The Man in the Twilight Part 2

"Yep."

Orders from the bridge of the packet boat rang out over the water. Then Standing went on.

"I want to find Idepski aboard," he said. He was scarcely addressing his companion. "It would be good to get Master Walter here, fifty-three degrees north." A short, hard laugh punctuated his words. Then he turned abruptly. "Who's running No. 10 camp?"

Just for an instant Bat withdrew his gaze from the approaching vessel.

He flashed a keen look of enquiry into the eyes of the questioner.

"Ole Porson," he said.

"I thought so. He's a good boy. He'll do."

Standing nodded. The cold significance of his tone was not lost on his companion. Maybe Bat understood the thing that was pa.s.sing in the other's mind. At any rate he turned again to the broad-beamed tub steaming so busily towards them.

"I see old Hardy on the bridge," Standing went on a moment later. Then he added: "Fancy navigating the Labrador coast for forty years. No, I couldn't do it. I wouldn't have the--guts."

Bat still remained silent. He understood. The other was talking because it was impossible for him to refrain.

"They're standing ready to make fast," Standing said sharply. He drew a quick breath. Then his manner changed and his words came pensively.

"Say, it's a queer life--a h.e.l.l of a life. The sea folk, I mean. It's about the worst on earth. Think of it, cooped within those timbers that are never easy till they lie at anchor in the shelter of a harbour. I'd just hate it. Their life? What is it? It's not life at all. Hard work, hard food, hard times, and hard drinking--when they're ash.o.r.e--most of them. I think I can understand. They surely need something to drown the memory of the threat they're always living under. No, they don't live.

They exist. Here, let's stand clear. They're coming right in."

The bustle of landing was in full swing. Even with so small a craft as the _Lizzie_ there was commotion. Orders flew from lip to lip. Creaking cables strained at unyielding bollards. Gangways clattered out from deck, and ran down on to the quay with a crash. Hatches were flung open and the steam winches rattled incessantly.

Standing and Harker were looking on from a vantage point well clear of the work of unloading. The captain of the vessel, "Old Man" Hardy, was with them. The seaman was beaming with that satisfaction which belongs to the master when his vessel is safely in port.

"Oh, I guess it ain't been too bad a trip," he was saying. "Takin' the 'ins' with the 'outs,' I'd say it was a fairish pa.s.sage, which is mostly as it should be, seein' it's my last voyage in the old barge. Y'see, you folks are kind of robbing me of this blessed old kettle," he explained, with a grin that lit up the whole of his mahogany features. "Y'see we're loaded well-nigh rail under with stuff for your mill, which don't leave a dog's chance for the other folks along the coast. The Company guesses they got to put on a two thousand tonner. The _Myra_. I haven't a kick comin'. She's all a seaboat. Still, I'm kind of sorry, don't you know.

I've known the _Lizzie_ since she came off the stocks, which is mostly forty years, and we're mighty good friends, which ain't allus the way.

I'd say, too, I'm getting old for a change. Still--."

Standing shook his head.

"What do they say? 'Hardy' by name, 'Hardy' by nature. The toughest and best sailorman on the Labrador coast! Well, I'm sorry you don't feel good about it. But," he added with a smile, "it means a good deal to us getting a bigger packet."

Captain Hardy nodded.

"Thankee kindly. It's good to know folks reckon a fellow something more than just part of a kettle of sc.r.a.p like this old packet. But I'd have been glad to finish my job with her. Still, times don't stand around even in Labrador." He finished up with something in the nature of a sigh.

The work going forward was full of interest. But it was not the work that held Standing, or the watchful eyes of Bat Harker. Their sole interest was in the personality of the crew and the five pa.s.sengers, mostly "drummers," from the great business houses of Quebec and Montreal, who were struggling to land their trunks of samples and get them off to the offices of the mill so as to complete their trade before the _Lizzie_ put to sea again. Not one of these escaped their observation.

"You seem to keep much the same crew right along, Hardy," Standing said pleasantly. "I suppose they like shipping with a good skipper. I seem to recognise most of their faces."

"Oh, yes. They're mostly the same boys," Hardy agreed, obviously appreciating the compliment. "But I guess I lost four boys this trip.

They skipped half an hour before putting to sea. It happens that way now and then, if they're only soused enough when they get aboard. They're a crazy lot with rye under their belts. I just had to replace 'em with some dockside loafers, or lie alongside another day."

Standing nodded. A man was moving down the gangway bearing a large, grey, official-looking sack on his shoulders. He was a slight, dark man with a curiously foreign cast about his features.

"The mail?" he enquired. And a curious sharpness flavoured his demand.

Then he added, with studied indifference. "One of your--dockside loafers?"

Captain Hardy laughed. He continued to laugh as he watched the unhandiness of the man staggering down the gangway under his burden.

"Yep. The mail," he said. "And I'd hate to set that feller to work on a seaman's job. He's about as unhandy as a doped Chinaman. I'd say Masters is playing safe keeping him from messing up the running gear while we're discharging. Say, get a look at it."

A great laugh accompanied the old man's words as the foreign-looking creature tripped on the gangway, and only saved himself from a bad fall by precipitating his burden upon the quay. There was no responsive laughter in Standing. And Bat Harker's features remained rigidly unsmiling. Standing turned sharply.

"Maybe you can spare that boy to run those mails up to my office," he said. "It's a good healthy pull up the hill for him, and my folks are full to the neck with things. I'd be glad."

"Sure he can." Captain Hardy was only too delighted to be able to oblige so important a customer of his company. He promptly shouted at the landing officer.

"Ho, you! Masters! Just let that darn Dago tote them mails right up to Mr. Standing's office. He ain't no sort of use out of h.e.l.l down here--anyway."

The mate's reply came back with an appreciative grin.

"Ay, sir," he cried, and forthwith hurled the order at the mail carrier with a plentiful accompaniment of appropriate adjectives.

"Thanks," Standing turned away. His smiling luminous eyes were shining.

"I'll get right along up, Captain. There's liable to be things need seeing to in that mail before you pull out. You'd best come along, too, Bat," he added pointedly.

Standing hurried away. A sudden fierce pa.s.sion was surging through his veins. Nisson was right. He knew it--now. And in a fever of impatience he was yearning to come to grips with those who would rob him of the hopes in which his whole being was bound up.

CHAPTER III

IDEPSKI

The two men reached the office on the hillside minutes before the mail carrier. They took the hill direct, pa.s.sing hurriedly through the aisles of scented woods which shadowed its face. The other, the stranger, was left with no alternative but the roadway, zigzagging at an easier incline.

Standing pa.s.sed into the house. His confidential man of many races looked up from his work. The quick, black eyes were questioning. He was perhaps startled at the swift return of the man whom he regarded above all others.

Standing spoke coldly, emphatically.

"There's a man coming along up. He's a sailorman, and he's dressed in dirty dungaree, and he's carrying a sack of mail. Now see and get this clearly, Loale. It's important. It's so important I can't stand for any sort of mistake. When he comes you've got to send him right into my room with the mail-bag. I want him to take it in _himself_. You get that?"

The half-breed's eyes blinked. It was rather the curious att.i.tude of an attentive dog. But that was always his way when the master of the Sachigo Mill spoke to him.

Pete Loale was quite an unusual creature. He looked unkempt and unclean, with his yellow, pock-marked skin, and his clothes that would have disgraced a second-hand dealer's stores of waste. But for all his lack in these directions there was that in the man which was more than worth while. Out of his black eyes looked a world of intelligence. There was also a resource and initiative in him that Standing fully appreciated.

"Sure I get that," he said simply. Then he repeated in the manner of a child determined to make no mistake. "He's to take that mail-bag right into your office--_himself_."

"That's it. Don't knock on my door. Don't let him think there's a soul inside that room. Just boost him right in. You get that?"

The half-breed nodded.