Pocket Island | Page 5

his accomplices, he knew well, would create
revengeful enemies, who would spare neither time nor money to hunt

him down.
Then there was the Indian whom he had also robbed from the start. He
might become suspicious and betray him, or worse yet, discover the
secret of the rocking stone. Wolf had discovered it by accident; why
might not the Indian? With murder in his heart, Wolf for the first time
began to be afraid. He put the pistols he had always carried in perfect
order and ready for instant use. So far as he had discovered, the Indian
possessed neither knife nor pistol; but nevertheless Wolf feared him,
and the more he realized the danger he had incurred in duping his
assistants in smuggling, and how much he was really in the power of
his giant-framed partner, the more his fears grew. It may be thought it
was conscience working in him; but it was not, for such as he have
none. It was guilty fear, and that only. This so preyed upon his mind
during his last trip to the coast that he could hardly sleep. Then he
began to imagine that the Indian was suspicious of him. To allay that
danger he doubled the small share of profit he had given his partner,
knowing full well if he had no chance to spend it, it would all come
back to him in the end. Then he set about deceiving him by an offer to
buy the Sea Fox and pay what he believed the Indian would consider a
fabulous price. It was a fatal mistake. The Indian had no real idea of the
value of his sloop. It had come to him as payment for his share of a
successful fishing-trip to The Banks years before, and he had become
attached to that craft. It had been his home, his floating wigwam, for a
long time, and for Wolf to want to buy it hurt him.
"Me no sell boat," he said, when the offer was made. "Me want sloop
long time."
Wolf, who valued all things from a miser's standpoint, could not
understand that there might lurk in the Indian a tinge of sentiment. He
was mistaken, and the mistake was a little pitfall placed in his way.
There was another which he was also to blame for, and yet, like the
first, he was not aware of it. In the cave where he had stored his cargo
and prepared it for smuggling, he kept a large can of cheap and highly
inflammable oil on a rock shelf, just above the flat stone where he, by
the light of two lamps, had counted his wealth time and again. True to

his nature, when he bought the oil he bought the cheapest, and
unknown to him the can had sprung a leak and while he had been
absent for weeks at a time, the oil had run out, saturating the rock
below and forming little pools on the cave floor among the loose stones.
Wolf had not noticed this, or, if he had, had thought nothing of it.
Neither did he realize how fate could utilize his miser's instinct in
purchasing the cheap can as a means to bring together and bless two
lives unknown to him. We seldom do notice the snags in life that
usually trip us.
By the time the last voyage of the Sea Fox had been made and she
returned to The Pocket, the relations between Wolf and the Indian were
in danger of rupture. Wolf distrusted his partner, and yet believed he
had lulled all suspicion. He had never failed before in duping any one
he had set out to; why should he in this case? Still, he was uneasy and
resolved to end it all as soon as possible. But Indians have one
peculiarity that will baffle even the shrewdest Jew. They never talk.
Their faces are always as expressionless as a graven image. While
contemplating the most cruel murder they never show the least change
in expression, nor do their eyes show the faintest shadow of an emotion.
They are stolid, surly and Sphinx-like always. Wolf's partner was like
his race, and not even by the droop of an eyelid did he betray the
slowly gathering storm of hate and rage within. He brooded over the
hurt he felt when Wolf had wanted to buy his sloop, and believing the
Jew meant to rob him of her, he grew suspicious and watched Wolf.
Not by word or sign did he show it, and the Jew saw it not. Wolf
watched the Indian as closely, only the Indian knew it, and Wolf did
not. It was now Wolf against fox and fox against Wolf, and the swarthy
fox was getting the best