Masters of the Wheat-Lands Part 21

The stranger stood still, looking about him, and Wyllard's lips set tight. A thrill of apprehension ran through Agatha, for she felt that she knew what this stranger's errand must be.

Wyllard rose and walked towards the man with outstretched hand.

"Sit right down and have some supper. You'll want it if you have ridden in from the railroad," he said. "We'll talk afterwards."

The stranger nodded. "I'm from Vancouver," he announced, "had quite a lot of trouble tracing you."

He sat down, and Wyllard, who sent a man out to take the newcomer's horse, went back to his seat, but he was very quiet during the remainder of the meal. When supper was finished he asked Mrs. Hastings to excuse him, and leading the stranger into a smaller room, pulled out two chairs and laid a cigar on the table.

"Now you can get ahead," he said laconically.

The seaman fumbled in his pocket, and taking out a slip of wood handed it to his companion.

"That's what I came to bring you," he remarked.

Wyllard's eyes grew grave as he gazed at the thing. It was a slip of willow which grows close up to the limits of eternal ice, and it bore a rude representation of the British ensign union down, which signifies "In distress." Besides this there were one or two indecipherable words scratched on it, and three common names rather more clearly cut. Wyllard recognized every one of them.

"How did you get it?" he asked, in tense suspense.

The seaman once more felt in his pocket and took out a piece of paper cut from a chart. He flattened the paper out on the table, and it showed, as Wyllard had expected, a strip of the Kamtchatkan coast.

"I guess I needn't tell you where that is," the seaman said, as he pointed to the parallel of lat.i.tude that ran across it. "Dunton gave it to me. He was up there late last season well over on the western side. A northeasterly gale fell on them, and took most of the foremast out of their ship. I understand they tried to lash on a boom or something as a jury mast, but it hadn't height enough to set much forward canvas, and that being the case she wouldn't bear more than a three-reefed mainsail.

Anyway, they couldn't do anything with her on the wind, and as it kept heading them from the east she sidled away down south through the Kuriles into the Yellow Sea. They got ice-bound somewhere, which explains why Dunton fetched Vancouver only a week ago."

"But the message?"

"When they were in the thick of their troubles they hove to not far off the icy beach, and a Husky came down on them in some kind of boat."

"A Husky?" repeated Wyllard, who knew the seaman meant an Esquimau.

"That's what Dunton called him, but I guess he must have been a Kamtchadale or a Koriak. Anyway, he brought this strip of willow, and he had Tom Lewson's watch. Dunton traded him something for it. They couldn't make much of what he said except that he'd got the message from three white men somewhere along the beach. They couldn't make out how long ago."

"Dunton tried for them?"

"How could he? His vessel would hardly look at the wind, and the ice was piling up on the coast close to lee of him. He hung on a week or two with the floes driving in all the while, and then it freshened hard and blew him out."

The stranger had told his story, and Wyllard, who rose with a quick gesture of deep anxiety, stood leaning on his chairback. His face was grave.

"That," he said, "must have been eight or nine months ago."

"It was. They've been up there since the night we couldn't pick up the boat."

"It's unthinkable," declared Wyllard. "The thing can't be true."

The seaman gravely produced a little common metal watch made in Connecticut, and worth five or six dollars. Opening it, he pointed to a name scratched inside it.

"You can't get over that," he said simply.

Wyllard strode up and down the room. When he sat down again with a clenched hand laid upon the table he and the seaman looked at each other steadily for a moment or two. Then the stranger made a significant gesture.

"You sent them," he said, "what are you going to do?"

"I'm going for them."

The sailor smiled. "I knew it would be that. You'll have to start right away if it's to be done this year. I've my eye upon a schooner."

He lighted a cigar, and settled himself more comfortably in his chair.

"Well," he answered, "I'm going with you, but you'll have to buy my ticket to Vancouver. It cleaned me out to get here. We'd a difficulty with a blame gunboat last season, and the boss went back on me.

Sealing's not what is used to be. Anyway, we can fix the thing up later.

I won't keep you from your friends."

Wyllard left the sailor and though he did not find Mrs. Hastings immediately, he came upon Agatha sitting outside the house. She glanced at his face when he sat down beside her.

"Ah," she said, "you have had the summons."

Wyllard nodded. "Yes," he replied, "that man was the skipper of a schooner I once sailed in. He has come to tell me where those three men are."

He told her what he had heard, and the girl was conscious of mingled admiration and fear, the fear of losing him from her everyday life.

"You are going up there to search for them?" she asked. "Won't it cost you a great deal?"

She saw his face harden as he gazed at the tall wheat, but his expression was resolute.

"Yes," he admitted, "that's a sure thing. Most of my money is locked up in this crop, and there's need of constant watchfulness and effort until the last bushel's hauled in to the elevators. It probably sounds egotistical, but now I've got rid of Martial I can't put my hand on any one as fit to see the thing through as I am. Still, I have to go without delay. What else could I do?"

"Wouldn't the Provincial Government of British Columbia or your authorities at Ottawa take the matter up?"

Wyllard shook his head. "It wouldn't be wise to give them an opportunity. For one thing, they've had enough of sealing cases, and that isn't astonishing. We'll say they applied for the persons of three British subjects who are supposed to be living somewhere in Russian Asia--and for that matter I couldn't be sure that two of them aren't Americans--the Russians naturally inquire what the men were doing there.

The answer is that they were poaching for the Russians' seals. Then the affair on the beach comes up, and there's a big claim for compensation and trouble all round. It seems to me the last thing those men--they're practically outlaws--would desire would be to have a Russian expedition sent up on their trail. They would want to lie hidden until they could somehow get off again."

"But how have they lived up there? The whole land is frozen, isn't it, most of the year?" she questioned.

"They had sealing rifles, and the Koriaks make out farther north in their roofed-in pits. One can live on seal and walrus meat and blubber."

Agatha shivered. "But they had no tents, nor furs, nor blankets. It's horrible to imagine it."

"Yes," agreed Wyllard gravely; "that's why I'm going for them."

Agatha sat still a moment. She could realize the magnitude of the sacrifice that he was making, and in some degree the hazards that he must face. It appealed to her with an overwhelming force, but she was also conscious of a strange dismay. She turned to him with a flush of color in her cheeks and her eyes shining.

"Oh," she said, "it's splendid."

Wyllard smiled. "What could I do?" he said, "I sent them."

CHAPTER XIV