"You deserted this morning, eh?"
"I did. I beat the barrier, and now I want a bath and some clean clothes and a whole lot of sleep. You don't need to disturb me till fall."
He showed no interest whatever in the new plant, refusing even to look it over or to express an opinion upon the progress of the work; so they sent him out to the ship, where for days he remained in a toad-like lethargy, basking in the sun, sleeping three-fourths of the time and spending his waking hours in repeating the awful tale of his disgraceful peonage.
To unload the machinery, particularly the heavier pieces, was by no means a simple matter, owing to the furious tides that set in and out of the Kalvik River. The first mishap occurred during the trip on which the boilers were towed in, and it looked to Boyd less like an accident than a carefully planned move to cripple him at one stroke. The other ships were busily discharging and the roadstead was alive with small craft of various kinds, when the huge boilers were swung over the side of The Bedford Castle and blocked into position for the journey to the shore. George and a half-dozen of his men went along with the load while Emerson remained on the ship. They were just well under way when, either by the merest chance or by malicious design, several of the rival Company's towboats moored to the neighboring ships cast off. The anchorage was crowded and a boiling six-mile tide made it difficult at best to avoid collision.
Hearing a confused shouting to shoreward, Boyd ran to the rail in time to see one of the Company tugs at the head of a string of towboats bearing down ahead of the current directly upon his own slow-moving lighter. Already it was so close at hand as to make disaster seem inevitable. He saw Balt wave his arms furiously and heard him bellow profane warnings while the fishermen scurried about excitedly, but still the tug held to its course. Boyd raised his voice in a wild alarm, but had they heard him there was nothing they could have done. Then suddenly the affair altered its complexion.
The oncoming tug was barely twice its length from the scow when Boyd saw Big George cease his violent antics and level a revolver directly at the wheel-house of the opposing craft. Two puffs of smoke issued from weapon, then out from the glass-encased structure the steersman plunged, scrambled down the deck and into the shelter of the house. Instantly the bow of the tug swung off, and she came on sidewise, striking Balt's scow a glancing blow, the sound of which rose above the shouts, while its force threw the big fellow and his companions to their knees and shattered the glass in the pilot-house windows. The boats behind fouled each other, then drifted down upon the scow, and the tide, seizing the whole flotilla, began to spin it slowly. Rushing to the ladder, Emerson leaped into another launch which fortunately was at hand, and the next instant as the little craft sped out from the side of The Bedford Castle, he saw that a fight was in progress on the lighter. It was over quickly, and before he reached the scene the current had drifted the tows apart. George, it seemed, had boarded the tug, dragged the captain off, and beaten him half insensible before the man's companions had come to his rescue.
"Is the scow damaged?" Emerson cried, as he came alongside.
"She's leaking, but I guess we can make it," George reassured him.
They directed the second launch to make fast, and, towed by both tugs, they succeeded in beaching their cargo a mile below the landing.
"We'll calk her at low tide," George declared, well satisfied at this outcome of the misadventure. Then he fell to reviling the men who had caused it.