The Indian Drum

by William MacHarg and Edwin Balmer

  CHAPTER XIV

  THE OWNER OF THE WATCH

  "So they got word to you!" Constance exclaimed; she seemed stillconfused. "Oh, no--of course they couldn't have done that! They'vehardly got my letter yet."

  "Your letter?" Alan asked.

  "I wrote to Blue Rapids," she explained. "Some things came--they weresent to me. Some things of Uncle Benny's which were meant for youinstead of me."

  "You mean you've heard from him?"

  "No--not that."

  "What things, Miss Sherrill?"

  "A watch of his and some coins and--a ring." She did not explain thesignificance of those things, and he could not tell from her mereenumeration of them and without seeing them that they furnished proofthat his father was dead. She could not inform him of that, she felt,just here and now.

  "I'll tell you about that later. You--you were coming to Harbor Pointto see us?"

  He colored. "I'm afraid not. I got as near as this to you becausethere is a man--an Indian--I have to see."

  "An Indian? What is his name? You see, I know quite a lot of them."

  "Jo Papo."

  She shook her head. "No; I don't know him."

  She had drawn him a little away from the crowd about the meeting. Hisblood was beating hard with recognition of her manner toward him.Whatever he was, whatever the disgrace might be that his father hadleft to him, she was still resolute to share in it. He had known shewould be so. She found a spot where the moss was covered with dry pineneedles and sat down upon the ground.

  "Sit down," she invited; "I want you to tell me what you have beendoing."

  "I've been on the boats." He dropped down upon the moss beside her."It's a--wonderful business, Miss Sherrill; I'll never be able to goaway from the water again. I've been working rather hard at my newprofession--studying it, I mean. Until yesterday I was a not veryhighly honored member of the crew of the package freighter _Oscoda_; Ileft her at Frankfort and came up here."

  "Is Wassaquam with you?"

  "He wasn't on the _Oscoda_; but he was with me at first. Now, Ibelieve, he has gone back to his own people--to Middle Village."

  "You mean you've been looking for Mr. Corvet in that way?"

  "Not exactly that." He hesitated; but he could see no reason for nottelling what he had been doing. He had not so much hidden from her andher father what he had found in Benjamin Corvet's house; rather, he hadrefrained from mentioning it in his notes to them when he left Chicagobecause he had thought that the lists would lead to an immediateexplanation; they had not led to that, but only to a suggestion,indefinite as jet. He had known that, if his search finally developednothing more than it had, he must at last consult Sherrill and getSherrill's aid.

  "We found some writing, Miss Sherrill," he said, "in the house on AstorStreet that night after Luke came."

  "What writing?"

  He took the lists from his pocket and showed them to her. Sheseparated and looked through the sheets and read the names written inthe same hand that had written the directions upon the slip of paperthat came to her four days before, with the things from Uncle Benny'spockets.

  "My father had kept these very secretly," he explained. "He had themhidden. Wassaquam knew where they were, and that night after Luke wasdead and you had gone home, he gave them to me."

  "After I had gone home? Henry went back to see you that night; he hadsaid he was going back, and afterwards I asked him, and he told me hehad seen you again. Did you show him these?"

  "He saw them--yes."

  "He was there when Wassaquam showed you where they were?"

  "Yes."

  A little line deepened between her brows, and she sat thoughtful.

  "So you have been going about seeing these people," she said. "Whathave you found out?"

  "Nothing definite at all. None of them knew my father; they were onlyamazed to find that any one in Chicago had known their names."

  She got up suddenly. "You don't mind if I am with you when you talkwith this Indian?"

  He arose and looked around for the guide who had brought him. Hisguide had been standing near, evidently waiting until Alan's attentionwas turned his way; he gestured now toward a man, a woman, and severalchildren who were lunching, seated about a basket on the ground. Theman--thin, patient and of medium size--was of the indefinite age of theIndian, neither young nor yet old. It was evident that life had beenhard for the man; he looked worn and undernourished; his clothing wasthe cast-off suit of some one much larger which had been inexpertlyaltered to make it fit him. As Alan and Constance approached them, thegroup turned on them their dark, inexpressive eyes, and the woman gotup, but the man remained seated on the ground.

  "I'm looking for Jo Papo," Alan explained.

  "What you want?" the squaw asked. "You got work?" The words werepronounced with difficulty and evidently composed most of her Englishvocabulary.

  "I want to see him, that's all." Alan turned to the man. "You're JoPapo, aren't you?"

  The Indian assented by an almost imperceptible nod.

  "You used to live near Escanaba, didn't you?"

  Jo Papo considered before replying; either his scrutiny of Alanreassured him, or he recalled nothing having to do with his residencenear Escanaba which disturbed him. "Yes; once," he said.

  "Your father was Azen Papo?"

  "He's dead," the Indian replied. "Not my father, anyway. Grandfather.What about him?"

  "That's what I want to ask you," Alan said. "When did he die and how?"

  Jo Papo got up and stood leaning his back against a tree. So far frombeing one who was merely curious about Indians, this stranger perhapswas coming about an Indian claim--to give money maybe for injusticesdone in the past.

  "My grandfather die fifteen years ago," he informed them. "From cough,I think."

  "Where was that?" Alan asked.

  "Escanaba--near there."

  "What did he do?"

  "Take people to shoot deer--fish--a guide. I think he plant a littletoo."

  "He didn't work on the boats?"

  "No; my father, he work on the boats."

  "What was his name?"

  "Like me; Jo Papo too. He's dead."

  "What is your Indian name?"

  "Flying Eagle."

  "What boats did your father work on?"

  "Many boats."

  "What did he do?"

  "Deck hand."

  "What boat did he work on last?"

  "Last? How do I know? He went away one year and didn't come back? Isuppose he was drowned from a boat."

  "What year was that?"

  "I was little then; I do not know."

  "How old were you?"

  "Maybe eight years; maybe nine or ten."

  "How old are you now?"

  "Thirty, maybe."

  "Did you ever hear of Benjamin Corvet?"

  "Who?"

  "Benjamin Corvet."

  "No."

  Alan turned to Constance; she had been listening intently, but she madeno comment. "That is all, then," he said to Papo; "if I find outanything to your advantage, I'll let you know." He had aroused, heunderstood, expectations of benefit in these poor Indians. Somethingrose in Alan's throat and choked him. Those of whom Benjamin Corvethad so laboriously kept trace were, very many of them, of the sort ofthese Indians; that they had never heard of Benjamin Corvet was notmore significant than that they were people of whose existence BenjaminCorvet could not have been expected to be aware. What conceivable bondcould there have been between Alan's father and such poor people asthese? Had his father wronged these people? Had he owed themsomething? This thought, which had been growing stronger with eachsucceeding step of Alan's investigations, chilled and horrified himnow. Revolt against his father more active than ever before seizedhim, revolt stirring stronger with each recollection of his interviewswith the people upon his list. As they walked away, Constanceappreciated that he was feeling something deeply; she too was stirred.
<
br />   "They all--all I have talked to--are like that," he said to her. "Theyall have lost some one upon the lakes."

  In her feeling for him, she had laid her hand upon his arm; now herfingers tightened to sudden tenseness. "What do you mean?" she asked.

  "Oh, it is not definite yet--not clear!" She felt the bitterness inhis tone. "They have not any of them been able to make it wholly clearto me. It is like a record that has been--blurred. These originalnames must have been written down by my father many years ago--many,most of those people, I think--are dead; some are nearly forgotten.The only thing that is fully plain is that in every case my inquirieshave led me to those who have lost one, and sometimes more than onerelative upon the lakes."

  Constance thrilled to a vague horror; it was not anything to which shecould give definite reason. His tone quite as much as what he said wasits cause. His experience plainly had been forcing him to bitternessagainst his father; and he did not know with certainty yet that hisfather was dead.

  She had not found it possible to tell him that yet; now consciously shedeferred telling him until she could take him to her home and show himwhat had come. The shrill whistling of the power yacht in which sheand her party had come recalled to her that all were to return to theyacht for luncheon, and that they must be waiting for her.

  "You'll lunch with us, of course," she said to Alan, "and then go backwith us to Harbor Point. It's a day's journey around the two bays; butwe've a boat here."

  He assented, and they went down to the water where the white and brownpower yacht, with long, graceful lines, lay somnolently in thesunlight. A little boat took them out over the shimmering, smoothsurface to the ship; swells from a faraway freighter swept under thebeautiful, burnished craft, causing it to roll lazily as they boardedit. A party of nearly a dozen men and girls, with an older womanchaperoning them, lounged under the shade of an awning over the afterdeck. They greeted her gaily and looked curiously at Alan as sheintroduced him.

  As he returned their rather formal acknowledgments and afterward fellinto general conversation with them, she became for the first timefully aware of how greatly he had changed from what he had been when hehad come to them six months before in Chicago. These gay, wealthyloungers would have dismayed him then, and he would have been equallydismayed by the luxury of the carefully appointed yacht; now he was notthinking at all about what these people might think of him. In return,they granted him consideration. It was not, she saw that they acceptedhim as one of their own sort, or as some ordinary acquaintance of hers;if they accounted for him to themselves at all, they must believe himto be some officer employed upon her father's ships. He looked likethat--with his face darkened and reddened by the summer sun and in hisclothing like that of a ship's officer ashore. He had not weakenedunder the disgrace which Benjamin Corvet had left to him, whatever thatmight be; he had grown stronger facing it. A lump rose in her throatas she realized that the lakes had been setting their seal upon him, asupon the man whose strength and resourcefulness she loved.

  "Have you worked on any of our boats?" she asked him, after luncheonhad been finished, and the anchor of the ship had been raised.

  A queer expression came upon his face. "I've thought it best not to dothat, Miss Sherrill," he replied.

  She did not know why the next moment she should think of Henry.

  "Henry was going to bring us over in his yacht--the _Chippewa_," shesaid. "But he was called away suddenly yesterday on business to St.Ignace and used his boat to go over there."

  "He's at Harbor Point, then."

  "He got there a couple of nights ago and will be back again to-night orto-morrow morning."

  The yacht was pushing swiftly, smoothly, with hardly a hum from itsmotors, north along the shore. He watched intently the rolling, woodedhills and the ragged little bays and inlets. His work and hisinvestigatings had not brought him into the neighborhood before, butshe found that she did not have to name the places to him; he knew themfrom the charts.

  "Grand Traverse Light," he said to her as a white tower showed upontheir left. Then, leaving the shore, they pushed out across the widemouth of the larger bay toward Little Traverse. He grew more silent asthey approached it.

  "It is up there, isn't it," he asked, pointing, "that they hear theDrum?"

  "Yes; how did you know the place?"

  "I don't know it exactly; I want you to show me."

  She pointed out to him the copse, dark, primeval, blue in its contrastwith the lighter green of the trees about it and the glistening whiteof the shingle and of the more distant sand bluffs. He leaned forward,staring at it, until the changed course of the yacht, as it swung abouttoward the entrance to the bay, obscured it. They were meeting otherpower boats now of their yacht's own size and many smaller; they passedwhite-sailed sloops and cat-boats, almost becalmed, with girls and boysdiving from their sides and swimming about. As they neared the Point,a panorama of play such as, she knew, he scarcely could have seenbefore, was spread in front of them. The sun gleamed back from thewhite sides and varnished decks and shining brasswork of a score ormore of cruising yachts and many smaller vessels lying in the anchorage.

  "The Chicago to Mackinac yacht race starts this week, and the cruiserfleet is working north to be in at the finish," she offered. Then shesaw he was not looking at these things; he was studying with a strangeexpression the dark, uneven hills which shut in the two towns and thebay.

  "You remember how the ship rhymes you told me and that about Michabouand seeing the ships made me feel that I belonged here on the lakes,"he reminded her. "I have felt something--not recognition exactly, butsomething that was like the beginning of recognition--many times thissummer when I saw certain places. It's like one of those dreams, youknow, in which you are conscious of having had the same dream before.I feel that I ought to know this place."

  They landed only a few hundred yards from the cottage. After biddinggood-by to her friends, they went up to it together through the trees.There was a small sun room, rather shut off from the rest of the house,to which she led him. Leaving him there, she ran upstairs to get thethings.

  She halted an instant beside the door, with the box in her hands,before she went back to him, thinking how to prepare him against thesignificance of these relics of his father. She need not prepare himagainst the mere fact of his father's death; he had been beginning tobelieve that already; but these things must have far more meaning forhim than merely that. They must frustrate one course of inquiry forhim at the same time they opened another; they would close for himforever the possibility of ever learning anything about himself fromhis father; they would introduce into his problem some new, someunknown person--the sender of these things.

  She went in and put the box down upon the card table.

  "The muffler in the box was your father's," she told him. "He had iton the day he disappeared. The other things," her voice choked alittle, "are the things he must have had in his pockets. They've beenlying in water and sand--"

  He gazed at her. "I understand," he said after an instant. "You meanthat they prove his death."

  She assented gently, without speaking. As he approached the box, shedrew back from it and slipped away into the next room. She walked upand down there, pressing her hands together. He must be looking at thethings now, unrolling the muffler.... What would he be feeling as hesaw them? Would he be glad, with that same gladness which had mingledwith her own sorrow over Uncle Benny, that his father was gone--gonefrom his guilt and his fear and his disgrace? Or would he resent thatdeath which thus left everything unexplained to him? He would belooking at the ring. That, at least, must bring more joy than grief tohim. He would recognize that it must be his mother's wedding ring; ifit told him that his mother must be dead, it would tell him that shehad been married, or had believed that she was married!

  Suddenly she heard him calling her. "Miss Sherrill!" His voice had asharp thrill of excitement.

  She hurried toward the
sun room. She could see him through thedoorway, bending over the card table with the things spread out uponits top in front of him.

  "Miss Sherrill!" he called again.

  "Yes."

  He straightened; he was very pale. "Would coins that my father had inhis pocket all have been more than twenty years old?"

  She ran and bent beside him over the coins. "Twenty years!" sherepeated. She was making out the dates of the coins now herself; themarkings were eroded, nearly gone in some instances, but in every caseenough remained to make plain the date. "Eighteen-ninety--1893--1889,"she made them out. Her voice hushed queerly. "What does it mean?" shewhispered.

  He turned over and reexamined the articles with hands suddenlysteadying. "There are two sets of things here," he concluded. "Themuffler and paper of directions--they belonged to my father. The otherthings--it isn't six months or less than six months that they've lainin sand and water to become worn like this; it's twenty years. Myfather can't have had these things; they were somewhere else, or someone else had them. He wrote his directions to that person--after Junetwelfth, he said, so it was before June twelfth he wrote it; but wecan't tell how long before. It might have been in February, when hedisappeared; it might have been any time after that. But if thedirections were written so long ago, why weren't the things sent to youbefore this? Didn't the person have the things then? Did we have towait to get them? Or--was it the instructions to send them that hedidn't have? Or, if he had the instructions, was he waiting to receiveword when they were to be sent?"

  "To receive word?" she echoed.

  "Word from my father! You thought these things proved my father wasdead. I think they prove he is alive! Oh, we must think this out!"

  He paced up and down the room; she sank into a chair, watching him."The first thing that we must do," he said suddenly, "is to find outabout the watch. What is the 'phone number of the telegraph office?"

  She told him, and he went out to the telephone; she sprang up to followhim, but checked herself and merely waited until he came back.

  "I've wired to Buffalo," he announced. "The Merchants' Exchange, if itis still in existence, must have a record of the presentation of thewatch. At any rate, the wreck of the _Winnebago_ and the name of theskipper of the other boat must be in the files of the newspapers ofthat time."

  "Then you'll stay here with us until an answer comes."

  "If we get a reply by to-morrow morning; I'll wait till then. If not,I'll ask you to forward it to me. I must see about the trains and getback to Frankfort. I can cross by boat from there to Manitowoc--thatwill be quickest. We must begin there, by trying to find out who sentthe package."

  "Henry Spearman's already sent to have that investigated."

  Alan made no reply; but she saw his lips draw tighter quickly. "I mustgo myself as soon as I can," he said, after a moment.

  She helped him put the muffler and the other articles back into thebox; she noticed that the wedding ring was no longer with them. He hadtaken that, then; it had meant to him all that she had known it mustmean....

  In the morning she was up very early; but Alan, the servants told her,had risen before she had and had gone out. The morning, after the coolnorthern night, was chill. She slipped a sweater on and went out onthe veranda, looking about for him. An iridescent haze shrouded thehills and the bay; in it she heard a ship's bell strike twice; thenanother struck twice--then another--and another--and another. The hazethinned as the sun grew warmer, showing the placid water of the bay onwhich the ships stood double--a real ship and a mirrored one. She sawAlan returning, and knowing from the direction from which he came thathe must have been to the telegraph office, she ran to meet him.

  "Was there an answer?" she inquired eagerly.

  He took a yellow telegraph sheet from his pocket and held it for her toread.

  "Watch presented Captain Caleb Stafford, master of propeller freighter_Marvin Halch_ for rescue of crew and passengers of sinking steamer_Winnebago_ off Long Point, Lake Erie."

  She was breathing quickly in her excitement. "Caleb Stafford!" sheexclaimed. "Why, that was Captain Stafford of Stafford and Ramsdell!They owned the _Miwaka_!"

  "Yes," Alan said.

  "You asked me about that ship--the _Miwaka_--that first morning atbreakfast!"

  "Yes."

  A great change had come over him since last night; he was under emotionso strong that he seemed scarcely to dare to speak lest it masterhim--a leaping, exultant impulse it was, which he fought to keep down.

  "What is it, Alan?" she asked. "What is it about the _Miwaka_? Yousaid you'd found some reference to it in Uncle Benny's house. What wasit? What did you find there?"

  "The man--" Alan swallowed and steadied himself and repeated--"the manI met in the house that night mentioned it."

  "The man who thought you were a ghost?"

  "Yes."

  "How--how did he mention it?"

  "He seemed to think I was a ghost that had haunted Mr. Corvet--theghost from the _Miwaka_; at least he shouted out to me that I couldn'tsave the _Miwaka_!"

  "Save the _Miwaka_! What do you mean, Alan? The _Miwaka_ was lostwith all her people--officers and crew--no one knows how or where!"

  "All except the one for whom the Drum didn't beat!"

  "What's that?" Blood pricked in her cheeks. "What do you mean, Alan?"

  "I don't know yet; but I think I'll soon find out!"

  "No; you can tell me more now, Alan. Surely you can. I must know. Ihave the right to know. Yesterday, even before you found out aboutthis, you knew things you weren't telling me--things about the peopleyou'd been seeing. They'd all lost people on the lakes, you said; butyou found out more than that."

  "They'd all lost people on the _Miwaka_!" he said. "All who could tellme where their people were lost; a few were like Jo Papo we sawyesterday, who knew only the year his father was lost; but the timealways was the time that the _Miwaka_ disappeared!"

  "Disappeared!" she repeated. Her veins were pricking cold. What didhe know, what could any one know of the _Miwaka_, the ship of whichnothing ever was heard except the beating of the Indian Drum? Shetried to make him say more; but he looked away now down to the lake.

  "The _Chippewa_ must have come in early this morning," he said. "She'slying in the harbor; I saw her on my way to the telegraph office. IfMr. Spearman has come back with her, tell him I'm sorry I can't wait tosee him."

  "When are you going?"

  "Now."

  She offered to drive him to Petoskey, but he already had arranged for aman to take him to the train.

  She went to her room after he was gone and spread out again on her bedthe watch--now the watch of Captain Stafford of the _Miwaka_--with theknife and coins of more than twenty years ago which came with it. Themeaning of them now was all changed; she felt that; but what the newmeaning might be could not yet come to her. Something of it had cometo Alan; that, undoubtedly, was what had so greatly stirred him; butshe could not yet reassemble her ideas. Yet a few facts had becomeplain.

  A maid came to say that Mr. Spearman had come up from his boat forbreakfast with her and was downstairs. She went down to find Henrylounging in one of the great wicker chairs in the living room. Hearose and came toward her quickly; but she halted before he could seizeher.

  "I got back, Connie--"

  "Yes; I heard you did."

  "What's wrong, dear?"

  "Alan Conrad has been here, Henry."

  "He has? How was that?"

  She told him while he watched her intently. "He wired to Buffalo aboutthe watch. He got a reply which he brought to me half an hour ago."

  "Yes?"

  "The watch belonged to Captain Stafford who was lost with the _Miwaka_,Henry."

  He made no reply; but waited.

  "You may not have known that it was his; I mean, you may not have knownthat it was he who rescued the people of the _Winnebago_, but you musthave known that Uncle Benny didn't."

&
nbsp; "Yes; I knew that, Connie," he answered evenly.

  "Then why did you let me think the watch was his and that he mustbe--dead?"

  "That's all's the matter? You had thought he was dead. I believed itwas better for you--for every one--to believe that."

  She drew a little away from him, with hands clasped behind her back,gazing intently at him. "There was some writing found in Uncle Benny'shouse in Astor Street--a list of names of relatives of people who hadlost their lives upon the lake. Wassaquam knew where those thingswere. Alan says they were given to him in your presence."

  She saw the blood rise darkly under his skin. "That is true, Connie."

  "Why didn't you tell me about that?"

  He straightened as if with anger. "Why should I? Because he thoughtthat I should? What did he tell you about those lists?"

  "I asked you, after you went back, if anything else had happened,Henry, and you said, 'nothing.' I should not have considered thefinding of those lists 'nothing.'"

  "Why not? What were they but names? What has he told you they were,Connie? What has he said to you?"

  "Nothing--except that his father had kept them very secretly; but he'sfound out they were names of people who had relatives on the _Miwaka_!"

  "What?"

  Recalling how her blood had run when Alan had told her that, Henry'swhiteness and the following suffusion of his face did not surprise her.

  He turned away a moment and considered. "Where's Conrad now, Connie?"

  "He's gone to Frankfort to cross to Manitowoc."

  "To get deeper into that mess, I suppose. He'll only be sorry."

  "Sorry?"

  "I told that fellow long ago not to start stirring these matters upabout Ben Corvet, and particularly I told him that he was not to bringany of it to you. It's not--a thing that a man like Ben covered up fortwenty years till it drove him crazy is sure not to be a thing for agirl to know. Conrad seems to have paid no attention to me. But Ishould think by this time he ought to begin to suspect what sort ofthing he's going to turn up. I don't know; but I certainlysuspect--Ben leaving everything to that boy, whom no one had heard of,and the sort of thing which has come up since. It's certainly notgoing to be anything pleasant for any of us, Connie--for you, or yourfather, or for me, or for anybody who'd cared for Ben, or had beenassociated with him. Least of all, I should say, would it proveanything pleasant for Conrad. Ben ran away from it, because he knewwhat it was; why doesn't this fellow let him stay away from it?"

  "He--I mean Alan, Henry," she said, "isn't thinking about himself inthis; he isn't thinking about his father. He believes--he is certainnow--that, whatever his father did, he injured some one; and his ideain going ahead--he hasn't told it to me that way, but I know--is tofind out the whole matter in order that he may make recompense. It's aterrible thing, whatever happened. He knows that, and I know; but hewants--and I want him for his sake, even for Uncle Benny's sake--to seeit through."

  "Then it's a queer concern you've got for Ben! Let it alone, I tellyou."

  She stood flushed and perplexed, gazing at him. She never had seen himunder stronger emotion.

  "You misunderstood me once, Connie!" he appealed. "You'll understandme now!"

  She had been thinking about that injustice she had done him in herthought--about his chivalry to his partner and former benefactor, whenUncle Benny was still keeping his place among men. Was Henry nowmoved, in a way which she could not understand, by some otherobligation to the man who long ago had aided him? Had Henry hazardedmore than he had told her of the nature of the thing hidden which, ifshe could guess it, would justify what he said?

  In the confusion of her thought, one thing came clearly which troubledher and of which she could not speak. The watch of Captain Stafford'sand the ring and the coins, which had made her believe that Uncle Bennywas dead, had not been proof of that to Henry. Yet he had takenadvantage of her belief, without undeceiving her, to urge her to marryhim at once.

  She knew of the ruthlessness of Henry's business life; he had forceddown, overcome all who opposed him, and he had made full use for hisown advantage of other men's mistakes and erroneous beliefs andopinions. If he had used her belief in Uncle Benny's death to hastentheir marriage, it was something which others--particularly she--couldpardon and accept.

  If she was drawn to him for his strength and dominance, which sometimesran into ruthlessness, she had no right to complain if he turned itthus upon her.

  She had made Alan promise to write her, if he was not to return,regarding what he learned; and a letter came to her on the fourth dayfrom him in Manitowoc. The postoffice employees had no recollection,he said, of the person who had mailed the package; it simply had beendropped by some one into the receptacle for mailing packages of thatsort. They did not know the handwriting upon the wrapper, which he hadtaken with him; nor was it known at the bank or in any of the storeswhere he had shown it. The shoe dealer had no recollection of thatparticular box. Alan, however, was continuing his inquiries.

  In September he reported in a brief, totally impersonal note, that hewas continuing with the investigations he had been making previous tohis visit to Harbor Point; this came from Sarnia, Ontario. In Octoberhe sent a different address where he could be found in case anythingmore came, such as the box which had come to Constance in August.

  She wrote to him in reply each time; in lack of anything more importantto tell him, she related some of her activities and inquired about his.After she had written him thus twice, he replied, describing his lifeon the boats pleasantly and humorously; then, though she immediatelyreplied, she did not hear from him again.

  She had returned to Chicago late in September and soon was very busywith social affairs, benefits, and bazaars which were given that fallfor the Red Cross and the different Allied causes; a little later camea series of the more personal and absorbing luncheons and dances anddinners for her and for Henry, since their engagement, which long hadbeen taken for granted by every one who knew them, was announced now.So the days drifted into December and winter again.

  The lake, beating against the esplanade across the Drive beforeConstance's windows, had changed its color; it had no longer its autumnblue and silver; it was gray, sluggish with floating needle-points ofice held in solution. The floe had not yet begun to form, but thepiers and breakwaters had white ice caps frozen from spray--harbingersof the closing of navigation. The summer boats, those of Corvet,Sherrill, and Spearman with the rest, were being tied up. The birdswere gone; only the gulls remained--gray, clamorous shapes circling andcalling to one another across the water. Early in December thenewspapers announced the closing of the locks at the "Soo" by the ice.

  That she had not heard from Alan was beginning to recur to Constancewith strange insistence. He must have left the boats by now, unless hehad found work on one of those few which ran through the winter.

  He and his occupation, instead of slipping from her thoughts with time,absorbed her more and more. Soon after he had gone to Manitowoc and hehad written that he had discovered nothing, she had gone to the officeof the Petoskey paper and, looking back over the twenty-year-old files,she had read the account of the loss of the _Miwaka_, with all onboard. That fate was modified only by the Indian Drum beating short.So one man from the _Miwaka_ had been saved somehow, many believed. Ifthat could have been, there was, or there had been, some one aliveafter the ship "disappeared"--Alan's word went through her with achill--who knew what had happened to the ship and who knew of the fateof his shipmates.

  She had gone over the names again; if there was meaning in the Drum,who was the man who had been saved and visited that fate on BenjaminCorvet? Was it Luke? There was no Luke named among the crew; but suchmen often went by many names. If Luke had been among the crew of the_Miwaka_ and had brought from that lost ship something which threatenedUncle Benny that, at least, explained Luke.

  Then another idea had seized her. Captain Caleb Stafford was namedamong the lost, of cour
se; with him had perished his son, a boy ofthree. That was all that was said, and all that was to be learned ofhim, the boy.

  Alan had been three then. This was wild, crazy speculation. The shipwas lost with all hands; only the Drum, believed in by thesuperstitious and the most ignorant, denied that. The Drum said thatone soul had been saved. How could a child of three have been savedwhen strong men, to the last one, had perished? And, if he had beensaved, he was Stafford's son. Why should Uncle Benny have sent himaway and cared for him and then sent for him and, himself disappearing,leave all he had to--Stafford's son?

  Or was he Stafford's son? Her thought went back to the things whichhad been sent--the things from a man's pockets with a wedding ringamong them. She had believed that the ring cleared the mother's name;might it in reality only more involve it? Why had it come back likethis to the man by whom, perhaps, it had been given? Henry's wordscame again and again to Constance: "It's a queer concern you've got forBen. Leave it alone, I tell you!" He knew then something about UncleBenny which might have brought on some terrible thing which Henry didnot know but might guess? Constance went weak within. Uncle Benny'swife had left him, she remembered. Was it better, after all, to "leaveit alone?"

  But it wasn't a thing which one could command one's mind to leavealone; and Constance could not make herself try to, so long as itconcerned Alan. Coming home late one afternoon toward the middle ofDecember, she dismissed the motor and stood gazing at the gulls. Theday was chill, gray; the air had the feel, and the voices of the gullshad the sound to her, which precede the coming of a severe storm. Thegulls recalled sharply to her the day when Alan first had come to them,and how she had been the one first to meet him and the child versewhich had told him that he too was of the lakes.

  She went on into the house. A telegraph envelope addressed to herfather was on the table in the hall. A servant told her the messagehad come an hour before, and that he had telephoned to Mr. Sherrill'soffice, but Mr. Sherrill was not in. There was no reason for herthinking that the message might be from Alan except his presence in herthoughts, but she went at once to the telephone and called her father.He was in now, and he directed her to open the message and read it tohim.

  "Have some one," she read aloud; she choked in her excitement at whatcame next--"Have some one who knew Mr. Corvet well enough to recognizehim, even if greatly changed, meet Carferry Number 25 ManitowocWednesday this week. Alan Conrad."

  Her heart was beating fast. "Are you there?" she said into the 'phone.

  "Yes."

  "Whom shall you send?"

  There was an instant's silence. "I shall go myself," her fatheranswered.

  She hung up the receiver. Had Alan found Uncle Benny? He had found,apparently, someone whose semblance to the picture she had showed himwas marked enough to make him believe that person might be BenjaminCorvet; or he had heard of some one who, from the account he hadreceived, he thought might be. She read again the words of thetelegram ... "even if greatly changed!" and she felt startling andterrifying warning in that phrase.