Geoffrey Hampstead: A Novel

by Stinson Jarvis

"Well it could, perhaps, on six days in the week, in summer. Perhaps on the seventh the best handling in the world wouldn't save her. But they are a fine little boat, for all that I've crossed the bay myself in them when there was an all-fired sea runnin'."

"Could it have crossed the lake yesterday?"

"I don't think Mr. Cresswell would be such a fool as to try. Perhaps he could have done it if anybody could. But risks for nothing ain't his style. Not but what he'll run his chances when the time comes. You should have seen him bring in that Ideal last fall, in the race I sailed with him. The wind sprung up heavy in the afternoon. Lord! it was a sight to see that boat come in to the winnin' buoy with the mast hanging over her bows like a Greek fruiter. You see, he had the wind dead after him, blowin' heavy, and he'd piled rags on to her, wings and all, till she was in a blind fury and goin' through it like a harpooned whale. The owner was a-standing by him a-watchin' for everythin' to carry out of her. 'Jack,' says he, 'she can't do it. The backstays won't do the work.' 'Slack them up, then, four inches, and let the mast do its own part of the work,' says Mr. Cresswell. And he kept on easin' backstays to give fair play all round, till the mast was hangin' forward like a cornstalk; but I'm dummed if he'd lift a rag on her till she passed the gun. Perhaps you don't care for that sort of thing. I follered the sea myself formerly. Lord! it was immense, that little sail! And thirty seconds ain't a great deal to win on. Nothin' but bull-head grit would ha' done it."

Mr. Dearborn was not much comforted by all this talk. Cresswell might have crossed the lake in his skiff. Evidently he was a man who would do it if he wished. They continued their search on every wharf and through every boat-house, which occupied a good deal of time.

Suddenly, near Yonge Street wharf, the caretaker said: "Give us your two dollars, mister. There's the skiff on the deck of the stone-hooker."

Inquiries soon showed that Jack had gone off on the schooner North Star to Oswego, and then Mr. Dearborn began to look grave. The schooner had got a long start. He was well acquainted with all different routes to different places, and he finally decided to go on the Eleusinian by water to Oswego. Possibly he might be able to come across the schooner in the lake before she arrived at Oswego, and bribe the captain to land him and his prisoner on Canadian soil, where his warrant would be good. He had still half an hour to spare, so he dashed off in a cab to the chief's office, and wired the Oswego police to arrest Jack, on the arrival of the North Star, on the charge of bringing stolen money into the States.

Of course, Dearborn knew he could not extradite Jack from Oswego for his offense, but he thought that after being locked up the money could be scared out of him, when he found that he could get a long sentence in the States on the above charge, which Dearborn knew could be proved if the stolen bills were found in his possession.

If Geoffrey had known what the able Mr. Dearborn had ferreted out, and what his plans were, he would have felt more uneasy.

As the afternoon wore on, it was interesting to watch two very unconcerned people at the bow of the upper deck of the Eleusinian. The steamer was making excellent time—plowing into the eye of the wind with all the power that had so nearly dragged the life out of the poor Ideal in the preceding summer. Nina was sitting in an arm-chair, cushioned into comfort by the assiduous second officer, who found that his duties much required his presence in that portion of the boat where Nina happened, to be. She was sitting, looking through the spyglasses from time to time at every sail that hove in sight, and seeming disinclined to leave the deck.

Mr. Dearborn was tempting providence by smoking a cigar close by. The steamer went almost too fast to pitch much, but there was a decided rise and fall at the bows. He noticed that the officer suggested to Nina that by sitting further aft she would escape some of the motion, and that she declined the change, saying she liked the breeze and was a good sailor. Once they passed close to a vessel with three masts. Dearborn had ascertained, before leaving, that the North Star had only two masts, so he was not anxious. Nina, however, knew nothing about the rig of the North Star, and she was up standing beside the bulwarks gazing intently through the binoculars at the crew. She seemed disappointed when she lowered the glasses, and Dearborn began to wonder whether this was "the woman in the case." He afterward watched her as she attempted to read a novel, and noticed that she continually stopped to scan the horizon. Still, nearly every person does this, more or less, and his idea rather waned again as he thought that this was quite too fine a person to bother her head about a poor bank-clerk—such a man as he was hunting. Mr. Dearborn, perhaps owing to the peculiar formation of his jaw, generally lost all idea of the respectability of a man as soon as he got on his trail. He might have the benefit of all doubts in his favor until the warrant for his arrest was placed in Mr. Dearborn's hands. After that, as a rule, the individual, whether acquitted or not at his subsequent trial, took no high stand in Mr. Dearborn's mind. If acquitted, it was only the result of lawyers' trickery; not on account of innocence. Men who ought to know best say that if a prize-fighter wishes to win he must actually hate his antagonist—must fight to really kill him; and that only when he is entirely disabled is it time enough to hope that he will not die. Mr. Dearborn, similarly, had that tenacity of purpose that made every attempt at escape seem to double the culprit's guilt, and in a hard capture this supplied him with that "gall" which could meet and overcome the desperate courage of a man at bay.