CHAPTER XIII
HOW THE LAUNCH CAME BACK TO SMUGGLERS’
When the Hadleys had left Mexico they had turned their steps toward California. They had some friends there, but the place they finally bought was not near any of them. It was many miles inland, too, for Mrs. Hadley had said she did not want to live by the ocean.
“All my life I have been fond of it,” she said, “but now I don’t want ever to have to see it again.”
So they had settled down on a little fruit farm in the interior.
They are not cheap, those little fruit farms of California. The price asked per acre is usually enough to make your head swim till you get used to it, and the Hadleys were not rich, which explains the fact that every cent they had in the world was not enough to pay for that farm. But they paid over what they had and set out to raise the rest from the farm itself. In a few years they had succeeded.
Neither of them was old yet; they could still work, and did work. But Mrs. Hadley’s face was quieter than it had been in former years, though she went about patient and cheerful, a busy, kindly woman much beloved by her neighbors.
Mr. Hadley was older than his wife by a number of years. He was beginning to turn gray when their sorrow came to them, and his hair whitened rapidly after that, and somehow he did not seem so tall as he had been; but, aside from that, one would not have seen any great change in him.
They made a fair living, nothing more, out of the farm. Sometimes there is drought, you know, or there is failure of crops for some other reason, or the crop is too large and then prices go down, and transportation takes most of the profits in any case. And because of all these things the Hadleys had been in California over six years before they felt free to take a little visiting-trip among their friends who lived in the State.
They had to plan most carefully then to keep within the limits of their very modest income, for already there loomed on the horizon of the future the expenses of the coming season. But they went and had a good time, being heartily welcomed everywhere, and nowhere more heartily than at the Harrises’, the last place on their list. The Harrises had been old neighbors at the Port, being in fact none other than the family who numbered among its members the Clarence to whom the Island Hawks felt that they owed so much.
Clarence was not a boy now; he was a man grown, but he still lived at home and helped his father run a fruit ranch of about four times the size of that of the Hadleys. A man grown he was, but in many respects the same boy, as was proved by the way his widowed sister’s children trailed at his heels all day.
The Hadleys arrived in the evening, and it was not till the next day at noon that the conversation turned upon their loss at the Port. The Harrises had heard about the happening at the time, for Mrs. Harris corresponded with Bobbie’s mother, and they had received, too, several newspapers containing reports of the occurrence, these having been marked and sent out by Mr. Cunningham to various persons to whom he knew the event would be of interest. But there were, of course, details that they had never heard, and it was only natural that they should ask for the story and that Mr. Hadley should tell it over as they sat about the table after the main part of the meal had been eaten.
Clarence was sitting between his lively little niece and nephew, cracking walnuts for them, picking the meats out into their eager little hands, and making little boats and turtles of the shells. The little boy had slipped down and brought him the mucilage-bottle, a piece of stiff paper, and his grandmother’s best shears, purloined from her basket with many sideways glances.
Mr. Hadley told the tale quietly. They were undemonstrative people, and after these years they could talk of this quite without emotion. He told it all,—all the little incidents,—how Esther had been sent for the forgotten bathing-suits the evening before; how Marian had started out without sufficient wraps and Bobbie’s mother had made her take her big cape; of the question Mr. Faston put to them as they were going down to the pier and Delbert’s answer. Of the long search and nothing to pay for it save the little handkerchief beaten into the sand. The others asked a question now and then during the recital, but Clarence sat silent, letting no word of the story escape him, but making no comments as he worked quietly on the little shell boats.
When Mr. Hadley finished, he laid his shipbuilding tools down by his shell-littered plate, and, looking into the white-haired father’s eyes, spoke.
“Mr. Hadley,” he said, “Smugglers’ Island was not within fifty miles of the Rosalie Group.”
In one of the busy seaport towns of our Pacific Coast Mr. Hadley sat at a little restaurant table, eating an inexpensive meal alone. Every cent that he and his wife possessed in the wide world had gone into that little fruit farm up in the hills, and now by means of a mortgage on it he had raised money enough to carry him back to the coast to take up the old heart-breaking task. His passage was already engaged on a steamer to sail for the Port the next day. Mrs. Hadley remained on the farm to carry on the work there as best she could alone.
If this were a model story, Clarence would most assuredly have gone with his old neighbor, but in real life people do not start on journeys unless they have the railroad or steamship fare, which Clarence did not have. It takes money to travel, and ordinary people cannot get money so easily that they can afford to spend it on anything that is not strictly necessary. Certainly Clarence wanted badly enough to go and show the way to Smugglers’ and search for his old playmates, but the best he could actually do was to make a map of the coast and San Moros as well as he could remember it, and give it to Mr. Hadley, with the name of the old Indian who had told him about Smugglers’ in the first place, but who, doubtless, had slept with his fathers for years now.
What did Mr. Hadley expect to find on Smugglers’? Certainly not his living children, for had they lived through the storm, even though the launch were disabled or destroyed, Pearson would have found some way to get back. No; it was only a confirmation of death which the father looked for at best, something to show where and how his children had perished,—some fragment of the launch, perhaps, all but buried in the sand.
As he sat eating, there came slowly into his consciousness a face at a table near him. He looked at it. Surely it had not been there when he came in. Whose was it? Why did it seem to claim his attention more than the dozen others on all sides? He tried to resume his meal, but—who was that man? where had he seen that face before?
In a blinding flash it came to him. It was Pearson! Pearson, the man whom Cunningham had sent with Marian and the children in the launch. But, of course, that could not be. Pearson was dead,—dead these nearly seven years ago,—but this fellow—
Just then the man looked up and met his gaze. It was the look of a complete stranger. Mr. Hadley politely dropped his eyes. But he did not drop his thinking, and so keenly conscious was he of that face that he knew instantly when the other rose from the table.
Mr. Hadley glanced up again. The other was leaving his dinner almost untouched. Mr. Hadley himself arose. His memory for faces was remarkably good; that man had Pearson’s face, he might be a brother; at any rate, he would speak to him; it could not be Pearson, but why was he leaving his dinner uneaten?
The man, who was sauntering out apparently without haste, glanced back and saw Mr. Hadley advancing toward him, and a look came over his face that Mr. Hadley did not mistake. In a flash he knew it was Pearson; impossible as it seemed, it was Pearson, and he was afraid!
A moment or two later a placid policeman just turning a corner was knocked nearly off his feet and out of his dignity by a man coming from the opposite direction, a man past middle age with white hair and flashing eyes.
“Officer,” he cried, grasping the representative of the law by the arm, “arrest that man! the one in brown with the striped coat!”
“What’s the charge?” inquired the policeman.
“There will be charge enough,” cried the other; and from his earnestness and the rapidity with which the striped coat was disappearing down the street, the policeman concluded that the owner of it needed arresting and started forthwith in pursuit.
Within two blocks he had two of his brother officers chasing with him, and farther on they gathered up another one, to say nothing of the several onlookers who joined for the pure pleasure of the chase.
The policemen were used to chasing men, but Mr. Hadley was not, and in spite of his utmost efforts he was soon left in the rear. As he kept on, panting and puffing, and seeing more and more ground stretch between himself and the bluecoats, and was finally left out of sight altogether, it came over him what a good idea it would have been for them to have carried paper scent, as the boys used to when they played hare and hounds, for now they were like to catch their man so far away that he would never be able to find them.
And, indeed, it was a long and merry chase, and when it came to an end, as luck would have it, a patrol-wagon was just passing, and into it the triumphant bluecoats thrust their man in the striped coat, one of them going with him while the rest dispersed, the first retracing his steps till he met the breathless Mr. Hadley.
“Got him? Of course we got him. He’s safe enough, never you worry. You can go down and appear against him in the morning.”
“In the morning!” gasped Mr. Hadley. “In the morning! I’m not waiting till morning. It’s right now that I want to talk to him!”
The officer regarded him a moment, and then, “Would yer mind tellin’ me what the man has been doin’?” he inquired.
Mr. Hadley leaned against a building till he had regained his breath and his self-control.
“Six or seven years ago,” he said, “my five children went out in a little gasoline launch for a day’s excursion. That man went with them to run the launch for them. We never saw them again and could get no trace of them, and supposed they had all drowned together. But to-day I ran across him, and when he saw that I recognized him and was going to speak to him, he ran. You will understand that I can’t wait till to-morrow to know what became of my children.”
The officer glanced at his watch. “My own time is up,” he said. “I’ll walk up with you.”
“Take your time an’ get your breath back,” he added presently. “He is safe enough; ’twas Larry O’Flannagan had him by the shoulder, an’ no man ever yet broke from Larry’s grip when he once got a good grip on ’im. He’s safe enough.”
Safe enough he certainly was, and an hour later he stood face to face with the father of the Hadley children.
“You’ve made a mistake,” he repeated. “You’ve made a mistake. My name is not Pearson. My name is Franks, John Franks. I never lived in the Port; never was across the line into Mexico at all, in fact. No, I never saw you before, not to my knowledge at least.”
He said it all over again stubbornly, and, with dark and scowling face, he declared that Mr. Hadley would be sorry for this trouble he was making him, and he wanted it understood most emphatically that he had never been in Mexico six years ago or at any other time and that his name was John Franks.
But Mr. Hadley knew he was not mistaken, he knew the man was Pearson, and he would not back down or give one hair’s breadth, and under his steady, stern gaze Pearson suddenly threw up the game with a vehement burst of profanity, winding up with the inquiry as to what earthly difference it made to Hadley about the launch, anyhow?
Mr. Hadley stared at him a moment.
“Launch!” he said slowly,—“launch! What do you suppose I care about the launch? What I want to know is, what did you do with my children?”
It was now Pearson’s turn to stare. His jaw dropped, and his face turned ashy.
“Your children? What do you mean? Didn’t they find Miss Marian and the kids all right?”
“Find them! Where? Where did you leave them? They’ve never been seen from that day to this. Speak up! What did you do with them?”
Pearson crumpled down into a chair. There was no more resistance in him.
“Good Heavens! Hadley, I never dreamed of any harm coming to them. I’ll tell you all I know about it.”
And tell it he did, holding nothing back. He told it all,—how Cunningham had discharged him for no fault of his, so he declared, and how he had vowed that he would get even with the dude; he wouldn’t take dirty treatment from no man. He had nothing against the girl and the kids; he wouldn’t have hurt them, but he didn’t suppose it would. People were going out to those picnics every day, and they often camped overnight, and when he saw what a daisy the launch was,—she ran like oil,—it just came to him that he could leave them there on the Island and run the launch over to Santa Anita, where he knew a couple of fellows who would take it off his hands.
So he did it; he was owing the fellow at Santa Anita about seventy-five dollars that he would have paid long before if Cunningham had not fired him; and he got there before the storm got really bad and hunted up his friend that night and found he would be glad to take the launch on the debt and pay him the difference.
The storm was sure a bad one, but he had thought that Miss Marian and the kids would be all right, for the boy had been telling about a house on the Island around on the sheltered side and a cave, too, and he left them all the food and blankets, and he thought Cunningham would be after them the first thing in the morning. He’d left Santa Anita as soon as the storm was over so anybody could leave, and, of course, he had not heard anything about the tragedy at the Port, but he’d swear by everything holy that he never dreamed of any harm coming to them.
Mr. Hadley explained then; he told the man huddled up before him of the search that had been made, and how he himself had just in the last week learned what and where Smugglers’ Island was, and how he was even then on his way to see if after all these years there was some trace still to be found in San Moros.
When he had finished, Pearson straightened up a little.
“Look a-here, Hadley,” he said, “I’ve been some tough, but I’d never ’a’ done a thing like that if I’d ’a’ known it, and since then I’ve been straight. I told you the truth when I said my name was Franks; that is my name; I used Pearson at the Port for other reasons, but when I got back to God’s country I went back to my own name. I was married under it about a year later. My wife is a fine woman, and we’ve got two fine children. I’ve been as straight as a string and we’ve got some ahead. O Hadley, don’t put me through for this!—it will come harder on my wife and the kids than it will on me if you do,—and I’ll go down with you and help you hunt, show you the way and all; and you can use my money to the last cent; it ain’t much, but it’s all yourn to carry on the search; and I’ll stand by you and help you as long as there’s life in me, for, as God is my witness, Hadley, I never meant no harm to Miss Marian and your kids. I wouldn’t ask it if’t wasn’t for my own kids.”
Mr. Hadley was thinking. He believed the man was telling the truth, and no punishment meted out to him would bring back the dead. As far as that went, what punishment would be fitter than to take him back with him and let him see, if, indeed, there was anything left to see, the terrible suffering his act had caused? And there would be something left; not six years nor seven would destroy what five deaths had left on that grim island in San Moros.
Before they sailed, Mr. Hadley had time to write to his wife and tell her of his finding Pearson and of what he had learned from him and of the latter’s agony of remorse. After receiving the letter, Mrs. Hadley sat down and wrote most of its contents to Mrs. Harris, for she knew their old friends would be anxious to hear any news. After hearing that letter read, Clarence declared that he could have lived seven years, or twice seven years on Smugglers’, and he dared bet Marian could. But his father and mother were quite sure there was no hope of that.
“Why,” said Mrs. Harris, “Jennie would not have lived three days after exposure to that storm. I never knew such a delicate child.”
“And,” Mr. Harris declared, “if they had lived any length of time at all, some one would have seen some sign of them in all this time. Probably they took refuge in that cave and were washed out and drowned the first night.”
“Perhaps,” he admitted. “I’d forgotten about Jennie being so sickly, and Delbert himself was not what you would call rugged, but if they lived through the storm there’s a chance, I tell you. Their not being seen since doesn’t cut any figure. There was a reason for that. I never told Delbert, for I didn’t want to frighten him, and he was a nervous little chap, but no Indian ever went to Smugglers’. You couldn’t have hired one to, and I tell you, if they lived through the first night, there’s a chance! and oh, glory! wouldn’t I have liked to go along?”
The steamer that Mr. Hadley and Pearson had taken passage on was pretty well filled up with passengers. Among others there was a group of mining men going to the Port, whence they would make their way inland, and there was a wealthy Mexican family also bound for the Port, with a half-dozen fine-looking daughters who reminded you of all the Spanish romance you had ever read every time you looked at them.
There were various others, and among them all Mr. Hadley and Pearson attracted no particular attention until the morning they were nearing the Port, when it was learned that Mr. Franks and the white-haired gentleman with him had a launch aboard and were going to be set down in it out in the Gulf and were not going into the Port at all. It seemed that the captain had known about it all the time, but to the passengers it seemed like a very queer thing to do.
However, some one made the announcement that the two were going to examine some guano caves for a rich company, and that seemed to explain everything, and the passengers watched with interest while the launch was being made ready and lowered, and the mining men all hung over the rail and cheered as she shot off across the water, and the pretty señoritas waved their handkerchiefs, and then everybody turned his attention to watching the channel, for if the passengers did not keep a sharp lookout, what was to hinder the captain from forgetting himself and coming up sharp on the rocks?
They passed the Rosalie Group before long. On dark and cloudy nights people on boats passing there can hear children crying, and if the night is actually stormy, you are likely to see Marian Hadley walk across the white-capped waves wrapped in a long cloak. This is a solemn fact. The captain told it himself. He said he did not tell the tale at night. No one connected the name of Hadley with the white-haired Mr. Hadley who had left them in the launch.
Pearson was running the launch. Mr. Hadley had Clarence’s map spread out on his knee. There was silence between them. Pearson’s face looked drawn and old. Mr. Hadley was tired and patient; he was looking at the map, but he was not thinking of it.
Pearson leaned forward to look at the little map.
“I don’t remember just what the shore-line looked like along here,” he said, “but I guess I shan’t miss San Moros.”
He did not, either. About noon he turned into the place, remembering Delbert’s instructions which tallied with the map correctly. The tide was high just then, anyway, and there was no danger of sandbars or sunken rocks. In a little more he could point out to Mr. Hadley the outline of Smugglers’ Island as he remembered it.
Afterwards, as they got pretty close to it, he said in a low voice, “Maybe we’d better go in back of it. That’s where they said the harbor and the pier were, and it will be a better place to moor the launch than this pile of rocks ahead.”
Mr. Hadley assented; so they turned her nose and ran out by the sandy point and round it in back into the harbor.
It seemed shadowy in there. It was dark and uncanny, Pearson thought. He shuddered. Not a sign of life had they seen other than the seabirds, for the old canoe was too far up the beach to catch the eye, and the wickiup was so covered with vines that it blended perfectly with its background, especially as the doors and window were shut.
Had they landed, they would have seen the path. Had Marian’s watermelons been a little higher, they would have attracted attention by reason of their regular rows, but they were scarcely above the holes yet. At the pier, too, there was nothing to tell them anything. The raft was farther along, back of some mango bushes.
There were the bananas and the palms. The corral fence was so overgrown that, like the wickiup, it attracted no attention till one was very close to it.
They stepped out of the launch and moored her to the pier. Mr. Hadley noticed that Pearson’s face was gray again. He was losing his nerve. It seemed to him as if the air in this narrow slit in the hills were suffocating him.
“I’ll take the things out,” he said to his companion.
“All right,” said Mr. Hadley. His voice was quiet and even, and, turning, he walked toward the hill.
Pearson stepped back into the launch, cursing himself under his breath for his own lack of self-control, for he was trembling; but taking the things out and carrying them up past the pier steadied him a little.
Then he started to follow Mr. Hadley, and was glancing about wondering if there was any particular choice of spots to pitch camp in, when something on the hilltop caught his eyes. He stopped and stared with his mouth open. Out from among the bushes into an open space came one, two, three, four, five persons, and some of them were children! A sudden weakness came over him. He dropped where he was, and for a moment everything went whirling black. When he came to himself he was sitting on the ground, his knees clasped in his arms, as he rocked back and forth, repeating over and over his wife’s name, “Rose, Rose, Rose, it’s them! O Rose, it’s them! I ain’t killed ’em, Rose! Rose!”
Mr. Hadley had scanned the hillside to no avail as he started to walk toward it, and then he noticed what seemed to be a path leading to a mass of brilliant bloom beyond. He followed in the path. The tracks seemed to be those of deer.
But when he came to the blossoms he was surprised. There were nasturtiums and poppies, a wild riot of them beside a little spring, or shallow, scooped-out well, that was walled with rocks except at one place where stepping-stones led down. And there, sitting half buried in the clear water, shaded by overhanging bloom, was a two-quart Mason jar about half full of oysters.
A most charming refrigerator truly, and Mr. Hadley stared at it stupidly, not even yet understanding, when suddenly came a chorus of clear young voices calling to him from above, and, turning, the father saw what he had never hoped to see again this side the gates of heaven,—his five children racing down the hill to meet him.