The Yazoo Mystery Part 23

It took longer than we thought to work our way out of the bayou and up to Becker's floating wharf. As soon as we were tied up he came down with a lot of negroes, who began at once to unload the lumber, carrying it piece by piece back near his building operations. Captain Marianna checked it as it left.

Now on the windward side of the plant it was possible to eat. It was a long rambling building, painted the color of a freight car, occasionally rising to two stories; on one end were the posts driven in the ground for a considerable addition.

After supper we sat smoking, well up on the bank. It soon became evident that Becker did not intend to lose a chance to get expert advice on his gas-engine troubles. He waddled over to us with some real Havanas and with little tact reminded me of my promise.

Though the sun was low, Becker was still in his working togs, bareheaded and stripped to an unders.h.i.+rt. In this array he was a sight to behold, with his sagging jowls, from which great billows of fat formed rolls about his neck.

"This boy here is my a.s.sistant, Mr. Becker--he has found engine trouble even when I couldn't," I said, pointing toward Hiram, as we got up to go with him.

How vitally interested Hiram was in this move would be hard to estimate.

Much more experienced, I could only contain myself and be natural by refusing to think of the tremendous importance of our acting now, and, without coaching, I think Hiram did the same thing. The slightest false move would render worse than useless planning that had consumed much time and large expenditure.

Hiram walked beside Becker as nonchalantly as though strolling along Broadway, while I followed slightly in the rear. Hiram's now wonderfully developed physique seemed ready for action, ready to break loose with overpowering ferocity. I watched him furtively out of the corner of an eye to make sure he did not precipitate an affair that would "spill the beans."

Becker led us around the outside of the buildings--I was sure there was a short cut through them--to a lean-to shed containing the troublesome engine now laboring with its burden as a locomotive starting to move an overload.

"Ben, the engine is overcrowded," said Hiram, as we stood by it, addressing himself to me just loud enough for Becker to hear. Becker stood slightly apart from me as though he had turned a patient over to us for the time being. I was glad his big black engineer was not there.

My policy was never to kill, but my duty was to get what I went after.

We spent ten minutes examining the details of the engine, narrowly watched by Becker. Hiram's conduct was wonderful. He acted as though there was nothing under Heaven or on earth that interested him so much as discovering how we could help cure the sick motor. We asked to see the load on the driving belt that disappeared from the driving pulley through a board part.i.tion.

Becker, fairly a.s.sured, took us inside into a dark s.p.a.ce to a ten-ton ice machine, developing about half its capacity because of slow speed.

Glancing about it for a moment, we returned to the engine room and went outside as though about to return to the dock, considering it a hopeless case. Becker followed us, greatly concerned.

"Mr. Becker, it is a plain case of overload; you must lighten the work of your ice machine. You are attempting to make the motor do too much.

The engine might be helped a little by readjusting, but that would not be enough," I said, with a sort of hesitating finality, as we both edged away in the direction we had come.

Becker followed and came close up beside us.

"How can I do that?--you see I am so far away up here I can get no one to do such things," he pleaded.

"The only way is to reduce the circulating distance of the ammonia mixture, and then what you have left will cool more s.p.a.ce than it does now," I said, actually feeling sure that was the case.

"How can I do that?" he urged, noticing quickly our inclination to leave.

"That might be very easy or it might be quite a job. We could not tell without examining your piping system," I replied as one who had done a big day's work and was thinking more of sleep than of his troubles, particularly since he had not offered us anything to remedy. Becker had enough sense to see this.

He screwed up his face in a way that brought prodigious wrinkles upon his forehead. Then followed an attempt to be patronizingly generous.

"Boys, I'll tell you what I'll do. I know you've been working all day and are tired, but if you will take time enough to look the whole system over and help it some, I will give you five dollars apiece--I must do something or I will have a lot of stuff spoiled--in fact, I have had some spoil already," he ended half to himself.

Hiram glanced at me quickly, and Becker thought that this swift movement to take down his pipe was caused by the lure of his cash offer.

CHAPTER XXVII

WE spent two hours examining the remotest part of the refrigerating plant, piloted and aided at first by Becker. As it grew darker he furnished us with a torch. By this time we had made certain adjustments to the engine, the necessity of which we had noted on first inspection, and left it running merrily away with its load like a horse relieved of a choking collar. Becker saw this, gave five dollars to each of us, and after the fas.h.i.+on of a boor, tried to appear grateful. Then he paid cash for all the lumber now stacked on the bank, with the understanding we were to bring as much more, after which he left us to go, as he thought, to our beds. But that was not our plan; we had work ahead of too much importance to think of sleep.

While we were making the examination of a large part of Becker's plant, for that is what it amounted to, Hiram controlled himself and behaved like a veteran, but at times I think he shrewdly guessed that I displayed more skill than an amateur. In fact, I was so mightily interested in the outcome that I made no attempt to disguise the fact that under the guise of gasfitter, steamfitter, electrician, or refrigeration expert, I had gained access to the very bowels of buildings and manufacturing plants for a similar purpose.

When Becker had gone Hiram presented a curious combination--elation and disappointment. He fairly trembled now with suppressed excitement. He turned fiercely upon me and whispered hoa.r.s.ely:

"Ben, we got a lot, but not the most important. We didn't find the seals, did we?" He asked this in a suppressed tone, but not until he had gone forward to make sure all the crew were on deck and asleep. Captain Marianna was snoring loudly in the pilot house.

"No--but all those hams, dried meat--horse-meat--and tubs of lard--renderings from dead animals--were freshly stamped, 'Inspected and pa.s.sed,' with a Government stamp, and with Government ink."

"But the stamps and seals we want, Ben." I could not see his face in the dark, but his tone indicated that the day's hard work had not abated his tremendous energy one whit.

"No, Hiram, but we have everything but the stamps and seals--we can convict him with what we now know--I mean with the addition of what we saw to-night--but that would not make a clean job. We have got to get the rest of the men with whom he must have been working, and who are most likely in the railroad service," I replied, rapidly a.n.a.lyzing.

"Where can we go?--what can we do to get them?--the nearer I get to the end of this thing, I feel almost as though I would go insane," he whispered, at the same time grabbing me by the shoulder as would a petulant child, and shook me until I thought his last statement was conservative.

"The old fox is very sly--doesn't trust any of his help--the stamps are not so important--the seals he keeps in or about his office in New Orleans--our next move is there. Hiram, can you stand a run to New Orleans to-night?" I replied, as though thinking aloud.

He sprang to his feet like a cat and leaned over me.

"I can stand to do anything, without eating or sleeping, if it takes a whole week," he replied with set jaws.

The next morning we tied up at the wharf in New Orleans. During the night I had worked out a plan. There are times when cunning and strategical violations of the law must be matched in order to secure and convict criminals and the courts have uniformly justified it. I was going to take a big chance and finish the job quickly.

I left Hiram on the boat and went to our rooms for the mail, and to get other bearings. When I returned he was walking up and down the wharf like a caged hyena, almost frothing at the mouth.

"We are up against it again--it does beat the devil--why can't they leave us alone for a little while, anyhow?" he demanded, his eyes shooting fire as he stopped stolidly in front of me.

"What is it now, Hiram?"

"It's these d.a.m.ned s.h.i.+pping people--they say we can make two round trips a week to gulf ports for lumber, and if we don't do it willingly they will make us--just take the boat, that's all," he exploded in righteous wrath.

"That pays, doesn't it?" I asked with a smile, more to arouse his sense of humor.

"Yes, of course it pays, but haven't we got something more important--at that, it won't pay half as much as sawing logs from the river--and we can let the Government have the lumber," he replied--somewhat mollified.

"Hiram, you will have to go--but let's get some breakfast while we talk it over there."

We went below to where a darky was frying two big slabs of ham and a dozen eggs, also watching a large coffee pot steaming on a three-dollar gasoline stove. He prepared to serve the breakfast on a table made of the head of a tobacco tierce, with three square sticks for legs, placed in an open s.p.a.ce back of the engine. The chairs were a four-inch cut-off from the end of a log, accoutered with legs as was the table, but all cleaned and trimmed, with good rustic effect. The entire hold of the boat had been washed, cleaned, and put in perfect order, and the men at that moment were scrubbing the upper deck. He must have everything clean and orderly.

Hiram sat down opposite me at this rustic round table, and placed two bare arms upon it. A deep pink rim about his eyelids was the only evidence of fatigue after twenty-four hours of continuous work without sleep, and while he had combed his hair with his fingers, and still needed a shave, a novice could see in him a big man, with tremendous energy that chafed at delays.

"Well----?" He looked eagerly the question as if to save words.

"Hiram, have you stopped to take stock lately? Don't you think we have made pretty good progress in the last ten days?"

"Indeed we have, Ben--don't think I am finding fault--what bothers me is--could we have done more?--have we worked up to the limit?--and it does worry me to think we have not done away with this man Becker, and squared away to take advantage of the tremendous opportunities, and--and you know the other thing--perhaps you cannot understand how fearfully anxious I am to go back to Anna Bell, clean--and successful."