The Indian Drum by William MacHarg (classic english novels txt) 📕

the sea; if you observe our great shipping lines you will find that they have, it would seem, apportioned among themselves the traffic of the lakes; each line has its own connections and its own ports. But this did not come through agreement, but through conflict; the strong have survived and made a division of the traffic; the weak have died. Twenty years ago, when this conflict of competing interests was at its height, Corvet was the head of one line, Stafford was head of another, and the two lines had very much the same connections and competed for the same cargoes."

"I begin to see!" Father Perron exclaimed. "Please go on."

"In the early nineties both lines still were young; Stafford had, I believe, two ships; Corvet had three."

"So few? Yes; it grows plainer!"

"In 1894, Stafford managed a stroke which, if fate had not intervened, must have assured the ultimate extinction of Corvet's line or its absorption into Stafford's. Stafford gained as his partner Franklin Ramsdell, a wealthy man whom he had convinced that the lake traffic offered chances of great profit; and this connection supplied him with the capital whose lack had been hampering him, as it was still hampering Corvet. The new firm—Stafford and Ramsdell—projected the construction, with Ramsdell's money, of a number of great steel freighters. The first of these—the Miwaka, a test ship whose experience was to guide them in the construction of the rest—was launched in the fall of 1895, and was lost on its maiden trip with both Stafford and Ramsdell aboard. The Stafford and Ramsdell interests could not survive the death of both owners and disappeared from the lakes. Is this what you wanted to know?"

The priest nodded. Alan leaned tensely forward, watching; what he had heard seemed to have increased and deepened the priest's feeling over what he had to tell and to have aided his comprehension of it.

"His name was Caleb Stafford," Father Perron began. "(This is what Benjamin Corvet told to me, when he was dying under the wreckage on the ferry.) 'He was as fair and able a man as the lakes ever knew. I had my will of most men in the lake trade in those days; but I could not have my will of him. With all the lakes to trade in, he had to pick out for his that traffic which I already had chosen for my own. But I fought him fair, Father—I fought him fair, and I would have continued to do that to the end.

"'I was at Manistee, Father, in the end of the season—December fifth of 1895. The ice had begun to form very early that year and was already bad; there was cold and a high gale. I had laid up one of my ships at Manistee, and I was crossing that night upon a tug to Manitowoc, where another was to be laid up. I had still a third one lading upon the northern peninsula at Manistique for a last trip which, if it could be made, would mean a good profit from a season which so far, because of Stafford's competition, had been only fair. After leaving Manistee, it grew still more cold, and I was afraid the ice would close in on her and keep her where she was, so I determined to go north that night and see that she got out. None knew, Father, except those aboard the tug, that I had made that change.

"'At midnight, Father, to westward of the Foxes, we heard the four blasts of a steamer in distress—the four long blasts which have sounded in my soul ever since! We turned toward where we saw the steamer's lights; we went nearer and, Father, it was his great, new ship—the Miwaka! We had heard two days before that she had passed the Soo; we had not known more than that of where she was. She had broken her new shaft, Father, and was intact except for that, but helpless in the rising sea...'"

The priest broke off. "The Miwaka! I did not understand all that that had meant to him until just now—the new ship of the rival line, whose building meant for him failure and defeat!

"There is no higher duty than the rescue of those in peril at sea. He—Benjamin Corvet, who told me this—swore to me that, at the beginning none upon the tug had any thought except to give aid. A small line was drifted down to the tug and to this a hawser was attached which they hauled aboard. There happened then the first of those events which led those upon the tug into doing a great wrong. He—Benjamin Corvet—had taken charge of the wheel of the tug; three men were handling the hawser in ice and washing water at the stern. The whistle accidentally blew, which those on the Miwaka understood to mean that the hawser had been secured, so they drew in the slack; the hawser, tightened unexpectedly by the pitching of the sea, caught and crushed the captain and deckhand of the tug and threw them into the sea.

"Because they were short-handed now upon the tug, and also because consultation was necessary over what was to be done, the young owner of the Miwaka, Captain Stafford, came down the hawser onto the tug after the line had been put straight. He came to the wheelhouse, where Benjamin Corvet was, and they consulted. Then Benjamin Corvet learned that the other owner was aboard the new ship as well—Ramsdell—the man whose money you have just told me had built this and was soon to build other ships. I did not understand before why learning that affected him so much.

"'Stafford wanted us' (this is what Benjamin Corvet said) 'to tow him up the lake; I would not do that, but I agreed to tow him to Manistique. The night was dark, Father—no snow, but frightful wind which had been increasing until it now sent the waves washing clear across the tug. We had gone north an hour when, low upon the water to my right, I saw a light, and there came to me the whistling of a buoy which told me that we were passing nearer than I would have wished, even in daytime, to windward of Boulder Reef. There are, Father, no people on that reef; its sides of ragged rock go straight down forty fathoms into the lake.

"'I looked at the man with me in the wheelhouse—at Stafford—and hated him! I put my head out at the wheelhouse door and looked back at the lights at the new, great steamer, following safe and straight at the end of its towline. I thought of my two men upon the tug who had been crushed by clumsiness of those on board that ship; and how my own ships had had a name for never losing a man and that name would be lost now because of the carelessness of Stafford's men! And the sound of the shoal brought the evil thought to me. Suppose I had not happened across his ship; would it have gone upon some reef like this and been lost? I thought that if now the hawser should break, I would be rid of that ship and perhaps of the owner who was on board as well. We could not pick up the tow line again so close to the reef. The steamer would drift down upon the rocks—'"

Father Perron hesitated an instant. "I bear witness," he said solemnly, "that Benjamin Corvet assured me—his priest—that it was only a thought; the evil act which it suggested was something which he would not do or even think of doing. But he spoke something of what was in his mind to Stafford, for he said:

"'I must look like a fool to you to keep on towing your ship!'

"They stared, he told me, into one another's eyes, and Stafford grew uneasy.

"'We'd have been all right,' he answered, 'until we had got help, if you'd left us where we were!' He too listened to the sound of the buoy and of the water dashing on the shoal. 'You are taking us too close,' he said—'too close!' He went aft then to look at the tow line."

Father Perron's voice ceased; what he had to tell now made his face whiten as he arranged it in his memory. Alan leaned forward a little and then, with an effort, sat straight. Constance turned and gazed at him; but he dared not look at her. He felt her hand warm upon his; it rested there a moment and moved away.

"There was a third man in the wheelhouse when these things were spoken," Father Perron said, "the mate of the ship which had been laid up at Manistee."

"Henry Spearman," Sherrill supplied.

"That is the name. Benjamin Corvet told me of that man that he was young, determined, brutal, and set upon getting position and wealth for himself by any means. He watched Corvet and Stafford while they were speaking, and he too listened to the shoal until Stafford had come back; then he went aft.

"'I looked at him, Father,' Benjamin Corvet said to me, 'and I let him go—not knowing. He came back and looked at me once more, and went again to the stern; Stafford had been watching him as well as I, and he sprang away from me now and scrambled after him. The tug leaped suddenly; there was no longer any tow holding it back, for the hawser had parted; and I knew, Father, the reason was that Spearman had cut it!

"'I rang for the engine to be slowed, and I left the wheel and went aft; some struggle was going on at the stern of the tug; a flash came from there and the cracking of a shot. Suddenly all was light about me as, aware of the breaking of the hawser and alarmed by the shot, the searchlight of the Miwaka turned upon the tug. The cut end of the hawser was still upon the tug, and Spearman had been trying to clear this when Stafford attacked him; they fought, and Stafford struck Spearman down. He turned and cried out against me—accusing me of having ordered Spearman to cut the line. He held up the cut end toward Ramsdell on the Miwaka and cried out to him and showed by pointing that it had been cut. Blood was running from the hand with which he pointed, for he had been shot by Spearman; and now again and a second and a third time, from where he lay upon the deck, Spearman fired. The second of those shots killed the engineer who had rushed out where I was on the deck; the third shot went through Stafford's head. The Miwaka was drifting down upon the reef; her whistle sounded again and again the four long blasts. The fireman, who had followed the engineer up from below, fawned on me! I was safe for all of him, he said; I could trust Luke—Luke would not tell! He too thought I had ordered the doing of that thing!

"'From the Miwaka, Ramsdell yelled curses at me, threatening me for what he thought that I had done! I looked at Spearman as he got up from the deck, and I read the thought that had been in him; he had believed that he could cut the hawser in the dark, none seeing, and that our word that it had been broken would have as much strength as any accusation Stafford could make. He had known that to share a secret such as that with me would "make" him on the lakes; for the loss of the Miwaka would cripple Stafford and Ramsdell and strengthen me; and he could make me share with him whatever success I made. But Stafford had surprised him at the hawser and had seen.

"'I moved to denounce him, Father, as I realized this; I moved—but stopped. He had made himself safe against accusation