Rick Dale, A Story of the Northwest Coast Part 10

"Yes, of course. Look out! Catch this line."

The end of a rope came whizzing over the boat, and Alaric, catching it, held on tightly. He was seated on the middle thwart, and the moment a strain came on the line the boat turned broadside to it, heeled until water began to pour in over her gunwale, and Alaric, unable to hold on an instant longer, let go his hold.

He heard an exclamation of "Thundering lubber!" in Captain Duff's voice, and then the sloop was again lost to sight.

Again Alaric was in despair, though he could still hear the shouting of orders and a confused slatting of sails. After a little the sloop was put about, and a shouting to determine the locality of the drifting boat was recommenced. Still it seemed to Alaric a tedious while before she approached him for a second time, and Bonny once more sung out to him to stand by and catch a line.

"Make it fast in the bow this time," he called, as he flung the coil of rope.

Again Alaric succeeded in catching it, and, obeying instructions, he scrambled into the bow of the boat, where he knelt and clung to the line for dear life, not knowing how to make it fast.

In a moment there came a jerk that very nearly pulled him overboard; and the boat, with its bow low in the water from his weight, while its stern was in the air, took a wild sheer to one side. Again water poured in until she was nearly swamped, and again was the line torn from Alaric's grasp.

"You blamed idiot!" roared Captain Duff. "You don't desarve to be saved!

I'll give ye just one more try, and ef you don't fetch the sloop that time we'll leave ye to navigate on your own hook."

As the previous manoeuvres were repeated for a third time, poor Alaric, sitting helplessly in his waterlogged dinghy, shivered with apprehension. How could he hold on to that cruel line that seemed only fitted to drag him to destruction? This time it took longer to find him, and he was hoa.r.s.e with shouting before the _Fancy_ again approached.

"He don't know enough to do anything with a line, Cap'n Duff," said Bonny. "So if you'll throw the sloop into the wind and heave her to, I'll bring the boat alongside."

With this, and without waiting for an answer, the plucky young sailor, who had already divested himself of most of his clothing, sprang into the black waters and swam towards the vaguely discerned boat. In another minute he had gained her, clambered in, and was asking the amazed occupant for the other oar.

"It's lost overboard," replied Alaric, gloomily, feeling that the case was now more desperate than ever. "Oh, Bonny! Why--?"

"Never mind," cried the other, cheerily. "I can scull, and that will answer just as well as rowing. Perhaps better, for I can see where we are headed."

Alaric had deemed it impossible to propel a boat with a single oar; but now, to his amazement, Bonny sculled the dinghy ahead almost as rapidly as he could have rowed. The sloop was out of sight, but the flapping of her sails could be plainly heard, and five minutes later the young mate laid his craft alongside.

Captain Duff was too angry for words, and fortunately too busy in getting his vessel on her course to pay any attention just then to the lad whose awkwardness and ignorance had caused all this trouble and delay.

"Skip for'ard," said Bonny, in a low tone, "and I'll come directly."

As Alaric, with a thankful heart, obeyed this injunction, he marvelled at the size and steadiness of the sloop, and wondered how he could ever have thought her small or unstable.

A few minutes later Bonny, only half dressed, joined him, and said, "If you'll lend me your trousers, old man, you can turn in for the rest of the night, and I'll stand your watch; mine are too wet to put on just yet, and I think you'll be safer below than on deck, anyway."

Like a person in a dream, and without asking one of the many questions suggesting themselves, Alaric obeyed. Earlier in that most eventful day he had regarded that dark and stuffy forecastle with disgust, and vowed he would never sleep in it. Now, as he snuggled shivering between the blankets of the first mate's own bunk, it seemed to him one of the coziest, warmest, and most comfortable sleeping-apartments he had ever known.

CHAPTER XII

A LESSON IN KEDGING

For a long time Alaric lay awake in his narrow bunk, listening to the gurgle of waters parted by the sloop's bow, but a few inches from his head, and reflecting upon the exciting incidents of the past hour. It had all been so terrible and yet so unreal. On one thing he determined.

Never again would he enter a boat alone without having first learned how to row, and to swim also. How splendidly Bonny had come to his rescue, and yet how easily! What was it he had called making a boat go with only one oar? Alaric could not remember; but at any rate it was a wonderful thing to do, and he determined to master that art as well. What a lot he had to learn, anyhow, and how important it all was! He had longed for the ability to do such things, but never until now had he realized their value.

How well Bonny did them, and what a fine fellow he was, and how the heart of the poor rich boy warmed towards this self-reliant young friend of a day! Could it be but one day since their first meeting? It seemed as though he had known Bonny always. But how had the young sailor regained the sloop after being knocked overboard? That was unaccountable, and one of the most mysterious things Alaric had ever heard of. He longed for Bonny to come below, that he might ask just that one question; but the mate was otherwise engaged, and the crew finally dropped asleep.

Through the remainder of the night the sloop sailed swiftly on her course; but she could not make up for that lost hour, and by dawn, though she had pa.s.sed the light on Admiralty Head, and was well to the southward of Port Townsend, the very stronghold of her enemies, for it is the port of entry for the Sound, she was still far from the hiding-place in which her captain had hoped to lie by for the day.

However, he knew of another nearer at hand, though not so easy of access, and to this he directed the vessel's course.

It did not seem to Alaric that he had been asleep more than a few minutes when he was rudely awakened by being hauled out of his bunk and dropped on the forecastle floor. At the same time he became conscious of a voice, saying:

"Wake up! Wake up, Rick Dale! I've been calling you for the last five minutes, and was beginning to think you were dead. Here it is daylight, with lots of work waiting, and you snoozing away as though you were a young man of elegant leisure. So tumble out in a hurry, or else you'll have the cap'n down on you, and he's no light-weight when he's as mad as he is this morning."

Never before in all his luxurious life had Alaric been subjected to such rough treatment, and for a moment he was inclined to resent it; but a single glance at Bonny's smiling face, and a thought of how deeply he was indebted to this lad, caused him to change his mind and scramble to his feet.

"Here are your trousers," continued the young mate, "and the quicker you can jump into them the better, for we've a jolly bit of kedging to attend to, and need your a.s.sistance badly."

Filled with curiosity as to what a "jolly bit of kedging" might be, and also pleased with the idea that he was not considered utterly useless, Alaric hastily dressed and hurried on deck. There the sight of a number of Chinamen recalled with a shock the nature of the craft on which he was shipped, and for an instant he was tempted to refuse further service as a member of her crew. A moment's reflection, however, convinced him that the present was not the time for such action, as it could only result in disaster to himself and in extra work being thrown upon Bonny.

The sun had not yet risen, and on one side a broad expanse of water was overlaid with a light mist. On the other was a bold sh.o.r.e covered with forest to the water's edge, and penetrated by a narrow inlet, off the mouth of which the sloop lay becalmed.

Bonny was already in the dinghy, which held a coil of rope having a small anchor attached to one end. The other end was on board the sloop and made fast to the bitts.

"When I reach the end of the line and heave the kedge overboard, you want to haul in on it," said the young mate, "and when the sloop is right over the kedge, let go your anchor. Do you understand?"

"Yes, I think so."

The tide had just turned ebb, and was beginning to run out from the inlet as Bonny dropped the kedge-anchor overboard, and Alaric, beginning to pull with a hearty will on that long, wet rope, experienced the first delights of kedging. Captain Duff, puffing at a short black pipe, sat by the tiller and steered, while the Chinese pa.s.sengers, squatted about the deck, watched the lad's efforts with a stolid interest.

At length the end of the rope was reached, and Alaric, with aching back and smarting hands, but beaming with the consciousness of a duty well performed, imagined his task to be ended.

"Let go your anchor," ordered Captain Duff.

When this was done, and the cable made fast so that the sloop should not drift back when the kedge was lifted, Bonny heaved up the latter and got it into the dinghy. Then he sculled still farther into the inlet until the end of the long line was once more reached, when he again dropped the small anchor overboard, and poor Alaric found, to his dismay, that the whole tedious operation was to be repeated. In addition to what he had done before, the heavy riding anchor was now to be lifted from the bottom.

As the boy essayed to haul in its cable with his hands, Captain Duff, muttering something about a "lubberly swab," stumped forward, and showing him how to use the windla.s.s for this purpose, condescended to hold the turn while the perspiring lad pumped away at the iron lever.

When the anchor was lifted, he was directed to again lay hold of the kedge-line and warp her along handsomely.

Alaric made signs to the Chinamen that they should help him; but they, being pa.s.sengers who had paid for the privilege of idleness on this cruise, merely grinned and shook their heads. So the poor lad tugged at that heart-breaking line until his strength was so exhausted that the sloop ceased to make perceptible headway.

At this Captain Duff, who was again nodding over the tiller, suddenly woke up, rushed among his pa.s.sengers with brandished crutch, roaring an order in pidgin English that caused them to jump in terror, lay hold of the line, and haul it in hand over hand.

Three times more was the whole weary operation repeated, until at length the sloop was snugly anch.o.r.ed behind a tree-grown point that effectually concealed her from anything pa.s.sing in the Sound.

"Nice, healthy exercise, this kedging," remarked Bonny, cheerfully, as he came on board.

"You may call it that," responded Alaric, gloomily, "but I call it the most killing kind of work I ever heard of, and if there is any more of it to be done, somebody else has got to do it. I simply won't, and that's all there is about it."

"Oh phsaw!" laughed the young mate, as he lighted a fire in the galley stove and began preparations for breakfast. "This morning's job was only child's play compared with some you'll have before you've been aboard here a month."

"Which I never will be," replied Alaric, "for I'm going to resign this very day. I suppose this is the United States and the end of the voyage, isn't it?"

"It's the States fast enough; but not the end of the run by a good bit.