CHAPTER VIII A NIGHT'S POACHING
The days that followed were bitter ones for dredging. There came in fog,through which they drifted, slowly, while it wrapped them about like agreat, frosty blanket, chilling and numbing them. When the wind waslight, the fog would collect for a moment in the wrinkle at the top of asail; then, with a slat, the sail would fill out, sending down a showerof icy water, drenching the crew at their work. But the mate drove themon, with threats and the brandishing of a rope's end.
To make matters worse, the yield of the reefs was disappointing. Bad luckseemed to be with the Brandt; and, though it was the beginning of theseason, and they should have been getting a cargo rapidly, the day'sclean-up was often less than twenty bushels; which brought a storm ofabuse from Haley, as though it were the fault of the men.
He took his chances with the law, for several days, and ran down intoTangier Sound, hidden in the fog, on that part of its great extent wheredredging was forbidden, and only smaller craft with scrapers allowed. Butthe Brandt went aground, late one afternoon, on a bar off a dreary marshthat extended for miles--the most lonesome and forbidding place thatHarvey had seen in all his life.
They were half the night getting clear from here, having to wait for theflood tide, and the Brandt springing a leak that kept them toiling at thepump till they were well nigh exhausted. The upshot was, that, early onemorning, with the lifting of the fog, the Brandt, followed by the craftthat had taken Harvey and Tom Edwards aboard, stood off from the Easternshore, heading northwest for the mouth of the Patuxent.
To Jack Harvey and his friend, sick and weary of the life they wereleading, every new move, every change of ground, keyed them up to renewedhope. They watched eagerly the distant shore toward which they werepointing, and rejoiced, in some small degree, that they were going backto where they had started from. It seemed as though there must be greateropportunity for relief in that river, with its more friendly appearingbanks, than amid the wilderness of the marshy Eastern shore, to whichwinter gave a touch of indescribable dreariness.
For a day or two, however, following their arrival at the entrance to theriver, there was little change from the life they had been leading, savethat the fog had been blown out to sea, and the bitter cold had abated.They dredged southward from the lower entrance to the river, along aninward sweep of the shore, returning to the river at night for anchorage.
Then there came a day, overcast but yet favourable, during all of which,to Harvey's surprise, they did no work, but lay at anchor in the river.Also, the craft that had accompanied them likewise rested, alongside, andthe two captains visited and drank together in the cabin of the Brandt.
What was coming? Haley was not the man to lie idle to no purpose. Therewas mystery in the air, and in the manner of the men and the mate. Once,Jim Adams had looked in at the forecastle, where the crew had beensuffered to remain at ease, and said, grinning broadly, "Youse gentlemenof leisure, ain't you? Well, you get something to keep you busy bimeby.So don't none of you please go ashore."
"Go ashore!" It was no joke to them. Harvey and Tom Edwards had gazedlongingly at the banks, with their houses here and there--a tantalizingsight, so near and yet so hopelessly far away.
"What's the matter? What's up?" Harvey inquired once of Sam Black.
The other winked an eye, knowingly.
"I reckon the captain's going to try to change the luck," he said."There's easy dredging up yonder, if you don't get caught at it."
"How's that?" continued Harvey.
"Why, running the river, that's what I guess," replied the sailor. "It'sjail, if the law gets you; but he's done it before and got clear. Take iteasy while you can, that's my advice. There'll be no turning in to-night,I reckon."
Sam Black thereupon set the example, by stretching out in his bunk andfalling soundly to sleep.
"Well, all I can say," exclaimed Tom Edwards to Harvey, "is that I hopewe get caught right quick and put into jail, or anywhere else out of thisinfernal hole. I'd go to jail in a minute, if I could see Haley go, too.Wouldn't you?"
Harvey smiled. "I'd rather be outside the bars looking in at Haley," heanswered.
Tom Edwards impulsively put out his hand.
"Shake on that!" he cried. "Jack, my boy, we'll put him there yet. We'llsell him a line of goods some day, eh?"
The two shook hands with a will.
That evening they fared better than ordinarily aboard the Brandt. Therewere pork scraps, fried crisp, with junks of the bread browned in thefat, and potatoes; and plenty of the coffee. They made a hearty meal, andwent on deck, at the call, feeling better and stronger than for days.
The night was not clear, yet it was not foggy; the moon and stars werenearly obscured by clouds. It was comparatively mild, too, and the windblowing from the East across the river did not chill them, as in thepreceding days. Opposite where they lay, the gleam of Drum Pointlighthouse shone upon the water; while, out to the Eastward, another, onCedar Point, twinkled, more obscured. An island of some considerable sizelay to the northwest, from which there came across the water the sound ofvoices, and of dogs barking. There were sounds of life, too, from thenearer shore, coming out from a lone farmhouse.
The captain of the other vessel came aboard presently, and he and Haleystood together, earnestly conversing.
"She's up just the other side of Spencer's wharf, I tell you," said thestrange captain, once. "We can hug the other shore and slip past."
Harvey turned inquiringly to the sailor, Sam Black, with whom, somehow,he had struck up an intimacy that was almost friendly, despite the man'sevident contempt for the green hands.
"He means the old Folly, the police boat," said the sailor, softly."She's just a big schooner. She's got no power in her. The Brandt canbeat her, on a pinch, I reckon."
The captain returned to his vessel, shortly, and the order was given tomake sail. Harvey sprang to the halyards with a will. If it were apoaching venture, it was not his fault--and the best that could happenfor him would be capture. The anchor was got aboard, and the Brandt ranquickly across to the Eastern bank of the river followed by the othervessel.
They passed close to Solomon's Island and skirted as near the shores ofthat and the land northward as they could go. The wind was almostdirectly abeam, and they made fast way of it. Clearly, the course was asplain as a man's door-yard to Hamilton Haley; for he passed at times soclose to land, that it seemed, in the darkness, to be near enough for oneto jump ashore. Jim Adams, in the bow, kept sharp watch, however; and nowand again, rather than run the risk of calling out, he ran back to thewheel and pointed ahead, where the water shoaled.
Just to the north of the wharf which they had termed Spencer's, the rivermade a bend, and a thin peak of land jutted out. They followed thecurving of the shore, peering across the water toward Spencer's.
"There she lies," said Adams, darting aft to where Haley stood. "Listen,they're getting up anchor."
Hamilton Haley, after one quick glance, put the helm down and brought thebug-eye up into the wind. The other bug-eye drew abreast. Haley pointedin toward the schooner, barely discernible, and showing a light in itsrigging.
"They're coming out," he called softly.
The two vessels headed off again and went on, rounding the point andrunning up the river. Haley, picking his course, with accuracy, gazedastern again and again, with an anxious eye. Presently he uttered anexclamation of anger. The schooner Folly had, indeed, put forth from itsmooring and, with all sail spread, was taking a diagonal course acrossthe river, following in the wake of the two poachers.
The shore of the river made a bend to the eastward, at this point,however, and the river broadened to the width of something like a mileand a half. So that, by following closely the inward curve of the shore,instead of setting a straight course up stream, the two bug-eyes couldput the point of land between them and the schooner for a time. It would,moreover, afford them proof, when the schooner should have passed
thepoint, whether or not they really were being followed. If the police boatwere merely proceeding on its patrol up river, it would not hug theeastern bank, and might, indeed, go up on the other side.
The vessels were not left long in doubt, however; for, as the twoskippers peered back through the night, they discerned, after a time, theschooner heading in north by east, having turned the point.
"Haul her a little closer by the wind, and give her a bit morecentre-board," ordered Haley, noting with a keen eye the more northerlyslant of the wind, as they sailed. "It's good for us; we can leave her,if this holds. Curse the luck! There's no dredging to-night, with her onour heels--at least, there can't but one of us work."
The mate repeated the orders, and the bug-eye heeled a bit more as a flawstruck her. She was flying fast, and Haley's face relaxed into a smirk ofsatisfaction, as he perceived the schooner was dropping somewhat moreastern.
For a distance of about four miles the chase proceeded, when the Brandtsuddenly swung into the wind again and waited a moment for its companion,slightly less swift, to come up. There was a hurried conference, and thenthe two went on again. The schooner, by this time, was only to be madeout with difficulty.
The result of the conference was soon apparent; for, as they neared apoint on the eastern bank, a broad creek opened up; and into this theBrandt steered, leaving the other craft to go on up the river alone.
Proceeding only a little way within the confines of this creek, Haleyguided his vessel with consummate skill into one of its shelteringharbours, ordered all sail dropped, and everything made snug. The bug-eyewas, indeed, completely hidden; with every appearance, moreover, of lyingby for the night, in case their course should be followed and, by anychance, they were discovered.
Launching the small boat, Haley ordered Harvey and the sailor, Jeff, intoit. He took his seat in the stern at the steering-oar, and was rowed bythem cautiously toward the mouth of the creek, skirting close to thebank, not to be seen. Again the thought of escape flashed through themind of Jack Harvey; but, perhaps with the same contingency in view,Hamilton Haley drew from his pocket a revolver and laid it before him ona thwart. If the hint were intended for Harvey, it was sufficient. Heresigned himself once more to the situation and to the duty before him.
It was soon evident that the manoeuvre had deceived the Folly, and hadbeen successful. Through the darkness, it had not been perceived by thepursuer that the quarry had separated and taken different courses.Resting on their oars, at a word from Haley, the three watched. Theschooner, almost ghost-like in the shades of night, swept along past thecreek, following the other vessel, which showed only a faint white blurrfar ahead.
Hamilton Haley motioned for the two to turn back, while his small eyestwinkled; and he said, smiling grimly, "She's got the right name, sure.The Folly, eh? Well, she won't catch us, nor she won't catch Bill. Come,shake it up there with those oars! Ain't yer learned to row yet?"
Within a half hour, the Brandt was stealing out of the mouth of the creekand heading for the opposite shore. The river was broad here, but thewind was free and they were soon across.
And now began the work for which they had come; for which they had riskedcapture at the hands of the police boat; and for which they would nowrisk the penalty of imprisonment, or, as it might appear, even death,itself.
It was very dark, the density of the clouds increasing as the night woreon; and the shore showed a vague, dark smear as they turned and went upthe river. But it was all clear to Hamilton Haley. Born in a littlesettlement farther up the river, it was an open book to him by night orday. There was not an eddy, a cross-current, a deepening or a shoaling ofall its waters for fifty miles that he could not have told you, offhand.A blur on the landscape defined itself to his eye as with the clearnessof sunlight, bred of familiarity and long experience. He knew when tostand in close to shore; where to make a detour to avoid the long wharvesthat made out from the warehouses. He knew where seed oysters had beenplanted, by the owners that planned to tong for them when they shouldhave grown to sufficient size. He knew when the beds had been planted,and which to leave untouched, and which would afford fat dredging.
There were no long waits between the winding here, as in many of theplaces down the bay. When the dredge went down, it was filled almostinstantly. It was wind in and wind again, and the oysters, big and small,went into the hold almost as fast as they came aboard.
Harvey and his companions, drenched to the skin with perspiration, soreand lame, toiled on, driven by the threats of Jim Adams. There was nowaiting for rest--only once in the night, when the cook brought out apail of coffee, to keep them up to their work.
There was a ruthless, brutal disregard of the rights and precautions ofthe owners of the beds. Stakes and branches of brush, that had beencarefully stuck down to mark the boundaries of this and that planter,were over-ridden and torn away. The Brandt was reaping a rich harvest,dodging in and out from shore here and there, making up for the time lostin the reefs off Hooper Island.
The hours passed, and a steamer, delayed by freight on its trip fromBaltimore, passed along up the river. To Harvey, toiling away at thewinch, in a sheltered sweep of the shore, this boat presented a strangeand mysterious picture. Its lights, gleaming through the mists and theblackness, made a pretty spectacle. Its white wake looked like a scar onthe dusky bosom of the water. It seemed, with its life and noise aboard,like a living thing.
A little way up the river, the steamboat drew in to a pier at the end ofa long wharf. Harvey saw the doors of the warehouse on the shore and ofthe one on the pier open, and emit a glow of light from several lanterns;and, through the mingled lights and shadows, figures passed vaguely toand fro. Wagons rattled up along the country road, and the cries of thenegro stevedores added to the noise.
All work had been stopped aboard the Brandt, and Harvey stood and watchedthe landing made by the steamer. The sounds told of business and of homelife; passengers going ashore; once, the voices of young folks inlaughter. Harvey gazed, with eyes that moistened.
Hamilton Haley, also, gazed, but with an earnestness of a differentnature. He had not meant to be here, at the passing of the steamer. Hehad planned differently, but the steamer had been late and--well, thedredging at that moment when he had heard the distant whistle had beenparticularly fruitful, and he had waited and taken the chance. Now hewondered if that one sweep of the steamer's search-light, as it passed,had found him out. Had he been espied by the watchful eye of the captain,keen for river poachers? At all events, he would lose no time in gettingaway from the place, once the steamer had gone.
The steamer went on its way, and Haley pointed his vessel up river afterit. A mile above, he resumed his unlawful dredging.
The captain of the river steamer, bound for the port of Benedict, somefifty miles up from the mouth of the river, and already having lost muchtime, had urged the engineer to force all speed between the landings. Thesteamer's funnel belched forth clouds of black smoke and sparks, as thecraft churned its way noisily along. But the captain, eager as he was toend his long run, had something else on his mind; and the search-lightnow shot its shaft far ahead up river, now darted to the left or right,lighting up the banks and hidden places, so that objects along shoreseemed to leap forth of a sudden as if surprised into life.
Then, as they sailed, and the search-light pointed a long ray far up theriver, like a giant finger, the glare fell on a white object flittingdown stream like the ghost of a vessel. The rays of the light were thrownfull upon it, and the schooner Folly was revealed, returning from itsunsuccessful pursuit of the poacher.
A single bell jingled in the engine-room, and the steamer slowed down;then, as the schooner came close, another bell, and the steamer laymotionless in the river.
The captain leaned far out of the pilot-house, as the schooner camewithin hailing distance.
"There's a fellow poaching just below Forrest's," he called. "I saw himwith the light, as I came up. I'm sure he was dredging. You may pick himup on the way do
wn. I couldn't see who he was, though."
The captain of the Folly uttered an exclamation of disgust.
"It's one of the two I chased, coming up, I guess," he replied. "That'sthe way they work it. The other fellow dodged me, too, up the river here,somewhere. I suppose he's turned and gone down again by this time. I tellyou we can't do much with one vessel against that crowd. Much obliged,captain; I'll have an eye out going down."
Some time after midnight, the bug-eye Brandt, poaching near the mouth ofa small creek, was doing great harvesting. It was easy work; for theoysters, planted with care, came up clean and fat, and free from wasteshells. The crew sweated at the winders. Jim Adams, alternating betweenone and the other winch, kept the tired men up to their work. HamiltonHaley, losing somewhat of caution with the richness of the yield, andassisting in the stowing away of the ill-gotten harvest, had relaxed alittle of his usual vigilance.
It was nearly fatal to him. Out of the blackness of the river bank, therepoured suddenly a thin stream of fire, and immediately another. A riflebullet passed so close to Haley's head that for an instant it dazed him.The bullet chipped a piece out of the main boom and went, zing, acrossthe river. The other bullet struck the hull of the bug-eye and beddeditself in the oysters, near the deck. At the same time, a volley ofimprecations came from the thicket on shore, from the angry owners of theoyster bed.
And now a strange coincidence added to the excitement and to the peril ofHaley and his craft. Almost immediately following the firing from shore,there came another shot from the direction of up the river. CaptainHamilton Haley, taken all by surprise, and giving one quick, frightenedglance to where the third shot had come from, beheld, to hisconsternation, the vague outlines of the schooner Folly bearing down uponhim at full speed.
Haley was all things bad; but he had his merits as a sailor, and he hadthe qualities of command that should have won him success in betteremployment. Now he showed what he was made of. Darting across the deck,he seized Jack Harvey by the shoulder, spun him around and sent himflying toward the wheel.
"Grab that wheel," he cried. "Keep her straight down stream."
Harvey sprang aft.
"Jim," cried Haley, in the next breath, "get the boys on to the sheets,there--quick, for your life, or we're good for doing time. Trim her! Trimher! We've got to jump her, if we ever did. Curse that Folly!"
The next moment, Haley was among the crew with a bound, knocking themlike ten-pins away from the winders, and bidding them jump for the foreand main sheets, if they valued their lives. Snatching a sheath-knifefrom his belt, Haley darted for the nearest dredge-line. With anexclamation of rage at the loss he was inflicting upon himself, he cut itwith a single slash, leaving the dredge behind in two fathoms of water.In a moment, he was at the other side. Another stroke of the keen knifeand the second dredge-line was severed.
As the bug-eye, cleared of the weight of the heavy dredges, gatheredheadway, the sheets were hauled in, under the command and with theassistance of the mate. The craft heeled to the breeze and sped away.
And for all this, but for the loyalty of Jack Harvey toward a friend,Captain Hamilton Haley would have lost his vessel and his freedom. A bitof heroism had been done that he knew naught of--never would know.
When Tom Edwards, in the first excitement, had seen his friend, Harvey,dart aft, he had slipped away in the confusion, and followed. With him,the idea ever was that, come what would, they should stick together--andso they had sworn. Jack Harvey found Tom Edwards by his side, as hesprang to the wheel and, obeying orders, held the vessel on its coursedown the river.
The next instant, the thought of freedom flashed again into Harvey'smind.
"Tom," he said, "strip off that slicker as quick as ever you can. I'mready. I'll swing her into the wind when you say the word. Then we'lljump and swim for it. That's the Folly. She'll pick us up, and catchHaley, too. We've got to jump the second I swing her, though, or Haley'llshoot us both. We've got only a minute. Say when you're ready."
Tom Edwards, the vision of freedom opening before his eyes in one briefinstant, gave a groan of dismay and disappointment.
"I can't do it, Jack, old boy," he said. "I can't swim ten strokeswithout my heart hammering like a threshing-machine. You go, and I'llstay. You can tell them what's doing aboard here, and they'll hunt Haleydown and get me."
Harvey shook his head, while he ground his teeth with chagrin.
"No, no," he said. "I won't go, if you can't. They'd kill you if I gotaway, and they didn't get caught. We'll try it another time. Get out ofhere, forward, now, quick. If Haley catches you up here, you'll gethurt."
Jack Harvey stood resolutely at the wheel, and held the bug-eye to hercourse. He saw, with some hope, the Folly creep up through the night uponthe fleeing Brandt. He heard the commands for them to come to, andsurrender. Bullets whizzed past him, from the shore and from the pursuingschooner. They went through the canvas of the bug-eye and did no otherharm.
He saw, next, with a great sinking of heart, the fast craft upon whosedeck he stood gather headway rapidly and eat its way through the night,gaining on its pursuer. The wind came sharp in flaws from the bank. TheBrandt heeled over till the deck was awash. Hamilton Haley, springing tothe wheel and displacing Harvey, uttered a cry of exultation.
"Get along for'ard; you've done well, boy," was his way of bestowingpraise.
The Folly fell astern, and the chase was lost.
That was a night never to be forgotten by Jack Harvey; the sudden flushof hope; its swift vanishing, amid the thin fire of rifles; the cries ofdisappointed men, and the quick flaws of wind upon the sails. There was athrill--even if one laden with disappointed hopes--in the rapid flight ofthe poacher, Brandt, and its wild course down the river, past the black,shadowy shores.
Dazed and disheartened, however, with the passing of the hours, JackHarvey and his comrade, by whom he had stuck manfully, turned in, at theword, and laid their weary bodies down in the forecastle bunks. Thebug-eye, laden with its spoils, sailed away out of the Patuxent, headingacross the bay for the shelter of the Eastern Maryland shore.
Doomed to disappointment, then. Doomed to disappointment even morebitter, on a day soon succeeding.
The Brandt was in luck at last. A few days of dredging along Hoopers,and, by the early part of December, she was fully laden. There were athousand and more bushels of good oysters in her hold. The time for theending of the first trip was nigh.
Jack Harvey slapped his friend, Edwards, on the shoulder.
"We've stuck it out, old chap," he said, "and we're alive to tell thetale, in spite of Haley. We'll get back inside of the month. There's onething that that scoundrel, Jenkins, didn't lie about. Hooray! Why, you'rea better man than when you came aboard, Tom Edwards. You're stronger, ifwe have had awful grub."
"All the same, I'll make it hot for old Haley, when I get ashore,"exclaimed Tom Edwards. "I'll have the law on him for this."
Thus they talked and planned, but said naught to the others, lest word oftheir contemplated revenge should get, by chance, to Haley's ears. Andthen, one evening, another bug-eye hove in sight as they lay at anchor,and came alongside.
"All hands out, to unload," called Haley.
"Look alive here," repeated Jim Adams; "'spects we've got an all nightjob before us."
Taken by surprise, Harvey and Tom Edwards obeyed the summons. The workthey were next called upon to do dumbfounded and appalled them. With atackle and fall attached to the mast, the work of unloading the cargo ofthe Brandt and transferring it to the hold of the other vessel was begun.
"What does this mean? What are they going to do? Aren't we going up toBaltimore with our load?" inquired Harvey, falteringly, of Sam Black.
"Why, you fool, of course not," was the reply. "Did you think you weregoing to quit so soon as this? Think old man Haley lets a man go when heonce gets him, with men so hard to catch? Didn't you know you were bookedfor all winter? Baltimore, eh? Well, when you see Baltimore, my boy, itwill be when the Brandt kn
ocks off for the season. Don't worry, though,you'll come through. You can stand it."
Jack Harvey and Tom Edwards, gazing into each other's faces with theblankness of despair, shook hands silently. They could not speak.
Jack Harvey's Adventures; or, The Rival Campers Among the Oyster Pirates Page 9