Thrice Armed Part 33

"Wheelock to Jordan. Friends of yours?" he said. "You would probably meet them at Austerly's."

"Yes," said Anthea, "I think I may say they are."

It was essentially characteristic of Merril that he showed no displeasure. He was indulgent to his daughter, and one who very seldom allowed himself to be led away by either personal liking or rancor. For a moment he stood still looking down at her with a dry smile, and, because no father and daughter can be wholly dissimilar, Anthea bore his scrutiny with perfect composure.

"Well," he said, "they're both men of some ability, with signs of grit in them, though I don't know that it would have troubled me if I had heard no more of the _Shasta_. Now I'm a little late, and it will be to-night before I'm back from the city."

He turned away, and once more Anthea became sensible of a faint repulsion for her father. Every word Eleanor Wheelock had uttered in Forster's ranch had impressed itself on her memory, and she knew now that his interests clashed with those of the _Shasta_ Company. It would not have astonished her if he had shown some sign of resentment, but this complete indifference appeared unnatural, and troubled her. He was, it seemed, as devoid of anger as he was, if Eleanor Wheelock and several others were to be believed, of pity. Then she felt that she must, to a certain extent, at least, confide in some one, and she set out to call on Nellie Austerly.

It happened that morning that Jimmy stood on the _Shasta_'s bridge as she steamed up the softly gleaming straits. Ahead a dingy smoke-cloud was moving on toward him, and he took his gla.s.ses from the box when the black shape of a steamer grew out of it. She rose rapidly higher, and Jimmy guessed that she was considerably larger than the _Shasta_ and steaming three or four knots faster. Then he made out that her deck was crowded with pa.s.sengers, and, though the beaver ensign floated over her stern, their destination was evident when he glanced at the flag at the fore. The only American soil north of them was Alaska.

She drew abreast, a beautiful vessel of old and almost obsolete model, with the clear green water frothing high beneath her outward curve of prow. There was no forecastle forward to break the sweeping line of rail, and the broad quarter-deck that overhung her slender stern had also its suggestiveness to a seaman's eye. The smoke-cloud at her funnel further hinted that her speed was purchased by a consumption of coal that would have been considered intolerable in a modern boat. Then the strip of bunting at her mainmast head fixed Jimmy's attention.

"Merril's hard on our trail," he said. "She's taking a big crowd of miners north. That's his flag."

Fleming, who stood beneath the bridge, looked up with a little nod. "I would not compliment him on his sense," he said. "A beautiful boat, but the man who runs her will want a coal-mine of his own. Got her cheap, I figure, but it's only at top-freights she could make a living. Guess Merril's s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g all he can out of those miners, but those rates won't last when the C.P.R. and the Americans cut in, and if I had a boat of that kind I'd put up a big insurance and then scuttle her."

Then one of the two or three bronzed prospectors who had come down with the _Shasta_ approached the bridge.

"Can't you let the boys who are going up know we've been there?" he said. "It might encourage them to see that somebody has come out alive."

Jimmy called to his quartermaster before he answered the man. "Well," he said, "in a general way the signal wouldn't quite mean that, but it's very likely they'll understand it."

Merril's boat was almost alongside, when the quartermaster broke out the stars and stripes at the _Shasta_'s masthead. A roar of voices greeted the snapping flag, and the heads grew thick as cedar twigs in the shadowy bush along the stranger's rail; while the men who stood higher aft upon her ample quarter-deck flung their hats and arms aloft. Jimmy could see them plainly, and their faces and garments proclaimed that most of them were from the cities. There were others whose skin was darkened and who wore older clothes; but these did not shout, for they were men who had been at close grips with savage nature already, and had some notion of what was before them. Jimmy blew his whistle and dipped the beaver flag, while a curious little thrill ran through him as the sonorous blast hurled his greeting across the clear green water. He knew what these men would have to face who were going up, the vanguard of a great army, to grapple with the wilderness, and it was clear that nature would prove too terrible for many of them who would never drag their bones out of it again.

Once more the voices answered him with a storm of hopeful cries, for the soft-handed men of the cities had also the courage of their breed. It was the careless, optimistic courage of the Pacific Slope, and store-clerk and hotel-lounger cheered the _Shasta_ gaily as, reckless of what was before them, they went by. When the time came to face screaming blizzard and awful cold they would, for the most part, do it willingly, and go on unflinching in spite of flood and frost until they dropped beside the trail. Jimmy, who realized this vaguely, felt the thrill again, and was glad that he had sped them on their way with a message of good-will; but there was no roar from their steamer's whistle, and the beaver flag blew out undipped at her stern. Then, as she drew away from him, his face hardened, and the engineer looked at him with a grin.

"Merril's skipper's like him, and that's 'most as mean as he could be,"

he said.

Jimmy glanced toward his masthead. "If there were many of his kind among my countrymen, I'd feel tempted to shift that flag aft, and keep it there," he said. "The boys from Puget Sound could cheer."

One of the prospectors who stood below broke into a little soft laugh.

"Oh, yes," he said, "it's in them, and all the snow up yonder won't melt it out. Still, it's your quiet bushmen and ours who'll do the getting there. Guess they could raise a smile for you--and they did; but when it comes to shouting, they haven't breath to spare."

He turned and looked after the steamer growing smaller to the northward amidst her smoke-cloud. "One in every twenty may bottom on paying gold, and you might figure on three or four more making grub and a few ounces on a hired man's share. The snow and the river will get the rest."

Then he strolled away, and when Jimmy looked around again there was only a smoke-trail on the water, for the steamer had sunk beneath the verge of the sea. His attention also was occupied by other things that concerned him more than the steamer, for another two or three hours would bring him to Vancouver Inlet, which he duly reached that afternoon, and found Jordan and a crowd through which the latter could scarcely struggle awaiting him on the wharf. Still, he got on board, and poured out tumultuous questions while he wrung Jimmy's hand, and it was twenty minutes at least before Jimmy had supplied him with the information he desired. Then he sat down and smiled.

"Well," he said, "we'll go into the other points to-morrow, and to-night you're coming to Austerly's with me. Got word from Miss Nellie that I was to bring you sure. She wanted me to send a team over for Eleanor."

"Then why didn't you?" asked Jimmy.

Jordan's manner became confidential. "Nellie Austerly contrived to mention that Miss Merril would be there too, and it seemed to me that Eleanor mightn't quite fit in. She has her notions, and when she gets her program fixed I just stand clear of her and let her go ahead. It's generally wiser. Anyway, I felt that I could afford to do the straight thing by you and Austerly."

"Thanks!" said Jimmy, with a dry smile. "Of course, there is nothing to be gained by pretending that Eleanor is fond of Miss Merril."

Jordan sighed. "Well, I guess other men's sisters have their little fancies now and then, and though she has scared me once or twice, Eleanor's probably not very different from the rest of them. I was a trifle played out--driven too hard and anxious--while you were away, and she was awfully good to me--gentle as an angel; but for all that, I feel one couldn't trust her alone with Miss Merril on a dark night if she had a sharp hatpin or anything of that kind. And as for Merril, I believe she wouldn't raise any objections if it were in our power to have him skinned alive. Now, I like a girl with grit in her."

"Still, Eleanor goes a little further than you care about at times?"

Jordan laid a hand on his companion's arm. "Jimmy," he said, "there's a thing you haven't mentioned to either of us--and I didn't expect you to--but I feel that by and by your sister is going to make trouble for you."

Jimmy looked at him steadily, and Jordan smiled. "You needn't trouble about making any disclaimer. I see how it is. Somehow you're going to get her. Merril's not likely to run us off. I guess there's no reason to worry about him. Still, I want you to understand that if I can't put a check on your sister--and that's quite likely--I'm going to stand by her. I just have to."

"Of course!" said Jimmy gravely. "n.o.body would expect anything else from you. I don't mind admitting that I have been a little anxious about what Eleanor might do--but we'll change the subject. You suggested that Merril was getting into trouble?"

"He is," said Jordan, with evident relief. "They're making the road to the pulp-mill, and I don't quite know where he raised his share of the money, especially as he has just taken over a big old-type steamer. Had to face a high figure, played out as she is. Ships are in demand. Now, there are men like Merril whose money isn't their own; that is, they can get it from other people to make a profit on, as a general thing. But these aren't ordinary times; any man with money can make good interest on it himself just now, and I've more than a fancy that Merril's handing out instead of raking in. He has been at the banks lately, and when there's a demand for money everywhere you can figure what they're going to charge him. Anyway, we won't worry about him in the meanwhile. Get on your sh.o.r.e-clothes. As soon as you're ready you're coming up-town with me."

CHAPTER XXV

AN UNDERSTANDING

Jimmy went to Austerly's, and during the evening related his adventures in the north to a sympathetic audience. His companions insisted on this, and though there was one fact he would rather not have mentioned he complied good-humoredly with their request. The narrative was essentially matter-of-fact, but he had sufficient sense to avoid any affectation of undue diffidence, and the others appeared to find it interesting. Indeed, Nellie Austerly, at least, noticed the faint sparkle which now and then crept into Anthea's eyes as he told them how, in order to keep his promise to the miners that there should be no delay, he had come out of a snug anchorage and groped his way northward through a bewildering smother of unlifting fog. He also told them simply, but, though he was not aware of the latter fact, with a certain dramatic force, how, straining every nerve and muscle in tense suspense, they hove the steamer off just before the gale broke, and of the strenuous labor cutting wood for fuel on the southward voyage.

When he stopped, Nellie Austerly looked up with a little nod. "Yes," she said, "you took those miners in as you had promised, in spite of the fog, and you brought the _Shasta_ down all that way with only a few tons of coal. Still, I don't think you should expect any particular commendation. There are men who can't help doing things of that kind."

Jimmy laughed, though his face grew slightly flushed. "I'm afraid I also put her ash.o.r.e. One can't get over that." Then he looked at Jordan. "In fact, I scarcely think I'm out of the wood yet. There will be an inquiry."

"Purely formal," said his comrade. "They'll have a special whitewash brush made for you. Nautical a.s.sessors have some conscience, after all.

Besides, it depends largely on the facts you supply them whether they consider it worth while to have one."

Austerly had a few questions to ask, and then the conversation drifted away to other topics, until some little time later Jimmy found himself sitting alone beside Nellie Austerly. She lay wrapped in fleecy shawls in a big chair near the foot of the veranda stairway, looking very frail, but she smiled at him benevolently.

"I am glad they have gone," she said. "You see, I wanted to talk to you, but the dew is commencing to settle and I must go in soon. That is insisted on, though I don't think it matters."

She smiled again. "It is a beautiful world, Jimmy, isn't it?"

Jimmy drew in his breath as he glanced about him, for he guessed part of what she was thinking, and it hurt him. He could see the dark pines towering against the wondrous green transparency which follows hard upon the sunset splendors in that country. The Inlet shone in the gaps amid that stately colonnade, and far off beyond it there was a faint ethereal gleam of snow. To him, filled as he was with the clean vigor of the sea, it seemed too beautiful a world to leave.

"Still," said his companion, "it has had very little to offer me, and perhaps that is why I feel one should never stand by and let any good thing it holds out go; that is, of course, when one has the strength to grasp it. It usually needs some courage, too."

"I'm afraid it does;" and Jimmy looked down at her gravely, for since this was not quite the first time she had suggested the same thing he commenced to understand where she was leading him. "One might, perhaps, manage to muster enough if one could only be sure----"

He stopped somewhat awkwardly, and the girl laughed. "One very seldom can. You have to reach out boldly and clutch before the opportunity has gone."

"In the dark?"

"Of course! One can't always expect to see one's way. You were not afraid of the fog, Jimmy?"

"I was. It got hold of my nerves and shook all the stiffening out of me.

In fact, in the sense you mean, I'm afraid of it still."

He checked himself for a moment, and his face was furrowed when he turned to her again. "You understand, of course. The clogging smother of uncertainty now and then gets intolerable when a man wants to do the right thing. He can't see where he is going. There is nothing to steer by."