Sealed Orders

by Frederick R. Bechdolt

 

SEALED ORDERS

An Adventure of
Lighthouse Tom

By FREDERICK R. BECHDOLT.

Author of “Before Michael Came,” etc.

LIGHTHOUSE TOM was sitting, this warm afternoon, in front of his dingy saloon. Really it is no saloon, but a sailor's tavern. He leaned back in his chair, gigantic, white haired. His face had that placidity which comes after a life of struggles. He looked down the Street of Foreign Parts and sighed.

“To think,” said he, “that all this will go for railroad tracks.”

I asked him what he meant, and he told me how the railroad company had bought up the whole neighborhood. “Things change,” said he, “but, arter all, they do not change more than a man does. I mind when I opened my place. I was young then; now I am old and ready to quit. It's been smooth sailing with me for a long time. But when the luck first come, I needed luck.”

I had often wondered how, in those days of distant youth, he had managed to break the shackles of poverty. With proper tact, I led the conversation until, anticipating my own words, he said:

“I never told ye how I got my start, did I? It was the strangest v'yge I ever had in all my years at sea. And, after all, it was not really a v'yge at all. When I come back from being shanghaied on a whaler, and found the Lass a-waiting for me with our first, a girl, I buckled down to hard work ashore. I cracked my back, swinging a number twelve scoop at the coal bunkers.

“The next year Michael come to us, as fine a bye as ever woman bore. We two was happy. Young we was! And, for all we had to fight agin head winds, we shut our teeth and stood up to it alongside of each other. Yes, we was happy.

“But there was that, that made us set up nights a-figuring on what laid ahead. The work was none too plenty. There was hard luck—a bit of sickness, and this and that. We used to cast about sometimes to see however we could buy proper meat and drink and clothes for the babies. This was not like the old days, when I was the bully of whatever port I happened to be in, a-blowing in my money and fighting any man that crossed me, and only myself to do for.

“It was like being in a hole and the hole a growing deeper. We could not get ahead. Something was always putting us back again. Then we got to wishing, the way man and wife will lay out a course where none is showing, that we could just get a start. Ye understand? A stake, to put us on our own feet, so that I would not have to be a-waiting for work when there was none; so that we would have some snug little business and know that the money was a-coming in.

“If only we had a thousand dollars!” Many's the evening, setting by the kitchen stove, that one of us would say them words to the other. Then this thing happened that I am a-telling ye about.

“One morning, went down to the bunkers, knowing there would be nothing there, for no collier was due in ort. I stood there a bit, a-yarning with one of the hatch bosses; and the hatch boss says to me, 'Here is a man has been looking fer ye.'

“The man come up alongside of us. 'Can ye tell me,' says he, 'where I can find a party they call Lighthouse Tom?'

“'That's my name,' says I.

“He was a little man, and he wore good clothes—a lean-faced little man; and from the way he dressed ye could tell the minute ye clapped eyes on him, that he was well fixed—and that he was used to having his own way. He give me a look from stem to starn, and then he asked me where we two could have a quiet talk together. I took him over this way to The Bells of Shandon. We set down at a table in the back of the room. All the way over he had not said a word. So now I asked him what it would be that he wanted with me.

“He pulled one of them cigarette cases out of his pocket; 'twas made of gold; and he fished out a cigarette. I looked him over, a-waiting for him to make answer, while he lighted it. There was that in his face—for all that he had everything he wanted and showed it—that said he had something on his mind. As I look back, I would say he was like a man when ye are a-yarning to him and he is not listening at all. Well, he took one or two puffs and then he says:

“'Do ye want a job?'

“I laughed at that. It was so easy. And I told him that I did.

“Says he, a-setting there all bent over in his chair, a-smoking on that cigarette and watching me, 'I have looked for a good man, and I have found out enough to make me know ye are the sort of man I want.'

“I asked him what kind of a job it would be.

“'That is the pint,' says he; 'ye are not to ask me. Ye are to do just what I tell ye. It may take six months; it may take a year. I will pay all your expenses, and when the thing is done, I will give ye one thousand dollars.'

“I told him no. I did not want sealed orders.

“'What is your objection?' says he, and there was something in the voice of him as cold as ice, that made me know he was not used to being crossed in anything.

“I told him—a-looking him between the eyes—that sealed orders was likely to mean bad business—getting somebody or another into trouble. It would be something that was not aboveboard.

“'I'll tell ye what ye do,' says he: 'go to my lawyers and then go to my banker. They will tell ye I am responsible. When ye are satisfied as to that, I will draw up a contract with ye. I will set it down in black and white, agreeing that ye will not be asked to break any laws or to do wrong to any man. Ye have a family. I will pay their expenses while ye are away. Ye will agree to do what I tell ye to do. Does that suit?'

“I said it looked fair; and who would be his lawyers and his banker? He give me their names; there is none better in San Francisco. With that I left him.

“Well, when I got done with finding out about him, there was one thing plain: this here Walter Jefferey was of good people. He was good for the money and he was respectable. Matter of fact, he drawed lots of water, so far as that goes. The law shark told me he was a fair man to deal with; the banker said his check was good for half a million. And I had him sized up for being square and aboveboard: the kind that pays his money and looks to get what he has paid for.

“I went home to the Lass. We set up late that night, a-trying to figure it out. We had it back and forth and all ways. But we could not make anything out of it. The whole thing come to this, that I would be a fool not to take the job. What really bothered us was that I did not want to go to sea again, and she did not want me to. And we was sartain sure that this would be a long v'yge. But a thousand dollars is a thousand dollars; and with us two, ye might say that a thousand dollars was everything that we wanted. It was our start. So she says go; and I said she was right.

“The next day I met Jefferey in The Bells of Shandon and we went uptown and signed articles, all ship-shape and proper. He told me to meet him at Crowley's landing next marnin,' and we would sail.

“So I went home and told the Lass how she was to get her money for her and the children at the lawyer's office every first of the month. Then we tried to make things easier for us by talking of what we would do with the thousand dollars.

“I kissed her good-by the next marnin' and I left her in the door. I went down to Crowley's boathouse. Jefferey was there, a-standing by fer me on the float. We two piled into a launch, and in a matter of ten minutes we was out in the bay, alongside of the Condor.

“Ye will not remember the Condor. A revenue cutter, put out of commission and sold by the government about thirty years ago. The sale had been made to an agent and nobody really had knowed who had bought her. Now, here she was, overhauled and with new paint from stem to starn. We boarded her and the launch went back to the wharf.

“Jefferey left me alone on the quarterdeck, while he went and had a word with the skipper. I stood there, a-looking for'ard at the crew, and feeling like a fish out of water, loafing in this part of the ship. While I was wondering what I might be here for, Jefferey come back. 'All right Tom,' says he, and started fer the cabin companionway. Ye know how it is on one of them craft: cabin aft belonging to the skipper, wardroom for'ard of that fer the lieutenants and engineers and the like, and the crew up before the bridge. Well here I was being conveyed to the cabin! I told myself there would be some more signing of articles or the like of that ahead.

“It was a cabin with some style to it! Silver dishes and platters, brass lamps, books in shelves, leather cushions and velvet curtains. Two staterooms opened off from it. Jefferey, he pointed to one of them. 'There's your quarters,' says he. Only the Japanese cabin bye, a-laying out the dishes for a meal, kept me from saying that I did not understand. He went out, and I started to ask what it meant. 'Remember,' says Jefferey, 'the contract. Ye are to do as I tell ye. Ye'll find your things in there. There's time to make a change before lunch.'

“I told him very good; and I told myself that I could manage to stand up to this part of the job. One thing was sure, the skipper was to mess in the ward room and we two was to hold down this end. I went into my stateroom and there was a regular ship's-officer's kit all laid out fer me. While I was getting into them, I heard the screw begin to turn. By the time I had made my change we was well down the harbor under slow bell.

“The table was laid, but I did not take time to look at it. I went up on deck. There was old San Francisco and there was Rincon Hill. And I knowed the Lass would be busy now with the babies, a-countin' the days till I would be back in port. I looked until we had made the turn to the Golden Gate. Then I went below.

“The Jap cabin bye made out to shove my chair in under me when I set down. Jefferey was acrost the table from me. Between us was cut glass and a bunch of flowers and a cloth as white as snow. The Jap bye brought us soup. This was not like standing in a pitchin' galley, with all hands a-crowding ye and roaring fer the salt horse. What bothered me was the reason fer it all. I could not see into it.

“A long meal—of meat and drink there was a plenty. Only Jefferey done the drinking. The wine bottle was by his place; he did not offer me any. 'I want ye to drink only water,' says he when he poured out his first glass. I had no great kick on that, for I never was crazy fer liquor. But it made me wonder more than ever what would be in the wind. When we was done eating, and Jefferey was setting there a-smoking his cigarette. I felt the heave of the sea under us and I knowed we would be a-coming outside the heads.

“After a while the two of us went up on deck. The Condor kept on pretty well outside, and then she made the turn to the no'th. I seen that Jefferey was a-watching me. 'How far no'th,' says he, 'have you sailed, Tom?' I told him I had sighted Cape York. 'Ye'll pass Cape York this time,' says he. I said that I was pretty sure of our course when we boarded the Condor, havin' seen the ironwood sheathing about her bows. He nodded his head and he did not say any more about where we was bound.

“That was a strange v'yge fer me. What with living in that cabin and spending my time abaft the bridge—me that had put in my sea days before the mast—it was main strange. But what I could not understand was Jefferey. He started with me the second day out. Before breakfast he had me on deck and stripped to the waist, with a pair of dumb-bells in my hands. He had a set of exercises that he would count for and I would go through. He would keep me a-going until the sweat run off of me. Then he would have me go below and sluice off before we went to eat. The rest of the day was all loafing. There was any amount of books, but I never was no hand fer reading. And Jefferey, he would pick up one now and then; but he would drop it pretty quick and go to walking up and down the cabin. Always at them times he would look straight ahead of him like a man a-thinking of one thing.

“At Dutch Harbor he had me ashore for the three days that we laid up there; and every day he kept me climbing that mountain there until he like to wore the legs off of me. But that and the dumb-bells every marnin' was all I had to do. And I come to feel as fine as a fiddle.

“We went on up through Bering. 'Twas in the tail of the summer and there was no ice. We made the straits and we took the coast-wise course, until one day we made P'int Barrow. There is a whaling station there, ye know. We dropped our anchor and Jefferey he went ashore in a small boat. He come back that night and he had not much more than got on deck before they were raising the mudhook. We went on to the east. At last we sighted the driftwood piled along the beaches from the mouth of the Mackenzie and we fetched up off Herschel Island. In them days Herschel Island was held down by the Hudson Bay Company; they had a trading post there.

“No sooner had we anchored—'twas in the marnin'—than Jefferey had a small boat over and set out for shore. This time he showed that he was in a big hurry. When he left the ship I heard him a-whistling between his teeth; and he come pretty clost to smiling when they was shoving off. He stayed ashore all day. That night, when he come back aboard ship, there was no whistling; and his face was black. He walked up and down the cabin for a long time, a-saying nothing. Then he talked as much to himself as he did to me.

“'Well,' says he, a-looking straight ahead. 'it only means that much longer.'

“He walked up and down for as much as an hour more, a-keeping his mouth shut. At last he give me a funny look. 'The easy days is over, Tom,' says he.

“I turned in late; and he was setting down by the table looking at the cloth.

“Next marnin' Jefferey set the crew to landin' stores from the Condor—all sorts of grub and bedding. The day arter that, him and me went ashore and the ship sailed away. We stood there on the beach and watched her until her hull had gone low in the water. Then he give me a square look between the eyes. 'We've a hard road ahead,' says he, 'and it may be long.'

“The season was late enough now to tell us that winter was a-coming. We got a cabin made of driftwood and lived together there. We cached the grub and the supplies. In a matter of two weeks the first snow flurry come; and then the nights growed cold; and the days begun to get almighty short.

“Jefferey kept busy these days. He put in his time a-trading with the Eskimos. He was after two things: dogs and dried salmon, which they use in them latitudes fer dog feed. He paid good prices, too; but he only wanted the best of Malamutes. In the end he got ten of them, big raw-boned brutes, as strong as small horses and as ugly as wolves. After that we two just sat down and waited. The snow come; the ice drifted in from the no'th, piled high, and then froze fast to the bottom for a mile out from shore. The days kept growing shorter. Grey night around us and white snow under foot; and nothing to do. All them exercises with the dumb-bells that I used to take every marnin' on the Condor was done with now. I put on flesh.

“'Twas well along in the month of November, and we had not made any move at all, when a pair of half-breed traders come to Herschel Island one day from somwheres to the south'ard. Jefferey had a long talk with the two of them. And that night when we was setting alone in the cabin he says, 'To-morrow we will start.'

“It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him where we was bound this time, but I remembered them articles I had signed and I said nothing. He was whistling between his teeth, in that funny way he had, when he was feeling good. He begun walking up and down and after a while, says he: 'Glad to go?' I told him I was. 'Well,' says he, 'so am I glad.' He started walking again and whistling; and then: 'It will be a long trip, Tom.'

“He was glad to be a-going, and there was no two ways about it. And never did I see a man so set on one thing as he was set on forging ahead. He was like he was made out of steel wire now.

“Well, I cannot give ye the log day by day, and it would take too long if I could. For we was four months at this in all, a-traveling inland to the south and west. First we struck out acrost the tundra country that rises to a range of mountains—an open country where the wind howled down on top of us, coming acrost the snow straight from the pole. Sometimes the northern lights would flash and crack straight above our heads. Sometimes there was nothing but grey night, with a smother of snow in the teeth of a forty mile gale. And cold! Lad, it was bitter cold.

“The Eskimos left us five days out. They had convoyed us up to the first rise of the mountains. The night before they went they had a long talk with Jefferey and they drawed a sort of chart for him with sticks in the snow. They took one of the sleds and three of the dogs.

“The mountains was dead ahead of us now, a high, bare range, nothing but snow and rocks, a-showing where the snow could not stick. We was steering for a notch that showed between two for a notch between two peaks.

“Jefferey told me then how this was an old Indian trail that went through that pass and down the other side into the headwaters of the Porcupine. There was no mark nor no track where anyone had gone before; all we had to lay our course by was that chart the Eskimos had drawed in the snow.

“We crossed them mountains. The pass was a little gap between two peaks; and all the winds of the Arctic had that place for their own. They come and fell straight down on us; they come and rose up from under our feet, and smothered us with dry snow that was as fine as flour; they shoved us back from dead ahead; they knocked us down from astern. Blow! It nigh to blowed the hair off of our heads. Cold! Our cheeks and noses was frost-bit half the time; our fingers would freeze the minute we took off our mittens to ontie a sled rope. And little Jefferey, with his whiskers a fringe of solid ice, stayed with it like a man in a fight that does not know he is licked.

“We had headed too far west'ard; and we found ourselves in a broken country with a tangle of mountains—a spur range—ahead of us. We made camp and we tried to figure by dead reckoning what course to lay. The best we could think of was was to swing off to the south'ard. It turned out to be about the worst thing we could have done. We was nearly a week, floundering up one mountain and then down another. There was many places where the land went straight up and down and we had to hold the sled by main force, to keep it from going on its beam ends and rolling away from us. At that, it did capsize every so often; and onct it rolled down into a deep canyon with the whole team, and we lost a dog. He broke his leg and Jefferey shot him. He loaded the carcass on the sled. 'We can feed him to the others,' says he. 'And we're in luck if we don't have to eat them in our own turn.'

“I can see him now, a-standing there in the snow with his rifle in his hands, his cheeks all black where the frost bites had broke the skin, and the ice in his beard.

“Well, what with being off our course and beating up agin head winds, as ye might say, and the way we wore ourselves out, we lost nigh a month. When we did reach our proper course we had more bad luck. A band of timber wolves took it into their heads to convoy us. The caribou had not run yet that winter, and they was all gaunted, savage fer food. They stuck in our wake by day; out in the open we could see them at noon astarn of us, one or two at a time, black specks on the snow. By night they took to crowding in on us. They would yell from the time we made camp until we was out and a-going again. And then they got to trying for the dogs. One night they got hold of one and had him eat before he had let out his first good howl. Two nights later they got another. It got so that we had to keep up fire and stand watch, taking turn about.

“Lad, if ye ever want to know what hard lines is, just try to stand a four-hour watch in the snow, dead tired from being on your feet, and hear a dozen wolves a-yelling at ye from the bush—or mebbe, when the fire has gone low and ye are a-dozing, wake up sudden like and see two or three pair of eyes hard by, like coals in the dark.

“All this lost us more time. And the grub begun to run short. Then I had trouble with Jefferey. Ye have heard of men rowing over grub when there is not enough. Well, this was different.

“It come this way: I noticed one night that he looked to be off his feed. He eat, but he did not lay it away like he had been doing. I asked him if he was sick and he said he was not. Then it come to me: he was figuring to save grub.

“That was it. He was game, that little man! And here was I, eating my head off. It made me feel ashamed. But I said nothing. I held up a bit myself. He got next to that right away.

“'Tom,' says he, 'eat more of that bacon.' I laughed and said I did not want it. 'I know,' says he, 'what ye are trying to do. Remember ye are under orders. I tell ye: Eat!'

“I tried to hold out, but it was no use. 'Ye will,' says he. 'Do what I tell ye.'

“We had been on the trail for weeks and I liked him as man to man. Until now there had not been a hard word between us. But all the good feeling went out of him when I kept trying to stand out agin him. He was as hard as iron and his voice was as cold as ice. And there was that in the way he said it, that made me mind his orders.

“We kept on this way for a matter of five weeks longer. We got down to the last of our grub. And every meal I eat a man's share. And this little Jefferey eat only what would be good for a child. He was growing weak, and he was that gaunted that it was hard to look at him. But he watched me like a hawk all the time, and I had to keep on stowing away good food.

“At last we was sharing the salmon with the dogs. And I begun to think we would be getting down to the dogs themselves. They was in a hard way, what with sore feet and being half starved. One day, when we was limping along through deep snow with Jefferey ahead breaking trail, and me back at the sled handles, we come on the track of a toboggan. We knowed that we was in the country where men had come up from Fort Yukon, which was a trading post then.

“We followed the track all one day and all of the next. Jefferey was like a new man. All these months he had been stubborn, sticking to it, traveling when it looked as if he must drop in his tracks. Now he went on a dog trot. And I could hear him a-whistling be tween his teeth. Come the second night and we caught up to the bunch of Indians that had left the toboggan track. They was in one of them tea camps of theirn, a shelter of green trees and boughs with a fire in the lee of it, and the hill ahead of the fire a-throwing back the heat. Jefferey called one of them off to one side and had a long talk with him.

“When he had got done with talking, Jefferey come back to me; and the two of us went on down the trail. We made camp an hour later. When we had got the tent up and the fire a-going, Jefferey reached in under his parka and took out a package. I had never knowed he had it at all. He opened it, and there was bacon and beans.

“He had held them out. He had carried them for weeks; and he had never said a word to me. I watched him warm them up and I wondered what was in the wind.

“When they was done and steaming hot, he handed me the pan, and went to cooking some salmon for himself. 'Not much,' says I. 'I will not.'

“He stood up in front of me. And he says, quiet and cold: 'Ye must eat.'

“In the end I did eat them, and he gobbled down his salmon. I went to sleep that night with new strength a-coming back into my bones, and with the blood running hotter in my body. The next morning I had another square meal, and he sat there with a chunk of dog salmon in his hand, a-watching me to see that I got away with all of it. He looked all shriveled up, and dried; and his eyes was hard and bright. And yet some way he looked, while he was setting there watching me, like a man that is enjoying himself. When I had done, he asked me how I felt. I told him like a fighting cock. But I said it hurt me, this way he had starved himself.

“'Never mind,' says he. 'I am going to get my fill.'

“We traveled two hours that marnin,' and we come to a cabin in the spruces. There was smoke a-curling up from the chimney. Fine and comfortable it looked, there with the thick woods around it. Nice marnin,' too, in March, with no wind and the sky clear.

“Jefferey give the cabin a good look; then he turned around to me and he smiled. It was the the first time I had seen him do that. It cracked the black patches where the frost had burned his cheeks.:

“'Tom,' says he, 'stand here by the sled. Your job lays ahead of ye. What I tell ye to do, ye will do without any words.'

“With that he walked up to the cabin and knocked on the door. Then he stepped back a pace or two. A man come to the door, and opened it. He stood there blinking agin the light on the snow—a big man, as big as me. He had a black beard. And his eyes was as hard as the eyes of a snake.

“Little Jefferey stood there in the middle of the clearing in front of the cabin with the spruces all around. He was looking up at the big man.

“'Good marnin,' Louis,' says he.

“The big man blinked at Jefferey and he blinked at me; and then he scowled and grunted something.

“'Come on out,' says Jefferey; 'I have business with ye.'

'The big man come outside. He looked sharp at Jefferey, and then, 'Hello,' he says, as if he reckonized him.

“'Louis,' says Jefferey, 'ye remember how I told you I would come back. Ye played a dirty trick. Now ye are going to get your pay.'

“The big man was looking at him with them snaky eyes; and he laughed under his black whiskers, showing his teeth like a dog. Jefferey come back and set down on the sled.

“'Tom,' says he, 'take off your coat and give this man such a beating that his own mother wont know him.'

“I stood up and pulled off my mackinaw. I seen then what my job was. And what may look strange to ye, I sort of liked the idee of it. There is some men that, when ye look at them, ye want to lick them on general principles, because ye know they have it coming to them. I had been watching this big Louis, and the more I laid eyes on him the more I took a grudge again him.

“He had not said a word. But when I dropped my mackinaw in the snow, he peeled his own. Jefferey sat there on the sled. 'Remember, Tom,' says he, as the two of us was coming together, 'knock the head off of his shoulders.'

“Give and take was always my way of fighting. I started in on this a little slow. For all the looks of this black Louis, it was sort of like a day's work. And that give him all the advantage. He clouted me acrost the lips as soon as he got within reach of me; and the next thing I knew he caught me another that sent my head back until my neck cracked. Then I got mad.

“I put my foot to his foot and swapped him blow for blow. He was none too swift, but he was strong. He beat me up about the body. I was feeling them. And then, right in the middle of it, while we was lacing each other, I seen a dirty look in them hard eyes of his, and his teeth showed under his black mustache. And just as I caught that, he swung on one heel and raised the other foot like one of them toe dancers. I seen it coming in time to keep from being killed. But as it was, he kicked me.

“All the wind that was in me went away from me. I doubled like a jackknife and went down in the snow, and he piled on top of me. He was a big man, and I was weak from that foul trick of his. And yet, when I felt the weight of him falling onto me, I knowed that I would hammer his head off, if I got killed a-doing it. I was that mad.

“I got him by the throat as he come down on me. He punched me bad before my fingers sunk in. Then he did not hit so hard. I gripped down and down and he lost his steam. I wanted to kill him then but I let go and throwed him off of me and got up on my feet. The wind was back in me again. I waited for him to stand up.

“'Now,' says Jefferey, 'pound him to a pulp.' I looked around; he was sitting on the sled. And he had a cigarette in his hand, a-blowing the smoke away from him. That sort of struck me in a heap, for he had not smoked for weeks, and he had growled for the want of tobacco. All doubled over, he was, and he had a hungry look on his face.

“This black Louis was slow in coming. But when he did come, he was willing enough. It was all my way now. He could not hurt me; I was that ugly. I closed one of his eyes. I flattened the nose on his face.

“'More,' says Jefferey, setting there on the sled, 'give him more.'

“I had Louis swinging at the air. The blood was all over his face; his mouth was like a piece of raw meat. But he was staying with it. He give me a rush like a bull with his head down, and I stopped him with an uppercut that lifted him off of his feet and set him down in the snow. I stood back and looked at Jefferey; and Jefferey was smiling now.

“'Harder, Tom,' says he; 'hand it to him harder. Beat him to a pulp.'

“Louis come up slow now, like a man with a load on his back. He did not want it very bad, and yet when I begun to lace him, he managed to land one or two on me. I hammered him until it got to be like chopping wood. Right in the middle of it I heard Jefferey saying 'more' behind me.

“In the end I got him one on his jaw for about the tenth time, and he went clean out. The snow was red around his face where he laid.

“I walked over to Jefferey. He had throwed away the butt of his cigarette. and he says, 'How do you feel?' I told him I was all right. 'Come on then,' says he.

“We went away, leaving this black Louis lying in the snow. As we was going down the trail, I took a look behind and seen him setting up. But Jefferey never looked back at all. He was laughing to himself.

“That night, when we had made camp and was in our sleeping bags, he says to me: 'Tom, that was a good job. Ye've earned your money.' Then after a while he says, 'Tom, would ye like to know what the trouble was?'

“I told him I would.

“Says he: “Ye think this was a trip? I had a trip two years ago that was a trip. I was hunting on the barren lands. I had a guide. We lost part of our outfit. For many days we went on short rations—lean bellied! Man, we suffered!

“One night we made camp, with the nearest trading post 200 miles ahead of us—in the heart of a wilderness, and I did not know ten feet of the country. In the morning I woke up—alone!

“'You understand? Alone! The guide was gone! The dogs were gone! The food was gone!

“'To make sure of his own carcass, that dog had stolen everything and left me there to die.

“'I wept that morning. It was because I was afraid that I would die alone. It seemed so sure. I started to walk and I walked for days. At last I got to where I had to crawl. Sixty below, and I had not an ounce of food!

“'By accident, I came upon some Mackenzie River Indians who had started out early to hunt the caribou. They saw me creeping in the snow. Only for that I would have died, as that thieving guide had expected me to die.

“'That guide was Black Louis. When I got to Herschel Island again I saw him, and I told him that I would come back and pay him. He laughed at me then. I was a sick man, carried by Indians. But I have come back.'

 

“We killed a caribou two days later and we lived on the meat down to Fort Yukon. It was late in June before the river broke, and we got down to St. Michaels. And when we made San Francisco, Jefferey paid me two thousand dollars though his contract called for only one thousand.

“'It was worth the extra thousand,' says he, '—well worth it.'”

 

FROM our offices it is possible to watch a crew of structural iron-workers building the skeleton of a sky-scraper. Their scorn of danger is thrilling, but, the other day, the most daring of their feats was eclipsed by some steeple jacks, who placed a flag pole in position after the building had risen 19 stories.

While the steeple jacks hung out over the two busy streets below them, or swung from point to point, bracing their bodies against the wind, a crowd gathered below and the windows of all the buildings nearby were spotted with office workers.

As the editor turned to his work, he picked up a manuscript of one of the stories of “Lighthouse Tom.” He realized that it was the same admiration for men who dare to work in the high places, men who don't know dizziness or fear, that has held him as he has read this remarkable series by Frederick R. Bechdolt.

Steeple jacks and structural iron-workers and literature such as Mr. Bechdolt is producing, are all that is left to us of the romantic days of the sailing-vessel. Many aerial workers are former sailors. In their dare-devil work on sky-scrapers they are only doing the sort of things that were a part of daily routine on board ship.

And it is because Mr. Bechdolt makes you see them as they were, that his narratives have become recognized, since they began running in THE RED BOOK, as the greatest of their kind.

In his next story, in the July RED BOOK, he will describe “The Piracy of Black Scotty.” It is a wonderfully gripping tale.