The Indian Drum

by William MacHarg; Edwin Balmer

Henry had lied to her about being in Duluth the night he had fought with Alan; he had not told her the true cause of his quarrels with Uncle Benny; he had wished her to believe that Uncle Benny was dead when the wedding ring and watch came to her—the watch which had been Captain Stafford's of the Miwaka! Henry had urged her to marry him at once. Was that because he wished the security that her father—and she—must give her husband when they learned the revelation which Alan or Uncle Benny might bring?

If so, then that revelation had to do with the Miwaka. It was of the Miwaka that Henry had cried out to Alan in the house; they were the names of the next of kin of those on the Miwaka that Uncle Benny had kept. That was beginning to explain to her something of the effect on Henry of the report that the Drum was telling that some on Ferry Number 25 were alive, and why he had hurried north because of that. The Drum—so superstition had said—had beat the roll of those who died with the Miwaka; had beaten for all but one! No one of those who accepted the superstition had ever been able to explain that; but Henry could! He knew something more about the Miwaka than others knew. He had encountered the Miwaka somehow or encountered some one saved from the Miwaka; he knew, then, that the Drum had beaten correctly for the Miwaka, that one was spared as the Drum had told! Who had that one been? Alan? And was he now among those for whom the Drum had not yet beat?

She recalled that, on the day when the Miwaka was lost, Henry and Uncle Benny had been upon the lake in a tug. Afterwards Uncle Benny had grown rich; Henry had attained advancement and wealth. Her reasoning had brought her to the verge of a terrible discovery. If she could take one more step forward in her thought, it would make her understand it all. But she could not yet take that step.

In the morning, at Traverse City—where she got a cup of coffee and some toast in the station eating house—she had to change to a day coach. It had grown still more bitterly cold; the wind which swept the long brick-paved platform of the station was arctic; and even through the double windows of the day coach she could feel its chill. The points of Grand Traverse Bay were frozen across; frozen across too was Torch Lake; to north of that, ice, snow-covered, through which frozen rushes protruded, marked the long chain of little lakes known as the "Intermediates." The little towns and villages, and the rolling fields with their leafless trees or blackened stumps, lay under drifts. It had stopped snowing, however, and she found relief in that; searchers upon the lake could see small boats now—if there were still small boats to be seen.

To the people in her Pullman, the destruction of the ferry had been only a news item competing for interest with other news on the front pages of their newspapers; but to these people in the day coach, it was an intimate and absorbing thing. They spoke by name of the crew as of persons whom they knew. A white lifeboat, one man told her, had been seen south of Beaver Island; another said there had been two boats. They had been far off from shore, but, according to the report cabled from Beaver, there had appeared to be men in them; the men—her informant's voice hushed slightly—had not been rowing. Constance shuddered. She had heard of things like that on the quick-freezing fresh water of the lakes—small boats adrift crowded with men sitting upright in them, ice-coated, frozen, lifeless!

Petoskey, with its great hotels closed and boarded up, and its curio shops closed and locked, was blocked with snow. She went from the train directly to the telegraph office. If Henry was in Petoskey, they would know at that office where he could be found; he would be keeping in touch with them. The operator in charge of the office knew her, and his manner became still more deferential when she asked after Henry.

Mr. Spearman, the man said, had been at the office early in the day; there had been no messages for him; he had left instructions that any which came were to be forwarded to him through the men who, under his direction, were patroling the shore for twenty miles north of Little Traverse, watching for boats. The operator added to the report she had heard upon the train. One lifeboat and perhaps two had been seen by a farmer who had been on the ice to the south of Beaver; the second boat had been far to the south and west of the first one; tugs were cruising there now; it had been many hours, however, after the farmer had seen the boats before he had been able to get word to the town at the north end of the island—St. James—so that the news could be cabled to the mainland. Fishermen and seamen, therefore, regarded it as more likely, from the direction and violence of the gale, that the boats, if they continued to float, would be drifted upon the mainland than that they would be found by the tugs.

Constance asked after her father. Mr. Sherrill and Mr. Spearman, the operator told her, had been in communication that morning; Mr. Sherrill had not come to Petoskey; he had taken charge of the watch along the shore at its north end. It was possible that the boats might drift in there; but men of experience considered it more probable that the boats would drift in farther south where Mr. Spearman was in charge.

Constance crossed the frozen edges of the bay by sledge to Harbor Point. The driver mentioned Henry with admiration and with pride in his acquaintance with him; it brought vividly to her the recollection that Henry's rise in life was a matter of personal congratulation to these people as lending luster to the neighborhood and to themselves. Henry's influence here was far greater than her own or her father's; if she were to move against Henry or show him distrust, she must work alone; she could enlist no aid from these.

And her distrust now had deepened to terrible dread. She had not been able before this to form any definite idea of how Henry could threaten Alan and Uncle Benny; she had imagined only vague interference and obstruction of the search for them; she had not foreseen that he could so readily assume charge of the search and direct, or misdirect, it.