The Courage of Captain Plum | Page 8

gunpowder?"
"How in blazes--" began Captain Plum.
"O, to be sure, to be sure--they're for the fisher-folk," interrupted
Obadiah Price. "Blow 'em up, eh, Nat? And you seem to be a young
man of education, Nat. How did you happen to make a mistake in your
count? Haven't you twelve men aboard your sloop instead of eight, Nat?
Aren't there twelve, instead of eight? Eh, Nat?"
"The devil take you!" cried Captain Plum, leaping suddenly to his feet,
his face flaming red. "Yes, I have got twelve men and I've got a gun in
tarpaulin and I've got five barrels of gunpowder! But how in the name
of Kingdom-Come did you find it out?"

Obadiah Price came around the end of the table and stood so close to
Captain Plum that a person ten feet away could not have heard him
when he spoke.
"I know more than that, Nat," he whispered. "Listen! A little while
ago--say two weeks back--you were becalmed off the head of Beaver
Island, and one dark night you were boarded by two boat-loads of men
who made you and your crew prisoners, robbed you of everything you
had,--and the next day you went back to Chicago. Eh?"
Nathaniel stood speechless.
"And you made up your mind the pirates were Mormons, enlisted some
of your friends, armed your ship--and you're back here to make us
settle. Isn't it so, Nat?"
The little old man was rubbing his hands eagerly, excitedly.
"You tried to get the revenue cutter Michigan to come down with you,
but they wouldn't--ho, ho, they wouldn't! One of our friends in Chicago
sent quick word ahead of you to tell me all about it, and--Strang, the
king, doesn't know!"
He spoke the last words in intense earnestness.
Then, suddenly, he held out his hand.
"Young man, will you shake hands with me? Will you shake
hands?--and then we will go to St. James!"
Captain Plum thrust out a hand and the old man gripped it. The thin
fingers tightened like cold clamps of steel. For a moment the face of
Obadiah Price underwent a strange change. The hardness and glitter
went out of his eyes and in place there came a questioning, almost an
appealing, look. His tense mouth relaxed. It was as if he was on the
point of surrendering to some emotion which he was struggling to stifle.
And Nathaniel, meeting those eyes, felt that somewhere within him had
been struck a strange chord of sympathy, something that made this little

old man more than a half-mad stranger to him, and involuntarily the
grip of his fingers tightened around those of his companion.
"Now we will go to St. James, Captain Plum!"
He attempted to withdraw his hand but Captain Plum held to it.
"Not yet!" he exclaimed. "There are two or three things which your
friend didn't tell you, Obadiah Price!"
Nathaniel's eyes glittered dangerously.
"When I left ship this morning I gave explicit orders to Casey, my
mate."
He gazed steadily into the old man's unflinching eyes.
"I said something like this: 'Casey, I'm going to see Strang before I
come back. If he's willing to settle for five thousand, we'll call it off.
And if he isn't--why, we'll stand out there a mile and blow St. James
into hell! And if I don't come back by to-morrow at sundown, Casey,
you take command and blow it to hell without me!' So, Obadiah Price,
if there's treachery--"
The old man clutched at his hands with insane fierceness.
"There will be no treachery, Nat, I swear to God there will be no
treachery! Come, we will go--"
Still Captain Plum hesitated.
"Who are you? Whom am I to follow?"
"A member of our holy Council of Twelve, Nat, and lord high treasurer
of His Majesty, King Strang!"
Before Captain Plum could recover from the surprise of this whispered
announcement the little old man had freed himself and was pattering
swiftly through the darkness of the next room. The master of the

Typhoon followed close behind him. Outside the councilor hesitated for
a moment, as if debating which route to take, and then with a
prodigious wink at Captain Plum and a throatful of his inimitable
chuckles, chose the path down which his startled visitor of a short time
before had fled. For fifteen minutes this path led between thick black
walls of forest verdure. Obadiah Price kept always a few paces ahead of
his companion and spoke not a word. At the end of perhaps half a mile
the path entered into a large clearing on the farther side of which
Nathaniel caught the glimmer of a light. They passed close to this light,
which came from the window of a large square house built of logs, and
Captain Plum became suddenly conscious