The Yazoo Mystery Part 20

"I think she will handle a load," I replied vaguely, and added, "for a thrown-together, patched-up affair, she performs wonderfully."

Hiram looked at Captain Marianna, as a man born to lead. He wanted that officer's opinion.

"Well," hesitated the captain, "I believe she is seaworthy and if you can get a load of timber we can fill the hold and even take a deck load.

Timber loads and discharges quickly. Our course, nearly all the way is protected, and if a blow comes we can easily find shelter," he concluded with suppressed eagerness.

"That's all right, but how about time? I don't want to lose a lot of time. We didn't start in to carry freight," said Hiram with determination.

"Go and see how soon they can load and be careful to settle the freight rate," suggested the captain. Hiram sprang to the deck. His mind seemed to be working like a trip hammer.

"Ben, can they do that?" he asked excitedly when he returned; but before I could reply he continued: "do you know, they threatened to commandeer our craft if we don't take timber to New Orleans. It's for Government work--can they do that?"

"Yes, they can."

"And they say we have nothing to say about the freight rate--that is fixed," he said, his eyes wide and keen with wonder at the new situation into which he had so suddenly plunged.

"The freight rate will no doubt be liberal enough," I suggested.

"Then we might just as well get the credit of doing it willingly," he wisely concluded, and was away again.

In less than half an hour we moved up about a thousand feet, and all the men available were busy crowding timber into the _Fearsome_, continuing the work far into the night. The captain looked after the stowage and I was busy getting an emergency supply of gasoline, oil and sundry necessary supplies. Hiram provisioned and attended to other details. He was in an element natural to him and seemed to forget everything else.

By daylight the next morning we had the hold full and a deck-load six feet high. In fact, the _Fearsome_ looked like a floating, sawed timber raft, bound and tied together with log chains.

After breakfast as we were feeling our way out of the river into the sound, Hiram came down very soberly to where I was attending to the engine. He was evidently well pleased. Hands that but a short while ago were manicured twice a week were now broadened, manly, brown and grease-stained.

"Don't you think we are short-handed?" he asked. "I tried to get some one but couldn't. I hate to have you stand by that motor long hours at a time. Perhaps I can help?"

"If the weather is good we ought to make the mouth of the river by night, anchor there, get some sleep and complete the journey to New Orleans to-morrow in daylight."

"Ben! do you mean to say we can make New Orleans in two days?" he asked in open-eyed wonder.

"If we don't get bad weather."

"Say, do you think I am awake--pinch me--take something and hit me on the head to be sure I am not astraddle a 'Night-Hoss,'" he suggested, pulling himself up on the head of one of the galvanized barrels of emergency gasoline near me, holding his head between his hands to keep his nerves from running away with him.

I looked at him and smiled but did not reply.

"Do you know we have two thousand dollars' worth of freight here, and you say we can get into New Orleans in two days? I must be dreaming."

"But have you figured all the expenses--bar pilotage--river pilotage, dockage and everything?"

"No--not all--but it can't possibly be five hundred dollars; and we can make the round trip in a week. Fifteen hundred dollars a week, Ben; and they say they have enough timber to be moved to keep us going for a year! Ben, I'm dreaming--a c.o.ke-eater's dream--and if it wasn't for that infernal Becker matter, how we could clean up!" He charged about savagely as though he had drunk mixed liquor and cocaine.

"You were up all last night; better get some sleep," I suggested.

"Yes, I haven't had a real night's sleep for a long time," he added, with a note of sadness, "and I don't want any yet."

Elated with success, the Becker matter was emphasized as a knife in his heart, and it was keeping him away from Anna Bell Morgan. Success has a way of trying men's hearts in the most unexpected manner.

We made the river as calculated and on the second morning were fast to the dock and the much needed timber going off as fast as it went on.

Although busy and most of the time reticent, Hiram, Jr., never failed to call my attention to the numerous logs and floating trees in the river, which he insisted would make good lumber, and just for the taking. I hurried to our rooms as soon as possible to get my mail.

There I found several notes of different dates from a man from New York then in New Orleans and waiting to see me about something very important. Entirely in the dark as to what he wanted, I arranged by telephone and met him at once at the Monteleon Hotel. I was disgusted.

Great effort, loss of sleep and singleness of purpose to help Hiram, by cleaning up the case, made the business world appear as the full glare of a searchlight to eyes accustomed to thick darkness. It was about the barrel--he said he had come down from New York about it and exhibited one of the samples I had sent there. Bluntly, he said:

"We want the stuff and want you to put a price on it."

"But I don't want to be bothered about that stuff now." The fellow's lack of tact half angered me; his nervous eagerness undoubtedly whetted by his days of waiting for me did not fit in with my mood.

"Well--we need that color badly on Government fabric orders and if you refuse to put a price on it we may have to find another way," he said, with deliberation which, engrossed as I was, insulted me. His New England drawl grated on me somehow.

"Oh, if that is all you want, I'll name a price--you can have it for a hundred dollars a pound," I said, rising. I knew I was needed back on the _Fearsome_ as soon as possible.

"Do you know that the pre-war price of that color was about seventy-five cents?" he quietly asked me.

"I don't know what the pre-war price was, but that is our price now," I said, walking away abruptly. I felt that I had much more important matters to consider then, and hurried down to the wharf where I supposed the _Fearsome_ was being speedily unloaded.

Before I got within a thousand feet of where the _Fearsome_ was I knew something was wrong. The boat was gone; Hiram Strong, Jr., sat on the end of a pile holding his head between both hands, and as I came still nearer I noted there was between Hiram's hands and head a paper folded like a legal doc.u.ment.

I had lately found myself wondering how Hiram, Jr., would behave when Dame Fortune landed her knuckles between his eyes with a staggering blow. I knew it had to come. I had become so attached to him that I dreaded it as one dreads to see a lovable child punished, though to its manifest advantage.

He did not say a word or move until I came up to him. There was something of a sneer and a contemptuous curl in his face when I looked the question I hesitated to ask. He sneered openly at the Jinx that had come to hara.s.s him.

"Well, Ben, I guess we have made the fatal mistake of underestimating the resources of our enemies--they've got us."

CHAPTER XXIV

HIRAM still retained his nerve, but his anger and disappointment had become stolid as he handed me the paper and pointed to the _Fearsome_ across the river--the tug still alongside.

I stood before him, astonished and silent, hastily examining the paper.

It was an injunction the court had issued, restraining him from interfering with the lawful owners of the boat _Fearsome_, of which he had obtained possession by an irregular and fraudulent sale.

"The officer has just left," Hiram volunteered. "The captain and I were on the dock checking up when the tug came alongside. I thought nothing until they slipped our lines and she was away before I could walk twenty feet," he said, letting his foot drop to the dock despondently.

"Ben, I thought we had a right--she was sold for crew's wages. We had nothing to do with that. We only bid her in," he began, but with no note of censure, although I had attended to that detail.

"We have to know that."

"And has any one the right to take her--isn't that stealing?" he asked, suppressing his fierceness.

"They have her now in their possession and you are enjoined by the court from interfering," I said, half to myself, trying to think if I had heard of any hint of this procedure.

"Ben, do you suppose it is the Becker crowd--have they got wind of our plan, and are they doing this?" he asked, with wonderful self-possession.

"It may be, Hiram, but I doubt it--I am afraid the owners have shown up and are trying to regain their property in this way, alleging an irregular sale. They had to make some such showing to get the injunction."