The Merry Anne 25
CHAPTER IX--THE CHASE BEGINS--THURSDAY MORNING
THE four men were in the smoking-car, spinning along toward Milwaukee.
Beveridge handed Dick a cigar. Then, after a little:--
"Say, Smiley, I'm doing a rather odd thing with you."
"Are you?"
"Yes--in taking you off here instead of having you locked right up in
Chicago."
Dick waited.
"You see, I have thought this business over pretty carefully; I have
thought _you_ over pretty carefully--and I like you. Now I have been
some time on this case, and I understand it, I think. I understand you,
and McGlory, and Stenzenberger, and the lot of you. But there is one
place where I'm still weak,--that is Spencer and his places up there in
Lake Huron. That is the only thing we haven't run down. I could get
it of course in time, but it _would_ take time, and that's just what I
don't want to take now. I'm depending on you to set me right. Of course
it's your privilege, if you want, to shut your mouth up tight. But I
don't take you for that sort of a chap. I have a way of my own of going
at these things. There are some of our men would bully you, but that
isn't my way--not with you. I 'll tell you right here, that any help you
can give me will be a mighty good thing for you in the long run."
"What do you expect me to tell you?"
"You will know at the proper time. All I want to find out now is whether
you are going to stand by me and help me through with it or not."
"Why, I will do what I can."
"What does that mean exactly?"
"I will tell you all I know."
"All right, sir. Now we understand each other. And I 'll do what I can to
make it easy for you."
"There's one thing--"
"What is it?"
"What are you going to do with us in Milwaukee?"
"If we have to stop over night, why, we 'll go to a hotel."
"Not the jail, eh?"
"No,"--Beveridge gave his prisoner a keen glance, then shook his
head,--"no, that won't be necessary."
The _Foote_ was not at Milwaukee; apparently she was not at Sheboygan,
Manitowoc, Sturgeon Bay, or Marinette. Throughout the night, while
Dick and Harper were shut up with Wilson on the top floor of the hotel,
Beveridge haunted the telegraph office downstairs. Simultaneous messages
went out to Cedar River, Green Bay, Two Rivers, Kewaunee,--to every
little town along the west shore, even back to Kenosha, Racine, and
Waukegan. Then Beveridge thought of the east shore, and tried all the
ports from Harbor Springs down to St. Joseph, but with no success. He
dropped on the lounge in the hotel office for a cat nap now and then.
And finally, at half-past five in the morning, he was called to the
telephone and informed that the _Foote_ had just been sighted heading in
toward the breakwater.
Promptly he aroused his prisoners, who obligingly tumbled into their
clothes; and the party drove down to the river and boarded a tug. A
little time was to be saved by meeting the revenue cutter before she
could get in between the piers. So out they went, past silent wharves
and sleepy bridge keepers, out into the gold of the sunrise.
There was the _Foote_ nearly in, her old-fashioned engine coughing hard,
her side wheels beating the water to a foam, making her very best speed
of nine miles an hour. She caught the signal from the tug, stopped,
backed, and let down her companion ladder. Captain Sullivan, a grizzled
veteran, bearing evidences of hasty dressing, was at the rail to meet
them.
"Well," said Beveridge, "I'm mighty glad to see you, Captain. I didn't
know whether you were on earth or not."
"I got your message at Sturgeon Bay, and came right down."
"Did you answer?"
"Of course," somewhat testily. "You gave me no Milwaukee address. I sent
it to Lakeville."
"That so? They should have forwarded it. They must have gone to sleep
down there."
"I know nothing about that. All clear down there? All right, Mr.
Ericsen!"
The tug backed away, the paddle-wheels revolved again, and the old
steamer swung around in a wide circle.
"You haven't told me where you want to go, Mr. Beveridge." Captain
Sullivan was taking in Smiley and Harper with an eye that knew no
compromise.
"We 'll do that now, Cap'n. Mr. Smiley here is going to help us out a
little if you will show us your chart of Lake Huron."
"_He_ is!" was the Captain's reply. Then he turned abruptly and led the
way up to the chart room.
The chart was spread out, and the three men bent over it.
"Now, Mr. Smiley," said Beveridge, "can you put your finger on Spencer's
place?"
Dick did so.
"There's a harbor there, you say?"
"What's that nonsense," broke in Captain Sullivan, "a harbor behind
False Middle Island?"
"Yes," Dick replied, "a good one."
"You'd better tell that to the Hydrographic Office."
"I don't need to tell it to anybody. I've been in there with my
schooner."
"When was that, young man?"
"This month."
The Captain turned away with a shrug, and joined his lieutenant on the
bridge. "We 'll make for False Middle Island, Mr. Ericsen, just beyond
Seventy Mile Point."
"Very well, sir."
Deliberately, very deliberately, the Foote coughed and rumbled
northward, and Milwaukee fell away astern. She could not hope to catch
the Merry Anne if the southerly breeze should hold. The schooner was
running light, and even though she might have made but eighty or ninety
miles during the night, she was by this time more than abreast of
Milwaukee, and on the east side of the Lake, where she had the advantage
in the run for the Straits of Mackinac.
"Do you think," asked Beveridge, when the Captain had gone to the
bridge, "that we can overhaul her in the Straits?"
Dick shook his head. "Hardly. She has had a pretty steady breeze all
night."
"But it isn't very strong."
"It doesn't need to be. There is nothing she likes better than running
before just such a breeze. And when the sun is well up, it will blow
harder."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"This here is sort of an old tub, too."
Dick sniffed. "You have to watch the bubbles to see which way she's
going."
Beveridge studied the chart. "See here," he said, "where's the Canadian
hangout?" Dick laid his finger on the indentation that represented Burnt
Cove.
"Beyond the--what's this--Duck Island?"
"Just beyond the Duck Islands."
"Which place do you think he will make for?"
"Well--I can only tell you what I think."
"Go ahead."
"What McGlory will do will be to head for Spencer and take off the old
man."
"And then run over to Burnt Cove?"
"That's what I think. Burnt Cove is in Canada, you see."
"Yes, I see it is. The boundary line runs down west and south of
Manitoulin Island."
"If you want to stop him very bad, you'd better have Captain Sullivan
go over to the boundary, close to Outer Duck Island, and then head for
Spencer. In that way we shall be approaching Spencer along the line that
McGlory must take if he tries to make the cove; and if it is not night,
we ought to stand a good chance of sighting him. I figure that we ought
to get up there just about in time."
"Of course, he doesn't know that we're so hot on his trail," mused
Beveridge.
Dick sniffed again. "If you call this hot."
The Captain returned from the bridge, and Beveridge repeated Dick's
suggestion.
"How are we to know this schooner?"
"She's sky-blue with a white line."
"Is she fast?"
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