"Let's see! He says to me--if I can remember it right-he says, says he, 'Take my best respects and '--let's see--yes, 'take my best respects and love to your Polly--'"

"Father! Please don't fib."

"It's just as I remember it, dear. 'Especial,' he says. I remember that!

'Especial,' he says. And he looked mighty sad, dear, mighty sad." He put his arm about her. "There are a lot of sad things in this world for everybody, Polly. Sometimes things get so blamed mixed up that I feel like going off and climbing a tree!"

XV - THE RULES OF THE ROAD

Now the _Dreadnought's_ a-sailing the Atlantic so wide, Where the high, roaring seas roll along her black side.

Her sailors like lions walk the deck to and fro, She's the Liverpool packet--O Lord let her go!

--Song of the Flash Packet.

On a day in early August the _Nequa.s.set_ came walloping laboriously up-coast through a dungeon fog, steel rails her dragging burden, caution her watchword.

The needle of her indicator marked "Half speed," and it really meant half speed. Captain Zoradus Wa.s.s made scripture of the rules laid down by the Department of Commerce and Labor. There was no tricky slipping-over under his sway--no finger-at-nose connivance between the pilot-house and the chief engineer's grille platform. No, Captain Wa.s.s was not that kind of a man, though the fog had held in front of him two days, vapor thick as feathers in a tick, and he had averaged not much over six nautical miles an hour, and was bitterly aware that the rate of freight on steel rails was sixty-five cents a ton.

"And as I've been telling you, at sixty-five cents there's about as much profit as there would be in swapping hard dollars from one hand to the other and depending on what silver you can rub off," said Captain Wa.s.s to First-mate Mayo.

The captain was holding the k.n.o.b of the whistle-pull In constant clutch.

Regularly every minute _Nequa.s.set's_ prolonged blast sounded, strictly according to the rules of the road.

Her voice started with a complaining squawk, was full toned for a few moments, then trailed off into more querulousness; the timbre of that tone seemed to fit with Captain Wa.s.s's mood.

"It's tough times when a cargo-carrier has to figger so fine that she can lose profit on account of what the men eat," he went on. "If you're two days late, minding rules in a fog, owners ask what the tophet's the matter with you! This kind of business don't need steamboat men any longer; it calls for boarding-house keepers who can cut sirloin steak off'n a critter clear to the horn, and who are handy in turning sharp corners on left-overs. I'll buy a book of cooking receets and try to turn in dividends."

The captain was broad-bowed, like the _Nequa.s.set_, he sagged on short legs as if he carried a cargo fully as heavy as steel rails, his white whiskers streamed away from his cut.w.a.ter nose like the froth kicked up by the old freighter's forefoot. He chewed slowly, conscientiously and continuously on tobacco which bulged in his cheek; his jaws, moving as steadily as a pendulum swings, seemed to set the time for the isochronal whistle-blast. Sixty ruminating jaw-wags, then he spat into the fog, then the blast--correct to the clock's tide!

The windows of the pilot-house were dropped into their casings, so that all sounds might be admitted; the wet breeze beaded the skipper's whiskers and dampened the mate's crisp hair. While the mate leaned from a window, ear c.o.c.ked for signals, the captain gave him more of the critical inspection in which he had been indulging when occasion served.

Furthermore, Captain Wa.s.s went on pecking around the edges of a topic which he had been attacking from time to time with clumsy attempt at artful inquisition.

"As bad as it is on a freighter, I reckon you ain't sorry you're off that yacht, son?"

"I'm not sorry, sir."

"From what you told me, the owner was around meddling all the time."

"I don't remember that I ever said so, sir."

"Oh, I thought you did," grunted Captain Wa.s.s, and he covered his momentary check by sounding the whistle.

"Now that you are back in the steamboat business, of course you're a steamboat man. Have the interests of your owners at heart," he resumed.

"Certainly, sir."

"It would be a lot of help to the regular steamboat men--the good old stand-bys--if they could get some kind of a line on what them Wall Street cusses are gunning through with Marston leading 'em--or, at leastways, he's supposed to be leading. He hides away in the middle of the web and lets the other spiders run and fetch. But it's Marston's scheme, you can bet on that! What do you think?"

"I haven't thought anything about it, Captain Wa.s.s." "But how could you help thinking, catching a word here and a word there, aboard that yacht?"

"I never listened--I never heard anything."

"But he had them other spiders aboard--seen 'em myself through my spy-gla.s.s when you pa.s.sed us one day in June."

"I suppose they talked together aft, but my duty was forward, sir."

"It's too bad you didn't have a flea put into your ear about getting a line on Marston's scheme, whatever it is. You could have helped the real boys in this game!"

Mayo did not reply.

Captain Wa.s.s showed a resolve to quit pecking at the edges and make a dab at the center of the subject. He pulled the whistle, released the k.n.o.b, and turned back to the window, setting his elbows on the casing.

"Son, you ain't in love with that pirate Marston, are you?"

"No, sir!" replied the young man, with bitterness that could not be doubted.

"Well, how about your being in love with his daughter?" The caustic humor in the old skipper's tones robbed the question of some of its brutal bluntness, and Mayo was accustomed to Captain Wa.s.s's brand of humor. The young man did not turn his head for a few moments; he continued to look into the fog as if intent on his duty; he was trying to get command of himself, fully aware that resentment would not work in the case of Zoradus Wa.s.s. When Mayo did face the skipper, the latter was discomposed in his turn, for Mayo showed his even teeth in a cordial smile.

"Do you think I have been trying the chauffeur trick in order to catch an heiress, sir?"

"Well, there's quite a gab-wireless operating along-coast and sailors don't always keep their yawp closed after they have taken a man's money to keep still," stated Captain Wa.s.s, pointedly. "I wouldn't blame you for grabbing in. You're good-looking enough to do what others have done in like cases."

"Thank you, sir. What's the rest of the joke?"

"I never joke," retorted the skipper, turning and pulling the whistle-cord. _Nequa.s.set's_ squall rose and died down in her brazen throat. "Her name is Alma?" he prodded. "Something of a clipper. If Marston ever makes you general manager, put me into a better job than this, will you?"

"I will, sir!"

The skipper gave his mate a disgusted stare. "You're a devil of a man to keep up a conversation with!" He spat against the wall of the fog and again let loose the freighter's hoa.r.s.e lament.

From somewhere, ahead, a horn wailed, dividing its call into two blasts.

"Port tack and headed acrost us," snarled the master, after a sniff at the air and a squint at the sluggish ripple.

"Why ain't the infernal fool anch.o.r.ed, instead of drifting around underfoot? How does he bear, Mr. Mayo?" He was now back to pilot-house formality with his mate.

"Two points and a half, starboard bow, sir. And there's another chap giving one horn in about the same direction."

"Another drifter--not wind enough for 'em to know what tack they're really on. Well, there's always Article Twenty-seven to fall back on,"

grumbled the skipper. He quoted sarcastically in the tone in which that rule is mouthed so often in pilot-houses along coast: '"Due regard shall be had to all dangers of navigation and collision, and to any special circ.u.mstances which may render a departure from the above rules necessary, and so forth and et cetry. Meaning, thank the Lord, that a steamer can always run away from a gad-slammed schooner, even at half speed. Hope if it ever comes to a showdown the secretary of the bureau of commerce will agree with me. Ease her off to starboard, Mr. Mayo, till we bring 'em abeam."

The mate gave a quick glance at the compa.s.s. "East by nothe, Jack," he commanded.

"East by nothe, sir," repeated the quartermaster in mechanical tones, spinning the big wheel to the left.

It was evident that the _Nequa.s.set_ had considerable company on the sea that day. A little abaft her beam a tugboat was blowing one long and two short, indicating her tow. She had been their "chum" for some time, and Mayo had occasionally taken her bearings by sound and compa.s.s and knew that the freighter was slowly forging ahead. He figured, listening again to the horns, that the Nequa.s.set was headed to clear all.