The Merry Anne 5
Adjoining the lumber yard on the west was a small frame building,
bearing the sign, "The Teamster's Friend." It had been set down here
presumably to catch the trade of the market gardeners who rumbled
through in the small hours of every morning. In the rear, backed up
against a lumber pile, was a long shed where the teams could wait under
cover while their drivers were carousing within. A second sign, painted
on the end of this shed, announced that Murphy and McGlory were the
proprietors of the "sample room and summer garden." The three men
entered, and seated themselves at a table. There was no one behind the
bar at the moment, but soon a woman glanced in through the rear doorway.
Stenzenberger smiled broadly on her, and winked. "How d' do, Madge," he
said. "Can't you give us a little something with a smile in it,--one o'
your smiles maybe now?"
She was a tall woman, with a full figure and snapping eyes,--attractive,
in spite of a crow's-foot wrinkle or so. She returned the smile,
wearily, and said, "I 'll call Joe, Mr. Stenzenberger."
"You needn't do that now, Madge. Draw it with those pretty hands of
yours, there's a dear."
So she came in behind the bar, wiping her hands on her apron, and
quietly awaited their orders.
"What 'll it be, boys?"
Dick suggested a glass of beer, but Henry smiled and shook his head.
"You might make it ginger ale for me."
"I don't know what to do with that cousin of yours," said Stenzenberger
to Dick. "He's a queer one. I don't like to trust a man that's got no
vices. What _are_ your vices, anyhow, Smiley?"
Henry smiled again. "Ask Dick, there. He ought to know all about me."
Stenzenberger looked from one to the other; then he raised his foaming
glass, and with a "Prosit" and a stiff German nod, he put it down at a
gulp.
"Been reading about the revenue case?" Henry asked of his superior.
"I saw something this morning."
"I've been quite interested in it. Billy Boynton told me yesterday that
they had searched his schooner. It's a wonder they haven't got after us
if they're holding up fellows like him. Do you think they 'll ever get
this Whiskey Jim, Cap'n?"
"No, they talk too much. And they couldn't catch a mud-scow with that
old side-wheeler of theirs."
"Guess that's right. The _Foote_ must have started in here before the
_Michigan_, and she's thirty years old if she's a day. The boys are all
talking about it down at the city. I dropped around at the Hydrographic
Office after I saw Billy, and found two or three others that had been
hauled over. It seems they've stumbled on a pipe-line half built under
the Detroit River near Wyandotte, and there's been a good deal of
excitement. There's capital behind it, you see; and a little capital
does wonders with those revenue men."
Stenzenberger was showing symptoms of readiness to return to his desk,
but Henry, who rarely grew reminiscent, was now fairly launched.
"They can't get an effective revenue system, because they make it too
easy for a man to get rich. It's like the tax commissioners and the
aldermen and the legislators,--when you put a man where he can rake off
his pile, month after month, without there being any way of checking him
up, look out for his morals. And where they're all in it together, no
one dares squeal. It's a good deal like the railway conductors.
"You remember last year when the Northeastern Road laid off all but two
or three of its old conductors for stealing fares? Well, it wasn't a
month afterward that one of the 'honest' ones came to me and hired the
_Schmidt_ to carry a twelve-hundred-dollar grand piano up to Milwaukee,
where he lives. He had reasons of his own for not wanting to ship by
rail. No, sir, it wouldn't be hard for me to have sympathy with an
honest thief that goes in and runs his chances of getting shot or
knocked on the head,--that calls for some nerve,--but these fellows that
put up a bluff as lawmakers and policemen and revenue officers and then
steal right and left--deliver me!"
"Well, boys, I guess I 'll have to step back. I'm a busy man, you know.
Have another before we go?"
"One minute, Cap'n," said Dick. "There's something I want to talk over
with you, if you can spare the time."
Stenzenberger sat down again. Henry, whose outbreak against the evils of
society had stirred up, apparently, some pet feeling of bitterness, now
sat moodily looking at the table.
"It's about Roche, Cap'n," Dick went on. "I had to leave him at
Manistee."
"Why?"
"He drinks too much for me--I couldn't depend on him a minute. He bummed
around up there, and got himself too shaky to be any use to me."
Stenzenberger, with __EXPRESSION__less face, chewed his cigar. "What did you
do for a mate?"
"Came down without one."
"Have you found a man yet?"
"No--haven't tried. I thought you might have some one you could
suggest."
"I don't know. You 'll want to be starting up to Spencer's place in a day
or so." He chewed his cigar thoughtfully for a moment, then dropped his
voice. "There's a man right here you might be able to use. Do you know
McGlory?"
"No."
"You do, Henry?"
"Yes, he was my mate for a year."
"Well," said Dick, "any man that suited Henry for a year ought to suit
me."
"You 'll find him a good, reliable man," responded Henry, in an
undertone. "He has a surly temper, but he knows all about a schooner."
"Well,--if he's anywhere around here now, we could fix it right up."
Stenzenberger looked around. The woman had slipped out. "Madge," he
called; "Madge, my dear."
She entered as quietly as before.
"Come in, my dear. You know Cap'n Smiley, don't you?"
No, she didn't.
"That's a fact. He's never seen in sample rooms. He sets up to be better
than the rest of us; but I say, look out for him. And here's his cousin,
another Cap'n Smiley, the handsomest man on the Lakes." Dick blushed at
this. "Sit down a minute with us."
She shook her head, and waited for him to come to the point.
"Where's that man of yours, my dear? Is he anywhere around?"
"What is it you want of him?"
"I want him to know our young man here. I think they're going to like
each other. You tell him we want to see him."
She hesitated; then with a suspicious glance around the group left the
room.
In a moment McGlory appeared, a short, heavy-set man with high
cheek-bones, a low, sloping forehead, and a curling black mustache. He
nodded to Stenzenberger and Henry, and glanced at Dick.
"Joe," said the lumber merchant, "shake hands with Cap'n Dick Smiley.
He's the best sailor between here and Buffalo, and the only trouble with
him is we can't get a mate good enough for him. A man's got to know his
business to sail with Dick Smiley. Ain't that so, Henry?"
"I guess that's right."
"And Henry tells me you're the man that can do it."
This pleasantry had no visible effect on McGlory. He was looking Dick
over.
"I don't know about that, Cap'n. I promised Madge I'd give up the Lake
for good."
"The Cap'n here," pursued Stenzenberger, "is going to start to-morrow
or next day for Spencer, to take on a load of timber and shingles." His
small brown eyes were fixed intently on the saloon keeper as he talked.
"And I think we 'll have to keep him running up there for a good part of
the summer. Queer character, that Spencer," he added, addressing Dick.
"He has lived all his life up there in the pines. They say he was a
squatter--never paid a cent for his land. But he has been there so many
years now, I guess any one would have trouble getting him out. He has
got an idea that his timber's better than anybody else's. He cuts it all
with an old-fashioned vertical saw, and stamps his mark on every piece."
"Why should it be any better?"
"I don't know that it is, though he selects it carefully. The main thing
is, he sells it dirt cheap,--has to, you know, to stand any show against
the big companies. He's so far out of the way, no boats would take the
trouble to run around there if he didn't. Well, McGlory, we've got a
good thing to offer you. You can drop in here once a week or so, you
know, to see how things are running. Come over to the office with us and
we 'll settle the terms." Stenzen-berger was rising as he spoke.
"Well, I don't know. I couldn't come over for a few minutes, Cap'n."
"How soon could you?"
"About a quarter of an hour."
"All right, we 'll be looking for you. Here, give me half a dozen ten
cent straights while I'm here."
McGlory walked to the door with them, and stood for a moment looking
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