A BAD MAN TO CROSS
The isolated road house on the bay was a nondescript, jumbled, dilapidated-looking assemblage of structures, rather than one house.It was known simply as Morris's.It stood a few hundred yards west of the end of the canal which opened into the bay and was about a quarter of a mile from the Jasper B.
The canal itself was broad, straight, low-banked, and about three- quarters of a mile in length.The town had thrown out a few ranks of cottages in the direction of the canal.But these were all summer bungalows, occupied only from June until the middle of September.The solider and more permanent part of Fairport was well withdrawn from the sandy, sedgy stretches that bordered on tidewater.
At the north and inland terminus of the quiet strip of water in which the Jasper B.reposed was a collection of buildings including bathhouses, a boathouse, and a sort of shed where "soft drinks" and sea food were served during the bathing season.This place was known as Parker's Beach and was open only during the summer.
Morris's was of quite a different character from Parker's Beach.One could bathe at Morris's, but the beach near by was not particularly good.One could hire boats there and buy bait for a fishing trip.In one of its phases it made some pretensions to being a summer hotel.It had an extensive barroom.There was a dancing floor, none too smooth.There were long verandahs on three sides.That on the south side was built on piles' people ate and drank there in the summer; beneath it the water swished and gurgled when the tide was in.
The townspeople of Fairport, or the more respectable ones, kept awayfrom Morris's, summer and winter.Summer transients, inhabitants of the bungalows during the bathing season, patronized the place.But most of the patronage at all seasons seemed to consist of automobile parties from the city; people apparently drawn from all classes, or eluding definite classification entirely.In the bleakest season there was always a little stir of dubious activity about Morris's.In the summer it impressed you with its look of cheapness.In the winter, squatted by the cold water amidst its huddle of unpainted outhouses, at the end of a stretch of desolate beach, the fancy gave Morris's a touch of the sinister.
Cleggett was anxious to get the Jasper B.into seaworthy condition as soon as possible.It occurred to him that the employment of expert advice should be his first step, and early the next morning he hired Captain Abernethy.That descendant of a seafaring family, though he felt it incumbent upon him to offer objections that had to be overcome with a great show of respect, was really overjoyed at the commission.He left his own cottage a mile or so away and took up his abode in the forecastle at once.By nine o'clock that morning Cleggett had a force of workmen renovating both cabin and forecastle, putting the cook's galley into working order, and cleansing the decks of soil and sand.That night Cleggett spent on the vessel, with Captain Abernethy.
By Saturday of the same week--Cleggett had bought the vessel on Wednesday--he was able to take up his abode in the cabin with his books and arms about him.To his library he had added a treatise on navigation.And, reflecting that his firearms were worthless, considered as modern weapons, he also purchased a score of.44 caliber Colt's revolvers and automatic pistols of the latest pattern, and a dozen magazine rifles.
He brought on board at the same time, for cook and cabin boy, a Japanese lad, who said he was a sailor, and who called himself Yoshahira Kuroki, and a Greek, George Stefanopolous.
The latter was a handsome, rather burly fellow of about thirty, a man with a kindling eye and a habit of boasting of his ancestors.
Among them, he declared, was Leonidas, the hero of Thermopylae.
George admitted he was not a sailor, but professed a willingness to learn, and looked so capable, as he squared his bulky shoulders and twisted his fine black mustache, that Cleggett engaged him, taking him immediately from the dairy lunch room in which he had been employed.George's idea was to work his way back to Greece, he said, on the Jasper B.If she did not sail for Greece for some time, George was willing to wait; he was patient; sometime, no doubt, she would touch the shores of Greece.
The hold of the Jasper B.Cleggett and Captain Abernethy found to be in a chaotic state.Casks, barrels, empty bottles by the hundred, ruins of benches, tables, chairs, old nondescript pieces of planking, broken crates and boxes, were flung together there in moldering confusion.It was evident that after the scheme of using the Jasper B.'s hulk as one of the attractions of a pleasure resort had failed, all the debris of the failure had simply been thrown pell-mell into the hold.Cleggett and Captain Abernethy decided that the vessel, which was stepped for two masts, should be rigged as a schooner.The Captain was soon busy securing estimates on the amount of work that would have to be done, and the cost of it.The pile of rubbish in the hold, which filled it to such an extent that Cleggett gave up the attempt to examine it, was to be removed by the same contractor who put in the sticks.
All the activity on board and about the Jasper B.had not gone on without attracting the attention of Morris's.Cleggett noticed that there was usually someone in the neighborhood of that dubious resort cocking an eye in the direction of the vessel.Indeed, the interest became so pronounced, and seemed of a quality so different from ordinary frank rustic curiosity, that it looked very like espionage.It had struck Cleggett that Morris's seemed at all times to have more than its share of idlers and hangers-on; men who appeared to make the place their headquarters and were not to be confused with the occasional off-season parties from the city.
On Sunday morning Cleggett was awakened by Captain Abernethy, who announced:
