The Golden Eagle Mystery (13 page)

“They knew the sea lions weren’t fit to eat, but they kept on sailing close to the coast, hoping to see another Indian village, but there weren’t any. Finally they came to a river, and sailed up it a little way, and anchored. Cap’n Greene and four or five men in his crew got into a boat and rowed ashore, with their muskets, to see if they could find any game.

“When they had climbed up the sand banks by the beach, they saw a whole herd of funny-lookin’ animals out on the plains, a little way off. They looked sort of like deer, and sort of like camels, but they had long woolly hair. Cap’n Greene found out afterwards they were what are called huanacos. He and his men crept around on their knees, behind bushes, until they got up close to them, and then they all fired, all at once, and killed two of the huanacos, and the rest of ’em galloped away like mad. They dragged the two that they had shot back to their boat, and Cap’n Greene told his men to take them out to the ship and then come back for him, while he waited to see if he could find anything else to shoot.

“He wandered back on the plains by himself, and all of a sudden he saw a band of about a dozen Indians galloping toward him on their ponies. He ran toward the beach as fast as he could, but they caught up with him and surrounded him. He pointed his gun at the one who seemed to be the chief, and pulled the trigger, but it missed fire. Before he could fix it, two or three of the Indians jumped down and grabbed him, and the rest crowded all around him.

“They were all big powerful fellows, dirty and greasy, and so ugly lookin’ that he thought they were goin’ to kill him, sure. They jerked his gun out of his hands, and all of them began jabbering away at him. They kept sayin’ somethin’ that sounded like ‘Run! Run!’ but he couldn’t figure out how they expected him to run, as long as they kept holdin’ on to him by both his arms. But finally some of them began makin’ signs, pointin’ at the ship, and makin’ believe they was drinkin’ out of a bottle, and he begin to understand that what they was sayin’ was
‘Ron! Ron!’
which was the furrin word that meant rum. So he nodded, and tried to make them understand he’d get it for them if they’d let him go, but they shook their heads and jabbered worse than ever.

“But at last he got the chief to understand that all of the Indians except the two who were guarding him must lie down on the ground, so that the men in the boat couldn’t see them, and be afraid to land. The chief told the two Indians to take him nearer the beach, but not to let go of him.

“But when they got within a few feet of the edge of the sandbank overlooking the beach, Cap’n Greene suddenly threw himself against one of the two Indians and tripped him up, so that all three of them fell in a heap and they all rolled over and over down the bank. In the scramble, the Indians let go. The minute they struck the bottom, Cap’n Greene picked himself up and ran as hard as he could go, toward the boat. The boat was still fifty feet from shore, but he jumped into the water and began to swim for it. The water was ice cold, and his clothes almost dragged him down, but he managed to keep up until the boat reached him, and he was pulled in. The Indians ran for their lives.

“That was the last time they tried to land on the coast of Patagonia. They kept right on for another thousand miles, without seein’ a single town on the coast, until they came to a big Portygee city named Montevideo. They got all the fresh provisions they needed there, and came on home. Cap’n Greene sold that cargo of whale oil for so much money that he sold the
Osprey
and bought a bigger ship. He was so thankful for escapin’ from those Indians in Patagonia, that he named his new ship the
Patagonia.”

“Gee, that was exciting!” Djuna exclaimed. “Is that why Aunt Patty calls her boat the
Patagonia?”

“Now, wait, that’s not all the story,” said Captain Atterbury. “That’s just the beginnin’. About three or four years after that, Cap’n Greene’s wife had a baby boy. If you want to know the year he was born, I can tell ye—it was the same year President Washington died. Well, the baby was named Hiram, and it wasn’t but three years after he was born that Cap’n Greene got swept off the deck of the
Patagonia
in a storm and got drownded. The fust mate brought the ship home, and Cap’n Greene’s sea chest with it, and that’s the same old chest you saw in Aunt Patty’s attic. Aunt Patty may have told ye, I was up there the other day, tryin’ to find his log books. You didn’t come across any of ’em, did ye, bub?”

“No, sir,” said Djuna. “I wish I had! What did they do with Captain Greene’s ship after the mate brought it back?”

“Well, Cap’n Greene’s widow, she had to sell her, of course,” said Captain Atterbury, lighting his pipe again. “She had her boy Hiram to bring up, and she did. She kept him at school till he was sixteen, and then he went to sea, just like his father. He was a mighty able young man, and by the time he was twenty he was picked for mate on a right stout little sloop that went all the way from Stony Harbor, away south of Patagonia on a voyage for fur seals, and discovered land closer to the South Pole than anybody else ever had. Next voyage, he was mate on a sealer that sailed around Cape Horn and went away up to the Aleutian Islands, huntin’ seals. When they had got their hold full o’ sealskins, they went on acrosst the Pacific and sold them in Canton, Chiny. And Hiram, young as he was, made a right smart lot o’ money as his share o’ what they got for the sealskins, and the tea and the Chiny goods they brought back with ’em. Well, he kept on makin’ more voyages to Chiny, and he saved his money, and it wa’n’t long before he was made cap’n of a ship that was built and owned right here in Stony Harbor. But Cap’n Hiram Greene didn’t get married till he was nigh on to fifty years old. By that time he had saved up a mint o’ money, and he built a ship of his own, and named her the
Patagonia
, same as his father’s was named. And the day after she was launched, blessed if his wife didn’t bring him a baby boy! What with his new ship and his new son, I reckon Cap’n Hiram Greene was jest about as proud a man as ever walked the streets o’ Stony Harbor.

“But he kept on makin’ voyages. That was the year gold was discovered in Californy, and the whole country went crazy over the news. Men was payin’ high to get out there, and Cap’n Greene made money hand over fist, takin’ ’em from New York out to San Francisco, around Cape Horn. The
Patagonia
was a fast sailin’ ship, though she wa’n’t a full clipper, and she went back and forth from New York to Californy as regular as a ferry-boat. In the next ten years, she made a dozen or more voyages to San Francisco, and back, with a couple o’ voyages to Chiny thrown in. And then she ran into a typhoon in the Chiny Sea, and was lost, with all hands. And if you want to know what year that was, I can tell ye—it was the year Lincoln was fust elected President.

“Well, there was the Cap’n’s wife left a widow, with her little boy—Amos, his name was—but the Cap’n had left her plenty o’ money. She was rich. She kept on livin’ in New York, where she had been livin’ while the Cap’n was makin’ his voyages to Californy, and she lived in style. She mighty near spoiled that boy of hers, Amos, givin’ him everything he asked for. She gave him a pony, and the boy got throwed off it and broke his leg, and he was always lame after that, all the rest of his life. Bein’ lame maybe was one reason why he never went to sea, like his father and grandfather, but his mother was set against it, anyway, for fear he get drownded like they was. But she brought him up like a young prince, or something, and after she died, and he come into the money, he went on livin’ like a prince. He didn’t get married till after he was forty—married a girl named Hatch, rich Boston folks. But it wa’n’t no time at all till he had spent what money he had left, and whatever money his wife brought him, and he brought her back here to live, in that same little house Aunt Patty lives in now, because that was mighty near all he had left. It was his own fault, for he’d throwed away his money like water, all his life, and he said so himself. He took pride in it, seemed like.

“He was a great hand at talkin’, used to talk by the hour, if he could find anybody to listen to him. I was a young feller then, and I liked to listen to him. It was him that told me what I’ve just been tellin’ ye about his father and grandfather. I used to go over to see him, winter nights when I had nothin’ else to do, and listen to his yarns.

“I remember him settin’ there, in his chair by the fireplace, and bangin’ on the hearthstones with his cane—he always had his cane with him, account of his lame leg, never let go of it, day or night—I’d give a mint o’ money for that cane—and he always would end up by grinnin’ and sayin’, ‘My dad had money, and my granddad had money, and now look at me—not a thing left of all they had, except this!’ And then he’d laugh and say, ‘But someday my ship will come in, one of these days, and when she does, I’ll name her
Patagonia
, just for luck!’

“Of course his luck never got any better, but when his baby girl was born, he was as excited as if he had come into a million dollars. ‘She’s my luck!’ he says. ‘She’s better than a ship!’

“And, bless my soul, do ye know what he did? He called that baby Patagonia!”

Djuna’s eyes opened wide. “You mean that’s Aunt Patty?” he exclaimed.

“That’s who it was,” said Captain Atterbury. “And a cuter baby you never saw!”

“But didn’t he have a ship at all?” asked Djuna. “What was the ship he was looking for, the ship that was going to come in?”

Captain Atterbury laughed. “Don’t you know what that means, bub?” he asked. “That’s not a real ship—that’s just somethin’ you say when you’re hopin’ that a lot of money will come to you, unexpected. No, Amos Greene didn’t have a ship, and never did. He was just as poor as a church mouse when he died. He didn’t own even so much as a rowboat.”

“He didn’t?” said Djuna, looking puzzled. “Then where did Aunt Patty get her boat? Where did she get the
Patagonia?”

“I’m comin’ to that,” said Captain Atterbury. “You asked me why she named it the
Patagonia
, didn’t ye? The answer to that is, she didn’t. It wa’n’t her boat, to begin with, and she didn’t have the namin’ of it. ’Tain’t likely she’d give it her own name anyway. No, sir, it wa’n’t her that named it the
Patagonia.”

“Well, who did?” persisted Djuna.

“That good-for-nothin’ Bill Tubbs!” said Captain Atterbury, flushing angrily. “The fellow she married, after her mother died! That was the way he got on the soft side of her—he figured it would please her if he named his boat after her, and it did. He was always hangin’ around her, and finally she married him. Maybe she had some sort of notion that her luck would turn, if she had a boat named the
Patagonia
, just like her granddaddy and her great-granddaddy. But it didn’t. The luckiest thing that ever happened to her was when Bill Tubbs fell off’n the tree and broke his wuthless neck!”

Captain Atterbury had spoken so angrily that Djuna was surprised. “Didn’t she like him?” he asked. “Was he mean to Aunt Patty, or something?”

“He never give her a minute’s peace,” said Captain Atterbury. “He was always pesterin’ her to sell that little house o’ hers, just so he could git his hands on the money, and wouldn’t have to work. Wanted her to sell the house and go live in that little shack of his on Sixpenny Island, where nobody in his right mind would ever want to live. But Bill Tubbs was
never
in his right mind, from the time he was born. Crazy as a June bug, that’s
my
opinion.”

“Did he really act crazy?” asked Djuna, wonderingly. “Aunt Patty wouldn’t have married him if he’d been crazy, would she?”

Captain Atterbury snorted. “Bird nestin’!” he exclaimed scornfully. “Huntin’ birds eggs! A grown-up man actin’ like a boy! If that ain’t crazy, what is?”

Djuna almost jumped out of his chair. “Gee, that’s funny!” he exclaimed. “Aunt Patty—” And then he stopped short.

“Yessir, he wasted enough time huntin’ birds’ nests to have made hisself rich, if it had been any sensible sort o’ work,” Captain Atterbury went on indignantly, without noticing Djuna’s interruption. “And it ended up by his fallin’ out o’ that tree, just like he might have expected!”

Djuna looked puzzled. “Why?” he asked. “Why did he expect to fall out of it?”

“Because he should have known better, that’s why,” said Captain Atterbury impatiently. “Anybody had ought to know better than to try to get eggs out o’ an eagle’s nest! No doubt about it—that old eagle must have flew at him so hard he knocked him right off!”

“An eagle?” exclaimed Djuna, excitedly. “Gee, we saw an eagle. Billy Reckless and I saw one, out on Eagle Rock! A great big one, all dark brown, except his head was all white! Gee, he looked awful fierce! Was that the kind that had the nest?”

“So you saw one, did ye?” asked Captain Atterbury, looking surprised. “That’s the fust one I’ve heard tell of, around here, for a mighty long while! And ’twas flyin’ around Eagle Rock, ye say? Out there to Haypenny Island?”

“Yes, sir,” said Djuna, “we sailed out there, in Billy’s boat. And it lit right on the rock!”

Suddenly Djuna remembered something. “Golly!” he said. “When I told Aunt Patty about it, she looked awful funny! She almost cried! Gee, I guess it must have made her think about Mister Tubbs, the way the eagle killed him! I wish I hadn’t said anything about it at all, but I didn’t know.”

“Of course you didn’t know, bub,” said Captain Atterbury comfortingly. “But that was right where it happened, right there at Eagle Rock.”

“At Eagle Rock?” exclaimed Djuna in surprise. “But how could it? There
isn’t
any tree at Eagle Rock!”

“Well, there was then,” insisted Captain Atterbury. “Biggest pine tree you ever saw, a good hundred feet high. The eagles’ nest was right at the top of it. Tree grew right out of a crack in the rock.”

“But what became of it?” asked Djuna. “
We
didn’t see any tree there.”

“That tree blew down in the hurricane, twenty year ago,” said Captain Atterbury. “Not enough anchorage for its roots. Kind o’ like Aunt Patty’s luck, we might say.”

He looked at his watch and got to his feet. “Time I was givin’ Missus Atterbury her medicine,” he said. “You run along, bub, and come over again, any time ye’re a mind to. Tell Aunt Patty the doctor says Missus Atterbury is comin’ along real nice.”