Part 127

“Yes, that's what Simpson said. He made a business of going around and swearing about it. Seemed to want to have everybody 'longcoast hear him swear about it. When I see a man make too much of a business of swearing about another man I get suspicious. After Art Simpson worked his cards so as to get the job of second officer on board the new Conomo I got more suspicious. Now that I have seen how that steamer has been plunked fair and square on Razee, I'm almighty suspicious. I'm suspicious enough to believe that she banged during Art Simpson's watch.”

“What are you driving at, Captain Candage? Are you hinting that anybody would plant a man for a job of that kind?”

“Exactly what I'm hinting,” drawled the skipper.

“But putting a steamer on the rocks at this time of year!”

“No passengers--and plenty of life-boats for the crew, sir. I have been hearing a lot of talk about steamboat conditions since I have been carrying in fish.”

“I've found out a little something in that line myself,” admitted Mayo.

“There's one thing to be said about Blackbeard and Cap'n Teach and old Cap Kidd--they went out on the sea and tended to their own pirating; they didn't stay behind a desk and send out understrappers.”

Mayo, in spite of his bitter memories of Julius Mar-ston's attitude, felt impelled to palliate in some degree the apparent enormities of the steamboat magnates.

“I don't believe the big fellows know all that's done, Captain Candage. As responsible parties they wouldn't dare to have those things done. The understrappers, as you say, are anxious to make good and to earn their money, and when the word is passed on down to 'em they go at the job recklessly. I think it will be pretty hard to fix anything on the real principals. That's why I am out in the cold with my hands tied, just now.”

“I wish we were going to get into the Conomo matter a little, so that we could do some first-hand scouting. It looks to me like the rankest job to date, and it may be the opening for a general overhauling. When deviltry gets to running too hard it generally stubs its toes, sir.” Captain Candage found a responsive gleam in Mayo's eyes and he went on. “Of course, I didn't hear the talk, nor see the money pass, nor I wa'n't in the pilot-house when Art Simpson shut his eyes and let her slam. But having been a sailorman all my life, I smell nasty weather a long ways off. That steamer was wrecked a-purpose, and she was wrecked at a time o' year when she can't be salvaged. You don't have to advise the devil how to build a bonfire.”

Mayo did not offer any comment. He seemed to be much occupied by his thoughts.

Two days later a newspaper came into Mayo's hands at Maquoit, and he read that the wrecked steamer had been put up at auction by the underwriters. It was plain that the bidders had shared the insurance folks' general feeling of pessimism--she had been knocked down for two thousand five hundred dollars. The newspapers explained that only this ridiculous sum had been realized because experts had decided that in the first blow the steamer would slip off the ledges on which she was impaled and would go down like a plummet in the deep water from which old Razee cropped. Even the most reckless of gambling junkmen could not be expected to dare much of an investment in such a peek-a-boo game as that.

“But I wonder what was the matter with the expert who predicted that,” mused Mayo. “He doesn't know the old jaw teeth of Razee Reef as well as I do.”

When the Ethel and May set forth from Maquoit on her next trip to Cashes Banks, Mayo suggested--and he was a bit shamefaced when he did so--that they might as well go out of their way a little and see what the junkers were doing at Razee.

Captain Candage eyed his associate with rather quizzical expression. “Great minds travel, et cetry!” he chuckled. “I was just going to say that same thing to you. On your mind a little, is it?”

“Yes, and only a little. Of course, there can't be anything in it for us. Those junkers will stick to her till she ducks for deep water. But I've been wondering why they think she's going to duck. I seined around Razee for a while, and the old chap has teeth like a hyena--regular fangs.”

“Maybe they took Art Simpson's say-so,” remarked the old man, wrinkling his nose. “Art would be very encouraging about the prospects of saving her--that is to say, he would be so in case losing that steamer has turned his brain.”

“Guess there wasn't very much interest by the underwriters,” suggested Mayo. “They weren't stuck very hard, so I've found out. She was mostly owned in sixty-fourths, and with marine risks up to where they are, small owners don't insure. It's a wicked thing all through, Candage! That great, new steamer piled up there by somebody's devilishness! I believe as you do about the affair! I've been to sea so long that a boat means something to me besides iron and wood. There's something about 'em--something--”

“Almost human,” put in the old man. “I sorrowed over the Polly, but I didn't feel as bad as if she'd been new. It was sort of like when old folks die of natural causes--you know they have lived about as long as they can. It's sorrowful to have 'em go, but you have to feel reconciled. But I know just how it is with you in the case of that steamer, for I'm a sailor like you. It's just like getting a fine boy through college, seeing him start out full of life, and courage, and hopes, and prospects, and then seeing him drop dead at your feet.”

There was a quaver in the old man's tones. But Mayo, who knew the souls of mariners, understood. Under their hard shells there is imagination that has been nurtured in long, long thoughts. In the calms under starlit skies, in the black darkness when tossing surges swing beneath the keel, in the glimmering vistas of sun-lighted seas, sailors ponder while their more stolid brothers on land allow their souls to doze.

“You are right, Captain Candage. That's why I almost hate to go out to the Conomo. Those infernal ghouls of junkmen will be tearing her into bits instead of trying to put the breath of life back into her.”

The helpless steamer seemed more lonely than when they had visited her before. The mosquito fleet that had surrounded her, hoping for some stray pickings, had dispersed. A tug and a couple of lighters were stuck against her icy sides, and, like leeches, were sucking from her what they could. They were prosecuting their work industriously, for the sea was calm in one of those lulls between storms, a wintry truce that Atlantic coastwise toilers understand and depend on.

Mayo, his curiosity prompting him, determined to go on board one of the lighters and discover to what extremes the junk jackals were proceeding.

Two of his dorymen ferried him after the schooner had been hove to near the wreck.

“What's your business?” inquired a man who was bundled in a fur coat and seemed to be bossing operations.

“Nothing much,” confessed the young man from his dory, which was tossing alongside the lighter. “I'm only a fisherman.”

The swinging cranes of the lighters, winches purring, the little lifting-engines puffing in breathless staccato, were hoisting and dropping cargo--potatoes in sacks, and huge rolls of print paper. Mayo was a bit astonished to note that they were not stripping the steamer; not even her anchors and chains had been disturbed.

“Fend off!” commanded the boss.