Rick Dale, A Story of the Northwest Coast Part 6

"Don't contradict me, you unlicked cub! Can he shoot?"

"No, sir," replied Alaric, as Bonny looked at him inquiringly.

"All right. I wouldn't have him aboard if he could. Why don't he take his thundering dunnage and go for'ard, where he belongs, and cook me some grub when he knows I haven't had anything to eat sence sunup? Why don't he, I say?"

With this Captain Duff turned and clumped heavily to the other side of the deck; while Bonny, hastily picking up the bag that had been the innocent cause of all this uproar, said, in a low voice: "Come on, Rick; it's all right."

As they went forward together he dropped the bag down a tiny forecastle hatch. Then, after asking Alaric to cut some kindlings and start a fire in the galley stove, which was housed on deck, he dove into the cabin to see what he could find that could be cooked for dinner.

When he reappeared a minute later he found his crew struggling with an axe and a chunk of hard wood, from which he was vainly attempting to detach some slivers. He had already cut two deep gashes in the deck, and in another moment would probably have needed crutches as badly as the captain himself.

"Hold on, Rick!" cried the young mate, catching the axe-helve just as the weapon was making another erratic descent. "I find those grocery chaps haven't sent down any stores. So do you just run up there. It's two doors this side of Uncle Isaac's, you know, and hurry them along.

I'll 'tend to the fire while you are gone."

Gladly exchanging his unaccustomed, and what he considered to be very dangerous, task of wood-chopping for one that he felt sure he could accomplish creditably, Alaric hastened away. He found the grocer's easily enough, and demanded of the first clerk he met why the stores for the sloop _Fancy_ had not been sent down.

"Must have been the other clerk, sir, and I suppose he forgot all about 'em; but I'll attend to the order at once, sir," replied the man, who took in at a glance Alaric's gentlemanly bearing and the newness of his nautical garb. "Have 'em right down, sir. Hard bread, salt junk, rice, and coffee, I believe. Anything else, sir?"

"I'm sure I don't know," replied Alaric.

"Going to take a run on the _Fancy_ yourself, sir?"

"Yes."

"Then of course you'll want some soft bread, a few tins of milk, half a dozen jars of marmalade, and a dozen or so of potted meats?"

"I suppose so," a.s.sented the boy.

"Step this way, sir, and let me show you some of our fine goods,"

suggested the clerk, insinuatingly.

In another part of the building he prattled glibly of pate-de-foie-gras, and Neufchatel cheese, truffles, canned mushrooms, Albert biscuit, anchovy paste, stuffed olives, Wiesbaden prunes, and a variety of things--all of which were so familiar to the millionaire's son, and had appeared so naturally on all the tables at which he had ever sat, that he never for a moment doubted but what they must be necessities on the _Fancy_ as well. Of ten million boys he was perhaps the only one absolutely ignorant that these luxuries were not daily articles of food with all persons above the grade of paupers; and as he was equally without a knowledge of their cost, he allowed the clerk to add a dozen jars of this, and as many pots of that, to his list, until even that wily individual could think of nothing else with which to tempt this easy-going customer. So, promising that the supplies just ordered should be sent down directly, he bowed Alaric out of the door, at the same time trusting that they should be honored with his future patronage.

Bethinking himself that he must have a toothbrush, and that it would also be just as well to have his own comb, in spite of Bonny's a.s.surance that the ship's comb would be at his service, the lad went in search of these articles. When he found them he was also tempted to invest in what he regarded as two other indispensables--namely, a cake of fine soap and a bottle of eau-de-Cologne.

He had gone quite a distance for these things, and occupied a full half-hour in getting them. As he retraced his steps towards the wharves he pa.s.sed the slop-shop in which his first purchases of the day had been made, and was greeted by the proprietor with an inquiry as to whether old Duff had taken aboard his cargo of "c.h.i.n.ks and dope" yet. Not understanding the question, Alaric did not answer it; but as he pa.s.sed on he wondered what sort of a cargo that could be.

By the time he regained the wharf to which the _Fancy_ was moored the flooding tide had raised her to a level with it, and on her deck Alaric beheld a scene that filled him with amazement. The stores that he had ordered had arrived. The wagon in which they had come stood at one side, and they had all been taken aboard. One of the two men who had brought them was exchanging high words and even a shaking of fists with the young first mate of the sloop, while the other was presenting a bill to the captain and insisting upon its payment.

Captain Duff, foaming at the mouth and purple in the face, was speechless with rage, and could only make futile pa.s.ses with one of his crutches at the man with the bill, who dodged each blow with great agility. As Alaric appeared this individual cried out:

"Here's the young gent as ordered the goods now!"

"Certainly," said Alaric, advancing to the sloop's side. "I was told to order some stores, and I did so."

"Oh, you did, did ye! you thundering young blunderbuss?" roared Captain Duff, finding his voice at last. "Then suppose you pay for 'em."

"Very well," replied the lad, quietly, thinking this an official command that must be obeyed.

A minute later peace was restored, Captain Duff was gasping, and his first mate was staring with amazement. The bill had been paid, the wagon driven away, and Alaric was again without a single cent in his pockets.

CHAPTER VIII

AN UNLUCKY SMASH

Captain Duff's first order after peace was thus restored and he had recovered the use of his voice, temporarily lost through amazement at the spectacle of a sailor before the mast paying out of his own pocket for a ship's stores, and stores of such an extraordinary character as well, was that the goods thus acquired should be immediately transferred to his own cabin. So Bonny, with Alaric to a.s.sist, began to carry the things below.

The cabin was very small, dirty, and stuffy. It contained two wide transom berths, one on each side, a table bearing the stains of innumerable meals and black with age, and two stools. There was a clock nailed to the forward bulkhead; beneath it was fastened a small, cheap mirror, and beside this, attached to a bit of tarred twine, hung the ship's comb.

One of the two berths was overlaid with a mattress, several soiled blankets, and a tattered quilt. It formed the captain's bed, and it also served as a repository for a number of tobacco-boxes and an a.s.sortment of well-used pipes. In the other berth was a confusion of old clothing, hats, boots, and whatever else had been pitched there to get it out of the way. Here the captain proposed to have stored the providential supply of food that had come to him as unexpectedly as that furnished by the ravens to the prophet Elijah.

The air of the place was so pervaded with a combination odor of stale tobacco smoke, mouldy leather, damp clothing, bilge-water, kerosene, onions, and other things of an equally obtrusive nature, that poor Alaric gasped for breath on first descending the short but steep flight of steps leading to it. He deposited his burden and hurried out as quickly as possible, in spite of the fact that Captain Duff, who sat on his bunk, had begun to speak to him.

On his next trip below the lad drew in a long breath of fresh air just before entering the evil-smelling cabin, and determined not to take another until he should emerge from it. In his haste to execute this plan he dropped his armful of cans, and, without waiting to stow them, had gained the steps before realizing that the captain was ordering him to come back.

Furious at hearing his command thus disregarded, the man reached out with one of his crutches, caught it around the boy's neck, and gave him a violent jerk backward.

The startled lad, losing his foothold, came to the floor with a crash and a loud escaping "Ah!" of pent-up breath. At the same moment the cabin began to be pervaded with a new and unaccustomed odor so strong that all the others temporarily withdrew in its favor.

"Oh murder! Let me out," gasped Captain Duff, as he scrambled for the companion-way and a breath of outer air. "Of all the smells I ever smelled that's the worst!"

"What have you broken, Rick?" asked Bonny, anxiously, thrusting his head down the companion-way. He had been curiously reading the unfamiliar labels on the various jars, pots, and bottles, and now fancied that his crew had slipped down the steep steps with some of these in his arms.

"Whew! but it's strong!" he continued, as the penetrating fumes greeted his nostrils. "Is it the truffles or the pate gra.s.s or the cheese?"

"I'm afraid," replied Alaric, sadly, as he slowly rose from the cabin floor and thrust a cautious hand into one of his hip-pockets, "that it is a bottle of eau-de-Cologne."

"Cologne!" cried Bonny, incredulously, as he caught the word. "If these foreign kinds of grub are put up in cologne, it's no wonder that I never heard of them before. Why, it's poison, that's what it is, and nothing less. Shall I heave the rest of the truck overboard, sir?"

"Hold on!" cried Alaric, emerging with rueful face from the cabin in time to catch this suggestion. "It isn't in them. It was in my pocket all by itself."

"I wish it had stayed there, and you'd gone to Halifax with it afore ever ye brought the stuff aboard this ship!" thundered the captain.

"Avast, ye lubber! Don't come anigh me. Go out on the end of the dock and air yourself."

So the unhappy lad, his clothing saturated with cologne, betook himself to the wharf, where, as he slowly walked up and down, filling the air with perfume, he carefully removed bits of broken gla.s.s from his moist pocket, and disgustedly flung them overboard.

While he was thus engaged, the first mate, under the captain's personal supervision, was fumigating the cabin by burning in it a bunch of oak.u.m over which was scattered a small quant.i.ty of tobacco. When the atmosphere of the place was thus so nearly restored to its normal condition that Captain Duff could again endure it, Bonny finished stowing the supplies, and then turned his attention to preparing supper.

Meanwhile Alaric had been joined in his lonely promenade by a stranger, who, with a curious expression on his face as he drew near the lad, changed his position so as to get on the windward side, and then began a conversation.

"Fine evening," he said.

"Is it?" asked Alaric, moodily.

"I think so. Do you belong on that sloop?"