| OCR Text |
Show BEN AMES WILLIAMS -3gS WILLIAMS W.rJ.U.FEATUftES .-7777 THE STORY SO FAR: Robin Dale, a young artist, goes to Moose Bay to see her fiance, Will McPhail. When Will is accidentally killed, his brother Angus blames Robin. She goes to Angus' fishing fish-ing cruiser to see him. While she Is on board the boat sails, carrying her, Angus, Pat Donohoe and a cabin boy named Romeo toward Labrador. Now they have another passenger. Caught running contraband con-traband alcohol, he has seized the boat, with the help of Romeo, and is trying to escape from a government patrol. The boat runs aground on a rocky ledge and sinks. They succeed In reaching shore but have no idea where they are. ,Now Robin has Just discovered that they are on an Island. CHAPTER XIII No one answered her. The thing was plain enough without words. The island on which they stood was perhaps a quarter mile long, 200 yards wide. This upper part of it was sleek naked rock, black with wet little streams of rain water running run-ning down its slopes to cascade over the break of the cliffs on every side. There was never a tree in sight, and scarce a bush worth the name. Angus An-gus turned to Robin with gray, tired .v . eyes. She asked: "Where are we? Do you know?" Angus shook his head. No one went ashore in a snowstorm, one December De-cember day seventy years ago, on Gull Island. Two women and nine men got off her, so they did. They got to the island before she sank. They had a bit of sail for shelter, but no food, no water, no wood." Robin was trembling with a sudden sud-den terror. She cried defensively: "We've food! I have a pound of cooking chocolate. And we've water! wa-ter! There's rain water in every hole in the rocks. And we've shelter." Angus looked at her sharply; but Pat did not lift his head. His voice droned on. "Sure, sorr, they could see a village eight miles away, the same as us. They built fires to signal, too, at night; but the folk ashore went to bed at dark, belike; and wood was scarce and the fires were small and no one ever saw them. It was a March day when a fisherman found them, in a heap under the poor bit of sail." "Dead?" Robin whispered. She cried desperately: "But Angus, we can signal them somehow. We can put up a flag!" Pat droned mournfully: "With never a flag, nor a flagpole? How will we be doing that, ma'am?" Robin forced herself to laugh at him. "Pat, 'Pat, you'll not give up so easily! Why, we can swim ashore sorry," she said. "I've certainly i ruined things for all of you, haven't I?" He spoke in a still impatience. "Blame doesn't matter now. We'll manage. You stay here." So she was alone for an hour or more in the scant shelter afforded by these two great slabs. Wind curled in around the slab that was like a wall; so she began to pile some rocks at one end, and thus engaged, en-gaged, she remembered for the first time that cake of chocolate inside her flannel shirt. She put it in a dry crevice, specially spe-cially contrived, in the barrier she was building across the open end of the shelter; and she piled rocks over it and around it to keep it safe for him. Angus and Jenkins and Romeo returning, re-turning, met just above the shelter, and she heard their voices and looked up and saw them there. Mr. Jenkins brought a broken orange crate, and Romeo a few dead twigs and a stick of rotten drift, and Angus An-gus some scraps of wood. Angus called down to her: "All right?" "Yes." She would not tell him about the chocolate while they could hear. They brought their scant burdens bur-dens of firewood to deposit them by the shelter, and she noticed that Jen- V, . if we must! I could almost do it myself." "And the water like ice, and the tide current like a river running?" Angus chuckled. "Come out of your trance, Pat! Here's what we can do. We'll build a monument for them to see. A cairn. A pile of rocks. People who live beside the sea always watch the horizon. You know that, Pat." Pat's head rose as though hope revived in him; he uttered ut-tered an approving grunt. "If they see something sticking up on top of the island here, they'll come to see what it is." Pat sprang to his feet, his hopeless hope-less mood gone as quickly as it had come. "Right for you, sorr!" he cried. "We'll do that!" He turned sharply as though to begin; but Angus An-gus said: "Wait, Pat. Miss Dale, you say you have a cake of chocolate?" She nodded; and then she was suddenly sud-denly cold, remembering. She looked toward the cleft below them. Mr. Jenkins and Romeo were not in sight. They must be down in the shelter under that overhanging slab, and the chocolate was there. She caught Angus miserably by the arm. "Yes, but it's down there." She saw his lips tighten. Then he turned that way and they followed him. They came to the break of the ledge and looked down into the shelter a dozen feet below them. Mr. Jenkins sat cross-legged in the open end of it, facing them. Romeo peered over his shoulder. Mr. Jenkins Jen-kins held his pistol in his hand. Angus An-gus stopped at sight of it, and the others too. Jenkins said assenting-ly: spoke. Robin tried to speak, but her lips were stiff with cold. A gust of sleet pelted them; and Angus drew Robin beside him, sheltering her as well as he could. "We'll have to get a fire going," he said. "Have to find some cover against the rain." Pat spoke. "Sorr, there's a place I marked back there where we came up. Come and see. 'Tis not much; but it will be some better than nothing noth-ing at all." "We'll have a look," Angus assented. as-sented. They turned back toward 'Hhe cleft, and as they did so, Romeo and Jenkins came up into view. Mr. Jenkins wore now an oilskin coat he had not worn before. They approached ap-proached him, and Romeo drew warily aside as though fearful of some violence. Robin saw a long open cut on cheek and jaw in front of Romeo's ear, and all his countenance counte-nance was battered and swollen. She remembered how when he threw her aside in the forecastle last night she struck at him with the knife like a club. ' Angus asked a question. "Where Aldid you get the coat, Jenkins?" "I had it on last night in the cabin to keep warm. I got out of it when it looked as if I'd have to swim ashore. It floated up on the beach." He nodded toward Romeo. "I sent him down to get it, this morning." "Miss Dale needs it more than you do." Robin started to deny this; but before be-fore she could speak, Jenkins laughed grimly. "Her? I wouldn't give it to her to save her life. If she 4 hadn't been along, Romeo would have tended to business, and we'd be all right now. Let her freeze." When he saw violence in McPhail's eyes he took a step or two backward back-ward and dropped his hand into his pocket and said: "Easy, McPhail. - I've still got my gun. Come on, let's Pet nut at here." Mr. Jenkins sat cross-legged, facing fac-ing them. kins and Romeo kept a wary distance dis-tance between them and Angus, as though fearful of a surprise attack. Then Angus said to Mr. Jenkins: "I found no better shelter than this. Did you?" Jenkins said sullenly: "No. And there's darned little driftwood, and nothing to eat." Robin thought proudly and happily of her hidden chocolate, a treasure beyond price. Then Pat hailed them from the dome that was the highest point of the island. He was out of sight, but they heard him shout: "Halloo!" he called. Here's land, sorr, and a town!" Angus turned to race up the slope. Romeo and Mr. Jenkins did not move to follow him; but Robin, forgetting everything' else but this hope of quick rescue, scrambled up to the level and ran toward where Angus and Pat stood together. "So this'll be Humpback Island we're on, sorr; and yon's Humpback Harbor. Nought but four or five families live there; but they fish a bit, and they can run us to Corner Brook as easy as baiting hooks." A scud of sleet and rain hid the distant land and houses behind a gray veil; and like a curtain then the fog came down again. Angus jaid quietly: "They could if they knew we were here." "Sure, sorr, we'll signal them." "They can't see us through the "Yes, that's right. Stay where you are." Robin felt the sudden storm in Angus, An-gus, but his tones were calm enough. "Jenkins," he said, "we're all in this together. We've got to . .V Jenkins interrupted curtly. "Not me, McPhail. Some of us may not live till we're found. Two or three days in this rain and cold will kill anyone. There's not room for five of us here." He grinned. "There's room for Miss Dale, if she's cold. Romeo will keep her warm. But you and the Irishman will have to find yourselves another hole!" Angus, without a word, led Robin back from the lip of the cleft Pat followed them and they walked away together silently; but when they were at some distance Angus stopped. "Pat, we've got to get him out of there." "Aye, sorr!" Robin asked hotly: "Do you think' he's eaten our chocolate?" "Was it where he would see it?" "He might not. I piled rocks over it to keep it dry." "Can't tell. about that," Angus decided. de-cided. "But Pat, we've got to have some place to get in out of the rain, anyway. We've got to handle them. Here's our best chance." Pat listened lis-tened soberly, and Angus said: Angus hesitated. "We can't," he said. "We're on an island. Water all around us." Rain and sleet lashed at them. "An island? You're crazy." Angus said, "See for yourself." ' He indicated the dome above where they stood. Jenkins and Romeo went that way, and Pat led Angus and Robin down to the break of the cliff. A dozen feet below them, some harder strata had resisted, the weather, and a ledge two feet thick projected like a shelf. The outer part of it had broken off, a great slab a dozen feet across; and this stood on edge like a wall across the seaward face of tlie cavelike space under the overhang. Nevertheless, here was shelter. Angus and Pat began to chink that opening at the top, to reduce to a minimum the amount of rain and sleet that might come in; and then Mr. Jenkins and Romeo returned. "We're in a tough spot, McPhail," said Jenkins, soberly. Angus nodded. "First thing is to look around," he suggested. "See what we've got to get on with. Look for firewood. We can all meet here later, start a fire." Jenkins moved "You get down to the beach, somehow, some-how, and crawl up the slope below them. Get as near them as you can. I'll be lying flat on my stomach right above where they are. When you're near enough, make some sound. Jenkins will come outside to take a shot at you; and I'll be on him in two jumps." Pat looked dubious. "What about Romeo? He can throw a knife straight enough to split a stick." Angus said briefly: "I can throw a rock as hard as he can throw a knife." Angus hesitated, then he nodded. "Very well, Pat. Maybe I'm better bet-ter than you at dodging bullets; and you're certainly better than I am in a rough and tumble. I'll draw his fire, and you get him." "I will that!" "I'll be able to help, on Romeo. Give me time to get near them. Don' make a move till I yell." "Aye, sorr." Angus considered for a moment. "All right," he said. "It's not very good; but I don't know anything bet-1 ter. Let's go." 'TO BE COSTIMED) away in a silent assent; and Komeo after a moment's indecision, as though choosing the lesser of two evils, followed him. Pat watched them go; and he said to Angus with a relish: ."Romeo'Il never witch another girl with the handsome face of him; and he'll not laugh again at this scar of mine." "What cut his face so?" Pat's glance touched Robin. She remembered that he had been close beside her in the forecastle last night, must have seen the knife in her hand; but he said evasively: "Like as not he butted the glass out of the pilothouse or what not. He had it coming to him, anyway, bad cess to him! Aye, them two bold men will sing small now; or you and me we'll break the both of them." Angus did not press the point. Jenkins Jen-kins and Romeo had gone toward the more distant end of the island. "You and I will search this end, xat," McPhail decided. "Miss Dale, you stay here where there's some-shelter." some-shelter." She (ell like a child rebuked. "I'm fog." "It will be lifting, come afternoon." after-noon." Angus glanced at Robin. "Surely," "Sure-ly," he agreed. He looked around for Jenkins and Romeo; but they were not in sight. He told Robin: "It's only eight or ten miles to shore, so we'll be all right, as soon as it stops raining." But Pat Donohoe suddenly squatted squat-ted on his hunkers, and he made a doleful, keening sound. Angus asked quickly: "What's wrong, Pat?" Pat wagged his head. "Sorr, there'll be trouble to signal the folk ashore there, even when it clears." "We'll light a fire." "With never a dry match among the lot of us? Nor a dry rag on any one of us?" "We'll manage somehow." Pat stared at the rock between his feet. "Sorr, did ever ye hear of the Queen of Swansea?" "No." "Many's the time I've heard the old folks tell that tale." Pat's low-tones low-tones were remote and strange, like the murmurs of a sleeper. "She |
