The Argosy, Vol. 82, No. 3 — page 27: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

SHIPS he knew that the ship had come up with the land. Soon, above the squeaking and shrilling of chafing cases and barrels around him, the grind of tiller-tackles and thump of rudder jarred on his ears. Then the rhyth- mic, sliding motion told him that the ship - was hove-to under topsails for the night. Suddenly he heard voices above him, in, the cabin. ‘““Might’s well let up on the Dude, cap’n,” rumbled the deep bass of Bully Fi orrester. “Tf it hadn’t been for him, Rube’d be shark bait and I’d have a knife in my gizzard. Dunne where you'd ha’ been!” “Fire it out of your fat head,” retorted the skipper icily. “You think I loaded him aboard ’cause o’ that black eye? Not me— though it’s against my religion to take a shiner off a silk-hat dude without slapping him on the wrist for it. Listen!” The captain’s voice dropped, but the words filtered down to Blake nevertheless. “That patched t’gallants’] that slipped into port just before we hove-to—you’ve seen her before? ~That’s the John Foster. What’s she doin’ here? Why, what we would be doin’, only for that meddlin’ dude! “Vou’ve heard about ol’ Cap’n Peabody, him what made a pile in the Sydney trade when it was good? Well, his grand- daughter has the right dope where his ship was laid up, with every darned cent he made, on the passage home to ’Frisco. No banks for ol’ Peabody—he kep’ a strong- box in his cabin!” Forrester broke in with a startled oath. Marshall continued. “The girl’s chartered the Foster to get it. I’d have got the job—had the girl dead to rights that last night in ’Frisco, when the damned Dude chipped in an’ spoiled the game. If I let him get away, he'll crab my deal, see? Some o’ the Foster’s people would find out from him that I was the man who talked to the girl that night—you see, she didn’t know me from Adam, an’ they won’t suspect what we’re after.” “Well, what are we after?” growled the mate. ‘“‘What we puttin’ in here for?” “To get.a line on the Foster, you fool! We got to get one of her crew, or the girl herself if we can, an’ find out just where she’s bound.” . “Can’t we heave the Dude overboard when we leave?” asked the mate, who had 2A OF STRIFE. 401 evidently been appreciative of Blake’s action. ‘“Ne—I got a notion that we may need to use him first. Leave him lay.” The voices ceased. Every tiny protest- ing whimper of the ship’s frame filled the ensuing silence. So—this was the game! Blake, staring into the darkness, thrilled to the outline of the story as he pieced it together. That girl, the rightful owner of her grandfather’s mone , knew the location of the wreck and was after it. Marshall had tried to force her to charter the C. H. Marshall, no doubt with the purpose of obtaining the loot himself. Blake grinned suddenly. “Things don’t work out so badly after all!” he thought with greater cheer than his situation warranted. ‘The girl herself must be on that other ship—the John Foster!” Evidently the girl was known by such men as Marshall; if not personally, at least by sight. News that she was chartering a ship must have given the whole thing away, and the wolfish skipper very possibly had laid his plans to kidnap the girl that night. Blake chuckled again, realizing that he had nipped that little game, but had been kidnaped in her stead. “And now to see what Steelfist is going to do about it!”’ he concluded. All that night he dozed fitfully. With the morning he wakened to find a blue- gray sheen against the single small port- hole, low down; water was swirling against the glass and. the ship was heeled over, under way again. Four years previously, Blake had spent some months at Honolulu with his invalid father, shortly before the latter’s death. Thus, when a yellow shaft of sunlight showed in the port-glass, he knew the ship was heading north, that she had passed Diamond Head, and was in harbor. Simultaneously with the righting of the ship and the roaring clatter of the cable in her hawse-pipe, came voices overhead. Marshall was giving orders. “Don’t bother about furling sail, Mr. For- rester. Keep a short hawse—we may pull out in a hurry. I’m going to snoop around shore. No shore leave unless we have to stay over night. In that case, let the hands take a run. I’m goin’ down and interview the Dude.” A moment later Marshall’s burly figure CORMICLOOOKS (C@)