The occurrence pleased the men, for it showed them they had made no mistake.But it meant little else.The chief danger really was lest they become too settled in the protective attitude.As they took it, they were about, good-naturedly, to help along a worthy greenhorn.This they considered exceedingly generous on their part, and in their own minds they were inclined to look on Thorpe much as a grown man would look on a child.There needed an occasion for him to prove himself bigger than they.
Fine weather followed them up the long blue reach of Lake Huron;into the noble breadth of the Detour Passage, past the opening through the Thousand Islands of the Georgian Bay; into the St.
Mary's River.They were locked through after some delay on account of the grain barges from Duluth, and at last turned their prow westward in the Big Sea Water, beyond which lay Hiawatha's Po-ne-mah, the Land of the Hereafter.
Thorpe was about late that night, drinking in the mystic beauty of the scene.Northern lights, pale and dim, stretched their arc across beneath the Dipper.The air, soft as the dead leaves of spring, fanned his cheek.By and by the moon, like a red fire at sea, lifted itself from the waves.Thorpe made his way to the stern, beyond the square deck house, where he intended to lean on the rail in silent contemplation of the moon-path.
He found another before him.Phil, the little cripple, was peering into the wonderful east, its light in his eyes.He did not look at Thorpe when the latter approached, but seemed aware of his presence, for he moved swiftly to give room.
"It is very beautiful; isn't it, Phil?" said Thorpe after a moment.
"It is the Heart Song of the Sea," replied the cripple in a hushed voice.
Thorpe looked down surprised.
"Who told you that?" he asked.
But the cripple, repeating the words of a chance preacher, could explain himself no farther.In a dim way the ready-made phrase had expressed the smothered poetic craving of his heart,--the belief that the sea, the sky, the woods, the men and women, you, I, all have our Heart Songs, the Song which is most beautiful.
"The Heart Song of the Sea," he repeated gropingly."I don't know...I play it," and he made the motion of drawing a bow across strings, "very still and low." And this was all Thorpe's question could elicit.
Thorpe fell silent in the spell of the night, and pondered over the chances of life which had cast on the shores of the deep as driftwood the soul of a poet.
"Your Song," said the cripple timidly, "some day I will hear it.
Not yet.That night in Bay City, when you took me in, I heard it very dim.But I cannot play it yet on my violin.""Has your violin a song of its own?" queried the man.
"I cannot hear it.It tries to sing, but there is something in the way.I cannot.Some day I will hear it and play it, but--" and he drew nearer Thorpe and touched his arm--"that day will be very bad for me.I lose something." His eyes of the wistful dog were big and wondering.
"Queer little Phil!" cried Thorpe laughing whimsically."Who tells you these things?""Nobody," said the cripple dreamily, "they come when it is like to-night.In Bay City they do not come."
At this moment a third voice broke in on them.
"Oh, it's you, Mr.Thorpe," said the captain of the vessel."Thought it was some of them lumber-jacks, and I was going to fire 'em below.
Fine night."
"It is that," answered Thorpe, again the cold, unresponsive man of reticence."When do you expect to get in, Captain?""About to-morrow noon," replied the captain, moving away.Thorpe followed him a short distance, discussing the landing.The cripple stood all night, his bright, luminous eyes gazing clear and unwinking at the moonlight, listening to his Heart Song of the Sea.
Chapter XXX
Next morning continued the traditions of its calm predecessors.
Therefore by daybreak every man was at work.The hatches were opened, and soon between-decks was cumbered with boxes, packing cases, barrels, and crates.In their improvised stalls, the patient horses seemed to catch a hint of shore-going and whinnied.By ten o'clock there loomed against the strange coast line of the Pictured Rocks, a shallow bay and what looked to be a dock distorted by the northern mirage.
"That's her," said the captain.
Two hours later the steamboat swept a wide curve, slid between the yellow waters of two outlying reefs, and, with slackened speed, moved slowly toward the wharf of log cribs filled with stone.
The bay or the dock Thorpe had never seen.He took them on the captain's say-so.He knew very well that the structure had been erected by and belonged to Morrison & Daly, but the young man had had the foresight to purchase the land lying on the deep water side of the bay.He therefore anticipated no trouble in unloading; for while Morrison & Daly owned the pier itself, the land on which it abutted belonged to him.
From the arms of the bay he could make out a dozen figures standing near the end of the wharf.When, with propeller reversed, the Pole Star bore slowly down towards her moorings, Thorpe recognized Dyer at the head of eight or ten woodsmen.The sight of Radway's old scaler somehow filled him with a quiet but dangerous anger, especially since that official, on whom rested a portion at least of the responsibility of the jobber's failure, was now found in the employ of the very company which had attempted that failure.It looked suspicious.
"Catch this line!" sung out the mate, hurling the coil of a handline on the wharf.
No one moved, and the little rope, after a moment, slid overboard with a splash.
The captain, with a curse, signalled full speed astern.
