Vane had been back in Vancouver a fortnight when he sat one evening on the verandah of Nairn’s house in company with his host and Carroll, lazily looking down upon the inlet.
Nairn referred to one of the papers in his hand.
“Horsfield has been bringing up that smelter project again, and there’s something to be said in favour of his views,” he remarked. “We’re paying a good deal for reduction.”
“We couldn’t keep a smelter going at present,” Vane objected.
“There are two or three low-grade mineral properties in the neighbourhood of the Clermont that have only had a little development work done on them,” Nairn pointed out. “They can’t pay freight on their raw product; but I’m thinking we’d encourage their owners to open up the mines, and get their business, if we had a smelter handy.”
“It wouldn’t amount to much,” Vane replied. “Besides, there’s another objection—we haven’t the dollars to put up a thoroughly efficient plant.”
“Horsfield’s ready to find part of them and do the work.”
“I know he is,” said Vane. “He’s suspiciously eager. The arrangement would give him a pretty strong hold upon the company; there are ways in which he could squeeze us.”
“It’s possible. But, looking at it as a personal matter, there are inducements he could offer ye. Horsfield’s a man who has the handling of other folks’ dollars, as weel as a good many of his own. It might be wise to stand in with him.”
“So he hinted,” Vane answered shortly.
“Your argument was about the worst you could have used, Mr. Nairn,” Carroll broke in, laughing.
“Weel,” said Nairn, good-humouredly, “I’m no urging it. I would not see your partner make enemies for the want of a warning.”
“He’d probably do so, in any case; it’s a gift of his,” said Carroll. “On the other hand, it’s fortunate he has a way of making friends: the two things sometimes go together.”
Vane turned to Nairn with signs of impatience. “It might save trouble if I state that while I’m a director of the Clermont I expect to be content with a fair profit on my stock in the company.”
“He’s modest,” Carroll commented. “What he means is that he doesn’t propose to augment that profit by taking advantage of his position.”
“It’s a creditable idea, though I’m no sure it’s as common as might be desired. While I have to thank ye for it, I would not consider the explanation altogether necessary,” said Nairn, whose eyes twinkled. Then he addressed Vane: “Now we come to another point—the company’s a small one, the mine is doing satisfactorily, and the moment’s favourable for the floating of mineral properties. If we got an option on the half-developed claims near the Clermont and went into the market, it’s likely that an issue of new stock would meet with investors’ favour.”
“I suppose so,” said Vane. “I’ll support such a scheme, when I can see how an increased capital could be used to advantage and I am convinced about the need for a smelter. At present, that’s not the case.”
“I mentioned it as a duty—ye’ll hear more of it; for the rest, I’m inclined to agree with ye,” Nairn replied.
A few minutes later he went into the house with Carroll, and as they entered it he glanced at his companion. “In the present instance, Mr. Vane’s views are sound,” he said. “But I see difficulties before him.”
“So do I. When he grapples with him it will be by a frontal attack.”
“A bit of compromise is judicious now and then.”
“In a general way it’s not likely to appeal to my partner. When he can’t get through by direct means, there’ll be something wrecked. You had better understand what kind of man he is.”
“It’s no the first time I’ve been enlightened upon the point.”
Shortly after they had disappeared, Miss Horsfield came out of another door, and Vane rose when she approached him.
“Mrs. Nairn told me I would find you and the others in the verandah,” she informed him. “She said she would join you presently, and it was too fine to stay in.”
“I think she was right,” Vane replied. “As you see, I’m alone. Nairn and Carroll have just deserted me, but I can’t complain. What pleases me most about this house is that you can do what you like in it, and—within limits—the same thing applies to this city.”
Jessie laughed, and sank gracefully into the chair he drew forward.
“Yes,” she said. “I think that would please you. But how long have you been back?”
“A fortnight, since yesterday.”
There was a hint of reproach in the glance Jessie favoured him with. “Then I think Mrs. Nairn might have brought you over to see us.”
Vane wondered if she meant she was surprised he had not come of his own accord, and he was mildly flattered.
“I was away at the mine a good deal of the time,” he replied deprecatingly.
“I wonder if you are sorry to get back?”
Turning a little, Vane indicated the climbing city, rising tier on tier above its water front; and then the broad expanse of blue inlet and the faint white line of towering snow.
“Wouldn’t anything I could say in praise of Vancouver be trifle superfluous?” he asked.
Jessie recognised that he had parried her question neatly, but this did not deter her. She was anxious to learn if he had felt any regret in leaving England, or, to be more concise, if there was anybody in that country whom he had reluctantly parted from. She admitted that the man attracted her. There was a breezy freshness about him, and though she was acquainted with a number of young men whose conversation was characterised by snap and sparkle, they needed toning down. This miner was set apart from them by something which he had doubtless acquired in youth in the older land.
“That wasn’t quite what I meant,” she said. “We don’t always want to be flattered, and I’m in search of information. You told me you had been nine years in this country, and life must be rather different yonder. How did it strike you after the absence?”
“It’s difficult to explain,” Vane replied with an air of amused reflection which hinted that he meant to get away from the point. “On the whole, I think I’m more interested in the question how I struck them. It’s curious that whereas some folks insist upon considering me English here, I’ve a suspicion that they looked upon me as a typical colonial there.”
“One wouldn’t like to think you resented it.”
“How could I? This land sheltered me when I was an outcast, and set me on my feet.”
“Ah!” said Jessie, “you are the kind we don’t mind taking in. The rest go back and abuse us. But you haven’t given me very much information yet.”
“Then,” said Vane, “the best comparison is supplied by my first remark—that in this city you can do what you like. You’re rather fenced in yonder, which, if you’re of a placid disposition, is, no doubt, comforting, because it shuts out unpleasant things. On the other hand, if you happen to be restless and active, the fences are inconvenient, because you can’t always climb over, and it is not considered proper to break them down. Still, having admitted that, I’m proud of the old land. It’s only the fences that irritate me.”
“Fences would naturally be obnoxious to you. But we have some here.”
“They’re generally built loose, of split-rails, and not nailed. An energetic man can pull off a bar or two and stride over. If it’s necessary, he can afterwards put them up again, and there’s no harm done.”
“Would you do the latter?”
Vane’s expression changed. “No,” he said. “I think if there were anything good on the other side, I’d widen the gap so that the less agile and the needy could crawl through.” He smiled at her. “You see, I owe some of them a good deal. They were the only friends I had when I first tramped, jaded and footsore, about the province.”
Jessie was pleased with his answer. She had heard of the bush choppers’ free hospitality, and she thought it was a graceful thing that he should acknowledge his debt to them.
“Now at last you’ll be content to rest a while,” she suggested. “I dare say you deserve it.”
“It’s strange you should say that, because just before you came out of the house I was thinking that I’d sat still long enough,” Vane answered with a laugh. “It’s a thing that gets monotonous. One must keep going on.”
“Then,” said Jessie, “take care you don’t walk over a precipice some day when you have left all the fences behind. But I’ve kept you from your meditations, and I had better see if Mrs. Nairn is coming.”
She left him, and he was lighting a cigar when he noticed a girl whose appearance seemed familiar in the road below. Moving along the verandah, he recognised her as Kitty, and hastily crossed the lawn towards her. She was accompanied by a young man whom Vane had once seen in the city, but she greeted him with evident pleasure.
“Tom,” she said, when they had exchanged a few words, “this is Mr. Vane,” Then turning to Vane she added: “Mr. Drayton.”
Vane, who liked the man’s face and manner, shook hands with him, and then looked back at Kitty.
“What are you doing now, and how are little Elsie and her mother?” he inquired.
Kitty’s face clouded. “Mrs. Marvin’s dead. Elsie’s with some friends at Spokane, and I think she’s well looked after. I’ve given up the stage. Tom”—she explained shyly—“didn’t like it. Now I’m with some people at a ranch near the Fraser on the Westminster road. There are two or three children and I’m fond of them.”
Drayton smiled. “She won’t be there long. I’ve wanted to meet you for some time, Mr. Vane. They told me at the office that you were away.”
“Ah!” said Vane, “I suppose my congratulations won’t be out of place. Won’t you ask me to the wedding?”
Kitty blushed. “Will you come?”
“Try,” said Vane, and Drayton broke in:
“There’s nobody we would sooner see. I’m heavily in your debt, Mr. Vane.”
“Oh, pshaw!” rejoined Vane. “Come and see me any time: to-morrow, if you can manage it.”
Drayton said he would do so, and shortly afterwards he and Kitty moved away, but Vane, who turned back across the lawn, was not aware that Jessie had watched the meeting from the verandah and had recognised Kitty, whom she had once seen at the station. She had already ascertained that the girl had arrived at Vancouver in his company, which, in view of the opinion she had formed about him, somewhat puzzled her; but she said one must endeavour to be charitable. Besides, having closely watched the little group, she was inclined to believe from the way Vane shook hands with the man that there was no danger to be apprehended from Kitty.
Vane was sitting alone in the room set apart for the Clermont Company in Nairn’s office, when Drayton was shown in. He took the chair Vane pointed to and lighted a cigar the latter gave him.
“Now,” he began with some diffidence, “you cut me off short when I met you the other day, and one of my reasons for coming over was to get through with what I was saying then. It’s just this—I owe you a good deal for taking care of Kitty; she’s very grateful, and thinks no end of you, I want to say I’ll always feel you have a claim on me.”
Vane smiled at him. It was evident that Kitty had taken her lover into her confidence with regard to her trip on board the sloop, and, that she had done so said a good deal for her.
“It didn’t cost me any trouble,” Vane replied. “We were coming down to Vancouver, anyway.”
Drayton’s embarrassment became more obvious. “It cost you some dollars; there were the tickets. Now I feel I have to—-”
Vane stopped him. “When you are married to Miss Blake you can pay me back, if it will be a relief to you. When’s the wedding to be?”
“In a couple of months,” said Drayton, who saw it would be useless to protest. “I’m a clerk in the Winstanley mills, and, as one of the staff is going, I’ll get a move up then. We are to be married as soon as I do.”
He said a little more on the same subject, and then, after a few moments’ silence added: “I wonder if the Clermont business keeps your hands full, Mr. Vane.”
“It doesn’t. It’s a fact I’m beginning to regret.”
Drayton appeared to consider. “Well,” he said, “folks seem to regard you as a rising man with snap in him, and there’s a matter I might, perhaps, bring before you. Let me explain. I’ve taken an interest, outside my routine work in the lumber trade of this province and its subsidiary branches. I figured any knowledge I could pick up might stand me in some dollars some day. So far”—he smiled ruefully—“it hasn’t done so.”
“Go on,” said Vane, whose curiosity was aroused.
“Well, I think that pulping spruce—paper spruce—is likely to be scarce soon. The supply’s not unlimited and the world’s consumption is going up by jumps.”
“There’s a good deal of timber you could make pulp of in British Columbia alone,” Vane interposed.
“Sure. But there’s not a very great deal of spruce that could be milled into high-grade paper pulp; and it’s rapidly getting worked out in most other countries. Then, as a rule, it’s mixed up with the firs, cedars and cypresses; and that means the cutting of logging roads to each cluster of milling trees. There’s another point—a good deal of the spruce lies back from water or a railroad, and it would be costly to bring in milling plant or pack the pulp out.”
“That’s obvious,” said Vane: “for you might have to haul every pound of freight over a breakneck divide.”
Drayton leaned forward confidentially. “Then if one struck high-grade paper spruce—a valley full of it—with water power and easy access to the sea, there ought to be dollars in the thing?”
“Yes,” said Vane, with growing interest. “That is very probable.”
“I could put you on the track of such a valley,” Drayton replied.
“We had better understand each other. Do you want to sell me the information, and have you offered it to anyone else?”
His companion answered with the candour he had expected. “The one or two folks I’ve spoken to don’t seem anxious to consider it. It’s mighty hard for a small man to launch a project.”
“As a rule, it is.”
“Then,” Drayton continued, “the idea’s not my own. It was a mineral prospector—a relative of mine—who struck the valley on his last trip. He’s an old man, and he came down played out and sick. Now I guess he’s slowly dying.” He paused a moment. “Would you like to see him?”
“I’ll go with you now, if it’s convenient,” Vane replied.
They crossed the city to where a row of squalid frame shacks stood on its outskirts. In one which they entered, a gaunt man, with grizzled hair lay upon a rickety bed. A glance showed Vane that the man was very frail. Drayton, who explained the cause of his visit, motioned Vane to sit down, and the prospector fixed his eyes upon the latter.
“I’ve heard of you. You’re the man who located the Clermont—and put the project through,” he said. “You had the luck. I’ve been among the ranges half my life, and you can see how much I’ve made of it. When I struck a claim worth anything, somebody else got the money.”
Vane had reasons for believing that this was not an uncommon experience; but the man went on again: “Well, you look straight, and I’ve got to take some chances; it’s my last stake. We’ll get down to business; I’ll tell you about that spruce.”
He spoke for a few minutes, and then asked abruptly: “What are you going to offer?”
Vane had not been certain that he would make any offer at all; but, as had befallen him before, the swift decision flashed instinctively into his mind.
“If I find that the timber and its location come up to your account of it, I’ll pay you so many dollars down—whatever we can agree upon—when I get my lease from the land office,” he said. “Then I’ll make another equal payment the day we start the mill. But I don’t bind myself to record the timber or put up a mill, unless I’m convinced it’s worth while.”
“I’d sooner take less dollars and a small share in the concern; and Drayton must stand in.”
“It’s a question of terms,” Vane replied. “I’ll consider your views.”
They discussed it for a while, and when they had at length arrived at a provisional understanding, the prospector made a sign of acquiescence. “We’ll let it go at that; but the thing will take time, and I’ll never get the money. If you exercise your option, you’ll sure pay it down to Seely?”
“Celia’s his daughter,” Drayton explained. “He has no one else. She’s a waitress at the —- House in the city.” He named an hotel of no great standing. “Comes home at nights and looks after him.”
Vane glanced round the room. It was evident that Celia’s earnings were small; but he noticed several things which suggested that she had lavished loving care upon the sick man, probably at the cost of severe self-denial.
“Yes,” he answered; “I’ll promise that. But, as I pointed out, while we have agreed upon the two payments, I reserve the right of deciding what share your daughter and Drayton are to take afterwards within the limits sketched out. I can’t fix it definitely until I’ve seen the timber—you’ll have to trust me.”
The prospector once more looked at him steadily, and then implied by a gesture that he was satisfied.
The man fumbled under his pillow, and produced a piece cut out from a map of the province, with rough pencil notes on the back of it.
“It was on my last prospecting trip I found the spruce,” he said. “I’d been looking round for the Company I was with, and I figured I’d strike the coast over the range. The creeks were full of snow-water, and as I was held up here and there before I could get across, provisions began to run short. By and by I fell sick; but I had to get out of the mountains, and I was pushing on for the Strait when I struck the place where the spruce is. After that, I got kind of muddled in the head, but I went down a long valley on an easy grade and struck some Siwash curing the last of the salmon. The trouble is, I was too sick to figure exactly where the small inlet they were camped by lies. They took me back with them to their rancherie—you could find that—and sailed me across to Comox by and by. I came down on a steamboat, and the doctor told me I’d made my last journey.”
Vane expressed his sympathy. The narrative has been crudely matter-of-fact, but he had been out on the prospecting trail often enough to fill in the details the sick man omitted.
“How far was the valley from the inlet?” he asked.
“I can’t tell you. I think I was four days on the trail, but it might have been more. I was too sick to remember. Anyway, there was a creek you could run the logs down.”
Vane nodded. “Well,” he said, “how far was the inlet from the rancherie?”
“I was in the canoe part of one night and some of the next day. Guess thirty miles wouldn’t be far out.”
“That’s something to go upon.”
Vane rose. “If Drayton will come along with me, I’ll send him back with a hundred dollars. It’s part of the first payment—but your getting it now should make things a little easier for Celia.”
“But you haven’t located the spruce yet.”
“I’m going to locate it, if the thing’s anyway possible.” Vane shook hands with the man. “I expect to get off up the Strait very shortly.”
The prospector looked at him with relief and gratitude in his eyes, “You’re white—and I guess you’d be mighty hard to beat.”
Vane touched Drayton’s arm, and when they reached the street, his companion glanced at him with open admiration.
“I’m glad I brought you across,” he broke out. “You have a way of getting hold of folks, making them believe in you. Hartley hasn’t a word in writing, but he knows you mean to act square with him. Kitty felt the same thing—it was why she came down in the sloop with you.”
Vane smiled, though there was a trace of embarrassment in his manner. “Now you mention it, you were equally confiding. We have only arrived at a rather indefinite understanding about your share yet.”
“We’ll leave it at that,” said the other. “I haven’t struck anybody else in this city who would hear about the thing. Anyway, I’d prefer a few shares in the concern, as mentioned, instead of money. If you get the thing on foot, I guess it will go.”
During the rest of the day Vane was busy on board the sloop, but in the evening he walked over to Horsfield’s house with Mrs. Nairn, and found Jessie and her brother at home. Horsfield presently took him to his smoking-room.
“About that smelter,” he said. “Haven’t you make your mind up yet?”
“Isn’t it a matter for the board?” Vane asked suggestively. “There are several directors.”
Horsfield laughed. “We’ll face the fact; they’ll do what you decide upon.”
Vane did not reply to this. “Well,” he said, “at present we couldn’t keep a smelter big enough to be economical going, and I’m doubtful if we would get much ore from the other properties you were talking to Nairn about.”
“Did he say it was my idea?”
“He didn’t: I’d reasons for assuming it. Those properties, however, are of no account.”
Horsfield waited expectantly, and Vane went on: “If it seems possible that we can profitably increase our output later by means of further capital, we’ll put up a smelter. But in that case it might be economical to do the work ourselves.”
“Who would superintend it?”
“I would, if necessary.”
Horsfield smiled in a significant manner. “Aren’t you inclined to take hold of too much? When you have plenty in your hands, it’s good policy to leave a little for somebody else. Sometimes the person who benefits is willing to reciprocate.”
The hint was plain, and Nairn had said sufficient on another occasion to make it clearer; but Vane did not respond.
“If we gave the work out, it would be an open tender,” he said. “There would be no reason why you shouldn’t make a bid.”
Horsfield found it difficult to conceal his disgust. He had no desire to bid on an open tender, which would prevent his obtaining anything beyond the market price.
“The question must stand over until I come back,” Vane resumed. “I’m going up the west coast shortly and may be away some little time.”
They left the smoking-room soon afterwards, and when they strolled back to the other, Vane sat down near Jessie.
“I hear you are going away,” she began.
“Yes,” said Vane; “I’m going to look for pulping timber.”
“But why do you want pulping timber?”
“It can sometimes be converted into dollars.”
“Isn’t there every prospect of your obtaining a good many already? Are you never satisfied?”
“I suppose I’m open to take as many as I can get,” Vane answered with an air of humorous consideration. “The reason probably is that I’ve had very few until lately. Still, I don’t think it’s altogether the dollars that are driving me.”
“If it’s the restlessness you once spoke of, you ought to put a check on it and try to be content. There’s danger in the longing to be always going on.”
“It’s a common idea that a small hazard gives a thing an interest.”
Jessie shot a swift glance at him, and she had, as he noticed, expressive eyes.
“Be careful!” she said. “After all, it’s wiser to keep within safe limits, and not climb over too many fences.” She hesitated, and her voice grew softer. “You have friends who would be sorry if you got hurt.”
The man was a little stirred; she was alluring physically, while something in her voice had its effect on him. Evelyn, however, still occupied his thoughts, and he smiled at his companion.
“Thank you,” he said. “I like to believe it.”
It was growing dusk on the evening of Vane’s departure when he walked out of Nairn’s room. His host was with him, and when they entered an adjacent room, where a lamp was burning, the older man’s face relaxed into a smile as he saw Jessie Horsfield talking to his wife. Vane stopped a few minutes to speak to them, and it was Jessie who gave the signal for the group to break up.
“I must go,” she said to Mrs. Nairn. “I’ve already stayed longer than I intended. I’ll let you have those patterns back in a day or two.”
“Mair patterns!” Nairn exclaimed with dry amusement. “It’s the second lot this week; ye’re surely industrious, Jessie. Women”—he addressed Vane—“have curious notions of economy. They will spend a month knitting a thing to give to somebody who does not want it, when they could buy it for half a dollar done better by machinery. I’m no saying, however, that it does not keep them out of mischief.”
Jessie laughed. “I don’t think many of us are industrious in that, way now. After all, isn’t it a pity that so many of the beautiful old handicrafts are dying out? No loom, for instance, could turn out some of the things your wife makes. They’re matchless.”
“She has an aumrie—ye can translate it trunk—full of them,” said Nairn. “It’s no longer customary to scatter them ower the house.”
Mrs. Nairn’s smile was half a sigh. “There were no books, and no mony amusements, when I was young,” she said to Jessie. “We sat through the long winter forenights, counting stitches, at Burnfoot, under the Scottish moors. That, my dear, was thirty years ago.”
She shook hands with Vane, who left the house with Jessie, and watched them cross the lawn.
“I’m thinking ye’ll no see so much of Jessie for the next few weeks,” Nairn, who had accompanied her to the door, remarked. “Has she shown ye any of yon knick-knacks when she finished them.”
His wife shook her head at him reproachfully. “Alec,” she said, “ye’re now and then hasty in jumping at conclusions.”
“Maybe,” replied Nairn. “I’m no infallible, but the fault ye mention is no common in the land where we were born. I’m no denying that Jessie has enterprise, but how far it will carry her in this case is mair than I can tell.”
He smiled as he recalled a scene at the station some time ago, and Mrs. 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 lust 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 clusters 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 nobody 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 glass 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 glasses, 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.
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 buttoned 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 ashore, 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.
“Will she weather the point on this tack?” he asked.
“She’ll have to,” said Vane, who was steering.
They stood on, though it occurred to Carroll that they were not opening up the bay very rapidly. The light was growing, and he could now discern the orderly phalanxes of white-topped combers that crumpled into chaotic spouting on the point’s outer end. The sloop would not last long if she touched bottom there; but once more, after a glance at his companion’s face, he kept silent. After all, Vane was leader, and when he looked as he did then he usually resented advice. The mouth of the bay grew wider, until Carroll could see most of the forest-girt shore on one side of it; but the surf upon the point was also growing unpleasantly near. Wisps of spray whirled away from it and vanished among the scrubby firs clinging to the fissured crags behind. The sloop, however, was going to windward, for Vane was handling her with skill, and she had almost cleared the point when there was a bang, and the sloop stopped suddenly. The comber to windward that should have lifted her up broke all over her; flinging the boat on deck upon the saloon skylight, and pouring inches deep over the coaming into the well. Vane was hurled from the tiller and cut his forehead, for his wet face was smeared with blood, but he had seized a big oar to shove her off when she swung upright, moved, and struck again. The following sea hove her up; there was another less violent crash, and while Vane dropped the oar and grasped the helm she suddenly shot ahead.
“She’ll go clear,” he shouted, “Jump below and see if she’s damaged.”
Carroll got no farther than the scuttle, for the saloon floorings on the depressed side were already awash and he could hear an ominous splashing and gurgling.
“It’s pouring into her,” he reported.
Vane nodded. “You’ll have to pump.”
“We passed an opening some miles to lee. Wouldn’t it be better if you ran back there?” Carroll suggested.
“No,” said Vane; “I won’t run a yard. There’s another inlet not far ahead, and we’ll stand on until we reach it. I’d put her on the beach here, only that she’d go to pieces with the first shift of wind to the westward.”
Carroll agreed with this opinion; but there is a great difference between running to leeward with the sea behind the vessel, and thrashing to windward when it is ahead, and he hesitated.
“Get the pump started. We’re going on,” Vane said shortly.
The pump was, fortunately, a powerful one, and they had nearly two miles of smoother water before they stretched out of the bay upon the other track; but when they did so Carroll, who glanced down again through the scuttle, could not flatter himself that he had reduced the water.
After half an hour of it, he was breathless and exhausted, and Vane took his place. The sea was higher, the sloop wetter than she had been, and there was no doubt that the water was rising fast inside her. Carroll wondered how far ahead the inlet his companion had mentioned lay, and the next two hours were anxious ones to both of them. Turn about, they pumped with savage determination and went back, gasping, to the helm, to thrash the boat on. They drove her remorselessly; and she went through the combers, swept and streaming, while the spray scourged the helmsman’s face as he gazed to weather. Their arms and shoulders ached from working in a cramped position, but since there was no help for it, they toiled doggedly, until at last the crest of a crag they were heading for sloped away in front of them.
A few minutes later, they drove past the end of it into a broad lane of water with long ranks of firs dropping steeply to its edge. The wind was suddenly cut off; the combers fell away, and the sloop crept slowly up the inlet, which wound, green and placid, among the hills. Vane strode to the scuttle and looked down at the flood which splashed languidly to and fro below.
“It’s fortunate that we’re in. Another half-hour would have seen the end of her,” he said. “Let her come up a little. There’s a smooth beach to yonder cove.”
She slid in quietly, scarcely rippling the smooth surface of the tiny basin, about which there rose great black firs, and Carroll laid her on the beach.
“Now,” said Vane, “drop the boom on the shore side, to keep her from canting over; and then we’ll get breakfast. We’ll see where she’s damaged when the tide ebbs.”
Since most of their stores had lain in the flooded lockers, from which there had been no time to extricate them, the meal was not an appetising one. They were, however, glad of it, and, rowing ashore afterwards, they lay on the shingle in the sunshine while the sloop was festooned with their drying clothes.
“If she has only split a plank or two we can patch her up,” Vane remarked, “There are all the tools we’ll want in the locker.”
“Where will you get new planks from?” Carroll inquired. “I don’t think we have any spikes that would go through the frames.”
“That,” said Vane, “is the trouble. I expect I’ll have to make a trip across to Comox for them in a sea canoe. We’re sure to come across a few Siwash somewhere in the neighbourhood. I can’t say that this expedition is beginning fortunately.”
“There’s no doubt on that point,” Carroll agreed.
“Well,” said Vane, “she has to be patched up, and until I find that spruce I’m going on.”
Carroll made no comment. It was not worthwhile to object when Vane was obviously determined.