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Not that I was tired of the sea, or afraid of work aboard ship; but I was deeply worried regarding my mother and what might be happening to her so far away. Nothing but the desire to set eyes on the man that looked like me and talked like me had brought me 'way down here in Patagonia; I had never told Captain Tugg my real reason for shipping on the Sea Spell, not even when I bade him good-bye.
If it hasn't anything to do with your private business, you'll answer me?" "Let drive," he commanded, thoughtfully smoking. "When you were in Santiago three or four years ago " "Come to think of it, it was five year back," interrupted the captain. "All right," I said. "Did you at that time mail a letter for Professor Vose from that town?" Captain Tugg smote his knee suddenly.
Captain Adoniram Tugg was two hundred dollars in pocket, and just because some mysterious sea-beast had seen fit to kill a whale for its tongue! We had a fine breeze after the long calm, but nothing but fair weather until we rounded the Cape of the Virgins. There the broad entrance of the magnificent Straits of Magellan lay before the nose of the schooner.
Then the animal trapper set us all to work rebuilding his camp, animal cages, and stockade. We were three solid months repairing the damage done by the savages; but then Tugg had a camp that would be impregnable to the wild men from up the river. I had expressed to him at once my wish to return to the coast where I could get a chance to work my way north in some vessel.
But once I had entered into the agreement I found I had a hundred things to do and little time to do it in. Old Tom Anderly had not come back to the boarding house and I could not wait for him to appear. Captain Tugg was already thinking of loafing along to the dock where his two-stick schooner was moored. I bundled up my dunnage and went with him.
All the animals in cages had been killed or released. And in the blackened ruins and about the clearing, on the rocks, there lay the bodies of more than a dozen Patagonians. Tugg showed real feeling when he saw these dead men. "Poor boys!" he muttered, standing leaning on his rifle and gazing upon one fellow who was really a giant. "They was square, jest the same.
The fires revealing the coast as they did showed them where the mistake had been made. Tugg said: "Can't blame Pedro. That beacon lantern we saw had been shifted. I hope those wretches yonder haven't got the Professor foul. But one thing is sure: They brought that big lantern clear across the inlet and set it up on the west shore. No wonder we ran aground. It was a pretty trick, I do allow."
In a minute, however, another light flashed up nearby and I saw that a huge bonfire had been kindled on the shore not more than a cable's length away. "What in the e-tar-nal snakes is that?" bawled Captain Adoniram Tugg, seeing this fire. "That ain't the Professor not a bit of it." In a minute the flames rose so high that we could see figures moving in the light of them.
"We come in with our second mate who was hurt by a whale. He's in hospital. I have got about all the whaling I want, I believe." "I'll give ye a job aboard the Sea Spell." "I'll think of that," said I, quickly. "You'll not think long, son," drawled Captain Tugg, grimly. "We get away on the morning tide." The suggestion startled me. I felt a drawing toward Captain Adoniram Tugg and his schooner.
And me with more than two thousand in gold aboard?" he snorted. "By the e-tar-nal snakes! I guess they ain't armed. I wouldn't trust 'em with firearms." I began to feel pretty bad. I knew they were a murderous looking lot of fellows; but I didn't suppose that Tugg traveled in such peril all the time. I was learning a whole lot for a boy of my age.
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