The Protector Part 20

Nairn looked up at him.

"What is amusing ye, Alec?" she asked.

"It was just a bit idea no worth the mentioning," said Nairn. "I think it wouldna count." He paused, and resumed with an air of reflection: "A young man's heart is whiles inconstant and susceptible."

Mrs. Nairn, who ignored the last remark, went into the house, and in the meanwhile Jessie and Vane walked down the road until they stopped at a gate, Jessie held out her hand.

"I'm glad I met you to-night," she said. "You will allow me to wish you every success?"

"Thank you," he replied. "It's nice to feel one has the sympathy of one's friends."

He turned away, and Jessie stood watching him as he strode down the road. There was, she thought, something that set him apart from other men in his fine poise and swing. She was, however, forced to confess that, although he had answered her courteously, there had been no warmth in his words.

As it happened, Vane was just then conscious of a slight relief. He admired Jessie, and he liked Nairn and his wife; but they belonged to the city, which he was on the whole glad to leave behind. He was going back to the shadowy woods, where men lived naturally, and the l.u.s.t of fresh adventure was strong in him.

On reaching the wharf he found Kitty and Celia Hartley, whom he had not met hitherto, awaiting him with Carroll and Drayton. A boat lay at the steps, and he and Carroll rowed the others off to the sloop. The moon was just rising from behind the black firs at the inlet's inner end, and a little cold wind faintly scented with resinous fragrance, that blew down across them, stirred the water into tiny ripples that flashed into silvery radiance here and there.

A soft glow shone out from the skylights to welcome them as they approached the sloop, and when, laughing gaily, they clambered on board, Carroll led the way to the tiny saloon, which just held them all. It was brightly lighted by two nickelled lamps; flowers were fastened against the panelling, and cl.u.s.ters of them stood upon the table, which was covered with a spotless cloth. Vane took the head of it and Carroll modestly explained that only part of the supper had been prepared by him. The rest he had obtained in the city, out of regard for the guests, who, he added, had not lived in the bush.

Carroll started the general chatter, which went on after the meal was over, and n.o.body appeared to notice that Kitty sat with her hand in Drayton's amidst the happy laughter. Even Celia, who had her grief to grapple with, smiled bravely. Vane had given them champagne, the best in the city, though they drank sparingly; and at last, when Celia made a move to rise, Drayton stood up with his gla.s.s in his hand.

"We must go, but there's something to be done," he said. "It's to thank our host and wish him success. It's a little boat he's sailing in, but she's carrying a big freight if our good wishes count for anything."

They emptied the gla.s.ses, and Vane replied: "My success is yours. You have all a stake in the venture, and that piles up my responsibility. If the spruce is still in existence, I've got to find it."

"And you're going to find it," said Drayton confidently.

Then Vane divided the flowers between Celia and her companion, but when they went up on deck Kitty raised one bunch and kissed it.

"Tom won't mind," she said. "Take that one back from Celia and me."

They got down into the boat. Then, while the girls called back to Vane, Drayton rowed away, and the boat was fading out of sight when Kitty's voice reached the men on board. She was singing a well-known Jacobite ballad.

"Considering what his Highland followers suffered on his account and what the women thought of him," said Carroll, "some of the virtues they credited the Young Chevalier with must have been real," He raised his hand. "You may as well listen."

Vane stood still a moment with the blood hot in his face, and the refrain rang more clearly across the sparkling water:

"Better lo'ed ye cannot be, Will ye no come back again?"

"I don't know if you feel flattered, but I've an idea that Kitty and Celia would go into the fire for you, and Drayton seems to share their confidence," Carroll resumed, in his most matter-of-fact tone.

Vane began to shake the mainsail loose. "I believe we both talked rather freely to-night; but we have to find the spruce."

"So you have said already," Carroll pointed out. "Hadn't you better heave the boom up with the topping lift?"

They got the mainsail on to her, broke out the anchor and set the jib; and as the boat slipped away before a freshening breeze Vane sat at the helm, while Carroll stood on the foredeck, coiling up the gear. The moon was higher now; the broad sail gleamed a silvery grey; the ripples, which were getting bigger, flashed and sparkled as they streamed back from the bows, and the lights of the city dropped fast astern. Vane was conscious of a keen exhilaration. He had started on a new adventure; he was going back to the bush, and he knew that no matter how his life might change, the wilderness would always call to him. In spite of this, however, he was, as he had said, conscious of an unusual responsibility.

Hitherto he had fought for what he could get for himself; but now Kitty's future partly depended upon his efforts, and his success would be of vast importance to Celia.

He had a very friendly feeling towards both the girls. Indeed, all the women he had met of late had attracted him in different ways, but Evelyn stood apart from all.

She appealed less to his senses and intellect than she did to a sublimated something in the depths of his nature; and it somehow seemed fitting that her image should materialise before his mental vision as the sloop drove along under the cloudless night sky, while the moonlight poured down glamour on the shining water. Evelyn harmonised with such things as these.

It was true that she had repulsed him; but that, he remembered, once more with a sense of compunction, was what he deserved for entering into an alliance against her with her venial father. He was glad now that he had acquiesced in her dismissal of him, since to have stood firm and broken her to his will would have brought disaster upon both of them. He felt that she had not wholly escaped him, after all: by and by he would go back and seek her favour by different means. Then she might, perhaps, forgive him and listen.

CHAPTER XV

THE FIRST MISADVENTURE.

The breeze freshened fiercely with the red and fiery dawn, and Vane, who had gone below, was advised of it by being flung off the locker on which he sat with coffee and biscuits before him, in the saloon. The jug, overturning, spilled its contents upon his person, the biscuits were scattered, but he picked himself up in haste and scrambled out into the well. He found the sloop slanted over with a good deal of her lee deck submerged in rushing foam, and Carroll bracing himself against the strain upon the tiller.

"I'll let her come up when you're ready," Carroll remarked. "We had better get some sail off her, if we mean to hold on to the mast."

He put down his helm, and the sloop, forging round to windward, rose upright, with her heavy mainboom banging to and fro. After that, they were desperately busy for the next few minutes, and Vane wished they had engaged a hand in Vancouver, instead of waiting to hire a Siwash somewhere up the coast. There was a headsail to haul to windward, which was difficult, and the mainsheet to get in; and then the two men, standing on the slippery inclined deck, struggled hard to haul the canvas down to the boom. The jerking spar smote them in the ribs; once or twice the reefing tackle beneath it was torn from their hands; but they mastered the sail, tying two reefs in it, to reduce its size, and the craft afterwards drove away with her lee rail just awash.

"You had better go down and get some biscuits," Vane said to his comrade. "You mayn't have an opportunity later."

"It looks like that," Carroll agreed. "The wind's backing northwards, and that means more of it before long. You can call if you want me."

He disappeared below, and Vane sat at the helm with a frown on his face.

He knew that the breeze would increase and draw ahead, which was unfortunate, because they would have to beat, fighting for every fathom they slowly made. There was no help for it, and he b.u.t.toned his jacket against the spray, while by the time Carroll came up the sloop was plunging sharply; pitching showers of stinging brine all over her when the bows went down. They drove her at it stubbornly most of the day, making but little to windward, while the seas got bigger and whiter, until they had some trouble to keep the light boat they carried upon the deluged deck. At last, when she came bodily aft amidst a frothing cascade which poured into the well, Vane brought the sloop round, and they stretched away to the eastwards, until they could let go the anchor in smooth water beneath a wall of rock. They were very wet, and stiff with cold, for winter was drawing near.

"We'll get supper," said Vane. "If the breeze drops at dusk, we'll go on again."

Having eaten little since dawn, they enjoyed the meal, and Carroll would have been content to remain at anchor afterwards. The tiny saloon was comfortably warm, and it would be pleasanter to lounge away the evening on a locker with his pipe, instead of sitting amidst the bitter spray at the helm. But Vane was proof against his companion's hints.

"With a head wind, we'll be some time working up to the rancherie, and then we have thirty miles of coast to search for the inlet Hartley reached," he said. "After that, there's the valley to locate; he was uncertain how far it lay from the beach."

"It couldn't be very far. You wouldn't expect a man who was sick to make any great pace."

"I can imagine a man who knew he must reach the coast before he started making a pretty vigorous effort. Do you remember the time we crossed the divide in the snow?"

"I could remember it, if I wanted," said Carroll with a shiver. "It's about the last thing I'm anxious to do."

"The trouble is that there are many valleys in this strip of country, and we may have to try a number before we strike the right one," Vane went on. "I can't spend very much time over this search. As soon as the man we put in charge of the mine has tried his present system long enough to give us something to figure on, I want to see what can be done to increase our output. We haven't marketed very much refined metal yet."

"There's no doubt it would be advisable," Carroll, who looked after their finances, answered. "As I've pointed out, you have spent a good deal of the cash you got when you turned the Clermont over to the company. In fact, that's one reason why I didn't try to head you off this timber-hunting scheme. You can't spend many dollars over it, and if the spruce comes up to expectations, you ought to get them back. It would be a fortunate change, after your extravagance in England."

"That is a subject I don't want to talk about. We'll go up and see what the weather's like."

Carroll shivered when they stood in the well. A nipping wind came down across the darkening firs ash.o.r.e, but there was no doubt that it had fallen somewhat, and he resigned himself when Vane began to pull the tiers off the mainsail.

In a few minutes they were under way, the sloop heading out towards open water with two reefs down in her mainsail; a great and ghostly shape of slanted canvas that swept across the dim, furrowed plain of sea. By midnight the breeze was as strong as ever, but they had clear moonlight and they held on; the craft plunging with flooded decks through the white combers, while Carroll sat at the helm, battered by spray and stung with cold.

When Vane came up an hour or two later, the sea was breaking viciously.

They held on and, soon after day broke with its first red flush ominously high in the eastern sky, stretched in towards the land, with a somewhat sheltered bay opening up beyond a foam-fringed point ahead of them. Carroll glanced dubiously at the white turmoil, in the midst of which black fangs of rock appeared, before he turned to his companion.