CHAPTER XVIII

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*WATER-LOGGED*

At Freeport the following winter was severe. Snow lay for weeks, thawing, freezing, accumulating with every squall that came over from the mountains, and falling in small avalanches which started landslides all along the bluff. On some mornings the upper part of the harbor below Duwamish flats was covered with ice, which the rising tide lifted and broke into sheets. The logs taken from the water were glazed, and in still places inside the boom, ice packed solid. And with the unusual cold a lull in construction settled over the Northwest; there came a second drop in the prices of exported lumber. Many of the smaller mills closed under a subsidy. But the Judge, in answer to Forrest's statements of the situation, advised the cutting down of expenses to a minimum, and keeping things going, if only to give employment to the men. He had heard the Puget Sound country was flooded with idle mechanics, laborers, hundreds of construction hands discharged since the completion of the Northern Pacific. And of course the prevailing Eastern panic had in many instances caused the recall of invested capital. But he was confident that another half-year would see a pronounced revival; at any rate he would be able to make a trip home by that time, and he wanted to be on the ground and see conditions for himself before he came to a final decision.

At the close of January the men still received "reg'lar pay," to quote Mason, but the books showed that the manager's salary was accumulating to his credit. Other accounts indicated that the junior partner was overdrawing. He had his impulses of industry and economy when he tried to balance a considerable delinquency by spending an interval at the mills; but he always annulled the results by a yet deeper plunge, and his only systematic restriction was in deferring to take a house in town.

Forrest was thinking of Kingsley while he finished his rounds of the mills. It was at the close of a bleak day; there was an increasing wind; ragged cloud scurried overhead, the forerunner of the black masses driving up in the southwest. Philip was presumably in Victoria. He had not heard from him for a week. "But," he told himself, as he came down the steps from the landing to the walk, "it's useless to bother the Judge with this side of it, now. It's as he says, he can't understand things fully until he is on the ground."

He stopped at the branch to Kingsley's house to speak to the old watchman, who was stumping up from the lower dock. "Well, Mason," he said, "it's another blow."

"Ay, sir." The old sailor swung around to look at the running sea. He knew the ships over the harbor were taking precautions against the growing storm; stretching an extra hawser, dropping a second and third anchor, clearing decks. But there was no vessel at the Freeport wharves; the bark that had sailed that morning left no other receiving.

"Keep the slab-fire low, Mason, and have an eye to the boom."

"Ay, ay, sir."

"And, Mason, go back and put the signal out for the _Success_. Let me know when she's in sight."

"Ay, sir?" The old sailor's voice took a rising inflection; his unlovely features worked.

"Yes," said Forrest, "I'm going over to Seattle for the doctor. Little Si is worse."

He turned then, and went up to the gate. Louise heard him on the steps and met him at the door. He followed her silently in to that inner room where little Silas lay. His head was propped high with pillows and the place sounded with his labored breathing. Forrest stood for a moment watching him: the heaving of the breast under the loose white gown; the flutter of the half-closed eyelids; the milky whiteness of the forehead between the crayon-like brows and rings of tumbled hair. The child was very lovable; he had always shown his fondness for him in demonstrative, winning ways; and in the earlier stages of his illness he had called for him, begging to be carried or rocked, and Forrest had devoted late hours to him, sharing the mother's vigil; ready with the comfort and security of his strong arms. Now, while he looked at the unconscious face, this large-hearted, homeless, home-loving man seemed to feel a small hand on his heart-strings; the touch tightened when the baby coughed.

He turned to Louise. "I'm going over on the _Success_," he said. "The doctor will come back with me. Is there anything else I can do?"

"No, unless--you can find Philip."

"I am afraid he is still in Victoria. He would hardly have started to cross the Straits in this storm."

"No," she assented, "not in this storm." She lifted her hand to her head in a bewildered way, and turned to her baby with the mechanical effort of one long worn out with anxiety and watching. But when the child coughed again, a harder paroxysm, the motherhood leaped to her eyes. "Paul," she cried, "oh, Paul."

He did not try to answer that appeal; he could not look at her. But he took the child's medicine from the table and stood for a moment, thoughtful, irresolute. A man who has the charge of workmen in an isolated place, out of range of a physician, picks up the rudiments of medicine and surgery, and presently he went to a stand holding a few general remedies. He poured a little of the liquid from the bottle he carried, into an empty vial, and added several drops of ammonia. He gave the baby a potion from the mixture, lifting the blond head higher, rearranging the pillows gently, with a woman's touch. He waited a brief interval, watching the result. "It's a very strong stimulant," he said. "Only use it every alternate time, or--if the attack is bad. I won't be longer than I can help."

While he walked down to the store he saw Mason's signal-light on the wharf, but the little mail steamer, plying between Seattle and a near port, was not yet in sight, though nearly an hour late. Forrest unlocked the door and lighted his desk lamp. "There isn't a rowboat on this beach," he thought. "Nothing but Sing's dugout; and what could she do in this sea?"

He began to post his books, but the child's face drifted between him and the open page, and that appeal of the mother's rang an undernote to the rush and scream of the wind. He laid his pen down and sat staring, absent, harassed, up at the rafters. A timber creaked; the great building shook in a heavier gust, and the sea swept with a long hiss and swash on the beach under the piling. Then presently above all these noises there came the shrill toot of a whistle.

It was a sound that brought him to his feet. He threw his books into the safe, lifted his overcoat from the counter, and was about to extinguish the light, when the door opened and Mason entered with a rush of sharp air. "She's gone by, sir," he said. "Headlight stove in, sir; sea smashing on the wheel-house."

The manager's hand dropped from the burner.

"But she answered the signal, Mason; she whistled the landing."

"Ay, sir, an' wore away, sir, er rollin' like er porpoise."

"Well, Mason, it means the dugout. She's on the beach above the float."

Mason's watery eyes blinked. "Ay, sir, an' more'n half full, sir."

"Then we'll bail her."

He laid his top coat back on the counter and turned out the light, and while he led the way down to the float, he blamed himself and excused and blamed himself anew, for depending on that little steamer.

Sheltered though it was by the wharves and the headland, the small landing rose and dipped; breaking crests swept sheer over it. Mason set his lantern on a pile and the manager helped him turn and empty the beached canoe. Roughly hewn from a cedar log, with bow and stern cut square and hollowed slightly like a scow, it had a clumsy appearance even as dugouts go, and in mild weather two men together could hardly have risked passage in her. Launched, she swashed in the tide like a thing water-logged.

No one knew how the craft first drifted to Freeport, though Hop Sing had appropriated her, to use on still evenings during the salmon run, when he visited his friends employed at the cannery a mile up the coast. The paddle was not in its usual hiding-place, a niche under the flooring of the nearest dock, and Forrest hurried up to the cook-house.

"Give me the paddle to the dugout, Sing," he said, stopping on the threshold; "I'm going over to Seattle."

The Chinaman whirled on his cork soles and looked at him. Then he swung his towel over his shoulder and his face expanded in a smile. "What for you jokee me, Boss? Hully sit down. I bling supper belly click. Steak muchee cold."

"Never mind supper, Sing; or just give me some coffee right here, while you find that paddle."

He poured the steaming coffee, black and bitter from long waiting, and gave the cup to Forrest. "What for you takee dugout? He no good. Too muchee blow, blow." His voice shrilled incredulously, but something in the manager's face made him turn abruptly and trip across the kitchen to his own private closet, where, after a brief search under his bunk, he brought forth the missing paddle.

He had a catlike aversion to moisture and cold, but Forrest had eased him through many a buffeting from the mill crew, and presently he lighted his lantern and followed him down to the float. He found Mason steadying the lurching dugout while the young man took his place forward of the stern. And he waited silently, but with growing concern, until the old sailor cast off the painter and gave the great even push which propelled the craft out between docks, then he, too, held his light aloft, vying with the watchman to illuminate the way. The wind filled his wide, white sleeves, baring his arms above the jade bracelets; it played havoc with his unwound cue and set all his loose garments fluttering; but he stood there long, shivering, with teeth chattering, holding the lantern yet higher and straining his eyes to follow that small, receding shape.

As he swung clear of the wharves Forrest felt the strong ebb, and low as the dugout was, she careened to the wind when she drifted out of the protection of the headland. A wave broke, drenching him through. Far to the northward he saw the revolving light on West Point; then a smaller flame appeared on the opposite shore, and he knew by the position of these lamps when he had reached the open, where the gale had its fullest sweep of the Sound. Another crest broke over him; another; still he made headway and held his course quartering to the trough. The deep whistle of an ocean collier came to him, and off the point he saw her lamps; a tug passed close at hand. He heard plainly the noise of her screw, but she went by without heeding his hail, and he caught the counter motion of her wake. Presently he noticed water about his knees, and groping, found the can; and while he bailed he tried with one hand to keep the dugout under control, but she swung broadside, taking a sea. He dropped the can and grasped the paddle with a great dip that brought her slowly around. His muscles ached; his fingers cramped; how that year of confinement at the mills had unfitted him.

When the beacons disappeared he knew that he had made a little more than half the distance. But the dugout never headed for the city lamps; she drove before the wind, and the most he could do was to swing her out of the trough, and ease her northeast by north, hoping to strike the point which marked the harbor entrance above the town.

A passenger steamer rounded the Head behind him, her brilliant windows now thrown high, now showing a narrow rim as she rolled in the trough. She came rapidly and passed far to leeward. While he watched her, shouting repeatedly, against reason, the dugout shipped a sea that all but swamped her. He threw off his coat; loosened and kicked off his shoes. He bailed for a time, then, ceaselessly. The water was very cold; it swashed over his limbs, numbing him to the core. A cloud broke overhead, pelting him with a storm of hail. The stones cut the waves with a sharper swish, hiss; they stung his face, his hands. When he stopped a breathing space the thought of little Silas spurred him, and again and again Louise's voice seemed to reach him, audibly, in desperate appeal.

The hail passed. The city lights grew clearer, off the starboard but falling astern. Then at last he noticed that a deeper stroke of the paddle swung the dugout eastward and kept her headed so. The tide was running in. A black hulk loomed out of the darkness, showing a red lantern at her bow. Was it not the old collier that was burned at the coal bunkers, years ago, and towed here to beach north of town? This light, standing out in advance of all others, became an inspiration. The lines of a trestle detached from the gloom. His paddle struck something, presumably a sunken pile, and snapped at the handle, the blade whirling away in the darkness. He heard the sea breaking on a gravelly shore; felt the undertow. A crest swept over him, and another heavier comber lifted the dugout and hurled it full against the trestle. When the water receded he found himself clinging to a pile; the solid beach was under him, though the surge washed to his armpits. The next wave cast him on the gravel.

He dragged himself higher and rested briefly, pulling himself together, then he rose and made his way, in the teeth of the wind, down to the water-front of the town. He found a small tug, that sometimes did towing for the mills, under steam. He hailed her from the dock, sheltering his numb body behind a pile of cord-wood, while he waited for the master to answer him. Then, "I'm Forrest," he said, "of Freeport, and I want you to put me over at the mills as soon as you can. I came for a doctor and I'll have him down here in fifteen or twenty minutes."

"All right," the man replied, "I'm just starting for a run down to the Straits, but glad to accommodate you. Hell of a night."

Forrest was already out of hearing. He left a summons as brief at the doctor's door. "Tug's waiting," he called back. "Arlington Dock."

Then he hurried on to the hotel which Kingsley frequented. He glanced at the office clock as he entered the lighted room. It was a quarter past eleven. He had been over three hours making that trip across the harbor; a distance of two miles.

There was a stove near him and he put his numb hands out to the heat while he asked for Philip. It was as he had feared; the Captain had not come back from his last little run to Victoria. The sudden warmth made him faint, but he leaned on the desk, trying to shape a telegram.

His effort was manifest and the men around the stove watched him curiously. He was hatless, coatless, without shoes; and the steam rose from his remaining clothes; the water, dripping from them, formed in pools on the floor. The clerk went over to the bar and brought him a glass of brandy. "See here, Forrest," he said, "drink this; then tell us what happened to you. How did you come over from the mills?"

He drank a part of the liquor and set the glass down. "In a small boat," he answered briefly, "and I made a bad landing."

"Looks like it," the clerk said, dryly. "Come in here and get into some clothes of mine."

"No, thank you," replied Forrest, "I'm going right back; have a tug waiting. But lend me a coat, Charley, if you can, and some sort of a fit in shoes."

He wrote his telegram while the man brought the things, and he threw on the coat on his way to the door.

"Never saw such a man," said the clerk, addressing the group near the stove. "Ready to tell a story when it's another fellow, just spreads it on, but when it's himself won't say a blamed word. But he's got the nerve; yes, sir, he's all nerve and--backbone."

When Forrest reached the wharf he found the doctor waiting with the tug-master in the little pilot-house. They made a place for him, but he turned aside into the engine-room, and sinking down on a bench near the boiler, stretched his hands out again to the heat. The steam and odor of oil, the lurching of the boat, following that draught of brandy, affected him strangely. In the uncertain light the engineer seemed to expand into a figure foreign and grotesque. Once when he stooped to open the furnace door he paused, looking up at Forrest with a laugh. With the red glow on his grimy face it became an impish, insulting laugh, and the manager drew himself up to resent it; but he did not; he was too weak.

The next time he was roused was when the tug bumped the Freeport dock. The piles all seemed to be swaying and lifting when he stepped ashore, but the fresh air steadied him, and the sight of Mason's rugged face helped to clear his vision. Here also was Hop Sing out again with his lantern, and his smile rivalled the welcome of the old watchman. The sailor made fast the line with an extra flourish and thump of the wooden leg, and the cook demonstrated his satisfaction in a pigeonwing or two, as he lighted the way to the house.

Forrest was not the man to let these attentions go. "Well, Sing," he said, "I'm afraid you won't see that boat of yours again."

"Oh, I no clare, Boss, I no clare." He wheeled on his cork soles, showing his yellow teeth. "Mason, he makee belly good fire your loom. Byme by, plitty click, I bling supper; oyster soup, flied chicken, belly hot, nicee."

But Forrest was looking up across the gate and his steps quickened. The door had opened and Louise stood against the flood of light. She came forward to the edge of the piazza. "There has been a change," she said softly. "He seems to be in a quiet sleep."

Forrest waited in the parlor while the doctor followed her to that inner room. It seemed a long time before they returned, but he was rubbing his plump hands. "Mrs. Kingsley was right," he said, and smiled. "There has been a change, undoubtedly. And you should have a diploma, sir; that ammonia buoyed the child over a crisis. But it must be used sparingly; sparingly." He opened his medicine case and laid out a box of tablets and a vial with a few brief directions. Then he took up his hat and top coat,--the tug was waiting for him,--and went to the door. "Of course, he is still a very sick child, but, with careful nursing, and I see he has that, he will pull through. Good night; yes, your baby will pull through."

Forrest closed the door softly and came back to the fire. "Phil wasn't in town," he said, "but I left a telegram to be forwarded. He will be able to catch the mail steamer in the morning, if he isn't already on the way."

He lifted a piece of bark from the wood-basket and laid it on the fire. She watched him. Little clouds of steam began to curl up from his clothes. Suddenly she put her hand on his arm. "Paul," she said, "what happened? How did you cross the harbor?"

"Why, the _Success_ went by without stopping, and I took a small boat. I'm going now to change my clothes. When I come back you must lie down; you need some sleep."

"But there wasn't a small boat; the _Phantom_ is away with the tender; there isn't a ship's boat; not any kind of a rowboat on this beach. Unless--Paul, you didn't go in that dugout?"

"Yes," he said lightly, "that's what made me so long. She isn't fleet."

"Fleet." She knew what it meant. He had shared her anxiety and care; it had been one more responsibility thrust upon him; and now, in her extremity, he had risked himself for her child. She could not tell what peril the dugout had lumbered through, but it had been peril in the darkness and that sea. And Philip, her husband, who should have been the one to face it, was doubtless passing the night gaily, in some warm and brilliant room. Oh, the shame of it, the bitterness, the sting of it! A sob broke from her lips. She sank down on a sofa and dropped her face on her arm. "I cannot--bear it," she said. "I--cannot--bear--it."

She did not cry as another woman might; there was no easy rush of tears, but the long pent grief of months, borne silently through weary days and slower nights, welled and found vent to the search of a probe.

A glory from the crimson lamp-shade touched her hair, which was unbound for comfort, and held half its length in two loose braids, as she had worn it when they were children. The strained position of her arm, thrown up over the head of the sofa, pulled back her sleeve, showing its smooth whiteness from below the elbow; it tapered perfectly to the wrist. The slender, shaking figure, her whole attitude, was an unconscious appeal to him, and roused a tumult of feeling; not only resentment against Philip, but immeasurable pity, tenderness for her, out of which rose a sudden and overwhelming desire to take her in his arms and comfort her.

He turned and looked into the fire; the frowning line deepened between his level brows. "Don't make so much of it," he said. "I'm none the worse for a little wetting."

[Illustration: "He turned and looked into the fire."]

"None the worse?" He started at the vibration in her voice. She rose to her feet. "Do you think I do not know you have done a desperate thing? Do you think I have no gratitude?"

"Oh, no," he answered smiling, "I couldn't think that."

She came a little nearer. "You have a bruise on your forehead; your hand--I noticed it when you lifted the wood--is cut--terribly." She took the hand in her own palm and examined the hurt, touching it gently with her handkerchief. "How was it, Paul? Tell me."

"Why, I hadn't noticed it, but it probably happened when I made a landing." He winced slightly under her soft dabs. "I ran the dugout in at that old trestle above town, and struck a pile. Now you know the worst; there's nothing left to imagine." He laughed and drew his hand away. "I'm going down to my room now, but I shall be back in a little while. Sing is bringing me a supper."

He opened the door and went out, closing it softly. "To have a wife like that," he thought, "and yet neglect her."

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