"STAR" TALES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10924, 13 November 1913, Page 3

"STAR" TALES.

CORRIGAN'S SQUARE DEAL (By WILLIAM SLAVENS M'NUTT.) i Captain Corrigan spread four queons ' and a tray on the marblo topped tablo, and cupped his stubby, spiay fingers about tiio opulent confusion of gold and silver coins that lay thereon. "Tough luck, old scout," ho commiserated with tho exquisite who sat opposite him. " You hadn't ought to put such a lot- o' faith in four iittlo eighths." , . . A Guerrero, the president of Nativiilad, loosed a st.rincc of Spanish oaths, toro his losing cards into bits, rose, kicked over tne table, and walked to tho open window that reached to the Uoor, his rage sputtering in his throat in unintelligible giitteryls. Big Corrigan tipped back in his chair, chuckling. "Tut! tut! tut. he clucked reprovingly. "\° hadn t ought to take it to heart like that. Ye must leant to take your losm s with a smile—see? That's a part o tho game ye ain't learnt yet, my friend. When ye get go's yo can 1o«j the clothes off your back an' walk home through the streets in, a barrej an' a happy smile, 'thout ever wishin the winner bad luck, then ye can begin to think that maybo yo know a little sometliiri' about the first beginnings of tho great American , game o' poker. Yes, indeedy! Come, now, an' we 11 right this table an' have another go at it. Another thing vo want to learn about this poker game is that ye must always fish for your money down tho hole ye dropped it into. Uh-liuh. Take "another chance at it, an' wlyni the hand's played ye may have all your money back, an' own my schooner an' all that's in her to boot." Big Corrigan was as drunk as it was possible for him to become, or he would' hare correctly interpreted the hland smile with which the president greeted this proposition. Alcohol never weakened Corrigan's legs perceptibly, nor did it affect his seamanship. Ho was wont to boast that he could pull a ship out of any danger that it was possible for human ingenuity to free her from, and do it when the champagne was running out of his sea boots. This was a figuratively true boast, as big Corrigan hail proven, more than once in the black of roaring storms on the Lee Coast.

The worst, alcohol did for Corrigan was to jogglo his judgment of men and their motives; and to a man of Corrigan's manner of life that worst, was bad enough. Sea rover of the South Pacific and the West Coast, gun runner, pearloyster . pirate, smuggler, inciter of revolutions, for -which he furnished the arms and'.ammunition—at a biff profit to Corrigan—gambler, and. all-round bad man, Captain Bob Corrigan was as utter: and as likeable a scoundrel as every walked a schooner's deck in the South. Seas. A full-blooded * Irishnlan, born in Bucksport. Maine, his speech' was a combination of Hibernian blarney, Yankoo twang, and the oargou of (he world's ports. His disposition was a mulligan of conflicting traits that no man—or woman—ever fully catalogued or understood.'

He was kind; cruel, loyal, treacherous, as unmoved by suffering "as a graven image, and as susceptible to an appeal for help as a sympathetic woman. Ho was all these things in turn, and no man—nor woman—might ever know when the turn would come. ■■He'was consistent only in being an utter extremist. ''

When big Bob Corrigan was bad, the devil blushed _with shame at the inanity of satanic evil in comparison with that wrought. by, the when he was good, the angels honoured him as one high in their number. His hair -was blue-black, and his eyes were-the grey of a smooth sea at dawn of a grey day. His face was Roman, heavy-jawed, with a large, slightly hooked nose, a.high, sloping forehead, a thin, . wide, delicately modelled mouth, and a block of chiri that was set so hard it always ' seemed to be trying to climb up and shove the rest of the face out of the way. He was six',feet tall, weighed two hundred and ten pounds stripped, .and had never been off his feet in fair fight or sickness.

Tlie president lost the first pot after the game was resumed, and . laughed •heartily as big Corrigan drew in the monev. '

"I lose more to your taste now, eh?" he inquired gayly. • "You're leaniin'' fast," Corrigan prinned back at him. "Smile when th®y run bad. That's the idea. Laugh at 'em an' they'll turn your way. Good cards hate a grouch, but they love a langliin' man." "You Yankees have the real courage." ,the> president conceded, as lie; dealt another hand. "Indeed, you have. Tbe courage and the philosophy. I wager that if >' ou were to lose everything to me, your schooner and' all, as you suggested—in jest, no doubt—lyonwould laugh, eh, Corrigan s Tees it away like a small coin to a beggar? " " Sure," Corrigan grunced, a little,' thickly. ? frowning at-, his hand. " T think these: are worth a draw. I'll take; two."

He flipped his ante into the centre

of the able, and tossed away two cr.rds, ,

The president laid the deck on the table and leaned comfortably b«ck in his chair.

"Now 1 will ceo the laugh," tho president mused. " The great < xhibition of courage by tho Yankee when hp has last all, oven his schooner." Big Onrrignn did not raise his eyes from his cards. Coolly, apparently unaware of any sinister meaning; in the president's jmeech, ho waited; but Corrigan wac, en bee suddenly, .is nober and rap-able of quick thought and action as when he handled his ship in a storm with "tho champagne running out of his sea boots."

He lifted his eyes slightly, ever so slightly, and looked into the muzzle of u derringer peeping ov»r the table top in front of the chuckling president. His glance flicked to either side of the room, while his eyes seemed still bent only on his cards. Th,'co soldier* with levelled rifles stood in front of the portiere* by the entrance to the hallway at his right. Three more guarded the door to tne garden oil his left. Corrigan dropped his _>ards, and, laying both hands in plain sight on the table, looked straicjbt at ihe smiling president.

"Well?" he queried shortly, " What ye got? " "The winning hand, my friend," the president retorted. You will laugh now, oh? " "Ha, ha!" Corrigan enunciated soberly. " Your hand wins, but—l fors;ot —-how much did I bet on this play?" Tho president shrugged. " You have just named tho 6take yourself; all the money, your schooner, and all that is in her." Corrigan did not flinch " Oh," he said shortly. "I'm a game bucko to lay all that, ain't I? That, was a big bet. What do you win it withP" The president modestly waved his derringer at the soldiers in either doorwny. A hundred men around in tha garden in addition to them," he explained. "My gunboat nt anchor not one hundred yards from your schooner in the harbour, and the little ca,nnon in her bows Do .you find it a good hand?'' "You haven't looked at' mi tie yet," Corrigan returned steadily. "WTiat do you think I hold?" Tiie president laughed. "A poor pair," ho answered. " And the pair aro split. Aboard the schooner is Andy Devore. You aro here. The rest .of. your crew are all good Natividadians, and now in the discard. Ah yes. You hold a pair, my friend, and a poor pair it is. But a merry pair, eh? A very merry pair, that laugh at their losing. You have not laughed, Captain Corrigan: why is that?" " Ha, ha!" Corrigan uaid ftlowly. "That's ~he second time I've laughed. I'll laugh again some time when, you can hear me, but not to-night." " You will return some time andtako revenge on mo and my little country? " the president, asked banteriugly. But Corrigan was sober, and his judgment of men and their, motives 'Stood true. His ear , caught tho hidden threat tba,t Lay in the .jest, and he smiled, not too joyously, but with a palpable effort, that 'carried conviction of truth. " What's the use? " he asked helplessly. " It's all in tlie game- You've got me as I've got many before. I lose here, I win somewhere else." " You are wise, my friend," the president said softly. " A -wise man. You and your mate, Derorc, shall be carried to .sea by our little navy fan honour duo so game a loser, Captain Corrigan —and set overside in a dinghy, with -water and food to last for —will two weeks suffice? " Corrigan nodded. "Good!!" the president continued. " Officially, of couree, your schooner has been: seized for running contrab. silk. That will jerve as well as something else, eh, captain?/' "Good service,': Corrigan agreed. "Have they got Andy yet?" "Aboard the gunboat," the president assured liim. '' And now. Captain Gorriganj it is late, and I must bid you good-night. My men will toko, you aboard the gunboat and treat you as I have agreed. If you have at some tini© some other great American game t© teach me—and plenty of money, captain—l shall hope that, you will do me the honour to visit "

" I'll com© an' show ye the fine points," big Bob laughed back at him. " Yeh. I'll do that. As soon as I learn s. good one." A soldier stepped forward and r«lieved the big man of his two guns. " As soon a-s I learn a good one," Corrigan repeated. " Good-bye till then, old scout." With a soldier on either side, and a file in front and behind, Captain Bob Corrigan passed out of the tor palace into the hot, heavy night, and down the hill toward- the harbour, where the lights of two vessels winked Mi rough the blackness; the lights on the schooner that had been hiSj and those on the navy of Natividad, the one little gunboat that waited to take him and his mate to sea.

"As soon as I learn one," Corrigan muttered.

Two days later the gunboat dropped the fourteen-foot dinghy over the side, three hundred miles, off the eoast of Natividad. ' The boat held big Cortigan, Andy Devore, a case of tinned beef and one of mutton, "a box of pilot bread, and a twenty-gallon beaker of water.

Of the provisions Corrigan was careless, but the beaker of water he guarded carefully. He begged for e&nvas to rig a "sail, but this was denied Him, and the guuboat steamed away, leaving the two men adrift with but one pair of oars. " We lay about three hundred miles due west o' Natividad, and about a hundred an' fifty east by south from Cocas Island," Corrigan reckoned, as the gunboat drew away. "The equatorial western current'll help some, an': with pyrin'■ by turns we can make , near sixty miles a day. , We'll hit Oocas Island ih two days an', a half at that rater—if we're lucky- It's a blind stab with no compass, but we've water for two weeks, Andy, an' if she don't eome on to storm we've a chance." "Thanks, to him for the water/'' Andy answered. "I'll go for a. bit without my scoffin' an' never*whimper, but no water in the dry season——"' He shivered and smiled up at bis chief from twisted lipa. " I .was adrift for six days 011 a bit of raft when the Dolores foundered off Albemarle," lie explained his shudder. " I ain't like someone who didn't know what it meant. When your tongue swells toe big for your mouth to hold, an' ye I'm thirsty thinkin' ; of it. Let's tap that beaker for a good swig to prove we've got it. I've had the black dream* ever since that time, thinkin" in my sleep that I was adrift again' on that hot lid o' hell with never a drop—— Tap, her, Corrigan, an' let's have a drink."

Corrigan knocked out the bung stopper «ind poured a full measure of water into a bailing tin. "Drink to our liittin'Cocas, Andv," ho said, handing it to him. " Drink to that an' the luck that'll take me back to that Why, what's wrong?" Andy was staring at him out of eyes that were wide with a horror that denied utteranco. He put the bailing can to his lips again, quaffed a great draught, and, spitting it. from his lips, dashed the can to the bottom of tne boat. '

"Salt." he whispered huskily. "SaltBob."

Corrigan snatched up«the ean poured more water from the cask, and tested it. He let his hand that hejd the can fall to his side, and the water ran out as he stared after the fleck of black on the horizon that was the gunboat.

" An' I wandered why he dida'i shoot me then," he mused. "I wondered. That wouldn't do for ye, would it? Ye couldn't shoot a man like a man, an' let him die. Ye send us here letting us think we've a chance, an' ve-—■—"

He turned and looked at hits mate,

Andy wm crying- softly, groat tears of Agony trickling down Ins leatherlike* eheekn. "I enn't go through that, again. Bob," he whispered. "1 can't. I'vo stood by yo, Bob, an' ye know I'm not a quitter, but I can't, go through that again. 1 can't. 1 ain't Jine somebody that ain't'been there. When yotir tongue I can't do it, Bob. Smash mo over the head, an' put me out of it, captain, please. 1 can't live know-in' what'# comin'. Kill me an' let mo out of it, will ye?" "We'll makes Cocas in two days, Andy." Oorrigan's voice was tender a* a woman's. "It ain't goin' to be like it wa«. We'll make it." Ho looked back at tho smudge of smoke that marked the gunboat, and tbft muscles of his face wnthed. "Ye can't do it," he purred softly. "I won't die, my son!" He seated himself and took up the oars. The sea .was smooth and running in long, low swells. Away to the eastward under the morning sun it was like heaving molten copper. The heat bore down on the two men like a palpable weight. The iron oarloclw burned Corrigan's fingers when he lifted them to set them in the bushings. Crumpled in the bow, Andy wept and begged for a quick release from tho agony of anticipation of the horror he had 'once lived through. Corrigan dipped his oars, and the boat slid ahead under the impetus of the first, stroke. The black fin of a tiger shark appeared on the surface in the wake, and followed. •

At four o'clock in the afternoon I Corrigan dropped.tho oars and ordered Devore to take his turn. Andy, lying in the bow where he had dropped in the early morning', did not answer. Corrigan stepped forward, and, bending over, shook him by the shoulder. The body he stirred was void of life. He-turned Devore over and looked into the dead face. The eyes were wide open, and the face stamped with the fearful terror that had killed him. Corrigan lifted the lifeless body and slipped it gently over the side. The black fin that 1 had followed in the wake of tlie boat the entire day flashed forward and alongsido—and disappeared. Wearily Corrigan sat down and picked, up tho oars again. " An' now I won't die." he muttered. " I'm goin' to square ye, Andy, an' hell can't stop me." i Corrigan and Devore were set adrift on Tuesday morning. Ffidav'afternoon the lookout on the brigantin© Calibra, steering in from the south-west under a cloud of canvas, reported -a- small boat' with a signal. The Calibra. rounded to, and a boat set off with Captain Blackie Holcomb himself in the stern sheets. Corrigan was, rowing when they came upon him. His big body swayed slowly backward and forward to the lift and drag of the oars, forward and back, forward and back, slowly, scarcely five' strokes to the minute,': but he was rowing. His, cheeks were bulged with the size of his swollen tongue, and., his eyes were shut. His lips were cracked and bleeding. ■ Holcomb pried the man's hands loose from the oar looms, and he was shifted, struggling to the best of his little remaining strength, into the ship's boat. He woke to consciousness late that night in Holoomb's cabin. "Hello, Bobbie, lad," Holcomb grinned at him from his seat by the cabin table. " Been tryin' to win a bet that ye oould • go longer 'thout * - at«r'n a desert camel P" Corrigan lay quiet, struggling to collect his memory. "Where are we, Blackie?" he asked huskily. "Anchored off Cocas Island," Holcomb answered. " We're shiftin' a cargo o 'iron rubber to the Herrnosillo." Corrigan closed his smarting eyes and lay quiet, "thinking. The clanging whir of a steam winch and the creak of strained tackle from above corroborated Holcomb's story of a cargo being shifted. Corrigan laid grim hold of his vanishing. faculties, and forced his weary eyes open onco more. "What's the game, -Blackie?" M whispered. ' Holcomb, poured a stiff drink from the decanter on the table and. settled back in his chair. , "Morrison >' rubber people up in 'Frisco ar® gettin' tirea o' the size o' some o' the graft along the coast here," he explained. " They're willin' to pay what's right to' keep these monkey- ! headed presidents an f the like in champagne, but sometimes it's cheaper to stick in a new Cover'ment than keep the old a-runnin'. Some o' these near peons forget who put the gold lace on 'em an' peeled 'em away from a life o' hard work, an' get yellin' for real money for their little old concessionsThe Morrison people fitted up the old Herrnosillo with a nice little outfit o' bras» pipes to spray lead where it'll help most, an' I. clear from Valparaiso with a hold full o' guns an' things to put in 'em. We met the Herrnosillo here' an' we're shiftin' this cargo o' the very, latest patriotism off into her. She's goin' over.to the coast an' bat eld Guerrero on the lee ear." Corrigan struggled desperately to sit up, but fell back, panting from, his weakness. "Who? Who's that they're goin' for. Blackie?" he demanded. " Old Guerrero, over a.t Natividad," Holcomb went on. " He's been gettin' much too alive o' late. He's been skimmin' the Morrison people, an' lappin' up all the cream himself. All the rest of his bunch are livin'. poor but honest, an' thev're ripe to do somethin' for the love o' v their country. The Herrnosillo she's goin' across an' help 'em do it." " When she sail?" "Half an hour or so; the stuffs near, shifted, now." • Corrigan'forced himself to a sitting posture. His, big body wavered with the weakness that was in it, but he shut his heaw jaws and held, himself up. He slipped off the covering and rose, swaying, to his feet. " Lie down, ye fool!" Holcomb cried, jmringine to his feet. '' What ye. want to do? \ill your fool selfP" Big Corrigan lowered, his head and shook it from side to side, trying to dear the dazo from, his brain, while he stood with trembling legs braced wide ap *r' ra booked on the Herrnosillo," he said grimly. "I ain't dead, but I'd bo aboard "of her if 1 was. " You're crazy," Holcomb declared. "You won't be nt for your feet for a week. What d'yo think you're goin' "Learn Guerrero a—a n-new g-g----game," Corrigan declared, as he reached for his trousers. " 1 know a g.g-g.gocd ono now. A d-dandy."

President Guerrero received the revolutionary leader. Don Alberto- de Cruz, and the agent of the Morrison Rubber Company,, who had come on the Herrnosillo, in tlie big reception room of the palace where he had played at poker with one Corrigan. " Why contest it?" ho inquired easily. " The country it is yours, yes. I abdicato without bloodshed on the part of any of ruy subjects. It is better so, and may I remind! you that there is nothing left here to stay for? The treasury is somowhat—er—-deplet-ed. I have, it is true, something of a bank account in San Francisco, where Igo from here. I abdicate, my friends, and the country is yours. May you do well with it.'' "Going to 'Frisco, you said?" Conrad .Wilson, the representative of tlie rubber company, put in. " How do you aim to lesreP"

" I have my own schooner lying in

tho harbour," the ex-prosident returned. "The Marie. I bought it but recently from Captain Corrigan in preparation for just this event. I snail loavo on her. You will not, of course, attempt to keep me a prisoner, or do me violence. Ir you kept me, my followers might rise and come to my aid in time, and if you did me violence many of them might thirst for revenge. Things will bo done in the usual way, noP" " About as usual," Wilson returned. " I think we'll send a guard along with you to seo that you really get to 'Frisco,- though. I'll call him. Klo put two fmgors to his lips and whistled shrilly, and Captain Bob Corrigan stopped in through tho door that led to tho garden, the door out of which he had gone under guard, stripped of his every possession. '■ I como back to teach yo that new one," he grinned at the startled President. Guerrero's mocking air of complacency went from him like the air from a punctured toy balloon, and, like one, he shrivelled and dropped to his knees in front of Wilson, clawing tho agent's knees and pleading. "Not that, no, no, no; not that," he begged. "Keep me here, put me in prison, anything but that. Don't send mo with him, don't. No, no. Not that. He'll " "He'll teach y6u a new one," Corrigan interrupted him. " A good Yankee game.» Guerrero, tlie_ kind ye wanted to loam so bad. We call it ' give an' take.' " Guerrero waddled across the floor toward Corrigan on his knees, with his hands clasped in front of him. "No, no, no, Corrigan," he babbled. " Don,'t do it. Don't. Everything has turned' out well for you. There is no harm done anyone. It was but a rough jest at best, captain. You said yourself that you had treated others so; you had won, and this time you lost. Everything has turned out well for you, Corrigan; there is no .harm done. Please. I beg " " Andy died," Corrigan said 6oftly. "In'the boat, after we drank the salt water you filled the beaker with. He'd been hurt with the long thirst before, and he died from the fear of il. I slipped him overside the night of the first d'ay out. A tiger shark took him." Corrigan was smiling as he talked, smiling square into the pleading eyes of the kneeling President. Guerrero sensed the pregnancy of the smile, and crumbled on the floor in a faint. Corrigan stirred, his limp form'with one boot toe. " Cart him down an' sling him aboard," he said tersely. "I'll be gettin' out o' here.". As near as big Corrigan was able to figure the spot where the gunboat had set him and Andy Devore adrift, he hauled the Marie to with her jib sheet to windward, the foresheet eased, off, and the helm, hard alee. A dinghy was lowered from the waist. It held a case of tinned beef and one of. mutton, a box of pilot bread and a beaker of water. Corrigan snaked the screaming President from the cabin and dragged him ■ to' the waist. He took the end of the main peak purchase, rove a bowline in it, and slipped it over the man's' shoulders. "It was hereabouts that Andy an' me were set over,"', he toId j him. '' There's a boat overside there, with just what we had in that boat, salt water in the beaker and all. You'll never be able to say I' did'n't deal a square game, card for card, just what was dealt me. I give ve what ye gave us, no more, no less. If ye can live as I lived, good for ye." He lifted the struggling man and lowered him overside into the dinghy. "Draw away and haul aft the foresheet, "he called out. The crew hauled, aft the foresheet, the man at the wheel straightened the helm, and the schooner shot ahead with all sails full by the wind. Big Bob Corrigan leaned over the lee quarter, looking back at the man in the little boat. A black fin appeared on the surface of the water near the dinghy and circled the little craft slowly. Corrigan made his way aft and called to the first mate: "We're Valparaiso bound, Mr Sanchot; keep her by the wind and crack on to her for all she's worth. I'm goin' to sleep."