Blow The Man Down Part 85

She went on toward the widow's cottage. Her head was erect, but there were tears on her cheeks.

XXIX - THE TOILERS OF OLD RAZEE

Hurrah! Hurrah! for Yankee wit.

Hurrah! Hurrah! for Cape Ann grit.

It's pluck and dash that's sure to win--"The _Horton's_ in!

The _Horton's_ in!"

--Old Locality.

Polly Candage, covering her emotions with that mask of demureness which nature lends to the weaker s.e.x for their protection, received a tumultuous Mayo next morning in the parlor of the cottage.

"I don't know how it has happened. I don't understand it," he exploded.

"I didn't suppose anybody could blast money out of his pocket with dynamite--your father said it couldn't be done. But Deacon Rowley has loaned us five thousand dollars. Here's his check on the Limeport First National. Only charges six per cent. I'm so weak it was all I could do to walk up here."

"What did he say to explain it?" inquired Polly, with maiden's curiosity in learning to what extent of prevarication a deacon would go in order to make three hundred dollars.

"Wouldn't say much of anything. Handed out this check, said my indors.e.m.e.nt on it would be enough for a receipt, and said your father and I could sign a joint note later--sometime--when he got around to it. Have you heard any rumor that the old fellow is losing his mind? But this check looks good!"

"Well, I think he's been pondering on the matter since father was here.

In fact, Deacon Rowley has said a few things to me," said the girl, meeting Mayo's gaze frankly. "Not much, of course, but something that hinted he had a lot of confidence in both of you, seeing that you have used him nicely in the other business he has done with you. Sometimes, you know, these hard old Yankees take a liking to somebody and do things all of a sudden."

"This is sudden, all right enough," stated Mayo, scratching the serrated edge of the check across his palm as if to make sure it was real and not a shadow. "Yes, he told me not to mention the note to him till he said something to us about it himself, and to keep quiet about the loan.

Didn't want others running to him with their schemes."

"And if I were in your place," advised the girl, "I wouldn't tell father where you got the money--not for a time. You know, he doesn't get along so very well with Deacon Rowley--old folks sometimes do quarrel so--and he might be worried, thinking the deacon had some scheme behind this.

But you don't think that way, do you?"

"I have the money, and he hasn't asked me to sign any papers. There's no come-back there, far as I can see," declared the young man.

"Now what will you do?"

"Rush for Limeport, hire equipment--for I've cash to pay in advance for any leases--and get to that wreck and on to my job."

"Simply tell father you raised the money--from a friend! If he is worrying about anything, he doesn't work half as well. I'll ask G.o.d to help and bless you every hour in the day."

"Polly Candage," cried Mayo, taking her warm, plump hands, "there's something about you that has put courage and grit and determination in me ever since you patted my shoulder there in the old Polly. I have been thinking it over a lot--I had time to think when I was out aboard that steamer, waiting."

"There's only one girl for you to think about," she chided.

His face clouded. "And it's the kind of thinking that isn't healthy for a man with a normal mind. Thank the Lord, I've got some real work to think about now--and the cash to do that work with." He fondled his pocket.

She went with him to the wharf, and when the schooner slid to sea behind Hue and Cry her white handkerchief gave him final salute and silent G.o.d-speed.

Captain Boyd Mayo, back in Limeport once more, was not the cowed, apologetic, pleading suppliant who had solicited the water-front machinists and ship-yard owners a few days before. He proffered no checks for them to look askance at. He pulled a wallet that was plethoric with new yellowbacks. He showed his money often, and with a purpose. He drove sharp bargains while he held it in view. He received offers of credit in places where before he had been denied. Such magic does visible wealth exert in the dealings between men!

He did not come across Fletcher Fogg in Limeport, and he was glad of that. Somebody informed him that the magnate had gone back to New York.

It was manifest to Mayo that in his contempt Fogg had decided that the salvaging of the _Conomo_ intact had been relegated to the storehouse of dreams. His purpose would be suited if she were junked, so the young man realized. Only the _Conomo_ afloat, a successful pioneer in new transportation experiments alongcoast, would threaten his vested interests.

There had been wintry winds and intervening calms in the days since Mayo had been prosecuting his projects ash.o.r.e. But by word of mouth from straying fishermen and captains of packets he had been a.s.sured that the steamer still stuck on Razee.

And when at last he was equipped he went forth from Limeport; he went blithely, although he knew that a t.i.tan's job faced him. He kept his own counsel as to what he proposed to do with the steamer. He even allowed the water-front gossips to guess, unchallenged, that he was going to junk the wreck. He was not inviting more of that brazen hostility that characterized the operations of Fogg and his hirelings.

He was at the wheel of a husky lighter which he had chartered; the rest of the crew he supplied from his own men. The lighter was driven by its own power, and carried a good pump and a st.u.r.dy crane; its decks were loaded high with coal. The schooner was now merely convoy. It was an all-day trip to Razee, for the lighter was a slow and clumsy craft, but when Mayo at last made fast to the side of the _Conomo_ and squealed a shrill salute with the whistle, the joy he found in Captain Candage's rubicund countenance made amends for anxiety and delay.

"I knew you'd make a go of it, somehow," vouchsafed the old skipper.

"But who did you have to knock down in a dark place so as to steal his money off'n him?"

"That's private business till we get ready to pay it back, with six per cent, interest," stated the young man, bluntly.

"Oh, very well. So long as we've got it I don't care where you stole it," returned Candage, with great serenity. "I simply know that you didn't get it from skinflint Rowley, and that's comfort enough for me.

Let me tell you that we haven't been loafing on board here. We rigged that taakul you see aloft, and jettisoned all the cargo we could get at. It was all spoiled by the water. There's pretty free s.p.a.ce for operations 'midships. I've got out all her spare cable, and it's ready."

"And you've done a good job there, sir. We've got to make this lighter fast alongside in such a way that a blow won't wreck her against us.

Spring cables--plenty of them--and we are sailors enough to know how to moor. But when I think of what amateurs we are in the rest of this job, cold shivers run over me."

"That Limeport water-front crowd got at you, too, hey?"

"Captain Candage, I have watched men more or less in this life. It's sometimes a mighty big handicap for a man to be too wise. While the awfully wise man sits back and shakes his head and figures prospects and says it can't be done, the fool rushes in, because he doesn't know any better, and blunders the job through and wins out. Let's keep on being fools, good and plenty, but keep busy just the same."

And on that basis the rank amateurs of Razee proceeded with all the grit that was in them.

The men of Hue and Cry had plenty of muscle and little wit. They asked no questions, they did not look forward gioomily to doubtful prospects.

The same philosophy, or lack of it, that had always made life full of merry hope when their stomachs were filled, taking no thought of the morrow, animated them now. Fate had given Mayo and his a.s.sociate an ideal crew for that parlous job. It was not a question of union hours and stated wages; they worked all night just as cheerily as they worked all day.

An epic of the sea was lived there on Razee Reef during the weeks that followed.

The task which was wrought out would make a story in itself, far beyond the confines of such a narrative as this must be.

Bitter toil of many days often proved to be a sad mistake, for the men who wrought there had more courage in endeavor than good understanding of methods.

Then, after disappointment, hope revived, for further effort avoided the mistakes that had been so costly.

The brunt of the toil, the duty of being pioneer, fell on Mayo.

He donned a diving-suit and descended into the riven bowels of the wreck and cleared the way for the others.

On deck they built sections of bulkhead, and he went down and groped in the murky water, and spiked the braces and set those sections and calked the s.p.a.ces between bulkhead and hull.

There were storms that menaced their lighter and drove the little schooner to sea in a welter of tempest.

There were calms that cheered them with promise of spring.

The schooner was the errand-boy that brought supplies and coal from the main. But the men who went ash.o.r.e refused to gossip on the water-front, and the occasional craft that hove to in the vicinity of Razee were not allowed to land inquisitive persons on the wreck.

After many weeks the bulkheads were set and the pumps were started.