Danger Signals Part 21

"Writing to my Mexican girl," said he.

"I thought you had got over that a long time ago?"

"So did I, but I hadn't. I've been trying to please somebody else besides myself in this matter, and I'm done. I'm going to work for Bill now."

"Take an old man's advice, Billy, and don't write that girl a line--go and see her."

"Oh, I can fix it all right by letter, and then run down there and see her."

"Don't do it."

"I'll risk it."

A week later Billy and I sat on the veranda of the company's hash-foundry, figuring up our time and smoking our cob meerschaums, when one of the boys who had been to the office, placed two letters in Billy's hands. One of them was directed in the handwriting that used to be on the old Thursday letters. Billy tore it open eagerly--and his own letter to Josephine dropped into his hand. Billy looked at the ground steadily for five minutes, and I pretended not to have seen. Finally he said, half to himself: "You were right, I ought to have gone myself--but I'll go now, go to-morrow." Then he opened the other letter.

He read its single page with manifest interest, and when his eyes reached the last line they went straight on, and looked at the ground, and continued to do so for fully five minutes. Without looking up, he said: "John, I want you to do me two favors."

"All right," said I.

Still keeping his eyes on the ground, he said, slowly, as if measuring everything well: "I'm going up and draw my time, and will leave for Old Mexico on No. 4 to-night. I want you to write to both these parties and tell them that I have gone there and that you have forwarded both these letters. Don't tell 'em that I went after reading 'em."

"And the other favor, Billy?"

"Read this letter, and see me off to-night."

The letter read:

"Philadelphia, May 1, 1879.

"DEAR BROTHER WILL: I want you and Mr. A. to go down to Don Juan Arboles's by the first of June. I will be there then. You must be my best man, as I stand up to marry the sweetest, dearest wild-flower of a woman that ever bloomed in a land of beauty. Don't fail me. Josephine will like you for my sake, and you will love her for your brother.

HENRY."

Most engineers' lives are busy ones and full of accident and incident, and having my full share of both, I had almost forgotten all these points about Billy Howell and his Mexican girl, when they were all recalled by a letter from Billy himself. With his letter was a photograph of a family group--a be-whiskered man of thirty-five, a good-looking woman of twenty, but undoubtedly a Mexican, and a curly-headed baby, perhaps a year old. The letter ran:

"City of Mexico, July 21, 1890.

"DEAR OLD JOHN: I had lost you, and thought that perhaps you had gone over to the majority, until I saw your name and recognized your quill in a story. Write to me; am doing well. I send you a photograph of all there are of the Howell outfit. _No half-breeds for your uncle this time._

"WM. HOWELL."

THE POLAR ZONE

Very few of my friends know me for a seafaring man, but I sailed the salt seas, man and boy, for nine months and eighteen days, and I know just as much about sailing the hereinbefore mentioned salt seas as I ever want to.

Ever so long ago, when I was young and tender, I used to have fits of wanting to go into business for myself. Along about the front edge of the seventies, pay for "toting" people and truck over the eastern railroads of New England was not of sufficient plenitude to worry a man as to how he would invest his pay check--it was usually invested before he got it. One of my periodical fits of wanting to go into business for myself came on suddenly one day, when I got home and found another baby in the house. I was right in the very worst spasms of it when my brother Enoch, whom I hadn't seen for seventeen years, walked in on me.

Enoch was fool enough to run away to sea when he was twelve years old--I suppose he was afraid he would get the chance to do something besides whaling. We were born down New Bedford way, where another boy and myself were the only two fellows in the district, for over forty years, who didn't go hunting whales, icebergs, foul smells, and scurvy, up in King Frost's bailiwick, just south of the Pole.

Enoch had been captain and part owner of a Pacific whaler; she had recently burned at Honolulu, and he was back home now to buy a new s.h.i.+p.

He had heard that I, his little brother John, was the best locomotive engineer in the whole world, and had come to see me--partly on account of relations.h.i.+p, but more to get my advice about buying a steam whaling-s.h.i.+p. Enoch knew more about whales and s.h.i.+ps and such things than you could put down in a book, but he had no more idea _how_ steam propelled a s.h.i.+p than I had what a "skivvie tricer" was.

Well, before the week was out, Enoch showed me that he was pretty well fixed in a financial way, and as he had no kin but me that he cared about, he offered me an interest in his new steam whaler, if I would go as chief engineer with her to the North Pacific.

The terms were liberal and the chance a good one, so it seemed, and after a good many consultations, my wife agreed to let me go for _one_ cruise. She asked about the stops to be made in going around the Horn, and figured mentally a little after each place was named--I believe now, she half expected that I would desert the s.h.i.+p and walk home from one of these spots, and was figuring on the time it would take me.

When the robins were building their nests, the new steam whaler, "Champion," left New Bedford for parts unknown (_via_ the Horn), with the sea-sickest chief engineer that ever smelt fish oil. The steam plant wasn't very much--two boilers and a plain twenty-eight by thirty-six double engine, and any amount of hoisting rigs, blubber boilers, and other paraphernalia. We refitted in San Francisco, and on a clear summer morning turned the white-painted figurehead of the "Champion" toward the north and stood out for Behring sea. But, while we lay at the mouth of the Yukon river, up in Alaska, getting ready for a sally into the realm of water above the Straits, a whaler, bound for San Francisco and home, dropped anchor near us, the homesickness struck in on me, and--never mind the details now--your Uncle John came home without any whales, and was mighty glad to get on the extra list of the old road.

The story I want to tell, however, is another man's story, and it was while lying in the Yukon that I heard it. I was deeply impressed with it at the time, and meant to give it to the world as soon as I got home, for I set it all down plain then, but I lost my diary, and half forgot the story--who wouldn't forget a story when he had to make two hundred and ten miles a day on a locomotive and had five children at home? But now, after twenty years, my wife turns up that old diary in the garret this spring while house-cleaning. Fred had it and an old Fourth-of-July cannon put away in an ancient valise, as a boy will treasure up useless things.

Under the head of October 12th, I find this entry:

"At anchor in Yukon river, weather fair, recent heavy rains; set out packing and filed main-rod bra.s.ses of both engines. Settled with Enoch to go home on first s.h.i.+p bound south. Demented white man brought on board by Indians, put in my cabin."

In the next day's record there appears the following: "Watched beside sick man all night; in intervals of sanity he tells a strange story, which I will write down to-day."

The 14th has the following:

"Wrote out story of stranger. See the back of this book."

And at the back of the book, written on paper cut from an old log of the "Champion," is the story that now, more than twenty-five years later, I tell you here:

On the evening of the 12th, I went on deck to smoke and think of home, after a hard day's work getting the engines in shape for a siege. The s.h.i.+p was very quiet, half the crew being ash.o.r.e, and some of the rest having gone in the boat with Captain Enoch to the "Enchantress,"

homeward bound and lying about half a mile below us. I am glad to say that Enoch's princ.i.p.al business aboard the "Enchantress" is to get me pa.s.sage to San Francisco. I despise this kind of dreariness--rather be in state prison near the folks.

I sat on the rail, just abaft the stack, watching some natives handle their big canoes, when a smaller one came alongside. I noticed that one of the occupants lay at full length in the frail craft, but paid little attention until the canoe touched our side. Then the bundle of skins and Indian clothes bounded up, almost screamed, "At last!" made a spring at the stays, missed them, and fell with a loud splash into the water.

The Indians rescued him at once, and in a few seconds he lay like one dead on the deck. I saw at a glance that the stranger in Indian clothes was a white man and an American.

A pretty stiff dram of liquor brought him to slightly. He opened his eyes, looked up at the rigging, and closing his eyes, he murmured: "Thank G.o.d!--'Frisco--Polaria!"

I had him undressed and put into my berth. He was shaking as with an ague, and when his clothes were off we plainly saw the reason--he was a skeleton, starving. I went on deck at once to make some inquiry of the Indians about our strange visitor, but their boat was just disappearing in the twilight.

The man gained strength, as we gave him nourishment in small, frequent doses, and talked in a disjointed way of everything under the sun. I sat with him all night. Toward morning he seemed to sleep longer at a time, and in the afternoon of yesterday fell into a deep slumber, from which he did not waken for nearly twenty hours.

When he did waken, he took nourishment in larger quant.i.ties, and then went off into another long sleep. The look of pain on his face lessened, a healthy glow appeared on his cheek, and he slept so soundly that I turned in--on the floor.

I was awake along in the small hours of the morning, and heard my patient stirring, so I got up and drew the little curtain over the bulls-eye port--it was already daylight. I gave him a drink and a biscuit, and told him I would go to the cook's galley and get him some broth, but he begged to wait until breakfast time--said he felt refreshed, and would just nibble a sea biscuit. Then he ate a dozen in as many minutes.

"Did you take care of my pack?" he said eagerly, throwing his legs out of the berth, and looking wildly at me.

"Yes, it's all right; lie down and rest," said I; for I thought that to cross him would set him off his head again.

"Do you know that dirty old pack contains more treasures than the mines of Africa?"