My Brave and Gallant Gentleman Part 15

"Oh, yes! I know," I said. "But this is different. I have become acquainted with you. I cannot sail under false colours. I have no experience. I am a simple baby when it comes to business."

He banged his desk again.

"George,--I'm the boss of this affair. You must just sit back quiet and listen, while I tell you about it; then you can talk as much as you want.

"There's a thousand acres of property that I, or I should say, my daughter Eileen owns some hundred miles up the coast from here. The place is called Golden Crescent Bay. My wife took a fancy to it in the early days, when she came with me on a trip one time I was looking over a timber proposition. I bought it for her for an old song and she grew so fond of the place that she spent three months of every year, as long as she lived, right on that very land. She left it all to Eileen when she died.

"As a business man, I should sell it, for its value has gone away up; but, as a husband, as a father and as a sentimentalist, I just can't do it. It would be like desecration.

"There's two miles of water frontage to it; there's the house we put up, also a little cabin where the present caretaker lives. The only other place within a couple of miles by water and four miles round by land through the bush, is a cottage that stands on the property ab.u.t.ting Eileen's, and close to her bungalow. It has been boarded up and unoccupied for quite a while. Of course, up behind, over the hills, there are ranches here and there, while, across the bay and all up the coast, there are squatters, settlers, fishermen and ranchers for a fare-you-well."

"You say there is a caretaker there already?" I put in.

"Yes!--I was just getting to that. He's an old Klondike miner; came out with a fortune. Spent the most of it before he got sober. Came to, just in time. Now he h.o.a.rds what's left like an old skinflint.

Won't spend a nickel, unless it's on booze. Drinks like a drowning man and it never fizzes on him. A good enough man for what he's been doing, but no good for what I want now."

"You don't want me to do him out of his place, Mr. Horsfal?" I asked.

"I was coming to that, too,--only you're so darned speedy.

"He's all right as a caretaker with little or nothing to do, and he will prove useful to you for odd jobs,--but, I have a salmon cannery some miles north of this place and I am going to have half a dozen lumber camps operating south, and further up, for the next few years.

Some of them are going full steam ahead now.

"They require a convenient store, where they can get supplies; grub, oil, gasoline, hardware and such like. I need a man who could look after a proposition of that kind,--good. The settlers would find a store up there a perfect G.o.d-send.

"The property at Golden Crescent is easily got at and is the most central to all my places. Now, having an eye to business, and with Eileen's consent, I have decided to convert the large front living-room of her bungalow into a store. It is plain, and can't be hurt. It's just suited for the purpose. I have had some carpenters up there this past week, putting in a counter and shelves and shutting the new store off completely from the rest of the house.

"A stock of groceries, hardware, etc., has already been ordered from the wholesalers and should be up there in a few days.

"Steamers pa.s.s Golden Crescent twice a week. When they have anything for you, they whistle and stand by out in the bay; when you want them, you hoist a white flag on the pole, on the rock, at the end of the little wharf; then you row out and meet them.

"These are the main features, George. Oh, yes! I'm paying one hundred dollars a month and all-found to the right man."

He stopped and looked over at me a little anxiously.

"George!--will you take the job?"

"What about those other poor beggars who have applied?" I asked.

"There you are again," he exclaimed impatiently. "They had the same chance as you had. Didn't I even keep you waiting out there till I had seen them in turn. Not one of them has the qualifications you have. I want a man with a brain as well as a body."

"But you don't know me, Mr. Horsfal. I have no friends, no testimonials; and I might be,--why! I might be the biggest criminal unhung."

"Testimonials be blowed! Who wants testimonials? Any dub can get them. As for the other part,--do you think K. B. Horsfal of Baltimore, U. S. A., by this time, doesn't know a man after he has been a whole day in his company?

"Sonny, take it from me,--there are mighty few American business men, who have topped a million dollars, who don't know a man through and through in less time than that, and without asking very many questions, either. Why, man!--that's their business; that's what makes their millions."

There was no resisting K. B. Horsfal.

"Thanks! I'll take the job," I said. "And I'm mighty grateful to you."

"Good boy! You're all right. Leave it there!" His two hands clasped over mine.

"Gee! but I'm glad that's over at last."

"When do I start in?" I asked.

"Right now. I'll phone for a launch to be ready to start up with us to-morrow morning. I'll show you over the proposition and leave you there. Phone for any little personal articles you may want. I'll attend to the bedding and all that sort of thing. Have the boy call you at six a. m. sharp."

Nothing was overlooked by the masterly mind of my new, my first employer.

We breakfasted early. An automobile was standing waiting for us at the hotel entrance; while, at a down-town slip, a trig little launch, already loaded up with our immediate necessities, was in readiness to shoot out through the Narrows as soon as we got aboard.

This launch was named the _Edgar Allan Poe_, and, in consequence, I felt as if she were an old friend.

As soon as the ropes were cast from the wharf, a glorious feeling of exhilaration started to run through me; for it seemed that I was being loosed from the old life and plunged into a new; a life I had been for so long hungering; the life of the woods, the hills and the sea, the quiet and freedom; the life of my dreams as well as of my waking fancies. Whether or not it would come up to my expectations was a question of conjecture, but I was not in a mood to trouble conjecturing.

The swift little boat fought the tide rip in the Narrows like a lonely explorer defending his life against a horde of surging savages; and, gradually, she nosed her way through, past Prospect Point, then, inclining to the north sh.o.r.e, but heading forward all the time, past the lighthouse which stands sentinel on the rock at Point Atkinson; and away up the coast, leaving the city, with its dizzying and light-blotting sky-sc.r.a.pers far and still farther behind, until nothing of that busy terminal remained to the observer but a distant haze.

The _Edgar Allan Poe_ threaded her way rapidly and confidently among the rocks and fertile little islands, up, up northward, ever northward, amid lessening signs of life and habitation; through the beautiful Strait of Georgia.

From eight o'clock in the morning till three o'clock in the afternoon we sailed on, amid a prodigality of scenic beauty,--sea, mountains and islands; islands, mountains and sea,--enjoying every mile of that beautiful trip. We conversed seldom, although there was much to discuss and our time was short.

At last, we sped past a great looming rock, which stood almost sheer out of the sea, then we ran into a glorious bay, where the sea danced and glanced in a fairy ecstasy.

"Golden Crescent Bay," broke in Mr. Horsfal. "How do you like it?"

"It is Paradise," I exclaimed, in breathless admiration. And never have I had reason to change that first impression and opinion.

We ran alongside a rocky headland close to the sh.o.r.e, on which stood two little wooden sheds bearing the numbers one and two. We clambered up.

"Number one is for gasoline; two for oil," volunteered my ever informing employer.

The rock was connected to the sh.o.r.e by a well-built, wooden wharf on piles, which ran directly into what I rightly guessed had been the summer home of Mrs. Horsfal. It was a plainly built cottage and trim as a warship. It bore signs of having been recently painted, while, all around, the gra.s.s was trim and tidy.

On the right of this, about fifty yards across, on the same cleared area, but out on a separate rocky headland, stood another well-built cottage, the windows of which were boarded up.

"My property starts ten yards to the south of the wharf here, George, and runs around the bay as far, almost, as it goes, and back to the hills quite a bit. That over there is the other house I spoke to you about. It, and the property to the south, is owned by some one in the Western States.

"But I wonder where the devil old Jake Meaghan is. Folks could land here and walk away with the whole shebang and he would never know of it."

As he spoke, however, a small boat crept out from some little cove about three hundred yards round the bay. It contained a man, who rowed it leisurely toward the wharf. We leaned over the wooden rail and waited.

The man ran the boat into the shingly beach, pulled in his oars, climbed out and made toward us. An Airedale dog, which had evidently been curled up in the bottom of the boat, sprang out after him, keeping close to him and eyeing us suspiciously and angrily.

In appearance the man reminded me of one of R. L. Stevenson's pirates, or one of Jack London's 'longsh.o.r.emen.

He wore heavy logging boots, brown canvas trousers kept up by a belt, and a brown shirt, showing hairy brown arms and a bared, scraggy throat. A battered, sun-cast, felt hat lay on his head. His face was wrinkled and weather-beaten to the equivalent of tanned hide. He wore great, long, drooping moustaches snow white in colour. His eyes were limpid blue.