The Seiners Part 25

"Oh, keep your fishermen's jokes for the mugging-up times on your vessel. You go and get Maurice Blake--or find Mr. Clancy and have him get him--if he hasn't gone on the Flamingo."

So I went out. On a cruise along the water front I found a whole lot of people. I saw Wesley Marrs and Tommie Ohlsen--sorrowful and neither saying much--looking after their vessels--Ohlsen seeing to a new gaff. "I ought to've lost," said Ohlsen. "Look at that for a rotten piece of wood." Sam Hollis was around, too, trying to explain how it was he didn't win the race. But he couldn't explain to anybody's satisfaction how his stays'l went nor why he hove-to when that squall struck him--the same squall that shot the Johnnie Duncan across the line. Tom O'Donnell was there, looking down on the deck of the vessel in which he took so much pride. "Two holes in her deck where her spars ought to be," he was saying when I came along. I asked him if he had seen Maurice that morning, and it was from him I learned for certain that Maurice had s.h.i.+pped on the Flamingo. "I didn't see her leaving, boy, but Withrow himself told me this morning. 'And I hope he'll never come back,' he said at the same time. ''Tis you that takes a licking hard. But maybe 'tis the insurance,' I says. 'If that's what you're thinking,' says he, 'she isn't insured.' 'Then it must be the divil's own repair she's in when no company at all will insure her,' I says. Sure, we had hard words over it, but that won't bring back Maurice--he's gone in the Flamingo, Joe."

I went after Clancy then, and after a long chase, that took me to Boston and back, I caught up with him. He was full of repentance and was gloomy. It was up in his boarding-house--in his room. He, looking tired, was thinking of taking a kink of sleep.

"Hulloh, Joe! And I don't wonder you look surprised, Joe. I must be getting old. Thursday morning I got up after as fine a night's sleep as a man'd want. That was Thursday. Then Thursday night, Friday, Friday night, Sat.u.r.day--two nights and three days, and I'm sleepy already. Sleepy, Joe, and I remember the time I could go a whole week, and then, after a good night's sleep, wake up fine and daisy and be ready for another week. Joe, there's a moral in that if you can only work it out."

Clancy stayed silent after that, not inclined to talk, I could see, until I told him about Maurice having s.h.i.+pped in the Flamingo and the hard crew that had gone in her.

That stirred him. "Great Lord, gone in that shoe-box! Why, Joe, I'd as soon put to sea in a market basket calked with b.u.t.ter. And the man that's got her--Dave Warner! He's crazy, Joe, if ever a man was crazy.

Clean out of his head over a girl that he met in Gloucester once, but now living in Halifax, and she won't have anything to do with him.

He's daffy over her. If she was drowning alongside you'd curse your luck because you had to gaff her in. That is, you would only she's a woman, of course. Wants to get lost, Joe, I believe--wants to! If this was Boston or New York and in older days, I'd say that Dave and Withrow must have shanghaied a crew to man the Flamingo's kind. But you c'n get men here to go in anything sometimes. Wait a bit and I'll be along with you. We'll see old Duncan and maybe we c'n head the Flamingo off."

x.x.xVII

THE GIRL IN CANSO

That was Sat.u.r.day evening. The crew of the Johnnie had been told just after the race by the skipper that he would not need them again until Monday. Scattering on that, some going to Boston, they could not be got together again until Monday morning, and it was not until Monday noon that we got away.

We fitted out as though for a Cape Sh.o.r.e seining trip, and that's what we were to do in case we missed the Flamingo or could not persuade her skipper or Maurice himself that he ought to leave her and come back on the Johnnie Duncan. It was Clancy who had the matter in charge.

Indeed, it was only Clancy who knew what it was really all about.

We had a good run-off before a stiff westerly that gradually hauled to the north, and Tuesday night late saw us in Halifax Harbor. It was too late to do anything that night, but Clancy went ash.o.r.e to find out what he could. Before sunrise he was back with word to break out the anchor and put to sea. He had word of the Flamingo.

"That girl of Dave's--it seems she's moved to Canso with her folks, and Dave's gone there. He's probably there before this--maybe left again. She's an old plug, the Flamingo, but she ought've made Canso before this. He only stayed a few hours here and left Monday."

It was bang, bang, bang all the way to Canso, with Clancy swearing at Withrow and the Flamingo and Dave Warner and the girl in the case--one after the other and sometimes all together. "Blast Withrow and that crazy fool Dave Warner, too. And why in the devil couldn't her folks stayed in Gloucester--or in Halifax, at least. They ought've put a few sticks of dynamite in her and blown her to pieces ages ago. She's forty years old if she's a day--her old planks rotten. They won't keep her afloat over-night if they're out in this. Why d'y's'pose people leave a good lively little city like Halifax to go to a place like Canso? Why?"

Andie Howe happened to be within hearing, and "Maybe the rent's cheaper," suggested Andie.

"Maybe it is--and maybe if you don't talk sense I'll heave you over the rail some fine day. Better give her a grain more fore-sheet. Man, but it's a wicked night."

We made Canso after the worst day and night we had had in the Johnnie Duncan since she was launched. Outside Canso Harbor it looked bad. We didn't think the skipper would try to enter the harbor that black night, but he did. "Got to go in and get news," said Clancy, and in we went. It was as black as could be--squalls sweeping down--and Canso is not the easiest harbor in the world to make at night.

I went ash.o.r.e with Clancy to hear what the young woman might have to say. We found her in a place run by her father, a sort of lodging house and "pub," with herself serving behind the bar--a bold-looking young woman, not over-neat--and yet attractive in her way--good figure, regular features, and good color. "There, Joe, if you brought a girl like that home your mother would probably die of a broken heart, but there's the kind that a foolish man like Dave Warner would sell his soul for." Then Clancy explained while we were waiting for her to see us privately, "I don't know if she'll remember me, but I met her two or three times in Gloucester."

When she came in she recognized Clancy right away. "How do you do, Captain Clancy?"

"How do you do, Miss Luce? My friend, Mr. Buckley. Now what we've come for--but first, suppose we have a little something by way of sociability. A little fizzy stuff, say, and some good cigars, Miss Luce."

She brought the wine and the cigars. Clancy pulled the cork, filled both gla.s.ses, pushed one gla.s.s toward the young woman and drew one to himself.

"But, Captain, your friend hasn't any."

"My friend," said Clancy, "doesn't drink. The last thing the doctor said to him before we came away was, 'Don't touch a drop of liquor or your life will pay the forfeit.' You see, Miss Luce, he's been a dissipated youth--drink--and having been dissipated and coming of delicate people, it's affected his health."

"You don't tell me? I'm sure he doesn't look it."

"No, he don't--that's a fact. But so it is."

"Stomach?" she asked me.

"No--heart," answered Clancy for me. "What they call an aneurism. You know what an aneurism is, of course?"

"Yes-yes--oh, yes----"

"Of course. Well, he's got one of them."

"That's too bad. So he only smokes instead?"

"That's all. Here, Joe, smoke up."

"My, I always thought smoking was bad for the heart."

"It is--for everything except aneurisms. Smoking's the death of aneurisms. Have another cigar, Joe. And Miss Luce, shall we exchange a health?"

"But I never drank anything in all my life."

"Of course not. But you will now, won't you? Consider the occasion and I'm sure you won't let me drink alone. And I've come so far to see you, too--only of course not--Well, here's to your good health, and may you live long and----"

The rest of it was smothered in the gurgle. And n.o.body would ever think to see the way she put down hers that Miss Luce had never had a drink of wine before.

"And now, Miss Luce, may I ask how long it has been since your friend Dave Warner left----"

"Oh-h--Dave Warner? He's no friend of mine."

"Isn't he? Well, he's no particular friend of mine, either. But a friend of mine--of both of us, Joe here, too--is with Dave--Maurice Blake. Any word of him?"

"Oh, yes. A good-looking fellow, nice eyes and hair and nice manners.

I do like to see refined manners in people. Now if it was him----"

"If it was him, you wouldn't have told him to go to sea and the devil take him----"

"I'd have you know, Captain Clancy, I don't swear."

"Swear? You, Miss Luce? Dear me, whatever made you think I thought that? But let's have another taste of wine. But of course you didn't encourage Dave to stay ash.o.r.e here?"

"Him?--I guess not. When he said he didn't care if he never came back, I told him I was sure I didn't--and out he went."

"O woman, gentle woman," murmured Clancy in his gla.s.s, "especially real ladies. But Dave never did know how to talk to a lady."

"I should say he didn't."

"No, not Dave. And so his money gone he's----"