The Ice Pilot Part 7

The mate was evidently in earnest, and Stirling eyed him sharply, then turned away and stared at Cushner. The Yankee hitched up his beard and thrust it under the collar of his soiled pea-jacket-then started as he glared toward the p.o.o.p.

"Old man wants you," he said. "He's callin' you, Mr. Whitehouse."

The c.o.c.kney mate braced his shoulders and hurried aft to the p.o.o.p steps on the weather side. He mounted them and disappeared behind the canvas where Marr had sauntered.

"What do you think?" asked Cushner.

"Nothing yet, Sam. Hold your jaw tackle. Where did you first meet with Whitehouse?"

"The same day you was shanghaied. He came across the States by rail. He brought two dunnage bags and a whacking accent with him. Had papers, all right. Said he'd been in the British navy. I asked him why he left."

"What did he say?"

"He said it was a mere matter of five thousand pounds. That's just what he said. That's money, isn't it?"

"Considerable money! I wonder if he is under obligations to Marr in any way?"

"Might be. Looks mighty like it. At that, the old man isn't telling anybody anything. He owns the ship. He's got a right to whale and seal and trade with the natives. Nothing's going to stop him doing that."

"Not if he goes after pelagic seals and keeps within the law."

"Why is he working in these waters?"

Stirling did not answer this question, but stared forward and directly at the watch on deck. He counted them, searching for the seaman who had put up the fight when brought aboard. He was not in evidence.

"I wonder," asked Stirling, with a pucker on his brow, "if Marr expects that crew to follow him in a lawless enterprise? Outside of three or four, I know them from hearsay. They're drifters. They expect nothing but an iron dollar. Larribee hasn't paid a whaling hand a cent over the legal dollar in five seasons. He figures the advance money and the stuff they draw from the slop-chest is enough for sea sc.u.m. He has no heart at all!"

"Dirty work!"

"It is," said Stirling, sincerely. "Particularly when they don't even get the advance money. The boarding-house keepers, crimps, and runners get that. They furnish a man with an outfit and a dunnage bag. The outfit consists of a 'donkey's breakfast' for a mattress and a pair of pasteboard sea boots which will melt under the first hose. That's no way to send a man North!"

Cushner glanced at the Ice Pilot. He shook his head. "You're sticking up for poor Jack," he said. "That's no more than right. The laws are all for the owners and the boarding-house crimps. Poor Jack is friendless.

What can he do?"

"There's seamen and seamen, Sam! There's the coasting crews and the deep-water bunch who know enough to get big wages and hold to the Union.

The ones who suffer are boys like we got forward. They have no chance; they work eight months for an iron dollar and are cheated out of that!"

Cushner slanted his eyes forward. "They don't look as if they'd care what happened," he said. "Marr, or anybody else, could give them a good argument and they'd follow him to the end of the world. Five square faces of gin and tobacco would buy the whole fo'c's'le."

Stirling lifted his strong shoulders expressively. "You're partly right!" he admitted. "I wouldn't blame them, either. But you're here and I'm here, and we're going to see that this ship keeps within the law."

CHAPTER VIII-ON A LOWER BUNK

Suddenly Stirling ceased speaking and strode to the rail, glancing keenly under the shelter of his right palm.

"Speck in sight!" he called. "Looks like a ship headed this way! Make it out, Cushner?"

The second mate strained his eyes, then mopped them with his sleeve and tried again. "Not yet," he said. "You have fine sight. Where away?"

"About two points off the bow. There she is. See her? A brig, I think.

See the smoke?"

Cushner nodded with a sudden jerk of his chin. "Just a smudge. She's hull down!"

It was a full half hour later before Stirling made out the j.a.panese flag which fluttered at the stern of the brig. He called out her nationality then swung and glanced toward the p.o.o.p and the wheelman. Marr stood under the shelter of the rail with both elbows resting upon the canvas and a pair of twelve-diameter gla.s.ses focused ahead. He lowered these gla.s.ses, reached for the engine-room telegraph, and the throbbing of the _Pole Star's_ screws died to a quiver. The yards were braced back and the whaler came up into the wind with scant headway. This brought the j.a.panese brig upon the starboard waist.

The funnel of the strange ship belched forth a volcano of smoke which could come only from j.a.panese coal. She wallowed across the sea and came up into the wind on the same tack as the _Pole Star_ was headed.

A longboat was dropped awkwardly. Seamen to the number of four swarmed overside and waited for a fifth figure to descend a ladder lowered for his benefit. The boat sheered from the brig and danced across the waves under the swing of four oars which were smartly handled.

_Penyan Maru_ was the name Stirling made out on the brig as it hove to a double cable's length away. A greater contrast to the _Pole Star_ could not have been fashioned. Built in j.a.pan before the war, the brig still carried some of the top-hamper which rightly belonged to a junk. Her yards were canted, her masts sloped forward instead of aft, her standing rigging was loose and weather-rotted.

Along the rail of the _Penyan Maru_ ran a line of pigeon-blue boats which were too large for dories, too small for whaleboats. She bore the unmistakable evidence of a j.a.panese sealer, a vampire of the sea-as much an object of suspicion to every revenue cutter as a jailbird would be to a self-respecting policeman.

The four seamen who rowed the longboat lifted their oars smartly enough as they rounded under the starboard rail of the _Pole Star_. Whitehouse, on the p.o.o.p, lowered a bosn's ladder, and up this climbed the figure of a man who would have attracted attention on any ocean.

He was fat and yellow; his moon-broad face was stabbed here and there with tiny bristles like the nose of a walrus; his slanted eyes glittered and beamed as he raised himself over the rail, took Whitehouse's hand, and sprang to the deck of the _Pole Star_. He advanced to Marr's side with a rolling waddle, and the two men clasped in friendly grasp. It was evident to the watchers on the whaler that they were friends.

They stood a moment on the deck, then Marr pointed toward the north and east. The j.a.panese followed his direction, smiled blandly, and whispered something into the little skipper's ear. They went below by way of the cabin companion, the slide of which they closed after them.

Stirling glanced keenly at Cushner, walked to the rail, and leaned over with his eyes fixed upon the dingy sides and crazy rigging of the sealer. He dropped his glance and studied the four of a crew who were alongside the whaler's run, just aft the break of the p.o.o.p. These seamen made no effort to communicate in any way with the crew of the _Pole Star_. They sat silently waiting for their master to return.

Cushner rolled to Stirling's side and leaned his elbows on the rail. He, too, glanced at the small boat and its contents.

"A sealer's crew," he said. "Them's j.a.panese sealers. See the rifles and the clubs. They ain't found in an ordinary boat. They're for pelagic sealing, or any other kind. Nice-lookin' outfit."

"Efficient and minding their own business!" declared Stirling.

"What did you think of the emperor who came aboard? He was welcome!"

Stirling turned and glanced toward the p.o.o.p. "Sam," he said, "there's more things on these seas than we will ever know. That brig is a supply ship of some kind. If not that, it is going to meet us at some later date and take off our trade stuff."

"Also seal pelts."

"Yes; seal pelts if they're secured in an honest manner. I don't care where Marr disposes of his catch, as long as the catch is square and aboveboard!"

"Here comes the walrus again. Look how he's smiling. They must have had a nip of gin. Marr is rubbing his hands like as if he'd made a good bargain."

The j.a.panese waddled to the rail, climbed upward, and descended the ladder to the waiting small boat. Marr stood over him and cast off the painter, and the boat sprang away from the sheer of the _Pole Star_. It danced across the sea, vanished under the _Penyan Maru's_ counter, and was hoisted aboard.

A plume of black j.a.panese coal smoke shot up from the rusty funnel. The yards were squared and the sealer wallowed toward the north and west, vanishing in a cloud of its own making.

A bell later Marr gave the order for a change of course and reached for the engine-room telegraph. The screw thrashed; the crew sprang to weather and lee braces. The _Pole Star_ started back over the old pathway on the trackless ocean. Her compa.s.s point had been given as east.