Part 28 (1/2)
”Was there an answer?” she inquired eagerly.
He took a yellow telegraph sheet from his pocket and held it for her to read.
”Watch presented Captain Caleb Stafford, master of propeller freighter _Marvin Halch_ for rescue of crew and pa.s.sengers of sinking steamer _Winnebago_ off Long Point, Lake Erie.”
She was breathing quickly in her excitement. ”Caleb Stafford!” she exclaimed. ”Why, that was Captain Stafford of Stafford and Ramsdell!
They owned the _Miwaka_!”
”Yes,” Alan said.
”You asked me about that s.h.i.+p--the _Miwaka_--that first morning at breakfast!”
”Yes.”
A great change had come over him since last night; he was under emotion so strong that he seemed scarcely to dare to speak lest it master him--a leaping, exultant impulse it was, which he fought to keep down.
”What is it, Alan?” she asked. ”What is it about the _Miwaka_? You said you'd found some reference to it in Uncle Benny's house. What was it? What did you find there?”
”The man--” Alan swallowed and steadied himself and repeated--”the man I 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--the ghost from the _Miwaka_; at least he shouted out to me that I couldn't save the _Miwaka_!”
”Save the _Miwaka_! What do you mean, Alan? The _Miwaka_ was lost with 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 p.r.i.c.ked 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. I have the right to know. Yesterday, even before you found out about this, you knew things you weren't telling me--things about the people you'd been seeing. They'd all lost people on the lakes, you said; but you found out more than that.”
”They'd all lost people on the _Miwaka_!” he said. ”All who could tell me where their people were lost; a few were like Jo Papo we saw yesterday, who knew only the year his father was lost; but the time always was the time that the _Miwaka_ disappeared!”
”Disappeared!” she repeated. Her veins were p.r.i.c.king cold. What did he know, what could any one know of the _Miwaka_, the s.h.i.+p of which nothing ever was heard except the beating of the Indian Drum? She tried 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's lying in the harbor; I saw her on my way to the telegraph office. If Mr. Spearman has come back with her, tell him I'm sorry I can't wait to see him.”
”When are you going?”
”Now.”
She offered to drive him to Petoskey, but he already had arranged for a man to take him to the train.