Chicago, to Peter Grim, the camera shop, the big spy, the little spy, and all the rest. But this was Alaska, five thousand miles away. Were there spies everywhere?

No more time for thinking. They were nearing the cutter. They would have to swing about and try to come in without cracking the ribs of Tim’s boat.

Fifteen minutes later Jimmy was in his uncle’s cabin. The shutters were down, the door fast closed.

“I’m glad you came to me at once, Jimmy.” The slim gray-haired, sun-browned captain greeted them with a smile. “Some boys would have put it off, hoping for a run of luck, believing they would come across the Oriental, or that the letters weren’t really lost. Letters are sometimes lost in the mail. Who would know that these were not? That’s the way they’d reason. And in the end they’d never tell at all. And perhaps no one would be the wiser.

“But, Jimmy”—the captain’s eyes shone—“they’d know! And they’d not soon forget. They’d know that they were cowards. It’s a terrible thing to live with a coward for a long time, Jimmy.” Captain Jack’s voice changed. “The letters are not tremendously important. Perhaps,” he said thoughtfully, “it may have been fortunate that they were lost. Perhaps Lady Luck took a hand.”

“I—I don’t understand,” the boy stammered.

“Of course not.” The captain leaned forward. On his strong, thin, sun-tanned face there was a look of utter seriousness now. “Jimmy, this is the fifth time within a year that our mail has been stolen. In all other cases the theft has been from locked pouches on board ships. But this time it is on land, in a small city. Jimmy,” his voice rose, “could you tell that man if you saw him?”

“I—I think so—you know it’s strange,” the boy went on eagerly, “up here people’s faces seem so—so sort of calm, like—like a smooth sea at dawn.”

“Yes, I understand. People are like that in quiet places,” was his uncle’s reply. “Perhaps that’s the way God intended us all to be.”

“But this man, this Oriental,” Jimmy exclaimed, “he wasn’t like that at all. His face was all tight and tense like—like——”

“Like the men you see in big cities,” his uncle supplemented. “Sort of savage?”

“Yes, like that.”

“Sometimes,” his uncle’s face bore a strange smile, “I think all the real savages live in large cities where people want so many things and have to fight so hard to get them. They fight and fight until their faces grow tense and hard. Up here, well, we’re different, that’s all.

“But this Oriental.” His voice took on a businesslike tone. “I want you to help us get that man. Get that spy. Make that your slogan. If you do that it will be a real service.”

“I—I’d like to,” the boy stammered. “But how?”

“First of all”—Captain Jack rose, “go back into the city and comb the place for Orientals. There are not many of them. Ask to see them all. Demand it, if need be. Look them over. See if you recognize one of them as your man. Then report back to me.”

“Right,” said Jimmy. “I’ll go at once.”

“That’s the stuff. Had your breakfast?” his uncle asked.

“No, but Tim has sourdough pancakes stirred up.”

“Good!” Captain Jack laughed. “They’re good enough for anyone. Hot cakes and bacon. They stick to your ribs. See you later. I wish you luck.” His hand was on the boy’s shoulder as he let him out of the cabin.

“One fine man, that uncle of mine,” Jimmy thought with something very like tears in his eyes.