Chapter V: Part 5

'Damme, the old man is luny,' said Williams. 'If I had my way I'd have her boomed off into the stream and I'd kick the runners overboard.'

But with such methods Tom and his friends were familiar. The new tactics of the _Oriana's_ skipper took them all aback. They stood close together and stared at each other.

'Say, what sort of a game is he playin'?' they asked each other.

'The derned ratty old hoosier,' said Tom; 'he's tryin' to go to windward of us at the start. This is quite a new thing, this is. The old galoot has been goin' in for bein' popular with his crowd. But if I know sailors, it won't work.'

He started for the fo'c'sle and put his head in.

'What cheer boys, and how goes it? What kind of a passage did you have?'

'Long, but easy,' said Jacobs coolly, as he pulled on a guernsey over his head. 'No work to speak of and fine weather.'

The other runners gathered round their prey. Grant's man went inside and sat down. He produced a bottle.

'Will you have a nip?'

'Just had a tot,' said Jacobs. 'The old man sarved it out when we came in sight of the city.'

'Well, who's for the shore, boys?' put in Tom Gilson. 'You'll be ready for a good time now, and Portland is a daisy of a place, I tell you. The best of grub and good liquor, and the prettiest gals running around here. Who's with me for Healy's? He gets up the best table in the city, and I don't care who sets up the next best.'

The second mate came for'ard.

'The captain is ready with your money, men.'

'Is he goin' to pay you off?' asked the runners.

'Lord bless you, no,' said Hillyer, who was Jacobs's chum. 'He's only ladling it out in easy goes just to let us have some fun here. Five dollars a week; think of that!'

It was certainly unusual, and the runners stared.

'Five dollars,' sneered Gilson. 'Why, every man of you that comes ashore with me shall have ten right off.'

'And a ship next week,' said Jacobs drily. 'I know; I've been there. I was in Portland and in your house, mister, three years ago.'

'But I wasn't here then, and things are changed. Sailors have it all their own way now, and we guarantee a month ashore and thirty dollars a month when you ship.'

Talk as he would, and he did talk, he had struck a crowd that for a time would have nothing to say to him. They were quiet and sober, and knew, in American parlance, that he was not on board the _Oriana_ for his health. He was there for dollars. The men went aft one by one and the skipper talked to them.

'We shan't turn to till eight in the morning,' he said, 'and don't forget that the men I've let on board are not here for your good, it's for their own. Here's a dollar for you. I've made up my mind to let you have a dollar a night. If you sleep on board, it will be all the better for you.'

And the men went out feeling that for once they had a captain who understood men a little. There was not one of them who did not make up his mind to keep sober and stay by the _Oriana_. And as a crew is a crowd, and with the obstinate affections of a crowd, the initial direction given to their thoughts persisted long. The runners were given the cold shoulder, and every suggestion they made was looked on as a trap. The men followed Jacobs and Hillyer, who both had some knowledge of Portland.

'It's my belief this will work,' said Ticehurst, as he watched them go.

'Well, sir, if you find half of them here in the morning, I'll eat a cat-block,' said the mate.

'We'll see,' replied Ticehurst. And he interviewed the steward. 'While we're here,' he said, 'the men are to get soft bread and fresh meat and vegetables three times a day. If it costs what it will, it will be money in the owner's pockets.'

He went ashore himself, and found his way to the house of the British consul, whom he knew pretty well, for it was too late to go to the agents. Mr. Sedgwick was a bright man and sturdy, but he was rather pessimistic over the _Oriana's_ prospects.

'This Healy is cunning as well as mean and venal and brutal,' he said, 'I know he has it laid up for you. Don't have anything to do with him personally. The law here is pretty much what it is made by the people who want to use it to make money. He'll bribe your men off.'

'I'll have them arrested,' said Ticehurst.

Sedgwick shrugged his shoulders.

'They'll have to be found. And judging by what happened to the _Heather Bell_, if the United States put them on board, the State of Oregon will take them off. There are two sets of laws here, and State law has the pull. And Healy has the pull on the State law as administered by elected judges.'

'We'll see,' said Ticehurst, who thought he knew a little. He was about to learn more. 'We'll see.'

'So you will,' said the consul.

'At any rate, four of my men are teetotalers,' said Ticehurst, 'and some of those who are not are not quite such fools as most sailors. I believe I've fixed Healy this time.'

But in the morning he was four men short, and the comedy began.

Yet Ticehurst did not lose his temper. He was as cool as the top of Mount Hood to the eastward.

'Work the men easy, Mr. Williams,' he said, 'work 'em easy. Just keep 'em going. Remember this is going to be a game, and the counters are men. A hard word may spoil me, and I want you to be popular. Do you understand?'

The mate sighed.

'To be sure, to be sure, sir, if you desire it.'

And the skipper went to see Mr. Sedgwick again.

'Sedgwick, I lost four men last night.'

'The devil you did!'

'So Healy scores first blood. What's to be my next move?'

'Then you mean to fight?'

'By the Lord, I do. And I want your help, if it's only to make such a row that the Board of Trade at home will hear of it.'

And Sedgwick said he'd do his best.

'Nevertheless----'

And he sighed, like the mate, though for different reasons. Together they went up-town and found the United States Marshal.

'You want a warrant to get the four arrested?' asked the marshal; 'and you shall have it. But you know the game they'll play?'

Sedgwick did, and Ticehurst didn't.

'They'll work the State of Oregon against me,' said the marshal, 'and it'll be a fight.'

'That's what I'm here for,' said the skipper of the _Oriana_. He quoted General Grant: "I'll fight it out in this line if it takes all the summer." How is it you let Healy and his gang run the port?'

'I can't help it,' replied the official of the United States. 'I don't think you Englishmen understand that being a United States official here is pretty much the same as being a foreigner. There's folks here that would rather do me up than drink. However, we'll get the warrant and arrest these men to-night, if they can be found.'

They tried to arrest them that night. And Healy got word, of course, about what was coming.

'All right,' said Healy. 'I'll fix you.'

He sent for Gilson.

'Take these men back to the _Oriana_!'

'Eh, what?' said Gilson, 'are you going to quit already?'

'Roll up a blanket or two of mine with their dunnage, you fool,' said Healy.

And the runner laughed.

'Well, you are a daisy.'

And when the marshal appeared, Healy interviewed him.

'Come right in and look for 'em. They're not here.'

And, of course, they weren't.

'They're back on their ship,' said Healy, with a grin.

'And what's your game?' asked the marshal.

'You'll know to-morrow,' said the boarding-house keeper, and the marshal went down to the _Oriana_ to see Ticehurst.

'They came on board and swore they never meant to desert,' said Ticehurst; 'what's the meaning of it?'

'We'll have to wait.'

But they knew in the morning when the police of the State of Oregon came down on board.

'Well, what do you want?' asked Williams.

He knew when the four men were arrested for stealing blankets from Healy's house. They were taken away and clapped in gaol.

'By the Lord, this is a game,' said Ticehurst. 'That's a point to Healy.'

He went to Sedgwick and told him about the new move, and Sedgwick nodded.

'What he doesn't know isn't worth knowing. I'll come down to the court with you.'

And the judge, who happened not to be one of those in Healy's pocket, saw through the game when Ticehurst took the witness-stand.

'This is a conflict between me and Mr. Healy,' said Ticehurst; 'and I don't believe the men stole the blankets.'

'We didn't,' said the men unanimously. They looked very sorry for themselves. And Justice Smith smiled as he fined them twenty-five dollars. Smith said that he was inclined to be lenient, and later in the afternoon he remitted the fine on condition the men went on board. They agreed to this very humbly.

'Well, we score,' said Ticehurst.

Sedgwick shook his head.

'It's not over yet.'

And so it proved, for Ticehurst met Healy in Main Street that evening.

'You think you've bested me,' said Healy, 'but you haven't. Nor you can't say you have till you get to sea with your men.'

'There seems some law to be had here after all, Mr. Healy,' replied Ticehurst.

'Oh, Smith's no good. We'll have him out,' said Healy; 'if these judges won't do as we want them, we'll have others that will.'

He cocked his hat and marched on.

'By Jove!' said Ticehurst. 'I wonder now!'

He went after the boarding-house keeper.

'Oh, Mr. Healy!'

Healy turned round scowling.

'Let's fight fair,' said Ticehurst. 'I'd like to know if you consider this conversation private?'

'Private be damned,' said Healy, 'it's what you like.'

And Ticehurst smiled.

'I think I'll fix him,' he said.

But Healy grinned. He grinned more widely than ever when Ticehurst's letter in the Sunday Oregonian gave the whole conversation between himself and Healy. This was followed up next day by an interview in which Ticehurst expressed much more astonishment than he felt at the ways of Pacific Coast ports. One would have thought him quite a child in such matters.

But even Ticehurst, who had not consulted Sedgwick, was a little surprised the following morning. He was arrested by the deputy-sheriff at ten o'clock.

'It's for libel,' said the police officer. And he read the warrant.

The information on which the warrant of arrest was issued read most cheerfully--

'The said John Doe Ticehurst, on the 16th day of August 1899, in the City of Portland, County of Multnomah, State of Oregon, then and there being, did then and there maliciously and feloniously, by means other than words orally spoken, cause to be published of and concerning another, to wit John Healy, certain false and scandalous matter in the _Sunday Oregonian_, to wit "If we can't get these judges to do as we want, we will have judges that will," with intent then and there to injure and defame the said John Healy.'

'You'll come right along to Justice Hayne's Court, east side,' said the deputy-sheriff.

He was let out again at eleven o'clock on 'putting up' five hundred dollars cash bail.

'I reckon I've got him,' said Healy chuckling. 'We'll tie his old hooker up, and she getting ready for sea again, and we'll get the whole crowd out of her.'

'I have been coming to the conclusion of late years that going to sea was tolerably dull,' said Ticehurst to Sedgwick, as they walked through the crowd of loafers outside Hayne's Court. 'But Portland is not dull.'

'Even I don't find it so,' said the consul. 'But, of course, this is to keep you here. You're nearly ready for sea?'

'I shall be in three days.'

'And your crew?'

So far I've got them all.'

Sedgwick shook his head.

'They'd rather die than let you go like that. How in thunder have you kept them?'

And Ticehurst explained his wonderful theory.

'I've really tried to make them comfortable, and I've treated them like men. I give them all they earn while they're in port. But what am I to do?'

'I'll think of it,' said Sedgwick.

He thought to some purpose. For it was commonly stated in Portland that many masters of merchant ships paid the boarding-house masters to induce the men to desert, when the amount of wages due to them from the ship was more than the 'blood-money' which had to be paid for a new crew.

'I think that's the line,' said Sedgwick. He got a reporter to go and interview Mr. Healy, and Healy being more than half-seas over and in high delight at having held up Ticehurst and the _Oriana_, let himself go.

'Curse the lot of 'em,' said Healy; 'they talk as if a boarding-house master was necessary a scoundrel. Ay, they do, and there's them lying in the _Willammette_ now as have come to me winking the eye, and saying, "Now, Mr. Healy, how much do you want to take my crew out of my ship?" Why, I've done it as low as ten dollars a head, and have had a hundred a head for putting a new crowd in, and then it's been money in the pockets of the ship-owners and the captain, as it stands to reason it would be if the ship owed the men more than a hundred and ten dollars, besides saving the grub for a time when the men are doing little.'

'But Ticehurst didn't do this?'

Healy smiled and was incautious.

'To be sure he didn't. But he would if it paid him. If he'd come in here after a long voyage instead of a short passage out from Liverpool, he'd have been in my back room with dollars.'

And next day this was in the papers. Sedgwick smiled and ran down to see Ticehurst, whose ship was lying in the stream with a United States marshal in charge of her to see the men stayed on board and were not taken off by Healy's pirates, and a Multnomah county official to see that Ticehurst stayed more or less in sight.

'Now,' said Ticehurst, 'haven't I got him?'

'You can try,' said Sedgwick.

So Ticehurst filed a complaint in the United States Circuit Court in 'a damage suit' against Healy, laying his damages at ten thousand dollars.

'It will make him sick,' said Sedgwick. And it did.

Healy fairly howled, and by way of immediate revenge sent one of his ruffians to catch the reporter who had caught him.

'Sock it to him good, Joe,' said Healy; 'don't leave him a feather to fly with. Stamp on his right hand and kick his ribs in. I'll teach him to come down here with a pencil and a note-book and lay traps for inoffending citizens, so I will.'

And Joe went off to 'do up' the reporter. As it happened (and it was unlucky for Joe) the reporter was a man of his hands, and not at all an unsuspecting person. It was Joe who went to the hospital, and not the man with the pencil and the note-book. Nevertheless, as he understood how things shaped themselves in Oregon and in Pacific ports generally, this particular reporter thought it healthy to go elsewhere. What Joe had failed in Jack might do, and Healy had a very long memory, as many injured men could tell.

'What I like about Oregon is its climate and its general uncertainty,' said Ticehurst. 'It makes me feel young again. Of course, I shan't push this libel suit, Sedgwick.'

'If you do, you'll be like Vanderdecken when it's finished,' said Sedgwick. 'To try to beat to the westward of the Cape Horn of Law here will make an ancient Flying Dutchman of you. I'd try to get to sea.'

'I'm going to try,' replied Ticehurst. 'It will be quite enough of a victory for me to have come into Portland and go out with the same men I brought in.'

'It's never been done yet,' said Sedgwick, 'and if you get through you'll make a record.'

And the next day Ticehurst shifted his quarters from the ship to the Oregon Hotel in the city. He explained that he did so because he understood it would take some time to finish the cross suits then in progress.

'The man's a fool,' said Healy, rejoicing. 'We'll keep the _Oriana_ here till she goes to pieces like a rotten scow on a mud-bank.'

But Ticehurst was no fool. He sent the _Oriana_ down to Astoria to wait until the suits were done with, and was seen to be much occupied with legal matters all day long. At night he sat in the hall of the hotel and denounced Healy with much severity.

'I'll stay till I get his scalp,' said Ticehurst. But if he meant what he said it is odd that he reckoned up what he owed the hotel, and put the requisite amount of dollars in an otherwise almost empty portmanteau. It might also have seemed strange to Healy if he knew that his enemy went for a walk late that night and got as far as St. John's on the railroad to the north. There he boarded the last train to Kalama, that deserted township which once had a boom of which the bottom fell out, and went down the Columbia in the _Telephone_.

But Healy tumbled to the whole thing in the morning when it was found that Ticehurst had not slept in the hotel. The Portland authorities, at Healy's request, went down to Astoria next day bright and early, and boarded the _Oriana_. Mr. Williams, the chief mate, received them at the gangway.

'Where is the captain?'

'In Portland,' said Williams sourly. Treating the men according to Ticehurst's prescription was getting on his nerves.

'He skipped from Portland last night, and we believe him to be on board,' said the marshal.

'You can look,' said Williams shortly. If, as is probable, he knew that Ticehurst was not in Portland, he also knew he was not on board the _Oriana_. The most careful search failed to find him.

'Why don't you take us alongside and discharge the wheat,' said Gregg savagely. 'Perhaps he's under two thousand tons of it.'

The second mate was almost as cross as Williams. As he said afterwards, the way the marshal acted, a full-sized English skipper might be concealed in a sextant case.

At last the intruders gave up and went ashore.

'You needn't trouble to come on board again,' said Williams. 'I'm skipper now and shall take her to sea.'

But if that was true it is odd that Ticehurst was not to be found in Astoria. He had disappeared. The United States Marshal, who was still on board the _Oriana_, laughed, for he had no great sympathy with the state officials of Oregon.

'I guess your skipper has a head,' he opined, as he lounged against the rail and ejected tobacco juice into the blue-grey waters of the great Columbia River. 'Tell me where he is. I won't give you away.'

But even Williams did not know. He went to sea next morning, and was towed across the bar by the tug _Comet_. The Oregon people came on board again and made another search.

'Oh, come to sea with me,' said Williams with a savage eye. He had a notion that if they did there would be part of the crew that Captain Ticehurst would leave at his mercy.

'Don't get rowdy, young fellow,' said the marshal; 'it's a waste of natural energy better used in learning how to be civil to your superiors.'

'But you're licked,' said Williams; 'you're fairly licked.'

'Life's a game,' said the state marshal philosophically, as he went over the side with his United States rival, 'and if we won always we should get swelled head.'

He looked up from the boat.

'Say!' he called.

'Yes,' said Williams.

'If we're licked, and I own it, where is the captain?'

'I'll send word from Europe,' said Williams.

But, as a matter of fact, he sent word by the skipper of the tug. For it was Captain Ticehurst who steered the old _Comet_ over the bar with the _Oriana_ behind.

'Now, what I want to know is,' said the captain to his mate, 'what I want to know is, whether it isn't better to treat men as men, and best that crowd in Portland?'

Williams looked melancholy.

'Well, sir, it may be on a pinch,' he owned; 'but it's the principle I'm thinkin' of.'

And his principle was, of course, that sailor-men were to expect nothing, while his duty was to see that they got it with any amount of suitable sauce.

THE END

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at the Edinburgh University Press