Swept Out to Sea; Or, Clint Webb Among the Whalers

by W. Bert Foster

I confess that I was desperately disappointed. And I felt depressed, too, over the death of the mysterious Professor Vose, or Carver, or whatever his name had been. I could not get rid of the thought that perhaps the man had been my father. But I should never know now, I told myself. Whether it were so, or not I need have no doubt regarding my poor father’s death. If he had not been drowned off Bolderhead Neck, and had been hidden away in this wilderness so many years, he had gone to his account now.

I was sorry I had come down here in the Sea Spell; but being here I had to somewhat wait upon Captain Tugg’s pleasure before I could get away. We warped the Sea Spell off the shoal and found her uninjured. She had scarcely started a plank. Then the animal trapper set us all to work rebuilding his camp, animal cages, and stockade. We were three solid months repairing the damage done by the savages; but then Tugg had a camp that would be impregnable to the wild men from up the river.

I had expressed to him at once my wish to return to the coast where I could get a chance to work my way north in some vessel. But it was three months before he could spare me a canoe crew to take me as far as Punta Arenas, on the Straits. From that point I would be able to board some vessel bound into the Atlantic, and if I could get back to Buenos Ayres I would be all right.

I had wasted nearly six months in following a will-o’-the-wisp. I might have been at home long ago, had I not come down here on the schooner. More than a year had passed since that September evening when my cousin, Paul Downes, and I had had our fateful quarrel on my bonnie sloop, the Wavecrest, as she beat slowly into the inlet at Bolderhead. I had roved far afield since that time, had seen strange lands, and strange peoples, and had endured hardship and hard work which—after all was said and done—hadn’t belonged to me.

Clint Webb need not be knocking about the world, looking for a chance to work his way home before the mast. As the canoe Tugg had lent me sailed south through the inlet, with Pedro and two gigantic Patagonians for crew, I milled these thoughts over in my mind, and determined that, once at home, I’d stick there. Not that I was tired of the sea, or afraid of work aboard ship; but I was deeply worried regarding my mother and what might be happening to her so far away.

Nothing but the desire to set eyes on the man that looked like me and talked like me had brought me ’way down here in Patagonia; I had never told Captain Tugg my real reason for shipping on the Sea Spell, not even when I bade him good-bye. The old fellow had seemed really sorry to have me go.

“If you git tired of civilization and want to come down this way again, son,” he told me, “you’ll be as welcome as can be. Just come here, walk in, hang up your hat, and you’ll find a job right at hand. I got a big order for ant-eaters, jaguar, tiger-cats, and the like, on hand and I’ll likely be here for a couple of years—off and on. Goin’ to be mighty lonesome, too, without the Professor,” he added, shaking his head, sorrowfully.

Tugg was a money-lover; but I know that he didn’t hold the loss of his animals and outfit as anything to be compared to the miserable end of his partner. I liked him for that.

I can’t say that I enjoyed that canoe trip to the Straits. We had a queer three-cornered sail that was rigged in some native way, and as the wind was free we traveled the hundred or so miles to the mouth of the inlet in good time. But I did not sleep much; Pedro and the giants might easily knock me on the head, take my few dollars and my gun and other traps, and drop me overboard. I couldn’t believe that they were to be trusted.

But nothing really happened until we were within a mile or so of the mouth of the long lagoon. I could see a bit of the strait and over the rocky headland appeared a banner of smoke. It was from the stack of a steamship bound east. I pointed it out to the mate of the Sea Spell and told him how anxious I was to reach that very craft. I had money enough left of my wages to pay my fare to Buenos Ayres at least—perhaps to Bahia; and surely the steamship would stop somewhere along the east coast.