The Merry Anne 26
"She don't need paddle-wheels to beat this." This remark did not please
Captain Sullivan. He turned away.
"I don't know how you feel, Smiley," said
Beveridge, "but I didn't get much sleep last night. Did you?"
"Precious little."
Within a few moments, while the colors of the dawn were fading, while
the _Foote_ was pounding heavily along northwest by north, the special
agents and their two prisoners were sleeping like children.
At two o'clock Thursday morning the Foote lay, with motionless engines
and lights extinguished, to the southward of Jennie Graham Shoal, near
Outer Duck Island. Smiley and Harper, with Wilson close at hand, stood
leaning on the rail, watching a launch that the crew were lowering to
the water.
"Well," said Dick, in a low voice, "it looks as if we might get them."
"Shouldn't wonder," Wilson replied. He, too, was subdued by the strain.
"Pretty dark, though."
"That isn't all on their side."
"No, perhaps it isn't. Going to put out both launches, eh?"
"It looks that way."
Cautiously and swiftly the sailors worked. One launch, and then the
other, was lowered into the water.
"Pretty neat, ain't it?" whispered Pink. "Why, with this wind they've
got to run in right by one or other of the boats to get to Burnt Cove.
Would they let us sail the _Anne_ around, think, if they get her back?"
Dick shook his head.
Farther aft Beveridge was talking to Captain Sullivan. "It's the only
thing to do, Captain. With him along, we can't miss her."
"I've nothing more to say. I don't like it; but he's your man."
"One thing more, Captain. It won't hardly be necessary to send an
officer with me."
"But--"
"You see Wilson and myself, and about four husky sailors, a couple of
'em to run the launch, will be enough, Why not just leave it that way?
You might tell your men they're to take my orders."
His meaning was obvious to the Captain; but he hesitated. This man
Beveridge was young and bumptious. Irregular things had sometimes to be
done, but it were best that they should be done by a seasoned officer.
Still, it was Beveridge's case. They walked together toward the
prisoners.
"Smiley," said Beveridge, "I'm going to take you along. I guess there
isn't much doubt you could tell your schooner in the dark?"
"Tell her in the dark!" exclaimed Pink. "Why, he knows the squeak of
every block!"
So Dick went. The Captain added a fifth sailor for safety, and took time
to give him a few quiet instructions before he joined the launch. Then
they pushed off and slipped away into the night. For four hours after
that, the only sound heard aboard the _Foote_, where Pink, sleepless,
hung over the rail, guarded by a deep-chested sailor, was the occasional
puff-puff of one of the launches as it changed its post. A dozen pairs
of eyes were searching the dark, looking for any craft that might be
coming from Michigan.
As Captain Sullivan suspected, Beveridge's launch was over the Canadian
boundary half an hour after she lost sight of the ship. Then Beveridge
drew Dick back near the boiler. "Tell me this, Smiley. Do you think
those fellows could possibly have got through before now?"
"I haven't much doubt of it."
"What makes you think so?"
"Because of the wind. It has never let down a minute since they started.
If they lost no time at Spencer's, they could have done it easily."
"That's what I thought. Will you take the wheel and pilot us into Burnt
Cove?"
"Sure, if you want me to."
Dick took the wheel. The fifth sailor spoke up. "You can't do that,
sir."
"Can't do what?" said Beveridge.
"Take the wheel, sir. Powers is to keep the wheel. That's the orders."
"There's nobody but me giving orders here."
"Sorry, sir; but Powers has got to keep the wheel."
"We won't have any talk about this, young man. I'm a special agent of
the United States Treasury Department, and I'm running this business.
Powers can sit down."
The sailor's orders evidently did not warrant him to resist further.
Dick looked about for his bearings. Dimly he could make out the islands
to the left. "What does she draw?" he asked.
"Two feet."
With only two feet of draft he could take chances. He was directly on
the course that the Merry Anne had taken in leaving the cove, and he
felt as certain, with the compass before him, as if he had made the trip
by night a hundred times. There was very little sea, and the launch made
good progress. "You might tell the engineer to crowd her all he can," he
said to Beveridge. "It's quite a run."
Once Dick glanced back; and he winced. There sat Wilson, on his left
hand and not a yard away, with a rifle across his knees. At this moment
Beveridge returned from a whispered consultation with the engineer, and
scowled at his assistant. "That isn't necessary, Bert," said he. "Put it
up."
The overzealous young man laid the rifle on the seat behind him; and
Beveridge, after a moment of hard thinking, his eyes fixed on Dick's
muscular back, came up beside the wheel and leaned on the coamings.
Dick's gaze left the compass only for the darkness ahead, where the
outline of something that he knew to be a coast line was, to his trained
eye, taking shape.
"Say, Smiley,"--the special agent's voice was lowered; his tone was
friendly,--"don't let that bother you. Nobody is holding a gun on you
here. That isn't my way--with you."
Dick's eyes were fixed painfully on the compass.
"I just want you to know that it was a mistake. These guns aren't for
you."
Beveridge, having said enough, was now silent. Apparently too boyish for
his work, often careless in his talk, he was handling Smiley right,
and so well did he know it that he was willing to lounge there at his
prisoner's elbow and watch the course in silence. If Beveridge was
ambitious, greedy for success and promotion, frequently unscrupulous
as to the means to be employed,--as now, when he was deliberately going
into English territory, an almost unheard-of and certainly unlawful
performance,--hard, even merciless, so long as he regarded only his
"case"; he was also impulsive and sometimes warm hearted when appealed
to on the personal side. He had, before now, gone intuitively to the
heart of problems that stronger minds than his, relying on reasoning
alone, had been unable to solve.
Much as a bank teller detects instantly a counterfeit bill or coin,
he picked his man. He was quick to feel the difference between
a right-minded man who has fallen into wrong ways and the really
wrong-minded man. His course tonight was a triumph. He had given his
prisoner the means to lead his little party to destruction, but he knew
perfectly that nothing of the sort would be done. More, the only man
aboard who could prove in court that he had gone over that vague thing,
the boundary line, was this same prisoner, who should, by all sensible
thinking, be the last man to trust with such information; and yet he
felt perfectly comfortable as he leaned out a little way and watched the
foam slipping away from the bow.
The launch went on toward the increasing shadows, plunged through the
surf, and glided into the cove.
"See anything?" whispered Beveridge.
"Not a thing," Smiley replied.
"She isn't here, eh?"
"No, neither of them."
"Neither of what?"
"Neither the _Anne_ nor the _Estelle_, Spencer's schooner. Shall we go
back outside?"
"Yes."
"You speak to the engineer, then. This bell makes too much noise."
They backed cautiously around and returned through the surf to deep
water.
"Lie up a little way off the shore here," said Beveridge; "we 'll cut
them off if they try to get in."
For a moment nothing was said; then this from Smiley, "Do you mind my
saying a word?"
"No. What?"
"It has just struck me--we are wasting time here."
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