Wide Courses Part 3

I sat on a rock on the beach to think it over, and, "Alec Corning," I said to myself at last--"they cert'nly tried you with the right kind o'

bait--and hooked you good."

And I wondered how I could get square with Miller. No use trying to stir up Washington. There was an old skipper of mine, and they'd fined him three thousand dollars once for just a difference of opinion and he couldn't pay it, and his vessel at that moment was being used for a light-ship, and all he'd been getting out of Washington were State Department letters for ten years. And he had cert'nly as much political pull as I had, for I had none.

No, no State Department for mine, I says at last, and ships my crew up to John Rose to Folly Cove, telling them to help John with the herring, and to tell him, too, to save the herring for me, that I'd get 'em back to Gloucester some way, and myself takes pa.s.sage next day on the mail packet to Saint Pierre.

It was after dark of Christmas Eve when I landed at Saint Pierre. I went up to Argand's Caffay, a place where all kinds of seafaring people used to go to get a drink and a bite to eat. There were quite a few in there now--French stokers from a steamer or two and half a dozen French man-of-war's men from a French gun-boat that was lying in the harbor, I remember.

I didn't see any American fishermen in Argand's, but I knew that some of 'em would be drifting in before long. And by and by a few did, but me saying nothing to any of them, only sitting over to a table in a corner with a little bit of supper, and thinking that it was going to be a blue kind of Christmas for me, and a blue Christmas at home, too, for by this time Gloucester must've got the news of the seizure of the _Aurora_, and somebody'd surely pa.s.sed the word to the wife.

I was sitting there, in the corner, figuring things out and not bothering much about the people coming and going, when somebody sits down at my table, and no sooner down than I felt his boot pressing mine under the table. I looked up, and it was Archie Gillis.

"A fine one _you_!" I breaks out--"where's Sam?"

"Gi'me a chance now, skipper," says Gillis, and orders a little something, and when the waiter was gone: "Sam's not far away. I left him up to Antone's rolling dice for turkeys. We came over, him and me, on a little French packet. Sam guessed you'd come back to Saint Pierre, and if you did he knew you'd drop in here. Sam'll be here soon, he guessed you'd come here. We've been tryin' to find out about the _Aurora_. She's in the harbor, and they're going to put out to-night."

"For where?"

"Well, it's a fishin' trip she's cleared for, but she's got more than offsh.o.r.e bait in her hold."

Archie had been talking straight down at his plate. Now he stood up, and from behind his napkin said: "There's the skipper o' the _Aurora_--tryin' to collect his gang together. Don't look around. But he'll have hard work, 'cause Sam and me spent most of th' afternoon gettin' 'em drunk--specially Sam. An' Sam says don't notice him when you see him come in, for the new _Aurora_ gang don't know yet that we was any of your crew." Gillis tossed his napkin down and strolled over to the bar.

By and by I heard a familiar voice at the door--could 'a' heard it a block--and pretty soon Sam himself comes rolling in. He was carrying a monstrous turkey, and he spied Archie first thing. And, "Hullo, Archie boy," he shouts. "Throw your binnacle lights on that, will you? Thirty pounds he weighs--like you see him--and twenty-five he'll weigh, or I'm no fancy poultry raiser, when he's ready for the oven."

Gillis poked his finger into the breast of the turkey. "I wish we had him for to-morrow, Sammie. He'd make a nice little lunch, that lad."

"Well, we'll have him, Archie, for to-morrow. We'll have him--the biggest turkey ever sailed out of ol' Sain' Peer. A whale, look at him."

"Aye, some tonnage to him. But y' never won him here, Sammie?"

"Win _him_ here? _Here_? In Argand's? Ever know anybody win anything here? No, sir. I won him up to ol' Antone's. Twenty-seven throws at twenty-five cents a throw."

"Twenty-seven! You could 'a' bought two of 'em for that."

"Bought? Of course I could 'a' bought; but who wants to buy a turkey Christmas time? Why, any fat old shuffle-footed loafer can take a basket under his arm and go down t' the market and pay down his money and come away with a turkey or anything else he wants. 'Tain't the _getting_ him.

Archie--it's the winnin' him from a lot of hot sports that think they c'n roll dice. Twenty-seven throws I took and with every throw a free drink of good old ca.s.sy--"

"Twenty-seven drinks o' ca.s.sy! A lot you knew about what you was rollin'

by then, Sammie."

"'Tain't what I knew, but what I _did_, that counted, Archie, and it takes more than twenty-seven gla.s.ses o' ca.s.sy to put my rail under.

_You_ oughter know that, Archie. I knew what I was doin'--don't worry.

An' that twenty-seventh rollin'! I shook 'em up--spittin' to wind'ard for luck--and lets 'em run. And out they comes a-bowlin'. Seventeen!

Cert'nly a fine run-off that, I says, and drops 'em in again, limbers my wrist a couple o' times, and then--two fives and a six--thirty-three! I gathers 'em in again, takes off my cardigan jacket, lays my cigar on the rail, jibes my elbows to each side--'Action,' I says. 'Action.' Yer could hear 'em breathin' a cable length all around me. I curls my fingers over the box, snaps her across an' back again. The len'th of the table they rolled. Three sixes--fifty-one. 'Mong doo,' yells ol'

Antone--'Sankantoon--not since fifteen year do I see such play.' Well, for another hour they rolled, but that fifty-one was still high-line. I took him away. And alongside this lad when we have him to-morrow, Archie, there'll be a special bottle o' wine--some red-colored wine. I don't know the name of it. Good stuff, though, and ol' Antone gave it to me--a special bottle."

"An' well he might arter all the money you spent there, Sammie."

"An' why not there as well as the next place? Why not there as well as here? Why not?" Sam glared down to the end of the bar, where Argand himself was taking in the cash, and his eyes, roaming round the room, caught mine and he winked. "A gen'l'man, ol' Antone, which every caffy keeper ain't--an' because he's a gen'l'man, and because some others ain't--" Sam looked around to see if Argand was getting that--"because some others ain't--because some others ain't, I say--an' I could name 'em, too, if I wanted--I could, yes."

I caught another flash from Sam's eyes, and, looking where his eyes pointed, I saw my _Aurora_ captain and three or four of his crew, who had just come in.

"Name him, Sammie--name him," urged Gillis. "Name the cross-breeded dog-fish--name 'im, Sammie, name 'im."

All this was foolish enough, perhaps, but not to Henri Argand, who ran this place. He didn't have reputation enough to be able to stand off and laugh at Sammie and Archie--probably not--for by and by, with four or five helpers, he comes with a rush and in ten seconds it was a mix-up.

Sam and Gillis put their backs to the bar and gave battle. There were only the two of them, and the turkey, at first. A great bird a turkey--especially when you swing him by the ankles. Down went a waiter, and down went another waiter. Sam made a couple of tremendous swipes, and then down went the _Aurora's_ captain and one of his crew. The _Aurora's_ captain's head, I thought, would be knocked clean off, the way the turkey hit him. Then over went a row of French stokers, and, with a back-handed sweep of the turkey, down went the bartender behind.

And Sam and Archie, I could see, were working over to finish the _Aurora's_ new crew, and would've got 'em, too, but Argand, inside the bar, picks up a bung-starter, sneaks down and gives Sam and Archie a couple of slick taps over the ear, and down they went--just slid feet first away from the bar and on to the floor, flat--and as they slid Argand reaches over and grabs the turkey out of Sam's hand.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Sam made a couple of tremendous swipes, and then down went the _Aurora's_ captain and one of his crew]

That sort of put it up to our national pride--there was six or seven American fishermen in the place--and we waded in, and the French man-of-war's men, they waded in, and it was one fine battle for maybe ten minutes, with nothing in the way of empty bottles, or full ones either, being overlooked. And when we couldn't reach any more chairs or table legs we pulled off our sea boots, and, believe me, a big red jack with a three-quarter-inch sole and an inch and a half of heel--you grab a sea boot o' that size--it don't weigh more than four pounds or so--you grab it by the ears and get a full healthy swing on it and let it hit a man anywhere above the water-line, and he won't mistake it for any sofa cushion.

It was a fine fight, and I think we'd 'a' won out only for the re-enforcements from outside. A liberty party of French man-of-war's men come first, and then the police lads with the red trousers and the swords, and out we went into the street.

And when they got us out they locked the doors and barred the windows.

While I was pulling on my red jacks again, out under the lamp, on the corner of the street, up comes Sam and Archie. "Say, Alec," begins Sam, "but you cert'nly laid 'em out with your sea boot."

I thought Sam and Archie would be pretty well smashed up, but there wasn't a mark on 'em except a couple of lumps behind their ears.

"Not us," explained Sam. "Nothin' happened to us except bein' stepped on a few dozen times. But did y' land the rest o' the _Aurora's_ crew, Alec?"

"I don't know. I swung for 'em, Sam."

"You got 'em all right, and that'll put it out o' their heads to bother with the _Aurora_ to-night, though"--he c.o.c.ked up an ear to the whistle of a rising breeze--"it begins to feel like they wouldn't 'a' gone out anyway--it's breezing up so."

"Where's she layin'?"

"Off the end o' the big dock. An' if it keeps on breezin' they won't be goin' out in the mornin' either. A bad time anyway to put out on a cruise--Christmas Day. But what d'y' say, Alec, if we take a look around the place?"

We'd got a pretty good start for Christmas Eve, and around Saint Pierre we went, Sam and Archie and four men of the _Lucy Foster's_ crew who'd been in the mix-up. They were ready to tear things up, but there wasn't much to tear up, because everybody heard us coming, and whenever we'd get to a place, we'd find the doors locked and the windows barred. The only place not locked that night was the little cathedral, and by and by, when we found there was no place else to go, we all went in there.

It was a midnight ma.s.s being celebrated, and it was the sound of the choir voices coming from there that got us, and, Catholics or no, no matter, we all went in and heard ma.s.s, too, and when we came out, not feeling like trouble any more, we all went down to old Antone's and turned in.

Christmas morning everybody was feeling better, all but Sam Leary and me. I was thinking of my vessel, and Sam of his big turkey. He wanted to get that turkey. He wasn't going to leave Saint Pierre till he got it back. No, sir, he wasn't. And he had a pretty good notion just where it was then. Up to Argand's, cooking for Henri's Christmas dinner. Or maybe him gettin' fifty cents a plate for it for customers' dinners. And he'd cut up for about forty platefuls. And for forty plates at fifty cents or two francs a plate. "Mong doo an' sankantoon," yells Sam all at once.

"Come on, Archie--come on, fellows"--and up the street went Sam and Archie and the four of the _Lucy Foster's_ crew to see about the turkey.

But that wasn't getting me my vessel, and I went down to the water-front to look for her. There she was, my lovely _Aurora_, to anchor in the stream, and there was me on the end of the dock looking at her, and that's all I could do--look at her. She was lying to two anchors and with her mains'l standing. A little further off sh.o.r.e and even her two anchors couldn't 've kept her from dragging and piling up on the rocks with that mains'l up, for a rocky harbor is Saint Pierre, and now it was blowing a living gale of wind.

While I was standing there on the big dock, along comes the trader Miller with another chap. He must 've seen me, but he pretended not, and I didn't make any sign I saw him. He pointed out the _Aurora_ to the man, saying a few things in French. And then he raised his voice.

"When it moderates she will depart--and with a car-go," he said--the last in English, and by that I knew he meant it for me. "Go on," I grit out, "go on, have your fun."

"Yes, I pur-chased her ver-ry cheap," goes on Miller, and then a great racket, and down the dock on the run comes Sam with his big turkey, which was all cooked, I could see, fine and brown--and Archie behind Sam and the four _Lucy Foster_ men behind Archie and behind them again a bunch of Argand's waiters and the gendarmes with the red trousers and swords.

There was a dory tied up to the end of the dock; I don't know who owned it, but there it was. "Come on, jump in." I yells, and all hands piled in, and we shoved off; all in one motion almost, and by the time Argand's crowd got to the stringpiece we were a vessel length away, and pulling like homeward bound.

"Lay to it." I kept saying to them.