Dan Merrithew. Lawrence Perry
north wind, and walked slowly up South Street. Somehow he could not get Captain Barney out of his mind.
The year before, in violation of an explicit agreement, Captain Barney had worked in with an outside rowboatman from West Street, towing him to piers where vessels were about to dock. This, of course, got that boatman on the scene in advance of the Battery men, who had only their strong arms and their oars to depend upon. Thus the rival had the first chance at the job of carrying the lines from the docking steamships to men waiting on the pier to make them fast. Captain Barney received part of the money which this boatman made. It was little enough, to be sure, but no amount of money was too small for him. And so Dan, the Battery boatmen being his friends, was glad to see Hodge on his knees—yet he was the slickest tugboat-captain on earth.
Dan could not help admiring him for that; and now he could not dismiss from his mind the pitiable picture which Murphy's doorway had framed but a few minutes before. He tried to, for Dan was an impressionable young fellow and was worrying too much about this Christmas idea, endeavoring to solve his emotions, without bothering about the troubles of a towboat-skipper who deserved all he got and more.
All along the street were Christmas greens. The ship chandlers had them festooned about huge lengths of rusty chains and barnacled anchors and huge coils of hawser, and the tawdry windows of the dram shops were hidden by them. A frowsy woman, with a happy smile upon her face, hurried past with a new doll in her arms. Dan stopped a minute to watch her.
Something turned him into a little toyshop near Coenties Slip and he saw a tugboat deck-hand purchase a pitiful little train of cars, laying his quarter on the counter with the softest smile he had seen on a man's face in a twelvemonth.
"Something for the kid, eh?" said Dan rather gruffly.
"Sure," replied the deck-hand, and he took his bundle with a sort of defiant expression.
He saw a little mother, a girl not more than twelve years old, with a pinched face and a rag shawl about her shoulders, spend ten cents for a bit of a doll and a bag of Christmas candy.
"Going to have a good time, all by yourself?" growled Dan.
"Naw, this is fur me little sister," said the girl bravely, if a little contemptuously. A great lump came into Dan's throat, and feeling somewhat weak and ashamed, he left the shop. Elemental sensations which he could not define thrilled him, and the spirit of Christmas, now entirely unsatisfied, rested on his soul like an incubus. He began to feel outside of everything—as though the season had come for every one but him.
Near Pike Street a little group of the Salvation Army stood on the curb. One of them was a fat, uncomely woman, and she was singing, accompanying herself upon a guitar. The music was that of a popular ballad, and the verses were of rude manufacture.
There were perhaps half a dozen listeners scattered about the sidewalk at a distance sufficient to prevent possible scoffers from including them in the service. Two of them were rough workmen, and they stood in the middle of the sidewalk staring vacantly ahead, trying to look oblivious. Two longshoremen sat on the curb ten feet away, and a man and a woman leaned against the door of a near-by warehouse. When the song was finished the two workmen hurriedly approached and threw nickels on the face of the big bass drum lying flat on the street, retreating hastily, as though ashamed; the woman did likewise, and one of the longshoremen.
"Buying salvation," grinned Dan, as he walked on up the street. But the pleasantry made inadequate appeal. Every one was getting more out of the season than he was. Once he drew a dollar from his pocket and started back. But no. What was a dollar to him? He knew where there were more. That wasn't it. He put the money in his pocket and walked on.
Dan's mental processes leading to a determination to help Captain Barney were too clouded for clear interpretation, but he knew there was no more uncertainty in his mind after he had sought the Captain out and offered to put him on board the Kentigern.
Hodges fairly wept his gratitude. "Dan, Dan, you say you can put me aboard the Kentigern! You'll save my business if you do. I don't care about the towing part, because if I can get aboard and pilot her in, I can hand the towing over to those who'll take care of me. Dan, you're a good boy. How'll you do it?"
"No time to tell now," said Dan. "Meet me at Pier 3 in an hour."
"Say," cried Captain Barney, as Dan hurried away; "how much'll it be? Not too much—"
Dan stopped short.
"Nothing!" he roared. "It's—it's a Christmas present."
CHAPTER III
A FIGHT IN THE DARK
The short gray December twilight was creeping over the bay as Dan pulled out from the Battery basin in a boat which he kept there for recreative jaunts about the harbor. Hard pulling and cold it was, but the boatman bent his back and shot up the East River with the strength of the young giant he was. He could see Captain Barney, muffled to the ears, stamping impatiently about on the end of the designated pier. Without a word he swung his boat in such a position that the Captain could drop into it.
Barney was delighted, so far forgetting himself, indeed, as to attempt to establish cordial understanding.
"Hello, my boy," he said genially, "we're a-goin' to fix 'em!" Then noting a blank expression on Dan's face, his jaws closed with a click and he lowered himself from the pier and into the boat without further words, while Dan shoved out into the river and started for the pier above, where Captain Jim Skelly's tug, the John Quinn, was lying. She had steam up and was all ready for her journey to meet the Kentigern. That vessel had been reported east of Fire Island and would be well across the bar by eight o'clock. She would anchor on the bar for the night, and it was there that Captain Jim Skelly meant to board her in order to forestall any possible scheme that wily Captain Barney might devise to gain the bridge of the freighter.
As Dan paddled noiselessly around the other side of the pier, they could see the pipe lights of the Quinn's crew. Finally the rowboat turned straight under the pier, threading its way among the greasy green piles. Reaching under the seat, Dan drew out a stout inch line.
"When I back in on the Quinn," he whispered, "make that line fast to the rudder post. We'll let her tow us to the Kentigern."
"What!" hissed Captain Barney, and his face turned pale. But it was only for a second, after which he chuckled.
Slowly, gently, quietly, the rowboat slid among the green piles until the stern of the big tug loomed overhead. When it was within reach Captain Barney leaned out, made one end of the line fast to the tug's rudder post and then, paying out about twenty feet, he fastened the other end to the bitts in the bow of the rowboat.
It seemed an hour's waiting before the Quinn's crew cast off the lines, but in reality it was not more than ten minutes. As the screw began to thresh the water and the tug to move swiftly out into the river, it required rare skill on the part of the young boatman to manoeuvre the boat so she should not be upset at the start. But Dan had the skill required and more besides, as he knelt in the stern with one oar deep in the water to the port side.
In the course of a few minutes they were fairly on their way, and Captain Jim Skelly was losing no time. He had full speed before the tug was a hundred yards from the pier, and the spray and the splintered chips of ice flew back from the sharp bow, smiting the faces of the two men in the little boat dragging astern with three-quarters of her length out of water. Dan, kneeling aft, watched with eagle eye each quirk and turn of the tow-line.
It is the hardest thing a man has to do—to tow behind a tug or ferryboat, even under fair conditions. In this case, the conditions were far