The captain’s whistle shrilled furiously behind them, followed by a raging voice. “God damn and blast you, you pocky pillmonger! Leave my boy be or I’ll come ashore and heave you both in the drink.”
Horace paid no heed. He asked Tip, “Where do you lay off next?”
“Lock Port. Overnight.”
“I’ll meet you there.”
“Don’t let the captain know. He’d kill us.”
The sail filled. The small craft drew away. Another burst of savagery rolled downwind to Horace’s ears. The hoggee hunched his head between his shoulders and limped on.
Lock Port’s basins were well occupied that evening. The Merry Fiddler’s spavined horses brought her in at a torpid two-and-a-half mile rate, several hours after Horace’s arrival. Captain Tugg, after seeing her snugged to the landing wharf, went ashore to get drunk. Thus Horace had a clear way to Tip.
He found the boy’s body sore with contusions, the ugliest being on the right knee where the captain had kicked him because he had asked for a dollar of his wages to buy shoes. A bandage would support it, but it needed rest. He told the patient so. Tip said,
“He won’t lay me off.”
“He’s got to under the law. I’ll certify you unfit.”
“What does he care for the law?”
“I’ll talk to him.”
The boy said fearfully, “You’d better not, Dr. Amlie. He’s a hard man.”
“I’m not a soft man, myself,” returned the physician, and Tip, scanning his face, wondered what had happened, so to change him. “Will you go home with me if I get you free?”
“Oh!” Poor Tip began to cry. By that more than from his emaciated body, Horace could judge how his spirit had been brutalized and weakened.
He got the boy’s story. Tip had hunted, trapped and “yarbed” for a time, worked for an Ontario sturgeon fisherman until the man was drowned, gone hungry and cold on the road, finally, under fair promises, signed on with the Merry Fiddler. Since Captain Tugg took over, his life had been a hell. Through Satch Fammie he had kept in touch with Quaila Crego, and had once visited her under cover of night. She thought that it might be safe for him to remain, but he had the free woodsman’s horror of confinement. The thought of jail made his bones quake; the briefest imprisonment would, he was sure, kill him. He dared not take the chance. So long as he shunned the vicinity of Palmyra, nobody was likely to recognize him, especially since one of Satch Fammie’s gypsy kin had dyed his face to a deep hue with a lasting tribal preparation of green walnut juice.
Horace knew that to take Tip back to Palmyra without due process would be futile. Every newspaper issue carried advertisements offering six cents’ reward for the return of runaway apprentices. They were liable to arrest on sight, and the courts always honored the claim of indenture against them. Tip would not remain unmolested for a week at the Pinch. To help him effectively Horace must deal with Grouncher Tugg.
The most likely place to find Captain Tugg, he learned, was in a towpath coffee house—which, to the cognoscenti, meant boozing ken—called the “Hearty Swallow.” Having refreshed himself with a snack and a mug of ale in a more respectable resort, he made his way to the place.
Entering, he was enveloped in an atmosphere heavy with smoke and rich with the reek of spilt liquors. A jocund baritone was raised in a lay familiar to his ears.
Randy-dandy-dandy, O!
Randy, my dandy.
With a rangdang, dingdang, dandy-O!
My name is Randy.
The singer drew breath with an exclamation of surprised greeting.
“Young Æsculapius, by the bowels of Beelzebub! Well met. What’s your fancy?”
Horace shook hands with Silverhorn Ramsey, but declined the offered drink.
“I’m looking for Captain Tugg of the Merry Fiddler,” he explained.
Silverhorn cocked a roguish eye toward the upstairs floor, where the blowzy nymphs of the establishment carried on a sideline of recognized but unlicensed traffic.
“He’ll be a good few minutes yet, I reckon. Sit down.”
“What brings you here, Silverhorn?” inquired Horace, taking a chair opposite. “I thought you were in the lake trade.”
“I laked it for nigh a year. Smart little schooner as ever you saw. Wrecked off Oswego in last month’s gale. One hand and I are all that got ashore. Now I’m back to the Jolly Roger.”
“And Mrs. Ramsey? How is she?” asked Horace politely.
The handsome face twisted wryly. “Still got her death-grip on the purse-strings.” He eyed his companion interestedly. “What’s come to you, Æsculapius? You look more of a man than you were.”
“I’m in the canal trade, myself.”
“I heard something of that. Got into a mess with Sharkskin Latham, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” answered Horace, wondering how much he knew.
“And got run out of town, huh?”
“No!”
“Stirred your bile, have I?” grinned Silverhorn. “Didn’t sound likely to me when I heard it. You ain’t that kind. Not if I know you.”
As Horace’s vision accustomed itself to the surcharged air, he studied an altered Silverhorn. The gay and careless face was puffy. The lips were nervous at the corners, the eyes restless and, he thought, unhappy. But the old, confident, raffish charm still radiated from the man, and the elegance of the beau’s get-up shone in that dingy environment. A jeweled ring glowed as the hand that wore it tapped the table in an irregular rhythm. Silverhorn said, with an affectation of ease, “The girl: I suppose she’s about?”
“Yes.”
“I heard she was ailing.”
“She’s recovered.”
“She didn’t marry her Southern cavalier.”
“No.”
“Jilted him, I reckon.”
“You reckon wrong.”
“Maybe he jilted her.”
“He’s dead.”
“Dead? I didn’t know about that.”
Horace sensed a repressed excitement which pricked his curiosity. He said with deliberate experimentation, “Kinsey Hayne killed himself.”
The hand that held Silverhorn’s glass jumped so that the liquor slopped over. “Good God! The poor devil! What made him do that?”
“You’re asking a lot of questions, Silverhorn.”
“I’ll ask you another. Are you sure Wealthia is all right?”
“To all appearances. I’m no longer her physician, you know.”
“Doc, will you take a letter to Palmyra for me?”
“I will not.”
“You would if you knew everything.”
“I would not in any conditions.”
“I can’t be sure that my letters reach her,” complained Silverhorn. “She hasn’t answered.”
“Why should she?”
“There are reasons.”
“A girlish infatuation,” said Horace sternly. “One thing I can tell you; she’s well over it.”
“Damn you! You lie!” He controlled himself with an effort, and spoke with a queer sort of appeal, “Doc, I’ve never believed much in this love talk. But I can’t get the girl out of my mind. I’d divorce my old hag at the drop of a hat and marry that girl tomorrow if she’d give the word. Or I’d carry her off with me and to hell with all of you.”
“You’ll always be a ruffian, won’t you, Silverhorn?”
The other smiled complacently. “I’m no finicky daffodil,” said he. “There’s your man,” he added, motioning toward the stairway with a hand not yet quite steady.
It was a formidable figure that lounged out into the room, hoarsely shouting its demand for a beaker of brandy-and-egg, a gangling ape of a man, with corded arms and thick, knuckly hands. His face seemed to be composed mostly of a huge jaw, equipped with yellow buck-teeth, above which a long and leathery upper lip underhung a beaked nose. Strabismic eyes squinted out from beneath absurdly feathery brows. Although he wavered slightly, Horace judged that he was not yet drunk. He would b
e capable of understanding what was wanted of him.
“Captain,” began the physician with a civil intonation, “I’d like a word with you.”
“I don’t know yah,” growled the captain. “What’s it about?”
“Your hoggee. The one that is injured.”
“Whistlebone? What about him?”
“He isn’t fit for the towpath.”
“Who says so.”
“I do. I’ll be glad to explain.”
“And who the hell are you?” He peered through the murk. “You’re the God-damn gut-flusher that stopped my boy on the towpath ‘s mornin’, aincheh?” He approached the table, thrusting forward his toothy countenance.
“Look out!” warned Silverhorn sharply.
Horace, watchful, stepped lightly back. He felt a sharp aversion for that proximity, were it only because of the rank breath that befouled the air. Captain Tugg, having put his question, now answered it.
“I’ll tell you who you are. You’re one of those softmouths. A smoocher. A sneaker. A goddam churcher. I’ve booted the bum of better than you and left ’em screechin’ their prayers in Erie muck. You keep your hands off’n my boys.”
“I am a physician,” said Horace, “and I tell you that the boy is liable to lose his leg if he doesn’t keep off it.”
“What the hell do I care for his leg!”
“Do you care for a report on your boat to the Canal Commission?” demanded Horace, beginning to lose temper.
“God damn the commission and you, too!”
That jutting jaw seemed again to be advancing, as if under some vicious impulsion of its own.
“Look out!” said Silverhorn Ramsey again.
A motion so swift and deft that it was barely noticeable brought to eight his ready knife. He toyed with it, gazing speculatively at the man above him. Captain Tugg eyed the weapon with respect.
“What’s your trade here?” he asked sulkily.
“Fair play. The Doc is my friend.”
The intervention cooled the bellicosity of the captain. He addressed Silverhorn. “What call’s he got to stick in his clam?” he growled, jerking his chin toward Horace. “I got the boy indenched, ain’t I? Wanta see the paper?”
“I’ll buy it of you,” said Horace.
“My price is twenty-five dollars.”
“Nonsense! Your indenture is only for ten.”
“Twenty-five’s my price. But I’ll tell you what: I’ll fight you for it.”
This was a contingency which Horace had foreseen but hoped to avoid. He scrutinized the challenger coolly. The captain topped him two inches in height and probably two stone in heft. As against this advantage, he was perhaps forty years old and, on the evidence of his sallow skin and sour breath, not in the best of condition. Horace, trained in sparring, was no mean man of his hands, and, thanks to the regimen of his life on the water, was iron-hard in every muscle. Under prize-ring rules, the contest should be fairly equal. But would this ruffian respect any rules? Silverhorn’s thoughts were running along the same channel, for now he put in,
“Fair fighting?”
“Fair!” gibed the apish captain. “Fair! I’ll show him fair, when I get his nose betwixt my teeth.”
Now Horace understood Silverhorn’s warnings. He recalled with a sick qualm, several grisly facial repairs to which he had been called after taproom free-for-alls. This creature before him was a rough-and-tumble fighter, a biter, a gouger, a maimer. In such a battle he would have all the advantage. Yet to draw back now would incur for Horace a disastrous loss of prestige in the canal world where lay his sole chance of livelihood. There was one other chance, though a more perilous one. He said steadily, “I’ll fight you with any weapon you pick.”
“No weepons,” the other grinned. “What God gave a man to fight with like a man, and naught else.”
He was within his rights. There was nothing for Horace to do but to accept the conditions.
“You’re met,” he said quietly. “Fetch your indenture to the path opposite Stannard’s meadow at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. We’ll pick a stake-holder on the ground. I’ll put my ten dollars in his hands. The man who is on his feet after half an hour claims the pot.”
“Twenty-five,” objected his opponent.
“Ten, or no fight. Take your choice.”
Captain Tugg gave surly acquiescence. He had been taken aback at the matter-of-fact acceptance of his chosen type of combat. Nevertheless it was with a cocksure grin that he said, “Ten dollars and ten minutes—if you live that long.”
Silverhorn now spoke softly. “I’ll be in the Doc’s corner. And if you so much as reach a finger to your pocket, you big son-of-a-bitch, you’ll get my knife through your guts.”
To Horace’s surprise, the ruffian swallowed the insult. Evidently Silverhorn had him cowed; evidence that his courage was not beyond proof. As for the threat, Silverhorn explained as they went out together, that foul fighters sometimes held in reserve a species of spiked brass knuckles which could gouge out an eye or punch through a cheek at one thrust.
The mentor further delivered sage instructions on the enemy strategy and tactics, adding, “If he gets you in close, give him this.” He brought his knee up in a fierce lunge.
“He isn’t going to get me in close.”
“No? How are you going to stop him?”
“You know how to use your hands, Silverhorn.”
“Enough to keep my head,” admitted Ramsey in the ancient phrase.
“Have you ever sparred with the pads?”
“Not me.” The mustached lip curled.
“The bare knuckles are the trick, if you want to cut a man up. If you want to settle him, the pad’s the thing. I had the tip from the sparring champion of a wandering fair who gave me some lessons.”
“It don’t sound reasonable.”
“Principle of the sandbag,” explained Horace. “You can knock a man colder with that than with an iron bar.”
“I’d admire to see it,” said his second skeptically.
“Come with me to the cobbler’s.”
That artisan was abed, but obligingly got up when he learned that a sporting event was in question. Selecting his softest piece of doeskin, he worked it under his customer’s directions, stuffed it with horsehair and dried milkweed fluff, and sewed it into a rough but serviceable right-hand glove. Silverhorn viewed it with undisguised derision.
“I’ll give you a free punch at me with that pillow,” he offered.
Horace shook his head. “I don’t want to spoil a good second. Try it, yourself.”
“On you?”
“No, thank you,” grinned his principal. “Let’s find a subject.”
It being now past nine o’clock, the respectable element was in bed, but this was not the type that Horace sought. A two-hundred-pound gauger rolled up the street, singing merrily. They stopped him.
“Friend, do you want a free dram?”
“Who wouldn’t? What’s your lay?”
“Stand up and give my friend one crack at your jaw with this,” invited Horace, exhibiting the glove, before fixing it on his friend’s fist.
The big fellow scrutinized it, felt of it, and guffawed. “Two, if you like.”
He folded his arms and stood, smirking. As Silverhorn’s hearty swing landed, the smirk quivered and faded. The eyes fluttered. The knees buckled. He wobbled gently to earth.
“Be-dam; be-dam; be-dam,” he murmured in dolorous amaze.
“Be damned, myself!” echoed Silverhorn. “I didn’t give him my best, either.”
They hauled the victim to his feet, escorted him to the nearest tap, and revived him with the promised drink and an extra for luck.
“Come back to the Hearty Swallow,” said Silverhorn to Horace abruptly.
“What for? I want my sleep.”
“Bets. I smell money.”
At the coffee house Captain Tugg was accepting treats from his admirers and roaring out offers to bet on himself at tw
o to one, five to one, ten to one, by God! if he could find a fool to take him up.
“Cover that,” invited Silverhorn, planking down a five-dollar gold piece.
The captain stared at it as if mesmerized, but recovered swiftly.
“I ain’t got the cash on me,” said he. “Fetch it with you tomorrow and I’ll cover it and as much more as your weaselskin holds.”
There was Tugg money and to spare, when Horace and his backer appeared ten minutes early, at the meeting place. There was also a goodly crowd. Matters proceeded with the formality proper to so important an event. To each principal was assigned a committee of three in support. Besides Silverhorn, Horace was attended by Captain Ennis and Old Bill Shea, who happened to be in town arranging for barreled winter fish, in his capacity as factor. The challenger’s staff consisted of Sandy Clark, a horse coper, a town tough named Miley and Captain Gadley of the Starry Flag. The two bodies chose Deacon Levi Bardo, a highly respected village trustee, as stakeholder with power of decision on moot points of etiquette. As anything short of murder was in order, the arbiter’s duties were not onerous.
The terms were substantially as Horace had outlined them in his reply to Tugg’s defi; the contestant who, at the end of half an hour of fighting, was on his feet to claim the stake, got it. Fifteen minutes’ grace was allotted for wagers. Though the physician’s popularity easily surpassed that of his ugly opponent, few cared to back it with cash. To be sure, the gauger was there with two dollars in his hand, and a secretive and knowing smile on his lips, but, except for him, Silverhorn seemed to be the only bettor on that side. To his bland inquiry about Captain Tugg’s ten-to-one, that gentleman responded with a hasty denial of such offer. As a substitute, he suggested doubles, which some of his backers raised to triples. Captain Ramsey got his fifty dollars covered in no time.
As the contracting parties tightened their belts, rolled their sleeves, and stood forth on a dry and level sward below the towpath, the disparity in weight and reach more than justified the odds. Tugg’s face was congested, his eyes bloodshot, but there was plenty of vigor in his lank and powerful frame as he flexed his ropy arms, leapt in the air, and clacked his hobnails.
“Hey! What’s this?” demanded Captain Gadley as Silverhorn prepared to lash on his principal’s odd handgear.
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