Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz: Fighting with the U.S. Navy in Mexico

by H. Irving Hancock

Having broken arrest, Cantor, on being returned to ship, was placed behind the steel bars of the ship's brig. There was no further escape for him. But his brother officers sighed their relief when a board of surgeons declared Lieutenant Cantor to be hopelessly insane, and expressed their opinion that he had been in that unfortunate mental condition for at least some weeks. That removed the taint of treason from the "Long Island's" ward-room, as an insane man is never held responsible for his wrong acts.

It was gambling to excess, and the fear of being dropped from the Navy Register, that had caused the wreck of Cantor's mind. He is now properly confined in an asylum.

Mrs. Black had not left Vera Cruz, but still lingered on one of the refugee ships in the harbor, where the Denmans found her. Mrs. Black was a widow who devoted her time and her wealth to missionary work in Mexico. Dave learned to his surprise that she was the daughter of Jason Denman, and a sister of the girl whom Dave had served so signally in New York.

Mr. Denman, who was a wealthy resident of an Ohio town, had extensive mining interests in Mexico, and had gone there to look after them, leaving Miss Denman and her mother in New York. Cantor, who had first met the Denmans in Ohio, when on recruiting duty in that state, had planned to make Miss Denman his wife for purely mercenary reasons. He had struggled to overcome his gaming mania, and had planned that once Miss Denman became his wife her money should be used to pay his gaming debts and free him from the claims of the vice.

But Mr. Denman, with the insight of a wise man, had discouraged the suit.

In New York, before the "Long Island" had sailed, Cantor had met young Tom Denman in a gambling resort. Plying the young man with liquor, Cantor had persuaded the young man, when unconscious of what he was doing, to forge a banker's name to two checks, which Cantor had persuaded an acquaintance of his to cash. Of course the checks had been refused payment at the bank, but the man who had cashed them had disappeared.

Cantor had offered to save young Tom Denman. Without involving himself Cantor could have testified that the young man was all but unconscious, and without knowledge of his act, when he "forged" the cheeks.

The bank that had been deceived into cashing the checks before they were forwarded to the bank upon which they were drawn, had located Tom Denman easily enough. Tom would have been arrested, but Mrs. Denman promptly applied to a great detective agency, which quickly established the young man's mental condition at the of "forging" the checks. Moreover, Mrs. Denman, after cabling her husband for authority to use his funds, had made good the loss to the bank. Then mother, daughter and son had journeyed hastily to Vera Cruz, that the boy might be under his father's eye.

That one lesson was enough for Tom Denman. He has never strayed since.

As to the theft of his landing plan, Captain Gales afterward explained to several of his officers that no such theft had ever taken place. "You recall, gentlemen," the captain explained, "that I referred to the envelope which had contained the plans. And I then stated that the envelope which had contained the plans had disappeared. You will also remember, perhaps that I didn't state that the plans themselves were gone, for they rested in my safe, and are there at this moment. Acting that afternoon on an impulse that I did not very well understand, I took the landing plans from their envelope and filled the envelope with blank paper after having put the plans in the safe.