“Boys,” he called to the crew who were working near, “put Schofield in the old storeroom. And one of you watch it all the time. He says he will escape if he can, so I hold you responsible.”
Code followed the men to a little shanty seemingly erected against the foremast. It was of stout, heavy boards about long enough to allow a cot being set up in it. It had formerly been used for storing provisions and had never been taken down.
When the padlock snapped behind him Code took in his surroundings. There were two windows in the little cubby, one looking forward and the other to starboard. Neither was large enough to provide a means of escape, he judged. At the foot of the cot was a plain wooden armchair, both pieces of furniture 185 being screwed to the floor. For exercise there was a strip of bare deck planking about six feet long beside the bed, where he might pace back and forth.
Both the cot and chair appeared to be new. “Had the room all ready for me,” said Code to himself.
The one remaining piece of furniture was a queer kind of book-shelf nailed against the wall. It was fully five feet long and protruded a foot out above his bed. In its thirty-odd pigeonholes was jammed a collection of stuff that was evidently the accumulation of years. There were scores of cheap paper-bound novels concerning either high society or great detectives, old tobacco-boxes, broken pipes, string, wrapping-paper, and all the what-not of a general depository.
With hours on his hands and nothing whatever to occupy him, Code began to sort over the lurid literature with a view to his entertainment. He hauled a great dusty bundle out of one pigeonhole, and found among the novels some dusty exercise books.
He inspected them curiously. On the stiff board cover of one was scrawled, “Log Schooner M. C. Burns; M. C. Burns, master.”
The novels were forgotten with the appearance of this old relic. The M. C. Burns was the original 186 Burns schooner when Nat’s father was still in the fish business at Freekirk Head. It was the direct predecessor of the Nettie B., which was entirely Nat’s. On the death of the elder Burns when the May Schofield went down, the M. C. Burns had been sold to realize immediate cash. And here was her log!
Code looked over pages that were redolent of the events in his boyhood, for Michael was a ready writer and made notes regularly even when the M. C. was not on a voyage. He had spent an hour in this way when he came to this entry on one of the very last pages:
“June 30: This day clear with strong E. S.-E. wind. This day Nat, in the M. C. Burns, raced Code Schofield in the May Schofield from Quoddy Head to moorings in Freekirk Head harbor. My boy had the worst of it all the way. I never saw such luck as that young Schofield devil has. He won by half an hour. Poor Nat is heartbroken and swore something awful. He says he’ll win next time or know why!”