CHAPTER TWO
_WRECK_
Shorn of her power, the _Holter_ still followed her helmsman's course.
But it became a listless, sluggish course. The ship was like a suddenly freed slave that does not know what to do with his own freedom.
For six years she had plodded Lake Michigan, always with the biggest possible paying load and always working at top speed. Many times she had groaned and protested, but she had been forced to obey the dictates of the engine that turned her side wheel. Now the engine, the tyrant, was dead from misuse of its own power. But without it the _Holter_ had neither mind nor will of her own.
She smashed head-on into a mountainous wave that set her decks awash.
For another moment or two she held her course, carried by her own momentum. Then, slowly and unwillingly, as though afraid to do such a thing and not trusting herself to do it, she swung broadside to the waves.
A muffled shout floated out of the engine room. Fat little Captain Schultz, a slicker covering his round body and anxiety written on his face, was peering down an opened hatch. Sluicing rain pelted the slicker and bounded off. Ramsay's eyes found the deck hand.
Eyes wide and mouth agape, he was standing near the wheelhouse. Naked terror was written on his face as he stared at something out in the lake. Ramsay followed his gaze.
To the starboard, the right side of the _Holter_, the lake seemed strangely calm. It was as though the wind and the storm did not strike with outrageous strength there, and oddly as if that part of the water might be commanded by some inexplicable force. Unable to tear his gaze away, expecting to see something special, Ramsay kept his eyes riveted on the calm water.
He saw a ripple, but not one born of storm and wind. There was something here that had nothing to do with the driving wind, or the cold rain, or even the tremendous waves. The deck hand covered his eyes with his hand.
At that instant, a great white apparition swam up through the water. It was a ghost, a creature of nightmares, a terrible thing seen only in terror-ridden moments. Ramsay controlled an impulse to shout or to flee.
The thing came up to within inches of the surface and wallowed there like a greasy fat hog. Whitish-gray, rather than pure white, it flipped an enormous tail while it sported near the surface.
The thing, a fish, seemed fully nine feet long and possibly it carried a hundred pounds of weight for every foot. It bore no scales but seemed to be clothed in an overlapping series of armored plates. Its snout, pointed somewhat like a pig's, was tipped with barbels, or feelers. Dull eyes showed.
Again Ramsay controlled his fear. The thing, sober judgment told him, was nothing more or less than a great sturgeon, the mightiest fish of these inland waters. The fact that it was white, rather than the conventional gray-green or olive-green, was of no significance whatever.
All living creatures, from elephants down to mice, occasionally produced an albino. It was not beyond reason that there could be an albino sturgeon.
Ramsay watched while it swam, and some semblance of cool control returned to his fevered imagination. This was no grotesque monster from another world. Telling himself again that it was nothing more or less than an unusual fish, he watched it sink back into the churning depths from which it had arisen. He put a shaking hand on the _Holter's_ rail.
It was a fish and nothing else. None but superstitious people believed in superstition. Then the deck hand's terrified shriek rose above the keening wind.
"It's him! We seen it! The White Sturgeon! _Gar-hhh!_"
Mouth agape, the deck hand kept his eyes on that place where the White Sturgeon had disappeared. A great wave washed across the deck, and when it rolled away the deck hand was no longer visible. Ramsay shook his head to clear it and looked again at the place where the deck hand had been standing. Lake Michigan could swallow a man even easier than a pond swallowed a pebble, for there had not been even a ripple to mark the place where the deck hand had disappeared. There was not the slightest possibility of rescuing him. The deck hand had seen the White Sturgeon!
A battering ram of a wave crashed into the _Holter's_ starboard side, and Ramsay felt a cold chill travel up and down his spine. Fear laid its icy fingers there, but he shook them off. The fact that the water had been calm when the White Sturgeon made its appearance and was angry now had nothing whatever to do with the fish. Rather, the calm water could be attributed to some quirk, some phenomenon inherent in the storm itself. Probably the White Sturgeon appeared because, for the moment, the lake had been calm. Knowing that, the big fish had nosed its way to the surface. Now that the lake was again storm-deviled, the White Sturgeon was gone.
Bracing himself against the wind, Ramsay made his way across the deck to the wheelhouse. He shivered, for the first time aware of the fact that his clothing was rain-drenched and that he was very cold. It was a penetrating, creeping cold that reached the inmost marrow of his bones.
When another wave smashed the _Holter_, Ramsay caught hold of the little horse's cage to steady himself. Within the enclosure, nervous but still not terrified, the black horse looked hopefully at him.
Ramsay reached the wheelhouse, and came face to face with Captain Schultz. The little captain's slicker had blown open, so that now it was of no use whatever in warding off the rain, but he had not seen fit to close it again. It would do him no good if he did; his clothing was already soaked.
Ramsay shouted to make himself heard above the roar of the wind. "What happened?"
"The enchin, she kaput. Like that, she kaput."
Ramsay revised his opinions of the little Captain. At the pier, Captain Schultz had been only a fat, fussy little man. Facing this dire predicament, he was not terrified and had not given way to panic. He had risen to the emergency. Maybe, Ramsay thought, anyone who sailed Lake Michigan had to be able to rise to any emergency if he would continue to sail. He shouted again, "Will the ship sink?"
"Ach, I don't know! If we can't get the enchin to go, she might."
"What do we do then?"
"Find somet'ing. Find anyt'ing, poy, an' swim. Be sure you find somet'ing that does not sink mit you."
"How far are we from land?"
"Ach! That I cannot tell you."
"Did you see the White Sturgeon?"
"Yaah. We still try."
Captain Schultz went all the way into the wheelhouse and disappeared into the hold. Dimly, out of the open hatchway, came the sound of ringing hammers. There was a desperate tone in them, as though the men working in the _Holter's_ hold were fully aware of the grave danger they faced. On sudden impulse Ramsay ducked into the wheelhouse and descended into the engine-room.
Captain Schultz held an oil lamp to illumine the labors of two men whom, so far, Ramsay had not seen. Presumably they were the _Holter's_ engineer and fireman. Another deck hand and the mate stood by, passing tools requested by the workers.
Down here, in the bowels of the _Holter_, the storm seemed a faraway and almost an unreal thing. The howling wind was heard faintly, and if the ship had not been tossing so violently, they might have been in the power-room of any industrial plant.
The sweating engineer, his face grease-streaked, turned from his labors to face Ramsay. He spoke with a nasal New England twang. "Was that White Sturgeon really off the ship?"
"I--I didn't see anything," Ramsay answered.
Captain Schultz flashed him a grateful smile. The workers went on with their toils.
Obviously, among Lake Michigan sailors, or anyhow some of them, there was a firm belief in the evil powers of the White Sturgeon. Ramsay looked again at the little Captain's face.
It was a concerned, worried face, what one might expect to see in a man who was in danger of losing his ship. At the same time, and even though Captain Schultz remained completely in command, there was about him a certain air that had nothing to do with getting the _Holter's_ engine working again. Ramsay sought for the answer, and finally he found it. A strong man in his own right, Captain Schultz had seen the White Sturgeon and he believed in it.
Ramsay climbed the narrow ladder-way leading back to the deck. The _Holter_ was strong, he assured himself. There was little danger that it could be pounded to pieces by any sea. Then he looked at the wild and angry lake and knew the fallacy of his reasoning.
The _Holter_ was strong, but the lake was stronger. Waves, the color of steel and with the strength of steel, smashed into the ship and made her shiver. Ramsay heard a shrieking protest as some plank or stay beneath the deck tore loose.
The _Holter_ shuddered, like a big horse in pain, and settled so low in the water that waves washed continuously across her deck. There was another shriek, and she settled deeper into the lake. She was a very sluggish craft now, with no control or direction, and Ramsay guessed that the hides in the hold were getting soaked. The ship's nose dipped to meet a wave, and it did not come up again.
The imprisoned horse bugled his fright. Captain Schultz, the engineer, the fireman and the deck hand appeared on deck. There was no sign of the mate; perhaps he had already gone over. The engineer and the fireman struggled under the weight of a crude raft which they had knocked together from such timbers as were available. Ramsay looked uncertainly toward them, and the engineer glared back.
"Get your own!" he snarled. "Me an' Pete made this, an' me an' Pete are goin' to use it!"
They carried their makeshift raft to the settling nose of the ship, laid it down, mounted it, and let the next wave carry them off. Ramsay felt a turning nausea in the pit of his stomach. As the raft went over the rail, the man called Pete was swept from it. Only the engineer stayed on, clinging desperately as he was washed out into the angry lake. In a second or two he had disappeared.
Captain Schultz rolled frightened eyes and said to Ramsay, "Get a door, or hatch cover, an' ride that."
Suiting his actions to his words, Captain Schultz seized a fire axe that was hanging near and pounded the wheelhouse door from its hinges. He dragged the door to the rail, threw it into the lake, and jumped after it. The deck hand wrestled with a hatch cover, finally pried it loose, and rode that away.
Ramsay was left alone on the sinking _Holter_. He tried to keep a clear head, but he could not help an overwhelming fear. This was nothing he had ever faced before and now, facing it, he did not know what to do.
Finding anything that would float and riding it away seemed to be the answer. Then the little horse bugled and he knew that he was not alone.