Argosy, Vol. 118, No. 4 — page 85: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

CLAIMED, Nagaina, and she was built. for rough work up north. I’m told the storm ain’t yet blowed that can down the Nagaina, so I reckon she’s my boat. Leastways, I’m chartering her for a two months’ cruise, and I aim to go aboard of her this very day. Now, young-man, are you game? Because if ye ain’t, Leilah is, and I’ll take the gal instead!”’ CHAPTER X. OUTWARD BOUND. OF actual facts transpiring through the remainder of that day, Dr. Vanaman had afterward only a confused and indefi- nite memory. Perhaps lack of sleep had told on him more heavily than it would have done under more normal conditions. Or perhaps his fear of the morning had not been wholly unfounded, and that which drove two such commonplace individuals as Blair and Lutz to-offer up pagan sacri- fice was beginning to set its deadly seal on him also. Certain it is that all through the long afternoon, busy enough for others, but dreamily idle for the green casket’s faithful guardsman, he was scarcely aware nor thinking of what went on about him, and dared he but close his eyes for an instant strange, fleeting visions flashed up behind the lids. He had made his choice, where for him there was no choice. Let the truth be what it might, the mad voyage Robinson pro- posed would bring about the very thing Vanaman had urged in vain. Leilah would not desert her uncle, but the latter was leaving her, and on those terms Vana- man was ready if not exactly eager to ac- company the green box and its owner to the devil, if need be. | Though he followed so little of what went on, that was a lively and exciting af- ternoon for many people. When Robinson chose to have things ‘done in a hurry, as a rule they were done, for the old hawk’s executive ability dnd knack of extracting from people, efforts which surprised them- selves, but not him, were marked as his stubbornness and indifference to the will or 505 pleasure of any one but Jesse J. Robin- son. The Nagaina, fortunately for his sudden resolve, was already coaled, fully manned, and partly provisioned. She was a small but sturdy steamer, designed to fight through the perilous, ice-infested seas of the extreme north. Formerly used for the transportation of freight and passengers in the waters of northern Canada, she had been chartered from that service by an ambitious and wealthy young man, who desired to emulate and possibly excel the achievements of Lieutenant Peary, but lacking government backing had outfitted for an expedition on his own account. The young man’s sudden demise in a railroad accident had left the Nagaina’s charter a useless asset of his estate, and the trustees had been delighted to receive Rob- Inson’s unexpected offer. The terms on which he relieved them of their white ele- phant included a haste in transfer that rather took their breath away; but the old millionaire had done an eccentric thing or so before in his life, and knew how to put this one through. His own lawyers, well trained to execute any sort of sudden and complicated com- mands, met the trustees and wrestled with them. . The will had not gone to probate, but a more or less legal loophole was dis- covered by which the trustees might act in this emergency. They found themselves shoved through it, a line of reasoning to use with the probate judge bestowed gratui- tously upon them, the charter transferred, and Robinson’s certified check in their hands, almost before it occurred to them that they might demand an extra bonus for such unseemly speed. Almost, not quite. Robinson paid heav- ily for this particular eccentricity, but as they knew he could well afford it his law- yers were not worried over that. Trium- phant, they flung themselves into a taxi, motored straight to their employer’s resi- dence, and there spent a somewhat longer time in receiving his very precise instruc- tions as to the handling of affairs in his absence, and particularly in case of his non- return. They may have wondered deeply as the rest of the world over the freak that im (SO) DOOK