The Land of Frozen Suns: A Novel, Page 2

  CHAPTER II--BY WAY OF THE "NEW MOON"

  Lights by the thousand speckled the night-enshrouded water-front when Ireached the slip where my boat lay. On the huge roofed-in wharffreight-handlers swarmed like bees. The rumble of hand trucks and thetramp of feet rose to the great beams overhead and echoed back in asteady drone. Lamps fluttered on vibrating walls. Men moved in haste,throwing long shadows ahead and behind them. Boxes, bales, barrels,sacked stuff vanished swiftly down three separate inclines to the lowerdeck of the _Memphis Girl_, and from the depths of thisfreight-swallowing monster came the raucous gabble, freely garnishedwith profanity, of the toiling stevedores.

  Out from under that vast sounding board of a roof the noise at oncediminished in volume, and I passed through the heart of the dust andbabel and gained the cabin deck of the _Memphis_. A steward looked overmy ticket and guided me to the berth I had reserved. It was then halfpast nine; still two hours and a half to the time of departure. I took alook around the upper deck. Quite a number of passengers were alreadyaboard. Some were gone to bed; others were grouped in the aft saloon.One or two poker games had started, and little groups were looking on.But of them all I knew not a soul. Youth hungers for companionship, andI was no exception to my kind. It may be a truism to say that nowherecan one be so completely alone as in a crowd; but the singularity of itnever came home to me until that night. But we are always learning theold things and esteeming them new. I roamed about the _Memphis_, wishingI had stayed up town till the last minute. It had been my plan to godown and turn in; the ceremony of casting off was not one thatinterested me greatly. But now the whim was gone; a spirit of unrest, animpatience to be off, drove sleep from my mind. If you have ever knownthe dreary monotony of waiting for train or steamer to start when yourwhole being craves the restfulness of motion you will not wonder that Imade one more round of the deck and saloons and then left the _Memphis_to roam aimlessly past the serried wharves that faced the stream.

  I don't recollect just how far I wandered. If the place had been strangeto me I should likely have been more circumspect in my prowling. As itwas, my only concern was to be at the S.S. Company's wharf by midnight,and midnight was yet afar. So I poked along, stopping now and then tohang over a railing and peer across the dark sweep of the Mississippitoward the Illinois shore. Between, the lights of divers craft twinkledlike fireflies, and tootings of major and minor keys with varying volumeof sound went wailing through the night.

  A big passenger packet, hailing from up-river, swept into view. Ablazefrom her bow to the churning stern wheel she bore down like a floatingvilla strung with yellow gems. A band blared "Dixie" from somewhereamidships. I was young enough to have some degree of enthusiasm for suchspectacles, and I turned onto a long half-lighted wharf and walked toits outermost tip to get a better view of the puffing river monster withits thousand gleaming eyes.

  Until she came abreast and passed, I stood there watching. In a carelessway I became aware of two men strolling out on the wharf; in fact, I hadpassed them near the entrance gate. I remember that the swell from thebig packet was beginning to slap against the wharf wall when one of themedged over and asked me the time.

  Like a simpleton I hauled out my watch to tell him. It did not occur tome that there might be any purpose behind the question. The river-frontin St. Louis was not a place where one could safely exhibit signs ofaffluence in the way of cash or jewelry--and I knew it. I hadn't grownup in a city without knowing some of its ways. No doubt it looked likean easy game, out there on the end of a deserted wharf.

  My watch was a plain hunting-case affair, with a fob. Without an inklingof what was to come I turned toward the dim light as I sprung the caseopen. In that instant the fellow struck the watch out of my grasp withone hand, and smashed me full on the jaw with the other--a vicious,pugilistic punch. I went down. Curiously, I didn't lose consciousness;and the blow gave little pain. But it paralyzed my motor nerves for afew seconds, gave me a queer, helpless feeling in my legs and arms, suchas one has in a nightmare. It passed though, and the pair of them werejust going through my pockets with a celerity that bespoke much practicewhen I recovered sufficiently to jab my fist into a face that was bentclose to mine--at the same time driving both heels against the shins ofthe other fellow with what force I could muster.

  This instinctive outbreak rather surprised them, I think. Anyway, theygave ground. Only for a moment, however. I made one valiant effort togain my feet, and they were on me like twin wolves. Kicking, striking,struggling like primal beasts we three lurched this way and that on thebrink of the wharf. A hundred yards away people were hurrying by, and ifI'd had sense enough to realize that a shout was my best weapon I couldeasily have routed the thugs. But I was too frightened to think.

  And in a very short time sheer weight of numbers decided the issue. Oneof them got a strangle hold about my neck. The other clasped mefervently around the waist. Thus they dragged me down. For one briefinstant I rested on the hard planking, my head in a whirl, their weightlike a mountain on my heaving chest. Then, with a quick shove theythrust me over the edge of the wharf.

  Undertaken voluntarily, a twenty-foot dive is no great matter, but it isa horse of quite another color to be chucked into space and fall thatdistance like a bag of meal. I struck the water feet first, as ithappened, and came to the top spluttering, half-strangled, but otherwisenone the worse. Right quickly I found that I'd merely exchanged oneantagonist for another. The current set strongly out from the wharf, andit cost me many a stroke to get back to it, and then I saw that I was nobetter off. Contrary to the usual thing the piles offered no avenue ofescape, for they were planked up, a smooth wooden wall that I could notpossibly climb. I felt my way toward shore, but the out-sweeping currentwas too strong. So I hooked my fingers in a tiny crack and proceeded toshed what clothing still burdened me. Of my coat only a fragmentaryportion remained. It had been ripped up the back in the fracas above,and the side containing my ticket and most of my money had been tornclear off me. There was little left save the sleeves. My shoes and shirtand trousers I cast upon the waters with little thought of their return;and then, clad in a suit of thin underclothes I struck out for the nextpier below, thanking my stars that I was a fair swimmer.

  But I could not make it. The channel of the Mississippi threw the fullhead of a powerful current against the St. Louis side at that particularpoint; it struck the wharf-lined bank and swerved out again with thestrength of an ocean tide, and I was in the out-going curve of it. Thenext wharf was not for me nor yet its fellow beyond. Steadily I wascarried into mid-stream. Shouting for help across the black space thatlay between me and the wharves soon exhausted what wind and strength Idid not use up in a footless attempt to swim against the current. Istopped yelling then; it seemed to be sink or swim, and I began toconserve my energies a bit. Slipping along in plain view of myriadlights, hearing the fiendish screaming of steamer whistles, seeing themoving bulk of them dimly in the night, I felt in no immediatedanger--not half as much alarm disturbed the soul of me as when thefingers of those night-hawks were clawing at my throat. I knew I couldkeep afloat an indefinite length of time, and some craft or other, Ireasoned, would pick me up if I failed to make shore.

  By and by I rapped my hand smartly against some hard object as I cleftthe water, and gripping it I found myself the richer by a four-footstick of cordwood on its way to the Gulf of Mexico. This served to bearme up without any exertion on my part, and gave me that much betterchance to buck the current. I was now well out from the wharves, andstraining my eyes for passing boats.

  Far down the river the piercing shriek of a siren split a momentarysilence that had fallen on the stream. A drumming noise was borne up tome on a fitful night breeze. From behind the black loom of a juttingwharf a steamer appeared, and came throbbing upstream. Now she wasalmost on me, the heart-like pulse of her engines and the thresh of hergreat sternwheel deadening all the other sounds which that vast riversurface caught up and bandied back and forth.

  Remorselessly th
e current bore me into her path. At first I had strainedevery nerve to get in her way, but as the black hull with funnelsbelching smoke and deck-lights riding high drew near I remembered thatif I missed a hold on her side I stood a fair chance of being suckedinto the flailing paddles. When that filtered into my cranium I backedwater in hot haste; but I had gone too far, and her speed was too great.In another minute I was pawing at the slippery bulge of her water-line,and striving to lift my voice above the chug of the engines as she slidby.

  The wash from her swung me away and drew me back again, and just as thenearing thresh of her broad-paddled wheel struck a chill of fear into myquaking heart my hands fouled in a trailing line and I laid hold of itmore tightly than ever drowning man clutched the proverbial straw.

  It was a small line, and the strain of towing me was great, but it held.In the tiers of cabins above my head lights flicked out one by one.Again and again I called, bellowing upward with the regularity of a fogsignal. No answer; no inquiring face peered over the rail. The docksslid by. God only knows how long I dangled at the end of that bit oftwisted fiber. The glow-worm lamps of St. Louis twinkled distantly onthe left, rapidly falling astern. The thin line wrapped about my wristnumbed it to the elbow; I changed hands from time to time, in peril ofbeing cast adrift. Fervently I wished for my bit of driftwood. Theon-rushing demon to which I clung offered less hope of succor.

  In a little while longer I should have cast loose from sheer inabilityto hold on. The strain on my arms was exhausting, and the least shiftsoused me under water, such was the speed. How I should have fared then,I do not know. But in the nick of time an answering hail came from aboveand when I had established the fact that a human being was clingingalongside, a cluster of heads and a lantern or two appeared at the railand a rope ladder came wriggling down.

  Cramped and sore and weary as I was I climbed thankfully aboard. A knotof passengers surrounded an officer whom I took to be the mate. Adeckhand or two stood by, eyeing me curiously as I heaved myself ondeck. The mate held up his lantern and took a good look at me.

  "You look some the worse for wear, bucko," he volunteered indifferently."How long you been hangin' onto us?"

  I began to explain, but I daresay my appearance hardly lent an air oftruth to my words; he cut me short with an incredulous shrug of hisshoulders.

  "Tell that t' the captain or the purser," he interrupted sharply. "Bilk,you steer him t' the pilot house. I'll be there in a minute."

  He turned on his heel, and Bilk motioned me to follow. As we passedforward I wondered on what sort of craft I had landed, whither bound,and how good my chance was of getting back to St. Louis and making afresh start. The first of these queries I voiced to Bilk.

  "She's the _New Moon_," he growled. "Through freight t' Bismark, CowIsland, and Fort Benton. Stop? Naw, she don't stop fer nothin' onlywood."