The Iron Boys on the Ore Boats Part 30

"Stand back! This is my circus. What was he going to hit you for?"

"I was to blame. I goaded him into it. I----"

"Wait a minute. He hasn't got enough yet. He's coming for me."

The captain suspended conversation long enough to give Smith a right and left swing on either side of the head that sent the fellow to the deck with all the fight knocked out of him, and which put him out of business for the next ten minutes.

Captain Simms turned calmly to Rush.

"Now, what was it you were saying, my lad?"

Rush could not repress a smile.

"Nothing very much. You know Smith and myself had some trouble on the last cruise?"

"Yes, I remember."

"He never has gotten over being angry at me. He began saying disagreeable things to me, and I suppose I helped the matter along by tantalizing him. I was as much to blame as Smith was. But--but I'm sorry you didn't let me give him what he was spoiling for."

"He got it, that's all that is necessary," growled the master. "See here, Rush, he isn't the fellow who hit you last night, is he?" demanded the captain suddenly, shooting a quick, suspicious glance into the face of the Iron Boy.

"I didn't see who hit me," answered Steve, truthfully even if somewhat evasively.

"Call the first mate!"

Rush did so.

"Put that man in irons and keep him on bread and water until he is ready to go to work and mind his own business. I've half a notion to turn him over to the authorities for mutiny," said the skipper reflectively.

"Don't you think he has had punishment enough, sir?" urged Steve.

"Yes, I suppose he has at that. Iron him, Major. It will do him good."

The stoker woke up just as the steel bracelets were being snapped on his wrists. Protesting and threatening, he was dragged to the lazaret, where he was destined to remain for the next twenty-four hours in solitary confinement, with nothing more substantial to live on than bread and water.

CHAPTER XVIII

VISITORS ON THE "RICHMOND"

THE ugly stoker was liberated on the following day after having promised to behave himself in the future. But he held his head low when showing himself on deck, which was seldom. He never permitted his shifting eyes to meet those of Steve Rush, nor did Steve make any effort to address the man. The lad was confident, in his own mind, that Smith was the man who struck him that night by the after deck-house, but the drubbing that Captain Simms had given the fellow made Rush feel that they were now even.

On the way back the ship picked up Mrs. Simms and little Marie at Port Huron. The "Richmond" was on its way to South Chicago with a cargo of coal. This took them around into Lake Michigan, and many were the happy hours spent by the captain's little daughter and the Iron Boys. They played games on deck between watches, as though all three were children.

Rush and Jarvis had const.i.tuted themselves the special guardians of the little girl, and she queened it over them, making them her willing subjects.

At South Chicago the ship was held up for a week because the company to which the coal was consigned was not ready to receive it. Steve considered this to be bad business policy on the part of the steamship people, and another memorandum went down in his book, to be considered in detail later on.

While at South Chicago the lads made frequent trips into the city, which they had never visited before. One afternoon they took the captain's wife and daughter to a matinee, then out to dinner at a fashionable restaurant.

It made a pleasant break in the lives of each of the four, and helped to cement the friendship between little Marie and her new-found friends.

At last the coal was unloaded. After filling the tanks with water ballast, the "Richmond" started away for the northward to take on another cargo of ore and once more to drill down the Great Lakes.

The water ballast did not draw the ship down to its load level, with the result that she rolled considerably.

"The gla.s.s is falling," announced the captain as the craft swung into Lake Superior two days later. "I shouldn't be surprised if we had quite a jabble of a sea before night."

"We don't care, do we?" chirped Marie, to whom a rolling ship was a keen delight.

"Not as long as the dishes stay on the table," answered Bob, with a merry laugh. "When are you going to bake that long-promised cake for me?"

"Just as soon as the cook will let me. He's always cooking something for the night watch when he isn't getting the regular meals. My, but that night watch must have an awful appet.i.te!" she chuckled.

"Yes, I've noticed that," agreed Bob. "But you can't lay it to me. I've a feather-weight appet.i.te. I didn't have any at all when I first went aboard an ore carrier. It beats all how quickly a fellow will lose all interest in life the first time out."

The wind blew hard all the way up Superior, raising, as the captain had promised it would, "quite a jabble of a sea." But the blow was nothing like a heavy gale. It was just a sea, a nasty, uncomfortable sea. The boys and Marie were in great good humor all the way up. Marie's mother was ill in her stateroom and the a.s.sistant cook had had an unexpected attack of seasickness.

"Nice crew of lubbers," growled the captain, when informed of the a.s.sistant cook's indisposition.

The ship reached Duluth at night and immediately was shunted into the slip at the ore docks for loading. After the hatches were down a huge crate was hoisted aboard with a crane. A section of the deck was opened up and the crate was let down into the lazaret. The crate was consigned to one of the company's officials in the East. No one paid any attention to the crate, and it is doubtful if any one save the captain and the first mate knew what the contents of the crate were.

Hatches were battened down and long before daylight the "Richmond" was on her way again. By this time the "jabble" had increased to a full gale. No other ship ventured out, but Captain Simms was not a skipper to be held back by the weather. He knew his ship was seaworthy and he knew full well how to handle her safely in any sea that the lakes could kick up. A full northwester was raging down from the hills and the gla.s.s was falling all the time. The "gla.s.s" is the sailor's name for barometer.

Steve took the wheel as they pa.s.sed out, and he was obliged to give up the wheelman's stool because he could not keep it right side up under him. He dragged a platform over to the wheel. It was made for the purpose, having cross-cleats on it to enable the helmsman to keep his footing when the ship was cutting up capers.

"There," he announced, "I'll stick here until the wheel comes off."

Waves broke over the vessel continuously, striking the deck with reports like those of distant artillery. Superior was a dreary waste of gray and white. The air seemed full of the spume of the crested rollers, while the clouds were leaden and threatening.

"Look at the rainbow!" cried Bob, pointing off to the westward.

"That ain't a rainbow you landlubber," jeered a companion.

"Well, if it isn't I never saw a rainbow."

"No, it's a dog."

"A what?"

"Sundog."

"Bob, you certainly are a lubber," laughed Mr. Major. "Didn't you ever see a sundog before?"

"Never. What are they for?"

"I don't know what they are for. I know what they do--they bring gales and storm and trouble all along the line. That's what the dogs do."