The Indian Drum Part 31

Alan turned away, chill with disappointment. It was only that, then--old Burr was a romancer after the manner of some old seamen. He constructed for his own amus.e.m.e.nt these "lives." He was not only not the Burr of Corvet's list; he was some one not any way connected with the _Miwaka_ or with Corvet. Yet Alan, upon reflection, could not believe that it was only this. Burr, if he had wished to do that, might perhaps merely have simulated agitation when Alan questioned him about the _Miwaka_; but why should he have wished to simulate it? Alan could conceive of no condition which by any possibility could have suggested such simulation to the old man.

He ceased now, however, to question Burr since questioning either had no result at all or led the old man to weaving fictions; in response the old man became by degrees more communicative. He told Alan, at different times, a number of other "lives" which he claimed as his own.

In only a few of these lives had he been, by his account, a seaman; he had been a mult.i.tude of other things--in some a farmer, in others a lumberjack or a fisherman; he had been born, he told, in a half-dozen different places and came of as many different sorts of people.

On deck, one night, listening while old Burr related his sixth or seventh life, excitement suddenly seized Alan. Burr, in this life which he was telling, claimed to be an Englishman born in Liverpool.

He had been, he said, a seaman in the British navy; he had been present at the sh.e.l.ling of Alexandria; later, because of some difficulty which he glossed over, he had deserted and had come to "the States"; he had been first a deckhand then the mate of a tramp schooner on the lakes.

Alan, gazing at the old man, felt exultation leaping and throbbing within him. He recognized this "life"; he knew in advance its incidents. This life which old Burr was rehearsing to him as his own, was the actual life of Munro Burkhalter, one of the men on Corvet's list regarding whom Alan had been able to obtain full information!

Alan sped below, when he was relieved from watch, and got out the clippings left by Corvet and the notes of what he himself had learned in his visits to the homes of these people. His excitement grew greater as he pored over them; he found that he could account, with their aid, for all that old Burr had told him. Old Burr's "lives" were not, of course, his; yet neither were they fictions. They--their incidents, at least--were actualities. They were woven from the lives of those upon Corvet's list! Alan felt his skin p.r.i.c.kling and the blood beating fast in his temples. How could Burr have known these incidents? Who could he be to know them all? To what man, but one, could all of them be known? Was old Burr ... Benjamin Corvet?

Alan could give no certain answer to that question. He could not find any definite resemblance in Burr's placid face to the picture of Corvet which Constance had shown him. Yet, as regarded his age and his physical characteristics, there was nothing to make his ident.i.ty with Benjamin Corvet impossible. Sherrill or others who had known Benjamin Corvet well, might be able to find resemblances which Alan could not.

And, whether Burr was or was not Corvet, he was undeniably some one to whom the particulars of Corvet's life were known.

Alan telegraphed that day to Sherrill; but when the message had gone doubt seized him. He awaited eagerly the coming of whoever Sherrill might send and the revelations regarding Corvet which might come then; but at the same time he shrunk from that revelation. He himself had become, he knew, wholly of the lakes now; his life, whatever his future might be, would be concerned with them. Yet he was not of them in the way he would have wished to be; he was no more than a common seaman.

Benjamin Corvet, when he went away, had tried to leave his place and power among lakemen to Alan; Alan, refusing to accept what Corvet had left until Corvet's reason should be known, had felt obliged also to refuse friendship with the Sherrills. When revelation came, would it make possible Alan's acceptance of the place Corvet had prepared for him, or would it leave him where he was? Would it bring him nearer to Constance Sherrill, or would it set him forever away from her?

CHAPTER XVI

A GHOST SHIP

"Colder some to-night, Conrad."

"Yes, sir."

"Strait's freezing over, they say."

"Pretty stiff ice outside here already, sir."

The skipper glanced out and smiled confidently but without further comment; yet he took occasion to go down and pa.s.s along the car deck and observe the men who under direction of the mate were locking the lugs under the car wheels, as the trains came on board. The wind, which had risen with nightfall to a gale off the water, whipped snow with it which swirled and back-eddied with the switching cars into the great, gaping stern of the ferry.

Officially, and to chief extent in actuality, navigation now had "closed" for the winter. Further up the harbor, beyond Number 25, glowed the white lanterns marking two vessels moored and "laid up" till spring; another was still in the active process of "laying up." Marine insurance, as regards all ordinary craft, had ceased; and the Government at sunrise, five days before, had taken the warning lights from the Straits of Mackinaw, from Ile-aux-Galets, from north Manitou, and the Fox Islands; and the light at Beaver Island had but five nights more to burn.

Alan followed as the captain went below, and he went aft between the car tracks, watching old Burr. Having no particular duty when the boat was in dock, old Burr had gone toward the steamer "laying up," and now was standing watching with absorption the work going on. There was a tug a little farther along, with steam up and black smoke pouring from its short funnel. Old Burr observed this boat too and moved up a little nearer. Alan, following the wheelsman, came opposite the stern of the freighter; the snow let through enough of the light from the dock to show the name _Stoughton_. It was, Alan knew, a Corvet, Sherrill, and Spearman ship. He moved closer to old Burr and watched him more intently.

"What's the matter?" he asked, as the old man halted and, looking down at the tug, shook his head.

"They're crossing," the wheelsman said aloud, but more to himself than to Alan. "They're laying her up here," he jerked his head toward the _Stoughton_. "Then they're crossing to Manitowoc on the tug."

"What's the matter with that?" Alan cried.

Burr drew up his shoulders and ducked his head down as a gust blew. It was cold, very cold indeed in that wind, but the old man had on a mackinaw and, out on the lake, Alan had seen him on deck coatless in weather almost as cold as this.

"It's a winter storm," Alan cried. "It's like it that way; but to-day's the 15th, not the 5th of December!"

"That's right," Burr agreed. "That's right."

The reply was absent, as though Alan had stumbled upon what he was thinking, and Burr had no thought yet to wonder at it.

"And it's the _Stoughton_ they're laying up, not the--" he stopped and stared at Burr to let him supply the word and, when the old man did not, he repeated again--"not the--"

"No," Burr agreed again, as though the name had been given. "No."

"It was the _Martha Corvet_ you laid up, wasn't it?" Alan cried quickly. "Tell me--that time on the 5th--it was the _Martha Corvet_?"

Burr jerked away; Alan caught him again and, with physical strength, detained him. "Wasn't it that?" he demanded. "Answer me; it was the _Martha Corvet_?"

The wheelsman struggled; he seemed suddenly terrified with the terror which, instead of weakening, supplied infuriated strength. He threw Alan off for an instant and started to flee back toward the ferry; and now Alan let him go, only following a few steps to make sure that the wheelsman returned to Number 25.

Watching old Burr until he was aboard the ferry, Alan spun about and went back to the _Stoughton_.

Work of laying up the big steamer had been finished, and in the snow-filled dusk her crew were coming ash.o.r.e. Alan, boarding, went to the captain's cabin, where he found the _Stoughton's_ master making ready to leave the ship. The captain, a man of forty-five or fifty, reminded Alan vaguely of one of the shipmasters who had been in Spearman's office when Alan first went there in the spring. If he had been there, he showed no recollection of Alan now, but good-humoredly looked up for the stranger to state his business.

"I'm from Number 25," Alan introduced himself. "This is a Corvet, Sherrill, and Spearman ship. Do you know Mr. Corvet when you see him, sir?"

"Know Ben Corvet?" the captain repeated. The manner of the young man from the car ferry told him it was not an idle question. "Yes; I know Ben Corvet. I ain't seen him much in late years."

"Will you come with me for a few minutes then, Captain?" Alan asked.

As the skipper stared at him and hesitated, Alan made explanation, "Mr.

Corvet has been missing for months. His friends have said he's been away somewhere for his health; but the truth is, he's been missing.

There's a man I want you to look at, Captain--if you used to know Mr.

Corvet."

"I've heard of that." The captain moved alertly now. "Where is he?"

Alan led the master to the Ferry. Old Burr had left the car deck; they found him on his way to the wheelhouse.

The _Stoughton's_ skipper stared. "That the man?" he demanded.

"Yes, sir. Remember to allow for his clothes and his not being shaved and that something has happened."

The _Stoughton's_ skipper followed to the wheelhouse and spoke to Burr.

Alan's blood beat fast as he watched this conversation. Once or twice more the skipper seemed surprised; but it was plain that his first interest in Burr quickly had vanished; when he left the wheelhouse, he returned to Alan indulgently. "You thought that was Mr. Corvet?" he asked, amused.

"You don't think so?" Alan asked.

"Ben Corvet like that? Did you ever see Ben Corvet?"

"Only his picture," Alan confessed. "But you looked queer when you first saw Burr."

"That was a trick of his eyes. Say, they did give me a start. Ben Corvet had just that sort of trick of looking through a man."

"And his eyes were like that?"

"Sure. But Ben Corvet couldn't be like that!"