“WELL, SHIPMATE, OUT GUNNING?”

THE QUEST OF THE
SILVER SWAN

A Land and Sea Tale for Boys

BY
W. BERT FOSTER

Author of “In Alaskan Waters,” “With Washington at
Valley Forge,” “The Lost Galleon,” “The Treasure
of Southlake Farm,” etc.

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NEW YORK
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Copyright, by Frank A. Munsey Co., 1894 and 1895, as a serial.

Copyright, 1907, by Chatterton-Peck Company.

The Quest of the Silver Swan.

CONTENTS

THE QUEST OF
THE SILVER SWAN

CHAPTER I
THE RAFT AT SEA

The sun, whose upper edge had just appeared above the horizon, cast its first red beams aslant a deserted wilderness of heaving billows.

Here and there a flying fish, spurning its usual element, cut the air like a swift ray of light, falling back into the sea again after its short flight with a splash that sent myriad drops flashing in the sunlight.

There were not a few triangular objects, dark in color, and looking like tiny sails, darting along the surface of the sea, first in this direction and then in that. There was a peculiar sinister motion to these fleshy sails, an appearance to make the beholder shudder involuntarily; for these objects were the dorsal fins of sharks, and there is nothing more bloodthirsty and cruel than these “tigers of the sea.”

It was quite noticeable that these monsters had gathered about an object which, in comparison with the vast expanse of sea and sky, was but a speck. It labored heavily upon the surface of the sea, and seemed to possess a great attraction for the sharks.

It was really a heavily built raft, more than twenty feet in length, and with a short, stumpy mast lashed upright amidships. Near each end was a long sea chest, both placed across the raft, and there were also a broken water butt and several empty cracker boxes lashed firmly (as were the chests) to the strongly built platform.

At one end of this ungainly craft, behind one of the chests, lay two men; at the further side of the opposite chest reclined another.

One might have thought the sea chests to be fortifications, for all three men were heavily armed, and each was extremely careful not to expose his person to the party behind the opposite chest.

Between the two boxes lay the figure of a fourth man; but he was flat upon his face with his arms spread out in a most unnatural attitude. He was evidently dead.

Of the two men who were at the forward end of the raft (or what was the forward end for the time being, the ocean currents having carried the craft in various directions during the several past days), of these two, I say, one was a person of imposing, if not handsome, presence, with curling brown hair streaked with gray, finely chiseled features, and skin bronzed by wind and weather; but now the features were most painfully emaciated, and a blood stained bandage was wrapped about his brow.

His companion was a hearty looking old sea dog, well past the half century mark, but who had evidently stood the privations they had undergone far better than the first named.

He was burned even darker than the other, was of massive figure and leonine head, and possessed a hand like a ham. One leg was bent up beneath him, but the other was stretched out stiffly, and it took only a casual glance to see that the old seaman had a wooden leg.

Every few moments the latter individual raised his head carefully and peered over the chest, thus keeping a sharp watch on the movements of the single occupant of the space behind the other fortification.

This person was a broad shouldered, deep chested man, seemingly quite as powerful as the wooden legged sailor. Privation and hardship had not improved his appearance, either, for his raven black beard and hair were matted and unkempt, and his bronzed face had that peculiar, pinched expression with which starvation marks its victims; and this look did not make his naturally villainous features less brutal.

In truth, all three of these unfortunates were starving to death; the fourth man, who lay so still upon the rough boards between the two chests, was the first victim of the hardships they had suffered for the last ten days.

These four men had been members of the ship’s company of the good brig Silver Swan, bound to Boston from Cape Town and Rio Janeiro. After leaving the latter port three weeks before, several severe storms had arisen and the brig was beaten terrifically by the elements for days and days.

Finally, after having every stick wrenched from her and even the jury mast the crew had rigged, stripped bare, the brig, now being totally unmanageable, was blown upon a narrow and barren reef several leagues to the south and west of Cuba.

The crew, who had ere this most faithfully obeyed the captain and mate, Caleb Wetherbee, now believing the vessel about to go to pieces, madly rushed to the boats, and lowering them into the heavy sea, lost their lives in their attempt to leave the brig.

Captain Tarr and mate Wetherbee were able to save only two of the unfortunates—Paulo Montez, a Brazilian, and Jim Leroyd, the latter the least worthy of all the crew.

These four had built the rude raft upon which they had now floated so long, and not daring to remain with the brig during another storm that seemed imminent, they set sail in the lumbering craft and left the well built and still seaworthy brig hard and fast upon the reef.

This storm, which had frightened them from the Swan, was only severe enough to strip their rude mast of its sail and rigging and drive them seemingly far out of the course of other vessels, for not a sail had they sighted since setting out on the raft.

Slowly their provisions had disappeared, while the now calmed sea carried them hither and thither as it listed; and at last the captain and mate had decided to put all hands upon still shorter allowance.

At this, Leroyd, always an ugly and brutal fellow even aboard ship, had rebelled, and had tried to stir up his companion, Paulo, to mutiny against the two officers; but the Brazilian was already too far gone to join in any such scheme (in fact, he died the next forenoon), and Caleb Wetherbee had driven Leroyd to his present position behind the further chest, at the point of his pistol.

Captain Tarr, who had received a heavy blow on the head from a falling block at the time of the brig’s wreck, was far less able to stand the hardship than either of his living companions, and, now that ten full days had expired since leaving the Silver Swan, he felt himself failing fast.

Alone, he would have been unable to cope with Leroyd; but Caleb Wetherbee stood by him like a faithful dog and kept the villainous sailor in check. As Leroyd had demanded his share of the water and scanty store of provisions, the mate had, with careful exactness, given him his third and then made hint retire behind his chest again; for he could not trust the fellow an instant.

“The scoundrel would put two inches o’ steel between both our ribs for the sake o’ gettin’ the whole o’ this grub,” declared Caleb, keeping a firm grip upon his pistol.

“He’d only shorten my time a little, Cale,” gasped Captain Tarr, a paroxysm of pain weakening him terribly for the moment. “I can’t stand many such times as that,” he added, when the agony had passed.

“Brace up, cap’n,” said the mate cheerfully. “You’ll pull through yet.”

“Don’t deceive yourself, or try to deceive me, Caleb,” responded Captain Tarr gloomily. “I know my end is nigh, though I’m not an old man yet—younger than you, old trusty, by ten years. And my life’s been a failure, too,” he continued, more to himself than to his companion.

“Tut! tut! don’t talk like that ’ere. Ye’ll have ter pull through for the sake o’ that boy o’ yourn, you know.”

“I shall never see him again,” declared the injured man, with confidence. “And how can I die in peace when I know that I shall leave my son penniless?”

“Penniless!” exclaimed Wetherbee. “Didn’t you own the brig, an’ ain’t you been makin’ v’y’ges in her for the past ten year?”

“I did own the Silver Swan, and I have made paying voyages with her,” replied the captain weakly; “but, shame on me to have to say it, all my earnings have been swallowed up by a speculation which turned out to be utterly worthless. A sailor, Caleb, should stick by the sea, and keep his money in shipping; I went into a mine in Nevada and lost every cent I had saved.”

“But there was the Swan,” said the dumfounded mate; “there’ll be the int’rest money on her—and a good bit it should be, too.”

“Aye, should be,” muttered Captain Tarr bitterly; “but the brig is on that reef and there’s not a cent of insurance on her.”

“What! no insurance?” gasped Wetherbee.

“No. When I left port last time my policy had run out, and I hadn’t a cent to pay for having it renewed. So, if the old brig’s bones whiten on that reef, poor Brandon will not get a cent.”

“If they do,” exclaimed the mate in wonder.

“Yes, if they do,” responded Captain Tarr, rising on his elbow and speaking lower, so that there could be no possibility of the man at the other end of the raft hearing his words; “for it’s my firm conviction, Caleb, that we’d done better to stick by the old Swan. This last storm drove hard from the west’ard. Suppose she’d slipped off again into deep water? She didn’t leak enough to keep her sweet, in spite of the terrific pounding she got from waves and rocks, and she might float for weeks—aye, for months—and you know she’d have plenty of company drifting up and down the Atlantic coast.”

“But that ain’t probable, cap’n, though I’ll grant ye that we might have done better by stickin’ by her a while longer.”

“Probable or not, Caleb, I feel that it is true. You know, they say a dying man can see some things plainer than other folks.”

Caleb was silenced by this, for he could not honestly aver that he did not believe his old commander to be near his end.

“And we had a valuable cargo, too, you know—very valuable,” murmured Captain Tarr. “I put every cent I received from the sale of the goods we took to Cape Town into this cargo, and would have cleared a handsome profit—enough to have kept both Brandon and me in good circumstances for a year. And then, there is something else.”

“Well, what is it?” Caleb asked, after taking a squint over the top of their breastwork to make sure that Leroyd had not ventured out.

“If I’d got home with the Silver Swan, Caleb, I should have been rich for life, and you, old trusty, should have had the brig just as she stood, for the cost of makin’ out the papers.”

“What?” exclaimed Caleb.

He looked at his commander for several moments, and then shook his head slowly. He believed that the privation they had suffered had at length affected even Captain Horace Tarr’s brain.

“I’m not crazy, Caleb,” said the captain faintly. “I tell you I should have been immensely wealthy. Brandon should have never wanted for anything as long as he lived, nor should I; and I had already decided to give the brig to you.”

“What—what d’ye mean if ye ain’t crazy?” cried Caleb, in bewilderment.

“Do you remember the man who came aboard the brig at Cape Town, just before we sailed?” asked Captain Tarr, in a whisper, evidently saving his strength as much as possible for his story. “He was a friend of my brother Anson.”

“Anson!” interjected Caleb. “Why, I supposed he was dead.”

“He is now,” replied the captain; “but instead of dying several years ago, as we supposed, he had been living in the interior of Cape Colony, and just before he actually did die he gave a package (papers, this man supposed them to be) to an acquaintance, to be delivered to me. I happened to touch at Cape Town before the friend of my brother had tried to communicate with me by mail, and he brought the package aboard the brig himself.

“He did not know what he was carrying—he never would have dared do it had he known—for with a letter from Anson was a package, done up in oil silk, of—diamonds of the purest water!”

“Diamonds!” repeated Caleb.

“Yes, diamonds—thousands of dollars’ worth—enough to make one man, at least, fabulously rich!” The captain slowly rolled his head from side to side. “After all these years the luck of the Tarrs had changed, Caleb. Fortune has ever played us false, and even now, just when wealth was in our grasp, it was snatched from us again.

“After wandering up and down the earth for forty years, Anson finally ‘struck it rich,’ and am I, who was to profit by his good fortune, and the son whom I love more than I do anything else on earth, to lose this treasure after all?”

He fell back upon the raft, and the exertion set the wound in his head to bleeding again. A dark stream appeared beneath the bandage and trickled down his forehead, while he lay, gasping for breath, upon the bit of sailcloth which served him for a bed.

“What did you do with the diamonds?” the mate asked, when the dying man had again become calm.

“I—I have written a letter to Brandon, telling him all about it,” gasped the captain. “That is what I wrote the second day we were on the raft. I dared not take them with me from the brig, and they are hidden in the cabin. I know now that we made a grave mistake in leaving the Silver Swan at all, for she may hold together for months.

“Take—take the papers from my pocket, Cale,” he added, feebly unbuttoning his coat, “and keep them. If you are saved I charge you to give them to Brandon with your own hands, and I can trust you to assist him in every possible way to recover his fortune, should such a thing be possible.”

The mate bent over the unfortunate owner of the Silver Swan, and with trembling hands removed several thick documents from his pocket and thrust them into the breast of his flannel shirt.

As he did so and turned again, he saw the scowling visage of Jim Leroyd peering at them above his chest. Quick as a flash he seized his pistol and aimed it at the sailor; but Leroyd dodged out of view at once. Without doubt, however, he had seen the papers passed from the captain to mate Wetherbee.

“Take good care of them, Cale,” whispered Captain Tarr. “And let nobody else see them. I believe that Leroyd suspected something back there at Cape Town, for he came into the cabin on an errand just as that friend of poor Anson gave the package into my hands, and I caught him snooping about the companionway several times afterward. It was he I feared most when we left the brig, and therefore dared not take the diamonds with me.”

“I’ll shoot him yet,” muttered the old seaman fiercely, with his weather eye cocked over the top of the chest. “I hated the sight o’ that fellow when he first boarded the brig at New York. His face is enough to bring bad luck to any ship.”

But the captain was not listening to him. He had floated away into a restless slumber, from which he only awoke once to whisper, “Remember, Cale!” and then passed into a dreamless sleep from which there could be no awakening in this world.

Caleb Wetherbee closed the captain’s eyes tenderly, wrapped him in the bit of sailcloth which had served as his bed, and fastened his lifeless body so that no unexpected roll of the raft would precipitate it into the water. Then he took the scant share of food left of the captain’s hoard, and religiously divided it into two equal portions.

“Jim!” he said, when this was done, allowing himself but a moment to gloat over the pitifully meager supply which he laid on the chest lid.

“Aye, aye, sir!” responded the sailor gruffly, cautiously raising his head from behind his fortification.

“Captain Tarr is dead, Jim, and I have divided his share o’ the grub. Put down your weapons and come forward to the chest and take your part. Remember, no slippery business or I’ll bore a hole in ye! Step out now.”

Suddenly the sailor arose, his ungainly, dwarfish proportions being more manifest now that he was on his feet, and approached his officer, stepping over the body of Paulo without a glance at it.

His fierce eyes lighted eagerly as he saw the little supply of food (he had already consumed all his own), and he seized it at once. While he did so he looked at the wooden legged sailor with a crafty smile.

“Wot was it the old man give ye, Caleb?” he asked familiarly.

The mate scowled fiercely at him, and did not reply.

“Oh, ye needn’t act so onery,” went on Leroyd. “I knowed there was somethin’—money I bet—that was given to the old man at the Cape. He’s acted like a new man ever since, and if there’s anything in it, I’m goin’ ter hev my share, jest like this share o’ the grub, now I tell ye!”

“You take that food and git back to your place!” roared Caleb, pointing the huge “bull dog,” which had a bore like a rifle, at the fellow’s head. “An’ let me tell you that I shall be on the watch, I shall, an’ it’ll be a long say afore you catch Caleb Wetherbee asleep. Ef I ain’t saved, you won’t be, let me tell you, for ef I feel myself a-goin’ to Davy Jones, you’ll go along with me!”

Leroyd sneaked back to his place again, and crouched behind the chest. In that position he could not see the movements of Caleb, who, after a few moments’ thought, deposited the packet of papers where he believed no one would think of looking for them.

“There!” he muttered grimly. “If I do foller Cap’n Tarr, I reckon these papers’ll never do that scoundrel any good, an’ he can throw this old hulk to the sharks and welcome. If the cap’n’s boy don’t profit by ’em, nobody shall.”

Then he folded his arms, the pistol still in his grasp, and continued his task of watching for the rescuing sail, which it seemed would never come.

CHAPTER II
INTRODUCING BRANDON TARR AND UNCLE ARAD

Leading from the village of Rockland, Rhode Island, a wide, dusty country road, deeply rutted here and there, winds up to the summit of a long ridge, the highest land in that portion of the State, which past generations have named Chopmist.

It is a drizzly, chilly spring day, the showers pattering down in true April style, the sun promising to show his face every few minutes, and then, when you are expecting his warming rays, down falls another shower and Sol hides his face in despair.

Near the highest part of the ridge, on the easterly side of the road, stood an old, gambrel roofed, weather beaten house, its end facing the road and its front door at the side as though it, like its present owner, had turned sourly away from the world, refusing even to look out upon the highway which passed socially near it.

The rain dripped steadily into the moss covered water butt at the corner of the house, and a bedraggled chicken, who seemed not to possess enough energy to get under better cover, sat humped up in a most dismal manner under the lilac bush at the other corner of the house.

It was well nigh as dismal inside the house as out. A miserable little fire of green wood sputtered and hissed in an even more miserable stove, and the faded yellow cambric curtain at the little window, did its best (with the aid of the dirt, which was considerable) to keep the light from penetrating the panes.

At one end of the kitchen was a square deal table littered with soiled dishes left from the morning meal; the two or three chairs about the room were in a state of great dilapidation; and even the old clock on the mantel shelf ticked with a sort of rasping groan, as though every stroke put its rheumatic old wheels and springs in agony.

Before the stove, in a sadly abused, wooden bottomed armchair, and with his back humped up a good deal like the chicken under the lilac bush outside, sat an old man with weazened, wrinkled face, eyes like a hawk’s, a beak-like nose, and a sparse settlement of gray hairs on his crown and chin.

He leaned forward in his seat, and both claw-like hands clutching the arms of the chair, seemed to be all that kept him from falling upon the stove.

At the window, just where the light fell best upon the book in his hand, sat a youth of sixteen years—a well made, robust boy, whose brown hair curled about his broad forehead, and whose face was not without marks of real beauty.

Just now his brows were knit in a slight frown, and there was a flash of anger in his clear eyes.

“I dunno what’s comin’ of ev’rything,” the old man was saying, in a querulous tone. “Here ’tis the first o’ April, an’ ’tain’t been weather fit ter plow a furrer, or plant a seed, yit.”

“Well, I don’t see as it’s my fault, Uncle Arad,” responded the boy by the window. “I don’t make the weather.”

“I dunno whether ye do or not,” the old man declared, after staring across at him for an instant. “I begin ter believe yer a regular Jonah—jest as yer Uncle Anson was, an’ yer pa, too.”

The boy turned away and looked out of the window at this mention of his parent, and a close observer might have seen his broad young shoulders tremble with sudden emotion as he strove to check the sobs which all but choked him.

Whether the old man was a close enough observer to see this or not, he nevertheless kept on in the same strain.

“One thing there is erbout it,” he remarked; “Anson knew he was born ter ill luck, an’ he cleared out an’ never dragged nobody else down ter poverty with him. But your pa had ter marry—an’ see what come of it!”

“I don’t know as it affected you any,” rejoined the boy, bitterly.

“Yes, ’t’as, too! Ain’t I got you on my hands, a-eatin’ of your head off, when there ain’t a sign of a chance o’ gittin’ any work aout o’ ye?”

“I reckon I’ve paid for my keep for more’n one year,” the other declared vehemently; “and up to the last time father went away he always paid you for my board—he told me so himself.”

“He did, did he?” exclaimed Uncle Arad, in anger. “Well, he——”

“Don’t you say my father lied!” cried the boy, his eyes flashing and his fists clenched threateningly. “If you do, you’ll wish you hadn’t.”

“Well—I ain’t said so, hev I?” whined Uncle Arad, fairly routed by this vehemence. “Ain’t you a pretty boy to threaten an old man like me, Brandon Tarr?”

Brandon relapsed into sullen silence, and the old man went on:

“Mebbe Horace thought he paid your board, but the little money he ever give me never more’n ha’f covered the expense ye’ve been ter me, Don.”

His hearer sniffed contemptuously at this. He knew well enough that he had done a man’s work about the Tarr place in summer, and all the chores during winter before and after school hours, for the better part of three years, and had amply repaid any outlay the old man had made.

Old Arad Tarr was reckoned as a miser by his townsmen, and they were very nearly correct. By inheritance the farm never belonged to him, for he was the youngest son of old Abram Tarr, and had been started in business by his father when he was a young man, while his brother Ezra had the old homestead, as the eldest son should.

But reverses came to Ezra, of which the younger brother, being successful in money matters, took advantage, and when Ezra died at last (worked to death, the neighbors said) the property came into Arad’s hands. There was little enough left for the widow, who soon followed her husband to the grave, and for the two boys, Anson and Horace.

Anson was of a roving, restless disposition, and he soon became disgusted with the grinding methods of old Arad, who sought to get double work out of his two nephews. So he left the farm, and, allured by visions of sudden wealth which led him all over the world, he followed from one scheme to another, never returning to the old place again, though his brother, Horace, heard from him occasionally.

The younger lad was not long in following his brother’s footsteps (in leaving home, at least), and went to sea, where he rose rapidly from the ranks of the common sailor to the post of commander.

He married a girl whom he had known in his boyhood, and Brandon, the boy who was now left to the tender mercies of the great uncle, was their only child.

By patient frugality Captain Tarr had amassed sufficient money to purchase a brig called the Silver Swan, and made several exceptionally fortunate voyages to South and West African ports, and to Oceanica.

But after his wife’s death (she was always a delicate woman) his only wish seemed to be to gain a fortune that he might retire from the sea and live with his son, in whom his whole heart was now bound. There was a trace of the same visionary spirit in Horace Tarr’s nature that had been the motif of his brother Anson’s life, and hoping to gain great wealth by a sudden turning of the wheel of fortune, he speculated with his savings.

Like many other men, he trusted too much in appearances and was wofully deceived, and every penny of his earnings for a number of voyages in the brig was swept away.

His last voyage had been to Cape Town, and on the return passage the good Silver Swan had struck on a rock somewhere off Cuba, and was a total loss, for neither the vessel itself, nor the valuable cargo, was insured for a penny’s worth.

This had occurred nearly two months before, and the first news Brandon and Uncle Arad had received of the disaster was through the newspaper reports. Two surviving members of the crew were picked up by a New York bound steamship, from a raft which had been afloat nearly two weeks, and but one of the men was in a condition to give an intelligible account of the wreck.

From his story there could be but little doubt of the total destruction of the Silver Swan and the loss of every creature on board, excepting himself and the mate, Caleb Wetherbee, who was so exhausted that he had been taken at once to the marine hospital. Captain Tarr had died on the raft, from hunger and a wound in the head received during the wrecking of his vessel.

It was little wonder, then, with these painful facts so fresh in his mind, that young Brandon Tarr found it so hard to stifle his emotion while his great uncle had been speaking. In fact, when presently the crabbed old man opened his lips to speak again, he arose hastily, threw down his book, and seized his hat and coat.

“I’m going out to see if I can pick off that flock of crows I saw around this morning,” he said hastily. “If you do get a chance to plant anything this spring, they’ll pull it up as fast as you cover the seed.”

“We kin put up scarecrows,” said Arad, with a scowl, his dissertation on the “shiftlessness” of Don’s father thus rudely broken off. “I can’t afford you powder an’ shot ter throw away at them birds.”

“Nobody asked you to pay for it,” returned the boy gruffly, and buttoning the old coat about him, and seizing his rifle from the hooks above the door, he went out into the damp outside world, which, despite its unpleasantness, was more bearable than the atmosphere of the farm house kitchen.

The farm which had come into Arad Tarr’s possession in what he termed a “business way,” contained quite one hundred acres of cultivated fields, rocky pastures, and forest land.

It was a productive farm and turned its owner a pretty penny every year, but judging from the appearance of the interior of the house and the dilapidated condition of the barn and other outbuildings, one would not have believed it.

There was sufficient work on the farm every year to keep six hired hands beside Brandon and the old man, himself, “on the jump” every minute during the spring, summer, and fall.

In the winter they two alone managed to do the chores, and old Arad even discharged the woman who cooked for the men during the working season.

As soon as the season opened, however, and the old man was obliged to hire help, the woman (who was a widow and lived during the winter with a married sister in the neighborhood) was established again in the Tarr house, and until the next winter they lived in a manner that Brandon termed “like Christians,” for she was a good cook and a neat housekeeper; but left to their own devices during the cold weather, he and his great uncle made sorry work of it.

“The frost is pretty much out of the ground now,” Brandon muttered as he crossed the littered barnyard, “and this drizzle will mellow up the earth in great shape. As soon as it stops, Uncle Arad will dig right in and work to make up for lost time, I s’pose.”

He climbed the rail fence and jumped down into the sodden field beyond, the tattered old army coat (left by some hired hand and used by him in wet weather) flapping dismally about his boots.

“I wonder what’ll become of me now,” he continued, still addressing himself, as he plodded across the field, sinking ankle deep in the wet soil. “Now that father’s gone there’s nothing left for me to do but to shift for myself and earn my own living. Poor father wanted me to get an education first before I went into anything, but there’ll be no more chance for that here. I can see plainly that Uncle Arad means to shut down on school altogether now.

“I’ll never get ahead any as long as I stay here and slave for him,” he pursued. “He’ll be more exacting than ever, now that father is gone—he didn’t dare treat me too meanly before. He’ll make it up now, I reckon, if I stay, and I just won’t!”

He had been steadily approaching the woods and at this juncture there was a rush of wings and a sudden “caw! caw!”

Crows are generally considered to be endowed with a faculty for knowing when a gun is brought within range, but this particular band must have been asleep, for Brandon was quite within shooting distance as the great birds labored heavily across the lots.

The rifle, the lock of which he had kept dry beneath his armpit, was at his shoulder in a twinkling, there was a sharp report, and one of the birds fell heavily to the ground, while its frightened companions wheeled with loud outcry and were quickly out of view behind the woods.

Brandon walked on and picked up the fallen bird.

“Shot his head pretty nearly off,” he muttered. “I believe I’ll go West. Knowing how to shoot might come in handy there,” and he laughed grimly.

Then, with the bird in his hand, he continued his previous course, and penetrated beneath the dripping branches of the trees.

Pushing his way through the brush for a rod or two he reached a plainly defined path which, cutting obliquely across the wood lot, connected the road on which the Tarr house stood with the “pike” which led to the city, fourteen miles away.

Entering this path, he strolled leisurely on, his mind intent upon the situation in which his father’s death had placed him.

“I haven’t a dollar, or not much more than that sum,” he thought, “nor a friend, either. I can’t expect anything but the toughest sort of a pull, wherever I go or whatever I take up; but it can’t be worse than ’twould be here, working for Uncle Arad.”

After traversing the path for some distance, Don reached a spot where a rock cropped up beside the way, and he rested himself on this, still studying on the problem which had been so fully occupying his mind for several weeks past.

As he sat there, idly pulling handfuls of glossy black feathers from the dead crow, the noise of a footstep on the path in his rear caused him to spring up and look in that direction.

A man was coming down the path—a sinister faced, heavily bearded man, who slouched along so awkwardly that Brandon at first thought him lame. But the boy had seen a few sailors, besides his father, in his life, and quickly perceived that the stranger’s gait was caused simply by a long experience of treading the deck of a vessel at sea.

He was a solidly built man, not below the medium height, yet his head was set so low between his shoulders, and thrust forward in such a way that it gave him a dwarfed appearance. His hands were rammed deeply into his pockets, an old felt hat was drawn down over his eyes, and his aspect was generally seedy and not altogether trustworthy.

He started suddenly upon seeing the boy, and gazed at him intently as he approached.

“Well, shipmate, out gunning?” he demanded, in a tone which was intended to be pleasant.

“A little,” responded Brandon, kicking the body of the dead crow into the bushes. “We’re always gunning for those fellows up this way.”

“Crows, eh?” said the man, stopping beside the boy, who had rested himself on the rock again. “They’re great chaps for pullin’ corn—faster’n you farmers can plant it, eh?”

Brandon nodded curtly, and wondered why the tramp (as he supposed him) did not go along.

“Look here, mate,” went on the man, after a moment, “I’m lookin’ for somebody as lives about here, by the name of Tarr——”

“Why, you’re on the Tarr place now,” replied Brandon, with sudden interest. “That’s my name, too.”

“No, it isn’t now!” exclaimed the stranger, in surprise.

A quick flash of eagerness came over his face as he spoke.

“You’re not Brandon Tarr?” he added.

“Yes, sir,” replied Don, in surprise.

“Not Captain Horace Tarr’s son! God bless ye, my boy. Give us your hand!”

The man seized the hand held out to him half doubtfully, and shook it warmly, at the same time seating himself beside the boy.

“You knew my father?” asked Brandon, not very favorably impressed by the man’s appearance, yet knowing no real reason why he should not be friendly.

“Knew him! Why, my boy, I was his best friend!” declared the sailor. “Didn’t you ever hear him speak of Cale Wetherbee?”

“Caleb Wetherbee!” cried Don, with some pleasure.

He had never seen his father’s mate, but he had heard the captain speak of him many times. This man did not quite come up to his expectation of what the mate of the Silver Swan should have been, but he knew that his father had trusted Caleb Wetherbee, and that appearances are sometimes deceitful.

“Indeed I have heard him speak of you many times,” and the boy’s voice trembled slightly as he offered his hand a second time far more warmly.

“Yes, sir,” repeated the sailor, blowing his nose with ostentation, “I’m an old friend o’ your father’s. He—he died in my arms.”

Brandon wiped his own eyes hastily. He had loved his father with all the strength of his nature, and his heart was too sore yet to be rudely touched.

“Why, jest before he—he died, he give me them papers to send to ye, ye know.”

As he said this the man flashed a quick, keen look at Brandon, but it was lost upon him.

“What papers?” he asked with some interest.

“What papers?” repeated the sailor, springing up. “D’ye mean ter say ye never got a package o’ papers from me a—a month ergo, I reckon ’twas?”

“I haven’t received anything through the mail since the news came of the loss of the brig,” declared Don, rising also.

“Then that mis’rable swab of an ’orspital fellow never sent ’em!” declared the man, with apparent anger. “Ye see, lad, I was laid up quite a spell in the ’orspital—our sufferings on that raft was jest orful—an’ I couldn’t help myself. But w’en your father died he left some papers with me ter be sent ter you, an’ I got the ’orspital nurse to send ’em. An’ you must hev got ’em—eh?”

“Not a thing,” replied Brandon convincingly. “Were they of any value?”

“Valible? I should say they was!” cried the sailor. “Werry valible, indeed. Why, boy, they’d er made our—I sh’d say your—fortune, an’ no mistake!”

Without doubt his father’s old friend was strangely moved by the intelligence he had received, and Don could not but be interested in the matter.

CHAPTER III
AN ACCOUNT OF THE WRECK OF THE SILVER SWAN

“To what did these papers bear reference?” Brandon asked. “Father met with heavy misfortunes in his investments last year, and every penny, excepting the Swan itself, was lost. How could these papers have benefited me?”

“Well, that I don’t rightly know,” replied the sailor slowly.

He looked at the boy for several seconds with knitted brows, evidently deep in thought. Brandon could not help thinking what a rough looking specimen he was, but remembering his father’s good opinion of Caleb Wetherbee, he banished the impression as ungenerous.

“I b’lieve I’ll tell ye it jest as it happened,” said the man at length. “Sit down here again, boy, an’ I’ll spin my yarn.”

He drew forth a short, black pipe, and was soon puffing away upon it, while comfortably seated beside Don upon the rock.

“’Twere the werry night we sailed from the Cape,” he began, “that I was—er—in the cabin of the Silver Swan, lookin’ at a new chart the cap’n had got, when down comes a decently dressed chap—a landlubber, ev’ry inch o’ him—an’ asks if this were Cap’n Horace Tarr.

“‘It is,’ says the cap’n.

“‘Cap’n Horace Tarr, of Rhode Island, U. S. A.?’ says he.

“‘That’s me,’ says the cap’n ag’in.

“‘Well, Cap’n Tarr,’ says the stranger chap, a-lookin’ kinder squint eyed at me, ‘did you ever have a brother Anson?’

“Th’ cap’n noticed his lookin’ at me an’ says, afore he answered the question:

“‘Ye kin speak freely,’ says he, ‘this is my mate, Cale Wetherbee, an’ there ain’t a squarer man, nor an honester, as walks the deck terday,’ says he. ‘Yes, I had a brother Anson; but I persume he’s dead.’

“‘Yes, he is dead,’ said the stranger. ‘He died up country, at a place they calls Kimberley, ’bout two months ago.’

“That was surprisin’ ter the cap’n, I reckon, an’ he tol’ the feller that he’d supposed Anson Tarr dead years before, as he hadn’t heard from him.

“‘No, he died two months ago,’ says the man, ‘an’ I was with him. He died o’ pneumony—was took werry sudden.’

“Nat’rally this news took the old man—I sh’d say yer father—all aback, as it were, an’ he inquired inter his brother’s death fully. Fin’ly the man drew out a big package—papers he said they was—wot Anson Tarr had given him ter be sure ter give ter the cap’n when he sh’d see him. Then the feller went.

“O’ course, the cap’n didn’t tell me wot the docyments was, but I reckoned by his actions, an’ some o’ the hints he let drop, that they was valible, an’ I—I got it inter my head that ’twas erbout money—er suthin’ o’ the kind—that your Uncle Anson knowed of.

“Wal, the Silver Swan, she left the Cape, ’n’ all went well till arter we touched at Rio an’ was homeward boun’. Then a gale struck us that stripped the brig o’ ev’ry stick o’ timber an’ every rag o’ sail, an’ druv her outer thet ’ere rock. There warn’t no hope for the ol’ brig an’ she began to go ter pieces to once, so we tried ter take to the boats.

“But the boats was smashed an’ the only ones left o’ the hull ship’s company was men Paulo Montez, and yer father, an’—an’ another feller. We built the raft and left the ol’ brig, just as she—er—slid off er th’ rock an’ sunk inter the sea. It—it mos’ broke yer father’s heart ter see the ol’ brig go down an’ I felt m’self, jest as though I’d lost er—er friend, er suthin!”

The sailor paused in his narrative and drew hard upon his pipe for a moment.

“Wal, you know by the papers how we floated around on that ’ere raf’ an’ how yer poor father was took. He give me these papers just afore he died, an’ made me promise ter git ’em ter you, ef I was saved. He said you’d understand ’em ter oncet, an’,” looking at Brandon keenly out of the corners of his eyes, “I didn’t know but ye knew something about it already.”

Brandon slowly shook his head.

“No,” he said; “I can’t for the life of me think what they could refer to.”

“No—no buried treasure, nor nothing of the kind?” suggested the man hesitatingly.

“I guess not!” exclaimed Don. “If I knew about such a thing, you can bet I’d be after it right quickly, for I don’t know any one who needs money just at the present moment more than I.”

“Well, I believe I’ll go,” cried the sailor, rising hastily. “That ’orspital feller must hev forgotten ter mail them papers, an’ I’ll git back ter New York ter oncet, an’ see ’bout it. I b’lieve they’ll be of vally to ye, an’ if ye want my help in any way, jest let me know. I—I’ll give ye a place ter ’dress letters to, an’ I’ll call there an’ git ’em.”

He produced an old stump of a pencil from his pocket and a ragged leather note case. From this he drew forth a dog eared business card of some ship chandler’s firm, on the blank side of which he wrote in a remarkably bad hand:

CALEB WETHERBEE,
New England Hotel,
Water Street,
New York.

Then he shook Don warmly by the hand, and promising to get the papers from the “’orspital feller” at once, struck away toward the city again, leaving the boy in a statement of great bewilderment.

He didn’t know what the papers could refer to, yet like all boys who possess a good digestion and average health, he had imagined enough to fancy a hundred things that they might contain. Perhaps there was some great fortune which his Uncle Anson had known about, and had died before he could reap the benefit of his knowledge.

Yet, he felt an instinctive distrustfulness of this Caleb Wetherbee. He was not at all the kind of man he had expected him to be, for although Captain Tarr had never said much about the personal appearance of the mate of the Silver Swan, still Don had pictured Caleb to his mind’s eye as a far different looking being.

As he stood there in the path, deep in thought, and with his eyes fixed upon the spot where he had seen the sailor disappear, the fluttering of a bit of paper attracted his attention. He stooped and secured it, finding it to be a greasy bit of newspaper that had doubtless reposed for some days in the note case of the sailor, and had fallen unnoticed to the ground while he was penciling his address on the card now in Don’s possession.

One side of the scrap of paper was a portion of an advertisement, but on the other side was a short item of news which Don perused with growing interest.

Savannah, March 3. The Brazilian steamship Montevideo, which arrived here in the morning, reports having sighted, about forty miles west of the island of Cuba, a derelict brig, without masts or rigging of any kind, but with hull in good condition. It was daylight, and by running close the Montevideo’s captain made the wreck out to be the Silver Swan, of Boston, which was reported as having been driven on to Reef Number 8, east of Cuba, more than a month ago. The two surviving members of the crew of the Silver Swan were picked up from a raft, after twelve days of terrible suffering, by the steamship Alexandria, of the New York and Rio Line. The Montevideo’s officers report the brig as being a most dangerous derelict, as in its present condition it may keep afloat for months, having evidently withstood the shock of grounding on the reef, and later being driven off by the westerly gale of February 13th.

Her position, when sighted by the Montevideo, has been reported to the Hydrographic Office, and will appear on the next monthly chart.

CHAPTER IV
BRANDON COMES TO A DECISION

The first thought which flashed across Brandon Tarr’s mind as he read the newspaper item quoted in the previous chapter was that the story of the wreck of the Silver Swan, as told by the old sailor, had been totally misleading.

“Why, he lied—point blank—to me!” he exclaimed, “and with this very clipping in his pocket, too.”

He half started along the path as though to pursue the sailor, and then thought better of it.

“He declared that he saw the Swan go down with his own eyes; and here she was afloat on the 13th of March—a month after the wreck. He must have wanted to keep the knowledge of that fact from me. But what for? Ah! those papers!”

With this Brandon dropped back on the rock again and read the newspaper clipping through once more. Then he went over the whole matter in his mind.

What possible object could Caleb Wetherbee have in coming to him and telling him the yarn he had, if there was no foundation for it? There must be some reason for the story, Brandon was sure.

Evidently there had been papers either given into the hands of the mate of the Silver Swan, or obtained by him by dishonest means. These papers must relate to some property of value which had belonged to Anson Tarr, Don’s uncle, and, his cupidity being aroused, the sailor was trying to convert the knowledge contained in them to his own benefit.

There was probably some “hitch” in the documents—something the rascally mate could not understand, but which he thought Brandon could explain. Therefore, his trip to Chopmist from New York to “pump” the captain’s son.

“Without doubt,” said the boy, communing with himself, “the papers were brought aboard the brig just as this rascally Wetherbee said, and they were from Uncle Anson. Let’s see, he said he died at Kimberley—why, that’s right at the diamond mines!” For like most boys with adventurous spirits and well developed imagination, Brandon had devoured much that had been written about the wonderful diamond diggings of South Africa.

“Perhaps—who knows?” his thoughts ran on, “Uncle Anson ‘struck it rich’ at the diamond mines before he died. There’s nothing impossible in that—excepting the long run of ill luck which had cursed this family.”

He shook his head thoughtfully.

“If Uncle Anson had owned a share in a paying diamond mine, this rascally sailor would have known at once that the papers relating to it could not benefit him, for the ownership would be on record there in Kimberley. It must, therefore, be that the property—whatever it may be—is in such shape that it can be removed from place to place—perhaps was brought aboard the brig by the friend of Uncle Anson who told father of his death.”

For the moment the idea did not assist in the explanation of the course of Caleb Wetherbee in retaining the papers. But Brandon had set himself to the task of reasoning out the mystery, and when one thread failed him he took up another.

“One would think,” he muttered, “that if there had been any money brought aboard the brig, father would have taken it on the raft with him when they left; but still, would he?

“According to the report the brig grounded on Reef Number 8, and perhaps was not hurt below the water line. The next gale from the west’ard blew her off again. She is now a derelict, and if the money was hidden on board it would be there now!”

At this sudden thought Brandon sprang up in excitement and paced up and down the path.

He had often heard of the wrecks of vessels abandoned in mid ocean floating thousands of miles without a hand to guide their helms, a menace and danger to all other craft. The Silver Swan might float for months—aye, for years; such a thing was possible.

“And if the money—if it is money—is hidden aboard the brig, the one who finds the derelict first will have it,” was the thought which came to him.

“But why should the mate come to me about it?” Brandon asked himself. “Why need he let me know anything about the papers, or the treasure, if he wished to recover it himself? Didn’t he know where on the brig the money was hidden? Or didn’t the papers tell that?”

He cudgled his brains for several minutes to think where his father would have been likely to hide anything of value on the brig. Was there any place which only he and his father had known about?

This idea suggested a train of reminiscences. He had been aboard the Silver Swan several times while she lay in Boston, and had been all over her.

Once, possibly four years before (it seemed a long time to him now), he had been alone with his father in the cabin, and Captain Tarr had shown him an ingeniously hidden sliding panel in the bulkhead, behind which was a little steel lined cavity, in which the captain kept his private papers.

Perhaps Caleb Wetherbee did not know about this cupboard, and it was this information that he wished to get from him. The idea seemed probable enough, for if he did not know where the treasure was hidden on the brig, what good would the papers relating to it be to him?

“There may be a fortune there, just within my grasp, and yet I not be able to get at it,” muttered Don, pacing the rough path nervously.

“Despite his former confidence in this Wetherbee, father must have doubted him at the last and not dared to take the treasure (if treasure it really is) when he left the brig.

“Instead, he gave him these papers, hoping the fellow would be honest enough to place them in my hands; but, still fearing to fully trust the mate, he wrote his directions to me so blindly, that Wetherbee is all at sea about what to do.

“Wetherbee knows that the brig is afloat—this clipping proves that—and he hoped to get the information he wanted from me and then go in search of the Silver Swan. Why can I not go in search of it myself?”

The thought almost staggered him for an instant, yet to his boyish mind the plan seemed feasible enough. He knew that derelicts are often carried by the ocean currents for thousands of miles before they sink, yet their movements are gradual, and by a close study of the hydrographic charts he believed it would be possible to locate the wrecked brig.

“I’ve got no money, I know,” he thought, “at least, not much; but I’ve health and strength and an ordinary amount of pluck, and it will be strange if I can’t accomplish my purpose if the old brig only holds together long enough.”

He looked at the soiled card the sailor had given him.

“‘New England Hotel, Water Street,’” he repeated. “Some sailors’ boarding house, likely. I believe—yes, I will—go to New York myself and see this scoundrelly Wetherbee again. He can’t do much without me, I fancy, and perhaps, after all, I can use him to my own benefit. I ought to be as smart as an ignorant old sailor like him.”

He stood still a moment, gazing steadily at the ground.

“I’ll do it, I vow I will!” he exclaimed at last, raising his head defiantly. “Uncle Arad’s got no hold upon me and I’ll go. I’ll start tomorrow morning,” with which determination he picked up his rifle and left the woods.

CHAPTER V
UNCLE ARAD HAS RECOURSE TO LEGAL FORCE

In the several oceans of our great globe there are many floating wrecks, abandoned for various causes by their crews, which may float on and on, without rudder or sail, for months, and even years. Especially is this true of the North Atlantic Ocean, where, during the past five years, nearly a thousand “derelicts,” as these floating wrecks are called, were reported.

The Hydrographic Office at Washington prints a monthly chart on which all the derelicts reported by incoming vessels are plainly marked, even their position in the water being designated by a little picture of the wreck.

By this method of “keeping run” of the wrecks, it has been found that some float thousands of miles before they finally reach their ultimate port—Davy Jones’ locker.

The average life of these water logged hulks is, however, but thirty days; otherwise the danger from collision with them would be enormous and the loss of life great. Many of those vessels which have left port within the past few years and never again been heard from, were doubtless victims of collisions with some of these derelicts.

Several more or less severe accidents have been caused by them, and so numerous have they become that, within the past few months, several vessels belonging to our navy have gone “derelict cruising”—blowing up and sinking the most dangerous wrecks afloat in the North Atlantic.

At the time of the Silver Swan’s reported loss, however, it was everybody’s business to destroy the vessels, and therefore nobody’s. At any time, however, the hull of the brig, reported by the steamship Montevideo as floating off Cuba, might be run into and sunk by some other vessel, such collisions being not at all uncommon.

Brandon Tarr realized that there was but a small chance of the Silver Swan being recovered, owing to these circumstances; yet he would not have been a Tarr had he not been willing to take the chance and do all he could to secure what he was quite convinced was a valuable treasure.

Derelicts had been recovered and towed into port for their salvage alone, and the Silver Swan was, he knew, richly laden. It might also be possible to repair the hull of the brig, for she was a well built craft, and if she had withstood the shock of being ground on the reef so well, she might even yet be made to serve for several years.

These thoughts flitted through the mind of the boy as he slowly crossed the wet fields toward the farm house.

“I’ll go tomorrow morning—Uncle Arad or no Uncle Arad,” he decided. “It won’t do to leave the old fellow alone, so I’ll step down after dinner and speak to Mrs. Hemingway about coming up here. He will have to have her any way within a few days, so it won’t much matter.”

He didn’t really know how to broach the subject to the old man, for he felt assured that his great uncle would raise manifold objections to his departure. He had lived at the farm four years now and Uncle Arad had come to depend on him in many ways.

They had eaten dinner—a most miserable meal—and Don was washing the dishes before he spoke.

“Uncle Arad,” he said, trying to talk in a most matter of fact way, “now that father is—is gone and I have nothing to look forward to, I believe I’ll strike out for myself. I’m past sixteen and big enough and old enough to look out for myself. I think I shall get along faster by being out in the world and brushing against folks, and I reckon I’ll go to New York.”

Uncle Arad fairly wilted into his seat, and stared at Don in utter surprise.

“Go to New York?” he gasped.

“That’s what I said.”

“Go to New York—jest when yer gittin’ of some account ter me?”

“Oh, I’ve been of some account to you for some time, and any way father always paid my board before last fall, you know,” said Don cheerfully.

Uncle Arad snorted angrily, and his eyes began to flash fire.

“Paid your board!” he exclaimed. “I dunno what put that inter your head.”

“Father put it there, that’s who,” declared Don hotly.

“I never give him no receipts for board money,” cried the old man. “You can’t show a one!”

“I don’t suppose you did,” returned Don, with scorn. “You never give receipts for anything if you can help it. If you’d given receipts to your own brother as you ought, you wouldn’t be in possession of this farm now.”

“I wouldn’t, hey?” cried the old man, goaded to desperation by this remark, which he knew only too well to be true. “You little upstart you! Ye’ll go ter New York, whether ’r no, will ye?”

He arose in his wrath and shook his bony fist in Don’s face. The youth looked down upon him scornfully, for the man would have been no match for him at all.

“Now don’t have a fit,” he said calmly. “I’m going to step ’round to Mrs. Hemingway’s after dinner, and get her to come up here and look after you. You’ll need her any way, in a few days.”

“It won’t matter! it won’t matter!” shrieked Uncle Arad, exasperated by the boy’s coolness. “It won’t matter, I s’pose, when I hev ter pay three dollars—three dollars, mind ye—fur a hull week’s extry work!”

He fairly stamped about the room in his fury.

“It don’t matter, eh, when I’ll have ter hire a man ter take your place? Be you crazy, Brandon Tarr?”

“Guess not,” responded Don, wiping the last dish and hanging up the towel to dry. “You must think me crazy, however. Do you s’pose I’d stayed here this season without wages?”

“Wages!” again shrieked the old man, to whom the thought of paying out a penny was positive pain, “Wages! an’ you a beggar—yes, sir, a beggar!—’pendent upon my bounty, as it were.”

Don smiled at this.

“I’m a pretty sturdy beggar, as they used to call ’em in the old days,” he said.

“Wal, any way, I’m your guardeen, an’ I’ll see if you’re goin’ jest when you like.”