CHAPTER VII. SQUIRE BRACKETT'S DOG
The island got a respite of at least a week, after the explosion, fromexcitement of any sort. A calm like that of the primeval days before the"boom" pervaded all the settlement. But it was not to endure. One morninga little fishing-schooner, which had fallen into the hands of SquireBrackett, through a mortgage which he had foreclosed upon a poor skipperacross the bay, and which was now lying at anchor in the harbour, wasfound painted with broad stripes of blood red, and flying the skull andcross-bones at the masthead, a veritable pirate craft.
The squire was never able to discover whether the authors of this pieceof mischief were the boys or some of his own townsmen, who, indignant athis seizure of the only means of livelihood belonging to the unfortunateskipper, had roundly denounced Squire Brackett for his meanness. However,the incident resulted in the squire leaving on the boat one day for thecity of Benton to make a purchase.
What the squire purchased he brought back with him the next day. And, asit is a matter of passing interest how his purchase arrived at the islandand how brief a time it remained there, it shall be here recorded. By thesame boat there came to the village an individual whose arrival made nostir, but who remained long enough to create the greatest excitement thevillage had ever known.
The arrival of the steamer from Benton was an event of great interestdaily, for it brought not only mysterious packages, bundles, and messagesfrom fathers whose business kept them in the city, but now and then a newface, which was duly scrutinized and commented upon by the summercolonists before its possessor had crossed the gangplank.
So that on this day when Squire Brackett returned to his native islethere were many gathered upon the wharf, though, it is hardly necessaryto say, not for the purpose of welcoming his return. Yet one mightreadily believe the squire thought otherwise; since, as the steamerneared the wharf, this self-important individual, arrayed in a suit ofshining black, with a great deal of staring shirt-front, and with anenormous slouch-hat surmounting his ponderous head, seemed the mostconspicuous person aboard.
The squire stood nearest the gangway, and, indeed, it looked from adistance as though the other passengers, in recognition of the greatnessof this island magnate, had drawn respectfully back a little distance, towait till he should have gone ashore ere they approached the railing.
As the steamer came nearer, however, the reason for this seemingdeference on their part became apparent. It was plainly not due so muchto any awe inspired by the squire as it was to fear,--fear of thesquire's purchase. The squire's purchase was as ugly and vicious lookinga bulldog as ever walked on four legs. The squire held the dog by a stoutpiece of cord, which was wound several times about his wrist.
The dog and the squire, being each in equally ill-humour, may have foundtheir companionship agreeable. Certain it was that the squire was theonly person whom the dog did not snarl and snap at. It growled andsnapped at every one, and even snarled and showed its teeth at thegood-natured cook aboard the steamer, who had offered it a scrap of meat.
This surliness on the part of his new acquisition had particularlypleased the squire, who argued from it that here was an incorruptiblebeast, that would meet in the same spirit any such advances upon the partof strangers when it should be duly installed as guardian of hisfarmhouse.
The squire would be magnanimous on this occasion, however, and, despitethe fact that the crowd on the wharf looked to him, as it always did inhis eyes, like invaders of his domain, he gave a bow accompanied by asweeping gesture of his hand, presumably intended to be a patronizinggreeting, which should include everybody, and nobody in particular, atonce.
Then the steamer made its landing. It was not always an easy matter here,for the tide at certain times ran swift, and seemed to strive fiercely todrive the boat away from the wharf. Therefore, when the steamer was asyet at some distance from the wharf, a deck-hand at the bow skilfully letfly a coil of small rope, which unwound in the air and was caught by aman standing on the wharf. To an end of this rope was attached the usualheavy hawser, which was then drawn on to the wharf by means of the smallrope, and the bight thrown over a spiling. In like manner the other bighawser was drawn up astern on to the wharf.
When things were done shipshape, it was the rule of the steamer that thesmall rope should be coiled again and at once thrown back to the boatwhile one end was still fast to the wharf, so that when the hawser wascast off from the spiling it could be drawn aboard by the small rope,without its splashing down into the water and getting wet.
But things were more often done hurriedly than shipshape at the Southportlanding. The steamer's crew had all they could do usually to land freightand get it out quickly enough, so that the boat could go on down the baywithout losing time. The line thrown to the wharf was usually caught bythe village storekeeper, who had little time to spare, or by whatever manor boy happened to be standing near at hand. The boat's rule was seldomobeyed. Scarcely any one ever took the trouble to coil up the small ropeand throw it back. When the hawsers were cast off they fell into thewater, regardless of the fact that they thereby got wet and becameheavier, dragging the small ropes after them, and were hauled aboard asthe boat steamed away.
The steamer having, on this occasion, been made fast to the wharf and thegangplank put out, Squire Brackett crossed it, dragging his purchasebehind him,--the purchase skulking very unwillingly across the plank andshowing its teeth at the crowd upon the wharf.
The squire hated and despised boys, and made it a point to ignore themwhenever it was possible. For this very reason they delighted to annoyhim by hailing him whenever they met him. Young Joe Warren had a way ofdriving the squire nearly into fits by pretending to mistake him for oneCaptain Kendrick, who was the bitterest enemy the squire had, and thenalways apologizing for his mistake by explaining to the squire that hecould not tell them apart.
"Good morning, Squire Brackett, glad to see you back again!" cried HenryBurns, in the heartiest fashion imaginable, as the squire stepped on tothe wharf.
"Humph! Morning--morning," grunted the squire, as he eyed Henry Burnssuspiciously.
Henry Burns smiled most affably, as though the squire had been hisdearest friend and adviser.
"Why, how do you do, squire?" said George Warren, cordially.
Squire Brackett scowled angrily at him, but answered, "How d'ye do?" asshort as he could.
Just then young Joe made his appearance.
"How are you, Captain Kendrick?" he bawled, loud enough to be heard allover the wharf.
The crowd began to smile, and young Joe added, hastily:
"Oh, I beg pardon, Squire Brackett--always take you for Cap'nKendrick--strange how you do look so much alike."
"You little idiot," yelled the choleric squire, "I'd Cap'n Kendrick youwith a rawhide, if I had the say of you,--insulting an honest man with aname like that,--every one of you ought to be in State prison. And you,you're the worst one of all, Jack Harvey," pointing to the latter, whohad just come upon the wharf. "And you, too!" shaking his fist at Tom andBob. "You're sly, but you'll get caught yet. You're a pack of youngrascals, every one of you. Don't any of you come around my house, if youdon't want to be chewed up. Here, you brute! Quit that!"
The dog had snapped viciously at a child that ran past, causing her toscream with fear.
Just then the freight-agent called out to the squire:
"You'll have to come in here and see about this freight of yours," hesaid. "It's all mixed up. And don't bring that dog in here, or the crewmay take him for a piece of freight and run a truck against him."
At one corner of the freight-house on the wharf was a big iron ring, towhich the squire tied the dog.
"I wouldn't advise anybody to meddle with him," he said; but the adviceseemed hardly necessary, for the dog showed its teeth and sprang savagelyat any one who ventured to come near.
There were some expressions of indignation that such a dangerous bruteshould be brought to the
island.
Every one did keep as far out of the dog's way as possible, excepting TimReardon, who, after a whispered consultation with Jack Harvey, afterwhich the latter disappeared behind the freight-house, seated himselfjust out of the dog's reach, and caused that animal to froth at the mouthand nearly strangle itself in trying to get loose, by pointing a fingerat the dog and making a loud hissing noise between his teeth.
Not content with this form of annoyance, Tim Reardon varied it now andagain by darting a hand out at the dog, as though in an attempt to seizehim by the throat. To which the maddened animal, with true bulldogferocity, responded with savage rushes as far as the rope would permit,his wide-open jaws fairly dripping with rage and disappointment.
If there was any design on the boy's part to distract the dog's attentionfrom what Jack Harvey was doing at the corner of the freight-house, towhich the dog was tied, it succeeded admirably. Moreover, it is certainthat, when Harvey reappeared, Tim stopped teasing the brute, and he andHarvey walked around to the rear of the freight-house.
The freight-house was situated almost at the end of the wharf on itsseaward side, so near to the edge of the wharf that there was only roomfor a single person to walk along on the outside, and that at the risk oflosing one's balance and falling off the wharf. The ring to which the dogwas tied was on the side near the end, and was not visible to thosestanding on the front of the wharf. Any one going around to the furtherside of the freight-house at this moment might have seen Harvey and Timstanding there,--Harvey nearest the ring and holding a knife in his hand.
The steamer in landing had made a complete circuit in the harbour, andhad come alongside the wharf with her head pointing out into the bay, sothat now, as Captain Chase called out "All aboard," and gave orders tocast off bow and stern lines, the boat was ready to steam directly awayfrom the wharf. The gangplanks were drawn in. There was a tinkling ofbells; a great commotion as the steamer's wheels began to revolverapidly; a general waving of handkerchiefs from the wharf to those whowere bound farther down the bay; the steamer began to glide away from thewharf, when suddenly somebody shrieked:
"The dog! The dog! Run! Run! He's broken loose."
And before the crowd had time to scatter, the dog, infuriated with thetormenting it had received at the hands of Tim Reardon, dashed toward it.Men, women, and children fled in terror. Squire Brackett, who camerunning out of the freight-house, did not dare face the dog, but dodgedback into the freight-house and slammed the door shut, in a cold sweat offear.
The boys, most of them, rushed for points of safety, clambering up theends of the spiling that jutted above the floor of the wharf, and youngJoe and Tom Harris, being at the very edge of the wharf, and having noother means of escape, and nothing to defend themselves with, dropped offthe wharf into the water and swam to shore. Several of the other boys andsome men scrambled about for clubs to ward off the brute's fierce rush.
Among these latter was Henry Burns. Realizing on the instant that toattempt to flee was worse than hopeless, he had glanced about forsomething to defend himself with, and had seized upon a broken piece ofoar. Grasping it with both hands, he stood, calmly awaiting the attack.The dog, seeing him right in his path, rushed at him, and when within ayard of the boy suddenly gave a spring, as though to seize him by thethroat.
Henry Burns, summoning all his strength, aimed a terrific sweeping blowat the dog, but it missed its mark. Meeting no obstruction, the force ofthe blow swung the boy completely around, so that he lost his balance andfell sprawling upon the wharf, while the piece of oar flew from his handsand landed far out in the water.
A strange thing had happened. The crowd, pausing breathlessly in themidst of flight, had seen with horror the dog spring at Henry Burns; butthe animal's leap had a most extraordinary termination. All at once thedog was jerked violently backward through the air, and fell heavily onthe wharf, yelping with surprise and fright. Then it was dragged rapidlyacross the wharf, and the crowd yelled with derision as they saw that therope by which the dog had been tied to the ring had been unfastened orcut from the ring, and had been fastened to the rope which had beenthrown from the steamer, and the other end of which was made fast to thesteamer's hawser.
As the boat steamed away it drew the rope after it. There was no possibleescape for the dog. Struggling as best it could, barking and yelping, andsnapping madly at the rope, it braced itself for one instant on the edgeof the wharf, and then was dragged over and fell, still struggling, tothe water below. The steamer kept on its way a short distance, and thenstopped. The rope was drawn in by a deck-hand and the dog hauled to therailing of the steamer, but it was not taken aboard, for nobody on boardwanted a dead dog. The deck-hand cut the rope, and the body splashed intothe water.
Thus perished the squire's bulldog, unmourned, save for the squirehimself, who raged about the wharf, looking for some boy whom he mightaccuse of the trick, and vowing untold vengeance upon the perpetrators ofit. But, one and all, they had wisely dispersed, the guilty and theinnocent alike, and the squire was soon left alone in his wrath.
Who had done the thing? The crowd did not know, for it had been tooexcited to notice that Jack Harvey and Tim Reardon had emerged frombehind the freight-house just at the critical moment when the dog hadsprung at Henry Burns.
As for Henry Burns, he was the hero of the hour.
There had been on the whole so much excitement attending the squire'sarrival that few had noticed a stranger who had come ashore soon afterSquire Brackett. He had not waited on the wharf, but had gone directly tothe hotel. There Henry Burns met him later; for the man sat at ColonelWitham's table, as that was the only one then available.
The new arrival was the sort of guest to please the colonel, for he wasextremely quiet. He walked only with the aid of a cane, and then,apparently, with great effort, stopping frequently to rest. He told themhe had been very ill; that his health had broken down with overwork, andhe had accordingly tried cruising along the coast. His friends had lefthim up the river some days before, and would call for him.
He was a man a little under middle age, of medium height and thick-set,with black hair and a pale, smooth-shaven face. He was evidently somewhata man of the world and had travelled abroad, for, seated before thefireplace in the office that evening, he talked for some time of histravels.
But there were other things of more interest to the boarders than thisquiet, reserved stranger, who did not play cards and who hobbled aboutwith a cane. There was, above all, a morning paper from town, whichbristled with startling head-lines, descriptive of a robbery of theresidence of one of the richest men in the town. It told how the thieves,three in number, had entered the house where Mr. Curtis, the owner, wassleeping alone, in the absence of his family; how they had put a pistolto his head and made him get up and open a safe, from which they hadtaken several hundred dollars in money and a jewel-case containing adiamond necklace and other gems to the value of several thousand dollars.
The jewels, it said, were the property of Mrs. Curtis, and most of themhad been bridal presents. A reward of $500 was offered for their returnor for information leading to the arrest of any one of the robbers.
The article stated further that Mr. Curtis was positive he could identifythe man who subsequently bound and gagged him, his mask having butpartially concealed his face. He was, he said, a man of about mediumheight, with black hair, black moustache, and heavy black beard,broad-shouldered, thick-set, and unusually active and powerful.
All this, as it was read aloud, threw the guests into the greatestpossible excitement, as a great part of them were from the very town andknew the Curtis family, by reputation if not personally.
It did not, of course, interest the stranger guest, for he nodded in hischair and nearly dozed off several times during the reading. Still, whenthe guests had dispersed, he picked up the paper from a chair and took itwith him to his room.
It was the very next night following that of his arrival that Henry Burnsmet with a surprise.
On
the night in question there was a full moon about half-past teno'clock, and, as Henry had agreed with Tom and Bob to meet them at theirtent, he opened his window, stepped out on to the ledge and started toclimb to the roof.
Mackerel had struck in at the western bay, and the boys had planned topaddle down the island that night, carry their canoe across the shortstrip of land that saved the island from being cut into almost equalhalves by the sea, launch it again in the western bay, and paddle aroundto where the Warren boys' sloop lay anchored in Fish Hawk's Cove. Thenthey were all to try for mackerel early in the morning.
Henry Burns stepped softly out, grasped the lightning-rod, and, with aquickness that would have amazed the worthy Mrs. Carlin, scrambled to theledge over the top of his window. There he paused a moment for breath,and then climbed up the lightning-rod, hand over hand, and gained theroof.
He had proceeded then across the roof but a little ways, when he heardsuddenly, almost directly beneath him, the sound of footsteps. Some onewas coming up the stairs that led to the roof.
Henry Burns had barely time to conceal himself behind a chimney when thetrap-door in the roof was softly opened, and he saw the head andshoulders of a man emerge through the opening. Henry Burns lay flat onthe roof, in the dark shadow cast by the chimney. The moon shone full inthe man's face, and Henry Burns saw, to his amazement, that it was thestranger guest. The sickly, weak expression in the man's face was gone,and in its stead there was a sinister, bold look, which seemed far morenatural to his powerful physique.
Suddenly the man, with the strength and ease of an athlete, spranglightly out on to the roof. He still carried his cane, but he had no usefor it, save to clutch it in one hand more after the manner of a cudgelthan a cane.
Henry Burns, for once in his life, was afraid. It was all so strange andincomprehensible.
Once upon the roof, the man straightened himself up, threw out his chestand squared back his broad shoulders. He was erect in stature, withoutthe suggestion of a stoop. He seemed to exult in the freedom of theplace, like one who had been kept in some confinement. When he walkedacross the roof to the edge facing the sea, there was no suggestion ofany limp in his gait. It was quick and firm, but noiseless and almostcatlike.
What did it mean? Henry Burns thought of the robbery. Could the man havehad anything to do with that? Why had he pretended to be weak and ill?Why had he come to this out-of-the-way place, pretending that he was aninvalid? Surely he could have no designs upon any one on the island.There was no house there that offered inducement to a robber, if the manwere one.
It must be that his coming was an attempt to hide himself away--tosecrete himself. But why? The description of the robber that had boundMr. Curtis--did that tally with the appearance of this man? Broadshoulders, medium height, active, powerful,--all these agreed. But theblack moustache and heavy beard. The stranger's face was smoothly shaven.That transformation, however, could have been quickly effected.
One thing was certain. It would not be well that this man, a pretendedinvalid, but strong, and armed with a heavy cane, that had suddenlybecome transformed from a cripple's staff to a cudgel, who could but havesome dark motive in thus disguising and secreting himself, should findhimself watched and his secret discovered. Henry Burns crouched closer inthe shadow of the chimney, and hardly dared to breathe. The evil that hehad so accidentally uncovered in the man, his own helplessness comparedwith the other's strength, and the dangerous situation, there upon thehouse-top, made him afraid. If they had been upon the ground he wouldhave feared less.
The man scanned the moonlit waters of the bay long and earnestly. Hissurvey done, he paced a few times back and forth, swinging the cane, andthen, stealing noiselessly to the doorway, disappeared down the stairs,closing the trap-door after him.
Henry Burns lost little time in descending to the ground. On the way tothe boys' camp that night he made two resolves: first, that he would keepto himself, for the present, at least, the stranger's secret; second,that, whatever that secret was, he would find it out if any clue was tobe had upon that island. The second resolution, he thought, ratherincluded the first, since, the greater the number of those who knew ofthe stranger's secret, the greater the chances of his suspicions beingaroused.
Another thing that disturbed Henry Burns not a little was the knowledgethat his excursions over the roof were now attended with greater riskthan ever. It would not do to encounter the stranger there unexpectedly.What might not the man, suddenly aroused, and desperate, as Henry Burnsbelieved him to be, do to him, if he found himself discovered? A fallfrom such a height must mean instant death, and who was there to suspectthat he had not fallen, if he should be found next day lying upon theground?
In the future he must know whether the roof were occupied or not beforehe ventured upon it, and especially must he be careful when returninglate at night.
Henry Burns resolved to keep the man's secret for a time, for the reasonthat he was firmly convinced he had not come to the island to commit anywrong there, but to hide away. The island offered every advantage for thelatter, and no inducement for the former. The man's design certainly wasto secrete himself. Still, Henry Burns had no intention of letting theman escape from the island. He would watch also for those friends thatthe man had said were to come for him with their yacht, and he would makesure that they did not sail away again. Though but a boy, the stranger'ssecret was in dangerous hands, if he had but known it. And yet luck wasto effect more than Henry Burns's scheming.
Tom and Bob were waiting impatiently when Henry Burns arrived at thetent. They launched the canoe, the three embarked, and soon left the tentand then the village behind. They glided swiftly along the picturesqueshore till they came at length to the narrows; here they carried thecanoe across and launched it again in the western bay. In an hour fromthe time they had left the tent, they had come alongside the sloop_Spray_ in Fish Hawk's Cove, and the Warren boys had sleepily made roomfor them in the cabin.
It was crowded for them all there, and it may have been for that reasonthat Henry Burns did not sleep soundly,--either that, or because of thefigure of a man that he could not drive from his mind, and that appearedto him, half-dreaming and half-awake, as a figure that hobbled along,stooping and bent, but which suddenly sprang up before him, lithe andthreatening, and brandishing in his hand a cudgel that looked like acane.