The Trap Lifters

By Ernest Haycox

There are pirates and pirates—and some kinds survive even in this civilized twentieth century. Those in this particular story were fish pirates, but they were quite as bloodthirsty and murderous as their cousins who sailed the Spanish Main some years ago; and there is quite as much action in this tale of their activities.

NORTHWARD from Seattle sweeps the Inside Passage, bounded on one side by the rocky and broken coasts of Canada and Alaska, protected from the sea on the other by a chain of long islands. Where these islands meet, point to point, wide straits open to the sea.

Dixon's Entrance is one of these, opening into the passages at the southernmost end of the Alaskan coast; a treacherous piece of water through which many a purse- seine boat has drifted and never returned.

Where the currents of the entrance and the passage meet huge tide rips boil, pluck at the bottom of the small fishing craft and spin them around while the steersman holds an idle wheel and watches with sharp concern the jutting point of Cape Chacon, on the southern tip of the Prince of Wales Island.

In rough weather the wind sends great rollers toward the mainland, and they go smashing against the ragged fingers of rock thirty-four miles away, or, if the blow comes from a more southerly direction, the wind rounds the cape and sweeps in wild fury up the passage, pushing drift and water and boat in front of it.

Rushing along it passes Moria Sound on the inside shore of the island, and, shortly after, it piles up the water in a great wall of spray against Moria Rock, just above the entrance.

Past the rock and into the sound chugged the Star, cannery tender, late in the afternoon of a hot Fourth of July. Heading toward the outer end of a floating fish trap it gave a long blast of its whistle. A moment later two figures hurried from the small frame shanty on the shore, jumped into a rowboat and followed the long lead boom of the trap toward the incoming tender.

The latter idled up to the heart of the trap—a boxlike arrangement of logs and planks from which is suspended the net—and made fast to a cleat in one of the logs. Shaughnessy, skipper of the Star, put his head out of the window of the pilothouse and greeted the two men as they came up.

"Hello, Gus," said he, "how's things?"

The larger man stood up awkwardly, hanging to a fender of the Star.

"Oh, dey ban purty gude. De fish dey begin to run. Ve got five or six hoondret in de heart now. Ven you goin' to lift dem?"

Shaughnessy stepped out of the wheelhouse and looked over the rail into the heart of the trap. "Pretty looking fish, ain't they? Not enough to bother with yet, though. Lessee, this is Sunday. Tell you what, I'll drop down Wednesday and do it. By the way, Gus, you'd won the rifle contest if you'd been in Ketchikan today. It was easy."

"Dot so," answered Gus, grinning. "Vish I'd been dere." He looked around. "Vere's Eddy?"

"Soused," replied Shaughnessy. "He's down in the bunk sleeping."

Gus caught sight of a new man on the afterdeck coiling lines. "Who's dat?" he asked.

Shaughnessy looked back. "Oh, that's a new fellow I picked up in Ketchikan. We're short down at the cannery. Name's Heilig."

The man heard his name spoken and looked up. Gus shook his head. "I don't like dot face," he mumbled half to himself.

"Hey there," called Shaughnessy; "leave that rope be. Pitch in here and help pass out this stuff. Plenty of time to coil lines when we're moving."

Heilig moved forward. Gus eyed the heavy-jowled face with increasing disfavor. The man was nearly as tall as he, and Gus himself towered, square and solid, six feet and a half in the air. The new man's face was lined with a reddish stubble punctuated by a huge beak and a thin hard slit of a mouth.

"I don't like dot fallow," Gus repeated under his breath.

"My name's Heilig, not 'hey there,'" said the man, picking up a case of canned stuff.

"All right, all right," agreed the skipper in good humored assent. "Get a wiggle on."

Gus reached up for the case and, to steady himself, rested one hand on the deck. Heilig saw it, and quite suddenly a cruel twist of his lips set his whole face in a devilish, saturnine expression. He swung the case forward to the Swede, and deliberately stepped on the hand.

The reaction was immediate. The Swede's free arm described an arc, encircled the man's legs, and a huge jerk brought Heilig toppling over the handrail. The case of canned stuff went crashing to the bottom of the dory, spilling over the other supplies. Now the hand of Gus was free. He grasped Heilig's body around the waist with both arms, and with a grimace unpleasant to see on his usually stolid face clamped his wrists together, squeezing the other's body.

Heilig struggled, suspended in the air. His arms flailed about and fell on the Swede's back. His face contracted with pain; and then he screamed. Gus slid his hands up beneath the other's armpits, gave a prodigious shove, and pitched him into the water.

He went down and came up, threshed the water with his arms, and struck out toward one of the logs of the heart. Reaching it he crawled up, slowly and painfully.

Gus nursed his hand. "Dot vill teach you," he said solemnly, "to keep avay from my hands. Und next time you do dot, I vill kill you."

Heilig climbed back on the large boat. His face was drawn, yet when he spoke it was with a kind of cold, quite calm, and impersonal tone. "All right, Swede," he said. "But I'll see you later. Don't forget that." And he limped back to the afterdeck again.

The crew handed over the rest of the supplies.

"Well," said Shaughnessy, "I guess that's all you'll want until Wednesday." He stepped inside the wheelhouse and looked back out of the window. "All right, Harry, let go the line."

The tender labored away from the logs.

"Current sets out bad along here," shouted the skipper. But shortly they were away, bound for the cannery five miles in.

Gus and the boy with him rowed back to the shack and stowed away the goods. Curly, the kid, started supper while the other wrapped his hand in a clean handkerchief, rocking himself back and forward in a chair.

"What's eatin' you, Gus?" the kid asked. Gus shook his head.

"Well," said Curly a trifle later. "Here's chow. Let's eat."

Midway between the meal Gus jerked his head up from his plate. "Curly," he fairly roared, "next time I meet dot fallow I'm goin' to bash in his face."

"Say, you been singin' that song all evenin'. It's his face. What's wrong with it?"

Gus indicated a long scar on the side of his head. "See dot? I got dat vun time ven I vas shanghaied. Dere vas a first mate on de boat who looked yust like dis fallow." He shook his head. "I know dot kind of a face. Dere ain't no good in it. Dot fallow is a devil." He knotted his two huge fists and shook them at the kid. "I'm goin' to bash dot face."

And later in the evening he pulled down his old army rifle and rubbed it with oil, over and over, singing some strange song softly to himself.

Heilig took his place in the cannery bunkhouse with the rest of the crew. Silent and taciturn, he smoked his pipe in one corner of the place, seldom joining in the card games or the comment. He broke this silence one evening in a fashion that brought the rest of the cannery crew to him.

"Now Moria Rock," it was Red Flynn, the foreman, speaking, "is the company's best bet. Notice the sockeye run? Most of the traps on the other side of the straits are gettin' dogs this season. Sockeye run seems to be over here this year."

"Dogs up the Portland canal, too," added Heilig abruptly.

Red Flynn looked up from his cards. "Been over there this season?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Say," added Flynn. "You've done quite a bit of traveling around this season, hain't you? Said yesterday you were over in George's Inlet, and t'other day I heard you tell Jake the fish hadn't started up the Behm Canal yet. How do you know?"

The others looked up over their cards. Heilig shifted in his seat and stared at the questioner; the lines about his mouth tightened and a kind of bloodshot glare came to his eyes.

"Did a little purse-seining with an Austrian boat until my stomach turned," he answered in a cold, singsong way.

"Oh." The other man turned away. "Say, Jake, I want you to get busy on that fish conveyor tomorrow. Something's wrong with the top part of the gearing."

But still Heilig looked at the foreman's back, finding there, it appeared, some special object which increased the murky turmoil of passion within him that seemed as if it would overwhelm and sweep him off his feet in a great explosion of wrath. He collected himself however, shaking his head abruptly and going to his bunk.

The foreman observed from the corner of his eye. "Bad," he murmured.

Shaughnessy went down Wednesday and lifted the Moria Rock trap and returned with a thousand sockeyes, choicest of Alaskan red salmon; and the second cannery tender, returning from the traps far across the straits, brought a full load of humpbacks and dogs. Now the season began in earnest. The cannery opened full blast. The odor of fish permeated everything, and at nightfall the black bears came down from the mountainside and scooped the salmon heads from the bay with their paws, while the bald Alaskan eagles soared above, waiting.

Heilig worked in the fish conveyor, sorting the salmon out as they came up the incline and dropped off into the bins. He was a forbidding spectacle, standing hip deep in the fish about him, a sharp-pronged pew in his hand and his eyes roving about, seeming to brood on some bitter turn of events.

He watched the boats come in with a great interest. He always asked about the traps.

"Where did you get these?" he asked Shaughnessy of one great load of sockeyes.

"Moria Rock," answered the other. "Best trap we got this year. Last year it didn't catch a fish. Funny the way salmon run."

"How often you figure on lifting it?"

"'Bout once a week now, I guess. It fills plump up in near that time."

"Heilig!"

He swung around. Above, on the dock, stood the foreman. "Come up here and sort out these fish. You got them runnin' all over the place."

He climbed the ladder and faced Flynn. "No need," said he, "of raisin' your voice very high when you talk to me. I hear plain."

"Very fine," answered Flynn. "But if you're goin' to work around this cannery you got to shake a hoof. We're busy."

Heilig went back to work.

A company purse-seine boat came in that evening from a trip up the Portland Canal. They brought news of fish pirates.

"Yes," said Red Flynn, in the bunkhouse. "That gang's been workin' around here for years. Never been able to find them. Even the government subchasers can't run 'em down. Where did they lift this time?"

"Over on Colfax Sound," said one of the crew. "I heard it in Ketchikan. They came up about dark and the two fellows watching the trap thought it was a company boat, so they came rowing out to it. They were darn near it when one of the two said he thought it didn't look right, so they turned and started back. They hollered for him to stop but he kept going. Then they plugged him. The other fellow they lashed to a boom log while they lifted five thousand sockeyes out of the trap. Cannery tender found the man on the boom dang near dead next morning."

Heilig drew the pipe from his mouth and leaned forward. "What did the boat look like?" he asked.

"That's the funny part of it. Neither of the fellows got a very clear look at it. Seems like it was all daubed up in different colors."

Suddenly a soft chuckle turned all eyes toward Heilig.

"What in hell's funny about it?" snapped Red Flynn.

The laugh died away, leaving the impression of a kind of mirthless and profound mockery. "I was thinking of the fellow tied to the boom."

"Funny, ain't it?" returned Flynn bitterly. "I suppose it's all a big joke about the poor bird that was plugged, too?"

"You better hold your tongue," said Heilig.

From the inlet came the throaty blast of a whistle. The players looked up. "I wonder who's comin' in this time of the night?" said Flynn. "Sounds familiar. Guess I'll take a look."

Heilig sat rigid in his chair.

The crew struggled into their coats and followed after the foreman. Only Heilig remained, staring at the floor.

But scarce had the door closed behind them when he sprang up, rushed to his bunk, and stuffed his few belongings into his pocket in a sort of fumbling haste. Running across to the foreman's bunk he took down a high-powered rifle, and seized a box of cartridges lying on a shelf nearby. Then he turned out the lamp, opened the door softly, and stepped out into the night.

The cannery settlement perched in an unsteady way on the strip of land between the inlet and the mountain that rose directly behind. Back of the cannery, which rested half out in the water, the bunkhouse ran into the thicket, sheltered from the sight of the rest of the buildings. As Heilig stepped out he saw, under the arc light of the dock, a naval officer conferring with the cannery owner. Around these two ranged the crew.

He walked along the corner of the house, approaching them. Then he hurried across a small intervening space until he reached the protection of the cannery wall again. Creeping down this he came within range of their voices, and the first words he heard from the mouth of the naval officer were: "Hugh Heilig, fish pirate," and, shortly following this, a brief remark of Red Flynn: "I thought so."

Heilig gripped the rifle tighter and edged to the comer. At that moment the crowd started toward the bunkhouse, led by the foreman. In a short moment they would be upon him. For just an instant he remained in the shadows, the bitter memory of the dark and forbidding mountain into which he must flee, in his mind. Then he raised the rifle and stepped out in the open.

"Hold on," he said.

The party drew up. The foreman, a bit in advance, leveled his finger at Heilig. "You're the man," said he. Heilig watched him carefully.

"Hugh Heilig," announced the naval officer, as if reading a solemn passage from a book, "you are charged with fish piracy and murder. Will you come along peacefully?"

The face of the outlaw was a thing difficult to read, for it was all twisted with the rising tide of some black emotion. "You'll never get me," he said with a kind of finality.

The foreman took a step forward.

"Hold up!" cried Heilig. He saw the other weave his body from side to side and the group in the rear spread out. "Hold up, I say," he repeated. "All right then!" He jerked the rifle to his hip and fired.

A cry of pain followed. He saw Flynn pitch forward and the group start back. With that he turned about and fled into the shadows and down the path leading by the bunkhouse to the forest.

Behind the sudden rushing of feet and the mingling of many voices, raised in hurried direction, followed him as he plunged through the brush and labored up the hill. The bunkhouse door slammed; they were on his path now, with their rifles.

He hurried along and shortly the path ended in a small, rocky ravine, leading up the mountain. He slid into this, feet half in water, and scrambled over the boulders.

Farther along he had to detour around a sheer drop of the rock over which rumbled a sheet of water. It was desperately hard work; the scrub pine and the underbrush thrust him back time and time again, requiring all his strength to break through. The sweat started down his face. Reaching the back of the ravine again he dropped on his stomach, exhausted, and plunged his face into the water, dampening his chest and neck.

Over the roar of the falls he heard the noise of pursuit coming rapidly from below. They were following the ravine, guessing he could take no other way of escaping from the settlement. A dozen scattered shots rang out; one of them hit a rock near by with a flat hard sound. He struggled to his feet and toiled on through the darkness.

He could do little more than feel his way. Often he went sliding into some unexpected depression and the sharp rocks bruised his body. Once, jumping forward, he plunged into a deep pool of the creek and sank to his armpits. A quick pull of the current threw him off his balance and he went slipping downstream for a space, then he hit the sharp ledge of the bank and pulled himself out.

The time he lost brought his pursuers within ear reach again; a stray shot whistled over his head as he toiled along, his heart pounding, wild and erratic, from the great wrenching and straining of muscles. The passage of time was a thing utterly indifferent to him.

Without warning the ravine gave way to an open plateau and the slope of the hill fell off. Heilig looked about him for a moment, trying to determine the contour of the land. He had now reached the divide. From this point forward it held a gradual decline, then sloped sharply downward toward the arm of water on the other side, the South Arm of Moria Sound.

The forest of scrub and brush opened out here for a space. Quite vaguely Heilig could see, by the starlight, the way before him. He went on, veering toward the right, taking long, hurried strides. His foot sank at one place, deep into the earth, but he pressed on, thinking it to be a solitary gushing spring. Shortly after his foot sank again, and before he fully knew what was happening, both settled rapidly into the ground.

He drew back. It seemed there was no solid earth about. As fast as he placed his feet they sank beneath him. Panic enveloped him; he gave a huge jerk and attempted to run, and was on the instant thrown to the earth.

Now, at last, he knew his situation. About him stretched a great bed of underground springs, honeycombing the earth, and feeding the creek he had been following. By some chance he had stumbled into the center of this morass.

From below the sound of voices came clearer again. He rolled over several times, testing the earth, rose, stumbled, and fell, clawing for solid ground. And again he rolled, always aiming for the far side of the opening, and veering to the right.

His pursuers were threshing about the opening of the ravine. A voice cried out: "Hol' on, don't go that way. That's the swamp. You'll get mired."

He redoubled his efforts, and immediately his body hit a tree, bringing him to a painful halt. He grasped it and rose. The ground appeared fairly solid, so he ventured to take another step. It gave way and once again he stumbled forward; his hand catching at the trunk of a sapling, he drew himself up. Now he stepped from hummock to hummock, clinging to the saplings that lined the route.

"Hark!" he heard a voice shout. "I hear a noise." They seemed to be closing in around him, so he leaped forward, feeling the ground grow firmer.

"He's over there in the swamp!"

Right after that, a round of shots ripped the foliage near by. But now all caution had fled and he raced on into the night. The branches of the scrub pines closing in about him whipped at his face, and the hazel tore his clothing. He felt the ground fall away and still he rushed along, reckless of obstacles, holding always to the right. Once he tripped and fell headlong, sliding many feet. Recovering he ran the faster, trying to lose the sound of pursuit.

It had taken him two hours or more to reach the top of the mountain; but such was the force of his downward flight that when he broke through the thicket and faced the South Arm, scarcely half an hour had gone by.

He fell to the ground, his body one great, aching pain where a hundred branches had lashed him, and his lungs ready to burst from exertion. Heilig had never run such a race in his life; and the race was not yet over, for behind him came the echo of advancing men threshing the brush.

Rising he walked to the edge of the water. In his flight he had consistently veered to the right. It brought him out where the South Arm narrowed to a small channel called Devil's Gap. Through this fifty-foot opening the water poured at a great rate when the tide was on the swing.

He had but scant time to think of the distance or of the bitter cold of the water that chilled one to the bone after a short immersion. Already he could hear the men behind swing out in a wide fanlike circle, closing in on the rocky beach. He threw the rifle far out into the channel, tore off his coat and, hearing a twig snap behind him, plunged into the water.

Halfway across he heard a shout from the beach; they had discovered the coat. It was too dark for them to see his body in the water, but they could undoubtedly hear him swimming, for shots began to splash about him. He dived and paddled underwater for a while, then he struck the shelving of the far shore and waded up the bank.

He was freezing cold, but he halted long enough in that dark and barren spot to send a great shout of defiance across the water. The echoes carried it far away, and mingled with the answering shots.

He knew his country quite well now. Striking off along the beach he broke into a run, stooping here to pass under trees, climbing over rock formations, now retreating inland to skirt some small cove. On and on he traveled, following the arm of water.

Sometime during the early morning he came up against another channel of water barring his way. Through the heavy mists the squat forms of a half-dozen deserted Indian shanties loomed out from a protecting cove, while anchored off the point was a low, rakish, drab-colored purse-seine boat.

Heilig cupped his hands to his face and let out a bellow. It hurtled clear across the water and created a great racket in the silence of the gray morning. He rested on the bank, waiting. After a long interval he repeated his call, raising his arms to the sky and waving them across each other in a peculiar fashion.

"All right," came a voice from the boat.

Shortly after a figure appeared on deck and moved toward a dory tied alongside. Heilig went to the edge of the channel and caught the boat as it came up.

"All right," he said jumping in; "now get back as fast as God A'mighty let's you. I'm freezin' to death."

"What happened?"

"Revenue cutter came into the cannery and I had to beat it. Came near gettin' me. I got the dope on the trap, though. You lift George's Inlet trap the day before yesterday?"

"Yeh."

"Good work. Lean on them oars, man; I'm freezin'!"

 

Heilig had killed Red Flynn.

"He's a bad one," testified the young naval officer. "That makes the second man he's killed, and God knows how many he's tortured by this trick of lashing men to the boom logs. You'd better send Flynn's body in today." He stepped aboard his cutter. "Lovely morning, isn't it? All right, Masters, turn her around. We're going back to the trap."

"That fellow Heilig," he told Gus, "is a fish pirate." The Swede's face lit up. "Yah," he stuttered. "Yah, I yust knew someting like dot."

The lieutenant looked into the heart of the trap. "Pretty good haul here, haven't you?"

"Yah, dere is a coople tousand here."

"H'm. When does the tender lift again?"

"Tomorrow."

The young man speculated. "Carry a gun?" he queried.

The Swede was surprised. "Me? I should say dot. I vas an expert rifleman vunce, in de army."

"Righto. Turn her down that arm, Masters. I want a look. A perfect scramble of rocks and water. God must have been on the side of the fellow who charted this coast."

And the mouth of the sound was a perfect scramble of rocks and water. Setting out toward Moria Rock, the currents of three different arms of the sound carried the water against its gray and sharp edges. While, fingerlike, two ridges of mountains trooped down to the straits separating them. On the tip of one of these ridges the floating trap was built, and the shanty occupied by Gus and the kid commanded the entrance to two of these arms.

"Let's look in here," continued the young officer. "I think we'll have a fair shelter for the night. Looks like we're going to have a blow. And, by the way, I want the lens of the searchlight polished before dark sets in."

In the cove hard by the deserted Indian village, night fell to the accompaniment of a high wind and the angry slap of waves on the shore. Off the point the anchored purse-seine boat rolled in the slow swell. Down below, in the fo'c's'lehead, Heilig sat at one side of a table, facing the five men seated about him on the bunks.

"We go tonight," he repeated. Raising his head, he stared down the resentful glances.

"What's the use?" growled one man. "We can't lift the trap; there's a storm coming up."

He shook his head. "We go tonight." His fist crashed down on the pine table. "Who runs this boat? Who takes the chances and does the bean work? I, by Godfrey, and what I say goes." In the candlelight his face was illumined softly, the veins standing out on his forehead giving him a saturnine cast.

"What's the good? We can't lift the trap, Hugh. What do you want to do?"

"I've got a bill to pay," he answered grimly. "I'm going to kill a Swede."

There followed an uncomfortable silence in which each man stared at his neighbor and, shifting, stared at the floor. Heilig watched them, the harsh mouth growing thinner and thinner in its compression.

"We'll be wrecked goin' between those islands," whispered a voice.

"Oh, my lord!" cried Heilig. "You're not fit to swab decks. You sit there like bumps on a log. I never try anything but what you yelp about the danger, you chicken-hearted street sweepers! Who's been in trouble this last week—I have! And all the time you sleep and drink and eat. That's the thanks I get. Oh, you dirty scum!"

The minutes crept on, the candlelight flickered more dimly, the walls of the fo'c's'lehead veered from side to side, and the six men rested in deadlock.

Abruptly Heilig pushed to his feet, and threw his chair back. "Get on deck," he cried, "before I brain somebody! Get up, I tell you!"

His hand swept toward the candle and snipped out the flame. He jumped forward, seized a body and hurled it through the door toward the ladder leading to the deck. Whirling about he struck out, right and left, all the time driving them to the deck. Someone resisted and he lunged forward with a smashing blow. A voice cried out.

"Get up, I tell you," he commanded. "Get up." He drove them before him.

The water broke white on the shore now; the wind swept around the point and sang faintly through the rigging of the boat. "Skarstrom, Boyle, pull up the anchor," he yelled. "Janny, get the engine started."

They swung out of the cove into the channel. A short, choppy wave buffeted them from the starboard side, and the wind, coming afresh on them as they wove in and out of the protecting islands, heeled them over. They crawled along in the darkness, feeling their way.

Heilig turned the wheel over to a thin, shriveled wisp of a man.

"Hold her to the center of the channel," he directed. Stepping back he unhooked his rifle from the wall of the wheelhouse. Working the bolt several times he shoved in a clip of cartridges and locked it.

"I can't hold it," whispered the steersman, struggling to pull the wheel over. The boat gave a lurch, the wheel went spinning, and the man cried out, bent double, holding his arm. Heilig sprang forward and swept the man to one side, seized the wheel, laboring it over, spoke by spoke.

From the corner of the house came a suppressed sob.

"Man!" exclaimed Heilig in a kind of awe; "are you crying, man? Crying!"

There was no answer; only a long-drawn sigh of misery reached him.

"Stop it," he cried. "It gives me the creeps. Stop it, I say."

The nose of the boat sprang upward, and the next moment they plunged down into a great hollow; a twisting sheet of water poured over the front deck, boiled and eddied, and slid off the other side. The boat righted itself, and jumped ahead. The sound of the laboring engine came loud and strong from below. They had turned out of the South Arm now and were twisting and winding among the islands at the mouth of the sound.

"Call Skarstrom," Heilig shouted over his shoulder.

Over and above all things now sounded the roar of the wind sweeping up the straits, and the wild fury of the water smashing against Moria Rock, off to the right. Only a low, long fringe of islands protected the boat from the tempestuous storm outside.

"Yah!" Skarstrom bulked up at the side.

"When we get through the passage here and come out at the trap, you take the wheel. We'll work to one side where it's a bit protected and I'll go ashore in the dory. I want you to stand by and pick me up. Then we'll keep right on going and steer into the North Arm and hide there."

"You can't make it ashore."

"Shut up. I ain't asking you for any opinion. I'm telling you what to do."

The protecting islands gave way for a space. The wind ripped the water into huge waves that trooped through the opening. The boat smashed down, the water bombarded the front of the wheelhouse, and swept the decks clean. The wind rose to a kind of monotonous moaning, and Heilig struggled with the wheel, watching the compass. "The damned thing swings like a bucket in a well." He rubbed the fogged windows and peered out. The Swede clutched a railing on the wall. "Let's go back," he cried out of a sudden. "Ve are going to pile up on a rock. I don't vant to drown here."

Heilig gave no answer.

A skinny hand plucked at the Swede's trousers, and drew him back. Presently Heilig heard the low whispered exclamations of the two, rising and falling briefly. Then followed silence and a scraping of feet.

"None of your dirty work," he warned.

They were on him, clawing and jabbing, cursing with low, guttural oaths. The small man hung to his legs, rolling over the floor. The Swede pounded blow after blow on Heilig's neck, but the latter clung tenaciously to the wheel. He managed to work a foot loose, and swinging back he brought his heavy boot full down on the small man's head. The other gave a squeal and fell away. The Swede grasped an arm and tried to force it from the wheel. Heilig let it go suddenly, swinging back with all the force in his elbow. It caught Skarstrom in the neck and sent him reeling back.

Then Heilig turned, drew him up in that single arm, let go the wheel for one brief instant—and that to send a driving blow to the uncovered face. The Swede struck the wall and sagged down.

Heilig's voice sang out, cold and taunting: "You rabbits, why don't you stand up and fight?"

Another great sea came spilling over the side and buried the foredeck, churning, smashing, boiling, then sliding off again, and the water fell away and disappeared far down below as the boat rose on the crest of an immense ridge.

Heilig swung the wheel; now they were in a trough, wallowing, every joining of the boat creaking in great violence. A thundering world surrounded them; on the next instant the turmoil died away, and they were in calm water. The contrast was so great that it seemed the world stood breathless. Heilig swung to port, sliding in behind a point. He thrust the control to quarter speed and turned around. "Get up," he directed the Swede.

The latter groped his way forward.

"Take the wheel. We came within five feet of ramming that trap. Just saw the riding light in the nick of time. Now swing in toward the shore."

He took his gun from the rack and turned to the window again. "There," he cried, a bitter note of triumph coming to his voice. "There's the shack, see the light in the window. Stop her! Good. Now stand by to pick me up."

He left the wheelhouse and went to the stern. The crew had put the dory over the side. He dropped into it. The choppy swells dashed the boat against the purse- seiner violently, then lifted and threw it away, to catch and carry it back on the next wave. From the shore came the sound of the waves pounding against the beach.

"He can't make it," whispered one of the crew.

Heilig strained at the oars in a huge effort to get away from the side of the boat, turned, and headed for the shore. The current, setting out, drew the dory back and smashed it against the hull of the pirate boat. It cracked the thing amidships as if it had been an apple box; Heilig leaped for the fender of the larger boat and drew aboard.

The dory seemed to dissolve and sink away. Heilig stood at the railing, watching the spot where it had gone down, immobile. The crew drew back; there was something in the white, tight-drawn face that repelled even them—some thwarted, murdering passion which swept up against the barriers of his restraint and was like to break them. He raised his head to the shanty and regarded the small shaft of light streaming from the window. And slowly he lifted his arm and shook it.

"If it takes me the rest of my life," he said, "I'll get that Swede."

Off shore, coming from the South Arm, a beam of light swept the waters and disappeared. Heilig cried out and sprang back. The light returned, circled the sound, then played over the purse-seiner, blinding the crew for a moment; sliding on, it rested on the heart of the trap, then covered the grim outlines of the Rock, buried beneath a great sheet of water, returning at length to the pirate boat and remaining full upon it.

Heilig ran to the wheelhouse.

"The subchaser," he cried. "In the South Arm! We passed it somehow; now we've got to go on up the North Arm."

His eyes were still fixed on the shanty. Suddenly he pointed. "Look," he fairly groaned to the man at his side. "Look!"

Skarstrom turned. Two lights streamed from the shanty now. The door was open, and for a moment or so the great figure of Gus bulked out.

"Damn the man!" swore Heilig. We're fair game for him now. We've got to pass that point to get into the Arm. And he's an expert shot."

For a very short time did Gus remain exposed.

"Curly," he roared. "Dere he is!"

"What you goin' to do?" asked Curly.

Gus opened the window and stuck the rifle out. He made all sorts of nice adjustments with his sight leaf, and wriggled from this side to that, whispering strange figures to himself.

"What you goin' to do?" came the plaintive question again.

Gus fired. He saw Heilig jerk back. The boat swung over to port and made for the rough water beyond the protection of the small cove. The searchlight followed the pirates.

They plunged into the great rollers swinging into the sound, rising and falling headlong. The current caught them and swung them away from the point. They were beyond the point now, and slowly the boat veered around, making for the entrance to the Arm. In doing so the window of the wheelhouse came full on Gus, and once again he saw Heilig laboring at the wheel. Again he brought his rifle up, and, after a long interval, fired. Heilig ducked.

Settling down, Gus worked faster, pumping shot after shot into the wheelhouse. The boat swung off more. Heilig was unable to make the entrance, unable to face the grilling rifle fire.

They were sweeping out toward the straits. Gus reloaded his gun and waited. Shortly Heilig made another attempt; once again the pilothouse came within sight. The Swede opened fire, and shortly the pirate boat turned back again, steering full out to the straits to avoid a quicker destruction on nearby reefs.

Now it passed the last of the protecting islands. An invisible hand seemed to take it and thrust it toward Moria Rock. It swept on, borne sidewise, in the full blast of the wind tearing up the straits, a cockleshell in a raging sea, a piece of drift with the huge waves breaking over the wheelhouse and covering it completely. And the playing searchlight, clinging to it, illumined every move.

Abruptly in front, the dark and ragged form of Moria Rock broke above the water; a figure popped out of the wheelhouse, hanging to the railing. The next moment a tremendous swell picked the boat up, carried it far up and over, then dropped away, dashing its burden full against the rock.

The man struggled, holding to the railing; apparently he gave up hope, for, as the next mountain of water bore down, he threw out both hands, shaking them at the house on the shore.

The wave blotted out everything. And with the next view of the rock the boat was impaled on a jagged pinnacle, with no crew to man it.

The lieutenant on the subchaser turned away, sadly. "Why didn't they make the cove?" he puzzled. It had been his plan to bottle them up and later capture them. In the shanty the Swede drew the gun back, lit the lamp, and sat down to clean his cherished gun. On his face immobility had once again set in.

And the wind, sweeping up the straits sent the water trooping against the rock in great, rolling charges, and the booming echo roared far up the sound.