Blow The Man Down: A Romance Of The Coast
“I've done my trick here, Captain Candage, and it has been a good one.
I only ask you to take your trick, as a shipmate should. Keep a dozen of
the men here with you. There's plenty of grub. Stand off all comers till
I get back.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Make a man's try, sir, before I let 'em dump us. We can always go
fishing. But there's only one_ Conomo_.”
“I'll stay. It's only fair to you to have your chance ashore. And I've
got an almighty good rifle aboard that schooner,” stated the skipper.
“Send it to me by one of the men.”
“You may need it,” stated Captain Mayo, with grim set to his jaw. “You
come with me. I want to show you a bird that flew aboard here the other
day.”
Outside the stateroom door he halted Captain Candage, who was following
on his heels, taking Mayo's statement literally, and showing only mild
interest.
“Captain Candage, your man, Art Simpson, is in this stateroom. He came
out here on a tug with a bag of dynamite, and intended to blow up this
wreck.”
“Gawd-a-mighty, ain't they going to stop at anything?” croaked the old
skipper.
“It's about time for us to find out how much of this is reckless
devilishness on the part of hired men and how much the big men really
know of what is being done on this coast, sir. And that's why I'm
holding this man Simpson.”
“Let me at him!” pleaded Candage. “I'll crack his shell for him! I'll
get at his meat!”
Mayo unlocked the door and walked in.
“Simpson, you--” bawled the old skipper, and then halted in confusion,
his mouth wide open.
“This ain't Art Simpson!” he declared, after amazed survey of the
glowering stranger. “Who be ye?”
“None of your infernal business! When you do know who I am you'll
discover that you have a tough proposition on your hands.”
“We realize that already, without knowing your name,” retorted Mayo.
“I'm not worrying; it's for you to do the worrying! I have given you
your warning! Now take what's coming to you from the men who are behind
me.”
“What's your name--that's what I've asked you?” demanded Candage.
“None of your business--that's what I have told you.”
“We'll get some light on that subject after I have you on shore,” said
Mayo. “Come on! You're going!”
“Sooner the better!” agreed the stranger. “I'll relish seeing you get
yours!”
Mayo wasted no time. He sent his prisoner down the ladder to the dory
ahead of him, and put out his hand to the old skipper.
“If I can't do better I'll take that devil, whoever he is, by the heels,
and bat out the brains of the other pirates.”
“I reckon that they'll back down when they, see that you've caught him
foul,” stated the skipper, consolingly. “I've got a lot of confidence
in your grit, sir. But I must say it's a terrible tricky gang we're up
against, so it seems to me.”
“This may be just the right string for us to pull,” returned Mayo;
“there's no pleading with them, but we may be able to scare 'em.”
“I'm afraid I'm too much inclined to look on the dark side,” confessed
Captain Candage. “You're going to find 'em all agin' ye ashore, sir.
But the last words my Polly tells me to say to you was to keep up your
courage and not to mind my growling. She thinks We have got a sure thing
here--and that shows how little a girl knows about men's work!”
And yet, that one little message of good cheer from the main so
comforted Mayo that he went on his way with the whimsical thought that
girls who knew just the right time to give a pat and bestow a smile did
understand man's work mighty well.
XXVIII ~ GIRL'S HELP AND MAN'S WORK
We know the tricks of wind and tide
That make and mean disaster,
And balk 'em, too, the Wren and me,
Off on the Old Man's Pastur'.
Day out and in the blackfish there
Go wabbling out and under,
And nights we watch the coasters creep
From light to light in yonder.
--The Skipper.
It was the period of January calms--that lull between the tempest
ravings of the equinoxes, and the _Ethel and May_ made slow time of it
on her return to the main. In Mayo's mood of anxious impatience, hope in
his affairs was as baffling as the winds in the little schooner's sails.
His passenger sat on the rail and gave the pacing captain occasional
glances in which irony and sullenness were mingled.
“So you're going to put me into court, eh?” he inquired, when at last
they drifted past the end of the breakwater at Limeport. “Well, that
will give you a good excuse for throwing up your work on that wreck.”
Mayo kept on walking and did not reply. He had been pondering on the
question of what to do with this new “elephant” on his hands. In a way,
this stranger was an unwieldy proposition to handle in conjunction with
the problem of the _Conomo_.
“Just understand that I don't give a hoot in a scuttlebutt if you do
turn me over to the police,” pursued the man. “I'm going to be taken
care of. So will you! You'll be tied up! Courts like to have chief
witnesses attend strictly to the job.”
The young man had only a sailor's vague knowledge of the procedure of
courts of law; but that knowledge and considerable hearsay had convinced
him that law was lagging, exacting, and overbearing.
All his time, his best efforts, his presence were needed in the gigantic
task he had undertaken at Razee. To allow himself to be mired in a law
scrape together with this person, even in criminal prosecution of the
man, surely meant delay, along with repeated interruption of his work,
if not its abandonment for a time.
“Where's your boss?” he demanded, stopping in front of the prisoner.
“Name, please?”
“Don't try to bluff me. Fogg, I mean!”
“You'll probably find Mr. Fogg at the Nicholas Hotel.”
“I'm going to walk you up there. If you try to run away--”
“Run your Aunt Huldah! Piff, son! Now you're showing sense. Take me to
Mr. Fogg. You'll be shown a few things.”
They had no difficulty in finding Mr. Fogg. He was in front of the fire
in the office of the Nicholas, toasting his back and warming his slowly
fanning palms, and talking to a group of men.
He affected non-recognition of Mayo when the young man asked, brusquely,
if he might see him in private.
“Certainly, sir. And your friend?”
“Yes.”
The stranger, following up the stairs with Mayo, nudged his companion.
“He's a wonder! 'And your friend?'” he quoted with a chuckle. “No coarse
work about that!”
Mayo had firmly decided in his mind that his present business was the
only matter he would discuss with Fletcher Fogg. Even though the just
wrath of an innocent man, ruined and persecuted, prompted him to assail
this smug trickster with tongue, and even with fists, he bound himself
by mental promise to wait until he had proofs other than vague words and
his own convictions.
“And now--” invited Fogg, when he had closed the door of his room,
waiting tmtil his callers had entered.
“Yes, _now!_” blurted Captain Mayo. “Not _then_, Mr. Fogg! We'll have
that settled later, when I make you pay for what you did to me. This
man here, you know him, of course! He tried to dynamite the _Conomo_.
I caught him in the act. He is your man. He has made his boasts that he
would be protected.”
Mr. Fogg turned a cold stare upon the man's appreciative grin.
“I never saw this person before, sir.”
“I know better!” Mayo leaped to a conclusion, and bluffed. “I can prove
by men here in this city that you have been talking with him.”
“He may have been one of the persons who came to me asking for work on
the wreck, providing my concern decided to salvage. But we concluded
not to undertake the work, and I paid no attention to him. As far as any
memory of mine is concerned, I never saw him before, I say.”
“You don't represent any salvage company,” insisted Mayo. “You have come
here to interfere with anybody who tries to salvage that steamer.”
“What is your business with me, sir? Get somewhere!”
“I have come to show you this man. If you'll keep your hands off my
affairs, shut your mouth, and stop telling men here that the plan to
salvage is hopeless, I'll turn this man over to you. You know what I
ought to do to you right here and now, Fogg,” he cried, savagely. “But
I'm not going to bother--not now. I'm here to trade with you on this one
matter.”
“I'm not interested.”
“Then I shall take this man to the police station and lodge my
complaint. When criminal prosecution starts you'll see what happens to
you.”
“Go as far as you like,” consented Mr. Fogg, listlessly. “You can't make
me responsible for the acts of a person I don't know from Adam.”
“Is that your last word?”
“Of course it is!” snapped the promoter. “You must be a lunatic to think
anything else.”
“Very well. May I use your telephone to call the police?”
“Certainly.” Mr. Fogg lighted a cigar and picked up a newspaper.
“Just a moment before you use that 'phone,” objected the third member
of the party. “I want an understanding. You please step out of the room,
Mayo.”
“Stay where you are,” commanded Fogg. “I'll give no chance for any
underhand work.” He scowled when the prisoner winked at him. “This looks
to me like a put-up job between you two.”
“There's nothing put up between us,” declared the man. “There'd better
be something put up between _you_ two. The thing can go about so far,
where I'm concerned, and no farther. I want an understanding, I say!”
Fogg slapped open the pages of his newspaper.
“I have made my talk,” said Mayo.
“By gad, I'm not going to jail--not for anybody!”
Fogg removed his eye-glasses and gave the man a full, unblinking stare.
“Did you try to dynamite that wreck?”
“Is that orders--orders to talk right out?”
“Orders? I don't know what you mean, sir. I have asked you a plain
question.”
“And you want an answer?”
“Naturally.”
“What I tried to do didn't work--he was too quick for me. There, now,
get together! He has made you a fair offer, Mr. Fogg. There's no need of
my going to jail. I won't go!”
“You ought to go, for what you did!” commented Fogg, dryly.
“No, for what he didn't do--from your standpoint,” suggested Captain
Mayo.
“And you have been boasting, eh?” Fogg kept up his disconcerting stare,
with fishy eyes.
“I ain't going to let men walk over me and wipe their feet on me when
I'm obeying orders.”
“Orders from whom, sir?”
“Condemn it all, orders from men who can protect me by saying one word!
I ain't going to stand all this riddle-come-ree business! Flat down,
now, Mr. Fogg, what say?”
“Not a word! If what this fellow says is true, you ought to be in jail.”
“The advice is good. He'll be there very soon,” declared Mayo, starting
for the telephone. Fogg replaced his eye-glasses and began to read.
“I'm ready to blow up!” warned the man. He hurried across the room and
guarded the telephone with outspread arms.
“Both of you will be sorry if the police are called,” he cried. To Mayo,
who was close to him, he mumbled, “Damn him, if he dumps me like this
you're going to be the winner!”
There was so much reality in the man's rancor that Mayo was impressed
and seized upon the idea which came to him.
“We'll test your friend,” he whispered, clutching the man, and making
pretense of a struggle. “I'll fake a call. Keep wrestling.”
Fogg gave only indifferent attention to the affair in the corner of the
room.
With one hand holding down the receiver-arm Mayo called; he was
pushed about violently, but managed to say: “Desk? Call police to
hotel--lobby--at once!”
“Mr. Fogg,” pleaded the man, giving Mayo an understanding nudge with his
elbow, “ain't you going to give me a chance for a private talk?”
“If you ever speak to me or try to see me again I'll have you arrested.”
“But you're dumping me.”