The Saint of the Speedway

by Ridgwell Cullum

Pitiless in its treachery, this long, tattered coast line was for the most part completely shunned by man. Yet here, well within the mouth of the Lias River, a white man was labouring at his craft, indifferent to the terror of his surroundings.

The man was sturdily built. He was broad and stocky and stood something less than six feet in height. For all the warming of the clear, spring day he was clad in the thick clothing with which the men of the North are loth to part until the summer heat makes it intolerable. He was a man of something over thirty, with a strong face that was clean-shaven, or was supposed to be, and with a pair of such pale blue eyes as to be devoid of all expression. They were curious eyes, curious in that they revealed not a glimmer of the mind behind them, curious in that their stony expression was unchanging under any and every emotion.

His boat was moored securely, for the tide was a-surge and running out to sea. An iron bar, jammed in a crevice in the shelving granite, afforded him his second mooring and left him free to pursue his labours at leisure.

Behind him gaped a rift in the granite wall which rose to a height of several hundred feet. It was obviously the night shelter in which his camp had been made, for, immediately before the entrance, the remains of his fire were still smouldering. Maybe, the narrow opening was the entrance to a cavern that widened and heightened, for just such caverns, of every size and shape, abounded in these iron walls.

He worked on till the last of his outfit was securely stowed and the canoe lay deep in the water. Then he passed back to his camp-fire. For a second or two he glanced about him questioningly, then with the aid of a slab of stone he picked up the hot ashes and proceeded to dump them into the river. The final clearing was done with infinite care and patience, and even he resorted to the brushing away of the last signs of his fire with a sweeper made of a tied bundle of brushwood.

It was all a little curious. It was all rather furtive. It seemed so unnecessary in this wilderness of a no-man’s-land. Yet the man paid heed to the obliteration of all signs of his encampment with as much care as though his very life depended upon the complete covering of his tracks. Finally, the brushwood bundle was added to the burden of his canoe and he cast off his moorings. Then, in a moment, he took his place amidships and thrust off with the blade of his double paddle.

The little vessel shot out into the tide with a velocity that was almost threatening. But the man was ready and skilful and its nose swung round under the pressure of the dipping paddle and headed across current making tremendous leeway. Slowly, however, the guiding hand made itself felt, and the bow of the craft headed up into the stream. Later he would have the flood tide to help him, but for a while he must battle with a head stream. That was all right. That was calculated. It was his urgent desire to escape the chances of these dreaded wind squalls which might descend at any moment.

He laboured steadily, creeping up the hither shore to avoid the full race of the tide. He hugged the granite walls of the canyon through which the river cut its way to the ocean. The swirling waters revealed the presence of a chain of sunken rocks through which he was threading his way, and only skill and keenness of vision could hope to save him from sheer disaster. But he pursued his course without hesitation, without a moment of shaken confidence, often dallying with death by a margin of less than inches. And so it went on for nearly an hour.

At the end of that time the change he had awaited took place. The pace of his progress materially increased. The head pressure lessened. It was then for the first time he permitted himself a glance up at the smiling sky in the direction of the distant hills towards which he was heading.