West Wind Drift Part 43

CHAPTER I.

In the far-off Northland it is winter again,--the winter of 1919-20.

Trigger Island is bright and clean with the furbishings of summer. It is January,--January without its coat of white,--January as green as the tender gourd.

There are a dozen graves or more on Cape Sunrise; Betty Cruise no longer lies alone out on the windswept point. Crudely chiseled on the rough headstones are names that have not been mentioned in this chronicle, still not the less enduring. One name is there, however, chipped in a great black slab from the face of Split Mountain, that will never be forgotten as long as Trigger Island exists: it is that of Captain Weatherby Trigger.

The master of the Doraine died aboard-ship in the second winter. After his death the ship was abandoned. Mr. Codge and the half-dozen old mariners who had made their home in the dismal hulk came ash.o.r.e.

Grim and ugly and as silent as the grave, save for the winds that moan through her portholes and corridors, she lies rusting in sun and storm, a gloomy presence that fills the soul with awe. Even the birds of the air shun her barren decks; less fastidious bats have taken up their abode in the heart of her, and spiders great and small are at work on a sickly shroud.

Twenty months have pa.s.sed. Christmas and New Year's day have twice been celebrated and another Easter Sunday has found its way into the faithful journal of Peter Snipe, and with them two amazing Fourths of July when there was coasting on the long slopes and winter sports on the plains.

There has been one bountiful harvest and seed has been sown for yet another. The full length of the sunny plain is under cultivation. The bins in the granaries are well-filled with the treasures of the soil; the gardens have increased and flourished; the warehouse is stacked with fresh and dried fruits, vegetables, honey, and row upon row of preserves! Great earthen jars, modeled with all the severity of the primitive cave-dweller, serve as receptacles. The grist-mill on Leap Frog River is busy from dawn till dusk; the forge rings with the music of hammer and anvil; a saw-mill in the heart of Dismal Forest hums its whining tune all day long. A noisy, determined engine, fashioned by mechanics out of material taken from the engine and boiler room of the Doraine provides the motive power for the saws and the means to produce ponderous, far-reaching blasts on the transferred "fog-horn."

New and more commodious huts have gone up, roads have been blazed through the forests, a logging ferry plies between the opposite sh.o.r.es of Mott Haven, and a ship is on the ways above the landing "stage."

At the top of Split Mountain stands a lofty wireless tower. For months it has been spitting vain messages to the four winds. Out of the great silences at rare intervals come faint flickers of radio calls, jumbled, indistinct, undecipherable,--but, for all that, definite pulse beats of a far-off life.

Trigger Island went mad with joy when the first of these aerial mutterings was reported down from the mountain-top. "Only a question of time now," they cried in their delirium. But weeks went by before another sound was heard. Now the report of feeble, long-separated manifestations, like vague spirit-rappings, no longer caused excitement or enthusiasm,--only a rueful shaking of heads.

Lieutenant Platt's station at the top of the mountain is a rude, elementary affair, notwithstanding the many weary, puzzling, disheartening months spent in its construction. The damaged, almost useless dynamo from the Doraine had to be repaired and conveyed to the crest of the eminence; what seemed to be fruitless ages were consumed in devising an engine with power sufficient to produce even the feeble results that followed. And when the task of installing the plant was completed, the effective radius was far short of a hundred miles.

Constant efforts were being made to develop greater sending power, but the means at hand were inadequate, the material un.o.btainable.

The firing of the Doraine's gun had long since been discontinued. The supply of sh.e.l.ls being greatly reduced, Lieutenant Platt decided to waste no more of them, but to wait for some visible evidence that a vessel was within signalling distance: a shadowy plume of smoke on the far horizon or the white tip of a sail peeping over the rim of the world.

Frugality is the watchword. The days of plenty are sternly guarded so that their substance may not be squandered; always there is the thought of the lean year that may come, the year when the harvests fail and famine stalks naked through the land.

The first law, therefore, is thrift. Not thrift in its common, accepted sense, based on the self-denial of the individual, but a systematic shoulder-to-shoulder stand for the general welfare of the community.

There is no such thing as waste on Trigger Island. The grim spectre of want and privation treads softly behind every mortal there, and there is none who treats its invisible presence with disdain. Even the wood-ashes from stoves and fireplaces are carefully h.o.a.rded in hoppers, for the alkaline solution obtained by treating them with water is lye. This lye is being used chiefly in the production of a soap not unlike that made by thrifty farmers' wives in the Argentine, experimentation with the pulpy fruit of a tree belonging to the variety known as Sapindus marginatus bringing about rather astonishing results.

For many months of the year the people wear sandals on their bare feet.

Only those who toil in the forests don the uncouth boots turned out by the firm of cobblers known as Block & Nicklestick. Shoes, boots and slippers of another day are zealously guarded by their owners, in antic.i.p.ation of still another day,--the day of deliverance. "Waste not, want not," is the motto of Trigger Island.

The second winter brought a double catastrophe, and for days thereafter deepest gloom prevailed. Even the stout-hearted Percival drooped under the weight of it.

Fire wiped out the work of months in the s.p.a.ce of a few bleak, bitter hours. The st.u.r.dy little ship that was so well along toward completion was destroyed.

Months of faithful, patient, dogged toil had resulted in the construction of a stout hull which stood proudly on the ways to be admired and glorified by the eager, confident supporters of the determined little band of builders. Six weeks more would have seen the vessel off the ways and floating gaily on the surface of the snug little basin, ready for the final touches, the provisioning and the ultimate departure of the hardy company that was to take her out into the open stretches in quest of the helping hand. For weeks a devoted, one-minded community had been preparing food, raiment and comforts for the men who were to go forth in the new Doraine. The masts and spars were in place, the forecastle and cabin were almost ready for occupancy, the galley was nearing completion,--and then came swift, relentless disaster.

The night was cold and windy. Down at the water's edge, almost under the bulging side of the ship, two men had their quarters at one end of the low, rambling carpenter shop. At the other end was located the forge.

The very thing they were there to guard against happened on this miserable night. Fire broke out in the forge.

The man on watch had fallen asleep. His name was Smiley. It is mentioned here for the only time in this narrative.

Shortly before midnight, his companion was awakened by the smell of smoke. He scrambled out of his blankets on the floor,--and cursed the man who still slept in his chair beside the smoke-befogged lantern on the end of a carpenter's bench. Flames were creeping along the wooden part.i.tion separating the forge from the shop. Half a mile away three hundred men were sleeping,--but half a mile is half a mile. Before the watchmen could sound the alarm, after their first courageous efforts to subdue the blaze, the building was a roaring ma.s.s of flames and a gleeful wind had carried tongues of fire to the side of the vessel where they licked shapeless black patterns at first and then swiftly turned them to red.

Stark-eyed, shivering people stood far back among the trees throughout the rest of the night and watched the work of months go up in flame and smoke. Nothing could be done to save the ship. Hewn from the hardiest trees in the forest, caulked and fortified to defy the most violent a.s.saults of water, she was like paper in the clutch of flames. In the grey of early morn the stricken people slunk back to their cabins and gave up hope. For not only was their ship destroyed but the priceless tools and implements with which she had been built were gone as well. It was the double catastrophe that took the life, the spirit, out of them.

And while the day was still breaking, the man who had slept at his post, stole off into the forest and cut his throat from ear to ear.

But now, months afterward, another ship is on the ways. Indomitable, undaunted, the builders rose above disaster and set to work again.

New tools were fashioned from steel and iron and wood,--saws, chisels, sledges, planes and hammers--in fact, everything except the baffling augurs. Resolute, unbeaten hands toiled anew, and this time the humble craft was not to be given a luckless name.

Superst.i.tion was rife. All save Andrew Mott saw ill-omen in the name "Doraine." Steadfastly he maintained that as the Doraine had brought them safely to the island, guided by a divine Providence, a Doraine could be trusted to take them as miraculously away. And as for changing the name of his prattling ward, he fairly roared his objection; though an uncommonly mild man for a sailor, he uttered such blasphemous things to a group of well-meaning women that even Sheriff Soapy Shay was aghast.

After the dreary period that followed the disaster, there came a sharp awakening as from a dream filled with horrors. Something lying dormant in the com-mon breast had stirred. It was the unbeaten spirit that would not die. These men and women lifted up their heads and beheld the star of hope undimmed. In a flash, the aspect changed.

"We must start all over again," was the cry that awoke them, and from that time on there was no such word as fail in the lexicon of Trigger Island.

Slowly, laboriously out of the ashes rose a new hull, a stauncher one than its ill-fated predecessor. The year wasted in the building of the first ship was lamented but not mourned. Cheerfulness, even optimism, prevailed throughout the village. No man, no woman lifted the voice of complaint. Resignation took the form of stoicism. A sort of dogged taciturnity was measurably relieved by the never-failing spirit of camaraderie. There was even a touch of bravado in the att.i.tude of these people toward each other,--as of courage kept up by scoffing. Even Death, on his sombre visits, was regarded with a strange derision by those who continued to spin. They had cheated him not once but many times, and they mocked him in their souls.

"I'm not afraid of Death," was Buck Chizler's contribution. "I've just discovered that Death is the rottenest coward in the world. He either waits till you get too blamed old to fight, or else he jumps on you when you ain't looking, or when you're so weak from sickness you don't care what happens. I used to be afraid of Death. And why? Because I wasn't onto the old b.u.m; Why, look at what he does. He jumps onto weeny little babies and feeble old women and--and horses. Now, I'm onto him, and I ain't got any use for a cheap sport,--not me."

The little community had taken to religion. As is invariably the case, adversity seeks surcease in some form of piety. Men who had not entered a church since the days of their childhood, men who had scoffed at the sentimentality of religion, now found consolation in the thing they had once despised. They were abashed and bewildered at first, as one after another they fell into the habit of attending services. They were surprised to find something that they needed, something that made life simpler and gentler for them, something uplifting.

"We're a queer mess of Puritans," reflected Randolph Fitts. "You know that parrot of old Bob Carr's? Well, he took it out and wrung its neck last night,--after all the time, and trouble, and patience he spent in giving her a swell private education. There never was a bird that could swear so copiously as that bird of Bob's. He taught her every thing she knew. He worked day and night to provide her with an up-to-date vocabulary. He used to lie awake nights thinking up new words for old Polly to conquer. Now he says the blamed old rip was deceiving him all the time. She began springing expletives on him that he'd never heard of before in all his forty years before the mast. She first began using them a couple of months ago when he undertook to reform her. He started in to teach her to say 'good gracious' and 'goodness me' and 'hoity-toity' and all such stuff, and she cursed so loud and so long that he had to throw a bucket of water on her.

"Every time he came home from church, that redheaded harridan would open up on him with such a string of vituperation that he had to hold his ears so's not to forget himself and backslide. Well, it got so that Bob couldn't live with her any longer. She simply wouldn't puritanize. The nearest he ever got her to saying 'good' was when she said it with only one 'o,' and then as prefix to 'dammit.' So he decided the only way to reform her was to murder her. She managed to nip a piece out of his hand while he was doing it, however, and he's had the hump all day because he fell from grace and said something he'd oughtn't to. Yes, sir; we're a queer mess of Puritans. Look at us. Catholics, Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Jews, infidels, Theosophists,--even Christian Scientists,--all rolled up into one big bundle labeled: 'Handle with Prayer.' We know nearly all the Ten Commandments by heart, and the Beat.i.tudes flow from us in torrents. My wife was saying only the other night that if Sheriff Shay didn't arrest that bird for using profane language, she'd start a pet.i.tion to have--h.e.l.lo, Soapy! I didn't know you were present."

"What was she going to do?" demanded the Sheriff of Trigger Island.

"There's no use telling you now. It's too late. Polly has gone to a place I don't dare mention, so what's the use talking about it?"

"I can't go 'round pinchin' fallen parrots," growled Soapy. "Besides, I'm the feller that learned her most of the cuss-words old Bob never heard before. I never saw a bird that was so anxious to improve. She used to set there with her ear c.o.c.ked, just simply crazy to learn something new. Every time she'd see me coming she'd begin to hop up and down on her perch and call me names, figurin' I'd lose my temper and give her a tongue lashin'. Gosh, I'm glad she's dead. It was gettin'

to be an awful nuisance chasing parrots out of the trees back of Bob's house. They got so's they'd come down there and set around all day pickin' up things she said. Somebody told me the other day he heard a parrot 'way up in the woods swearin' like a sailor. He fired a club at it, and what do you think it said to him?"

"If you weren't such an unG.o.dly liar, Soapy, I'd ask you," said Chief Justice Malone.

Soapy regarded him sorrowfully.

"If you keep on sayin' things like that, Judge, I'll have to tell your wife you ain't true to her," said he.

"And that would be the most prodigious lie you ever told," exclaimed Mr.

Malone.

"Sure. You and me know it's a lie, but you'd ketch h.e.l.l, just the same."

CHAPTER II.

The population of Trigger Island has increased. Following the example of Buck Chizler and the Governor himself, scores of dubious lovers took heart. They succeeded in dispelling certain misgivings--and doubts lurking in the hearts,--not to say consciences,--of approximately three-fourths of the unmarried women on the island, with the result that Father Francisco and Parson Mackenzie were kept exceedingly busy for a number of weeks.

The "state," guided by the newly elected Chief Justice, extracted vows even more severe than those incorporated in the marriage service. And yet, despite the emphatic declarations of certain candidates,--princ.i.p.ally male,--there remained in the minds of all,--including brides,--a lingering doubt. On the other hand, several ardent and undoubtedly honest gentlemen were unable to marry the objects of their affection for the simple reason that too many people were able to recall the lamentations of the ladies themselves, in the early days when it was customary to suffer because of the suspense and agony their poor husbands were enduring at home.