“Getting most of it up at Manistee.”
“Got it in yet?”
“More’n half of it. The rest of it’s a late order.”
“How much is there to come?”
“About fifty thousand.”
“How’s it delivered?”
“F. O. B. on the dock here. Why, you looking for a job?”
“Yes, wouldn’t mind. I could get it down here cheaper’n the railroad, and pretty near as quick.”
“Navigation’s closed, though. I don’t know as the Manistee folks ‘d want to risk it.”
“Yes, but look at that.” Hunch motioned toward the lake, which lay blue and sparkling beyond the Buttersville sandspit. “Quiet as August and it’s a short run. There ain’t hardly any ice either.”
“Well, you might talk to ‘em up at Manistee, Hunch. Of course, they can deliver anyhow they like, but I can’t run chances of delay.”
So Hunch went over to the telegraph office in the railroad station, and after a great deal of writing and rewriting made up the following message:
To Wm. F. Jackson, Esq.,
Pres’t Manistee Timber Co.:
Will deliver the Liddington elevator bill of fifty thousand feet by Lake, One Hundred Dollars. If terms satisfactory, wire reply, so I can deliver while weather holds fair.
J. Badeau.
When this message reached Jackson, he was sitting at his desk, with the railroad rate figured out on a sheet of paper before him. He promptly laid the two offers side by side and looked from one to the other. There was no doubt that the lake route would be cheaper. But, on the other hand, it was now after the first of December, and navigation was nominally closed on the great lakes. Insurance he could get, if at all, only at a prohibitive rate.
It was a question of judgment, and before deciding it, Mr. Jackson got up and walked over to the window. The busy little city of Manistee shut off his view of Lake Michigan, but he knew it was flat as a mirror. Not many hours earlier he had stood by another window, in his big house on the bluff, and as he shaved he had looked out over miles and miles of blue water, as calm as in June. It was warm enough for mid-autumn; the barometer promised continued dear weather. Altogether, Badeau’s offer had decidedly the best of it. So he sent a message to “J. Badeau, Liddington,” asking him to bring up his schooner at once.
Hunch, on receiving the message, went up to Herve’s saloon, and while standing at the bar, let his eyes rove about the room until they settled on a lank, middle-aged man in the corner.
“Hello, Herm Peabody.”
“Hello, Hunch.”
“What you doing in these parts?”
“Come up to see my niece—Joe Cartier’s wife.”
“Busy nowadays?”
“No, ain’t picked up anything for the winter yet.”
“What would you think of taking a trip with me?”
“The Dean?”
“Yes.”
“A little late for schooners, ain’t it?”
“Not in this weather, no. It’s only a little trip-up to Manistee.”
“Well, this ain’t been a very flush season, Hunch, and I s’pose I ought to take it.”
“Can you come right along? I’d like to overhaul her a little and run up there this afternoon. If they’re reasonable quick about loading, we can get right back.”
A few hours later Hunch ran her out between the piers, with Peabody up forward, and pointed north-east-by-north to clear Big Point Sable. The breeze was light, and it was not until six o’clock that evening that the Dean ran into the harbor at Manistee. Hunch promptly looked up the lumberman.
“How are you, Badeau. You came right up.”
“Yes, I did.”
“We’ll put that timber aboard the first thing in the morning.”
“You can’t do it to-night, then?”
“Oh, hardly.” Mr. Jackson glanced out at the starlit sky. “You don’t think there’s any doubt about the weather, do you?”
“Maybe not. But if I could get it aboard now, I’d start right back. We know we’re all right to-night.”
The lumberman’s supper awaited him; his men had scattered to their homes. He glanced again at the sky, then said, “The morning ‘ll do, I guess.”
“Well, it’s just this way, Mr. Jackson. I made you the offer to take this load down, but I don’t feel like running any more risk than I have to.”
“If you see anything to worry you in that sky, Badeau, you can just let us run the risk.”
The thermometer dropped twenty-five degrees during the night. A film of ice formed in the harbor. The wind swung around to the northeast, and brought a bank of innocent looking clouds that spread slowly over the sky. Out on the lake front the shore ice grew higher and whiter as the waves beat tirelessly over it, and formed blocks and cones and miniature mountain ranges.
When Jackson met Hunch on the wharf, he seemed to have forgotten what he had said the evening before. “Well, Badeau, what do you make of it?”
“Of what?”
“The weather. Think you can make it?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“You ought to have gone out last night.”
To this Hunch made no reply; he kept one eye on the work of the timber shovers.
“Still,” added Jackson, “you can run down in two or three hours with this wind.”
A little later Hunch joined Peabody by the wheel. “Do you know of a good man here, Herm?”
“For the schooner, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“Why—I’ll see if I can pick up Duke Buckingham.”
“Go ahead. Tell him we’re short-handed.”
When the Dean finally fell away from the wharf, in tow of Jackson’s tug, it was well on toward noon. And none of the three men on board was over-cheerful when he looked out at the lake and felt the keen wind of the open water. Even on shore it was a day for heavy jackets and gloves; out here it was bitter cold.
“Set the tops’ls, Herm,” said Badeau, from the wheel.
Peabody looked at Buckingham, and then, without a word, the two men set to work.
They ran nearly before the wind, that is, nearly southwest. Badeau kept her up a few points to the westward in order to avoid the surf-currents that bore down on Point Sable. The deck was piled so high with timber that the schooner was unwieldy; her scuppers were nearly awash, and the stem was down so low in the water that half the time the small boat, hanging from the after davits, was afloat. When all sail was spread, Hunch called his men aft and gave them a hand in hauling the boat aboard and forward.
Rapidly the piers and the bluffs of Manistee fell off astern. Steadily the sky thickened, and fine, hard flakes of snow began to blow about their ears. Badeau alone did not mind the cold; his coat was open, his hands bare.
“What do you think o’ this business, Herm?” asked Buckingham.
“Oh—well, it ain’t but three hours in this wind.”
“I don’t like them tops’ls.”
Peabody had no reply to this.
“What the devil’s he runnin’ way out here for?”
Peabody turned toward Point Sable; and then they both looked in silence. They could see the white line of the surf, due south. On the bluff the trees were tossing and bending.
Buckingham was the first to turn away. “Look there!” he exclaimed, gripping Peabody’s arm. “Hi there, Hunch!” A black squall was sweeping down from the north, as sharply defined on the water as if laid out with a rule. Before the line were the leaden billows, behind it a black, wrinkled surface, dotted with whitecaps. “Hi there, Hunch!”
But Hunch’s eyes had been long trained to take in a full circle at a glance. “Ready about!” he was bellowing, “Ready about!”
The wheel spun around, the jibs flapped, the schooner reeled as she swung lazily up. The three men watched the squall. Slowly—slowly—creaking angrily—Will she make it?—No—Yes—No——
“Struck, by——! Hold fast, boys! Hold fast!”
Over she went, till the booms dipped and the waters of Lake Michigan ran from stem to stem along the rail. Hunch left the wheel and sprang forward for the main sheet. Before he had it in his hand he was drenched through. Cursing like a Northern Peninsula lumberman, he hauled away. Peabody and Buckingham were together at the foresheet, with white faces and blue lips. Over again! They got up to the weather-rail—it was like climbing a gable roof—and still hauled away. For thirty endless seconds they fought, then her bowsprit, scooping deep into every wave, swung around and pointed into the wind. Hunch, shaking the water from his eyes, looked up and about; both topsails were gone, and a thousand feet or so of timber.
They could breathe now. But only for a moment, for the storm was beating them back toward the point. Another battle, and mainsail and foresail were double reefed and the Dean was slowly working up into the wind. There was no thought now of rounding the point; it was a question of getting sea room. Once Badeau thought of anchoring, but his judgment warned him not to try. One fact was encouraging, they made a little headway. By three o’clock in the afternoon they were back off the Manistee piers, and three miles out.
“What’s that comin’ down the harbor,” shouted Buckingham, “a tug?”
“Looks like it. Yes, that’s what it is.”
“See there, she’s whistlin’.” They could see the steam, though no sound reached them.
“She can’t make it—hold fast, there!” The Dean nosed deep into a curling wave, struggled to rise, plunged on through, and the wave rushed over them. When they could see again, a few more thousand feet of lumber had disappeared.
“That was a soaker. Hunch all right, Henn?”
“Sure. See, she’s putting back. Looks like the Cecilia Smith.”
“That’s what she is. I never did think much o’ Bill Peters.”
“Maybe he’s right. He couldn’t ever tow us in through that surf—say, the boat’s gone!”
“The——-it is!”
“Look for yourself.”
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