“I’m not strong for any new game that I don’t understand,” whined the voice of Rae, “and we’re in bad on this boat, as it stands. We’ll find games enough of our own when we git to Skagway.”
“Don’t lose yer nerve,” said Dublin, “with a good chance to make a stake in sight. These folks is takin’ in a lot of fine machinery, and that Yukon country is a long ways from where that machinery is made, and every nut and bolt in it will be worth its weight in coin by the time they’ve got it in there. All we got to do is to cop off a piston and a valve or two and this army man will be willin’ to pay several hundred dollars to get ’em back rather than wait for months to get ’em in from the outside.”
“Well,” replied Rae, “ye know that stealin’ up in this country is bigger crime than murder, and they don’t fool with the courts much.”
“Aw, this ain’t stealin’,” sneered Dublin, “it’s only kidnappin’ and holdin’ for ransom. I know just whereabouts in the hold this stuff was stored at Seattle, and that kid, Monkey, of yours, can get at it in ten minutes if he has the nerve. The stuff is not a hundred feet from us, and I can show him tonight how to do it.”
Rae, who was more or less of a coward, made further protest, but finally yielded, and the pair slipped out of the passageway and walked away still discussing the proposed scheme. Jack, glad to be released from the rather odorous confinement of the bunk into which he had crowded himself, left the third-class quarters and made for the upper deck.
His newspaper training, of which he had received a considerable amount in the intervals of his school days in the office of his father’s paper in Creston, included an acute sense of analysis, and he at once arrived at the opinion that the conspiracy he had heard referred to the freight which Colonel Snow was taking North, and his first impulse was to lay the matter before him for such action as he might see fit to take.
Then a foolish ambition to handle the thing alone, born possibly of that newspaper desire to bring off a “scoop” as an exclusive publication is called, coupled with the usual boyish longing to become a hero, incited him to circumvent the plot singlehanded and alone, prevented him from speaking to either the leader of the party or his chums. In addition, his journalistic training had instilled deeply one of the first rules of the profession, accuracy, and to tell the truth he was rather ashamed to go to Colonel Snow with so little evidence to back up his story, and so he determined to “keep tabs,” as he called it, on Monkey Rae, and knowing he could handle that young man physically to capture him redhanded and take him in dramatic fashion before the Captain.
Jack had no doubt that Dublin would carry out any scheme he had in mind at the first opportunity, and that the attempt to get into the hold would be made at a hatchway on the same deck with the steerage. The hold at this part of the ship being filled with machinery and other heavy freight, the hatch cover was not battened down and most of the time was left partially off in order to give a circulation of air through that part of the hold under the steerage.
About ten o’clock that night, Jack slipped away from his companions, and descended to the engine room deck, where he took up his place behind some packing cases, and awaited developments. Nearly all the steerage passengers were in their quarters, for the night was keen and there was little enjoyment in the open air.
An hour passed and Jack was becoming weary of his vigil, especially in view of the uncertainty of the coming of his quarry. Then, from the passageway leading to the steerage a slim figure emerged and by the dim light of the lamp which illuminated this part of the deck, Jack was just able to recognize Monkey, who carried in one hand a hatchet, and something like a policeman’s club in the other. Monkey glanced rapidly around the deck, looking for the watchman who at times visited every portion of the ship, but the coast was clear.