Chapter SEVEN: In the Locks

“Sandy, we’re sinking!”

Jerry James’s forehead was wrinkled with concern beneath his jet-black hair as he uttered those words. It was the first thing either youth had said since they had returned to the galley and gone to work preparing the evening meal.

An hour ago, they had been shivering beneath their blankets. Now, the exertion of working in that overheated room, where the hard aluminum fixtures only served to refract the heat, had forced them to strip to the waist. Even so, their bodies glistened with sweat.

“I said we’re sinking, Sandy,” Jerry repeated, somewhat nervously.

Sandy nonchalantly swung the oven door shut as though his friend had said nothing more upsetting than, “It’s raining outside.” Smiling, he took off his asbestos glove and laid it on the stove top.

“You know, Jerry, I believe you’re right.”

“But, Sandy, I’m not joking! I tell you, I can feel the ship going down.”

“Of course you can,” Sandy said easily. “Let’s go watch it.”

Then Sandy grinned—and Jerry James clapped his hands to his forehead in dismay and cried, “Of course; we’re in the locks!”

“Right the second time,” Sandy laughed. “And I’ll bet if we had been going uplake, you would have sworn that we were flying! Come on, let’s go topside.”

They clambered above and feasted their eyes on one of the strangest sights they had ever seen.

The _James Kennedy_ was floating in what can only be described as a long, narrow tub—almost a quarter mile in length and with about ten or fifteen feet clearance on either side of the sixty-foot-wide ship. What amazed Sandy and Jerry was that there were at least four more of these enormous, man-made tubs, some as large, others smaller. All of them held vessels of about the same size as the _Kennedy_. Some even held two of them.

The tubs were formed by huge water gates at either end. Behind their boat, Sandy and Jerry could see the water level of Lake Superior. What astonished them was that it seemed to be higher than they were!

And it was.

At that very moment, as the two friends glanced over the side, they could see that water was being pumped out of their tub. They were, as Jerry James had said, sinking! The level of the water in their tub was dropping so fast that more and more of the water gate behind them became visible. Now, they could see, it had actually become a dam, holding out the waters of Lake Superior that rose above them.

One of the strangest sensations was to turn and glance at another one of the locks—for that is what these tubs are called—to see a boat that was headed upstream rising higher and higher in the air. Its tub was filling with water, making it float higher and higher until it would reach the same level as Lake Superior, and then it would sail out.

“Boy, oh, boy,” Jerry said, rolling his eyes. “I’m getting the same dizzy feeling you get in a department store. You know, Sandy—when you’re on the down escalator and you pass somebody on the up escalator.”

Sandy nodded in silence. He was too intent upon what was happening to bother to talk.

He craned his neck over the side to see what was happening up forward. Sandy saw that the _James Kennedy_ was now well over ten feet below the level of Lake Superior. Suddenly, the water gates at the forward end of the lock swung open.

They sailed out!

Sandy shook his head in amazement, and then he heard a friendly voice beside him say, “Pretty tricky, hey?” Turning around, Sandy saw one of the seamen who had helped pull Cookie out of the water. He was short but well-built, with dark-red hair and warm brown eyes. Sandy knew that the other men called him Sam.

“Did you ever sail through the Soo before?” Sam asked.

He seemed pleased when Sandy shook his head, as though he was delighted to have someone he could explain things to. As he began to talk, Jerry joined them.

“First off, boys,” Sam said, “I want you to know that the men all feel that was a mighty brave thing you did this afternoon. Don’t feel too bad about what the skipper said, either. He has his good days and his bad ones, and I guess today was one of the bad ones.”

Sandy and Jerry both bobbed their heads politely, hiding the grins that sprang to their faces when they realized that they were both thinking it was about time for Captain West to have one of his good days!

“Now,” Sam said, with a note of pride in his voice, “I’ll bet you didn’t know that you’ve just passed through the biggest shipping highway in the world.”

“Oh, no,” Jerry argued. “You don’t mean that the Soo is bigger than the Panama Canal.”

“And the Suez, too?” Sandy asked.

“Bigger’n both, boys. Of course, I mean more ships pass through these locks. Look,” he said, turning to survey the scene that was rapidly falling behind them. “Just look at that.”

Sandy Steele and Jerry James did take a long look, and when they had finished, they were inclined to agree with Sam. In all, there must have been fifty of those peculiar long boats passing through the locks at one stage or another, their stubby smokestacks sending thin columns of smoke into the darkening sky.

“Boy, oh, boy,” Jerry said. “And to think I never knew there was such a place two weeks ago.”

“You weren’t the only one, Jerry,” Sam said, smiling. “There aren’t too many Americans who know what you mean when you say Sault Sainte Marie.”

“What does that mean, anyway?” Sandy asked.

“Simple. It’s French for Rapids of St. Mary. You see, where we’re sailing now, the St. Mary’s River dropped twenty feet in less than a mile. With all of Lake Superior pouring through here down into Huron, that made for mighty rapid rapids. The Indians used to carry their canoes around the rapids. So did the Frenchies. Of course, as soon as commerce started springing up between the Lakes cities, and as soon as they started tapping all that ore up north, they had to have a way into Lake Superior that was safe for the big boats. So they built the locks.”

Neither youth opened his mouth to speak. They were impressed. But Sam’s reference to the ore deposits had also recalled to their minds the fact that this was no ordinary summer’s voyage for them. During the hard work of the day, and the excitement of pulling poor Cookie out of the water, they had forgotten their resolve to inform Mr. Kennedy of the good news that Captain West was treacherously keeping from him.

But now that Sam had spoken of ore, they remembered it, and Sandy asked the seaman, “Where are we headed now, Sam?”

“Well, now we’re on Lake Huron. We’ll head downlake for Detroit.”

“I didn’t know Detroit was on the Lakes.”

“It isn’t. Not properly, anyway. It’s on the Detroit River, but that’s just the waterway where Huron narrows and empties into Lake Erie.”

“Oh. Will we lay over there?”

“Well—” Sam grinned—“if we don’t—then I’m going to have a mighty disappointed wife and kids.”

“Oh, you live there. Well, thanks, Sam. Come on, Jerry—we’d better be getting back to work.”

The two friends went below. As they entered the galley and began setting up dinner, Sandy said to Jerry, “Maybe Captain West will let us go ashore in Detroit, tomorrow. If he does, we can telephone Mr. Kennedy.”

Jerry pursed his lips. “You know, Sandy, I’ve been thinking. We don’t really know that the skipper is working for that rival firm. I mean, all we have to go on is the fact that you saw him writing a letter addressed to a Mr. Paul Chadwick. That could just be coincidence.”

“Pretty tall coincidence.”

“Well, yes. But then again, Captain West might just happen to know Mr. Chadwick. It might be a personal letter.”

“That’s worse! Don’t you remember what Mr. Kennedy said about Chadwick? He said he wasn’t the sort of man he’d like to sit down to dinner with. He said he was only selling out because it was good business to accept his offer. If Captain West’s a friend of Chadwick’s, then he’s no friend of Mr. Kennedy’s!”

Sandy Steele was becoming excited. As usual, he had to keep brushing back the cowlick that kept falling in his eyes as he talked.

“Be reasonable, Jerry. Don’t you remember how Mr. Briggs talked so insultingly of Mr. Kennedy when we first came aboard? ‘Ma Kennedy’ he called him. Then, when I was in Captain West’s cabin, he kept calling him ‘Old Man Kennedy.’ Doesn’t sound like much respect for their employer. And this afternoon, when we came on deck with Cookie, the skipper tried to pump me.”

Jerry’s eyes flew open.

“That’s right,” Sandy rushed on. “I didn’t have time to tell you before. But he pretended to be friendly, just so he could find out how much I knew about Dad’s discovery of the high-grade ore deposits.”

Sandy Steele’s lips tightened.

“No, Jerry,” he said grimly. “Captain West is not to be trusted.”

Then, to the horror of both youths, they heard an ugly, mocking voice saying, “You don’t say?”

Sandy Steele and Jerry James turned and looked straight into the leering face of Captain West’s mate.

He stood in the doorway of the galley. His slender, tall body swayed slightly, and from the glazed expression of his eyes, Sandy and Jerry could guess that he was drunk. There was a bottle bulging in his hip pocket, and Sandy recognized it as the one from which someone had poured that drink of rum for him abovedecks.

“So!” Mr. Briggs lisped in a drink-thickened voice. “So Ma Kennedy’s little chicks don’t trust their skipper, eh?”

“You’d better get some sleep, Mr. Briggs,” Sandy said evenly.

The mate flushed angrily.

“Don’t tell me what to do, you double-crossing little show-off!” he grated. “Here, stand aside there, and let a man pass.”

He stepped into the galley, grinning wickedly, plainly unaware of how he wavered on his feet and disgusted, rather than frightened, the two youths. He all but fell as he moved to the little table on which Cookie had served them their breakfasts that morning. He sat down at it and pulled out the nearly empty bottle of rum and stood it at his elbow.

“So you’re going to run and tell tales out of school, hey? Going to tattle on us, are you?” He brought his hand down on the table top with a crash. “Not if I can help it!”

The rum bottle jumped and nearly fell to the floor. But Mr. Briggs grabbed it just in time. He threw back his head and tilted the bottle to his lips. “Ahhhh!” he said. “Now, serve me my dinner!”

Neither Sandy nor Jerry moved.

“You hear me?” the mate yelled angrily. “I’m mate aboard this scow. Bring me my dinner!”

Reluctantly, Jerry moved to obey. Mr. Briggs watched him, scowling. Then he banged the bottle on the table and said, “Have a drink, Blackie. That’ll put some zip into those lazy legs of yours.”

“My name’s Jerry,” Jerry replied hotly. “And I don’t drink.”

“Don’t drink, hey? Regular sissy, aren’t you? Well, I’m mate aboard this scow, and when I tell a man to drink, he drinks!”

Mr. Briggs lurched to his feet. Still swaying, he seized the bottle by its neck and moved toward Jerry.

Sandy Steele moved quickly to head him off. He well knew Jerry’s split-second temper and he wanted to stop the mate before he did something he would regret.

“Please, sir,” he pleaded. “Don’t! He’s getting your dinner. Now, if you’ll just sit down—”

The mate shouldered Sandy roughly aside.

“Out of my way,” he mumbled. “Here, you,” he said to Jerry, swinging the bottle up in an arc, “take a drink like I ordered you to.”

As Mr. Briggs brought the bottle up with a speed that might have dug the mouth of it deep into Jerry’s throat, the youth raised his own arm to defend himself. The bottle struck him on the forearm. A jet of rum came streaming out. It fell on the open flame of the stove, and a sheet of blue flame leaped up into the air.

It came dangerously close to the reeling mate. Frightened, Mr. Briggs brought his right arm around as though to shield his face from the flames. But he had forgotten that he still held the bottle. His gesture emptied the remainder of the bottle onto the stove and another jet of flames leaped toward him. This time, the fire reached one of the roasts standing on the stove.

With a popping and sizzling, the roast came alight, and now the panicky Mr. Briggs lunged for the roasting pan to remove it from danger. But all he succeeded in doing was to overturn a pan of grease, into which, in terror, he dropped the flaming roast.

In an instant, Cookie’s beloved galley had become a roaring caldron of flames.

“Fire!” he shrieked, and charged blindly into the passageway, covering his face with his hands.

“Fire! Fire! All hands on deck! Captain, Captain—come quick! Those blasted boys of Kennedy’s have set the ship on fire!”