CHAPTER XXI THE GREAT SECRET
So eager was Alec to return to his investigations that he slipped back to the oyster-beds that very night, so as to be on hand at the earliest possible moment next day. His mind was afire, his whole being was keyed up. He was like a hound on a hot scent. He felt that he had his quarry almost within his reach. He wanted to press on at top speed until he grasped the prize. Neither storm nor calm, neither tide nor sickness, could long have delayed him; for Alec possessed that unusual quality of mind which made him rise superior to obstacles, once his interest was thoroughly aroused. Things that to some boys would have appeared as effective obstacles became to Alec, when he was thus aroused, only difficulties to be overcome. One by one he had surmounted all the barriers that he had so far encountered. Each victory made him only the keener to win another. Of all his struggles, the effort to learn the truth about the oyster had interested him most deeply, because he knew that exact knowledge along that line was the very corner-stone of his success, or, more accurately, of the success he was striving to build.
So daylight found Alec astir and already on his way to Captain Hardy's oyster-bed. For the facts that Alec and Elsa had discovered concerning Hardy's bed and the existence of the depression in the bottom of the Bay, had given Alec an idea that he could hardly wait to test out. He meant to find the entire truth about the little channel. He doubted if any one else had discovered the little trough or furrow in the bottom of the Bay, and if they had, he doubted whether its significance had occurred to the discoverers.
Now he proceeded to the upper end of Hardy's bed, and, dropping his lead, found exactly where the edge of the furrow lay. He noted its position with relation to the corner stakes of the grounds. Then he proceeded slowly down-stream, sounding as he went, to try to locate the inner edge of the ditch. For several hundred feet he felt his way along. Then he took a heavy weight, tied to it a line of the proper length, and to that he fastened a stick a few feet long, to the upper end of which he tied a white cloth. He lowered the weight to the bottom, dropping it, as nearly as he was able, on the very edge of the furrow or ditch in the mud. Then he adjusted his line so that the stick floated perpendicularly, holding the white cloth aloft, a foot or two above the surface of the water. Then he dropped the Osprey down-stream some hundreds of feet, and once more locating the edge of the depression in the bottom, made and anchored a second floating marker. Examination showed him that the three points he had located—the one near Hardy's stakes and the two he had marked with flags,—were practically in a straight line. Once more he headed the Osprey down-stream, proceeding as far as he could go and still see his markers. Then he sounded, and found that he was still over the very edge of the depression. Apparently this depression ran in an almost perfectly straight line. Alec put down another flag. He now had marked the depression for a good many hundred yards.
Now he went back to his starting-point and began to study the current and the appearance of the water. The depression extended in exactly the same direction that the tide followed, so that the water would sweep straight through it, back and forth, back and forth ceaselessly, scouring it clean. Alec recalled what Roy had written him about the jetties at Galveston, and how the tide, sweeping in and out between them, had deepened the channel. To be sure, there were no jetties here to confine the flow of the tide to the depression, yet Alec felt sure that the current would keep the depression clean and perhaps even deepen it. For all time, at least for all calculable time, so far as he could see, the depression would remain in the bottom and create a vast slick along its side. In this slick he believed the oyster fry would be most numerous.
Slowly Alec proceeded along the edge of the slick, passing one after another the markers he had set up, and lifting them as he came to them. The edge of the slick, of course, followed the line of the depression in the bottom. Alec knew it ought to do so, and the white flags proved that it did. On and on went Alec, studying the current, watching every wave and swirl in the tide. At the same time, he kept before him the map of the oyster-beds, marking down on the map as accurately as possible the edge of the slick. How far to the side this slick extended Alec did not know. He could determine that later. What he did know—at least he felt sure he knew it—was that every oyster-bed lying in this slick was a prime oyster ground. He would know for sure when he had made larvæ tests of water from the different beds.
For two or three miles Alec proceeded. The slick was still plainly discernible, and whenever Alec took soundings he found that the depression continued. At last he came to the point for which he was heading—the last lot of ground that had been staked. Beyond that was a vast area that any man might claim. So eager to see what he should find, so fearful and yet so hopeful was Alec, that he almost held his breath as he bent forward and peered out over the unstaked water. Would the slick continue through the unleased areas or would it not?
"It does! It does!" cried Alec aloud, as he sailed past the very last oyster stake. As far as he could see, the water before him was sharply divided into two areas—one that rippled roughly as the tide swept onward, the other as smooth as though it had been rubbed with grease.
Into this smooth stretch of water Alec turned the Osprey. Then, his hands atremble with eagerness, he brought forth his testing apparatus and began to strain water from the bottom through his filter net. Here, there, over yonder, Alec pumped up water, until he had samples from a large acreage. His settling bottles were numbered, and on his chart he marked the location from which each sample came. At the same time he took soundings and tested the water for density and temperature. All these things he likewise set down on his chart. So eager was he to begin his count, that he could scarcely wait to stow away his instruments when he had done straining water. But when he started to use his microscope, he found that the wind had freshened so much he could not work well. It was blowing directly against the current, throwing up sizable rollers, and the Osprey was too unsteady for the trying work in hand. There was nothing to do but get to smooth water, and that meant to leave the Bay, for now whitecaps were breaking everywhere.
At first Alec hardly knew where to go. He thought of running into the mouth of the river. But that idea did not please him because passing boatmen might annoy him or at least interrupt him. And anyway, Alec preferred to carry on his investigations without others knowing about them. He had learned pretty well the fact that not everybody was to be trusted. Alec also thought of going to the point of land where he and Elsa had eaten their dinner. That did not seem altogether suitable, either. Finally he decided to head for the Osprey's Nest. If no one was in sight when he got there, he would go in. If any one were by to watch him, he would pull into some neighboring inlet. As fast as his engine would take him, Alec drove through the waves. When he reached the shore just off the Osprey's Nest, not a boat of any sort was in sight. He shut off his power, pushed his little craft up the secret channel, and soon lay at anchor in his snug retreat. The shade was grateful and the Osprey was as steady as a rock. He could work in comfort and in perfect security.
Hour after hour Alec stuck to his job. At times his eyes ached so from the strain that he had to leave his microscope and bathe them in the salt sea water that he dipped up with a bucket. At noon he paused long enough to cook himself a warm meal and flash a greeting to Elsa. Then he went on with his work. As long as he could hold himself to his task he continued to count. Bottle after bottle he emptied, picking out one by one with his little needle thousands upon thousands of oyster larvæ. Again and again, as the day wore on, he laid down his implements, meaning to quit. And as often he picked them up after an interval, to do just a little bit more. There were limits to his endurance. His eyes would function only so long. But his soul was indomitable. So he kept on and on and on, until dusk found him with his task completed. When he talked to Elsa that night he was able to tell her that he had found the great secret. At least he believed he had. He had discovered an unstaked area that he believed to be as good a place for oysters as any ground in the Bay.
Long after he turned away from his wireless, Alec sat on the deck of the Osprey. By every rule of the game he should have been asleep in his bunk. Physically he was worn out by the strain of his intense concentration. But mentally he was afire. The task that had tired his body had stimulated his brain to unusual activity. His vision was almost prophetic. He pictured the future as he wished it to be. And though his mental image was not an exact representation of life as it proved to be, it was a marvelous approximation. Nor was that strange. For Alec was learning that the more sharply he defined his ambitions, and the more exactly he pictured his path, the more likely he was to see his dreams become realities. He needed a map for his life, just as truly as he needed a chart for his oyster-beds.
Now, as he sat, silent, in the Osprey, his mind aglow with rosy pictures, the difficulties that once had seemed so insurmountable shrank and shrank until they appeared but mole-hills. Though he did not put it in so many words, Alec was coming to realize that a big accomplishment is only a great dream backed by prodigious labor. Labor is the thing it is made of, but without the inspiration of the dream the labor is impossible. So he let himself dream on and on in the darkness, resting on some soft cushions, listening to the gentle sigh of the wind as it stirred the leaves above his head, dimly conscious of the stirrings of birds, the faint splashings of muskrats in the marsh above him, the quavering call of a distant owl. Overhead the stars twinkled. Light patches of cloud floated in the sky. The waters of the Bay washed the shores gently but audibly. The world was in repose. And at last Alec slept with it.
CHAPTER XXII THE NEW CAPTAIN OF THE BERTHA B
Day after day Alec toiled at his self-appointed task. Under the broiling sun and when cold rains were falling, with the wind whistling through the Osprey's rigging and in periods of calm, he was daily to be seen on the oyster grounds in his little boat. For whole days at a time he did nothing but take soundings and record the results. Other days he spent studying the currents, watching the tides, searching the face of the water diligently. At other times he gathered water samples here, there, yonder, everywhere, and followed that task by the more trying labor at the microscope. With every sample of water he analyzed, and every survey he made of the currents, he became more and more certain that he had found the thing for which he was searching. He knew exactly where he would put his oyster-beds. He would lease as much land along the edge of the depression in the bottom and immediately adjoining the land already staked as he could handle. By taking a long and narrow strip, he would be certain to have his grounds in the very heart of the slick.
No sooner had Alec made up his mind than he laid the matter before Captain Rumford. "I want to lease one hundred acres right here," he said, pointing to a spot he had marked on his chart of the oyster-beds.
The shipper frowned. "What do you want of oyster-beds now?" he demanded. "You have no way to work them, and the tax on them will eat up your savings. You'll have to pay $75 a year rental, besides the cost of surveying and staking your bed. The sum you'll pay out, just to hold that ground while you're earning your equipment, would go a long way toward paying for your boat. Besides, I don't like grounds so far out. The water's too deep. Oysters ought to be planted in shallow water."
"But you have some beds in deep water yourself, Captain," urged Alec.
"None of them is much good."
"Perhaps they aren't out far enough."
"Nonsense. Shallow water's the only good place for an oyster-bed. There's lots of beds out in deep water, but that's because all the grounds near shore had already been staked out and their owners had to take deep-water grounds or none at all. But it's no place for oysters."
"There's Hardy's bed," urged Alec. "That's as far out as any of them and it's a good bed. With proper care it would be one of the best. I've been examining the water there, and it's full of spat."
"Nonsense, all nonsense," said the shipper impatiently. "Elsa has been pumping me full of rubbish about what you are doing. As though you could tell anything about an oyster ground by looking at a few drops of water through a microscope. This foolishness is the only thing I ever saw in you that I don't like. If only you'd drop it and go to work on my boats as I want you to, you'd get on fast. As for your leasing one hundred acres of oyster-land, and away out there at that, why, it's not to be thought of. It's ridiculous."
Alec looked very sober. From the quarter where he had expected help, came sudden opposition. It almost made him hesitate. "Captain Rumford," he said, "I'm mighty sorry we don't see things alike. I know it seems foolish for a lad of my years to be telling an old oyster captain like yourself anything about oystering. But I have to live up to my lights just as much as you have to live up to yours. I believe I'm right. When I'm done with this work I'll know whether I'm right or wrong. If I'm right, then I've found one of the best locations in the entire oyster region to start a new bed. I know it will cost me a lot to carry that bed. But I'm so sure I'm right that I'm willing to risk the money. I'm willing to bet on myself, if you want to put it that way. That matter is settled. The question is, Will you help me get the land I want, or must I ask somebody else to help me?"
"Well, I admire your pluck, anyway, youngster. If your judgment was half as good, you'd be a winner sure. Since you're so dead set on having those grounds, I'll have to help you get them, of course. You're not of age, are you?"
"No, sir. I was nineteen soon after I came to Bivalve. It won't be so long now until I am twenty."
"You have no guardian?"
"No. But I've been told I need one." Alec grinned. "Elsa says so."
"Well, she's right for once. I'll have to lease these lands in my own name and then transfer them to you later."
"That will be all right."
"Eh? You trust the old man, do you? Haven't you learned that you can't trust everybody? You've had experiences enough here to teach you that lesson pretty well. Suppose your bed should turn out to be worth something, and I decided not to hand it over to you? Had you thought of that possibility, lad?"
"Captain Rumford," said Alec, "there isn't anything I've learned better than the lesson that there are some people I can't trust. And while I've been learning that, I've found that there are some I can."
"Thank you, lad," said the shipper, evidently deeply touched. "Thank you. You can put your mind at rest about your oyster grounds. I'll get them and I'll give you a paper showing that I only hold them in trust for you. And I'll do more. If you don't have the money to pay the expenses, I'll lend it to you and you can pay me whenever you can. But that's because I have confidence in you and not in your oyster grounds."
"Thank you, Captain," said Alec. "It won't be necessary. I have the money."
The captain turned away and went to his desk to make out his application for the desired grounds. But all the way to his chair he kept muttering, "The little fool. He's just throwing his money away."
Having decided the question of his own grounds, Alec turned his attention to the shipper's beds. He spent several days sounding them and studying the water above them. Mostly the captain's beds were well in shore. These he had inherited from his father, who had begun oystering before the shipper was born. These beds were usually very productive. In deep water the captain also owned considerable holdings that he had acquired with profits derived from the beds he had inherited. But none of these had ever proved to be very productive. There was never any very great set of spat in them, and unless they were planted with seed-oysters it hardly paid to dredge them. But, of course, the captain always put seed in all his beds and so he had steadily made some money from them. When Alec analyzed the larval content of the shipper's various beds under the microscope, he found that the shallow water was very rich in spat. The contour of the shore made a vast eddy where these beds lay. The beds farther out were located in the strong current, with not the slightest suspicion of a slick or an eddy near them.
When Alec had concluded his examination of the shipper's beds, he went directly to their owner, though he made a wry face as he thought of what was probably before him.
"Captain Rumford," he said, "I've been working out in your beds for several days. Your shallow water beds are very fine grounds, but——"
"Of course they are. Of course they are. Shallow water's the only proper place for an oyster-bed."
"Your other beds, I was going to say," went on Alec, "are not nearly so good."
"Of course not. Of course not. What are you telling me all this for? Think I don't know it?"
"I don't believe you'll ever get a big set of spat in those outside beds," went on Alec. "I don't believe you'd get enough of a set to pay for shelling the grounds."
"Well, well," said the shipper rather testily, "is this supposed to be news to me?"
"I was going to say," went on Alec, choking down a feeling of resentment, "that if you would sell those beds and buy Hardy's bed, you'd make a profitable deal. I'd be willing to wager that you'd get as many oysters from spat in Hardy's bed as you would from the seed you planted. You'd get a tremendous catch every year."
"Fiddlesticks! I never heard of such a thing in a deep-water bed."
"But, Captain Rumford," protested Alec, "don't the other oystermen who own beds near Hardy's get good hauls?"
"I can't deny some of them do," admitted the shipper, "but I can't understand it. That's no place for an oyster-bed, way out in that deep water. They can't expect to have luck always, though."
Alec gave up. It was no use to try to overcome the shipper's prejudices.
Day after day he continued his labors. He was so constantly on the water that those who saw him became curious to know what he could be doing. Now this oysterman, and now that, as Alec ran across him, tried to learn what Alec was doing out on the Bay so much. Occasionally boats sailed near him simply to watch him. At such times Alec pretended to be fishing. Rather he did fish. So he caught many a toothsome meal. He also made a large net of mosquito-netting, which he used for catching crabs. Of course, all this curiosity was aroused, not about Alec himself, for nobody cared much about a homeless lad, but because Alec was supposed to be doing something for Captain Rumford. If the leading oyster shipper at Bivalve found it worth while to keep a man out among the oyster-beds week in and week out, the curious figured it might be worth their own while to do a little examining themselves. The difficulty was that nobody knew exactly what Alec was doing. So it came about that Alec did exactly what he did not want to do. He called attention to his own efforts. But his work was well along toward completion before it was generally known that he was doing anything out of the ordinary. What annoyed Alec most of all about the matter was his fear lest some one track him to the Osprey's Nest and so discover the secret hiding-place. Frequently, when other boats were near at hand toward dusk, Alec came up to the oyster wharf and tied up in the slip at Captain Rumford's pier. He knew that even the most reckless would hesitate to touch him there, under the glare of the pier-shed light and with the watchman within call. So, whether any of Hardy's friends ever wished to harm him or not, Alec came through the summer unscathed, and his hiding-place remained undiscovered.
One day, when August was more than half gone, Elsa called him on the wireless and announced that repairs on Captain Flint's boat, the Rebecca, were completed and the paint dry, and that the Rumfords were going to take their annual family cruise aboard of her. Alec was invited to go along and no answer but a favorable one would be accepted. Of course, there was nothing for Alec to do but put his work aside and say he would go. In his heart he was more than glad to put his work aside. Week after week he had stuck to it, holding himself with iron determination to his task. But now the zest was gone out of it. The long grind was wearing on his nerves. Joyously he looked forward to this holiday.
The next morning he did not put out in his boat, but went to the shipper's office to thank him for the invitation and to see if he could be of assistance in preparing for the cruise. But the instant Alec saw the shipper, he knew that something had gone wrong.
"Bagley's left us," blurted out the shipper, the moment he saw Alec. And there were tears in his voice, if not in his eyes.
"What do you mean, sir?" asked Alec.
"He's going to the Chesapeake next fall. Got a chance to go into partnership with a shipper there. Don't blame him a bit, but Gad! I hate to lose him. He's been with me seventeen years. Never worked anywhere but on the Bertha B. Started oystering on her as a deck-hand. Don't know what I'll do for another captain."
"You can get plenty of them," said Alec.
"Certainly," said the shipper, "but not plenty of Bagleys. Why, I could trust that man with my life."
"Take Hawley," said Alec.
"What!" cried the shipper. "Make a captain out of a fellow that was fired from the Bertha B less than a year ago for being drunk? You're crazy."
"You're foolish if you don't take him," urged Alec. "Why, Captain Rumford, that man's the very soul of honesty. I know him like a book. I'd trust him just as far as I would you, Captain, and that's saying all I know how to say. It's old John Barleycorn you have in mind. But Jim cut his acquaintance long ago. And you know as well as I do that there isn't a better sailor in the fleet."
The shipper was silent a long time. "Hanged if I don't try it," he said at last. "I always liked Jim when he was sober. I'll take him along on this party and see how he can handle a boat. Now don't you give him any hint of what's coming."
"I'm mighty glad you're going to take him," cried Alec. "I haven't a better friend in the world than Jim. By the way, when are we going to start on our little party?"
"Just as soon as we can get ready. It will likely take most of the day to get the boat provisioned and get the stuff aboard that they want to bring from home. We ought to be off in the morning."
"Then I'll call up Elsa and see what I can do to help." And Alec bustled away, joyful in the thought of the little outing ahead of him. Could he have known exactly what was to happen to the little pleasure party, his face would have worn a very different aspect indeed.