Part 157

“I haven't said one word to Vose or his associates about this business of the documents. They think you have come because you wanted to straighten out a low-down trick worked by an understrapper. So this has put you in mighty well with the Vose crowd, sir.”

Marston grunted.

“It ought to be kind of pleasing to have a few men think you are on the square,” pursued Captain Wass.

“That's enough of this pillycock conversation. Hand over those papers!”

“Just one moment!” He signaled to Captain Mayo, who came to them. “I'm going to tell Mr. Marston why those documents were my especial business to-day, and why you couldn't control me in the matter. I may as well explain to the two of you at once. It was my own business for this reason: I don't know anything about any papers. I never saw any. I never opened that package. I handed it along just as it was given to me. That's true, on my sacred word, Mr. Marston; and I haven't any reason for lying to you--not after you have signed those agreements.”

“Come outside,” urged the financier. “I want to tell you what I think of you.”

“No,” said the old skipper, mildly. “And I'd lower your voice, sir, if I were you. These men here have a pretty good idea of you just now, and I don't want you to spoil it.”

“You're a lying renegade!”

“Oh no! I have only showed you that all the good bluffers are not confined to Wall Street. There's one still loose there. Your man Bradish probably had reasons for wanting to bluff your daughter--and save his own skin. He'll probably hand your papers to you!”

Marston swore and departed.

“I laid out that course whilst I was down on my knees in his cabin, sort of praying for a good lie in a time of desp'rit need,” Captain Wass confided to Mayo. “It wasn't bad, considering the way it has worked out.”

XXXII ~ A GIRL'S DEAR “BECAUSE!”

Cheer up, Jack, bright smiles await you From the fairest of the fair, And her loving eyes will greet you With kind welcomes everywhere. Rolling home, rolling home, Rolling home across the sea. Rolling home to dear old England, Rolling home, dear land, to thee! --Rolling Home.

There was no niggardliness in the trade the Vose folks made with Captain Mayo. They contracted to co-operate with him and his men in floating the steamship, repairing her in dry dock, and refitting her for her route. She would be appraised as she stood after refitting, as a going proposition, and Mayo was to receive stock to the amount of her value--stock in the newly organized Vose line.

“Furthermore,” stated old man Vose, “we shall need a chap of just about your gauge as manager. You have shown that you are able to do things.”

He was up on the Conomo's deck after a long inspection of the work which had been done under difficulties.

“You would have had this steamer off with your own efforts if your money had lasted. Your next job is the Montana; but you'll simply manage that, Captain Mayo--use your head and save your muscle.”

“I'll get her off, seeing that I put her on.”

“We all know just how she was put on--and Marston will pay for it in his hard coin.”

Under these circumstances Razee Reef was no longer a mourners' bench! The dreary days of makeshift were at an end.

The lighters of one of the biggest wrecking companies of the coast hurried to Razee and flocked around the maimed steamer--Samaritans of the sea. Gigantic equipment embraced her; great pumps gulped the water from her; bolstered and supported, as a stricken man limps with his arms across the shoulders of his friends, the steamer came off Razee Reef with the first spring tide in July, and toiled off across the sea in the wake of puffing tugs, and was shored up and safe at last in a dry dock--the hospital of the crippled giants of the ocean.

No music ever sounded as sweet to Captain Mayo as that clanging chorus the hammers of the iron-workers played on the flanks of the Conomo. But he tore himself away from that music, and went down to Maquoit along with a vastly contented Captain Candage, who remembered now that he had a daughter waiting for him.

She had been apprised by letter of their success and of their coming.

Maquoit made a celebration of that arrival of the Ethel and May, and Dolph and Otie, cook and mate of the schooner, led the parade when the men were on shore.

They came back to their own with the full purses that the generosity of their employers had provided, and there was no longer any doubt as to the future of the men who once starved on Hue and Cry.

Captain Mayo had declared that he knew where to find faithful workers when it came time to distribute jobs.

Polly Candage had come to him when he stepped foot on shore, hands outstretched to him, and eyes alight. And when she put her hands in his he knew, in his soul, that this was the greeting he had been waiting for; her words of congratulation were the dearest of all, her smile was the best reward, and for her dear self he had been hungry.

But he would not admit to himself that he had come to woo.