XIII
Chanler was in fine fettle that morning. He arose early, snatched a cup of coffee for breakfast and came out to pace the deck, frequently turning his glasses on the horizon over the yacht’s stern.
“Greetings and salutations, Gardy!” he exclaimed as we met. “Down with the long face, up with the merry-merry! Hang it, Gardy, get enthused. Can’t you see I’m actually not bored this morning?”
Captain Brack soon appeared with a detailed account of the new man’s adventures. The man had been one of the crew of a sealing schooner which had been blown far off its course and lost the Autumn before with all hands, save our man and one companion.
Clinging to an upturned boat they had been driven ashore in an inlet which appeared on no map of Alaska to that date, a region so secluded that the man called it the “Hidden Country.” The pair had wintered precariously. With the beginning of the Spring break-up they had discovered that in the upper reaches of a river running into the inlet they had but to turn up the sand and find gold in quantities unheard of.
Rendered desperate by lack of food, they had set forth in their open boat in hope of somehow striking the first steamers going North. The man’s companion had died of hardships two days before. They had called the inlet Kalmut Fiord, after the wrecked sealer; it was so well hidden behind an island that a thousand boats might sail past and never guess of its existence, never know there was a hidden country there in which nature had hoarded a great amount of the stuff men prize above all other things material.
“By Jove!” cried Chanler, as Brack finished. “Sounds like a book, doesn’t it? Have the beggar up, cappy, and let’s have a look at him; let’s see the gold and hear his story.”
We were sitting on the long settee in the stern at the time. A couple of hands were working near by, polishing brass work.
As word was sent below to bring the miner up, the number of men near by gradually increased to half a dozen, and half of these loafed around boldly, making no pretense at being occupied. They looked at Chanler and myself with hard, insolent eyes. They did not fancy the notion of going bone-hunting for wages while fortunes waited to be dug from the sands of the nearest shore.
I looked idly back over the yacht’s wake. On the horizon appeared what seemed to be a peculiar cloud. I watched it curiously, and saw that with each minute the cloud grew larger. It became a long smudge on the horizon, and I was about to call Chanler’s attention to it, when——
“City of Nome overhauling us, sir!” megaphoned Pierce from the wireless house. “They say: ‘Heave to. Have passenger for you.’”
“Ah, ha!” cried Chanler springing up, for the moment his blasé countenance flushing with life. “Never mind about the gold-hunter, cappy. We’ll have him another time. Just have Riordan shut down, will you, and lay to for our passenger?”
He started for his state-room, when, seeing the men lounging about, he added:
“Send ’em below, cappy. They look tough; they’d give any one a bad impression. Simmons! Come here.”
Not a man moved. No order was given as he had requested. Captain Brack laughed shortly and went forward to the engine-room telephone.
The men smiled with an evil showing of teeth at Chanler’s retreating back. When he had disappeared in his stateroom they spat generously upon the Wanderer’s immaculate deck, lounged over to the rail and stood looking back toward the rapidly approaching steamer. I stared at them with a sickening weakness at my knees.
I scarcely noticed the steamer. For what had just taken place told as plainly as words that Chanler no longer was master of his own yacht, that the men, and Brack, had thrown off the cloak and were in open revolt.
The City of Nome came to a stop a good distance away to port. A boat, well loaded with baggage, and with four oarsmen and an officer in place, was swung briskly out from the davits and dropped into the water. A slender, be-capped figure, sheathed in a coat that reached from chin to ankles, flashed down the ladder and leaped to a seat in the stern. Along the rail of the City of Nome ranged crew and passengers, waving and shouting farewells. The passenger in the boat stood up bowing, cap in hand, and at that a sharp-eyed seaman near me blurted out:
“Well, I’ll be ——! It’s a woman—a girl!”
Wilson was standing near our lowered ladder, looking through his glasses, and I hurried to him.
“Was the man right, Mr. Wilson?” I asked. “Is it a woman?”
“Yes sir,” said he and handed me his glasses.
I placed them to my eyes, swept the sea until I picked up the boat, and let the glasses rest on the passenger in the stern.
The seaman was right; it was a girl. She was probably twenty-one or two, and she was laughing. I had but a glimpse of her face, for as the men pushed off from the steamer she leaned forward and spoke to the officer in charge. The men stopped rowing. One of them let go his oar and crawled forward, and the girl took his place and swung the long oar in a fashion that brought cheer after cheer from the watching passengers and crew.
Chanler now emerged from his stateroom and took the glasses from my hand. For several seconds he studied the girl in the boat as she swung herself easily against the oar.
“Gad!” he whispered excitedly. “Gad!”
He looked around and saw the men gathered aft.
“Wilson,” he commanded, “drive that bunch below. Where’s Brack? On the bridge? All right.”
I moved away, but he called: “No, Gardy, you stay right here; you look civilized. I need you. Stay and get introduced.”
I remained, but my interest was all for Wilson as he walked briskly toward the lounging men. Brack had been ordered to send the men below, and he had gone forward laughing, and the men had remained. Would they obey the command of the second officer?
Wilson’s first order was given in a tone too low for us to hear. In reply the men grinned at him, and Garvin, through his bandages growled—
“Who the —— are you?”
Wilson’s voice raised itself slightly.
“I am one officer on board that you can’t talk back to or get chummy with,” he said. “Get below or, by glory, I’ll show you what it means to give slack to an officer. Move there! You—Garvin! Get below!”
And they went. Bad men that they were, and in revolt, they were not able to defy Wilson when his blood was up. Chanler looked up at the bridge, puzzled.
“I told cappy to send them below,” he said. “Why didn’t he do it?”
“He gave no order at all,” I volunteered.
George looked at me unsteadily, his tongue wetting his lips.
“He didn’t give any order—after I told him to?”
“No.”
He looked up at the bridge again, hesitated, and smiled carelessly.
“Oh, well, what’s the difference? Here’s the boat. Ah! By gad!”
The boat was alongside our grating and the girl was springing out. A seaman offered to assist her, and she laughed and ran up the swaying stairway. Half-way she stopped and threw back her head, looking up at us.
“Yo-hoo, George!” she called and came running up the rest of the way, landing on the deck with a leap.
“Oh, George!” she cried. “Isn’t it glorious!”
She turned to the rail and waved her farewells to the sailors in the boat. They touched their hats and rowed away, their eyes upon her.
“And what a beautiful yacht you’ve got, George. And, oh! This wonderful sea! Isn’t it all splendid!”
She paused and looked at George carefully. The animation of her countenance disappeared for a moment; something she saw disappointed her.
“You—you’re not—looking quite as well as you were, George,” she said slowly.
“I’ve been awf’ly lonesome, Betty,” he replied. “I—it was awf’ly good of you to come.”
“Good of me? Why, it was a privilege. It was too sweet of your sister to invite me to come.”
“No, no! Don’t—don’t say that. I—” He stopped confused. “Betty, I was desperate to see you—just see you, you understand.”
She reached out and took his hand impulsively.
“You poor boy! And your sister, Mrs. Payne——”
Chanler was tugging at his collar.
“Here, here! I’ve forgotten,” he interrupted nervously, “Here’s Gardy—Miss Baldwin, Mr. Gardner Pitt.”
And Miss Beatrice Baldwin looked at me squarely for the first time. Her look was frankly appraising. We shook hands. I do not remember that we spoke a word. She looked up at George Chanler’s drink-hardened face; her eyes turned again to me, and after awhile she looked away.
There was a tiny up-flaring of lace about her neck. It was this picture that stuck in my mind: the delicate femininity of the lace collar, its suggestion of defenselessness, and, rising out of it, the firm, white neck, the slightly tanned face, girlishly delicate, but with the look on it of the outdoor girl who is not afraid.
Miss Baldwin was not afraid. She stood firmly upright; for my eyes, dropping in confusion, saw how the red rubber soles of her tan shoes gripped the deck, and the strong slim ankles above them. Her chin was almost childishly round, her hair was dark and wavy, and her mouth seemed eager to smile. Yet there was a seriousness about her frank eyes which told that while on the surface she might be a laughing, romping girl, in reality the woman was full grown.
There was a moment of silence while she looked out to sea and I looked at the deck; and then the men come rushing back on deck. They had been reinforced by two or three of their fellows, and with Garvin at their head they came marching forward in determined fashion.
At the sight of Miss Baldwin they paused. Some remaining shred of respect for womanhood held them, and they stood, a compact, menacing mob, some twenty feet away, undecided on their next move.
“Come along, Betty, I’ll show you to your stateroom,” said Chanler hurriedly.
He led the way toward the unoccupied owner’s suite, the suite which from the beginning had been furnished for her coming.
Miss Baldwin hesitated.
“But where’s Mrs. Payne, George?” she called.
Chanler paused and looked away. “Well, you see, Betty, I was crazy to see you, and—and, Sis’ took ill, and—” He pulled himself together in desperation. “She didn’t come with us, Betty, that’s all there is to it.”
Miss Baldwin had stopped at the cabin door.
“Then I am the only woman on board?” she asked.
“Yes.”
I expected her to shrink, to demand that she be sent back to the City of Nome.
Instead, she looked around calmly, looked out upon the sea, at the rough faces of the men who were staring at her curiously, at the free sweep of the Wanderer’s deck and said with quiet resignation—
“Oh, how jolly!”