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“In a general way, I should endeavour to earn a few more dollars by pulling out fir-stumps for somebody or clearing land.”
Wisbech nodded. “No doubt they’re useful occupations, but one would scarcely fancy them likely to prove very remunerative,” he said. “You have, it seems to me, reached an age when you have to choose. Are you content to go on as you are doing now?”
Nasmyth’s face flushed as he saw the smile in Gordon’s eyes, for it was evident that Wisbech and Laura Waynefleet held much the same views concerning him. They appeared to fancy that he required a lot of what might be termed judicious prodding. This was in one sense not exactly flattering, but he did not immediately mention his great project for drying out the valley. He would not hasten to remove a wrong impression concerning himself.
“Well,” resumed Wisbech, seeing he did not answer, “if you care to go back and take up your profession in England again, I think I can contrive to give you a fair start. You needn’t be diffident. I can afford it, and the thing is more or less my duty.”
Nasmyth sat silent. There was no doubt that the comfort and refinement of the old life appealed to one side of his nature, and there were respects in which his present surroundings jarred on him. It is also probable that, had the offer been made him before he had had a certain talk with Laura Waynefleet, he would have profited by it, but she had roused something that was latent in him, and at the same time endued him with a vague distrust of himself, the effect of which was largely beneficial. He had realized then his perilous propensity for what she had called drifting, and, after all, men of his kind are likely to drift fastest when everything is made pleasant for them. It was characteristic that he looked inquiringly at Gordon, who nodded.
“I think you ought to go, if it’s only for a year or two,”136said Gordon. “It’s the life you were born to. Give it another trial. You can come back to the Bush again if you find it fails.”
Nasmyth appeared to consider this, and the two men watched him intently, Wisbech with a curious expression in his shrewd eyes. Then, somewhat to their surprise, Nasmyth broke into a little harsh laugh.
“That there is a possibility of my failing seems sufficient,” he said. “Here I must fight. I am, as we say, up against it.” He turned to Wisbech. “Now if you will listen, I will tell you something.”
For the next few minutes he described his project for running the water out of the valley, and when he sat silent again there was satisfaction in Wisbech’s face.
“Well,” said Wisbech, “I am going to give you your opportunity. It’s a thing I insist upon, and, as it happens, I’m in a position to do it more or less effectually. I have letters to folks of some importance in Victoria––Government men among others––and you’ll go down there and live as you would have done in England just as long as appears advisable while you try to put the project through. It is quite evident that you will have to get one of the land exploitation concerns to back you, and no doubt a charter or concession of some kind will have to be obtained from the Crown authorities. The time you spend over the thing in Victoria should make it clear where your capacities lie––if it’s handling matters of this kind in the cities, or leading your workmen in the Bush. I purpose to take a share in your venture, and I’m offering you an opportunity of making sure which is the kind of life you’re most fitted for.”
“I guess you ought to go,” remarked Gordon quietly.
Nasmyth smiled. “That,” he agreed, “is my own opinion.”
“Then we’ll consider it as decided,” said Wisbech. “It seems to me I could spend a month or two in this137province very satisfactorily, and we’ll go down to Victoria together, as soon as you have carried out this timber-cutting contract.”
They talked of other matters, while now and then men from the railroad gang dropped in and made themselves pleasant to the stranger. It must be admitted that there are one or two kinds of wandering Englishmen, who would not have found them particularly friendly, but the little quiet man with the twinkling eyes was very much at home with them. He had been endued with the gift of comprehension, and rock-cutter and axeman opened their minds to him. In fact, he declared his full satisfaction with the entertainment afforded him before he lay down upon his bed of springy spruce twigs.
138CHAPTER XIVIN THE MOONLIGHT
There was a full moon in the clear blue heavens, and its silvery light streamed into the pillared veranda where Nasmyth sat, cigar in hand, on the seaward front of James Acton’s house, which stood about an hour’s ride from Victoria on the Dunsmer railroad. Like many other successful men in that country, Acton had begun life in a three-roomed shanty, and now, when, at the age of fifty, he was in possession of a comfortable competence, he would have been well content to retire to his native settlement in the wilderness. There was, however, the difficulty that the first suggestion of such a course would have been vetoed by his wife, who was an ambitious woman, younger than he, and, as a rule, at least, Acton submitted to her good-humouredly. That was why he retained his seat on several directorates, and had built Bonavista on the bluff above the Straits of Georgia, instead of the ranch-house in the Bush he still hankered for.
Bonavista had cost him much money, but Mrs. Acton had seen that it was wisely expended, and the long wooden house, with its colonnades of slender pillars, daintily sawn scroll-work, shingled roof, and wide verandas, justified her taste. Acton reserved one simply furnished room in it for himself, and made no objections when she filled the rest of it with miscellaneous guests. Wisbech had brought him a letter from a person of consequence, and he had offered the Englishman and his nephew the freedom of his house. He would not have done this to everybody, though they are a hospitable people in the West, but he had recognized in the unostentatious Wisbech one or139two of the characteristics that were somewhat marked in himself, and his wife, as it happened, extended her favour to Nasmyth as soon as she saw him. She had been quick to recognize something she found congenial in his voice and manner, though none of the points she noticed would in all probability have appealed to her husband. Acton leaned upon the veranda balustrade, with a particularly rank cigar in his hand, a gaunt, big-boned man in badly-fitting clothes. It was characteristic of him that he had not spoken to Nasmyth since he stepped out from one of the windows five minutes earlier.
“It’s kind of pretty,” he said, indicating the prospect with a little wave of his hand.
Nasmyth admitted that it was pretty indeed, and his concurrence was justified. Sombre pinewoods and rocky heights walled in the wooden dwelling, but in front of it the ground fell sharply away, and beyond the shadow of the tall crags a blaze of moonlight stretched eastwards athwart the sparkling sea.
“Well,” said Acton, “it’s ’most as good a place for a house as I could find anywhere the cars could take me into town, and that’s partly why we raised it here.”
Then he glanced down at the little white steamer lying in the inlet below. “That’s one of my own particular toys. You’re coming up the coast with us next week for the salmon-trolling?”
Nasmyth said that he did not know what his uncle’s intentions were, but he was almost afraid they had trespassed on their host’s kindness already. Acton laughed.
“We have folks here for a month quite often––folks that I can’t talk to and who don’t seem to think it worth while to talk to me. Now I can get along with your uncle; I can mostly tell that kind of man when I see him. You have got to let him stay some weeks yet. It would be in one way a kindness to me. What makes the thing easier is the fact that Mrs. Acton has taken to you, and140when she gets hold of anyone she likes, she doesn’t let him go.”
Nasmyth was content to stay, and he felt that it would be a kindness to his host. Acton appeared willing to fall in with the views of his wife, but Nasmyth fancied that he was now and then a little lonely in his own house.
“Both of you have done everything you could to make our stay pleasant,” Nasmyth declared.
“It was quite easy in your case,” and a twinkle crept into his host’s eyes. “Your uncle’s the same kind of a man as I am, and one can see you have been up against it since you came to this country. That’s one of the best things that can happen to any young man. I guess it’s not our fault we don’t like all the young men they send us out from the Old Country.” He glanced down at his cigar. “Well, I’ve pretty well smoked this thing out. It’s the kind of cigar I was raised on, but I’m not allowed to use that kind anywhere in my house.”
In another moment Acton swung round, and stepped back through an open window. He generally moved abruptly, and was now and then painfully direct in conversation, but Nasmyth had been long enough in that country to understand and to like him. He was a man with a grip of essential things, but it was evident that he could bear good-humouredly with the views of others.
Nasmyth sat still after Acton left him. There were other guests in the house, and the row of windows behind him blazed with light. One or two of the big casements were open, and music and odd bursts of laughter drifted out. Somebody, it seemed, was singing an amusing song, but the snatches of it that reached Nasmyth struck him as pointless and inane. He had been at Bonavista a week, but, after his simple, strenuous life in the Bush, he felt at times overwhelmed by the boisterous vivacity with which his new companions pursued their diversions. There are not many men without an occupation in the West, but Mrs. Acton knew where to lay her hands on141them, and her husband sometimes said that it was the folks who had nothing worth while to do who always made the greatest fuss. But Nasmyth found it pleasant to pick up again the threads of the life which he had almost come to the conclusion that he had done with altogether. It was comforting to feel that he could sleep as long as he liked, and then rise and dress himself in whole, dry garments, while there was also a certain satisfaction in sitting down to a daintily laid and well-spread table when he remembered how often he had dragged himself back to his tent almost too worn out to cook his evening meal. On the whole, he was glad that Acton had urged him to remain another week or two.
Then he became interested as a girl stepped out of one of the lighted windows some little distance away, and, without noticing him, leaned upon the veranda balustrade. The smile in her eyes, he fancied, suggested a certain satisfaction at the fact that what she had done had irritated somebody. Why it should do so he did not know, but it certainly conveyed that impression. In another minute a man appeared in the portico, and the manner in which he moved forward, after he had glanced along the veranda, was more suggestive still. The girl who leaned on the balustrade no doubt saw him, and she walked towards Nasmyth, whom, apparently, she had now seen for the first time. Nasmyth thought he understood the reason for this, and, though it was not exactly flattering to himself, he smiled as he rose and drew forward another chair. He believed most of Mrs. Acton’s guests were acquainted with the fact that he was an impecunious dam-builder.
The girl, who sat down in the chair he offered, smiled when he flung his half-smoked cigar away, and Nasmyth laughed as he saw the twinkle in her eyes, for he had stopped smoking with a half-conscious reluctance.
“It really was a pity, especially as I wouldn’t have minded in the least,” she observed.
Nasmyth glanced along the veranda, and saw that the142man, who had discovered that there was not another chair available, was standing still, evidently irresolute. Probably he recognized that it would be difficult to preserve a becoming ease of manner in attempting to force his company upon two persons who were not anxious for it, and were sitting down. Nasmyth looked at the girl and prepared to undertake the part that he supposed she desired him to play. She was attired in what he would have described as modified evening dress, and her arms and neck gleamed with an ivory whiteness in the moonlight. She was slight in form, and curiously dainty as well as pretty. Her hair was black, and she had eyes that matched it, for they were dark and soft, with curious lights in them, but, as she settled herself beside him in the pale moonlight it seemed to him that “dainty” did not describe her very well. She was rather elusively ethereal.
“I really don’t think you could expect me to make any admission of that kind about my cigar, Miss Hamilton,” he said. “Still, it would perhaps have been excusable. You see, I have just come out of the Bush.”
Violet Hamilton smiled. “You are not accustomed to throw anything away up there?”
“No,” answered Nasmyth, with an air of reflection; “I scarcely think we are. Certainly not when it’s a cigar of the kind Mr. Acton supplies his guests with.”
He imagined that his companion satisfied herself that the man she evidently desired to avoid had not gone away yet, before she turned to him again.
“Aren’t you risking Mrs. Acton’s displeasure in sitting out here alone?” she inquired. “You are probably aware that this is not what she expects from you?”
“I almost think the retort is obvious.” And Nasmyth wondered whether he had gone further than he intended, when he saw the momentary hardness in his companion’s eyes. It suggested that the last thing her hostess had expected her to do was to keep out of the way of the man143who had followed her on to the veranda. He accordingly endeavoured to divert her attention from that subject.
“Any way, I find all this rather bewildering now and then,” he said, and indicated the lights and laughter and music in the house behind him with a little movement of his hand. “This is a very different world from the one I have been accustomed to, and it takes some time to adapt oneself to changed conditions.”
He broke off as he saw the other man slowly turn away. He looked at the girl with a smile. “I can go on a little longer if it appears worth while.”
Violet Hamilton laughed. “Ah,” she said, “one should never put one’s suspicions into words like that. Besides, I almost think one of your observations was a little misleading. There are reasons for believing that you are quite familiar with the kind of life you were referring to.”
It was clear to Nasmyth that she had been observing him, but he did not realize that she was then watching him with keen, half-covert curiosity. He was certainly a well-favoured man, and though his conversation and demeanour did not differ greatly from those of other young men she was accustomed to; there was also something about him which she vaguely recognized as setting him apart from the rest. He was a little more quiet than most of them, and there were a certain steadiness in his eyes, and a faint hardness in the lines of his face, which roused her interest. He had been up against it, as they say in that country, which is a thing that usually leaves its mark upon a man. It endues him with control, and, above all, with comprehension.
“Oh,” he said, “a man not burdened with money is now and then forced to wander. He naturally picks up a few impressions here and there. I wonder if you find it chilly sitting here?”
The girl rose, with a little laugh. “That,” she said,144“was evidently meant to afford me an opportunity. I think I should like to go down to the Inlet.”
Nasmyth, who understood this as an invitation, went with her, and, five minutes later, they strolled out upon the crown of the bluff, down the side of which a little path wound precipitously. Nasmyth held his hand out at the head of it, and they went down together cautiously, until they stood on the smooth white shingle close by where the little steamer lay. The girl looked about her with a smile of appreciation.
A lane of dusky water, that heaved languidly upon the pebbles, ran inland past them under the dark rock’s side, and it was very still in the shadow of the climbing firs. On the further shore a flood of silvery radiance, against which the dark branches cut black as ebony, streamed down into the rift, and beyond the rocky gateway there was brilliant moonlight on the smooth heave of sea. The girl glanced at it longingly, and then, though she said nothing, her eyes rested on a little beautifully modelled cedar canoe that lay close by. In another moment Nasmyth had laid his hands on it, and she noticed how easily he ran it down the beach, as she had noticed how steady of foot he was when she held fast to his hand as they came down the bluff. With a curious little smile that she remembered afterwards, he glanced towards the shadowy rocks which shut in the entrance to the Inlet.
“Shall we go and see what there is out yonder beyond those gates?” he asked.
“Ah,” replied the girl, “what could there be? Aren’t you taking an unfair advantage in appealing to our curiosity?”
Nasmyth made a whimsical gesture as he answered her, for he saw that she could be fanciful, too. “Unsubstantial moonlight, glamour, mystery––perhaps other things as well,” he said. “If you are curious, why shouldn’t we go and see?”
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She made no demur, and helping her into the canoe, he thrust the light craft off, and, with a sturdy stroke of the paddle, drove it out into the Inlet. It was a thing he was used to, for he had painfully driven ruder craft of that kind up wildly-frothing rivers, and the girl noticed the powerful swing of his shoulders and the rhythmic splash of his paddle, though there were other things that had their effect on her––the languid lapping of the brine on shingle, and the gurgle round the canoe, that seemed to be sliding out towards the moonlight through a world of unsubstantial shadow. She admitted that the man interested her. He had a quick wit and a whimsical fancy that appealed to her, but he had also hard, workman’s hands, and he managed the canoe as she imagined one who had undertaken such things professionally would have done.
When the shimmering blaze of moonlight lay close in front of them, he let his paddle trail in the water for a moment or two, and, turning, glanced back at the house on the bluff. Its lower windows blinked patches of warm orange light against the dusky pines.
“That,” he said, “in one respect typifies all you are accustomed to. It stands for the things you know. Aren’t you a little afraid of leaving it behind you?”
“I think I suggested that you were accustomed to them, too!”
Nasmyth laughed. “Oh,” he said, “I was turned out of that world a long while ago. We are going to see a different one together.”
“The one you know?”
“Well,” returned the man reflectively, “I’m not quite sure that I do. It’s the one I live in, but that doesn’t go very far after all. Now and then I think one could live in the wilderness a lifetime without really knowing it. There’s an elusive something in or behind it that evades one––the mystery that hides in all grandeur and146beauty. Still, there’s a peril in it. Like the moonlight, it gets hold of you.”
The girl fancied that she understood him, but she wondered how far it was significant that they should slide out into the flood of radiance together when he once more drove the light craft ahead.
The smooth sea shimmered like molten silver about the canoe, and ran in sparkling drops from the dripping paddle. The bluff hung high above them, a tremendous shadowy wall, and the sweet scent of the firs came off from it with the little land breeze. They swung out over the smooth levels that heaved with a slow, rhythmic pulsation, and Nasmyth wondered whether he was wise when he glanced at his companion. She sat still, looking about her dreamily, very dainty––almost ethereal, he thought––in that silvery light, and it was so long since he had talked confidentially to a woman of her kind, attired as became her station. Laura Waynefleet’s hands, as he remembered, were hard and sometimes red, and the stamp of care was plain on her; but it was very different with Violet Hamilton. She was wholly a product of luxury and refinement, and the mere artistic beauty of her attire, which seemed a part of her, appealed to his imagination.
He did not remember how she set him talking, but he told her whimsical, and now and then grim, stories of his life in the shadowy Bush, and she listened with quick comprehension. She seemed to endow him with that quality, too, since, as he talked, he began to realize, as he had never quite comprehended before, the something that lay behind the tense struggle of man with Nature and all the strenuous endeavour. Perhaps he expressed it in a degree, for now and then the girl’s eyes kindled as he told of some heroic grapple with giant rock and roaring river, gnawing hunger, and loneliness, and the beaten man’s despair. He found her attention147gratifying. It was certainly pleasant, though he had not consciously adopted the pose, to figure in the eyes of such a girl as one who had known most of the hardships that man can bear and played his part in the great epic struggle for the subjugation of the wilderness. As it happened, she did not know that those who bear the brunt of that grim strife are for the most part dumb. Their share is confined to swinging the axe and gripping the jarring drill.
It was an hour after they left the Inlet when the land breeze came down a little fresher, and swinging the canoe round, he drove it back over a glittering sea that commenced to splash about the polished side of the light craft. Then both of them ceased talking until, as they approached the shadowy rift in the rock, the girl looked back with a laugh.
“It is almost a pity to leave all that behind,” she said softly.
Nasmyth nodded as he glanced up at the lighted windows of the house. “In one sense it is. Still, it’s rather curious that I think I never appreciated it quite so much before.” He let his paddle trail as he wondered whether he had gone too far. “I suppose you are going up the coast with Mrs. Acton in the steamer?” he inquired.
“Yes,” answered Violet Hamilton, with an air of reflection; “I was not quite sure whether I would or not, but now I almost think I will.”
Nasmyth was sensible of a little thrill of satisfaction, for he knew it was understood at Bonavista that he was going too. He decided that he could certainly go. He dipped his paddle strongly, and laughed as they slid forward into the shadow.
“Now,” he said, “you are safely back in your own realm again.”
“You called it a world a little while ago,” said the girl.
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“I did,” replied Nasmyth. “Still, I almost think the word I substituted is justifiable.”
Violet Hamilton said nothing as they climbed the bluff, but she wondered how far the change he had made was significant. All the men at Bonavista were her subjects, but until that night, at least, Nasmyth had in that sense stood apart from them, and it is always more or less gratifying to extend one’s sovereignty.
149CHAPTER XVMARTIAL’S MISADVENTURE
There was not a breath of wind, and the night was soft and warm, when Nasmyth lay stretched upon theTillicum’sdeck, with his shoulder against the saloon skylights and a pipe in his hand. The little steamer lay with her anchor down under a long forest-shadowed point, behind which a half-moon hung close above the great black pines. Some distance astern of her, a schooner lay waiting for a wind with the loose folds of her big mainsail flapping black athwart the silvery light, and her blinking anchor-light flung a faint track of brightness across the sliding tide. There was only the soft lap of the water along the steamer’s side and the splash of the little swell upon the beach to break the stillness, for the sea was smooth as oil.
TheTillicumwould not have compared favourably with an English steam-yacht. She had been built for the useful purpose of towing saw-logs, and was sold cheap when, as the mill she kept supplied grew larger, she proved too small for it. Acton, however, was by no means a fastidious person, and when he had fitted her with a little saloon, and made a few primitive alterations below, he said she was quite good enough for him. For that matter, anyone fond of it might navigate the land-locked waters of Puget Sound and the Straits of Georgia in an open whaleboat with satisfaction in summer-time. There are islands everywhere, wonderful rock-walled inlets that one can sail into, beaches to which the primeval forest comes rolling down, and always above the blue waters tower tremendous ramparts of never-melting snow.
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On the evening in question, Acton was not on board. He had taken his wife and guests ashore that morning for an excursion to a certain river where there was excellent trout-fishing, and, as a hotel had lately been built for the convenience of sportsmen visitors, it was uncertain whether they would return that night. Nasmyth had not made one of the party because there was scarcely room for everybody in the gig, and six miles, which was the distance to the river mouth, was rather far to row in the dinghy. Another guest called Martial also had been left behind, and afterwards had been rowed ashore to visit a ranching property somewhere in the neighbourhood. He was the man who had followed Miss Hamilton out on to the veranda one night, and Nasmyth, who did not like him, understood that he was connected with a big land exploitation agency.
Nasmyth felt more or less contented with everything, as he lay upon theTillicum’sdeck listening to the faint murmur of the swell upon the boulder beach. He had made certain propositions to the Crown lands authorities, which he believed they would look into, and while he waited he found the customs and luxuries of civilization pleasant. He found the society of Violet Hamilton more pleasant still, and the demeanour of the man, Martial, was almost the only thing that ruffled him. Martial had constituted himself Miss Hamilton’s special attendant, and though Nasmyth fancied Mrs. Acton connived at this, it was by no means as evident that the girl was pleased with it. Indeed, he surmised that she liked the man as little as he did. Martial was brusque in mariner, and, though that is not usually resented in British Columbia, he now and then went even further than is considered permissible in that country, and he had gained the sincere dislike of the red-haired George, who acted as theTillicum’sdeck-hand, cook, and skipper.
George sat upon the skylights sucking at his pipe, and151it presently became evident that his thoughts and Nasmyth’s were very much alike. There was nobody else on board, for the man who fired and drove the engines was ashore.
“I guess you can catch trout?” the skipper remarked.
“Oh yes,” answered Nasmyth indifferently. “As a matter of fact, I’ve had to, when there was very little else to eat.”
George, who was big and lank, and truculent in appearance, nodded.
“Juss so!” he rejoined. “You’ve been up against it in the Bush. Anybody could figure on that by the look of you and the way you use your hands. A city man takes holds of things as if they were going to hurt him. That’s kind of why I froze on to you.”
Nasmyth took this as a compliment, and smiled his acknowledgment, for George was a privileged person, and most of his recent companions held democratic views. He, however, said nothing, and George went on again.
“Mrs. Acton’s a mighty smart woman, but she plays some fool tricks,” he commented. “Where’s the blame use in taking a boatload of folks after trout when none of them but the boss knows how to fish?” Then he chuckled. “You’d have gone with the rest this morning if she wanted you to. Guess the gig would have carried another one quite nicely.”
Nasmyth fancied that this was possible, though he naturally would not admit it to his companion. The fact that his hostess had somewhat cleverly contrived to leave him behind had its significance, since it seemed to indicate that she recognized that Miss Hamilton regarded him with a certain amount of favour.
“Well,” said George reflectively, “the boss is quite smart, too! Mrs. Acton crowded you out of the gig. The boss says nothing, but he knocks off that blame Martial. That makes the thing even, and, unless he152does it, none of them gets any fish. Now, it kind of seems to me that for a girl like Miss Hamilton to look at a man like Martial is a throwing of herself away. I guess it strikes you like that, too?”
This was rather too pointed a question for Nasmyth to answer, but, so far as it went, he could readily have agreed with the skipper. As a matter of fact it suggested the query why he should object to Miss Hamilton throwing herself away.
“Well,” he observed, “I’m not quite sure that it’s any concern of mine.”
George’s grin was expressive of good-natured toleration. “Oh!” he replied, “I guess that’s plain enough for me. You’re not going to talk about the boss’s friends. Still, one man’s as good as another in this country, and, if I wasn’t way better than Martial, I’d drown myself. That’s the kind of pernicious insect a decent man has no use for. What’s he come on board for with three bags ram full of clothes, when many a better man humps his outfit up and down the Bush in an old blanket same as you have done? It’s a sure thing that no man with a conscience wants to get into the land agency business. It’s an institution for selling greensuckers ranching land that’s rock and gravel and virgin forest. Besides, I heard the blame insect telling Miss Hamilton that nobody not raised in the hog-pen could drink my coffee.”
It seemed to Nasmyth that there was a little reason in the skipper’s observations, though he thought that Martial’s strictures upon the coffee accounted for most of them.
“I guess it might have been wiser if Martial had kept on good terms with the skipper,” he laughingly rejoined.
George chuckled softly. “Well,” he declared, “when anyone up and says my coffee’s only fit for the hog-pen, I’m going to get even with him. I kind of feel I have to. It’s up to me.”
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He said nothing further for some little time, and Nasmyth, who fancied that he would sooner or later carry out his amiable intentions, lay prone upon the deck smoking placidly. Nasmyth was one who adapted himself to his environment with readiness, and on board theTillicumthe environment was particularly comfortable. Through Acton’s hospitality, he was brought into contact with the luxuries of civilization without the galling restraints. Miss Hamilton had been gracious to him of late. That was a cause for satisfaction in itself. The days when he swung the heavy axe, or, drenched with icy water, stood gripping the drill had slipped far away behind him. For the time, at least, he could bask in the sunshine with ears stopped against the shrill trumpet-call to action that he had heard in the crash of rent trees and the turmoil of the wild flood.
A faint cry came from the shore out of the stillness of the woods, and George listened carefully.
“That can’t be the boss. Guess he’s stopping at the hotel,” he said. “It’s quite likely it’s that blame insect Martial coming back. Those ranchers he has been trying to freeze off their holding have no use for him.”
The cry rose again, a trifle louder, and George nodded complacently.
“Oh, yes,” he exulted, “it’s Martial sure! We’ll let him howl. Any way, he can walk down the beach until he’s abreast of us. When anybody expects me to hear him, he has got to come within half a mile.”
It seemed to Nasmyth that Martial would not have a pleasant walk in the dark, for most of the beach lay in the black shadow of the pines, and beneath highwater mark was covered with the roughest kind of boulders. Above the tide-line, a ragged mass of driftwood interspersed with undergrowth separated the water from the tangled Bush. Both George and Nasmyth were aware that one could readily tear one’s clothes to pieces in an154attempt to struggle through such a labyrinth. Judging by the shouts he uttered at intervals, Martial appeared to be floundering along the beach, and presently Nasmyth laughed.
“He appears to be getting angry,” he said. “After all, it’s only natural that he doesn’t want to sleep in the woods all night.”
George filled his pipe, apparently with quiet satisfaction, but, some time later, he stood up suddenly with an exclamation.
“The blame contrary insect means swimming off,” he announced.
Nasmyth, glancing shorewards, saw a dim white object crawling on all-fours towards the water where the moonlight streamed down upon a jutting point, and it was then that the idea which had results that neither of them anticipated first dawned on the skipper, who broke into a hoarse chuckle.
“I guess he wouldn’t want Miss Hamilton to see him like that,” he said. “Some folks look considerably smarter with their clothes on.”
“How’s she going to see him when she isn’t here?”
George grinned again. “Her dresses are, so’s her hat and her little mandolin. If you were pulled in tight you’d have quite a figure.”
It was clear to Nasmyth that the scheme was workable, though he was quite aware that the thing he was expected to do was a trifle discreditable. Still, he had lived for some time in the Bush, where his comrades’ jests were not particularly delicate, and Martial once or twice had been aggressively unpleasant to him. What was more to the purpose, he felt reasonably sure that Miss Hamilton would be by no means sorry to be free of Martial, and it was probable that their victim would never relate his discomfiture, if their scheme succeeded.
As the result of these reflections he went down with155George to the little saloon. The skipper, who left him there a few minutes, came hack with an armful of feminine apparel. They had no great difficulty in tying on the big hat with the veil, but when Nasmyth had stripped his jacket off there was some trouble over the next proceeding. Indeed, Derrick did not feel quite comfortable about appropriating Miss Hamilton’s garments, but he had committed himself, and it was quite clear that his companion would not appreciate his reasons for drawing back.
“Hold your breath while I get this blame hook in,” said the skipper.
Nasmyth did so; but he could not continue to hold it indefinitely, and in a few moments there was a suggestive crack, and George desisted in evident dismay.
“Come adrift from the stiffening quite a strip of it,” he said. “Well, I guess I can somehow fix the thing up so as nobody will notice it. It should be easier than putting a new cloth in a topsail, and I’ve a mending outfit in the locker.”
Nasmyth was by no means sure of George’s ability to make the damage good, but he permitted the skipper to tie on the loose skirt, and then to hang the beribboned mandolin round his neck. When this was done George surveyed him with a grin of satisfaction.
“Well,” said George, “I guess you’ll do. Now you’ll keep behind the skylights, and only get up and bang that mandolin when Martial wants to come on board. Guess when he sees you he’ll feel ’most like jumping right out of his skin. Miss Hamilton’s not going to mind. I’ve seen her looking at him as if she’d like to stick a big hatpin into him.”
They went up, and Nasmyth, who felt guilty as he crouched in the shadow, could see a black head and the flash of a white arm that swung out into the moonlight and disappeared again. Martial was swimming pluckily, and the tide was with him, for his head grew larger every156minute, and presently the gleam of his skin became visible through the pale shining of the brine. His face dipped as his left arm came out at every stroke, and the water frothed as his feet swung together like a flail. He paddled easily while the tide swept him on until he reached theTillicum. Then his voice rose, breathless and cautious.
“Anchor watch,” he called. “Anybody else on board?”
George, who kept out of sight, did not answer. Martial called again.
“Don’t let anybody out of the companion while I get up,” he commanded.
TheTillicumhad a high sheer forward, and he could not reach her rail, but as the tide swept him along he raised himself to clutch at it where it was lower abreast of the skylights.
“Now,” said George softly, “you can play the band.”
Nasmyth rose and swept his knife-haft across the strings of the mandolin. For a moment he saw something like horror in Martial’s wet face, and then the man, who gasped, went down headforemost into the water. Martial was nearly a dozen yards astern when his head came out again, and he slid away with the tide, with his white arm swinging furiously. George sat down upon the deck, and expressed his satisfaction by drumming his feet upon the planking while he laughed.
“He’s off,” he said. “Might have a high-power engine inside of him. Guess he’s going to scare those schooner men ’most out of their lives. It’s quite likely they won’t keep anchor watch when they’re lying snug in a place of this kind.”
Nasmyth managed to control his laughter, and went down to divest himself of his draperies. When he came up again, George reported that he had just seen Martial crawling up the schooner’s cable, and in another few moments157what appeared to be a howl of terror rose from the vessel. It was not repeated, and shortly afterwards Nasmyth went to sleep.
Martial remained on board the schooner that night, and Nasmyth was not surprised when he failed to appear next morning. Acton had come back with his party when a man dropped into the boat astern of the schooner, and pulled towards theTillicumleisurely. Everybody was on deck when he slid alongside, and, standing up in his boat, laid hold of the rail.
“I’ve a message for Mr. Acton,” he said, holding up a strip of paper.
Acton, who took the paper from him, was a trifle perplexed when he glanced at it.
“It seems that Martial didn’t stay at that ranch last night as I thought he had done,” he remarked.
Mrs. Acton, who sat next to Miss Hamilton, looked up sharply. She was a tall woman with an authoritative manner.
“Where is he?” she inquired.
“Gone back to Victoria,” said her husband, who handed her the note. “It’s kind of sudden, and he doesn’t worry about saying why he went. There’s a little remark at the bottom that I don’t quite like.”
George naturally had been listening, and Nasmyth saw his subdued grin, but he saw also Mrs. Acton’s quick glance at Miss Hamilton, which seemed to suggest that she surmised the girl could explain why Martial had departed so unceremoniously. There was, however, only astonishment, and, Nasmyth fancied, a trace of relief in Violet Hamilton’s face. Mrs. Acton turned to her husband with a flush of resentment in her eyes.
“I should scarcely have believed Mr. Martial would ever write such a note,” she said. “What does he mean when he says that he does not appreciate being left to sleep in the woods all night?”
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“That,” answered Acton, “is what I don’t quite understand. If he’d hailed anchor watch loud enough, George would have gone off for him. Still, we’re lying quite a way out from the beach.”
Then he remembered the man from the schooner, who still gripped the rail.
“How did you come to get this note?” he asked.
“The man who came off last night gave it to the skipper,” said the schooner’s deck-hand with a very suggestive grin.
“How’d he come off?” Acton asked. “Did you go ashore for him?”
“We didn’t!” said the man. “He must have swum off and crawled up the cable. Any way, when he struck the skipper he hadn’t any clothes on him.”
There was a little murmur of astonishment, and Mrs. Acton straightened herself suddenly, while Nasmyth saw a gleam of amusement creep into Acton’s eyes. The schooner man evidently felt that he had an interested audience, for he leaned upon the rail as he began to tell all he knew about the incident.
“I was asleep forward, when the skipper howled as if he was most scared out of his life,” he said. “I got up out of the scuttle just as quick as I could, and there he was crawling round behind the stern-house with an axe in his hand, and the mate flat up against the rail.
“‘Shut that slide quick,’ says the skipper. ‘Shut it. He’s crawling up the ladder.’
“‘I guess you can shut it yourself if you want it shut.’ He asked for whisky. ‘Tell him where it is,’ says the mate.”
There was no doubt that the listeners were interested, and the man made an impressive gesture. “It was kind of scaring. There was a soft flippety-flop going on in the stern-house, and I slipped out a handspike. Then the skipper sees me.
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“‘There’s a drowned man crawling round the cabin with water running off him,’ he says.
“Then a head came out of the scuttle and a wet arm, and a voice that didn’t sound quite like a drowned man’s says, ‘Oh you–––’”
Acton raised his arm restrainingly, and the narrator made a sign of comprehension.
“He called us fools,” the man explained, “and for ’most a minute the skipper was going to take the axe to him. Then he hove it at the mate for being scared instead, and they all went down together, and I heard them light the stove. After that I went back and dropped off to sleep, and the skipper sent me off at sun-up to fetch the stranger’s clothes. We set him ashore as soon as he’d got some breakfast into him.”
The man rowed away in another minute or two, and, as he had evidently told his story with a relish, Nasmyth wondered whether Martial had contrived to offend him by endeavouring to purchase his silence. There are, of course, men one can offer a dollar to on that coast, but such an act requires a certain amount of circumspection.
Acton’s eyes twinkled, and the men who were his guests looked at one another meaningly.
“Well,” answered one of them, “I guess there is an explanation, though I didn’t think Martial was that kind of man.”
Nasmyth said nothing, but he saw Mrs. Acton’s face flush with anger and disdain, and surmised that it was most unlikely that she would forgive the unfortunate Martial. The women in the party evidently felt that it would not be advisable to say anything further about the matter, and when George broke out the anchor theTillicumsteamed away.
It was after supper that night, and there was nobody except the helmsman on deck, when Miss Hamilton approached the forward scuttle where Nasmyth sat with his160pipe in his hand. Nasmyth rose and spread out an old sail for her, and she sat down a little apart from him. TheTillicumwas steaming northwards at a leisurely six knots, with her mastheads swaying rhythmically through the soft darkness, and a deep-toned gurgling at her bows. By-and-by Nasmyth became conscious that Miss Hamilton was looking at him, and, on the whole, he was glad that it was too dark for her to see him very well.
“I wonder if you were very much astonished at what you heard about Mr. Martial?” she asked.
“Well,” said Nasmyth reflectively, “in one way at least, I certainly was. You see, I did not think Martial was, as our friend observed, that kind of man. In fact, I may admit that I feel reasonably sure of it still.”
“I suppose you felt you owed him that?”
“I didn’t want to leave you under a misapprehension.”
There was silence for half a minute, and then Nasmyth turned towards the girl again.
“You are still a little curious about the affair?” he suggested.
“I am. I may mention that I found a certain dress of mine, which I do not remember tearing, had evidently been repaired by somebody quite unaccustomed to that kind of thing. Now there were, of course, only the skipper and yourself on board while we were away.”
Nasmyth felt his face grow hot. “Well,” he replied, “if it’s any consolation to you, I am quite prepared, in one respect at least, to vindicate Martial’s character. In any case, I think I shall have an interview with Mrs. Acton to-morrow.”
His heart beat a little faster, for the girl laughed.
“It really wouldn’t be any consolation at all to me,” she admitted.
“Ah,” said Nasmyth, “then, although you may have certain fancies, you are not dreadfully vexed with me?”