The Steel Horse/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X.
THE BOY WHO WOULDN'T BE "PUMPED."
ALL the rest of the night Roy Sheldon, who was ill indeed, rolled and tossed in his bunk without once closing his eyes in sleep. At first he was very much afraid that the light-ship would go down, she pitched so furiously; and as his malady grew upon him, he wished from the bottom of his heart that she would spring a leak and sink, and so put him out of his misery. To make matters worse, his rescuers never came near to sympathize with him, or ask if there was anything they could do to relieve him. They left him to fight the battle alone, and their neglect made Roy so indignant that he resolved he would not speak to them again, not even to thank them for the important service they had rendered him. Shortly after daylight, however, he fell into a refreshing slumber, and when he awoke two hours later his sickness was all gone, and he was as hungry as a wolf.
"Well, my hearty," was the cordial way in which he was greeted when he rolled out of his bunk, "you don't look quite as blue about the gills as you did when you turned in. Feel any better? Set down and take another pot of coffee."
"Thank you. I feel a good deal more like myself," was Roy's reply. "I can't begin to tell you how grateful I am to you, or how glad I am that I went overboard when I did, and that I succeeded in laying hold of that anchor-rope before my wind and strength gave out. I was getting tired, I tell you. If I were aboard that ship now how far at sea would I be?"
"A hundred miles, or such a matter, in this wind, and with a fair chance of seeing furrin countries before you come back."
"I would have stood a better chance of becoming food for the sharks, if all I heard about her is true," said Roy, as he seated himself at one end of the mess-chest which served as a table. "The sailor who advised me to desert said he never expected to reach Canton alive. Now, how soon can I get ashore to relieve the anxiety of my friends?"
That was a matter that was settled with half a dozen words. He was given to understand that he would be carried over to the nearest pier as soon as he had eaten his breakfast; and his mind being set at rest, he ate a hearty one. When he thanked the men for their kindness they laughed and said "that was all right," and showed some curiosity to know why Roy was so careful to take their names and address.
"I like to keep track of my acquaintances," said the boy; I may want to call upon you at some future time, and if I do, I shall know where to find you."
Breakfast being over, Roy, who had put on his own clothes when he left his bunk, climbed into the boat and was palled ashore. There was a hack-stand near the pier on which he was landed, and although Roy did not know it at the time, Tony and Bob could have put him ashore there the night before if the instructions they received from Colonel Shelly's superintendent had not led them to follow a different course. Being anxious to escape observation Roy took a hurried leave of the light-ship's men, hastened toward the hack-stand, and dived into the first carriage he came to.
"Pull up the windows, put down the curtains so that no one can see me, and go for the Lafayette House at your very best licks," said Roy to the astonished driver, who looked critically at the boy's sleeveless shirt and bandaged eye, and seemed in no particular hurry to obey.
"Been in a fight?" said he.
"Yes; been in half a dozen. Whipped more than forty men, and swam in from a hundred miles out at sea," replied Roy, impatiently. "I've money in my pocket and more at the hotel, if that is what you want to know. Hurry up, and I will give you double fare."
That was something the hackman could understand. Looking curiously at his passenger the while he hastened to obey his orders, and in a few seconds had made the carriage as close as an oven. But Roy did not care for that. He settled back in the corner, and wondered what Arthur and Joe would say when he walked into their presence.
"I know I am a nice looking object," was his mental reflection, "but I should like to see either one of those fellows go through what I did and come out in better shape. I tell you I have had a narrow escape, and Rowe Shelly, whoever he may be, can thank his lucky stars that he was not in my place. I can't do anything for Bob and Tony, but I can bear those light-ship men in mind, and I will too."
With the prospect of a double fare before him the hackman drove as rapidly as he dared, and when he drew rein in front of the hotel to which he had been directed, Roy threw open the door and jumped out, crossed the wide sidewalk with a few swift steps, and sought concealment behind one of the front doors, every move he made being closely followed by the driver, who wanted to make sure of his money before he let his strange passenger out of sight. Then came that hurried interview with the hotel clerk, who could hardly be made to believe that Roy Sheldon was not Robert Barton, after which the new-comer went to his room to change his clothes and send the porter out for a new helmet to take the place of the one he had left on board the White Squall.
"There," said Roy, as he stood before the mirror and tied a clean handkerchief over his left eye, "that looks a little more respectable, but not much. I must have a pretty hard head or that mate would have knocked me senseless. Suppose he had, and that I had been kicked out of the way or carried down into the forecastle, and never come to myself until this morning! I'd been a hundred miles or more at sea, and in a rotten old ship that is liable to go to pieces in the very first storm she encounters. It makes me shudder to think of it."
Having fixed himself up as well as he could, Roy went downstairs and into the reading-room to wait for Joe and Arthur to "show up." At the same time a sharp-looking gentleman, whose eyes were everywhere at once, walked briskly up to the clerk's desk and leaned upon it.
"What do you know?" said he. "I must make out a column some way or other, and if you don't help me out, I shall always think you ought to."
"I don't know a thing," replied the clerk. "Go into the reading-room and pump that fellow with the bunged-up eye. He's a wheelman from Mount Airy. Came in yesterday with two others, and got into trouble before he had fairly eaten his supper. That's his name right there," added the clerk, as the sharp-looking man, who was a newspaper reporter, pulled a note-book from his pocket and wrote something in it in short-hand. "He just as good as told me that he was mistaken for Rowe Shelly, kidnapped and taken over to the island, and barely escaped being carried to sea."
"On what vessel?" exclaimed the reporter, showing some excitement and no little interest.
"Don't know. Didn't think to ask him, for he was in a great hurry to go to his room."
"So Rowe Shelly has skipped again, has he?" said the reporter. "That won't do me any good, for Shelly owns some of our stock and we can't dip into his private affairs. Don't tell anybody else of it, there's a good, fellow, for I want to get a scoop on this whole business. Did this what's his name—Sheldon, look as though he had been in the water?"
"Come to think of it, he did. His uniform was shrunk and mussed, one sleeve of his shirt was missing, and both his eyes were blacked. At least one was, for I saw it. He kept the other covered up."
"I'll bet it's the same chap. Haven't you seen this morning's Tribune? Well, there's an article in it, with the blackest kind of headlines, entitled, 'Mutiny in the Harbor. A Sailor prefers Death to a Voyage in the White Squall,' and so forth and so on, et cetera. One of our fellows wrote that up, and now you just watch me get the sequel. Hoop-la! My column's safe. How'll I know him—by his bunged-up eyes?"
"Look right through the door. That's him, with the blue uniform on and a paper in his hand. But hold on a minute," said the clerk, as the reporter turned away. "If you mean to get anything out of him you'll have to be sly about it, for he says he won't be pumped."
"Oh, won't he? We'll see about that."
Roy Sheldon, who was deeply interested in that article in the Tribune, and congratulating himself on the fact that his name was not mentioned in it, and that consequently his father and mother would never hear of his adventure until he was ready to tell them about it, did not so much as raise his eyes when the reporter came in and sat down near him. He went on with his reading until he heard a pleasant voice say:
"Good morning, Mr. Sheldon. You have had a pretty rough experience, have you not?"
If the chair in which he was sitting had suddenly given away and let him down on the floor, Roy would not have been half as much astonished as he was when he heard himself addressed in this way by a man whom he had never seen before. He looked at him over the top of his paper, and then drew his head down behind it; whereupon the reporter pulled out his handkerchief and mopped his face to conceal the smile that came to his lips.
"Of course you don't mind what those light-ship men said to me," he continued.
"Oh! did they tell you about it?" exclaimed Roy, and that was all the reporter wanted to show him that he was on the right track. Being shrewd and experienced in his profession, he had already made up his mind just what that 'sequel' was going to be. The sailor, who was seen by the captain of pilot-boat number twenty-nine to jump into the harbor, was not a seafaring man, but a wheelman. He had succeeded in reaching the light-ship, whose crew rescued him, brought him ashore in the morning, and here he was. Roy had told the clerk he would not be interviewed; but that did not worry the reporter.
"Yes; I have heard all about it," said he. "You see, I am the fellow who supplies those light-ship men with some of their reading-matter."
"Oh," said Roy again, "I was afraid you might be a reporter."
"My dear sir, do I look as if I were that low down in the world? What's the reason you don't want to see any news-gatherers? You have been the hero of an adventure, and most boys would like to see it in print."
"It's in print already, but fortunately the man who wrote about it did not know my name," replied Roy. "There's a long account of it in the Tribune?"
"And is that account correct?"
"Perfectly. But my father takes the Tribune, and if he had seen my name in that article he would have ordered me home in short order."
"And you don't want to go, I suppose?"
"Certainly not," answered Roy, who then went on to tell where he did want to go; and to prove that his father would be likely to tell him to come home if he got into trouble, he related what Mr. Wayring had done when he learned through the New London papers that Matt Coyle had tied Joe to a tree and threatened to beat him with switches.
"I remember of reading about that," said the reporter. "One of the Tribune's staff was stopping at the Sportsman's Home at the time, and he was the one who wrote it up. I don't blame you for not wanting your name mentioned in connection with that little episode in the harbor last night, and you are wise in keeping your weather eye open for reporters. That's the only one you can keep open, isn't it? Who shut up the other one for you?"
It was by such ingenious and apparently disinterested questions as these, that the reporter gradually led Roy Sheldon on to tell his story from beginning to end. He was really astonished when the boy brought his narrative to a close, and told himself that he was master of some secrets that would eventually bring Colonel Shelly and his superintendent into trouble, and the runaway Rowe into his rights. More than one reporter has run to earth criminals whom the best detectives could not track, and Roy's visitor suddenly resolved that he would do a little in that line himself. He would have given something handsome to know where Rowe was at that minute and what he intended to do; but Roy could not enlighten him. On the other hand, he asked the reporter to tell him what he knew about Rowe himself.
"That boy is well fixed over there on the island," said he. "Everybody is kind to him, he has everything money can buy, and he wouldn't run away unless there was good cause for for it," said Roy. I wasn't on the island long enough to learn much about him; can't you tell me something?"
"I am sorry to say I can't," said the reporter, as he arose from his chair. "I have never been on the island, and don't know the first thing about Rowe Shelly and his family relations, except what I have heard in a roundabout way. Look here," he added, sinking his voice almost to a whisper; "do you see those three fellows talking with the clerk? Look out for them. They are reporters for evening papers. Tell 'em you're busy—that your eyes are so black you can't talk to 'em—tell 'em anything you can think of, for if you don't, they will have you in print sure pop. So•long, and a pleasant trip if I don't see you again before you leave the city."
So saying the reporter winked at Roy, and hurried away to write up the "sequel" for the evening edition of his paper, while Roy hid behind his copy of the Tribune. The three men against whom he had been warned came in at last, but if they wanted information they did not get much. Roy was very unsociable, and they finally departed with the conviction that the Tribune's man had been too sharp for them this time.
Roy's next visitor was Willis, and the next two were Joe Wayring and Arthur Hastings, who would scarcely have recognized him if it had not been for his uniform. They listened in great amazement to his story, which I afterward heard just as I have tried to tell it, and never once said a word to interrupt him. Arthur's indignation was almost unbounded; while the clear-sighted Joe saw two or three things in the narrative which proved to his satisfaction that Roy's visit to the White Squall was not purely accidental. But the trouble was, Roy himself did not think so, and he had not really said anything that was calculated to throw suspicion upon the superintendent. It was plain, however, that Willis was afraid he might say something, for as soon as Roy's story was finished he got upon his feet and put on his hat.
"As you remarked a little while ago, 'all's well that ends well,'" said he. "I am heartily glad you got safely out of that scrape, Mr. Sheldon, and hope you will speedily recover from the effects of your treatment at the hands of that brutal mate. I wish he might be punished for it; but it is just as those men on the lightship told you. The White Squall will not return for two or three years, and by that time the men who now comprise her crew may be scattered to the ends of the globe. I wish you good-morning, and a pleasant run across the State."
So saying, Willis bowed himself out of the reading-room, and Babcock went with him, leaving the three friends alone.
"Say, old fellow," exclaimed Joe, settling back in his chair and looking at Roy, "you've more pluck than I ever gave you credit for, but not half as much mother-wit."
"What has gone wrong with you now?" asked Roy, in reply.
"Nothing whatever; but if you don't find that something has gone wrong with you, I shall miss my guess. And you are the boy who wouldn't be pumped, are you? Well, you are a good one."
"I tell you I didn't give those three reporters the first grain of information," said Roy, bridling up.
"No; but you gave the first one who gained your ear all the information he wanted. That fellow who came his Oily Gammon over you and told you that he supplied the lightship's crew with a portion of their reading matter, was a reporter. He'll have the whole thing in his paper to night, and you will have to go home."
"And that means all of us," added Arthur.
"No!" gasped Roy, alarmed by the thought. "Let's get away from the city without an hour's delay. If we do that, we can prolong our run as far as Bloomingdale; for you know that was the first place at which we were to stop for letters."
"But you can't ride," said Joe.
"What's the reason I can't?" inquired Roy. "I know my arm is almost useless, but my legs are all right, as I will show you when we are fairly on the road again. Say, fellows, let's make the pace hot enough to reach Bloomingdale and get beyond it before any return orders can catch us."
"Why not avoid the place altogether?" suggested Arthur. "Have you had your arm examined by a surgeon?"
Roy said he hadn't thought of it, and Arthur continued: "Then we'll have it done at once. If he says you can ride, we'll take to the road at once. If he says you can't, that settles it."
Great was their relief when the medical man, to whom they were directed, told Roy that, although he had received a pretty severe fall (he thought Roy had taken a header and the latter was quite willing to have it so), he would be able to continue the run provided he could manage his wheel with one hand, and would promise not to run too fast.
"But," added the doctor, "it's a little the queerest hurt I ever saw from a header. I don't quite see how you managed to black both your eyes and injure your arm in one fall. If you had been in a fight with the canalers I could understand it. You mustn't think of going on for at least two or three days. Lie still to-morrow and next day, take a short run on Saturday, stop over somewhere in the country on Sunday, and make a fresh start on Monday."
When the boys heard this their countenances fell; but, as Arthur had said, "that settled it." All they could do was to make themselves miserable for the rest of the day and the whole of the two succeeding ones. They could not even visit their friends in the city, for if they did, every one would want to know where Roy Sheldon was, and why he didn't show himself.
"I'm a pretty looking fellow to go calling, am I not?" said the latter dolefully. "It can't be done, boys. I'd have to tell the truth, and I might as well go home at once as to do that. I'm going to hug my room the best I know how, and you'll have to see that I don't starve; for now that I have found you, I am not going to exhibit myself in that reading-room again. Now, come up-stairs and tell me all you know about Rowe Shelly."
The story his friends had to tell was not near as long as his own, but it was fully as interesting. It required but a few words from them to make everything clear to Roy's comprehension. The man who claimed to be Colonel Shelly and Rowe's guardian was a fraud, the boy's parents were still living, and he was determined to find them in spite of all the obstacles that could be thrown in his way. That was all there was of it.
"I hope from the bottom of my heart that he will succeed," said Roy earnestly. "When I was in the water swimming for the lightship, I felt bitter toward everybody; but now that I have come safely out of the worst scrape I ever was in, I don't feel so. The clerk, who evidently knows a little about Rowe and his affairs, declared that he was a fool for running away, but somehow I couldn't believe it. Now I know he isn't. If one of us was in his place they'd have to put guards all around that island to keep him there."
"How far was it from the White Squall to the lightship?"
"About twice as far as Mirror Lake is wide. The swim wasn't anything to be afraid of, but the rough water—"
"And the sharks," interposed Arthur.
"By gracious!" exclaimed Roy, jumping up from the bed on which he had but a moment before laid himself down. "I never thought of sharks, and I'm glad I didn't. It would have made a coward of me sure, and I was near enough to that as it was. But they do have them around that lightship, don't they? I have seen the fact stated in the papers before now. It took all the pluck I had to face the waves, and if I had thought of sharks I don't believe you ever would have seen me again."
"Rowe wouldn't have had the courage to do what you did," observed Arthur.
"I don't think he would," said Joe. "But then he never would have been called upon to do it, for that man Willis would not have sent him aboard the White Squall to be carried to sea."
"You don't think Willis got Tony and Bob and me shanghaied on purpose, do you?" exclaimed Roy, who had not dreamed of such a thing. "You are surely mistaken. I saw those men driven to duty with a piece of rope."
"I don't say they knew they were going to be kidnapped when they took you aboard that vessel, but that it was a part of the superintendent's plan for getting rid of the whole of you," replied Joe, who then went on to tell why he thought so. Three different sailor men with whom Roy had conversed assured him that the wind didn't blow to hurt anything, that there was no need that anybody in a small boat should seek shelter on a vessel on such a night as last night was, and if Roy could not see that that proved something, he was by no means as bright as Joe thought he was.
"I can see it now," said Roy. "If I could only bring it home to him wouldn't I—"
"No doubt you would: but there's the trouble. You can't prove anything. I am sorry you let that reporter bamboozle you into telling him all about your adventure. The fellows he told you to look out for were on rival papers, and it was his business to keep them from getting any information out of you if he could. I wish the evening papers were out."
The others wished so too, but four long hours passed before the voice of the newsboy was heard in the street, and then Arthur made a rush for the door. When he returned he had a copy of all the evening papers on sale, but the Tribune was the only one Roy cared to see, and it was promptly passed over to him.
"Here it is in black and white," he groaned, almost as soon as he opened the sheet. "'A Plucky Wheelman. Something that might have been a Tragedy. The Truth about it.' Read it out and then go and pound that reporter."
Arthur complied with many misgivings, but as he read he often paused to look at his chums, who stared at him and at each other in turn. Everything that happened on board the White Squall was truthfully described, the brutality of the ship's officers was denounced in no measured terms, Roy's short but desperate struggle with the mate was told in graphic language, but the only ones whose real names were mentioned were the two lightship men, Captain Jack Rowan and the scoundrel Crawford. Roy Sheldon was called Peter Smith without a word of excuse or apology, while Rowe Shelly, his guardian, and Willis, the superintendent, were not spoken of at all. The boys could not understand it; but then they did not know that Rowe's guardian was part owner of the Tribune and had influence enough to cause the discharge of any man on it who did not write to suit him. As soon as Arthur finished the article they all went to work to examine the other papers; but there was nothing in them about the "Plucky Wheelman." The Tribune had a "scoop" on all its competitors.
"That bangs me," said Roy, at length.
"It suits you, does it not?"
"Perfectly. It's better than I thought it could be. Of course our folks will read it, but they'll never dream that one of us had anything to do with it. That reporter is a brick. You needn't mind pounding him, boys."
"Thank you," said Joe, drily. "I had no intention of trying anything of the kind. I have heard of fellows going out to thrash newspaper men and coming home on a shutter. It might have been so in this case."
Arthur Hasting voiced the sentiments of his companions when he said he felt as if a big load had been taken off his shoulders. Their run wasn't "blocked" after all.