Jack Harvey's Adventures Part 33

Henry Burns was not a youth to remain inactive, although carried off against his will. Having finished breakfast, he went on deck and walked forward, to where Jim Adams was at work with a piece of rigging, attempting, at the same time, to explain to two sailors what he was doing.

"You unlay that strand," he was saying, "and you lead him back, so fas.h.i.+on. Then you picks up that ere strand, and you lays him up in the place where t'other strand came from. See?"

The two men looked on, blankly. It was evident the process was blind to them.

"Why, h.e.l.lo, sonny," remarked Jim Adams, as Henry Burns came up. The mulatto, tireless and hardened to the life, after three hours' sleep on relief from the wheel, happened to be in a good humour. He continued, "Reckon you's the new boarder at our hotel, eh? Ha! ha! Specs you never saw nothin' like that befo'?" He held up the work he was doing.

"Oh, yes," replied Henry Burns, "you're putting a long splice in that halyard so it will reeve through that block. You've parted your throat halyard."

Jim Adams dropped his work, put both hands on his knees and stared at Henry Burns, while a broad grin overspread his face.

"Sho now," he exclaimed, "I jes' wonder what Boss Haley he'll say when he finds he's got another cap'n aboard here. I guess you'll get my job pretty quick an' I won't be first mate no mo'. Where you larn all that, sonny?"

Henry Burns smiled. "I picked it up, yachting," he said.

"That's a smart little kid," said the mulatto. "Reckon you might go and finish up that splice, eh?" He held up the rope, half skeptically, to Henry Burns. The youth took it, seated himself on the deck, removed a pair of heavy gloves he wore, and took up the splicing where Jim Adams had left off. He found it hard work, in the chilling winter air, and his hands were nearly numbed before he had finished. But he beat them against his body until they tingled, went on with the work, divided his strands neatly at the finish, cut the ends and handed back the piece of rigging, neatly spliced.

Jim Adams burst into a roar of laughter.

"That sho' is the funniest thing I ever saw," he said. "Why, youse nothin' but a little kid."

Henry Burns had at least found some favour in the mate's eyes. Some time later, he was accosted by one of the men that had been standing by.

"I wish you'd show me some of those tricks," said the fellow. "I'm having it pretty rough aboard here. I can't understand when that mate shows us a thing. He does it so quick, you can't see how it's done; and then he curses us for not understanding. Maybe if I learned a few things like that, I'd get treated better."

Henry Burns looked at the speaker, and found him a young man of about twenty years, thick set, a good-natured expression, somewhat dulled and set by rough usage at Haley's and the mate's hands.

"My name's Wallace Brooks," continued the young man. "I got carried off, too, from Baltimore. I can stand the winter out, I guess, because I'm tough; but it's the hardest work I ever did."

"I'll show you anything I know," replied Henry Burns, "and I'll be glad to do it. I guess I'll need a friend to stand by me. I don't know how I'll last at this sort of work."

They shook hands on the friends.h.i.+p.

Henry Burns saw another side of the mate's nature, not long after. There was a commotion in the forecastle, and there emerged Jim Adams dragging Artie Jenkins by the scruff of the collar. He threw him sprawling on the deck, caught up a canvas bucket, with a line attached, threw the bucket overboard, drew it in half-filled with sea water, and dashed it in the face of the prostrate youth.

"You mustn't go gettin' balky, Mister Jenkins," he said. "Youse goin' to work, like the rest of the folks. Won't you please jes' go down and get you' breakfas' now, cause I want you pretty soon on deck, when we get off Hooper's."

Artie Jenkins, bellowing with rage and fright, scrambled to his feet and fled as fast as his legs would carry him for the cabin. The mate gave a grin of delight.

"They sho' can't fool me," he said. "Reckon I knows when a man is seasick and when he's shamming."

They arrived at the dredging grounds within two hours, and the work began. Henry Burns was not set at the winders at first. There seemed to be some understanding between Haley and the mate that he should not be treated too harshly. He was put at the work of culling the oysters that were taken aboard-a dirty and disagreeable task, but not so laborious as the winding.

Artie Jenkins got his first taste of the work, however. He was driven to it by the threats and blows of Jim Adams. He was a sorry sight. Clad in oil-skins too big for his lank figure, a flaming red necktie showing above the collar, and a derby hat out of keeping with the seaman's clothes, he presented a picture that would have been ludicrous if it had not been miserable.

The mate suffered him not to lag; nor did he cease to taunt him.

"Youse a sho' 'nuff born sailor, Mister Jenkins," he said, and repeated it over several times, as the unwilling victim worked drearily. "You looks jes' like one of them able-bodied seamen that you been sending down from Baltimore."

Artie Jenkins groaned, and toiled, hopelessly. He gave out, some time in the afternoon, and Henry Burns was made to take his place. At dusk they stowed away the gear and ran for harbour, in through Hooper strait.

The next day, unusual in the winter season, there fell a dead calm. There was no getting out to the grounds, and the day was spent in overhauling the gear, wrapping parts that were worn with chafing, etc. It was some time that forenoon that Henry Burns, getting a good look at Artie Jenkins, recognized him. It was the young man he had seen on the river steamer, and whose invitation he had resented. Something about the youth repelled him more than before, and he made no attempt to renew that brief acquaintances.h.i.+p. Yet, observing the treatment Artie Jenkins was receiving, he was sorry for him.

"What makes them so hard on that chap, Jenkins, I wonder?" he asked of Brooks, as they stood together, that afternoon. "It makes my blood boil, but I don't dare say anything."

"Hmph!" exclaimed Brooks. "Don't you let your blood boil for him. He's getting what he deserves, all right. Didn't you hear what Jim Adams called him? He's a crimp."

"A what?"

"A crimp. Don't you know what that is? It's a fellow that drugs men up in Baltimore, and s.h.i.+ps 'em down here for ten dollars apiece, when they don't know it. They wake up aboard here. That happened to me, though this chap didn't do it. He did the trick, though, for two men that got away the other day. I heard them say it was a fellow named Artie Jenkins that trapped them. One was named Edwards; he was a travelling man of some sort. My, how he did hate the winders. T'other was a young chap; Harvey was his name."

Henry Burns gave a cry of astonishment.

"Then Jack was aboard here-and he got away, do you say?"

It was the other's turn to be surprised.

"Why, yes, Jack Harvey was his name," he said. "Did you know him?"

Henry Burns briefly told of his friends.h.i.+p and his hunt for his missing friend. "I thought there must be some mistake," he said, "when I didn't find him aboard here. But tell me, how did he get away?"

Wallace Brooks related the circ.u.mstances of the escape, as George Haley, the cook, had told of it; of the flight to sh.o.r.e on the hatch, and of Haley's rage at losing both men and property.

Henry Burns smiled at that part of the adventure, despite his chagrin.

Then he grew serious.

"I'll bet it was poor old Jack and Edwards who slept in Edward Warren's barn," he said. "There were two strangers seen about the landing the next day. Where could Jack have gone to? Up river, I suppose, on a steamer-and here I am in his place! Isn't that a mess?"

That same afternoon, Artie Jenkins, in pa.s.sing Henry Burns, remembered that his face seemed familiar. He halted and stared for a moment. Then his face lighted up with a certain satisfaction in the other's plight.

"h.e.l.lo," he said, "so you landed here, too, eh? I reckon you're not quite so smart as you thought you were, coming down the river."

"Yes, I'm here," answered Henry Burns, coolly; "too bad you didn't make ten dollars out of it; now wasn't it?"

"What's that to you?" snarled Artie Jenkins, angrily. "I don't know what you mean, anyway."

"Oh, yes, you do," replied Henry Burns. "I know what you are, and so do the crew. It's almost worth while being here, to see a crimp work at the dredges."

Artie Jenkins, furious at the reply, and observing that the speaker was younger and smaller than himself, darted at Henry Burns and struck out at him. Henry Burns easily warded off the blow and, unruffled, returned one that sent Artie Jenkins reeling back. The next moment Jim Adams rushed between them.

"What's all this about-fighting aboard here?" he cried.

But Captain Hamilton from the other end of the vessel had likewise observed the quarrel. He came forward now, bl.u.s.tering, but with a shrewd twinkle in his eyes.

"Let 'em fight, Jim," he said; "let 'em have it out. Peel off those oil-skins, you young rascals. I'll teach you both to disturb the peace and quiet aboard this ere respectable and law-abidin' craft. You'll fight now, till one or t'other of you gets his licking. Rip 'em off, I say."

But Artie Jenkins, having felt the force of Henry Burns's blow and noted his skill in avoiding his own, was not so eager for the fray.