The Depot Master Part 49

Beriah Higgins must be warned, of course, but how? To telegraph was to put Pat Starkey in possession of the secret, and Pat was too good a friend of Gertie's to be trusted. There was no telephone at the store.

Issy entered the combination grocery store and post office.

"Has the down mail closed yet?" he panted.

The postmaster looked out of his little window.

"Yes," he replied. "Why? Got a letter you want to go? Take it up to the depot. The train's due, but 'tain't here yit. If you run you can make it."

Issy took a card from his pocket. It was the business card of the firm to whom he sold his quahaugs. On the back of the card he wrote in pencil as follows:

"Mr. Beriah Higgins, your daughter Gertrude is going to meet Sam'l Bartlett at the Baptist Church in Trumet at 8 P.M. to-night and get married to him. LOOK OUT!!!"

After an instant's consideration he signed it "A True Friend," this being in emulation of certain heroes of the Deadwood d.i.c.k variety. Then he put the card into an envelope and ran at top speed to the railway station. The train came in as he reached the platform. The baggage master was standing in the door of his car.

"Here, mister!" panted Issy. "Jest hand this letter to Beriah Higgins when he takes the mail bag at East Harniss, won't you? It's mighty important. Don't forgit. Thanks."

The train moved off. Issy stared after it, grinning malevolently.

Higgins would get that note in ample time to send word to the watchful Aunt Hannah. When the unsuspecting eloper reached the Trumet church, it would be the aunt, not the niece, who awaited him. Still grinning, Mr.

McKay walked off the platform, and into the arms of Ed Burns, the stable keeper, and Sam Bartlett, his loathed and favored rival.

"Here he is!" shouted Burns. "Now we've got him."

The foiler of the plot turned pale. Was his secret discovered? But no; his captors began talking eagerly, and gradually the sense of their pleadings became plain. They wanted him--HIM, of all people--to convey Bartlett to Trumet in the Lady May.

"You see, it's a business meetin'," urged Burns. "Sam's got to be there by ha'f past seven or he'll--he won't win on the deal, will you, Sam?

Say yes, Issy; that's a good feller. He'll give you--I don't know's he won't give you five dollars."

"Ten," cried Bartlett. "And I'll never forget it, either. Will you, Is?"

A mighty "No!" was trembling on Issy's tongue. But before it was uttered Burns spoke again.

"McKay's got the best boat in these parts," he urged. "She's got a tiptop engine in her, and--"

The word "engine" dropped into the whirlpool of Issy's thoughts with a familiar sound. In the chapter of "Vivian" that he had just finished, the beautiful shopgirl was imprisoned on board the yacht of the millionaire kidnaper, while the hero, in his own yacht, was miles astern. But the hero's faithful friend, disguised as a stoker, was tampering with the villain's engine. A vague idea began to form in Issy's brain. Once get the would-be eloper aboard the Lady May, and, even though the warning note should remain undelivered, he--

Issy smiled, and the ghastliness of that smile was unnoticed by his companions.

"I--I'll do it," he cried. "By mighty! I WILL do it. You be at the wharf here at four o'clock. I wouldn't do it for everybody, Sam Bartlett, but for you I'd do consider'ble, just now. And I don't want your ten dollars nuther."

Doctoring an engine may be easy enough--in stories. But to doctor a gasoline engine so that it will run for a certain length of time and THEN break down is not so easy. Three o'clock came and the problem was still unsolved. Issy, the perspiration running down his face, stood up in the Lady May's c.o.c.kpit and looked out across the bay, smooth and gla.s.sy in the afternoon sun.

The sky overhead was clear and blue, but along the eastern and southern horizon was a gray bank of cloud, heaped in tumbled ma.s.ses.

A sunburned lobsterman in rubber boots and a sou'wester was smoking on the wharf.

"What time you goin' to start for home, Is?" he asked.

"Oh, in an hour or so," was the absent-minded reply.

"Humph! You'd better cast off afore that or you'll be fog bound. It'll be thicker'n dock mud toward sundown, and you'll fetch up in Waptomac 'stead of East Harniss, 'thout you've got a good compa.s.s."

"Oh, my compa.s.s is all right," began Issy, and stopped short.

The lobsterman made other attempts at conversation, but they were unproductive. McKay was gazing at the growing fog bank and thinking hard. To doctor an engine may be difficult, but to get lost in a fog--He took the compa.s.s from the gla.s.s-lidded binnacle by the wheel, and carrying it into the little cabin, placed it in the cuddy forward.

It was nearer five than four when the Lady May, her engine barking aggressively, moved out of Denboro Harbor. Mr. Bartlett, the pa.s.senger, had been on time and had fumed and fretted at the delay. But Issy was deliberation itself. He had forgotten his quahaug rake, and the lapse of memory entailed a trip to the blacksmith's. Then the gasoline tank needed filling and the battery had to be overhauled.

"Are you sure you can make it?" queried Sam anxiously. "It's important, I tell you. Mighty important."

The skipper snorted in disgust. "Make it?" he repeated. "If the Lady May can't make fourteen mile in two hours--let alone two'n a ha'f--then I don't know her. She's one of them boats you read about, she is."

The Cape makes a wide bend between Denboro and Trumet. The distance between these towns is twenty long, curved miles over the road; by water it is reduced to a straight fourteen. And midway between the two, at the center of the curve, is East Harniss.

The Lady May coughed briskly on. There was no sea, and she sent long, widening ripples from each side of her bow. Bartlett, leaning over the rail, gazed impatiently ahead. Issy, sprawled on the bench by the wheel, was muttering to himself. Occasionally he glanced toward the east. The gray fog bank was now half way to the zenith and approaching rapidly.

The eastern sh.o.r.e had disappeared.

"Is! Hi, Is! What are you doing? Don't kill him before my eyes."

Issy came out of his trance with a start.

"What--what's that?" he asked. His pa.s.senger was grinning broadly.

"What? Kill who?"

"Why, the big chief, or whoever you had under your knee just then.

You've been rolling your eyes and punching air with your fist for the last five minutes. I was getting scared. You're an unmerciful sinner when you get started, ain't you, Is? Who was the victim that time? 'Man Afraid of Hot Water'? or who?"

The skipper scowled. He shoved the fist into his pocket.

"Naw," he growled. "'Twa'n't."

"So? Not an Indian? Then it must have been a white man. Some fellow after your girl, perhaps. Hey?"

The disconcerted Issy was speechless. His companion's chance shot had scored a bull's-eye. Sam whooped.

"That's it!" he crowed. "Sure thing! Give it to him, Is! Don't spare him."

Mr. McKay chokingly admitted that he "wa'n't goin' to."

"Ho, ho! That's the stuff! But who's SHE, Is? When are you going to marry her?"

Issy grunted spitefully. "You ain't married yourself--not yit," he observed, with concealed sarcasm.

The unsuspecting Bartlett laughed in triumph. "No," he said. "I'm not, that's a fact; but maybe I'm going to be some of these days. It looked pretty dubious for a while, but now it's all right."

"'Tis, hey? You're sure about that, be you?"

"Guess I am. Great Scott! what's that? Fog?"