UNKNOWN

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 106, 28 September 1914, Page 6

UNKNOWN

THE ARTICLES OF FAITH (By Grant Owen). There were nine articles of faitii in Cal Scully's creed. The first was that a man should bo "game." The other eight phrased somewhat differently, and, coming less directly to the point, really amounted to the same tiling in the end, so there is no need to go into thein in detail.

Perluips it wasn't the best creed in the world, and then, again perhaps it wasn't the worst. Anyway, it was Cal Scully's creed, and by it he made iiis judgment of all living things, be they men, horses, dogs or fighting chickens. Cal was a wiry, little grey-headed man approaching sixty, with a clear eye, an erect carriage, and a pair of shoulders that many a younger man might well have envied. They were a heritage to him from his ring' days, for in years gone by Cal bad been as clever and as shifty a light-weight as ever donned a glove. That lie should look for it goes without saying. That he should look for it in others is equally apparent. (lameness wag the idol to which lie bowed down, and which he worshipped. Whoever possessed that desirable quality might count on having Cal Scully with him from the beginning to the end, in prosperity or adversity, victory or defeat; whoever lacked it was, to C'al's way of thinking, a worthless encumbrance on the face of tile earth.

Which explains," perhaps, why Cal Scully's brow was clouded that summer evening, as he sat with his son Joe 011 the steps of the little suburban cottage which he had bought after his memorable fight with English Torn Thatcher. "Ye say ye're goin' to quit the game," said Cal, pulling slowly at the shabby old briar between his teeth. "Wliv?"

Je; S.-uIl", a young fel'ow just punt twenty, picked up a handful of pel>-b'e-i from the gravel path at his feet and began idly juggling with tllja. "I don't like it," he said simply. Cal scowled.

"Wh. V" lie questioned again. ■'l waiita get into something that I feel will he worth while,'' saiil he. "1 wiinta do .-ometlmi;,' useful." Cal Wi<d at his son starchingly. Xot for worlds would he have given any indication of the bitter disappointment and the still more bitter suspicion that were torturing him. Ilis face did not change expression, but, noticing closely, ill- might li-.ue seen n • iglit in the grey eyes. "Ye're just gottin' goin' good," said Cal slowly. "With what I've taught ye, yei own build, and the speed and the natural punch ye've got, ve'd oughter go a long way. The top ain't none too high for you to be thinkin' of, Joe." "it don't suit me," said doe uneasily.

"I wan't something different. Now this chance I've got to go with the Flint Line and learn marine, engineerin' is something like. Of course, that line ain't so much in itself, but it'll give me a good start and lead to better things. I always wanted to be a marine engineer." Cal said nothing. He sat there staring thoughtfully at the flaming western sky, and the thoughts that .were running through his head were not by any means pleasant ones.

lie remembered that Joe had never taken kindly to bis training; lie remembered how he bad winced ana cringed under blows at the first of it, the long, long time it had taken to get Joe to stand punishment as a man should. He remembered, with a sudden sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, and a certain quick tightening at his throat, how Joe bad dancjd about the ring in that last -fight of his at the Crescent Club, how bis footwork, his all too apparent unwillingness to take punishment, had brought the jeers of the crowd down on him. lie had won that fight, to bo sure, as he hail won all the other bouts ho had appeared in this for in his career, but the men he had been against, Oil reflected, were men he sliould have put away easily. And some of them, Cal could have sworn, young Joe had actually been afraid of.

Was it teally that the boy wanted to bj a marine engineer, or was it, rather, that this chance to go into the enginerooms of the. Flint Line boats offered him a good excuse for quitting the

game t Cal winced. That liis son should lack gameness, that there sliould even be so much as suspicion that bo lacked it, struck at his heart with a certain cold deadening horror.

At last {.'ill spoke, resignedly—lamping tlie tobaeeo in his pipo with one. pudgy thumb as the words came out.

"Well' every man's life is his ov.-n, to do with as lie likes. I'm not standin' in your way. ]i ye wanta go in for marine engineerm, go to it, Mid the best of luck to ye. I'd sorter counted on seem' ye no a long way in the ringto the to]), no doubt —tlie best man in the whole world of yer class. Ye could do it. too, with what I could teach ye and the line physique ye've got. liut, if it ain't to be, it ain't to be, and thats all there is to it. Every man to work of his own choosinV'

He got up oil' the step and shuffled down the path to the gate. He stood there leaning 011 one of the posts and smoking furiously. If the boy wasn't game—but. maybe, thought Cal, he was wronging liiin. .Maybe his own de&i'e to see Joe make a name for himself in the ring was biasing hia judgment. Maybo ,loe was as game as any of them, and it was .simply that his heart wasn't in his work. Perhaps that \va.s tlie trouble. Xo. it wouldn't be that Joe, his own son, wasn't name! The lad wanlcd to be a marine engineer; he had Jieen pulling hard for this chance with the Flint Line people;

a) game as any of them. Cal, frowning, made up his mind, to think that way, anyway. Cut disturbing little doubts kept persistently returning to him. Suppose, just suppose, Joe wera quitting the J g-ame because

Cal bit his lips and resolutely put such thoughts from him. They weren't profitable—especially while they were as yet unproven. Therefore, it was with a smile that tic returned to his son on the steps. "ilaybe ye're right in quittin' the ring, fine ifighter that ye'd have made notwithstanding," said Cal. "Mayhap ye'll be makin' a better engineer and goiu' farther at that game than ye would at this. Remember, I'm with ye, lad, whatever choice ye make." Joe Scully jumped up and thumped bis father on the shoulder.

"That's the stuff. You're a game old boy, aren't you?" said he with feeling.

"I hope to the f-ord so," said Cal, with rather more inflection than he intended,

So Joe Scully betook himself to the rather sorry engine-rooms of the boats oi the Flint Line, plying daily up and down the Sound. They were old boats, side-wheelers, most of thjjm, condemned by other coastwise lines and only permitted to run in tlie Sound because it was practically ferrying passengers over untroubled waters. If you travelled by the Flint Line, you did it at a great reduction of fare, but a corresponding reduction of both comfort and safet'\

Once Joe was gone, Cal found himself ! turning over and over in his mind that same old unprofitable question. Why ihad Jo'c really quit the ring? Did marine engineering have the fascination for him which he claimed, or was it merely ta timely excuse? A year Cal pondered that question, | torturing himself with certain unpleasant possibilities it suggested. If Joe 1 wasn't game— —

Hut here always lie resolutely shut his teeth, refusing to allow his mind to go farther.

Joe had been with the Flint Line for a year and a-lialf, and had risen ..to a third engineer's position, when Cal knv it in the papers one morning. There it was, under a double-column heading —the account of the accident on the old Sachem, the boat on which Joe was running at that time. Somewhere off Gull Rock, the night before, a cylinder-hcad had blown out, filling the engine-room with live steam. Two enginers on duty there at the time had been frightfully scalded. L'ndoubteilly, tliey would have met their deaths there, had not Joseph Scully, the third engineer, who wa3 off duty at the time, rushed from liis state-room into the steam-filled engine-room, and, although badly scalded himself, succeeded in shutting off the steam and dragging the two helpless men out.

Tons and tons seem lifted off Cal's shoulders as he read. lie felt like whooping, like dancing about crazily. Joe was game —game, after all! Nothing else mattered. A career in the ring for him? Poof! Let that go. He was game! He had lived up to the articles of Cal's faith.

Cal clipped out the newspaper accounts of the affair, lie read and re-read them. Then he put tliera in his pocket for many future readings. Joe was vindicated. What Cal had thought of him —or, rather, what lie had feared hut never allowed himself to think—was ail wrong. lie felt like a man who had awakened from some awful dream to pleasant realities, lie tucked those newspaper clippings in his old wallet. They might have been icons, so carefully did he preserve them.

Then came a letter from Joe—a modes!, letter. It spoke lightly of that accident in the Sachem'engine-room, but it did say that Joe had been given a second engineer's berth. Cal put tile letter with the clippings, happier than he had been for a year and a-half. There was a certain much-touted buttle of heavy-weights in a certain Westem city, and Cal, who never missed any si'llieiently heralded sporting event, journeyed thither, ln'held the .fiasco, lamented with other old-timers the good old days when ring battles were something more than money-catching schemes, and started lor home. It occurred to him to make the last stagi! of the journey by water —across the Sound on the Sachem, of the Flint l.ine. Cal had been heard to remark that you'd never catch him on any boats of that particular line until he had turned fish and grown tins and a pair of gills; but that was before Joe had got his berth there.

lie wanted to see Joe in his second engineer's uniform. Also, he wanted to talk to Joe. lie felt he owed the boy something; he had misjudged him cruelly once. There were the proofs of it in his old wallet.

It was a warm summer night. Tllo Sachem was crowded. Joe would be on duty until midnight; after tliat there'd be a chance for a good talk in hia stateroom. He ushered his father to that .state-room oil the hurricane, deck, made him comfortable, laughed and quieldy dismissed the subject of that accident 'n Ciifi engine-room when Cal broached it, and went below. At five the Sachem wheezed and clanked awaiy from her dock and went splashing up the river, through the gate and into tho Sound.

Cal ate hia dinner in the smelly saloon far below decks, and, being rather tired from the four days' ride in the stuffy sleeper, lie turned in early. Before he fell asleep he heard the monotonous drone of the whistle. lie glanced through the window; a thick fog was shutting down. It came in cold and clammy, covering the white-painted walls of the state-room with big drops of moisture. ( .

IP*PIPIPSWW*BWSISII back into the comfoitalflu berth again. Respite the steady bleating of the whistle, he fell asleep a nuiii immediately.

He was awakened by uiainous crunching sounds, lie ioim.i iiimsclt on the iloor oi the sl/ato-room, opposite tlie

oerth. E.\eiUd voices were yelling in the fog outside; running footsteps echoed along the hurricane deck and the deck b/iow. Again liie crunching sound, and Cal, thoroughly awakened by now, saw they were listed far to port. He sprang up, snapping on the electric light, and began pulling on his clothes. As he did so the light went Uiit; the voices on deck grew in volume, lie heard women begin to scream. lie opened the window; the fog struck him like the chill of death.

Half-dressed as he was, he stumbled out to the listed deck. Already men ••vere clearing the beats, tearing oil the Urpaulins which covered them and making ready the falls of the davits. Then> were scattered £"„ U pS e f scantily cloth- '' '• panic-stricken passengers already moving to the rail, and others were swarming up the companion ways from 'lie decks below. ,

Somewhere off in the fog another siren was answering iiie wild bnmngs ot their own. Once Cal fancied be caught the Hash of lights hard by, but immediately they were gone.

The decks listed still more; there was a hoarse purl of rushing waters forward.

A liatless man in blue, the gold braid on bis uniform lla Ming eve n in that-dim light, tore his way to the port rail.

"Women ami children first!" lie shouted. "Puss 'e.lll 111 is way! Get back, the rest of you! (Jet back, I say!" He caught up a deck-chair and swung it threateningly above his head as wildeyed men tumbled up the companion-way and rushed for the nearest boat.

Cal, with an charged amongst them, striking right and left with his bare fists.

"Good work!" shouted the officer tiy the rail, "l'ass up the women and children, quickly! There's no time to waste!"

Cal caught two shivering women in kimonos and thrust tnem forward. Then lie sped for others. The boats 011 the port side were filled, shot downward and pulieti away Into the black fog. Then those to starboard were swung out. The sound of rushing water grew louder; the Sachem's head went lower. It was but a scant drop for the ooats ti> the water now.

Cal rushed hither 'and yon, working like a beaver, pushing the women forward, driving the crowding men back. AU about bun a handful of the Sachem's officers were doing the same. Then the hatless oliicer caught Cal's

"Women all off," lie panted. "Get into tliis boat. ¥ou deserve it."

Cal strugg.ed in that clutch. "My son's second engineer here," he protested. "1 wanta find him and " "In you go. Don't waste time talking," said the oliicer. Cal felt himself lifted bodily and thrust sprawling into the boat. Down it shot to take the water with a mighty splash. It was loaded down with shivering, cursing, iialf-clad men. Cal got to his teet just as they struck the water. Other men were jumping from the rail, threatening to swamp Uiem. A hurtling body struck Cal and knocked him llat again, lie struggled up, just as the mail who had fallen on him also got to his i'cet. "Joe!" he panted hoarsely. 'Tusli off there, before they swamp ns!" someone howled.

"What are you doing here?" said Cal to his son. "What are you doing here—you an officer and that mess aaek there on deck. Get back! You hear! Llet back before they push off!" "What good'U it do?" he mumb'.cd. "What good? ! Push oil' there—quick. She'll swamp in a minute if you don't!" With a throafcv sound that was almost a sob, Cal struck his son full in tlie face, sending him reeling backwards. Then he leaped at him and caught him be the collar.

Cal dragged him to the gunwale and struck him again. "drab them davit ropes and get back," he ordered.

Joe hesitated. Cal drew back his list.

"(I'o ahead, or I'll kill ye. Be game! Ye chose this life. Xow do the right thing. Stick by the ship—till all the passengers are off her. anyway." There was a great creaking throughout the stricken steamer's hull. She sank lower till her hurricane deck was just above the boats beside her.

In their own boat was a great shrieking and cursing, as the men at the oars tried to get her clear.

Cal took a firmer hold on Joe's collar, and half-dragging and half-boosting iiim, landed liim on the hurricane deck ol the sinking craft. Fighting like madmen, the inen in the boat they had just left managed to keep off any more cncroachers and push hei clear.

Joe struggled up, leaped for the rail ;md made as if to make a desperate spring for her, but Cal caught llim again and hauled him back.

"She's g-oin' down," Jos choked. "She's goin' down now!" Cal held him fast, His eyes were blazing and his muscles were tense, but his voice was soft.

'•Well, -what of that?" lie demanded. "Ye belong here, don't yet Ye're one of the officers, and her passengers ain't oil yet. Buck up, Joey, boy. Be game! For Cod's sake, bis game! It's all tii.it counts in this world, anyway. And I'm here with ye. I ain't squealin'! J'e game!" The Sachem's Head went lower. A swirl of oncoming water rushed about their feet. The deck beneath them quivered and shook like a thing alive.

Joe Scully shook as if With the ague. "It's all right," ssfd C.il, his own voice; without a tremor. "It's all right now, lad " There were nine articles of faith in C'a! Scully's creed. The first was that a man should bo "game"; the other eight were so much like it that it iB quite unnecessary to cite theln. Well, there are many less satisfactory creeds in the world, at that.