Rick Dale, A Story of the Northwest Coast Part 3

Alaric had not known that the _Empress_ was to make one stop before taking her final departure from the coast. So when she was made fast to the outer wharf at Victoria, on the island of Vancouver, the largest city in British Columbia, and its capital, he felt like one who receives an unexpected reprieve from an unpleasant fate.

As it was announced that she would remain here two hours, the Sonntaggs, according to their custom, at once engaged a carriage to take them to the most interesting places in the city. This plan had been suggested by Amos Todd himself, who had bidden them spare no expense or pains to show his son all that was worth seeing in the various cities they might visit; and that the boy generally declined to accompany them on these excursions was surely not their fault--at least, they did not regard it so.

The truth was that Alaric had taken a dislike to these pretentious people from the very first, and it had grown so much stronger on closer acquaintance that now he was willing to do almost anything to avoid their company. Thus on this occasion he allowed them to drive off without him, while he strolled alone to the head of the wharf, tossing his beloved baseball, which he had carefully brought with him on this journey, from hand to hand as he walked.

"h.e.l.lo! Give us a catch," shouted a cheery voice; and, looking up, Alaric saw a merry-faced, squarely built lad of his own age standing in an expectant att.i.tude a short distance from him. Although he was roughly dressed, he had a bright, self-reliant look that was particularly attractive to our young traveller, who without hesitation tossed him the ball. They pa.s.sed it back and forth for a minute, and then the stranger lad, saying, "Good-bye; I must be getting along; wish I could stop and get better acquainted, though," ran on with a laugh, and disappeared in the crowd.

An hour later Alaric was nearly half a mile from the wharf, when the steamer's hoa.r.s.e whistle sounded a warning note that signified a speedy departure. He turned and began to walk slowly in that direction, and a few minutes later a carriage containing the Sonntaggs dashed by without its occupants noticing him.

At sight of them Alaric paused. A queer look came into his face; it grew very pale, and then he deliberately sat down on a log by the way-side.

There came another blast of the s.h.i.+p's whistle, and then the tall masts, which he could just see, began slowly to move. The _Empress_, with the Sonntaggs on board, had started for China, and one of her pa.s.sengers was left behind.

CHAPTER V

FIRST MATE BONNY BROOKS

Alaric Todd's sensations as he sat on that log and watched the s.h.i.+p, in which he was supposed to be a pa.s.senger, steam away without him were probably as curious as any ever experienced by a boy. He had deliberately abandoned a life of luxury, as well as a position that most people are striving with all their energies to obtain, and accepted in its place--what? He did not know, and for the moment he did not care. He only knew that the Sonntaggs were gone beyond a chance of return at least for some weeks, and that during that time there was no possible way in which they could reach him or communicate with his family.

He realized that he was in a strange city, not one of whose busy population either knew or cared to know a thing about him. But what of that? If they did not know him they could never call him by the hated name of "Allie." If he succeeded in making friends, it would be because of himself, and not on account of his father's wealth. Above all, those now about him did not know and should never know, if he could keep it, that he was thought to be possessed of a weak heart. Certainly if excitement could injure his heart, it ought to be completely ruined at the present moment, for he had never been so excited in his life, and doubted if he ever should be again.

With it all the lad was filled with such an exulting sense of liberty that he wanted to jump and shout and share with every pa.s.ser-by the glorious news that at length he was free--free to be a boy among boys, and to learn how to become a man among men. He did not shout, nor did he confide his happiness to any of those who were coming up from the wharf, where they had just witnessed the departure of the great s.h.i.+p; but he did jump from the log on which he had been sitting and fling his baseball high in the air. As it descended and he caught it with practised skill, he was greeted by the approving remark: "Good catch!

Couldn't do it better myself!" and looking round he saw the lad with whom he had pa.s.sed ball a short time before.

"It seems mighty good," continued the stranger, "to see a baseball again, and meet a fellow who knows how to catch one. These chaps over here don't know anything about it, and I've hardly seen a ball since I left Ma.s.sachusetts. You don't throw, though, half as well as you catch."

"No," replied Alaric, "I haven't learned that yet. You see, I've only just begun."

"That so? Wish I had a chance to show you something about it, then, for I used to play on the nine at home."

"I wish you could, for I want awfully to learn. Why can't you?"

"Because I don't live here, and, do you know, I didn't think you did, either. When I saw you awhile ago, I had a sort of idea that you belonged aboard the _Empress_, and were going in her to China, and I've been more than half envying you ever since. Funny, wasn't it?"

"Awfully!" responded Alaric. "And I'm glad it isn't true, for I don't know of anything I should hate more than to be going to China in the _Empress_. But I say, let's stop in here and get something to eat, for I'm hungry--aren't you?"

"Of course I am," laughed the other; and with this the two boys, who were already strolling towards the city together, turned into the little road-side bake-shop that had just attracted Alaric's attention. Here he ordered half a sheet of buns, two tarts, and two gla.s.ses of milk. These being served on a small table, Alaric paid for them, and the newly made acquaintances sat down to enjoy their feast at leisure.

"What I want to do," said Alaric, continuing their interrupted conversation, "is to get back to the States as quickly as possible."

"That's easy enough," replied the other, holding his tart in both hands and devouring it with infinite relish. "There's a steamer leaves here at eight o'clock this evening for Seattle and Tacoma. But you don't live here then, after all?"

"No, I don't live here, nor do I know any one who does, and I want to get away as quickly as I can; for I am looking for work, and should think the chances for finding it were better in the States than here."

"_You_ looking for work?" said the other, slowly, and as though doubting whether he had heard aright. At the same time he glanced curiously at Alaric's white hands and neatly fitting coat. "You don't look like a fellow who is looking for work."

"I am, though," laughed Alaric; "and as I have just spent the last cent of money I had in the world, I must find something to do right away.

That's the reason I want to get back to the States; but I don't know about that steamer. I suppose they'd charge something to take me, wouldn't they?"

"Well, rather," responded the other. "But I say, Mister--By-the-way, what is your name?"

"Dale--Rick Dale," replied Alaric, promptly, for he had antic.i.p.ated this question, and was determined to drop the Todd part of his name, at least for the present. "But there isn't any Mister about it. It's just plain Rick Dale."

"Well, then, plain Rick Dale," said the other, "my name is Bonny Brooks--short for Bonnicastle, you know; and I must say that you are the most cheerful-appearing fellow to be in the fix you say you are that I ever met. When I get strapped and out of a job I sometimes don't laugh for a whole day, especially if I don't have anything to eat in that time."

"That's something I never tried, and I didn't know any one ever did for a whole day," remarked Alaric. "How queer it must seem!"

"Lots of people try it; but they don't unless they have to, and it don't seem queer at all," replied Bonny, soberly. "But what kind of work are you looking for, and what pay do you expect?"

"I am looking for anything I can find to do, and will work for any pay that is offered."

"It would seem as if a fellow ought to get plenty to do on those terms,"

said Bonny, "though it isn't so easy as you might think, for I've tried it. How do you happen to be looking for work, anyway? Where is your home, and where are your folks?"

"My mother is dead," replied Alaric, "and I suppose my father is in France, though just where he is I don't know. Our home was in San Francisco, and before he left he tried to fix things all right for me; but they turned out all wrong, and so I am here looking for something to do."

"If that don't beat anything I ever heard of!" cried Bonny Brooks, in a tone of genuine amazement. "If I didn't know better, I should think you were telling my story, or that we were twins; for my mother is dead, and my father, when last heard from, was on his way to France. You see, he was a s.h.i.+p captain, and we lived in Sandport, on Cape Cod, where, after my mother died, he fixed up a home for me with an aunt, and left money enough to keep me at school until he came back from a voyage to South America and France. We heard of his reaching Brazil and leaving there, but never anything more; and when a year pa.s.sed Aunt Nancy said she couldn't support me any longer. So she got me a berth as cabin-boy on a bark bound to San Francisco, and then to the Sound for lumber to China.

I wanted to go to China fast enough, but the captain treated me so badly that I couldn't stand it any longer, and so skipped just before the s.h.i.+p sailed from Port Blakely. The meanest part of it all was that I had to forfeit my pay, leave my dunnage on board, and light out with only what I had on my back."

"That's my fix exactly," cried Alaric, delightedly. "I mean," he added, recollecting himself, "that my baggage got carried off, and as I haven't heard from it since, I don't own a thing in the world except the clothing I have on."

"And a baseball," interposed Bonny.

"Oh yes, a baseball, of course," replied Alaric, soberly, as though that were a most matter-of-fact possession for a boy in search of employment.

"But what did you do after your s.h.i.+p sailed away without you?"

"Starved for a couple of days, and then did odd jobs about the river for my grub, until I got a chance to s.h.i.+p as one of the crew of the sloop _Fancy_, that runs freight and pa.s.sengers between here and the Sound.

That was only about a month ago, and now I'm first mate."

"You are?" cried Alaric, at the same time regarding his young companion with a profound admiration and vastly increased respect. "Seems to me that is the most rapid promotion I ever heard of. What a splendid sailor you must be!"

Although the speaker was so ignorant of nautical matters that he did not know a sloop from a schooner, or from a full-rigged s.h.i.+p, for that matter, he had read enough sea stories to realize that the first mate of any vessel was often the most important character on board.

"Yes," said Bonny, modestly, "I do know a good deal about boats; for, you see, I was brought up in a boating town, and have handled them one way and another ever since I can remember. I haven't been first mate very long, though, because the man who was that only left to-day."

"What made him?" asked Alaric, who could not understand how any one, having once attained to such an enviable position, could willingly give it up.

"Oh, he had some trouble with the captain, and seemed to think it was time he got paid something on account of his wages, so that he could buy a s.h.i.+rt and a pair of boots."

"Why didn't the captain pay him?"

"I suppose he didn't have the money."

"Then why didn't the man get the things he wanted, and have them charged?"

"That's a good one," laughed Bonny. "Because the storekeeper wouldn't trust him, of course."