Читать книгу The Merry Anne - Samuel Merwin - Страница 7

“Now, keep cool, Dick. Roche, you see, used to work for him,—I don't know but what they're related,—and it was because the Cap'n spoke to me about him that I recommended him to you when I did. And look here, Dick,”—Henry smiled as he laid a hand on his cousin's shoulder,—“I'm a good deal older than you are, and you can take my word for it. Don't get sour on things. Of course people will do you if they can; but it's human nature, and you can't change it by growling about it. You are doing well, and what you need now is to keep your eyes open and your mouth shut. Why should you want to hurry things along?”

A flush came over Dick's face. “There's a reason all right enough. You see, Henry, there's a little girl not so very many miles from here—”

“Oho!” thought Henry, “a little girl!” But his face was immobile, excepting a momentary curious expression that passed over it.

“Now don't get to thinking it's all fixed up, because it isn't—not yet. But you see, I've been thinking that when I've got a little something to offer—”

“There's another thing you can take my word for, my boy,” said Henry, with a dry smile; “don't get impetuous. Marrying may be all right, but it wants to be done careful.”

Captain Stenzenberger's lumber yard was a few miles away, at the Chicago city limits. As the two sailors left the pier to walk up to the railway station, Dick was glad to change the subject for the first one that came into his head. “What do you suppose the Foote has been doing here this week, Dick? I heard she put in Tuesday or Wednesday.”

“Looking for Whiskey Jim, I suppose.”

“Oh, are they on that track again?”

“Haven't you seen the papers?”

“No—not for more than a week.”

“Well, it's quite a yarn. From what has been said, I rather guess it's the liquor dealers that are stirring it up this time. There is a story around that he has been counterfeiting the red-seal label on their bottles. I think they're all off the track, though. Anybody could tell 'em that there's no such man. Every time a case of smuggling comes up, the papers talk about 'Whiskey Jim,' no matter if it's up at the straits or down on the St. Lawrence.”

“But what's the trouble now?”

“Oh, they're saying that this fellow is a rich man that has a big smuggling system with agents all around the Lakes and dealers in the cities that are in his pay,—sort of a smuggling trust.”

“Sounds like a fairy story.”

“That's about what it is. The regular dealers have taken up the fight to protect their trade, and one or two of the papers in particular have put reporters on the case, and all that sort of thing. And as usual they're announcing just what they've done and what they're going to do. The old Foote is to make a tour of the Lakes, and look into every port. And if there is any Whiskey Jim, I 'll bet he's somewhere over in Canada by this time, reading the papers and laughing at 'em.” Captain Stenzenberger was seated in his swivel chair in his dingy little one-story office at the corner of the lumber yard. His broad frame was overloaded with flesh. His paunch seemed almost to rest on his thighs as he sat there, chewing an unlighted cigar in the corner of his mouth,—a corner that had been moulded around the cigar by long habit and that looked incomplete when the cigar was not there. His fat neck—the fatter for a large goitre—was wider than his cheeks, and these again were wider than his forehead, so that his head seemed to taper off from his shoulders. A cropped mustache, a tanned, wrinkled face and forehead, and bright brown eyes completed the picture. When his two captains came in, he rested his pudgy hands on the arms of his chair, readjusted his lips around the cigar, and nodded. “How are you, boys?” said he, in a husky voice. “Have a good trip?” This last remark was addressed to Dick.

“First part was bad, but it cleared up later.”

“Did you put right out into that storm from Manistee?”

“Yes—you see I had the wind behind me all the way down. Got to get a new small boat, though.”

The “Captain” did not press the subject. In return for the privilege of buying the schooner by instalments he permitted Dick to pay for the insurance, so the young man could be as reckless as he liked.

Dick now explained that he had come to make a payment, and the transaction was accomplished.

“Step over and have a drink, boys,” was the next formality; and the two stood aside while Stenzenberger got his unwieldy body out of the chair, put on his hat, and led the way out.

Adjoining the lumber yard on the west was a small frame building, bearing the sign, “The Teamster's Friend.” It had been set down here presumably to catch the trade of the market gardeners who rumbled through in the small hours of every morning. In the rear, backed up against a lumber pile, was a long shed where the teams could wait under cover while their drivers were carousing within. A second sign, painted on the end of this shed, announced that Murphy and McGlory were the proprietors of the “sample room and summer garden.” The three men entered, and seated themselves at a table. There was no one behind the bar at the moment, but soon a woman glanced in through the rear doorway.

Stenzenberger smiled broadly on her, and winked. “How d' do, Madge,” he said. “Can't you give us a little something with a smile in it,—one o' your smiles maybe now?”

She was a tall woman, with a full figure and snapping eyes,—attractive, in spite of a crow's-foot wrinkle or so. She returned the smile, wearily, and said, “I 'll call Joe, Mr. Stenzenberger.”

“You needn't do that now, Madge. Draw it with those pretty hands of yours, there's a dear.”

So she came in behind the bar, wiping her hands on her apron, and quietly awaited their orders.

“What 'll it be, boys?”

Dick suggested a glass of beer, but Henry smiled and shook his head. “You might make it ginger ale for me.”

“I don't know what to do with that cousin of yours,” said Stenzenberger to Dick. “He's a queer one. I don't like to trust a man that's got no vices. What are your vices, anyhow, Smiley?”

Henry smiled again. “Ask Dick, there. He ought to know all about me.”

Stenzenberger looked from one to the other; then he raised his foaming glass, and with a “Prosit” and a stiff German nod, he put it down at a gulp.

“Been reading about the revenue case?” Henry asked of his superior.

“I saw something this morning.”

“I've been quite interested in it. Billy Boynton told me yesterday that they had searched his schooner. It's a wonder they haven't got after us if they're holding up fellows like him. Do you think they 'll ever get this Whiskey Jim, Cap'n?”

“No, they talk too much. And they couldn't catch a mud-scow with that old side-wheeler of theirs.”

“Guess that's right. The Foote must have started in here before the Michigan, and she's thirty years old if she's a day. The boys are all talking about it down at the city. I dropped around at the Hydrographic Office after I saw Billy, and found two or three others that had been hauled over. It seems they've stumbled on a pipe-line half built under the Detroit River near Wyandotte, and there's been a good deal of excitement. There's capital behind it, you see; and a little capital does wonders with those revenue men.”

Stenzenberger was showing symptoms of readiness to return to his desk, but Henry, who rarely grew reminiscent, was now fairly launched.

“They can't get an effective revenue system, because they make it too easy for a man to get rich. It's like the tax commissioners and the aldermen and the legislators,—when you put a man where he can rake off his pile, month after month, without there being any way of checking him up, look out for his morals. And where they're all in it together, no one dares squeal. It's a good deal like the railway conductors.

“You remember last year when the Northeastern Road laid off all but two or three of its old conductors for stealing fares? Well, it wasn't a month afterward that one of the 'honest' ones came to me and hired the Schmidt to carry a twelve-hundred-dollar grand piano up to Milwaukee, where he lives. He had reasons of his own for not wanting to ship by rail. No, sir, it wouldn't be hard for me to have sympathy with an honest thief that goes in and runs his chances of getting shot or knocked on the head,—that calls for some nerve,—but these fellows that put up a bluff as lawmakers and policemen and revenue officers and then steal right and left—deliver me!”

“Well, boys, I guess I 'll have to step back. I'm a busy man, you know. Have another before we go?”

“One minute, Cap'n,” said Dick. “There's something I want to talk over with you, if you can spare the time.”

Stenzenberger sat down again. Henry, whose outbreak against the evils of society had stirred up, apparently, some pet feeling of bitterness, now sat moodily looking at the table.

“It's about Roche, Cap'n,” Dick went on. “I had to leave him at Manistee.”

“Why?”

“He drinks too much for me—I couldn't depend on him a minute. He bummed around up there, and got himself too shaky to be any use to me.”

Stenzenberger, with expressionless face, chewed his cigar. “What did you do for a mate?”

“Came down without one.”

“Have you found a man yet?”

“No—haven't tried. I thought you might have some one you could suggest.”

“I don't know. You 'll want to be starting up to Spencer's place in a day or so.” He chewed his cigar thoughtfully for a moment, then dropped his voice. “There's a man right here you might be able to use. Do you know McGlory?”

“No.”

“You do, Henry?”

“Yes, he was my mate for a year.”

“Well,” said Dick, “any man that suited Henry for a year ought to suit me.”

“You 'll find him a good, reliable man,” responded Henry, in an undertone. “He has a surly temper, but he knows all about a schooner.”

“Well,—if he's anywhere around here now, we could fix it right up.”

Stenzenberger looked around. The woman had slipped out. “Madge,” he called; “Madge, my dear.”

She entered as quietly as before.

“Come in, my dear. You know Cap'n Smiley, don't you?”

No, she didn't.

“That's a fact. He's never seen in sample rooms. He sets up to be better than the rest of us; but I say, look out for him. And here's his cousin, another Cap'n Smiley, the handsomest man on the Lakes.” Dick blushed at this. “Sit down a minute with us.”

She shook her head, and waited for him to come to the point.

“Where's that man of yours, my dear? Is he anywhere around?”

“What is it you want of him?”

“I want him to know our young man here. I think they're going to like each other. You tell him we want to see him.”

She hesitated; then with a suspicious glance around the group left the room.

In a moment McGlory appeared, a short, heavy-set man with high cheek-bones, a low, sloping forehead, and a curling black mustache. He nodded to Stenzenberger and Henry, and glanced at Dick.

“Joe,” said the lumber merchant, “shake hands with Cap'n Dick Smiley. He's the best sailor between here and Buffalo, and the only trouble with him is we can't get a mate good enough for him. A man's got to know his business to sail with Dick Smiley. Ain't that so, Henry?”

“I guess that's right.”

“And Henry tells me you're the man that can do it.”

This pleasantry had no visible effect on McGlory. He was looking Dick over.

“I don't know about that, Cap'n. I promised Madge I'd give up the Lake for good.”

“The Cap'n here,” pursued Stenzenberger, “is going to start to-morrow or next day for Spencer, to take on a load of timber and shingles.” His small brown eyes were fixed intently on the saloon keeper as he talked. “And I think we 'll have to keep him running up there for a good part of the summer. Queer character, that Spencer,” he added, addressing Dick. “He has lived all his life up there in the pines. They say he was a squatter—never paid a cent for his land. But he has been there so many years now, I guess any one would have trouble getting him out. He has got an idea that his timber's better than anybody else's. He cuts it all with an old-fashioned vertical saw, and stamps his mark on every piece.”

“Why should it be any better?”

“I don't know that it is, though he selects it carefully. The main thing is, he sells it dirt cheap,—has to, you know, to stand any show against the big companies. He's so far out of the way, no boats would take the trouble to run around there if he didn't. Well, McGlory, we've got a good thing to offer you. You can drop in here once a week or so, you know, to see how things are running. Come over to the office with us and we 'll settle the terms.” Stenzen-berger was rising as he spoke.

“Well, I don't know. I couldn't come over for a few minutes, Cap'n.”

“How soon could you?”

“About a quarter of an hour.”

“All right, we 'll be looking for you. Here, give me half a dozen ten cent straights while I'm here.”

McGlory walked to the door with them, and stood for a moment looking after them.

When he turned and pushed back through the swinging inner doors, he found Madge standing by the bar awaiting him, one hand held behind her, the other clenched at her side, her eyes shooting fire.

He paused, and looked at her without speaking.

“So you are going back to the Lake?” she said, everything about her blazing with anger except her voice—that was still quiet.

He was silent.

“Well, why don't you answer me?”

“What's all this fuss about, Madge? I haven't gone yet.”

“Don't try to put me off. Have you told them you would go back?”

“I haven't told 'em a thing. I'm going around in a minute to see the Cap'n, and we 'll talk it over then.”

“And you have forgotten what you promised me?”

“No, I ain't forgot nothing. Look here, there ain't no use o' getting stagy about this. I ain't told him I 'll do it. I don't believe I will do it.”

“Why should you want to, Joe? Aren't you happy here? Aren't you making more money than you ever did on the Lake?”

“Why, of course.”

“Then why not stay here?”

“There's only this about it,” he replied, leaning against the bar, and speaking in an off-hand manner; “Stenzenberger offers me the chance to do both. I could be in here every few days—see you most as much as I do now in a busy season—and make the extra pay clear.”

“Oh, that's why you have been thinking you might do it?”

“Well, that's the only thing about it that—” He was wondering what was in her other hand. “You see, I can't afford to get the Cap'n down on me.”

“You can't? I should think he would be the one that couldn't afford—”

“Now see here, Madge.” He stepped up to her, and would have slipped his arm around her waist, but she eluded him. “I guess I 'll go over and see what he has to offer, and then I 'll come back, and you and me can talk it all over and see if we think—”

“If we think!” she burst out. “Do you take me for a fool, Joe McGlory? Do you think for a minute I don't know why you want to go—and why you mean to go? Look at that!” She produced a photograph of a pretty, foolish young woman, and read aloud the inscription on the back, “To Joe, from Estelle.”

An ugly look came into his eye. “I wouldn't get excited about that kiddishness if I was you.”

“So you call it kiddishness, do you, and at your age?”

“Well, so long now, Madge. I 'll be back in a few minutes.”

“Joe—wait—don't go off like that. Tell me that don't mean anything! Tell me you aren't ever going to see her again!”

“Sure, there's nothing in it.”

“And you won't see her?”

“Why, of course I won't see her. She ain't within five hundred miles of here. I don't know where she is.”

“You 'll promise me that?”

“You don't need to holler, Madge. I can hear you. Somebody's likely to be coming in any minute, and what are they going to think?” He passed out into the back room, and she followed him.

“How soon will you be back, Joe?” She saw that he was putting on his heavy jacket—heavier than was needed to step over to the lumber office.

“Just a minute—that's all.”

“And you won't promise them anything?”

“Why, sure I won't. I wouldn't agree to anything before you'd had a look at it.”

He watched her furtively; and she stood motionless, trembling a little, ready at the slightest signal to spring into his arms. But he reached for his hat and went out.

She stood there, still motionless, until his step sounded on the front walk; then she ran upstairs and knelt by the window that overlooked the yards. She saw him enter the office. A few moments, and the two men who had been with Stenzenberger came out and walked away. A half-hour, and still Joe was in there with the lumber merchant. An hour—and then finally he appeared, glanced back at the saloon, and walked hurriedly around the corner out of sight. And she knew that he had slipped away from her. The photograph was still in her hand, and now she looked at it again, scornfully, bitterly.

A man entered the saloon below, and she did not hear him until he fell to whistling a music-hall tune. At something familiar in the sound a peculiar expression came over her face, and she threw the picture on the floor and hurried down. When she entered the sample room, her eyes were reckless.

The man was young, with the air of the commercial traveller of the better sort. He was seated at one of the tables, smoking a cigarette. His name was William Beveridge, but he passed here by the name of Bedloe.

“Hello, Madge,” he said; “what's the matter—all alone here?”

“Yes; Mr. Murphy's down town.”

“And McGlory—where's he?”

“He's out too.”

He looked at her admiringly. Indeed, she was younger and prettier, for the odd expression of her eyes.

“Well, I'm in luck.”

“Why?” she asked, coming slowly to the opposite side of the table and leaning on the back of a chair.

But in gazing at her he neglected to reply. “By Jove, Madge,” he broke out, “do you know you're a beauty?”

She flushed and shook her head. Then she slipped down into the chair, and rested her elbows on the table.

“You're the hardest person to forget I ever knew.”

“I guess you have tried hard enough.”

“No—I couldn't get round lately—I've been too busy. Anyhow, what was the use? If I had thought I stood any show of seeing you, I would have come or broken something. But there was always Murphy or McGlory around.” He could not tell her his real object in coming, nor in avoiding the two proprietors, who had watched him with suspicion from the first. “Do you know, this is the first real chance you've ever given me to talk to you?”

“How did I know you wanted to?”

“Oh, come, Madge, you know better than that. How could anybody help wanting to? But”—he looked around—“are we all right here? Are we likely to be disturbed?”

“Why, no, not unless a customer comes in.”

“Isn't there another room out back there where we can have a good talk?”

She shook her head slowly, with her eyes fixed on his face. And he, of course, misread the flush on her cheek, the dash of excitement in her eyes. And her low reply, too, “We'd better stay here,” was almost a caress. He leaned eagerly over the table, and said in a voice as low as hers: “When are you going to let me see you? There's no use in my trying to stay away—I couldn't ever do it. I'm sure to keep on coming until you treat me right—or send me away. And I don't believe that would stop me.”

“Aren't you a little of an Irishman, Mr. Bedloe?”

“Why?”

She smiled, with all a woman's pleasure in conquest. “Why haven't you told me any of these things before?”

“How could I? Now, Madge, any minute somebody's likely to come in. I want you to tell me—can you ever get away evenings?”

“Of course I can, if I want to.”

“To-morrow?”

“Why?”

“There's going to be a dance in the pavilion at St. Paul's Park. Do you ride a wheel?” She nodded.

“It's a first-rate ride over there. There's a moon now, and the roads are fine. Have you ever been there?”

“No.”

“It's out on the north branch—only about a four-mile run from here. We can start out, say, at five o'clock, and take along something to eat. Then, if we don't feel like dancing, we can take a boat and row up the river.”

She rested her chin on her hands, and looked at him with a half smile. “Do you really mean all this, Mr. Bedloe?”

For reply, he reached over and took both her hands. “Will you go?”

“Don't do that, please. Do you know how old I am?”

“I don't care. What do you say?”

“Please don't. I hear some one.”

“No, it's a wagon. I want you to say yes.”

“You—you know what it would mean if—if—”

“If McGlory—Yes, I know. You're not afraid?”

Her face hardened for an instant at this, and then, as suddenly, softened. “No,” she said; “I'm not afraid of anything.”

“And you 'll go?”

She nodded.

“Shall I come here?”

“No, you'd better not.”

“Where shall we meet?”

“Oh—let me see—over just beyond the station. It's quiet there.”

“All right. And I 'll get a lunch put up.”

“No—it's easier for me to do that. I 'll bring something. And now go—please.”

He rose, and slipped around the table toward her. .

“Don't—you must go.”

And so he went, leaving her to gaze after him with a high color.