Red Larson's Account

by Frederick R. Bechdolt

 

Red Larson's
Account

An Adventure Told
At Lighthouse Tom's

By
FREDERICK R. BECHDOLT.

Author of “Lighthouse Tom,” etc.

THE wind from the bay was sweeping rain before it. The Street of Foreign Parts was a dark passage-way for gusts. Sign-boards rattled; awning irons creaked. Yellow blurs showed where the street lamps stood. I made my way to Lighthouse Tom's saloon, certain that on such a night I would find him alone and talkative.

The old man was in his corner behind the bar, in the nook which served him for an office. Here was an old-style safe, with a padlock and a bar instead of a combination knob. Above it a letter-rack hung on the wall, half-filled with missives for sailor-men. Many of the envelopes were yellow from long waiting; they were postmarked with the names of far off ports. Beside the safe was a small desk, built for a man to stand in front of it. Lighthouse Tom had his back to these things, and was bending over the bar; he wore his spectacles, and he was studying his account book. He glanced up from it as I entered, and placed his finger on the spot which he had been scrutinizing.

“I was castin' up what I have lost,” said he.

To glance over those penciled pages, each one devoted to some old customer, was an occasional diversion of his. It was indeed like looking over some chart, whereon were marked the names of strange shores and foreign harbors; for Lighthouse Tom's outstanding bills extended all over the seven seas. But posting this odd ledger of his was an altogether unnecessary proceeding, as he never sent a statement to any man. And, as for losses, he had never hinted at the possibility of bad debts. His statement promised well for a story. To start him, I remarked something to the effect that I thought his customers were honest.

He pushed back his iron rimmed spectacles into his silver hair, reached back of him for a certain bottle with a swelling in its neck, and squared away.

“Ye read about the Star of Austria?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“They've picked up wreckage from her on the west coast of Vancouver Island. 'Tis a ship's graveyard, that shore. Ye see the currents sets in there; and there's places where the timbers stands piled up ten foot high. I figure the Star of Austria must have foundered out to sea some time last month. There's a hundred dollars on the book here, went down with her. Let me see—let me see.”

He peered at the thumb-worn account book, turning the pages, muttering names: “Pet Olson, Three Fingered George, Manuel, Boots Leary.” He picked out a half-dozen who had drunk and roistered here, and had departed from his doors in his debt. “Good men!” said he and sighed. “Lord love ye, lad, I had it give and take with them over this here bar, not six months ago. That's the way it goes when ye're a sailor-man. Ye're here to-day, and Davy Jones to-morrow.” He looked up at me. “Honest? Sure my customers is honest. Them that goes on my book is right; ye can lay to that. I look a man between the eyes before I give him trust fer drinks. But many's the dollar I've lost with craft that sailed from this here port and never come back agin. Ye mind the Celia Thurston? Three hundred dollars went with her off Flattery. They tell me the pumps was a-going when she struck and the crew was a-singin' 'Homeward Bound.' A wild night, and a nest of rocks—only one boatload got ashore!' He sighed again, as old men do when they are living in memories or visions, and he turned the pages absent-mindedly. “When they come to port, the money comes. And when they do not come, Davy Jones, he does the collectin.' ”

It was not the first time I had questioned him about his account book, but other discussions had been confined to a single subject. Thumbing the leaves now, he stopped suddenly, looked up and smiled at me. He had come to the page whose history I had, by means of argument, endeavored to draw from him. At the bottom of this page the account was footed up. It read:

Red Larson, Bal, $11.50.

“Why don't you mark him off, as you did these others to-night?” I asked.

Lighthouse Tom shook his head, “This is different,” said he. “No man knows how it was with him. Red Larson may be as well as me and you this minute.”

“Seven years is a long time,” I argued.

“No matter,” he said. “I'll wait and see.”

This was aggravating. The Star of Austria had given me some hope tor a long yarn; that hope had vanished. Red Larson, being an old subject, had aroused in me an eagerness that time had not succeeded in quenching. I knew nothing of the man himself; nor did I know how he had come to vanish. I only knew that page in the thumb-worn book, with its footing:

Red Larson, Bal. $11.50.

Seven years old! And, in seven years, the law calls a man dead. Lighthouse Tom had refused to abide by any such rule. But our arguments, on various occasions, had been abstract. My curiosity had been awakened on several quiet evenings; and always, when I approached satisfaction, something had happened to interrupt us two, or Lighthouse Tom had said obstinately: “I'll wait and see.”

While I was concealing my disappointment, a gust from the city front made the windows rattle; there followed a hiss of rain against the glass. The old man glanced at the painted panes.

“A bad night at sea,” said he. “Well, we're in port. Let's take it snug.” He picked up the bottle with the swelling in its neck, and got a pair of long glasses from the shelf. I followed him to a table in the rear of the room. The stove, with its old copper hot-water-heater, was conveniently near. While I settled myself in a chair, Lighthouse Tom made another trip after spoons, lemon, sugar and spice.

“Now,” said he cheerfully, “let her blow.”

As if in sympathy with the sentiment, the gray parrot on his perch hard by withdrew his head from beneath his wing and chanted hoarsely:

“Blow, boys, blow!'

Immediately he tucked his head back again and lapsed into slumber. Lighthouse Tom looked at him with a curious expression, and paused in the act of reaching for the hot water tap.

“Now I call that queer,” said he, and filled the glasses. He set them down and began stirring his own slowly. “That there bird is always a-calling me on what I am a-thinkin'. He's done it many a time.”

I stirred my glass busily, thankful to the parrot, too wise to try and lead Lighthouse Tom on. The old man was humming a stanza of the chantey:

And it's blow, my boys, for I love to hear you.
Blow, boys, blow!
I love to hear you roll it, Bullies.
Blow my bully boys, blow!

His voice grew louder as he went along and he roared the last line in a good, hearty bass.

“Ye see, lad,” said he, smiling, “it put me in mind of what we was a-talking about—Red Larson. Barring Black Scotty, he was the best chantey man I ever knew, and 'Blow Boys' was his stronghold. I was a-thinkin' of him ag'in, when I got to talkin' of the weather and the bird woke up.”

“Tell me,” said I, “what's the reason you don't count him dead.”

“No particular reason that I can put a name to,” said Lighthouse Tom. “I've said as much before.”

“He was a deep-sea sailor?” I asked, still hoping.

“He was,” said Lighthouse Tom, “a deep-sea sailor; then a fisherman. A good singer! He had a voice in his chist, he had. I liked him. After all, I don't know but what mebbe 'tis that keeps me from scratchin' off his name. And then, the way he went away!”

He swallowed his liquor and brewed another glassful. He sat down, gazing at the tumbler. I knew then that he was off.

“Red Larson spent his money over this here bar. He blowed it, went to sea, come back, paid me, and run a score ag'in. That was the way of it with him and me. A big, red-headed chunk of a man—wild in port and stiddy at sea! And he was that careful to settle up first thing whenever he come back. Ye get me?

“He went to cod fishing; then he went out with the salmon-packer's fleet. He was a net fisher and got good wages fer the summer. The last time I laid eyes on him he was a-singin' 'Blow Boys,' when they come and dragged him out to get him down to his ship. When the crew come back in the fall they told me all they knowed. I will give it to ye as they give it to me.

“The cannery was up Cross Sound way. From the buildings ye could look out toward the open sea, through two or three little islands. No settlement was near. The only craft that ever passed was Siwash canoes on their way from Sitka or up around Yakutat. Red Larson and the other net men used to go out every day in their dories after the fish and come back every arternoon when they got their catch. At night they would yarn in their bunk-house.

“Along in June, when the daylight lasted right around the clock, Red Larson left the gang in the bunk-house one evenin'. He did not come back until all hands was asleep. No one took any particular thought about it; and he said no word about it. He did the same thing ag'in. And then the third time.

“This last time, one of the byes happened to be outside; and he seen Red Larson go down to the beach and put out in a dory. He watched him row away, down Cross Sound. And that was the last any man seen of him.

“When Red Larson didn't show up next marnin', there was some talk. When he kept away, they begun to figure that something must be wrong. One day two net-men found his dory. It was beached on one of them little islands that faces out ag'in the open sea. It had the oars in the rowlocks and was drawed up way beyond reach of the tide. No sign of Red Larson in ut.

“The net-men looked around and about the island—'twas little mor'n a rock with scrub brush and some storm-blowed old spruces. There was some tracks, but that was all. It looked like Red Larson had landed there and been blowed away in the winds.

“Well, the summer went by and the men fished fer the salmon, and they heard no word from him. And the Indians down to Hoonah knew nothing of him. He had rowed out into Cross Sound; they had found his empty dory, beached on the island. That was all.

“They told me when they come back in the fall. I do not know any more about it. And neither does any man that ever come into this port. Seven years ago! Most people has fergot about it. And still ye cannot tell. Things happen different on salt water than they do on land; there is no hard and fast rule. I'm a-keepin' that account open.”

Lighthouse Tom paused and looked across the table at me. “So that was it,” I said.

“That was the way of it,” said he. “Now ye understand as much as any man.”

We sipped from our glasses in silence. The more I thought, the more it seemed to me that Lighthouse Tom, in keeping that account open, was reckoning on the dead. Seven years! And yet, at the same time, I could not help but catch something of his belief—a little shred of that belief. I had heard strange stories of the sea from his lips. He seemed to read my thoughts.

“Ye are a landsman,” said he. “Ye do not know. But ye have heard yarns in this here place before, a-many yarns, and some of them was main strange. Why this here book of mine”—he waved his hand toward the bar where the worn ledger reposed—“has carried a many a man. And money has come back to me sometimes after years has gone by. From far ports, too—Singapore, Vladivostock, Port Said, Antwerp. And onct a Kanaka fetched me four bits from Boots Leary, him that went down with the Star of Austria; Leary had given him the money up in the Arctic, ice bound. Yes, sir! The sea is big.”

He rose to replenish the fire. The equinoctial storm lashed the building front with wet fury. In the middle of the blast, the door opened. A little man shot in. He struggled to close the door. I noticed that he was badly bent; and when he faced about I saw that his hair was as white as Lighthouse Tom's. His features had weathered to the color of mahogany—a face all gnarled from winter storms. But the eyes were as bright as any boy's.

Lighthouse Tom looked up. “Windy Davis!” he exclaimed

He did not speak loudly. It was in a matter-of-fact tone. But his voice showed that the sudden entrance of this man was to his mind a strange occurrence. A remarkable surprise you would say, to one accustomed to unusual happenings. “Aye,” said the little man composedly, “that's me. How are ye, Lighthouse Tom? Snug enough, I would say.”

“Now what d'ye say to that?” Lighthouse Tom stood, still stooping, with the poker in his hand. “The last I heard, ye was out Dutch Harbor way, and was a-goin' to winter at one of the fishing stations. Did this gale blow ye down?” He laughed and waved his hand toward the table. “Come jine us.”

Windy Davis removed his battered old sou'wester and swept it through the air to throw off the accumulated moisture. His white hair was only a fringe around a bald dome of a head. He glanced sharply at me. “Business first,” said he. “I've got something for ye, ye old shark.”

“Oho,” Lighthouse Tom grinned, “That would be money. Watch me come!” He made elaborate pretense of hurrying.

“Watch him, indeed!” Windy Davis deigned to address me now. “He'd swim over to Oakland estuary fer a two-bit piece, he would.” His tone changed to a sort of gruff complaint as he drew his hand from his pocket and placed a little packet on the bar, “There!” he growled. “I nigh to got killed a-gettin' that fer ye.”

Lighthouse Tom was behind the bar now. He picked up the small packet and looked at it closely. The two men spoke in low tones. Then Lighthouse Tom swore aloud and called over to me, with triumph in his voice.

“Now what was we two a-yarning about five minutes gone?” he demanded.

“Red Larson,” said I.

“Ye see?' He turned to Windy Davis. “And here ye blow in the door. Where is Red Larson, anyhow? And how come ye to be here?”

“That's a long yarn,” said Windy Davis.

“I knowed he was not dead.” Lighthouse Tom addressed neither of us; he was voicing his conviction to himself, the better to appreciate its vindication. He reached across the bar and touched the other on the shoulder, crying: “Come, man! Fetch along a chair. I want ye should tell the two of us, so he will see how it is, himself.” He pointed to me.

Windy Davis showed a certain eagerness now. Before he had placed his chair, he began talking; he was the narrator, imbued with the importance of his tale, anxious to startle his auditors by the surprise which he held for them. “And where,” said he, “do ye think he is?”

“I knowed he was not dead,” repeated Lighthouse Tom. He had his jack-knife in his hand, cutting the strings that bound the packet. The enclosure was canvas, all darkened from long handling. He unfolded the cloth; as Windy Davis was sitting down, a stream of golden nuggets ran forth upon the table. Some of them were as large as two peas. The lamp-light glinted dully over them. All three of us stared. “Hell!” cried Lighthouse Tom.

“Wot an old skin he is,” growled Windy Davis. “Watch him!” He winked elaborately at me. “Now listen! This is a yarn!”

“Hold fast!” Lighthouse Tom arose and started for the bar. “Wait a bit,” he said over his shoulder. He came back with his ledger in his hand. He laid the book on the table. Windy Davis was busying himself, filling a glass. At length, after some turning of pages, Lighthouse Tom came to Red Larson's account.

“Now!” He took his pencil and wrote slowly, across the bottom of the page, the one word, “Paid.”

When he had done, he looked up at the two of us. “That's ship-shape,” he said gravely.

“I'll lay he overpaid ye at that,” said Windy Davis.

“I'll give him the overweight when he comes back to port,” said Lighthouse Tom.

The other shook his bald head. “He'll never come,” he muttered.

“He'll never come!” Lighthouse Tom repeated the words incredulously. “Wot is this ye're a-givin' us? Where is Red Larson? Spin, man!”

“Lord love ye, I've been a-trying to get to it these five minutes, and ye would not have ut. Give me way now. Didn't I tell ye I nigh to got killed a-gettin' yer money fer ye? To get the lay o' this, ye must let me begin at the beginning. Stand by now!”

We settled down in our chairs. The rain rattled at the windows. Windy Davis, his sou'wester on the floor beside him, stirred the liquor in his glass; his gnarled, mahogany-colored face turned first to one of us, then to the other, as he prefaced his story with advertisement of its dramatic features.

“Yes, sir! It was the closest call I ever had. I have been overboard when the sea was runnin' high, and all the like o' that. But this scared me. I was within—well, put it half an inch and ye're outside of it—within a half an inch of having a knife between the short ribs. And what is more, I've lost a winter's wages.”

He stopped long enough to light a black clay pipe. Then—“I'm off now! I shipped north with the halibut fleet last spring from Puget Sound—on the Alice Johnson, a new schooner. I call her too lofty, but she can sail some. I was to spend this comin' winter at the west'ard station, near Dutch Harbor.

“We had a good summer but the luck come late. We'd left Bering and was down in the Gulf of Alaska last month. The catch come fast then. Come the last day and the skipper ready to make sail fer Dutch Harbor the next marnin,' to put me ashore before going back to port; and then I up and light-housed.”

Lighthouse Tom turned to me. “That's the way I got my name,” said he. “He lost his bearings and stayed out all night in his dory.”

“A blow that come on sudden,” said Windy Davis, as one who justifies his mishap as being due to bad luck and not bad management. “I was pretty far out; and when the first squall took me, the schooner's topmast went out o' sight in less time than it takes to tell. Wind and sleet and rain and then more wind. Blowin' the tops off the swells! I had to heave my catch overboard to keep from bein' swamped. Black as the inside of a cow that night! And cold! My bones was froze inside of me. Come next mornin' and I was still busy a-keepin' her head to the sea. No sign of the Alice Johnson anywheres. I had some hope of catchin' sight of the Lady May; she was somewheres thereabouts. But all I see was dirty water and whitecaps.

“Well, to make a long story short, I drifted all the night; and in the marnin' I come in sight of the coast. As near as I could make reckonin,' my ship was a matter of fifty mile away, now. Nasty coast too! A line o' rocks and surf a-chawin' at them! Drown in the breakers or starve to death out here— I couldn't just make up my mind which to do. At last I made out a break in the shore-line that ort to be a harbor mouth. The clouds lifted, and there up to the no'thard, was old Fairweather a-stickin' above the mountains, all white with fresh snow. I knowed then that this here bay should be Groundhog Harbor. Ye may have seen it on the chart; small schooners can make it at slack water; there's a bar outside and the tide runs through a long passage like a bore.

“By good luck it was a-comin' slack water when I stood by off the mouth. I made the bar with the dory about half full of water and headed on in. A three mile passage, narrer as a street, between two high mountains! Then it opened out into as nice a bay as ye ever clapped eyes on. I rowed ashore and beached my dory.

“The first thing I noticed, I got a whiff of wood smoke. I climbed up on a little ridge of rocks to see where it would be a-comin' from. The timber come down pretty clost to the water. There, dead ahead a matter of a hundred yards, was a Siwash cabin with two big totem poles in front of it. While I was a-looking at it, I heard a noise, and a man come out of the trees to my left, a-makin' towards me.

“It was Red Larson.”

Windy Davis paused, ostensibly to quench his thirst. He looked from one to the other of us before he drank. His brown face bore the satisfaction of the artist whose created effect is meeting appreciation. He smacked his lips.

“Yes, sir! Red Larson and no other! The minute I clapped my eyes on him I knowed him. He was dressed like a Siwash—moccasins, skin parka, and all. His hair was long; his beard come to his chist, as red as fire. I was struck in a heap, and I sort of opened my mouth to hail him by name, when he says, 'Helloa, Windy,' as quiet as ye please. And then, says he, 'Wot blowed you here?'

“Now I was famished and I hadn't time to be yarning with any man. I did not even care how he come to be there, just then. So I told him first of all that I was in a hard way and wanted a bite to eat, and that quick.

“He looked me over like fer a second or two, and then, 'Why sure,' says he. 'Come to my house, man.'

“For all that I was hungry as a shark, and cold and weak, and busier a-takin' thought of grub and a fire than anything else, I could not help but see something queer in the way he talked—like a man with only the price of one drink left when an old mate comes and stands beside him in front of the bar. That's as near as I can come to it.

“Anyhow, we two shook hands and we started fer the cabin. I made out then to tell him how I had been light-housed. And the worst of it was, the skipper must have headed fer Dutch Harbor now and I was out a winter's wages. He did not look to be a-listening to that. 'But,' says he, of a sudden like, as if he had just thought of it, 'I've something I want ye to do fer me.'

“That made me kind of sore at him right there. But I said nothin'. Fer just then, as we was a-comin' up to the cabin, between the two totem poles that was a-makin' faces out in front, the door opened and a woman stepped out.

“She was a Siwash. But she was a fine figure of a woman. I would say that she was as fine a figure of a woman as I ever laid eyes on. Past twenty, but she had not growed fat like Siwash women does. She was straight as a ship's mast and just round enough. A fine, upstanding woman! She seen me and she looked all struck in a heap—not scared but regularly down and out. Then I got out of them black eyes of hern, what made me know that if ever a man was not welcome, I was that man.

“Red Larson passed some words with her in her own tongue—not Chinook, but straight Siwash; it sounded funny, a-comin' from down in a white man's throat. She talked back to him; and it was ugly, whatever she said. He scowled and more of that Siwash come a-chokin' out from him. Then she bowed her head and went back inside. We followed her.

“Well, she got me meat and drink. It was a regular Siwash cabin—fire in the middle, and smoke a-goin' out through a hole in the roof; the walls were all hung round with paddles and fish-lines and halibut hooks; there was a Winchester rifle in one corner—dried salmon overhead where the smoke would get to them—dirt floor with three or four big bearskins. There was a wide bunk acrost from me on the other side, and on it was an eider robe, the finest ye ever see. A dog or two was snoozing by the fire—that is to say, when they had done a-growlin' about my shins.

“And there was a kid.”

Again Windy Davis paused to drink and let this information sink in. Lighthouse Tom had glanced up quickly at those last words. He got up now to replenish the fire. Listening to the storm outside, I watched his face; it was thoughtful as he bent over the coal box with the little shovel.

“Let me tell ye about that kid,” said Windy Davis. “He was sure a cross between Red Larson and that woman. I would say he was a matter of four years old. I told ye the woman was good to look at; and ye remember Red Larson: big as a horse and built from the ground up. Well that there boy was as fine as the two of them together. A good breed, all right, they had made. I give him my jack-knife before his mother had the fish hot fer me. It got me the only pleasant look she handed me.

“She had cooked the salmon white man's style all right; and there was some mountain goat meat, and high bush cranberries, fixed up without any seal grease or other of them Siwash trimmings. I eat until I could not put more inside of me—until I could hardly wiggle. It was good. And all the time I eat, Red Larson said no word to me. When I had done, I fished out my tobacco and I whittled off a smoke. It come to me that he might not have any and I offered him a fill. He showed me a plug of 'T & B.' 'I buy from Sitka every year,' says he.

“'How come it then, if ye go to Sitka, that none of us ever got word from ye?' says I.

“'I do not go,' says he. 'I send by Siwashes.'

“It looked queer, but I was a-gettin' sleepy. I told him I wanted to lay down. And he says: 'I've somethin' I want ye should do. I said as much a while ago. We'll fix it up now.'

“That made me hot, and I give it to him straight, how he did not seem to give a damn at seein' an old mate, but took thought only of what he wanted done fer him. He did not answer me. He had a funny look on his face, and he kept eyeing the woman. He went over to his bunk and got this here package that I just handed ye, Lighthouse Tom. 'Twas wrapped up, then; and I never really knowed what was in it. He told me that he wanted I should take that to ye; it was what he owed ye—all that he owed any man. He said the thought of it had bothered him sometimes.

“I stuck it in my pocket. I was tired as a run-out dog. So he got me bearskins and I made a shake-down by the fire. I was off in a minute or two. The last I mind of was the kid a-playing with my jack-knife and a-sayin,' 'Cultus potlatch' to himself. That was what I had told him when I give it to him.

“I do not know how long I slept. It must have been a long time and I would say it was somwheres about midnight when all of a sudden I opened my eyes, as wide awake as ever I was in all my life. Broad, wide awake—and scared. Men, I was in fear.”

Windy Davis lifted his hand and it was plain—the repression in the long gesture and the tenseness in his old, brown face showed it—that he was sincere in this statement.

“I felt the shivers a-crawlin' up my back. I did not know why. I seen the fire; it was died down to coals and a little wisp of smoke was curling up to the hole in the roof. Then I sensed something a-moving clost by me. I started to lift my head to see what that might be. The light from the coals was a-shinin' red on a long knife-blade; and the knife-blade was streaking for my ribs.

“I jumped, the way a fish jumps out of the water. The knife plunked into the dirt floor where I had laid—so hard that the noise waked up Red Larson in the bed acrost the cabin. He sung out, 'What's that!'

“As I come down where I had flung myself, and heard him sing out, I seen the fist a-gripping the handle. And then I seen Red Larson's woman, on her knees, a-crouching like a big she-cat. Her eyes was blazing, red like the light on the blade. I let out a yell, and I scrambled to my feet.

“She give me one look; and she made a funny noise like she was a-crying. Then she turned from me and started to run away. Red Larson was out of his bed now, and after her. I seen him grab her wrist and wrastle with her to get the knife away.

“He said something to her in Siwash, ugly enough, at that. She hung her head and she seemed to go all limp in his arms. Then she walked over to the bed, like a man that is very drunk. She throwed herself face down on it, and I could hear her crying like a kid.

“Red Larson come over to me. 'Did she get ye?' says he, just as quiet as if there was nothing out of the way in having your wife try and murder your friends.

“'She did not,' says I, good and mad now.

“'It will be all right now,' says he as cool as may be. 'I'll look to her. I'm sorry, Windy. Go back to sleep. In the mornin' I'll have a talk with ye.'

“What was the use of talking to a man like that? I told myself he would be crazy; and laid down ag'in without another word. But I did not go to sleep ag'in, ye can lay to that. I watched that bed of theirn. They had some words over there—them two. And long after Red Larson was a-snoring, I could hear the woman crying to herself.

“Well, it took a long time fer morning to come, but it did in the end. I was up with daylight, and a-making for the door. I had it in mind to quit the place then and there, even if I had to starve. I could not bear the sight of the cabin, and as for Red Larson, I hated to look him in the eye. A mate like he used to be, a roaring good mate! And now to find him in such a mess as this here! It turned me sick.

“He heard me a-going acrost the room and hailed me. I told him over my shoulder that I was a-quitting him and his. He jumped up and made after me and grabbed me by the shoulder. I could see that the man was troubled, now. So I stayed and eat my breakfast. And the woman was tame enough. She would not cast an eye my way; and I give ye my word, I did not like to look too much at her.

“After breakfast, Red Larson and I went down to the beach and he told me the whole of it. It was easy enough when ye knowed it.”

Again Windy Davis paused—this time to drain his glass. The wind had lulled outside; the rain was filling all the air with a muffled roar. Lighthouse Tom sat, one elbow on the table, his chin on his fist, staring straight before him as if he saw somewhere ahead the solution of the problem and were trying to overtake it even now. Windy Davis set down his glass and his cheeks wrinkled in a smile.

“Ve see, when Red Larson left the cannery at Cross Sound that night, seven years ago, he went to meet this woman. She was with a Siwash outfit on their way back from Juneau to Yakutat in a war canoe. They was camped there on the island where the net-men found his dory arterwards. Ye remember that, Lighthouse Tom?

“Well, he went away with her that night—along with the Siwashes. He wanted her; she wanted him. But she knowed white men. And, though she was all for Red Larson, she had too much sense to let him go back to his own kind. She put it up to him straight. Either go away with her, or leave her. No two ways about it. He could have her for his klootchman.

“He was crazy fer her. So he made his ch'ice. He went.

“That summer she got him to come to this cabin on Groundhog Harbor. They never left the place. And she was happy, always. Happy and a good woman to him. Only one thing ever come up between them. She was jealous—so jealous that it made her like a tiger-cat.

“Not of women! There was none, only when some Siwashes would camp in passing. She was afraid of his own kind. He never darst to talk to her of the ports to the south'ard, or of white men.

“And she lived in a fright of the day when some white men would cross their course. She told him so. She was afraid he would go back to them yet. He had one fight with her. It was when he wanted to go to Sitka the first year they was together. She said that if he did, he never would come back.

“She kept him at Groundhog Harbor. No schooners ever comes in there. He never seen a white face. The baby was born there. And things was going peaceful. And then I blowed along. Ye understand? I did, when he had told me. And after he had done talking, neither one of us said a word fer a long time. Then I up and asked him a question that was on my mind.

“'Red Larson,' says I, 'are ye satisfied?'

“He looked at me fer a minute and he made no answer. The little boy was a hanging around our heels. He come clost to his father; and Red Larson put down his hand on the boy's head. Then, says he, short and sure: 'Yes.'

“We talked a little more and then he come to that knife business. He started to make explanations, to square the woman for what she had done. There was no need fer that. I understood; and I told him so.

“'Meanin' naught agin ye,' says he. 'It was because ye are a white man.'

“I told him it was all right. But I knowed that I did not want to stay any longer. And when I told him that, he did not make any argument agin it. By good luck, a Siwash outfit was camped up the bay; they was on their way to Juneau. I went with them that arternoon. I got passage to Seattle, and I found the Alice Johnson in port. They paid me my summer's wages and I come here on a lumber carrier.”

The little man was silent for a moment. Then he raised his head. “The last I seen of Red Larson, he was standin' with his woman and his kid in the cabin door, with the black woods behind the place and the totem poles in front. The kid hollered after me and waved his hand. The other two said nothin'.”

Windy Davis stopped talking. The three of us sat, busy with our thoughts. I was the first to speak. The idea bothered me; the white man alone there at Groundhog Harbor with a savage woman, cut off from his own race. When I had voiced it, the two old men shook their heads.

“After all,” said Lighthouse Tom, “he has got to middle age, Red Larson has. And now he has his woman and his boy—and his cabin. What more?”

“Aye,” said Windy Davis. “What more?”