CHAPTER XXI
The Beachcombers
The Autumn, with its shortening days and lengthening nights, was upon Golden Crescent, but still the charm and beauty of its surroundings were unimpaired.
I never tired of the scenes, for they were kaleidoscopic in their changing. Even in the night, when sleep was unable to bind me, I have risen and stood by my open window, in reverie and peaceful contemplation, and the dark has grown to dawn ere I turned back to bed.
It was on such an occasion as I speak of. I was leaning on the window ledge, looking far across the Bay. The sea was a mirror of oily calm. A crescent moon was shining fairly high in the south, laying a streak of silver along the face of the water near the far shore. It was a night when every dip of an oar would threaten to bring up the reflected moon from the liquid deep; a night of quiet when the winging of a sea-fowl, or the plop of a fish, could be heard a mile away. In the stillness could be heard the occasional tinkle, tinkle of a cow-bell from the grazing lands across the Bay.
As I listened to the night noises, I heard the distant throb of a launch out in the vicinity of the Ghoul Rock. Suddenly, the throbbing stopped and I fancied I caught the sound of deep voices. All went still again, but, soon after, my ear detected the splashing of oars and the rattle of a badly fitting rowlock.
I watched, peering out into the darkness. The moon shot swiftly from under a cloud and threw its white illuminant like a searchlight sheer upon a large rowing boat as it crept up past the wharf, some fifty yards out from the point.
I counted five figures in the boat, which was heading up the Bay.
A cloud passed over the moon again and the picture of the boat and its occupants vanished from my sight.
Strange, I thought, why these men should arrive in a launch, leave it so far out and come in with a rowing boat of such dimensions, when there was good, safe and convenient anchorage almost anywhere close in!
I listened again. The sound of the rattling row-lock ceased and I heard the grinding of a boat's bottom on the gravel somewhere in the vicinity of Jake's cove.
I stood in indecision for some minutes, then I decided that I would find out what these men were up to. I put on my clothes without haste, picked up a broken axe-handle that lay near the doorway and started noiselessly down the back path in the direction of Meaghan's shack, reaching there about half an hour after I had first detected the boat. When I came to the clearing, I saw a light in the cabin. As I drew closer, I heard the sound of hoarse voices. Stepping cautiously, I went up to the window and peered through.
I saw four strange men there. The lower parts of their faces were masked by handkerchiefs in real highwaymen fashion.
With a dirty neckcloth stuffed into his mouth, old Jake was sitting on a chair and tied securely to it by ropes. Mike, his faithful old dog, was lying at his feet in a puddle of blood.
The liquor keg in the corner had been broached, and I could see that, already, the men had been drinking. Jake's brass-bound chest had been dragged to the middle of the floor and the man who appeared to be the leader of the gang was sitting astride of it, with a cup of liquor in his hand, laughing boisterously.
My anger rose furiously.
"The low skunks," I growled, gripping my improvised club as I tip-toed quietly to the door, hoping to rush in, injure some of them and stampede the others before they would know by how many they were being attacked.
I was gently turning the handle, when something crashed down on my head. I stumbled into the shack, sprawled upon the floor, strange voices sang in my ears and everything became blurred.
It could have been only a few minutes later when I revived. I was in Jake's cabin, and was trussed with ropes, hands and feet, to one of the wooden uprights of the old Klondiker's home-made bed. I could feel something warm, oozy and clammy, making its way from my hair, down the back of my neck.
I opened my eyes wide, and reason enough came to me to close them quickly again. Then I opened them once more, cautiously and narrowly.
Five strange men were now in the cabin, which was cloudy with tobacco smoke. The carousal had increased rather than otherwise. The men were gathered round Jake, laughing and cursing in wild derision. They were not interested in me at the moment, so I stayed quiet, making pretence that the unconsciousness was still upon me, whenever any of them turned in my direction.
Through my half-opened eyelids, I fancied I recognised the leader of the crowd as a black-haired, beady-eyed, surly dog of a logger who had come in several times from Camp No. 2 to help with the taking up of their supplies,—but of his identity I was not quite certain.
As my scattered senses began to collect, I hoped against hope that these men would keep up their drinking bout until not one of them would be able to stand. But, while they drank long and drank deeply, they were too wise by far to overdo it.
Then I got to wondering what they were badgering old Jake about, for I could hear him growl and curse, his gag having fallen to the floor.
"Go to hell and take the trunk, the booze and the whole caboose with you, if you want to. I don't want none of it. I ain't hoggin' booze any more."
"Ho, ho! Hear that," yelled the big, black-haired individual, "he ain't boozin'! The old swiller ain't boozin' and him keeps a keg o' whisky under his nose.
"Ain't boozin' with common ginks like us,—that's what he means.
"Come on! We'll show him whether he ain't boozin' or not."
He got a cupful of the raw spirits and stuck it to Jake's mouth. But Jake shook his head.
"Come on! Drink it up or I'll sling it down your gullet."
Still Jake refused.
Then my blood ran cold, and boiled again. The veins stood out on my forehead with rage.
The foul-mouthed creature hit my old helper full across the mouth and a trickle of blood immediately began to flow down over Jake's chin.
I struggled silently with my ropes, but they were taut and merely cut into my flesh. But I made the discovery then, that my captors had failed to take into account that the bed to which they had tied me had been put up by Jake and, at that, not any too securely.
I felt that if I threw all my weight away from the stanchion to which I was bound, I might be able to pull the whole thing out bodily. But I knew that this was not the moment for such an attempt.
They were five men to one; they had sticks and clubs, maybe revolvers, so what chance would I have?
I decided to bear with the goading of Jake as long as it were possible.
"Guess you'll drink it now,—you old, white-livered miser," cried the dark man.
He dashed some of the liquor in Jake's face. Jake opened his mouth and gasped. The big bully then threw the remainder of the spirits, with a splash, sheer into Jake's mouth.
"He boozed that time, boys. You bet your socks!" he laughed uproariously. The others joined in the hilarity.
The Jake I looked upon after that was not the Jake I had known for the past few months.
He sat staring in front of him for a little while, then he exclaimed huskily, almost hungrily:
"Say, fellows! Give us some more. It tastes pretty good to me."
"Thought he would come to it," shouted the black-haired man triumphantly. "We ain't refusin' no booze to-night. Fetch a cup o' rye for Jake."
One of the others brought it, and it was held to the old man's lips. He let it over his throat almost at a single gulp.
"More,—more!"
More was brought, and again he drank.
Three times Jake emptied that brimming cup of raw spirits.
I shivered with abhorrence at the sight.
"More?" queried the big man.
"Yep! More," craved Jake.
"Nothin' doin'! You've had enough, you old booze-fighter.
"Say! How's that top-notcher swell Bremner comin' on?"
He turned to me.
"Let's fill him up, too."
They came over to me, but I pretended still to be unconscious. My head was limply bent over my chest.
They jerked it up by my forelock and looked into my face.
The foulness of their breath almost nauseated me, but I stood the test, keeping my eyes tightly closed and allowing my head to flop forward the moment it was released from their clutch.
"What in the hell did you hit him so hard for?" cried the leader, turning savagely to the man at his left elbow. "We ain't lookin' for any rope-collars over this. Guess we'd better beat it. Get busy with that chest some of you. Come on!"
They raised their masks from their mouths and had another drink all round, then two of them, under the big man's directions, caught up the chest, and they all crowded out and down toward their boat.
The moment after they were gone I threw my weight and growing strength away from the upright to which I was bound. It creaked and groaned. I tried again, and still again. At the third attempt, the entire fixtures fell on top of me to the floor.
I struggled clear of the débris, and the rest was easy. I slipped the ropes from the wooden post and, in their now loosened condition, I wriggled free.
I did not wait to do anything for Jake, nor yet to consider any plan of operation. My blood was up and that was all I knew.
I picked my axe-handle from the floor and dashed out after the robbers.
The five men were with the boat at the water's edge. Two were sitting at the oars in readiness, two were on the beach raising Jake's trunk to the fifth man who was standing in the stern of the boat.
I sprang upon them. I hit one, with a sickening crash, over the head. He let go his hold of the trunk and toppled limply against the side of the boat, as the trunk splashed into the shallow water.
I staggered with the impetus, and from the impact of my blow let my club drop from my jarred hand. Before I could recover, the big man,—who had been helping to raise the trunk,—bore down on me. He caught me by the throat in a horrible grip, and tried to press me backward; but, with a short-arm blow, I smashed him over the mouth with telling force, cutting my knuckles in a splutter of blood and broken teeth.
His grip loosened. He shouted to his fellows for assistance as he sprang at me once more.
But, somewhere in the darkness behind me, a pistol-shot rang out and the big man staggered, letting out a howl of pain, as his arm dropped limp to his side.
He darted for the boat and threw himself into it, seized a spare oar and pushed off frantically.
"Pull,—pull like hell," he yelled.
They needed no second bidding, for they shot out into the Bay as if a thousand devils were after them.
I turned to ascertain who my deliverer could be; and there, on the beach, only a few yards away, stood Mary Grant with a serviceable-looking revolver held firmly in her right hand.
"What? You! Mary,—Mary," I cried in an agony of thought at the awful risk she had run.
"Are you all right, George?" she inquired anxiously.
"Right as rain," I answered, hurrying to her side.
"Did they get Jake's trunk away?"
"No! The low thieves! It is lying there in the water. Do you think you could help me up with it?"
She caught up the trunk at one end, while I took the other. And we carried it back between us to Jake's cabin.
Poor old Jake! I could hardly smother a smile as I saw the dejected figure he presented. His grey hair was drooping over his forehead, every line in his face showed a droop, and his long, white moustache drooped like the tusks of a walrus, or like the American comic journals' representations of the whiskers of ancient and fossilised members of the British peerage.
He was sitting bound, as the robbers had left him.
I cut him free and he staggered to his feet.
He was sober as a jail bird, and, excepting for his broken lip and chafed wrists, he was, to all appearances, none the worse for his experiences. It surprised me to notice how little he seemed interested in the recovery of his money. All his attention and sympathy were centred on the wretched dog, Mike, who was slowly getting over the clubbing he had received and was whimpering like a discontented baby.
Mike had a long gash in his neck, evidently made by one of the robbers with Jake's bread-knife. Mary washed out the wound and I stitched it up with a needle and thread, so that, all things considered, Mike was lucky in getting out of his encounter as easily as he did.
As for the crack I had received over the head, it had made me bloody enough, but it was superficial and not worth worrying about.
I decided I would not leave Jake alone that night and that, as soon as I had seen Mary safely home, I would return and sleep in his cabin till morning.
"When you come back," said Jake gruffly, "bring ink and paper with you. I want you to do some writin' for me, George."
I laughed, for I knew what was in his mind.
As Mary and I wended our way back through the narrow path, in the dead of that moonlight night, the daring and bravery of her action caught me afresh. How I admired her! I could scarcely refrain from telling her of it, and of how I loved her. But it was neither the time nor the place for protestations of affection.
"How in the world did you happen to get down there at the right moment?" I asked.
She gave a quiet ripple of laughter.
"I couldn't sleep and I was up and standing at the window——"
"Just as I was doing," I put in.
"I saw that boat come up,—as you must have seen it, George,—I went to the door, and, in the moonlight, I saw you come out and take the back path. Later still, I heard noises and the cursing of these men.
"I became afraid that something was wrong, so I dressed, took up my little revolver and followed you.
"I was at the window of Jake's cabin all the time he was being forced to drink and while you were tied up. I had to get out of the way when they came out."
At the door of Mary's house I took her hand in mine.
"We are quits now, Mary. Those blackguards certainly would have finished me off but for you.
"Where did you learn to shoot, you wild and woolly Westerner?" I asked.
"Why! Didn't I ever tell you? For quite a while, when I was a youngster, I lived on a ranch in the Western States. Everybody could shoot down there."
"But, what would you have said had you killed that big black robber or winged me?" I asked. "We were all in a higgledy-piggledy mix-up when you fired."
She smiled.
"I can generally hit what I aim at."
I nodded my head. "Ay! And I think you can hit sometimes even when you don't aim."
"George!" she admonished, "we were referring simply to shooting with a gun,—not with a bow and arrows."