"Then, in accordance with a clause in the agreement, the vessel must be kept in efficient repair to the satisfaction of a qualified surveyor. The man I sent down reports that she needs a new mast, decks relaid, and a good deal of new planking about her water-line. Your father has particulars."
"I suppose," said Jimmy very quietly, "there would be nothing gained by asking you to allow the repairs to stand over until we have brought down one or two more loads of lumber. I expect you know it will cost us the sawmill contract if we lay the schooner off now?"
Merril made a little gesture. "I'm afraid not. Ican't afford to take the risk of having the schooner lost, to oblige you, and the fact that you may not carry out the sawmill contract naturally does not concern me."
"Has it occurred to you that we might question your surveyor's report? Half the repairs are quite unnecessary, as you no doubt know. Why the man recommended them is, of course, a question I'm not going into, though it wouldn't be very difficult to hit on the reason. There are, however, other men of his profession in this city."
Again Merril looked at him steadily, with a faint, sardonic gleam, which was more galling than anger, in his eyes. "You will, of course, do what you consider advisable, but if the repairs are not made I shall apply for an injunction to stop you from going to sea; and the law is somewhat costly. The redemption instalment and interest are overdue, and if your father has any money with him, one would fancy it would be more prudent for him to settle his obligations than to give it to the lawyers."
Jimmy realized that this was incontrovertible. Unless the arrears were paid within a fixed time, Merril could foreclose on the vessel and sell her to somebody acting in concert with him, which was, no doubt, what he wished to do. There was, it seemed, no wriggling out of his grip; and, though he felt it would be useless, Jimmy resolved to appeal to his sense of fairness.
"So far as I can figure, you have been paid in interest and charges about forty cents on every dollar you lent; and you still hold a bond for the original amount," he said. "That would be enough to satisfymost men; and all we ask is a little time and consideration. You could let those repairs stand over, and could wait a while for your interest. It will most certainly be paid if we can keep hold of the sawmill contract."
"I'm afraid you are wasting time;" and Merril glanced at the papers before him. "There are several reasons which make it necessary for me to insist on your father's carrying out the conditions of his bond. He owes me a good deal of money now."
A hard glint crept into Jimmy's blue eyes, and there was a trace of hoarseness in his voice. "I want you to understand that it will crush him," he said. "He is an old and broken man, and you would lose nothing by a little clemency. I will take every dollar of his debts upon myself."
"I'm sorry, but it can't be helped," said Merril, with a shrug of his shoulders which seemed to suggest that his patience was becoming exhausted. "The conditions laid down must be carried out."
Jimmy rose slowly. Every nerve in him tingled, though there was only the ominous scintillation in his eyes to indicate what he was feeling. Laying one hand on Merril's desk, he looked down at him, and they faced each other so for, perhaps, half a minute. The man who held in his grasp many a small industry in that Province shrank inwardly beneath the sailor's gaze.
"Then," said Jimmy, with a slow forcefulness that was the more impressive because of the restraint he put upon himself, "you shall have your money, and everything else that is due you. If I live long enough—all—my father's debt will certainly be paid."
He went out; and Merril, to whom an interview ofthis description was not exactly a novelty, was for once a little uneasy in his mind. There was a certain suggestion of steadfastness in the seafarer's manner that he did not like, and he felt that he could be relied on to keep his promise if the opportunity were afforded him. Still, the bondholder fancied it would not be insuperably difficult to contrive that the occasion did not arise.
Next day the carpenters duly arrived on board theTyee, and when they took possession there was nothing for any one else to do, which was partly why it happened that Jimmy sat smoking on the skylights of theSorata's saloon one hot afternoon. He had told Valentine, who lay near him on the warm deck, part of his troubles. There was scarcely a breath of air, and the smoke of the big mills hung in a long trail above the oily Inlet and floated in a filmy cloud athwart the towering pines. The tapping of the carpenters' mallets on board theTyeecame faintly across the water.
"It will be three weeks, anyway, before you get your new deck in, and it may be longer," said Valentine. "All the carpenters on this coast are going up to the new railroad trestles, where they're getting almost any price they ask. What are you going to do in the meanwhile?"
Jimmy said he did not know, and was sorry this was the case. He had discovered that board costs a good deal in that country, and while theTyeewas practically gutted it would be necessary to live ashore. Valentine appeared to ruminate, and then looked up at him.
"Well," he said reflectively, "I'm going up the coast, and I want an experienced skipper. That's easy, because I know too much about charterers to let them have my boat without taking me. Yachting's just becoming popular here. Next, there's to be a capable cook, and that could be contrived, because, although Louis is about the worst cook I know, they needn't find it out until we're well away to sea. The third man is the difficulty. He's to be warranted sober, reliable, and intelligent, since he may be required to take the young ladies out fishing in the dory. All to be civil and clean, and provided with suitable uniform. It's in the charter. They appear to be particular people."
Jimmy laughed. "Evidently. Still, I don't quite see what it all has to do with me, since I'm not going. Where's the man you had when you took the last party?"
"On the wharf; he'll never come back again with me. He was a blue-water man, and one day he broke loose and got at the charterers' whisky. Tried to kiss one of the young ladies as he was carrying her on board the dory, and, though I threw him in afterward, her father made considerable unpleasantness over the thing."
He stopped a moment, and looked at Jimmy with a whimsical twinkle in his eyes. "Now, I don't know any reason why you shouldn't come if you feel like it. You seem reasonably sober, and I guess you could be civil. Charterers aren't quite so trying here as one would fancy they are in the Old Country. I've been there; but on the Pacific Slope we haven't yet branded the people who work as quite outside the pale. You could put on the steamboat jacket, and I've an old man-o'-war cap with gold letters on it. The man who left iton board theSorataprivately discharged himself from one of the Pacific squadron. It was a dark night, and he was almost drowned when I got him. Well, it would bring you twelve dollars a week, all found—it's what I'd have to pay another man—besides being a favor to me."
Jimmy laughed outright. He had his cares just then, but he was, after all, a young man of somewhat whimsical temperament, and the prospect of the adventure appealed to him. The twelve dollars a week were more attractive still, since he had reasons for believing that the small sum he had brought with him to Vancouver would be badly wanted before very long, and while theTyeelay idle he could not trench upon his father's scanty store.
"Well," he said, "it sounds a crazy kind of thing, but that is, perhaps, why it attracts me. I'll come."
Valentine smiled. "Then you'll come off early to-morrow, and try to remember you're a blue-water man who has hired out to me. You want to get yourself up kind of smartly. We'll go below and see what I've got. It's in the charter."
Half an hour later Jimmy was rowed ashore, and he walked back to the wharf where theTyeewas lying with, for the first time during several weeks, a smile in his eyes. It would be a relief to forget his troubles for a week or two, and his father would not need him in the meanwhile. Naturally he did not know that the crazy venture on which he had embarked was to have somewhat important results for him as well as for other people.
It was about five o'clock in the evening when Jimmy stood on the Vancouver wharf beside an express wagon, from which the teamster had just flung down what appeared to him an inordinate quantity of baggage. He was then attired in a steamboat officer's jacket, from which he had removed a row of buttons as well as the braid on the cuffs, an old pair of Valentine's white duck trousers carefully mended with sail-sewing twine, a pair of canvas shoes with a burst in one of them, and a somewhat dilapidated man-o'-war cap. In this get-up he expected to pass muster as a professional yacht-hand, though as yet there were very few men who followed that calling in Vancouver or Victoria. Had he been brought up in England he might have felt a little more uncomfortable than he did, but the average Westerner is troubled by no false pride, and is usually willing to earn the money he requires by any means available. Still, Jimmy was not altogether at ease, for he had, at least to some extent, become endued with his comrades' notions during the time he had spent in the mail-boats and the English warship.
A little farther up the wharf Valentine was talking to a gray-haired gentleman whose immaculate blue serge,level voice, and formal attitude seemed to stamp him as different from the men of the Pacific Slope, who have as a rule no time to waste in considering appearances. Two young ladies stood not very far away, and, though the breeze was no more than pleasantly cool, one of them was wrapped in a long cloak and shawl. Jimmy could not see the other very well because of the wagon, but when she moved across the wharf her lithe step and graceful carriage at least suggested vigorous health.
By and by the rattle of a neighboring steamer's winch ceased suddenly, and he heard the voice of the elderly gentleman, who had been glancing in his direction.
"I suppose that is your man," he said, with a clear English intonation. "Couldn't you have got him up a little more smartly? That man-o'-war cap, for instance, is a little out of keeping with the rest of his things."
Jimmy saw Valentine's badly suppressed smile, and caught his answer. "He was in one of the warships, sir, and is a reliable man. I can warrant him civil and sober."
"Well," said the other, "we may as well go off while he brings down the baggage."
The party moved toward theSorata's dory, and Jimmy was not exactly pleased when he found himself left to carry their baggage, which appeared to be unusually heavy, down a flight of awkward steps. It was not very long since he had stood beside a mail-boat's hatch, and merely raised a hand now and then while her deck-hands stowed the baggage under his direction; but he found something faintly humorous in the situation until, hampered by an awkward load, he lost his balance and fell down the steps. Still, he contrived to depositthe charterers' possessions at the water's edge, and when Valentine came back he packed them into the dory, and about fifteen minutes later staggered into the little white ladies' cabin on board theSoratawith a big trunk in his arms. One of the girls was busy unstrapping a valise, but the other looked around as he came in.
"Put it there!" she said, with a swift glance at him, and then, though he noticed that apparently she had something in her hand, she seemed to change her mind and turned around again.
Jimmy went out backwards, with a faint warmth in his face, and when he had brought in the rest of the baggage he went up and assisted Louis, their third hand, to break out the anchor and get theSorataunder way. She was sliding out through the Narrows when he dropped through the scuttle into the forecastle, and found Valentine filling a tray.
"It's part of your business to carry the baggage," he said. "You want to remember they're particular people, and you're expected to make yourself generally useful and agreeable. Still, I guess there's no need to talk as you would in a mail-boat's saloon."
Jimmy took the tray, but, as it happened, theSoratalurched on the wash from a passing steamer as he went through the sliding door in the bulk-head, and, plunging into the saloon with arms stretched out, he fell against the table. It was a moment or two before he partly recovered his equanimity, and then, as he looked about him, a hoarse laugh fell through the open skylights. To make things worse, he fancied that the elderly gentleman cast a suspicious glance at him, while he was quite sure that there was a twinkle in one of the youngladies' eyes. She leaned back somewhat wearily upon a locker cushion, and her face was thin and fragile; but her companion sat upright, and Jimmy saw that she also was regarding him. She was tall and somewhat large of frame, with a quiet face that had something patrician in it, and reposeful brown eyes. Jimmy fancied that she and the others must have heard the laugh above.
"It's only that idiot Louis, sir," he said. "It's a habit he has. You'll hear him laugh to himself now and then when he's at the helm."
Then it occurred to him that he was speaking more familiarly than an Englishman would probably expect a yacht-hand to do, and, pulling himself up abruptly, he commenced to lay out the table and pour the coffee.
"You take sugar, miss?" he asked.
"She does," said the man dryly. "When a spoon is not available she prefers her own fingers."
The delicate girl laughed a little, and Jimmy felt his face grow warm, for he was conscious that her companion was watching him with quiet amusement; but he contrived to find the spoons he had forgotten, and when he was about to withdraw the girl with the brown eyes made a little sign.
"I suppose we are at liberty to read any of those books?" she asked, pointing to the hanging shelves. "They are the skipper's?"
Jimmy knew what she was thinking, because the works in question were by no means of the kind one would have expected a professional yacht-hirer to own or to appreciate. He also knew that the forecastle slide was open, and that Valentine was probably listening.
"Of course, miss," he said; "take any of them, if you can understand them. I think it's more than the skipper does. Still, he has a little education, and bought them cheap at book sales. They give a kind of tone to the boat."
"I see," said the girl with the reposeful eyes, and Jimmy backed out in haste. He fancied a little ripple of musical laughter broke out after he had closed the forecastle slide. Then he glanced deprecatingly at Valentine, who did not appear by any means pleased with him.
"I didn't expect too much from you, but the last piece of gratuitous foolery might have been left out," he said. "Did you ever come across a yacht steward who took passengers into his confidence in the casual way you do?"
"No," said Jimmy candidly, "I don't think I ever did. Now, I don't in the least know what came over me, but I can't remember ever losing my head in quite the same way before. It must have been the way the girl with the brown eyes looked at me. In fact, she seemed to be looking right through me. Who is she?"
"Miss Merril."
"Ah!" said Jimmy, a trifle sharply. "Still, it doesn't seem to be an unusual name in this country, and, after all, one couldn't hold her responsible for her father's doings—if she is the one I mean. It's quite possible they wouldn't please her if she were acquainted with them. In fact, it's distinctly probable."
"I wonder why you seem so sure of that? She is the one you mean."
"From her face. You couldn't expect a girl with a face like that to approve of anything that was not——"
He saw Valentine's smile, and broke off abruptly. "Anyway, it doesn't matter in the least to either of us. What is she doing here, and who are the others?"
Valentine laughed. "I don't think I suggested that it did. The man is Austerly, of the Crown-land offices, and English, as you can see—one of the men with a family pull on somebody in authority in the Old Country. I believe he was a yacht-club commodore at home. The delicate girl's his daughter. Not enough blood in her—phthisis, too, I think—and it's quite likely she has been recommended a trip at sea. Miss Merril is, I understand, a friend of hers, and she evidently knows something of yachting too."
"What do you know about phthisis?"
A shadow suddenly crept into Valentine's brown face. "Well," he said quietly, "as it happens, I do know a little too much."
Jimmy asked no more questions, but got his supper, and contrived to keep out of the passengers' way until about ten o'clock that night, when he sat at the helm as theSoratafled westward before a fresh breeze. To port, and very high above her, a cold white line of snow gleamed ethereally under the full moon. A long roll tipped by flashing froth came up behind her, and she swung over it with the foam boiling at her bows and her boom well off, rolling so that her topsail which cut black against the moonlight swung wildly athwart the softly luminous blue.
Jimmy was watching a long sea sweep by and break into a ridge of gleaming froth, when Miss Merril cameout from the little companion and stood close beside him with the silvery light upon her. She had a soft wrap of some kind about her head and shoulders, and, though he could not at first see her face, the way the fleecy fabric hung emphasized her shapely figure.
"I wonder whether you would let me steer?" she asked.
For a moment or two Jimmy hesitated. TheSoratawas carrying a good deal of sail, and running rather wildly, while he knew that a very small blunder at the tiller would bring her big main-boom crashing over, the result of which might be disaster. Still, there was something in the girl's manner which, for no reason that he could think of, impressed him with confidence. He felt that she would not have asked him for the helm merely out of caprice, or unless she could steer.
"Well," he said, remembering he was supposed to be a yacht-hand, "we will see what kind of a show you make at it, miss. Take hold, and try to keep her bowsprit on the island. It's the little black smear in the moonlight yonder."
The girl apparently had no difficulty in doing it, though for a while he crouched upon the side-deck with a brown hand close beside the ones she laid on the tiller. Then as, feeling reassured, he relaxed his grasp, she appeared to indicate her hands with a glance.
"They are really stronger than you seem to think," she said, "and I have sailed a yacht before."
Jimmy laughed. "I only thought they were very pretty."
The girl looked around at him a moment, without indignation, but with a grave inquiry in her eyes whichJimmy, who suddenly remembered the rôle he was expected to play, found curiously disconcerting.
"What made you say that?" she asked.
"I really don't know;" and Jimmy had sense enough not to make matters worse by admitting that he had said anything unusual. "It seemed to come to me naturally. Perhaps it was because they—are—pretty."
This time Miss Merril laughed. "Well," she said, "I should just as soon they were capable. But don't you think she would steer easier with the sheet slacked off a foot or two?"
Jimmy had thought so already, but while he let the sheet run around a cleat he asked himself whether this was intended as a tactful reminder that he was merely expected to do what was necessary on board the vessel. On the whole he did not think it was. One has, after all, a certain license at sea; and though he had naturally met young ladies on board the mail-boats who apparently found pleasure in treating every man not exactly of their own station with frigid discourtesy, he fancied that Miss Merril differed from them. However, he sat silent and out of the way upon theSorata's counter, until presently a lordly, four-masted ship swept up out of the soft blueness of the night.
She crossed theSorata's bows, braced up on the wind, and, for she carried American cotton sailcloth, she gleamed majestically white, with four great spires of slanted canvas tapering from the great arch of her courses to the little royals that swayed high up athwart the blue above a long line of dusky hull. It was hove up on the side nearest theSorata, and the sea frothed white beneath her bows, which piled it high in a filmy,flashing cloud. Miss Merril could hear the roar of parted water, and, as the great vessel drove by, the refrain of a sighing chantey that fell amidst a sharp clanking from the black figures on her spray-drenched forecastle.
"Ah!" she said, "that is a picture to remember. I wonder what those men have undergone, and where they come from?"
Jimmy smiled, presuming that she was addressing him, though he could not be sure of it.
"Well," he said, "I should fancy they have borne 'most everything that a man could be expected to face, except want of food, while they thrashed her round the Horn. She's American, and, if they drive men hard on board their ships, they at least usually feed them well."
"You know what they have done?"
Jimmy laughed, and forgot his man-o'-war cap as he saw that she was interested. "I believe I do. They've crawled out on those long topsail yards probably once every watch by night and day, clawing at thundering folds of hard, drenched canvas, while the ship lay with her rail in the water when the Cape Horn squalls came down thick with blinding snow. Then they've crawled down with bleeding hands and broken nails, and flung themselves, in their dripping oilskins, into a soddened bunk to snatch a couple of hours' sleep before they were roused to get sail on her again. They have lived for days on cold provisions soaked in brine when the galley fire was drowned out, and it is very likely have not stripped a long boot off for a week. She carries a highrail, but the icy sea that chilled them to the bone has poured across it at every roll."
"Ah!" said the girl; "going west it would be to windward. In one way it's almost an epic. I suppose it's always more or less like that?"
"Yes," said Jimmy; "one of the epics nobody has ever written, perhaps because nobody really could. There are a good many of them. As you say, when one has to fight to windward, things generally happen more or less that way."
Miss Merril turned and looked at him as he sat on theSorata's counter in the navy cap, and a smile crept into her eyes.
"Still," she said, "perhaps it is, after all, worth while to face them."
They both remembered that afterward, but in the meanwhile it did not strike Jimmy as in any way incongruous that she should talk to him in such a fashion or credit him with more comprehension than one would expect from a professional yacht-hand.
"I don't know," he said simply. "One's heart is apt to fail when one looks forward and sees only the snow-squalls to drive one back to leeward, and the steep head seas."
Then he stood up suddenly with a little laugh as Louis came slouching aft from the forecastle scuttle.
"I'm relieved, and I had better see whether they want anything in the saloon," he said.
It appeared that they wanted nothing, and when he crawled into the forecastle Valentine looked at him with evident curiosity.
"You had apparently a good deal to say to MissMerril," he observed. "Might one ask what you found to talk about?"
"The last topic was whether it is worth while to hang on and fight one's way to windward when the outlook is black. If I understood her correctly, she seems to believe it is."
Valentine grinned sardonically. "Did you discuss it like a German philosopher, or as a forecastle hand? I suppose it never struck you that it's rather an unusual subject for a yachting roustabout to go into with a young lady passenger?"
"It is," agreed Jimmy, making a little deprecatory gesture. "I'm afraid I didn't remember that before; but it probably doesn't matter, since it's hardly likely that she did either."
His comrade looked at him, and shook his head. "You can believe that—at your age?" he said. "My dear man, a young woman of Miss Merril's intelligence would notice anything that wasn't quite in character the moment you said it. Still, that is your affair. It's the other one I'm worrying about."
"The other one?"
"Miss Austerly. The girl's very sick—probably worse than her father realizes—and it's rather on my conscience that I told them that Louis could cook. Anyway, if this breeze holds we'll bring up off Victoria early to-morrow, and though we're not going in, I'll slip ashore before breakfast and see what one can pick up at the stores."
Jimmy asked him no more questions, but crept into his bunk. About nine o'clock on the morrow, when theSoratawas lying in a bight on the south coast of Vancouver Island, he was aroused by the dory bumping alongside, and he went out on deck. It was then raining hard, and all he could see was a stretch of gray sea and a strip of dripping boulder beach on which a little white surf was breaking. There was a good deal of water in the dory, and Valentine's oilskins were dripping when he climbed out of her with several packages under his arm. Stores open early in that country.
"Now," he said, "you can bail her out, and come down in half an hour when I've fixed up a breakfast that any one could eat."
Jimmy did so, but it was with some little diffidence that he carried the tray into the saloon. It occurred to him that Miss Merril might regret that she had unbent so far the previous night, and he wondered uneasily whether he had ventured further than was advisable. He was also conscious for the first time that the repairs Valentine had made in his garments were less artistic than evident. The girl, however, looked up with a smile, which might have meant anything, and afterward confined her attention to the articles he was laying on the table. There were Chinese preserved dainties and fruit from California, as well as the ordinary fare.
"An unusually good breakfast," said Austerly. "Does your skipper always treat his charterers so well?"
"Yes, sir," said Jimmy. "That is, when he can. You see, he couldn't get these things in Vancouver; there isn't the same demand for them as there is in the capital."
Austerly did not appear altogether satisfied with theingenious explanation, but he said nothing further. Indeed, he was not a man who said very much on any occasion; and while he commenced his breakfast Miss Merril looked at Jimmy with her little disconcerting smile. Still, there was no malice in it.
She was as fresh that morning as when she came off the previous evening, though both Austerly and his daughter appeared a trifle the worse for the night's run. Miss Merril was wholly unostentatious in speech or bearing, and there was a certain gracious tranquillity about her which suggested latent vigor instead of languidness. She was then, he decided tolerably correctly, in her twenty-fifth year, brown-haired and brown-eyed, with broad, low forehead, unusually straight brows, and, in spite of her smile, a curiously steady gaze. Her face was a full oval, her mouth by no means small, and, while he had seen women of a somewhat similar type whose vigor was tinged with coarseness or a hint of sensuality, there was about this girl a certain daintiness of thought and speech, and a quiet dignity. What she said was, however, sufficiently prosaic.
"I presume that means he went to Victoria for the extra stores this morning; but how did he get there? It must be some distance, from what I know of the coast, and he would have a head-wind all the way back."
"He walked," said Jimmy. "It's necessary for him. One doesn't get very much exercise of that kind at sea. In fact, he walks miles whenever he can."
Miss Austerly appeared a trifle astonished, and her father looked up from his coffee.
"It's a trifle difficult to understand how he managesit," he said. "One would consider theSorataforty feet long."
Jimmy felt Miss Merril's gaze upon him, and, as had happened before, his ingenuity failed him. Her smile vaguely suggested comprehension, and, for no ostensible reason, that disturbed him. He also saw Louis grinning down at him through the skylights.
"Sugar, sir?" he said; and this was so evidently an inspiration that Miss Austerly laughed, and when her father said that he had been offered it twice already, Jimmy went out with all the haste available. He closed the forecastle slide somewhat noisily, and then sat down and frowned at Valentine.
"Well?" said the latter dryly. "Been making an exhibition of yourself again?"
"I'm afraid I have," said Jimmy. "If it happens another time you can carry the things in yourself and see how nice it is. Still, I don't quite know why I lost my head. I have naturally met quite a few young ladies in my time. I suppose it's wearing that confounded cap and these more confounded clothes."
He kicked one foot out, and disgustedly contemplated a burst white shoe, while the duck trousers cracked. Valentine leaned back against the bulkhead and laughed.
"Don't be rash, or they'll split; and the jacket's opening at a seam," he said. "It's rather a pity a man can't rise above his clothes. Anyway, you may as well give Louis a hand to get the mainsail on to her. As soon as they've finished breakfast we'll break out the anchor."
There was rain and thick weather for several days, during which theSoratacrept northward slowly along the wild West Vancouver coast. Austerly, it appeared, had business with an Indian agent who lived up an inlet near which the restless white prospectors were encroaching on a Siwash reserve. The boat was wet and clammy everywhere, though a bark fire burned in the little saloon stove. Miss Austerly lay for the most part silent on the leeward settee with a certain wistful patience in her hollow face which roused Jimmy's compassion. He noticed that Valentine's voice was gentler than usual when he mentioned her, and wondered why it was so, though his comrade did not favor him with an adequate explanation then or afterward.
At last one afternoon the drizzle ceased, and, during most of it, Miss Merril sat at the tiller with Jimmy's oilskin jacket round her shoulders to shield her from the spray, while theSoratadrove northward, close-hauled, across the long gray roll of the Pacific which was tipped with livid foam. Sometimes she swung over it, with dripping jib hove high, but at least as often she dipped her bows in the creaming froth and flung the brine aftin showers, while all the time the half-seen shore unrolled itself to starboard in a majestic panorama.
Great surf-lapped rocks rose out of the grayness, and were lost in it again; forests athwart which the vapors streamed in smoky wisps rolled by; and at times there were brief entrancing visions of a towering range, phantoms of mountains that vanished and appeared again. There was water on the lee-deck; showers of it drove into the drenched mainsail's luff; but still Miss Merril sat at the tiller with her damp hair blown about her forehead, a patch of carmine in her cheeks, and a gleam in her eyes. She seemed, as she swung with the plunging fabric when the counter rose streaming high above the froth that swept astern, wholly in harmony with the motive of the scene; and at this Jimmy wondered a little now and then, though he discovered afterward that Anthea Merril almost invariably fitted herself to her surroundings. There are men and women with that capacity, which is, perhaps, born of comprehension and sympathy.
Her grasp was firm and steady on the straining helm, her gaze quick to notice each gray comber that broke as it came down on them; but, when he looked at her, Jimmy saw in her eyes something deeper than the thrill of the encounter with the winds of heaven and the restless sea. He could find no fitting name for it. It eluded definition, but it had its effect; and he felt that a man might go far and do more than thrash a yacht to windward with such a companion, though he also realized that this was, after all, no concern of his. Apart from that, her quiet courage and readiness were noticeable, though it was, perhaps, her understanding thatappealed most to him. Anthea Merril never asked an unnecessary question. She seemed able to grasp one's thoughts and motives in a fashion that set those with whom she conversed at their ease, and when in her company Jimmy usually forgot his yacht-hand's garments and the man-o'-war cap.
It was toward sunset that evening, and Miss Austerly was sitting well wrapped up on a locker in the cockpit, when the vapor melted and was blown away, as not infrequently happens about that time at sea. The dingy clouds that veiled the sky were rent, and a blaze of weird, coppery radiance smote the tumbling seas, which changed under it to smears of incandescent whiteness with ruddy gleams in them, and ridges of flashing green. It was sudden and bewildering, impelling one to hold one's breath. But a more glorious pageant leaped out of the dimness over the starboard hand. Walls of rock that burned with many colors sprang into being, with somber pines streaming upward behind them, and far aloft there were lifted gleaming heights of never-trodden snow whose stainless purity was intensified by their gray and turquoise shadows.
The vision was vouchsafed them, steeped in an immaterial splendor, for perhaps five minutes, and then it faded as though it had never been. Miss Austerly, who had gazed at it rapt and eager-eyed, drew in her breath.
"Ah!" she said; "if it was only to see that, I am glad I came—it may be the last time."
Jimmy, who was sitting on the skylights, saw the apprehension in Anthea Merril's eyes as she glanced down for a moment into the fragile face of her companion, and he fancied that Valentine did so too; but the girl smiled wistfully.
"Still," she said, "it is a good deal to have seen the glory of this world, and one would almost fancy that other one—where the sea is glassy—could not be much more beautiful."
There was a hint of reproach in Anthea Merril's quiet voice, which reached Jimmy.
"Nellie," she said, "you have morbid fancies now and then. We brought you on this trip to make you cheerful and strong."
The sick girl smiled again, and the pallor of her fragile face intensified the faint shining of her eyes. "I think you know that I shall never get strong again, and, after all, why should I wish to stay here when I may leave my pains and weaknesses behind me? You can't understand that. You have the vigor of the sea in you—and the world before you."
It apparently occurred to Valentine that he was hearing too much, for he stood up, swaying while theSorataplunged, and called to Austerly through one of the open skylights of the saloon.
"We'll have the breeze down on us twice as hard in a few minutes, sir, and there's an inlet we could lie snug in not far astern," he said. "It's quite likely we might come across a Siwash or two who would pole you up the river at the head of the inlet to within easy reach of the agent's place, to-morrow."
"Very well!" said Austerly; "you can run her away."
It appeared advisable, for theSorataburied her bows in a smother of frothing brine and dipped her lee-deckdeep, as a blast swept down. Valentine glanced at Miss Merril somewhat dubiously.
"Do you think you could jibe her all standing?" he asked.
Jimmy almost expected Anthea Merril to say that she could not, for, unless the helmsman is skilful, when a cutter-rigged craft is brought round, stern to a fresh breeze, her great mainsail with the ponderous boom along the foot of it is apt to swing over with disastrous violence. There was, however, no hesitation in the girl's face, and Valentine made a little gesture that implied rather more than resignation.
"When you're ready!" he said. "Stand by, Jimmy!"
They laid hands on the hard, wet sheet, and, while the girl swayed with the helm, and theSoratacame round, stern to sea, dragged the big mainboom in foot by foot until it hung over them, lifting, with the great bellying sail ready to swing. Then, though nobody knew quite how it happened, Jimmy got a loose turn of the rope about his arm as a sea washed in across the counter. In another second or two the boom would swing over, and it seemed very probable that his arm would at least be broken. While the tightening hemp ground into his flesh, he saw the color ebb in Valentine's face, and then the girl's voice reached him sharp and insistent.
"Now!" was all she said.
TheSorata's bows swung a trifle further, and no more. The boom went up with a jerk, and, while the blood started from Jimmy's compressed arm, came down again. For a second the turn of rope slackened, and he shook it clear. Then the sheet whirred through thequarter-blocks as the great sail swung over, and theSoratarolled until one side of her was deep in the foam. She shook herself out of it, and Jimmy, who forgot the man-o'-war cap and what he was supposed to be, saw the girl's eyes fixed on him with a faint smile in them, and made her a little inclination. He felt that she was asking him a question.
"Thank you!" he said simply. "I don't think I was unduly frightened. I seemed to know you would not fail me."
Anthea Merril made no answer, but a slight flush crept into her cheek. She was very human, and it was in one sense an eloquent compliment. Then Jimmy went forward to haul the staysail down, though he found he had to do it with one hand, and he was kept busy until he went down with Valentine into the little forecastle, when theSoratalay snug in a strip of still green water close beneath the dusky pines. Louis had just gone ashore with the dory to gather bark for fuel, and, for the scuttle was open, they could hear the splash of his oars through the deep stillness that was emphasized by the murmur of falling water. Valentine sat on a locker with the lamplight on his bronzed face, which was a trifle grave.
"Rain again, and I'd sooner lose my next charter than have bad weather now," he said.
"Why?" asked Jimmy.
His comrade made a sign of impatience. "Didn't you hear what that girl said—it was the last time? She knew that she was right, too, though it's probably only natural that her father wouldn't believe it. A lasttreat she's getting—and she's as fond of the sea as I am, or you are either."
Jimmy did not know why he smiled, but perhaps it was because he was stirred a little and did not wish to show it. In any case, Valentine frowned at him.
"Oh, yes," he said, "I know. It's a dog's life, and other things; but you wouldn't quit it, anyway, and that's not the question. Can't you understand what that sickly girl's life has been, with all that other women might expect to have denied her?"
There was a certain hoarse insistence in Valentine's inquiry, from which it seemed to Jimmy, who had noticed the solicitude with which he had endeavored to minister in every way to the comfort or pleasure of their delicate passenger, that his companion had some special reason for understanding what the girl's lot had been.
"Well," he said reflectively, "one would suppose that to be born foredoomed is hard upon such as Miss Austerly."
Valentine made a little abrupt gesture. "It's evident they once had a yacht of their own. Any one could see how fond of it she is; and I'm taking her father's money—he hasn't too much of it—like a—moneylender that she may have a last taste of the one thing she can take pleasure in. Lord, when one has so much for nothing, what selfish hogs we are!"
"It can't be helped, anyway. You couldn't offer a favor to a man like Austerly."
"No;" and Valentine frowned. "He's a man with all the condemned prejudices of his class, and he would, naturally, sooner see his daughter's one wish ungratified. After all, women now and then rate the value of things more justly than we do. There's Miss Merril who came with them, and somehow it was she who brought this trip about. She has her pride, full measure of it, but she has sense as well, sense of proportion, and if we had only her to deal with we'd let every other charter slide and go south to-morrow to find the summer."
Jimmy was not in the least astonished. He had, of course, listened to a certain amount of forecastle ribaldry, though, after all, conversation and badinage of that nature is, at least, as frequent in a mail-boat's smoking-room; but he knew the ways of his fellows, and it seemed a very natural thing to him that Valentine the pariah should in his own fashion reveal these depths of chivalrous compassion. He had seen hard-handed men of coarse fiber do many a gentle deed with a curse on their lips that was probably worth a good deal more than a conventional platitude. Still, it would have been wholly extraordinary if he had mentioned anything of this.
"One would fancy Miss Merril has a good deal of character," he said.
"Too much for the man she marries, if there's anything small and mean in him. That's a girl with a capacity for doing more than sail a boat to windward well, and she will probably expect a good deal. In one way there's something humorous in the fact that her father is one of the ----est rogues in this Province, though there are naturally a good many people who look up to him. Of course, she isn't aware of it yet. Brought up back East, I believe, and somebody toldme she had lived a good deal with her mother's people. It probably means trouble for her when she understands the reality."
He rose with a little shrug of his shoulders. "I'm talking like an old woman, and these things have nothing to do with us. We have our wet watches to keep at sea, and perhaps we are better off than the rest of them because that is all. You can turn in if you want to; I'll wait for Louis."
Five minutes later Jimmy crawled into his bunk, and fell fast asleep. When he awakened, he found that the day had broken still and sunny. There was a Siwash rancherie a mile or two up the Inlet, and when an Indian had been found who would carry a message through the forest, Austerly, who never forgot what was due to a Crown-land official, decided to stay where he was and allow the agent to visit him. He was not in any way an active man, and appeared quite content to sit in the cockpit reading, when Valentine, who had procured a Siwash river canoe—a long, light shell of cedar with some two feet beam—offered to take his daughter up the Inlet to see the rancherie. Miss Austerly was pleased to go with him, and Anthea Merril, who watched the knife-edge craft slide away, turned to Jimmy.
"If you will get the trolling-spoon I will go fishing," she said.
"Yes, miss," said Jimmy, touching his cap—a thing that is very seldom done in Western Canada. Hauling the dory alongside, he handed her into it. Then he dipped the oars, and they slid slowly up the Inlet with the silver and vermilion spoon trailing astern. He had laid Valentine's shot-gun across the thwarts.
The lane of clear green water was, perhaps, two hundred yards wide, and the stately pines which shroud all that lonely coast rose in somber ranks on either side, distilling their drowsy fragrance as their motionless needles dried in the sun. There was not a sound when the splash of Valentine's paddle died away, and Jimmy dipped his oars leisurely, now and then venturing a glance at his companion. It seemed to him that the big white hat she wore became her wonderfully well, and it is possible that she guessed as much and did not resent it, for Jimmy was, after all, a personable man.
"Your skipper is very good to Nellie Austerly," she said. "I am rather pleased with him because of it. There are, naturally, not many things in which she can take any great interest."
"I suppose," said Jimmy reflectively, "there are people who would consider it good of him, but, in one way, it really isn't. It doesn't cost him anything, and he can't help it. That man would do what he could for anybody who didn't want to take advantage of him. What's more, he would do it almost without realizing what he was about."
"Do you know why he lives as he does at sea?"
"I don't. Probably because he likes it."
Anthea Merril smiled. "Is that all? It has not occurred to you that there is, perhaps, a reason why he and Nellie Austerly understand each other?"
"Both fond of the sea?"
"That mightn't go far enough. Nellie has had to give up so much, or rather it has been taken away from her. You can understand that?"
Jimmy nodded assent. It had already occurred tohim that his comrade was a man who had lost something he greatly valued, and it did not appear incongruous that Miss Merril should be speaking in this familiar fashion to him. In fact, she frequently contrived to make him forget that he was Valentine's hired hand and wore the man-o'-war cap.
"What would a boat like theSoratacost to build?" she asked.
"Perhaps four thousand dollars in this country."
"Ah!" said the girl; "and with that sum one could probably set up a store, buy one of the little sawmills near a rising settlement, or start on one of the other paths that are supposed to lead to affluence."
Jimmy laughed. "Supposing he owned the big Hastings mill, what more could it offer a man with his views? As he will tell you, he gets what he likes almost for nothing. He may be right, too. After all, it is clean dirt one has to eat at sea."
"There are not many men who could live as he does; the rest would go to pieces. And isn't it rather shirking a responsibility?"
"You mean that one ought to make money?"
"I think one ought to take one's part in the struggle that is going to make this the greatest Province in the Dominion; but not exactly for that reason." Then Miss Merril apparently decided to change the subject. "You had a good halibut season?"
Jimmy saw the twinkle in her eyes, and understood it. "I hadn't. I'm afraid I wouldn't know a halibut when I saw it. There are, one believes, plenty of them, but so far very few people go fishing."
"Then you were probably killing the Americans' seals?"
"I wasn't. I am, I may mention, mate on board a lumber-carrying schooner."
His companion's nod might have meant anything. "I fancied," she said, "you had not gone to sea very often as a yacht-hand."
Jimmy, who was uncertain what she wished him to understand, pulled on leisurely, until, as they crept along the shore, a widening ripple that spread from beyond a point caught his eye, and, laying down the oars, he reached for the gun.
"I was told to bring back a duck for Miss Austerly if I could," he said. "You don't mind?"
Anthea Merril made a sign of indifference, and the dory slid on, until, as they opened up a little bay, Jimmy flung up the gun, for a slowly moving object swam in the midst of it. Then he felt a hand on his arm, and a voice said sharply, "Put it down!"
Jimmy did so before he saw the reason, and it was a moment later when he noticed a string of little fluffy bodies stretched out from the shore. The mother bird paddled toward them, and, disregarding her own danger, strove to drive them back among the boulders. Then he saw the curious gleam that was half anger and half compassion in his companion's eyes, and felt his face grow a trifle hot.
"I didn't know," he said. "It must be an unusually late brood. I never noticed them. I shouldn't like you to think I did."
"Open the gun, and take out the cartridges!" ordered his companion.
"Very well, miss," said Jimmy, who could not resist the impulse of adding, with a whimsical twinkle in his eyes: "Shall I take off the trolling-spoon?"
Anthea Merril laughed. "No," she said. "Still, I can't complain of the suggestion. Head out from shore, and row faster."
Jimmy said nothing further, but busied himself with his oars. He had discovered by this time that he could talk more or less confidentially with Anthea Merril only when it was her pleasure that he should do so, and she was able to make it clear when that time had gone. Still, he did not for a moment believe she would have been more gracious had her companion not happened to be theSorata's paid hand.
The evening was cool and clear. Anthea Merril and Jimmy followed an Indian path that wound through the primeval bush. On the one hand a great, smooth-scarped wall of rock ran up far above the trees that clung about its feet into the wondrous green transparency, but the light was dying out down in the hollow where towering fir and cedar clustered. They were great of girth and very old, and beneath them there was silence and solemnity.
Jimmy, who carried his companion's sketching materials, went first to clear the dew-wet fern away, and the girl walked behind him silently; but this was not because there had been any change in her attitude toward him. Indeed, a certain camaraderie had grown up between them during the few days they had spent fishing and wandering in the bush, and there was, after all, nothing astonishing in this, for Jimmy was guilty of no presumption, and social distinctions, which are, indeed, not very marked in that country, do not count for much in the wilderness. Still, that camaraderie had been a revelation to him, and he was uneasily aware that during the rest of his life he would look back upon thetime when he had been Miss Merril's guide and attendant.
They had been up the bank of a river that afternoon, and the girl, who had spent an hour or two sketching a peak of the range, had remained behind with Jimmy when the rest had retraced their steps to the Inlet lest Miss Austerly should suffer from the chill of the dew. The two were accordingly coming back alone, which, indeed, had happened several times before. It was Anthea who spoke at last.
"It will be dark very soon, and it might have been wiser if we had gone back the way the others did," she said. "Still, this trail looked nearer. I suppose it must come out at the Inlet?"
"Oh, yes," said Jimmy. "I can hear the river, though it doesn't seem to be quite where I expected. The others will be on the beach by now."
"I shouldn't like to keep Nellie there," said Anthea. "Still, I scarcely think they would wait long."
"Of course not," said Jimmy. "Tom is as careful of her as if she were his sister, and they wouldn't worry about our not turning up to go off with them. They're probably getting used to it by this time."
He realized next moment that this was, perhaps, not a particularly tactful observation; but he could not see his companion's face, and, as had happened before, he had sense enough not to make things worse by any attempt to explain it, which Anthea Merril, who recognized that he had spoken unreflectively, of course, noticed. What she thought of him—and she had, naturally, formed certain opinions—did not appear until some time later.
In a few minutes he stopped abruptly where the trail wound round a screen of salmon-berry, for a creek came splashing down across their way. It appeared to be at least two feet deep, and when his companion saw it she turned to him with a little exclamation.
"Oh!" she said, "how are we going to get across? We certainly can't go back."
"I'm afraid not;" and Jimmy glanced dubiously at the sliding water. "It will be dark in half an hour, and this bush is bad enough to get through in the daylight. I'll go in anyway, and see how deep it is."
He plodded through rather above his knees in water, which was mostly freshly melted snow, and then turned and looked at the girl as she stood regarding him somewhat curiously from the opposite bank. The light had not quite gone yet, and he could see her standing, tall and supple and shapely, with her white serge skirt gathered in one hand, and a patch of crimson wine-berries at her feet. The great brown-and-gray trunk of a redwood behind her forced up the fine outline of her figure, and made a fitting background for the delicate coloring of the face that was turned toward him. Then, as had happened once or twice before, a little thrill ran through the man, and he glanced down at the sliding water.
"You can't wade through, and there's no use trying to look for a spot where it's not running quite so fast. I don't think a Siwash could get through this bush," he said.
He stopped somewhat abruptly, and was glad that the girl met his glance without wavering, as she said, "Well?"
Jimmy's tone was deprecatory. "There's only one way, Miss Merril. I must carry you over."
Anthea laughed, though it cost her a slight effort. She was, at least, glad that he had addressed her unconcernedly, and as a yacht-hand would. She was also quite aware that young ladies who go rowing in small dories, or venture into the wilderness, have to submit to being carried occasionally; but, for all that, she would sooner the suggestion had been made by another man.
"Do you really think you could?" she asked.
Jimmy's eyes twinkled, which was more reassuring than any sign of embarrassment.
"Well," he said reflectively, and again she was pleased that he was very matter-of-fact, and had sense enough to drop back into his rôle, "I guess I'm used to carrying three-inch redwood planks."
He came splashing through the water, though he did not look at her, and in a moment or two she felt his arms about her. She wondered vaguely whether he had often carried any one else, for it was, at least, evident that he knew exactly what he meant to do, and she recognized the strength the sea had given him, as he stepped down easily into the creek, holding her high above the water, with the loose folds of her skirt wrapped about her. Anthea was reasonably substantial, as she was, of course, aware; but, though he twice floundered a little in the depths of a pool, he set her down safe on the other side and stood before her with flushed forehead, which was, as she promptly realized, in one respect a mistake. He said nothing, and did not, indeed, look at her; but as he drew in a deep breath from the physical effort she glanced at him, and saw somethingin his face that suggested restraint. That spoiled everything.
"It is getting late," she said quietly. "Doesn't the path go on again?"
They turned away, Jimmy walking first, for which she was thankful, because the moment or two when they had stood silent had been more than enough. There was nothing for which she could blame the man. His demeanor had been everything that one could have expected; but she had seen the momentary light in his eyes and the tightening of his lips, and knew that their relations could never be exactly what they had been. Something had come about, for the fact that he had found it necessary to put a restraint upon himself had made a change. Perhaps he felt that silence was inadvisable, and once more she appreciated the good sense that prompted him to talk, much as a seaman would have done, of the straightness of the shadowy redwoods they passed and their value as masts, though this was naturally not a subject that greatly interested her.
When they reached the beach they found that Valentine had left them the Siwash canoe; and the rest, with the exception of Nellie Austerly, were sitting in theSorata's cockpit when Jimmy paddled alongside. Miss Merril furnished a suitable explanation of their delay, but she overlooked the fact that Valentine was acquainted with the bush about that Inlet.
"You must have struck the creek," he said. "I should have remembered to tell you about it."
He looked at Jimmy, but the latter wisely decided to leave it to Miss Merril, and turned his attention to thecanoe. He felt that she was competent to handle the matter.
"I was almost waist-deep when I last went through," said Valentine, who did not display his usual perspicacity. "How did you get across?"
Anthea dismissed the subject with perfect composure. "Then there could not have been anything like so much water. Jimmy helped me over."
Jimmy went forward, and disappeared through the scuttle into the forecastle, and some little while later Valentine came down and looked at him with a dry smile.
"I don't yet understand how Miss Merril got across that creek," he said.
"I fancied she told you;" and Jimmy felt his face grow warm.
Valentine laughed. "Perhaps she did, but it seems to me that she wasn't remarkably explicit."
Jimmy said nothing, and presently climbed into his berth, where he lay for a while trying to recall every incident of the journey he and Anthea Merril had made through the shadowy bush, until it occurred to him that he was only preparing trouble for himself by doing so, and he went to sleep.
It was raining when he awoke, and it rained for most of three days as hard as it often does on that coast, until the crystal depths of the Inlet grew turbid, and it flowed seaward between its dripping walls of mountains like a river. At last one afternoon the clouds were rolled away, and when fierce, glaring sunshine beat down Austerly decided that he would go ashore to fish. The men went with him, Valentine to pull the dory intothe swollen river, Jimmy and Louis in the Siwash canoe to gather bark for fuel. When they approached the beach where they usually landed, Jimmy glanced thoughtfully at the great torn-up pines that went sliding by.
"If one of those logs drove across her it might start a plank," he said. "Besides, there's every sign of a vicious breeze, and I think I'll go off by and by and swing her in behind the next point. She would lie snugger there out of the stream."
Valentine looked up at the hard blue sky across which ragged cloud-wisps were driving, and nodded. "It generally does blow quite fresh after rain like what we have had," he said. "You could break the anchor out yourself. I want Louis to get a good load of bark."
Jimmy went ashore with Louis, who carried a big axe, but by and by he left the latter busy, and wandered back to the beach. He did not like the angry glare of sunlight and the way the wind fell in whirling gusts down the steep hillside. As it happened, another big log drove by while he stood among the boulders, and remembering that the two girls were alone in the yacht, he launched the canoe, and sat still, just dipping the paddle, while the stream swept him down to theSorata. When he boarded her she was swinging uneasily in a swirl of muddy current, and Anthea, who sat in the cockpit, appeared pleased to see him.
"One would almost fancy it was going to blow very hard," she said.
Jimmy laughed. "I believe it is; but we should be snug against anything in the little cove yonder with arope or two ashore. I wonder whether you could sheer her for me while I break out the anchor?"
The girl went to the tiller, and while Jimmy, standing forward, plied the little winch, the cable slowly rattled in. Then he broke out the anchor, and the boat slid astern until a cove, where dark fir branches stretched out over the still, deep water, opened up. Dropping the anchor, he turned to the girl.
"Starboard!" he said.
Anthea shoved over her tiller; but theSoratadid not swing into the cove as Jimmy had expected her to do, for a blast that set the pines roaring fell from the hillside and drove her out from the shore. Jimmy let more chain run, and stood still looking about him, when he felt the anchor grip. The sunlight had faded, obscured by ragged clouds, the tall pines swayed above him, and theSoratahad swung well out athwart the stream.
"Since I can't kedge her with this breeze, I'll take a line ashore and warp her in," he said.
It appeared advisable, for there were more pine-logs coming down, and he pitched a coil of rope into the canoe; but the rest, as he discovered, was much more difficult. Jimmy had been used to boats in which one could stand up and row, while a Siwash river canoe is a very different kind of craft. As a result, he several times almost capsized her, and lost a good deal of ground when a gust struck her lifted prow; so that some time had passed when the line brought him up still a few yards from the beach. He looked around at theSoratawith a shout.
"I want a few more fathoms," he called. "Can you fasten on the other line, Miss Merril?"
He saw the girl, who moved forward along the deck, stop and clutch at a shroud, but that was all, for just then the dark firs roared and the water seethed white about him as he plied the paddle. The canoe turned around in spite of him, drove out into the stream, and, while he strove desperately to steer her, struck theSoratawith a crash. The boat lifted her side a little as he swung himself on board, and there was a curious harsh grating forward. Anthea, who stepped down into the cockpit, had lost her hat, and her hair whipped her face.
"I think she has started her anchor," she said.
Jimmy was sure of it when he ran forward and let several fathoms of chain run without bringing her up, for the bottom was apparently shingle washed down from the hillside.
"We'll have to get the kedge over," he said.
He dropped unceremoniously into the saloon, where Miss Austerly lay on the settee, and tore up the floorings, beneath which, as space is valuable on board a craft of theSorata's size, the smaller anchor is sometimes kept. He could not, however, find it anywhere, and when he swung himself, hot and breathless, out on deck, the yacht was driving seaward stern foremost, taking her anchor with her, while the whole Inlet was ridged with lines of white. Anthea Merril looked at him with suppressed apprehension in her eyes.
"We must get a warp ashore somehow," he said. "I might sheer her in under the staysail."
The girl went forward with him, and gasped as they hauled together at the halyard which hoisted the sail; and when half of it was up, she sped aft to the tiller,and Jimmy made desperate efforts to shorten in the cable. There was another cove not far astern into which he might work the boat. The anchor, however, came away before he expected it, and, though he did not think it was the girl's fault, the half-hoisted sail swung over, and theSorata, in place of creeping back toward the beach, drove away toward the opposite shore, where the stream swept over ragged rock. Jimmy, jumping aft, seized the tiller, and while the Inlet seethed into little splashing ridges theSorataswept on seaward with the breeze astern. He stood still a moment, gasping, and then, while the girl looked at him with inquiring eyes, signed her to take the helm again.
"I must get the trysail on her, and try to beat her back. We may be able to do it—I don't know," he said. "It's deep water along those rocks, and she'd chafe through and go down; otherwise I'd ram her ashore."
He spent several arduous minutes tearing every spare sail out of the stern locker before he reached the one he wanted, and it was at least five minutes more before he had laced it to its gaff, while by then there were only jagged rocks, over which the sea that washed into the open entrance to the Inlet seethed whitely, under theSorata's lee. Jimmy glanced at them, and quietly lashed the trysail gaff to the boom before he turned to Anthea Merril.
"I'm sorry," he said. "We couldn't stay her under the trysail with the puffs twisting all ways flung back by the trees. Besides, she'd probably drive down upon the reefs before I got it up. It's quite evident we can't go ashore there."
The girl glanced ahead, and her heart sank a littleas she saw the long Pacific roll heave across the opening in big gray slopes that were ridged with froth. Then she turned to Jimmy, who stood regarding her gravely in the steamboat jacket, burst shoes, and man-o'-war cap, and a look of confidence crept into her eyes. She felt that this man could be depended on.
"We shall have to run out to sea?" she asked.
Jimmy nodded, and she was glad that he answered frankly, as to one who was his equal in courage.
"There is no help for it," he said. "Still, she'll go clear of the shore as she is, and I don't think we need be anxious about her when she's under trysail in open water."
Anthea looked at him again, with a spot of color in her cheek.
"It may blow for several days," she said. "If I can help in any way——"
"You can," said Jimmy abruptly. "Go down now and fix Miss Austerly and yourself something to eat. You mightn't be able to do it afterwards. Then you can bring me up some bread and coffee."
Anthea disappeared into the saloon with her cheeks tingling and a curious smile in her eyes. She understood what had happened. Now that they were at close grip with the elements, Jimmy had asserted himself in primitive fashion, and he could, she felt, be trusted to do his part.