The Hallowell Partnership. Katharine Holland Brown
sharp toots signalled the engine-room for full head of steam. Instantly the Lucy jarred under Marian's feet with the sudden heavy force of doubled power. Slowly the steam-boat swung out of her course, in a long westward curve. Past her, the nearest logs not fifty feet away, the great, grinding mass of tree-trunks rolled and tumbled by, sweeping on toward the Gulf.
"'Tis handy that we met those gintlemen by daylight," remarked the pilot, cheerfully. "For one log alone would foul our paddle-wheels and give us a bad shaking up. And should all that Donnybrook Fair come stormin' into us by night, we'd go to the bottom before ye could say Jack Robinson."
Marian's eyes narrowed. She stared at the dusk stormy yellow river, the blank inhospitable shores. She was not by any means a coward. But she could not resist asking one question.
"Do we go on up-river after nightfall? Or do we stop at some landing?"
"There's no landing between here and Grafton, at the mouth of the Illinois River. We'll have to tie up along shore, I'm thinkin'." The old man spoke grudgingly. "If I was runnin' her meself, 'tis little we'd stop for the night. But the captain thinks different. He's young and notional. Tie up over night we must, says he. But 'tis all nonsense. Chicken-hearted, I'd call it, that's all."
Marian laughed to herself. Inwardly she was grateful for the captain's chicken-heartedness.
A loud gong sounded from below. The pilot nodded.
"Yon's your supper-bell, miss. I thank ye kindly for the pleasure of yer company. I shall be honored if ye choose to come again. And soon."
Marian made her way down to the cabin through the stormy dusk. The little room was warm and brightly lighted; the captain's negro boy was just placing huge smoking-hot platters of perfectly cooked fish and steak upon the clean oil-cloth table. They gathered around it, an odd company. Marian and Roderick, the captain, the Lucy's engineer, a pleasant, boyish fellow, painfully embarrassed and redolent of hot oil and machinery; and two young dredge-runners, on their way, like Rod, to the Breckenridge contract. Save the captain and Rod, they gobbled bashfully, and fled at the earliest possible moment. Rod and the captain were talking of the contract and of its prospects. Marian trifled with her massive hot biscuit, and listened indifferently.
"I hope your coming on the work may change its luck, Mr. Hallowell," observed the captain. "For that contract has struggled with mighty serious difficulties, so far. Breckenridge himself is a superb engineer; but of course he cannot stay on the ground. He has a dozen equally important contracts to oversee. His engineers are all well enough, but somehow they don't seem to make things go. Carlisle is the chief. He is a good engineer and a good fellow, but he is so nearly dead with malaria that he can't do two hours' work in a week. Burford, his aid, is a young Southerner, a fine chap, but – well, a bit hot-headed. You know our Northern labor won't stand for much of that. Then there is Marvin, who is third in charge. But as for Marvin" – he stopped, with a queer short laugh – "as for Marvin, the least said the soonest mended. He's a cub engineer, they call him; a grizzly cub at that. He may come out all right, with time. You can see for yourself that you haven't any soft job. With a force of two hundred laborers, marooned in a swamp seven miles from nowhere, not even a railroad in the county; with half the land-owners protesting against their assessments, and refusing to pay up; with your head engineer sick, and your coal shipments held up by high water – no, you won't find your place an easy one, mind that."
"I'm not doing any worrying." Rod's jaw set. His dark face glowed. Marian looked at him, a little jealously. His whole heart and thought were swinging away to this work, now opening before him. This was his man's share in labor, and he was eager to cope with its sternest demands.
"Well, it's a good thing you have the pluck to face it. You will need all the pluck you've got, and then some." The captain paced restlessly up and down the narrow room. "Wonder why we don't slow down. We must be running a full twelve miles an hour. Altogether too fast, when we're towing a barge. And it is pitch dark."
He stooped to the engine-room speaking-tube. "Hi, Smith! Why are you carrying so much steam? I want to put her inshore."
A muffled voice rose from the engine-room.
"All right, sir. But McCloskey, he just rung for full speed ahead."
"He did? That's McCloskey, all over. The old rascal! He has set his heart on making Grafton Landing to-night, instead of tying up alongshore. Hear that? He's making that old wheel jump. To be sure, he knows the river channel like a book. But, even with double search-lights, no man living can see ice-cakes and brush far enough ahead to dodge them."
"Let's take a look on deck," suggested Rod.
Once outside the warm, cheerful cabin, the night wind swept down on them, a driving, freezing blast. The little steamer fairly raced through the water. Her deck boards quivered; the boom of the heavy engine throbbed under their feet.
"Thickest night I've seen in a year," growled the captain. "I say, McCloskey! Slow down, and let's put her inshore. This is too dangerous to suit me."
No reply. The boat fled pitching on.
"McCloskey!"
At last there came a faint hail.
"Yes, captain! What's yer pleasure, sir?"
"The old rascal! He's trying to show off. He's put his deaf ear to the tube, I'll be bound. Best go inside, Miss Hallowell, this wind is full of sleet. McCloskey! Head her inshore, I say."
On rushed the Lucy. Her course did not change a hair's breadth.
"No wonder they call him Commodore McCloskey!" Rod whispered wickedly. "Even the captain has to yield to him."
"McCloskey!" The captain's voice was gruff with anger. "Head her inshore! Unless you're trying to kill the boat – "
Crash!
The captain's sentence was never finished.
CHAPTER III
ENTER MR. FINNEGAN
With that crash the floor shot from under their feet. Stumbling and clutching, the three, Marian, Rod, and the captain, pitched across the deck and landed in a heap against the rail. The lighted cabin seemed to rear straight up from the deck and lunge toward them. There was an uproar of shouts, a hideous pounding of machinery. Marian shut her eyes.
Then, with a second deafening crash, the steamer righted herself; and, thrown like three helpless ninepins, Marian, Rod, and the captain reeled back from the rail and found themselves, bumped and dizzy, tangled in a heap of freight and canvas. Rod was the first on his feet. He snatched Marian up, with a groan.
"Sister! Are you hurt? Tell me, quick."
"Nonsense, no." Marian struggled up, bruised and trembling. "I whacked my head on the rail, that's all. What has happened?"
"We've struck another bunch of runaway logs. They've fouled our wheel," shouted the captain. "Put this life-preserver on your sister. Swing out the yawl, boys!" For the deck crew was already scrambling up the stairs. "Here, where's Smith?"
"He's below, sir, stayin' by the boiler. The logs struck us for'ard the gangway. She's got a hole stove in her that you could drive an ice-wagon through," answered a fireman. "Smith says, head her inshore. Maybe you can beach her before she goes clean under."
The captain groaned.
"Her first trip for the year! The smartest little boat on the river! McCloskey!" he shouted angrily up the tube. "Head her inshore, before she's swamped. You hear that, I reckon?"
"Ay, ay, sir." It was a very meek voice down the tube.
Very slowly the Lucy swung about. Creaking and groaning, she headed through the darkness for the darker line of willows that masked the Illinois shore.
For a minute, Roderick and Marian stood together under the swaying lantern, too dazed by excitement to move. On Marian's forehead a cheerful blue bump had begun to rise; while Rod's cheek-bone displayed an ugly bruise. Suddenly Marian spoke.
"Rod! Where is Empress! She will be frightened to death. We must take her into the yawl with us."
The young fireman turned.
"That