CHAPTER III.
The Chase of the “Dido.”
REUBE uttered a cry of something like despair.
“Now, old man, what’s the matter with you?” queried Will, reprovingly.“Do you suppose the _Dido’s_ gone? Why, you old chump, we’ll take one ofthe other boats and go after her. With this wind we’ll catch her beforeshe goes half a dozen miles. She won’t get past the Joggins, anyway,I’ll bet you a red herring!”
Reube’s face brightened, beamed broadly, and resumed its old boyishfrankness.
“Why, that’s so!” said he. “That’s just what we’ll do. What a perfectfool I’d be sometimes, Will, if you didn’t keep an eye on me!”
That half a mile across the marsh proved a long one owing to the manydetours which our runners, now trotting slowly and deliberately, wereforced to make by the windings of the full creek. At last they reachedthe landing place where the _Dido_ had been moored. About the ricketyold wharf stood four or five high reels, skeletons of light gray woodwound with the dark-stained folds of the shad nets. The fishing seasonwas right at hand, but had not yet begun. Around the boats and the reelswere many half-obliterated footprints, left by the feet of those who hadbeen winding the nets and pitching the seams of the boats. Of freshtracks there was but one set—the tracks of someone with long, narrowfeet, who walked without turning out his toes. To these tracks Reubepointed with grim significance of gesture.
“Yes,” said Will, “I understand. Did you ever see a plainer signaturethan Mart Gandy makes with his feet?”
The smallest of the fishing boats at the wharf was a light “pinkie”—aname given by the Tantramar fishermen to a special kind of craft withthe stern pointed like the stem. The pinkie, painted red and whiteinstead of blackened with tar like the other boats, was a good sailer.She belonged to Barnes, the owner of the red bull; and to Reube’sjudicial mind it seemed appropriate that she should be taken withoutleave. There was a further inducement in the fact that she could be gotafloat more easily than any of the other boats. The tide had fallen sothat her keel was high and dry; and the fine mud of Tantramar gripped itwith astonishing tenacity. But after a few minutes of such straining asmade the veins stand out on Will’s forehead, and brought a redness aboutReube’s steel-gray eyes, she was afloat.
Up went her dainty jib; up went her broad white mainsail; and presentlythe red-and-white pinkie with Reube at the helm was nimbly threading thesharp curves of the creek. After a succession of short tacks the channelstraightened, and heeling far over with the strong wind on her quarterthe pinkie ran into the open with the tawny surf hissing at her gunwale.Reube held his course till they were a couple of hundred yards out,dreading some hungry shoals he knew of. Then he let out the sheet, easedup on the tiller, and put the pinkie’s head straight down the bay on the_Dido’s_ track. Will loosened out the jib, belayed it, and lay down onthe cuddy in its shadow. The _Dido_ was out of sight beyond the rocksand high oak trees of Wood Point.
A stern chase, as has been said from of old, is a long chase; and whilethe red-and-white pinkie was scudding before the wind and shearing theyellow waves with her keen bow, Reube and Will had to curb theirimpatience. They did not even whistle for more wind, for they had allthe wind the pinkie could well endure. When their ears had grown used tothe slap and crumbling rush of the foam-wave past their gunwale theyspoke of Mart Gandy.
Reube Dare’s father, whose farm adjoined that of the Gandys, had gothimself embroiled with old Gandy over the location of the dividing line.While Reube was yet a very small boy old Gandy had pulled down thedilapidated line fence during one of Captain Dare’s absences, and hadput up a new one which encroached seriously on the Dares’ best field. OnCaptain Dare’s return he expostulated with Gandy; and findingexpostulation useless he quietly shifted back the fence. Then his shipsailed on a long voyage to the Guano Islands of the Pacific; and whilehe was scorching off the rainless coasts of northern Peru, Gandy againtook possession of the coveted strip of field. From this voyage CaptainDare came back with broken health. He gave up his ship, settled down onthe farm overlooking the marshes, and called in the arm of the law tocurb old Gandy’s aggression. The fence had by this time been movedbackward and forward several times, each time leaving behind a redderand more threatening line of wrath. When the case came into court theoutcome was a surprise to both contestants. There were rummaging out ofold titles and unearthing of old deeds, till Captain Dare’s lawyer madeit clear not only that Gandy’s claim was unfounded, but also that beforethe dispute arose Gandy had been occupying some three acres of the oldDare property. The original grant, made a hundred years earlier toCaptain Dare’s grandfather, required that the line should run down themiddle of old Gandy’s sheep pasture—a worthless tract, but one whichnow acquired value in Gandy’s eye. Down the pasture forthwith was thenew fence run, for Captain Dare, fired to obstinacy by his neighbor’swanton aggression, would take no less than his rights. Then, the victoryassured to him, the captain died, leaving to his widow and his boy afeud to trouble their peace. The farm was productive, but for some yearsold Gandy had vexed them with ceaseless and innumerable smallannoyances. When the old man sank into imbecility, then his son Mart, aswarthy and furtive stripling, who betrayed the blood of a far-offIndian ancestor, took up the quarrel with new bitterness. In MartGandy’s dark and narrow soul, which was redeemed from utterworthlessness by his devotion to his family, hatred of the Dares stoodas a sacred duty. It was his firm faith that his father had been trickedby a conspiracy between judge, jury, and lawyers. The persistency of hishate and the cunning of his strokes had been a steady check upon theprosperity of Reube and his mother.
In answer to a remark of Reube on this subject Will exclaimed, “Butyou’ve got him all right this time, old man. There can be no difficultyin identifying those footprints.”
Reube laughed somewhat sarcastically.
“Do you suppose,” he inquired, “that the tide is going to leave them asthey are while we go after the _Dido_, fetch her back, and then go andget those holes in the mud examined by the authorities?”
“Well, perhaps my suggestion was hasty,” acknowledged Will.
After an hour’s run Wood Point was left behind, and there was the _Dido_not a mile ahead and well inshore. She had been delayed in the eddies ofthe cove below the Point. Reube gave a shout of joy and twisted his helmto starboard, while Will warned him to look out for the mud flats withwhich the cove was choked.
“O,” said Reube, confidently, “I know the place like a book.”
The red-and-white pinkie was now rapidly overhauling the vagrant craftwhen a stiff current caught the latter and she began to race along thecurve of the farther shore. Reube was anxious to catch her before sheshould round the next headland, and get back into rough water. Theheadland was a low, humped promontory of mingled plaster rocks andyellowish sand, without a tree upon its grassy crest. Shifting hiscourse to intercept the _Dido_, Reube steered the pinkie straight forthe point. Just then the _Dido_ was seen to give a lurch, stop short,and keel over to the gunwale.
“She’s run aground!” cried Will.
“But we’ve got her safe and will sail her back on next tide,” saidReube, heaving a sigh of relief as he saw that his beloved craft stoodstill, refusing to be rolled over by the push of the yellow tide uponher ribs.
The pinkie was sailing at a great pace.
“Better take in the jib, Will,” said Reube.
Will sprang up to obey. Just as he rose there was a staggering shock.The pinkie buried her nose in a hidden mudbank. The waves piled over hergunwales; the mast bent without breaking, like the brave, tough timberit was; and Will shot overboard headlong into the foam.