The Silver Horde Part 60

"Are you very intimate with him?"

"Am I? I'm closer to him than a porous plaster. When Boyd ain't around, I'm him, that's all." From her look Fraser judged that he was progressing finely. He hastened to add: "I always like to help out young fellows like him. I like to give 'em a chance. That's my name, you know, Chancy De Benville--always game to take a chance. Is that your yacht?"

"No. My father and I are merely pa.s.sengers."

"So you trailed the old skeezicks along with you? Well, that's right. Make the most of your father while you've got him. If I'd paid more attention to mine I'd have been better off now. But I was wild." Fraser winked in a manner to inform his listener that all worldly wisdom was his. "I wanted to be a jockey, and the old party cut me off. What I've got now, I made all by myself, but if I'd stayed in Bloomington I might have been president of the bank by this time."

"Bloomington! I understood you to say New Orleans."

"My old man had a whole string of banks," Fraser averred, hastily.

"Tell me--is Mr. Emerson ill?" asked the girl.

"Ill enough to lick a den of wildcats."

"He intended coming out to the yacht last night, but he disappointed us."

"He's as busy as an ant-hill. I met him turning in just as I came out for my const.i.tutional."

"Where had he been all night?" Her voice betrayed an interest that Fraser was quick to detect. He answered, cannily:

"You can search me! I don't keep cases on him. As long as he does his work, I don't care where he goes at quitting time." He resolved that this girl should learn nothing from him.

"There seem to be very few white women in this place," she said, after a pause.

"Only one, till you people came. Maybe you've crossed her trail?"

"Hardly!"

"Oh, she's all right. Take it on the word of a fire-man, she's an ace."

"Mr. Emerson told me about her. He seems quite fond of her."

"I've always said they'd make a swell-looking pair."

"One can hardly blame her for trying to catch him."

"Oh, you can make book that she didn't start no love-making. She ain't the kind to curl up in a man's ear and whisper. She don't have to. All she needs to do is look natural; the men will fall like ripe persimmons."

"They have been together a great deal, I suppose."

"Every hour of the day, and the days are long," said Fraser, cheerfully.

"But he ain't crippled; be could have walked away if he'd wanted to. It's a good thing he didn't, though, because she's done more to win this bet for us than we've done ourselves."

"She's unusually pretty," the girl remarked, coldly.

"Yes, and she's just as bright as she is good-looking--but I don't care for blondes." Fraser gazed admiringly at the brown hair before him, and rolled his eyes eloquently. "I'm strong for brunettes, I am. It's the Creole blood in me."

She gathered up her wild flowers and rose, saying:

"I must be going."

"I'll go with you." He jumped to his feet with alacrity.

"Thank you. I prefer to walk alone."

"Couldn't think of it. I'll--" But he paused at the lift of her brows and the extraordinarily frigid look she gave him. He stood in his tracks, watching her descend the river trail.

"Declined with thanks!" he murmured. "I'd need ear-m.u.f.fs and mittens to handle her. I think I'll build me some bonfire and thaw out. She must own the mint."

At the upper cannery Mildred found Alton Clyde with the younger Berry girl. She called him aside, and talked earnestly with him for several minutes.

"All right," he said, at length. "I'm glad to get out, of course; the rest is up to you."

Mildred's lips were white and her voice hard as she cried:

"I am thoroughly sick of it all. I have played the fool long enough."

"Now look here," Clyde objected, weakly, "you may be mistaken, and--it doesn't look like quite the square thing to do." But she silenced him with an angry gesture.

"Leave that to me. I'm through with him."

"All right. Let's hunt up the governor." Together they went to the office in search of Wayne Wayland.

A half-hour later, when Clyde rejoined Miss Berry, she noticed that he seemed ill at ease, gazing down the bay with a worried, speculative look in his colorless eyes.

Boyd Emerson roused from his death-like slumber late in the afternoon, still worn from his long strain and aching in every muscle. He was in wretched plight physically, but his heart was aglow with gladness. Big George was still at the trap, and the unceasing rumble from across the way told him that the fish were still coming in. As he was finishing his breakfast, a watchman appeared in the doorway.

"There's a launch at the dock with some people from above," he announced.

"I stopped them, according to orders, but they want to see you."

"Show them to the office." Boyd rose and went into the other building, where, a moment later, he was confronted by Wayne Wayland and Willis Marsh. The old man nodded to him shortly. Marsh began:

"We heard about your good-fortune. Mr. Wayland has come to look over your plant."

"It is not for sale."

"How many fish are you getting?"

"That is my business." He turned to Mr. Wayland. "I hardly expected to see you here. Haven't you insulted me enough?"

"Just a moment before you order me out. I'm a stockholder in this company, and I am within my rights."

"You a stockholder? How much stock do you own? Where did you get it?"

"I own thirty-five thousand shares outright." Mr. Wayland tossed a packet of certificates upon the table. "And I have options on all the stock you placed in Chicago. I said you would hear from me when the time came."

"So you think the time has come to crush me, eh?" said Emerson. "Well, you've been swindled. Only one-third of the capital stock has been sold, and Alton Clyde holds thirty-five thousand shares of that."