Samuel Merwin - The Merry Anne

“One minute, Cap’n,” said Dick. “There’s something I want to talk over with you, if you can spare the time.”

Stenzenberger sat down again. Henry, whose outbreak against the evils of society had stirred up, apparently, some pet feeling of bitterness, now sat moodily looking at the table.

“It’s about Roche, Cap’n,” Dick went on. “I had to leave him at Manistee.”

“Why?”

“He drinks too much for me – I couldn’t depend on him a minute. He bummed around up there, and got himself too shaky to be any use to me.”

Stenzenberger, with expressionless face, chewed his cigar. “What did you do for a mate?”

“Came down without one.”

“Have you found a man yet?”

“No – haven’t tried. I thought you might have some one you could suggest.”

“I don’t know. You ‘ll want to be starting up to Spencer’s place in a day or so.” He chewed his cigar thoughtfully for a moment, then dropped his voice. “There’s a man right here you might be able to use. Do you know McGlory?”

“No.”

“You do, Henry?”

“Yes, he was my mate for a year.”

“Well,” said Dick, “any man that suited Henry for a year ought to suit me.”

“You ‘ll find him a good, reliable man,” responded Henry, in an undertone. “He has a surly temper, but he knows all about a schooner.”

“Well, – if he’s anywhere around here now, we could fix it right up.”

Stenzenberger looked around. The woman had slipped out. “Madge,” he called; “Madge, my dear.”

She entered as quietly as before.

“Come in, my dear. You know Cap’n Smiley, don’t you?”

No, she didn’t.

“That’s a fact. He’s never seen in sample rooms. He sets up to be better than the rest of us; but I say, look out for him. And here’s his cousin, another Cap’n Smiley, the handsomest man on the Lakes.” Dick blushed at this. “Sit down a minute with us.”

She shook her head, and waited for him to come to the point.

“Where’s that man of yours, my dear? Is he anywhere around?”

“What is it you want of him?”

“I want him to know our young man here. I think they’re going to like each other. You tell him we want to see him.”

She hesitated; then with a suspicious glance around the group left the room.

In a moment McGlory appeared, a short, heavy-set man with high cheek-bones, a low, sloping forehead, and a curling black mustache. He nodded to Stenzenberger and Henry, and glanced at Dick.

“Joe,” said the lumber merchant, “shake hands with Cap’n Dick Smiley. He’s the best sailor between here and Buffalo, and the only trouble with him is we can’t get a mate good enough for him. A man’s got to know his business to sail with Dick Smiley. Ain’t that so, Henry?”

“I guess that’s right.”

“And Henry tells me you’re the man that can do it.”

This pleasantry had no visible effect on McGlory. He was looking Dick over.

“I don’t know about that, Cap’n. I promised Madge I’d give up the Lake for good.”

“The Cap’n here,” pursued Stenzenberger, “is going to start to-morrow or next day for Spencer, to take on a load of timber and shingles.” His small brown eyes were fixed intently on the saloon keeper as he talked. “And I think we ‘ll have to keep him running up there for a good part of the summer. Queer character, that Spencer,” he added, addressing Dick. “He has lived all his life up there in the pines. They say he was a squatter – never paid a cent for his land. But he has been there so many years now, I guess any one would have trouble getting him out. He has got an idea that his timber’s better than anybody else’s. He cuts it all with an old-fashioned vertical saw, and stamps his mark on every piece.”

“Why should it be any better?”

“I don’t know that it is, though he selects it carefully. The main thing is, he sells it dirt cheap, – has to, you know, to stand any show against the big companies. He’s so far out of the way, no boats would take the trouble to run around there if he didn’t. Well, McGlory, we’ve got a good thing to offer you. You can drop in here once a week or so, you know, to see how things are running. Come over to the office with us and we ‘ll settle the terms.” Stenzen-berger was rising as he spoke.

“Well, I don’t know. I couldn’t come over for a few minutes, Cap’n.”

“How soon could you?”

“About a quarter of an hour.”

“All right, we ‘ll be looking for you. Here, give me half a dozen ten cent straights while I’m here.”

McGlory walked to the door with them, and stood for a moment looking after them.

When he turned and pushed back through the swinging inner doors, he found Madge standing by the bar awaiting him, one hand held behind her, the other clenched at her side, her eyes shooting fire.

He paused, and looked at her without speaking.

“So you are going back to the Lake?” she said, everything about her blazing with anger except her voice – that was still quiet.

He was silent.

“Well, why don’t you answer me?”

“What’s all this fuss about, Madge? I haven’t gone yet.”

“Don’t try to put me off. Have you told them you would go back?”

“I haven’t told ‘em a thing. I’m going around in a minute to see the Cap’n, and we ‘ll talk it over then.”

“And you have forgotten what you promised me?”

“No, I ain’t forgot nothing. Look here, there ain’t no use o’ getting stagy about this. I ain’t told him I ‘ll do it. I don’t believe I will do it.”

“Why should you want to, Joe? Aren’t you happy here? Aren’t you making more money than you ever did on the Lake?”

“Why, of course.”

“Then why not stay here?”

“There’s only this about it,” he replied, leaning against the bar, and speaking in an off-hand manner; “Stenzenberger offers me the chance to do both. I could be in here every few days – see you most as much as I do now in a busy season – and make the extra pay clear.”

“Oh, that’s why you have been thinking you might do it?”

“Well, that’s the only thing about it that – ” He was wondering what was in her other hand. “You see, I can’t afford to get the Cap’n down on me.”

“You can’t? I should think he would be the one that couldn’t afford – ”

“Now see here, Madge.” He stepped up to her, and would have slipped his arm around her waist, but she eluded him. “I guess I ‘ll go over and see what he has to offer, and then I ‘ll come back, and you and me can talk it all over and see if we think – ”

“If we think!” she burst out. “Do you take me for a fool, Joe McGlory? Do you think for a minute I don’t know why you want to go – and why you mean to go? Look at that!” She produced a photograph of a pretty, foolish young woman, and read aloud the inscription on the back, “To Joe, from Estelle.”

An ugly look came into his eye. “I wouldn’t get excited about that kiddishness if I was you.”

“So you call it kiddishness, do you, and at your age?”

“Well, so long now, Madge. I ‘ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Joe – wait – don’t go off like that. Tell me that don’t mean anything! Tell me you aren’t ever going to see her again!”

“Sure, there’s nothing in it.”

“And you won’t see her?”

“Why, of course I won’t see her. She ain’t within five hundred miles of here. I don’t know where she is.”

“You ‘ll promise me that?”

“You don’t need to holler, Madge. I can hear you. Somebody’s likely to be coming in any minute, and what are they going to think?” He passed out into the back room, and she followed him.