BATTLE ORCHARD

We crossed the lake from the south and about nightfall came to the small island called Battle Orchard, which is so named by the American settlers from the peach, apple and other trees planted there about 1740 (so many have told me) by Francois Belot, a French voyageur who had crossed from the Ouabache on his way from Quebec to Post Vincennes near the Ohio, and, finding the beaver plentiful, brought there his family.

And here the Indians laid siege to him; and here he valiantly defended the ford on the west side of the little isle for three days, killing many savages before they slew him.--_The Relation of Captain Abel Tucker_.

When I called at St. Agatha's the following morning the maid told me that Miss Pat was ill and that Miss Helen asked to be excused. I walked restlessly about the grounds until luncheon, thinking Helen might appear; and later determined to act on an impulse, with which I had trifled for several days, to seek the cottage on the Tippecanoe and satisfy myself of Holbrook's absence. A sharp shower had cooled the air, and I took the canoe for greater convenience in running into the shallow creek. I know nothing comparable to paddling as a lifter of the spirit, and with my arms and head bared and a cool breeze at my back I was soon skimming along as buoyant of heart as the responsive canoe beneath me. It was about four o'clock when I dipped my way into the farther lake, and as the water broadened before me at the little strait I saw the _Stiletto_ lying quietly at anchor off the eastern sh.o.r.e of Battle Orchard. I drew close to observe her the better, but there were no signs of life on board, and I paddled to the western side of the island.

It had already occurred to me that Holbrook might have another hiding-place than the cottage at Red Gate, where I had talked with him, and the island seemed a likely spot for it. I ran my canoe on the pebbly beach and climbed the bank. The island was covered with a tangle of oak and maple, with a few lordly sycamores towering above all. I followed a path that led through the underbrush and was at once shut in from the lake. The trail bore upward and I soon came upon a small clearing about an acre in extent that had once been tilled, but it was now preempted by weeds as high as my head. Beyond lay an ancient orchard, chiefly of apple-trees, and many h.o.a.ry veterans stood faithful to the brave hand that had marshaled them there. (Every orchard is linked to the Hesperides and every apple-waits for Atalanta--if not for Eve!) I stooped to pick a wild-flower and found an arrow-head lying beside it.

Fumbling the arrow-head in my fingers, I pa.s.sed onto a log cabin hidden away in the orchard. It was evidently old. The mud c.h.i.n.king had dropped from the logs in many places, and the stone chimney was held up by a sapling. I approached warily, remembering that if this were Holbrook's camp and he had gone away he had probably left the Italian to look after the yacht, which could be seen from the cabin door. I made a circuit of the cabin without seeing any signs of habitation, and was about to enter by the front door, when I heard the swish of branches in the underbrush to the east and dropped into the gra.s.s.

In a moment the Italian appeared, carrying a pair of oars over his shoulder. He had evidently just landed, as the blades were dripping.

He threw them down by the cabin door, came round to the western window, drew out the pin from an iron staple with which it was fastened, and thrust his head in. He was greeted with a howl and a loud demand of some sort, to which he replied in monosyllables, and after several minutes of this parley I caught a fragment of dialogue which seemed to be final in the subject under discussion.

"Let me out or it will be the worse for you; let me out, I say!"

"My boss he sometime come back; then you get out it, maybe."

With this deliverance, accomplished with some difficulty, the Italian turned away, going to the rear of the cabin for a pail with which he trudged off toward the lake. He had not closed the window and would undoubtedly return in a few minutes; so I waited until he was out of sight, then rose and crawled through the gra.s.s to the opening.

I looked in upon a bare room whose one door opened inward, and I did not for a moment account for the voice. Then something stirred in the farther corner, and I slowly made out the figure of a man tied hand and foot, lying on his back in a pile of gra.s.s and leaves.

"You ugly dago! you infernal pirate--" he bawled.

There was no mistaking that voice, and I now saw two legs clothed in white duck that belonged, I was sure, to Gillespie. My head and shoulders filled the window and so darkened the room that the prisoner thought his jailer had come back to torment him.

"Shut up, Gillespie," I muttered. "This is Donovan. That fellow will be back in a minute. What can I do for you?"

"What can you do for me?" he spluttered. "Oh, nothing, thanks! I wouldn't have you put yourself out for anything in the world. It's nice in here, and if that fellow kills me I'll miss a great deal of the poverty and hardship of this sinful world. But take your time, Irishman. Being tied by the legs like a calf is bully when you get used to it."

In turning over, the better to level his ironies at me, he had stirred up the dust in the straw so that he sneezed and coughed in a ridiculous fashion. As I did not move he added:

"You come in here and cut these strings and I'll tell you something nice some day."

I ran round to the front door, kicked it open and pa.s.sed through a square room that contained a fireplace, a camp bed, a trunk, and a table littered with old newspapers and a few books. I found Gillespie in the adjoining room, cut his thongs and helped him to his feet.

"Where is your boat?" he demanded.

"On the west side."

"Then we're in for a sc.r.a.p. That beggar goes down there for water; and he'll see that there's another man on the island. I had a gun when I came," he added mournfully.

He stamped his feet and threshed himself with his arms to restore circulation, then we went into the larger room, where he dug his own revolver from the trunk and pointed to a shot-gun in the corner.

"You'd better get that. This fellow has only a knife in his clothes.

He'll be back on the run when he sees your canoe." And we heard on the instant a man running toward the hut. I opened the breech of the shotgun to see whether it was loaded.

"Well, how do you want to handle the situation?" I asked.

He had his eye on the window and threw up his revolver and let go.

"Your pistol makes a howling noise, Gillespie. Please don't do that again. The smoke is disagreeable."

"You are quite right; and shooting through gla.s.s is always unfortunate!

there's bound to be a certain deflection before the bullet strikes.

You see if I were not a fool I should be a philosopher."

"It isn't nice here; we'd better bolt."

"I'm as hungry as a sea-serpent," he said, watching the window. "And I am quite desperate when I miss my tea."

I stood before the open door and he watched the window. We were both talking to cover our serious deliberations. Our plight was not so much a matter for jesting as we wished to make it appear to each other. I had experienced one struggle with the Italian at the houseboat on the Tippecanoe and was not anxious to get within reach of his knife again.

I did not know how he had captured Gillespie, or what mischief that amiable person had been engaged in, but inquiries touching this matter must wait.

"Are you ready? We don't want to shoot unless we have to. Now when I say go, jump for the open."

He limped a little from the cramping of his legs, but crossed over to me cheerfully enough. His white trousers were much the worse for contact with the cabin floor, and his shirt hung from his shoulders in ribbons.

"My stomach bids me haste; I'm going to eat a beefsteak two miles thick if I ever get back to New York. Are you waiting?"

We were about to spring through the outer door, when the door at the rear flew open with a bang and the sailor landed on me with one leap.

I went down with a thump and a crack of my head on the floor that sickened me. The gun was under my legs, and I remember that my dazed wits tried to devise means for getting hold of it. As my senses gradually came round I was aware of a great conflict about me and over me. Gillespie was engaged in a hand-to-hand struggle with the sailor and the cabin shook with their strife. The table went down with a crash, and Gillespie seemed to be having the best of it; then the Italian was afoot again, and the clenched swaying figures crashed against the trunk at the farther end of the room. And there they fought in silence, save for the sc.r.a.ping of their feet on the puncheon floor. I felt a slight nausea from the smash my head had got, but I began crawling across the floor toward the struggling men. It was growing dark, and they were knit together against the cabin wall like a single monstrous, swaying figure.

My stomach was giving a better account of itself, and I got to my knees and then to my feet. I was within a yard of the wavering shadow and could distinguish Gillespie by his white trousers as he wrenched free and flung the Italian away from him; and in that instant of freedom I heard the dull impact of Gillespie's fist in the brute's face. As the sailor went down I threw myself full length upon him; but for the moment at least he was out of business, and before I had satisfied myself that I had firmly grasped him, Gillespie, blowing hard, was kneeling beside me, with a rope in his hands.

"I think," he panted, "I should like champignon sauce with that steak, Donovan. And I should like my potatoes lyonnaise--the pungent onion is a spurring tonic. That will do, thanks, for the arms. Get off his legs and I'll see what I can do for them. You oughtn't to have cut that rope, my boy. You might have known that we were going to need it.

My father taught me in my youth never to cut a string. I want the pirate's knife for a souvenir. I kicked it out of his hand when you went b.u.mpety-b.u.mpety. How's your head?"

"I still have it. Let's get you outside and have a look at you. You think he didn't land with the knife?"

"Not a bit of it. He nearly squeezed the life out of me two or three times, though. What's that?"

"He gave me a jab with his sticker when he made that flying leap and I guess I'm scratched."

Gillespie opened my shirt and disclosed a scratch across my ribs downward from the left collar bone. The first jab had struck the bone, but the subsequent slash had left a nasty red line.

Gillespie swore softly in the strange phrases that he affected while he tended my injury. My head ached and the nausea came back occasionally.

I sat down in the gra.s.s while Gillespie found the sailor's pail and went to fetch water. He found some towels in the hut and between his droll chaffing and his deft ministrations I soon felt fit again.

"Well, what shall we do with the dago?" he asked, rubbing his arms and legs briskly.

"We ought to give him to the village constable."

"That's the law of it, but not the common sense. The lords of justice would demand to know all the whys and wherefores, and the Italian consul at Chicago would come down and make a fuss, and the man behind the dago would lay low and no good would come."

"When will Holbrook be back?--that's the question."

"Well, the market has been very feverish and my guess is that he won't last many days. He had a weakness for Industrials, as I remember, and they've been very groggy. What he wants is his million from Miss Pat, and he has his own chivalrous notions of collecting it."