Among the River Pirates

by Hugh Lloyd

  “Don’t ye be gettin’ down, kid,” Tully protested; “’tis not sayin’ we’relicked till they turn down an appeal. We got some more dough.”

  “So much money,” said Skippy with a note of wonder in his high-pitchedvoice. “Gee, Big Joe, you’ve spent so much on Pop an’ me already. Nowyou wanta spend the last you got! Gee whiz, I can’t let you—_I can’t_!Much as I wanta see Pop free. It ain’t fair lettin’ you spend all yourhard-earned money....”

  Tully had long since learned that he could not lie to Skippy.

  “Sure an’ this last coin ain’t hard-earned, kid,” he said not a littleabashed. “So ye see ’cause it ain’t, it might’s well be used forspringin’ your old man.”

  “All right, if you say it like that,” said Skippy with a slightlyreproving smile. Suddenly he squared his shoulders; then: “Anyway, nextto Pop, Big Joe, I like you best. Gee, ain’t you been just like Popeven! So I don’t care if that money’s not so straight, but d’ye thinkit’ll be lucky for Pop? Sometimes I wonder if crooked money ain’t hardluck in the end. Maybe when you’re broke you can start over clean?”

  “We’ll see what the breaks’ll be bringin’ this winter, kid,” Big Joe hadmumbled. “We’ll see, so we will.”

  And it was Skippy’s answering smile that drove Big Joe off the barge fora few hours. When he returned late in the evening, he had a fluffy sortof bundle in his big arms and an expansive smile on his face.

  “Three guesses what’s in me arms,” he said with a mischievous wink,standing half in and half out of the doorway.

  “Is it dead or alive?” Skippy asked chuckling.

  “’Tis the liveliest little guy ye ever see.” Big Joe stooped over andreleased the fluffy bundle from his arms and presently an Airedale pupput its four young and rather unsteady legs on the shanty floor.

  Skippy laughed out loud. He twisted his hands together in a gesture ofdelight, then got to his knees and coaxed the puppy to him.

  “It’s got brown eyes like a reg’lar angel,” he said.

  “An’ brown legs like the divil,” Big Joe laughed; “the divil for runnin’into mischief. The man what I bought him from said he was ason-of-a-sufferin’ swordfish for runnin’ an’ chewin’. But he’ll begettin’ better as he gets older, so he will. Ain’t he got the cutelittle mug though, kid!”

  Skippy looked up with shining eyes, then drew the puppy up to him.

  “Big Joe, that’s his name—it’s a swell name for him! Mug—_Mugs_, huh?With that funny little face he couldn’t be called anything else.”

  “Sure, sure, kid. Anythin’ ye say. Mugs it’ll be, so ’twill.” Hecoughed. “And will he be makin’ ye happy now, kid?”

  “_Happy!_ Big Joe, Mugs’ll make me happy ’cause you bought him to makeme laugh. Gee, gee....” Skippy swallowed his emotion. “What for do youdo so much, Big Joe?” he asked naïvely. “Gee—_why_?”

  “’Cause ye be such a nice kid, so ye be,” the man answered, rumplingSkippy’s straight hair. “Ye kind o’ get under a guy’s skin—ye do that.Ye seem to be needin’ somebody for to look after ye, so ye do, an’ withToby not about it might’s well be me.” He laughed nervously. “Besides Iain’t got nobody else at all, at all, kid, an’ even a tough guy like medoes be needin’ company, so he does.”

  Skippy hugged the puppy gratefully and he was so overwhelmed by Tully’sgenerosity that he could not speak. Never, he thought, did a boy have afriend like Big Joe!

  His cup of happiness would have been filled to the brim and his fatherbeen released that day. But here again, Big Joe, like an angel of mercy,was making a last supreme effort to bring his father back to him. Itseemed impossible that such gigantic effort could fail to bring a joyousresult and he told Tully so.

  “An’ when Pop gets out,” he said in conclusion, “I bet he’ll neverforget what you’ve done an’ all, Big Joe. Even now he don’t forget it.He said it’s so gloomy and strict in prison that he’s sad all the time,’specially ’cause he was so used to roamin’ all over the river free.Gee, he said the feller what really killed Mr. Flint was a coward ’causehe must know how it’s keepin’ Pop an’ me away from each other an’ hesaid he could almost kill him for doin’ that alone.”

  “There, now, the ould man’ll be gettin’ out!” said Tully vehemently. “Mylast grand’ll do it, I be tellin’ ye! See if it don’t! Now ye ain’tgoin’ to start worryin’ all over ’bout Toby now, are ye? An’ me gettin’ye Mugs so’s to make it aisier like for ye.”

  Skippy looked at the puppy sliding over the floor on his gawky legs. Helaughed.

  “Mugs makes up for an awful lot, Big Joe, but nobody could make up forPop,” he said wistfully. “I never told Pop, ’cause he’d think it soundedsilly, but I love him. You know, like I guess girls feel only they showit an’ talk about it, but I don’t. I couldn’t. But I’m just tellin’ youlike a secret—see? I get a funny pain in my heart when I’m not seein’Pop an’ it gets awful bad when I think maybe he won’t ever get out ofprison.” Then at the sight of Big Joe’s frowning countenance, he added:“But it’s like I said, Big Joe, I like you almost as much as Pop. An’now you’ve bought me Mugs—gee, how much’d you pay for him, huh?”

  “’Tis nothin’,” said Big Joe smiling softly; “a coupla bucks. ’Course,they cost a little more thin just muts, but the man at the dog placesaid thim Airedales be great for protectin’ kids so I think maybe he’dbe good for ye nights when I might be out with the boys. He’ll becomp’ny anyways.”

  A little later, when Big Joe was having a good-night smoke alone on thedeck, he took out of his pocket a piece of paper, and in the lightgleaming from the cabin windows he glanced at it curiously. It was areceipt for one Airedale puppy; price, one hundred and fifty dollars.

  He smiled, shrugged his powerful shoulders and tearing the paper intobits let it drop in the inlet. Then he turned his trousers’ pocketsoutward and laughed ruefully.

  “Broke,” he said half aloud. “Sure and ’tis aisy come, aisy go. And nowfor to be gettin’ some more dough. The kid’ll be needin’ it so——” Heshrugged as if getting money was the least of his troubles.

  CHAPTER XVIII BAD NEWS

  Skippy had food and plenty of it during the next month. Big Joe saw tothat though it kept him away from the barge many hours at night, hourswhen he lived in mortal fear that the boy would develop a “bad throat”and be seriously sick before he could get back.

  Skippy’s “bad throat” had become a veritable bugaboo to Tully and thoughhe had no definite idea of what it was, the fear of its recurrencestalked every hour that he spent away from the boy. And when he didreturn he would tiptoe into the silent shanty and up to the boy’s bunk,sighing with relief to find him sleeping quietly. Then, when he had madesure there was no sign of the pinched look and feverish cheek, he wouldclimb into his own bunk with a light on his face that would havesurprised his rough comrades.

  Skippy saw this light on Tully’s face one early morning. He saw it fromunder half-opened lids and it made him glad until he noticed the quicklook of concern that passed over the man’s tanned brow.

  “What’s up, Big Joe?” he asked anxiously.

  “So it’s awake ye be?” Big Joe returned nervously. “Well now I was justlookin’ and seem’ if ye was all right. Sure an’ the weather’s gittin’cold and all and I got wonderin’ how the throat was. I bought a newstove what’ll give ye lots o’ heat—it’s comin’ in the mornin’.”

  “Gee whiz!” Skippy said gratefully, then: “You sorta looked worried.”

  Big Joe turned his back and started to undress.

  “I’ve got to be tellin’ ye sometime, kid—I—listen....”

  “You’ve heard about Pop, huh?” Skippy sat up.

  “Yes—they....”

  “They what?” said Skippy anxiously.

  “They turned down the appeal. But don’t be takin’ on about it, Skippy.Sure an’ next year we’ll be diggin’ up new evidence. Now....”<
br />
  “I ain’t gonna take on, Big Joe, honest I ain’t,” said Skippy bravely.“On accounta you I ain’t. You been so good—all the money you spenttryin’ to get Pop free. An’ now—well, maybe if I don’t hope about itsumpin’ll happen, sometime.”

  “Sure now that’s bein’ a good kid, takin’ it so aisy like. We’ll betryin’ agin like I said. Some time Marty Skinner’ll get over his crazynotion that iverybody in Brown’s Basin’s agin him and that Toby did thejob. Sure he hates iverybody here so much I hear he’s got Buck Flint toagree to buy the whole inlet. And thin he’ll be drivin’ us squattersout, so he will.”

  “But he can’t do that!” Skippy protested indignantly. “He can’t drive meouta the _Minnie M. Baxter_ ’cause it’s Pop’s home—gee, the only home wegot. I gotta stay here till—well, when I leave it, I’ll know I ain’t gotany hope that he’ll come back.”

  “And don’t I be knowin’ how ye feel, kid? But if Skinner’s put it inBuck Flint’s head that the inlet’s a good buy and the deal goes through,he’ll be orderin’ us out and we’ll be likin’ it. Buck ain’t a bad egg,but Skinner’s runnin’ the works and what he says goes, so it does. Nowif he tells us to beat it I’m wonderin’ who’ll be towin’ a barge out o’this mud whin she’s settled. Why, it’d take a derrick, so it would, an’even then it’d be a chance.”

  Skippy was deeply affected by this news. He could not sleep because ofit and long after Big Joe was snoring comfortably he rolled and tossedin his bunk. Then, after a time, he thought of what Tully had said aboutthe barges being too deeply settled in the mud to get them out, and hewas so curious about it that he got up to see for himself.

  He bundled himself up and slipped out onto the deck in the cold, dampair of an early fall morning. It was not yet dawn but the deep black ofnight had gone and Brown’s Basin lay silent in a dark gray mist.

  Skippy leaned far over aft where the _Minnie M. Baxter_ was settleddeepest in the mud. Up forward, the slinking waters of the inlet gurgledplaintively against the keel at high tide. Big Joe was right, he decidedwith sinking heart; it would take a derrick and more to pull the bargeout of her muddy berth.

  As he started to step back he noticed a tarpaulin to his right whichseemed to be covering some bulky objects. Something that Big Joe hadbrought aboard, he thought, and curiously he raised one end of it. Oneglimpse told him enough.

  They were stolen ships’ supplies, things that his father had told him ariver pirate could easily dispose of to some unscrupulous ship captain.Skippy knew instantly how they had come there and he turned on his heeland had started back for the shanty when a searchlight suddenly fellfull upon him.

  He crouched out of its glare and needed but to look hastily up the inletto see that it was the police boat bearing down upon the _Minnie M.Baxter_.

  CHAPTER XIX DANGER

  Feverishly, Skippy set to work and pushed the stolen goods overboardpiece by piece. Most of them floated but a moment, then sank out ofsight, and the rest floated at a safe enough distance from the oncominglaunch to escape the eyes of the police.

  FEVERISHLY SKIPPY PUSHED THE STOLEN GOODS OVERBOARD.]

  When the last piece had been disposed of he rushed to the shanty,awakened Big Joe and told him what he had done.

  “’Tis a good boy ye be, Skippy,” he praised. “Sure th’ bulls give me achase tonight so they did and I couldn’ unload the goods on me customerso I brought thim here till tomorrow night. Ye’re a broth of a lad to bedroppin’ thim over, so ye be.”

  “Sh!” said Skippy, frightened. “Ain’t that them boardin’ us now?” He gotout of his clothes and back into his bunk.

  They listened in silence while the soft tramp of feet came along thedeck. Skippy had reason to remember another terrible occasion when thepolice boat had come to take his father. He had thought then that it wasonly for a day.

  He had only Big Joe now, his only friend in a singularly callous world.Would the law take him too? He couldn’t bear it—he wouldn’t bear it! Hewould like and protect Big Joe even if he was a murderer, the policewouldn’t take the one thing he had left!

  They knocked insistently and Big Joe padded to the door, barefooted andfeigning complete surprise. He invited them in, hurried ponderously tothe rickety table and lighted the lamp. Mugs growled ominously.

  The officers told Tully that a certain warehouse had been broken intothat night. The watchman who had surprised the intruder thought he hadrecognized Big Joe Tully.

  “Tonight?” Skippy piped up from his bunk. “It ain’t so ’cause Big Joe’sbeen here takin’ care of me since noon. I got one of my bad throatsagain an’ he wouldn’t go out ’cause I was feelin’ so bad.”

  Who of the river front police hadn’t heard of Skippy Dare’s bad throat?None that had patrolled the harbor during the past four months. Hadn’tit been because of his frail boy that Toby Dare had fought his prisonsentence so hard? The papers had been full of it too.

  “So the throat’s cutting up again, eh Skippy?” asked Inspector Jones. Hewas the same man who had taken Toby away from his son.

  Skippy, always a bit wan looking when he lay in his bunk, looked morewan than ever then. His pallor was not simulated; it was terribly real,for he was not only frightened at the prospect of losing Big Joe; he wasfrightened because of the barefaced lie he had just told—the first inhis life.

  “I always gotta be careful of my throat, Mister,” he said to the officerwhen the worst of his emotion had passed. “’Specially when it gets cold.Sometimes I get fever right away an’ the doctor told Big Joe the lasttime that I gotta right away have attention.”

  “Sure and the lad’s right,” Big Joe interposed with genuine feeling inhis voice, “he’s got only me to be lookin’ after him now.”

  “What you doing for a living, Big Joe?” asked the officer a littlepointedly.

  Big Joe stifled a yawn and sat down on a chair.

  “Me?” he asked innocently. “Ye mean what’ll I do when the money I savedfrom me barge gives out, is it? With the way Flint blackballed me ’forehe died, I guess I’ll have to be workin’ out o’ the bay next summer, soI do.”

  “Got enough for you and the kid till next summer?” the officerpersisted.

  “Sure and ’tis lucky I have, the way things be,” answered Big Joe.

  The officer leveled his eyes at Tully.

  “For the kid’s sake, watch your step, Big Joe,” he said with a warningnote. “For the kid’s sake....”

  Skippy couldn’t believe they had gone. It seemed too good to be true,and in order to reassure him, Big Joe put something around him and wentout on deck to see that the launch had actually gone.

  “Sure she’s aisy out to the river by this time,” he assured Skippy whenhe came back. He lighted a cigarette and sat down. “Now was that a closeshave I’ll be askin’,” he exclaimed. “And I can be thankin’ ye for it,kid. I never expected thim to come stealin’ up on us here, no, Ididn’t.”

  “See it don’t pay, Big Joe!” Skippy said gently. He seemed spent withthe great strain. “People know a big guy like you anywheres an’ besideslike I say, it don’t pay anyhow. Gee, if you can’t get honest work’cause Flint blackballed you then I gotta work myself. I can get a jobas office boy in a warehouse. I bet I can!”

  “Nix, kid, nix, ye ain’t well enough,” Big Joe protested hotly. “BesidesI don’t niver take things from folks what are hard up, Skippy. I——”

  “Lemme try it, Big Joe, huh? I’m better now’n I been in a long time, solemme try it! I’m not kickin’ ’bout you. Gee, I can see how it is now.Even Pop once told me how hard it was for a blackballed man to get backalong the river. You spent all your money on Pop an’ me an’ we hadda eatan’ live, so what was you gonna do! I shoulda known before that yourmoney couldn’t last forever—gee! All you’ve done for me, Big Joe—lemmetry!”

  Tully was still protesting at daylight, but Skippy, having made up hismind, fell peacefully to sleep with the
dog tucked snugly under hisoutstretched arm. Big Joe sat watching them until long after the suncame up.

  “Sure and the kid lied for me,” he said as he climbed back into hisbunk. “Sure and that nice kid lied for me—_me_!”

  And as his large features settled in slumber, they looked strangelytroubled.

  CHAPTER XX A JOB

  Skippy left the barge noiselessly that morning and did not return untilsix o’clock in the evening. Consequently, Big Joe spent a troubled day,waiting and hoping and fearing. When he saw the boy crossing the plankfrom the _Dinky O. Cross_, he hurried to the door.

  “And where have ye been, Skippy?” he called anxiously. “Here and ye beenhavin’ me crazy wonderin’ if ye’d run away!”

  Skippy laughed and greeted Mugs who seemed to be growing by the minute.Then he swung energetically into the shanty and sat down to a hot supperthat Mrs. Duffy had faithfully sent over.

  “Guess what, Big Joe?”

  “Sure and ye’ll not be for quittin’ me ’cause o’ what happened lastnight?” Big Joe returned trying not to sound anxious.

  “I should say not. Whad’ye think I am? I ain’t yeller, Big Joe. BesidesI like you too much. What I wanta say is, I got a job.”

  Tully frowned.

  “It ain’t gonna be hard,” Skippy assured him. “I’m the new office boy atthe Central Warehouse an’ I’ll get ten bucks a week. So now you needn’tbe scareda cops.”