The Protector Part 3

"Oh!" said the girl, "I used to go out with the mackerel boats at home; we lived at the ferry. It was a mile across the lough, and with the wind westerly the sea worked in."

"The lough?" said Vane. "I told Carroll you were from the Green Isle."

It struck him that this was, perhaps, imprudent, since it implied that they had been discussing her; but, on the other hand, he thought the candour of the statement was in his favour. Then he added: "Have you been long out here?"

Her face grew wistful. "Four years," she answered. "I came out with Larry--he's my brother. He was a forester at home, and he took small contracts for clearing land. Then he married--and I left him."

Vane made a sign of comprehension. "I see. Where's Larry now?"

"He went to Oregon. There was no answer to my last letter; I've lost sight of him."

"And you go about with Mrs. Marvin? Is her husband alive?"

Sudden anger flared up in the girl's blue eyes, though, he knew it was not directed against him.

"Yes," she said. "It's a pity he is. Men of his kind always seem to live."

It occurred to Vane, that Miss Blake, who had evidently a spice of temper, could be a staunch partisan; and he also noticed that now he had inspired her with some degree of trust in himself, her conversation was marked by an ingenious candour. For all that, she changed the subject.

"Another piece, or some tea?" she asked.

"Tea first," said Vane, and they both laughed when she afterwards handed him a double slice of bread.

"These sandwiches strike me as unusually nice," he informed her. "It's exceptionally good tea, too."

The blue eyes gleamed with amus.e.m.e.nt, "You have been in the cold all night--but I was once in a restaurant." She watched the effect of this statement on him. "You know I really can't sing--I was never taught, anyway, though there were some of the settlements where we did rather well."

Vane hummed a few bars of a song. "I don't suppose you realise what one ballad of yours has done. I'd almost forgotten the Old Country, but the night I heard you I felt I must go back and see it again. What's more, Carroll and I are going shortly; it's your doing."

This was a matter of fact, but Kitty Blake had produced a deeper effect on him, although he was not aware of it yet.

"It's a shame to keep you handing me things to eat," he added disconnectedly. "Still, I'd like another piece."

She smiled, delighted, as she pa.s.sed the food to him. "You can't help yourself and steer the boat. Besides--after the restaurant--I don't mind waiting on you."

Vane made no comment, but he watched her with satisfaction while he ate, and as one result of it the sloop plunged heavily into the frothing sea.

There was no sign of the others, and they were alone on the waste of tumbling water in the early dawn. The girl was pretty, and there was a pleasing daintiness about her.

She belonged to the people--there was no doubt of that; but then Vane had a strong faith in the people, native-born and adopted, of the Pacific slope. It was from them he had received the greatest kindnesses he could remember. They were cheerful optimists; indomitable grapplers with forest and flood, who did almost incredible things with axe and saw and giant-powder. They lived in lonely ranch houses, tents, and rudely flung up shacks; driving the new roads along the rangeside, risking life and limb in wild-cat adits. They were quick to laughter and reckless in hospitality.

Then with an effort he brushed the hazy thoughts away. Kitty Blake was merely a guest of his; in another day he would land her in Victoria, and that would be the end of it. He was a.s.suring himself of this when Carroll crawled up through the scuttle forward and came aft to join them. In spite of his prudent reflections, Vane was by no means certain that he was pleased to see him.

CHAPTER III

AN AFTERNOON ASh.o.r.e.

Half the day had slipped by, when the breeze freshened further and the sun broke through. The sloop was then rolling wildly as she drove along with the peak of her mainsail lowered before a big following sea. Vane looked thoughtful as he gripped the helm, because a head ran out from the beach he was following three or four miles way, and he would have to haul the boat up to windward to get round it. This would bring the combers upon her quarter, or, worse still, abeam. Kitty Blake was below; Mrs. Marvin had made no appearance yet, and he spoke to Carroll, who was standing in the well.

"The sea's breaking more sharply, and we'd get uncommonly wet before we hammered round yonder head," he said. "There's an inlet on this side of it where we ought to find good shelter."

"The trouble is that if you stay there long you'll be too late for the directors' meeting," Carroll answered.

"They can't have the meeting without me, and, if it's necessary, they can wait," Vane pointed out. "I've had to. Many an hour I've spent cooling my heels in offices before the head of the concern could find time to attend to me. No doubt it was part of the game, and done to impress me with a due sense of my unimportance."

"It's possible," Carroll agreed, smiling.

Kitty Blake made her appearance in the cabin entrance just then, and Vane smiled at her.

"We're going to give you a rest," he announced. "There's an inlet close ahead where we should find smooth water, and we'll put you all ash.o.r.e until the wind drops."

There was no suspicion in the girl's face now, and she gave him a grateful glance before she disappeared below with the consoling news.

Soon afterwards, Vane luffed into a tiny bay, where the sloop rode upright in the sunshine, with loose canvas flapping softly in a faint breeze while the cable rattled down.

They got the canoe over, and when he had landed Mrs. Marvin and her little girl, both of whom looked very woebegone and the worse for the voyage, into her, Vane glanced round.

"Isn't Miss Blake coming?" he asked.

Mrs. Marvin, who was suggestively pallid, smiled. "She's changing her dress." She glanced at her own crumpled attire and added: "I'm past thinking of such things as that."

They waited some minutes, and then Vane called to Kitty, who appeared in the entrance to the cabin, "Won't you look in the locker, and bring anything you think would be nice? We'll make a fire and have supper on the beach; if it isn't first-rate, you'll be responsible."

A few minutes later they paddled ash.o.r.e, and Vane landed them on a strip of shingle with a wall of rock behind it, to which dark firs clung in the rifts and crannies. The sunshine streamed into the hollow, the wind was cut off, and not far away a crystal stream came splashing down a ravine.

Vane, who had brought an axe, made a fire of resinous wood, and Carroll and Kitty prepared a bountiful supper. After it was finished Carroll carried the plates away to the stream, towards which Mrs. Marvin and the little girl followed him, and Vane and Kitty were left beside the fire.

She sat on a log of driftwood, and he lay on the warm shingle with his pipe in his hand. The clear green water splashed and tinkled upon the pebbles close at his feet, and a faint, elfin sighing fell from the firs above them. It was very old music, the song of the primeval wilderness, and though he had heard it often, it had a strange, unsettling effect upon him as he languidly watched his companion. There was no doubt that she was pleasant to look upon; but although he failed to recognise this clearly, it was to a large extent an impersonal interest he took in her.

She was not so much an attractive young woman with qualities that pleased him, as a type of something that had so far not come into his life; something which he vaguely felt that he had missed. One could have fancied that by some deep-sunk intuition she surmised this fact, and felt the security of it.

"So you believe you can get an engagement if you reach Vancouver in time," he said at length. Kitty a.s.sented, and he asked, "How long will it last?"

"I can't tell. Perhaps a few weeks. It depends upon how the boys are pleased with the show."

"It must be a hard life," Vane broke out. "You must make very little--scarcely enough, I suppose, to carry you on from one engagement to another. After all, weren't you as well off at the restaurant? Didn't they treat you properly?"

She coloured a little at the question. "Oh, yes; at least, I have no fault to find with the man who kept it, or his wife."

Vane made a hasty sign of comprehension. He supposed that the difficulty had arisen from the conduct of one or more of the regular customers. He felt he would very much like to meet the man whose undesired attentions had driven his companion from her occupation.

"Did you never try to learn keeping accounts or typewriting?" he asked.

"I tried it once, but the mill shut down."

"I've an idea that I could find you a post," Vane made the suggestion casually, though he was troubled by an inward diffidence.

He saw a tinge of warmer colour creep into the girl's cheeks.