Somebody offered ten dollars more, another man twenty, and there was languid bidding until the price had almost doubled; but then it stopped for a few moments, and Jimmy saw his companion glance somewhat uneasily toward the door.
"I'm beginning to wonder what's keeping my man," he said.
"If he doesn't come soon he might as well stay away altogether," said Jimmy, who turned in tense suspense and watched the hot faces of the men about him.
The price then offered would just clear the debt, but there were many things his father needed, and Jimmy had then only a few dollars in his pocket, which he had earned by stacking dressed lumber at a sawmill.
"Gentlemen," said the auctioneer, "I don't feel warranted in letting her go at the figure. She'd bring you half as much again to-morrow if you sailed her over to Victoria."
"I'll raise it ten dollars," said somebody, and the bidding commenced again more indifferently than ever. Five, ten, twenty dollars were offered, and then five again.
Jordan touched Jimmy's arm. "That's Merril's man—I've been trying to spot him—and I guess the cannery man would go up a hundred or two still, by the way he's watching him. Nobody else seems to want her, and it's quite likely they'll crawl up by tens. Sit still, while I run around and find out what's the matter with my broker."
He slipped out, but he was back within a few minutes, flushed in face, and thrust a strip of paper into Jimmy's hand.
"I think that makes the thing quite plain," he said.
Jimmy glanced at the paper. "Got a wire last minute, and sent over to your hotel, but didn't find you in," he read. "Had to go out unexpectedly on the Sound steamer."
"He stopped your putting another man on?" he said.
"Yes," said Jordan, with a snap in his dark eyes. "Knew he was going all the while. Played me for a sucker. Well, I guess I was one, or I wouldn't have given him an option of selling me to Merril."
"Selling you?"
"Exactly. I might have known it's quite hard for an outsider to kick against the people who boss these things. Still, since Merril knows, there's no reason why I should keep my knife in the sheath. Raise them a hundred dollars. I'll stand sponsor."
Jimmy did not stop to consider. He knew that every dollar the schooner brought now would go into the pockets of his father, and that was enough for him.
"I'll make the figure one hundred dollars more," he said.
The man Jordan had pointed out as Merril's agent leaned forward and whispered something to the auctioneer, whereupon the latter turned to Jimmy with a deprecatory air.
"The terms are strictly cash," he said. "I presume you are in a position to put down the bills or a bank draft if you got her? I have, of course, the pleasure of these other gentlemen's acquaintance."
Jimmy felt Jordan, whom he had seen take out a wallet and a fountain-pen, thrust something into his hand. He glanced at it before he faced the auctioneer.
"I don't know how far that was admissible or inspired," he said. "Anyway, it doesn't matter. This draft should, I think, speak for itself."
The auctioneer apparently waited for him to take it across, but Jimmy quietly sat down.
"If you will send your clerk," he said.
The clerk came forward, and a trace of amusement and awakening interest crept into the faces of the rest.
"That's satisfactory," said the auctioneer. "Thesignature in question is quite sufficient. I'll record your bid. Will anybody raise it?"
Then the men became intent, and two of them went up by forties. Jimmy glanced at his companion, who nodded.
"Go right ahead. Merril and the other man want her," he said.
A few minutes later, to Jimmy's astonishment, Forster came in and stood beside them.
"What's the figure?" he asked, and, when Jordan told him, "Is she worth it?"
"Yes," said Jimmy; "you could go up at least five hundred dollars further."
"Ten advance," said Forster to the auctioneer, and then turned to Jordan. "I suppose you're not set on getting her?"
Jordan smiled, and Forster made a little whimsical gesture. "I understand. Doing much the same thing myself. Miss Wheelock and my wife are outside. I've been hanging round in the vestibule until it seemed convenient for me to take a hand in."
Jimmy said nothing, but when he looked around a few moments later he was somewhat astonished to see that Jordan's place was empty. His comrade was, in fact, hastening down the street to where Forster's light wagon stood outside a big dry-goods store. He went in and came upon Eleanor Wheelock, standing very straight and slim in her long white dress. She turned and looked at him with a curious little smile.
"Have you come to tell me that Forster is taking unnecessary trouble in this affair?" she said.
Jordan was not readily disconcerted, but he showed a momentary trace of embarrassment.
"No," he replied, "I haven't. I'm open to admit that I'm not quite as smart as I thought I was. My man didn't turn up. In fact, he sold me to Merril."
Eleanor still looked at him, and his tone became deprecatory. "You're not pleased?"
"No," said the girl, with a faint flush in her cheeks. "I like my friends to be successful."
Jordan winced perceptibly. "I won't fail next time."
"Are you warranted in thinking there will be another time?"
"I guess so. I don't know that I deserve it, but you won't be too hard on me?"
Eleanor saw the gleam in his eyes. "It will depend. Where is Jimmy?"
"Bidding against Forster and the rest for theTyee."
"Ah!" said. Eleanor, and for a moment her face softened. "I don't know why you didn't tell me that earlier. Hadn't you better go back and see that he doesn't get her?"
"I don't care if he does," said Jordan; "that is, as long as he gives me half an hour of your company."
Eleanor laughed. "Leaving out the compliment, what would you do if Jimmy bought her for you?"
"Run her against the first vessel Merril put on a trip she was good for, if I had to carry freight for nothing."
The girl turned and glanced at him again, and a hard glint crept into her eyes. She looked imperious, forceful, and vindictive then, but the man felt a thrillrun through him, for he knew his answer had pleased her.
"Ah!" she said; "for that I could forgive you many a failure. Still, you must go back and look after Jimmy. We shall not go away until we hear what you have done."
Jordan reluctantly turned away, and, as it happened, met Jimmy coming out of the auction-room with perfect satisfaction in his face.
"I feel that I owe you a good deal. In fact, I'm afraid I can't express my gratitude as I ought," he said. "Merril's man has got her, but I have a clear thousand dollars to hand over to my father. Still, there's something that puzzles me. What brought Forster here?"
Jordan laughed. "Your sister."
"Eleanor?"
"Of course!" said Jordan dryly. "No doubt, because she is your sister, you don't credit her with any useful capacity."
"Eleanor is clever," said Jimmy reflectively. "Still, there are subjects girls know nothing about—and, anyway, there was Mrs. Forster's attitude to consider. It's hardly in human nature that she should be pleased to see her husband staking his money to please her children's teacher."
"Exactly! That is what made the thing cleverer. She has Mrs. Forster's good-will too."
"Then," said Jimmy decisively, "she must be a very kindly lady."
"Or your sister a very capable young woman. You seem to find it a little difficult to recognize that."
Jimmy dismissed the subject with a little gesture. "Well," he said, "I'm almost bewildered. The thing was so simple. Why didn't Merril think of it?"
"I have no doubt he did. Still, you saw what the little man has to expect if he makes a bid. On thinking it over, it seems to me that Merril trusted to my broker. He figured I'd back down once I realized that he knew my game and was a match for me. There are big men like him who live by bluff, and everybody makes way for them, but they're apt to show themselves very much the same as other people when you face them resolutely. It's just like putting a pin in a bubble."
Then Forster joined them while his wife and Eleanor came out of the store, and a few minutes later the girl and Jordan walked behind the other three as they turned toward the hotel where the wagon had been sent. Eleanor smiled at her companion.
"We are indebted to you, after all," she said, and there was a faint but suggestive something in her voice which satisfied Jordan.
Two or three weeks had slipped away since the sale of theTyee, when Jimmy Wheelock, who had been specially requested to do so, called at Forster's ranch. He did not know why his presence was required, and when he arrived was somewhat astonished to find Jordan, Valentine, and a man he had not met, sitting with his host about a little table in the big general room. A decanter and a box of cigars stood on the table, but the attitude of the men suggested that it was business that had brought them there. Jordan, who was talking animatedly, looked up when Jimmy came in.
"You're not quite on time," he said.
"For which I must make excuses;" and Jimmy turned to Forster. "The fact is, I might not have got here at all if the American skipper whose new mizzen-mast I'm helping to fit hadn't run out of wire-rigging. I couldn't well afford to offend a man who considers my services worth three dollars a day."
The man he had not met made a little sign with his hand. "It's an excuse that will pass in this country. Sit right down. Jordan insisted on having you here. Got any money to spare?"
"About forty dollars," said Jimmy.
The other man smiled. "That won't go very far. Well, we can consider ourselves a quorum, and Mr. Jordan will go ahead."
"One moment," said Forster. "Mr. Leeson, Jimmy. Help yourself—you see the cigars."
Jimmy sat down, and glanced at the gentleman who had previously addressed him. He fancied he had heard Jordan mention him as one interested in the then somewhat decadent sealing industry, but there was not very much to be gathered from his appearance. He was plainly dressed, and elderly, and had a lean, expressionless face. It was seamed with little wrinkles, his figure was spare, and he leaned forward with an elbow on the table as if it were too much trouble to hold himself upright. In the meanwhile Jordan recommenced.
"I'll be quite frank with you as to how I'm fixed, because it will help you to understand how I got on the track of the notion," he said. "Merril has now a controlling interest in the coast mill, and I walked out because I couldn't agree with him. Well, I have some money laid by as well as my royalties, and I'm undertaking a few machinery agencies, and starting as mill expert in Vancouver. In fact, I'll sell you an American stump-puller, Mr. Forster, that will save you about half you're spending on grubbing out those fir-roots by hand labor."
"Another time!" said Leeson, with an appreciative grin. "Keep to the shipping business."
Jordan made a little gesture of resignation. "Well, as I told you already, there's a good deal of odd freight to be moved up and down this coast, and there wouldbe more if there were better facilities. I hear of ships held up because the salmon-packers can't get their cases down, and men in Vancouver Island feeding fruit to hogs, and cutting good oats for green fodder because they couldn't put them on the market if they thrashed them. What's more, Mr. Merril has heard about it, too, and he's an enterprising man. Ran me out of that West Coast mill because I wouldn't come down on my royalties—him!"
"Off the track again!" said Leeson. "Merril has bounced a good many men out of things, but if I'm to put any money into this venture, I must have a better reason than that you want to get even."
"You'll get it," and Jordan's dark eyes snapped while his face grew animated. "What Merril thinks safe is good enough for us. He has been working up a notion of a coast shipping combine, one that's to be all Merril's, and he has two or three schooners and a big unhandy lump of a coal-eating steamer. He got her cheap, like the rest of them. Some of us know how he did it."
He glanced at Jimmy sharply before he went on again. "Now, I've been considering his programme, and he's taking hold the wrong way—screwing top freights out of everybody for a bad service, cutting down wages, and running his boats with cheap men who are going to learn to hate him. Well, with a little handy steamboat that would crawl in wherever there was a beach the ranchers could haul their stuff down to, and a policy of general conciliation, one could cut the ground right from under him."
"Quite sure of that?" said Leeson. "Without his finding it out?"
"Without his finding it out—until we've got the trade;" and Jordan's eyes snapped again. "We're going to oblige people, and make our connection with the ranchers and small cannery men a personal thing. When he offers a big rebate it will be a little too late; and, anyway, we can carry freight as cheap as Merril."
"How are you going to make it a personal connection?" asked Forster.
"The thing's quite easy. I'm going to send round a man who already knows most of those ranchers to take them up fruit packing-boxes and statistics of produce prices. He'll fix it up with them for the boat to crawl in anywhere for a few jumper loads. Merril can't do it with his schooners or the big steamer. I guess a rancher would sooner face a high freight than feed the stuff to hogs, or haul it thirty miles over a bush-trail to the Dunsmore road. Then I'm going to have a good-humored skipper who'll bring the men off and make friends with them, but one with grit enough to shove the boat round on time when she has a perishable freight in a gale of wind. She's to be just the right size, and, to save us coal, a modern tri-compound."
"The three things seem essential. The last two certainly are," said Forster, with a suggestive smile. "I guess it's scarcely necessary to ask whether you have any idea how to obtain them?"
Jordan laughed, and proceeded to astonish his companions, which was, however, a habit of his.
"Got them all," he said. "The steamboat's lyingdown the Sound, and I hold a week's option on her. Jim Wheelock would go in command of her, and Mr. Valentine can sail as soon as he's ready in theSorata, and crawl into every inlet from which he can reach half a dozen ranchers. I'll have ready for him four or five tons of cut box frames that will only want nailing, and they'll go into his saloon. He'll have everything fixed before Merril knows we've despatched him."
Jimmy glanced at Valentine's face, and broke into a soft laugh, though he had been at least as far from expecting this proposition as his companion seemed to be. Jordan looked at them both, and nodded tranquilly.
"You'll go?" he said, and then laid a sheet of paper on the table. "Here's my notion of costs, capital, salaries, and general expenses. Kind of prospectus. Shows the usual twenty-per-cent. profit—only we're going to make it."
It was quite clear that he meant it, for this was a man who had a full share of the optimism which characterizes most of the inhabitants of the Pacific Slope. He smiled reassuringly at his companions; but there was silence for several minutes while Leeson examined the paper and then passed it to Forster. Jimmy, who felt that his opinion would not be particularly valuable, and had noticed the little smile in Valentine's eyes, sat still, looking out through the open window at the shadowy bush beyond Forster's orchard.
It cut, vague and black and mysterious, against the wondrous green and saffron glow of the sunset, and the little trail that wound away into it had just then a curious interest for him. He wondered where it led,and how long it wandered through the dim shadow before it came out again into the garish brilliancy. The thing seemed an allegory, for when he came into that country and flung his career away he had felt lost and adrift, without a mark to guide him, while now Jordan and those others were about to set his feet on the trail. It must lead somewhere, as all trails resolutely followed do, though now and then they plunge into tangles of morasses where the rotting pines fall or climb the snow-barred passes of towering ranges. He had a curious confidence in the daring American. Still, he felt that in all probability there was a long and difficult march in front of him and the little party then sitting in the slowly darkening room of Forster's ranch. It was Leeson who spoke first.
"There are men who would call the whole thing crazy, and they'd have some reason for doing so," he said. "Most of us know what Merril is."
It was evident that his opinion carried weight, and Jimmy, who felt a growing tension, saw the sudden, eagerness in Jordan's face.
"No," he said, "that's just where you're wrong. We know what he pretends to be; and if a man puts up a big enough bluff, most people back down and don't ask him to make it good. You see the point of it?"
Leeson made a little half-impatient gesture. "What d'you figure on putting in, Mr. Jordan?"
"Ten thousand dollars."
Leeson said nothing, but glanced at Forster wrinkling his brows.
"I might manage five thousand," said the rancher. "I haven't found clearing virgin bush a very profitableoccupation, and I want more than the interest I'm getting from the bank. Mr. Jordan has naturally talked over the thing with me before, and I fancy his scheme is workable; but, as I don't know a great deal about these matters, I'd very much like to hear what your opinion of it is."
He glanced inquiringly at Leeson, and it was evident to Jimmy that the success or failure of the project depended on what the latter said. He sat silent again for almost a minute, drumming on the table.
"Well," he said, "you'll be told it's a fool game. Most of the men in Vancouver City would consider that a sure thing—but I'm putting in fifteen thousand dollars."
Jimmy saw his comrade's face relax and a little exultant sparkle creep into his eyes, while he felt his own heart beat a trifle faster. Then Valentine, who had not spoken yet, turned to the rest. "In that case I guess we can consider the thing feasible," he said. "If the sum isn't beneath your notice, I'll venture a thousand dollars."
"What has given you a hankering after twenty per cent.?" asked Jordan. "It is not so very long since you told me that the sea, which cost nothing, was enough for you."
Valentine laughed. "I rather think it's the occupation that appeals to me. Charterers have a trick of treading on one's toes occasionally, and I don't think I should take kindly to business as it appears to be carried on in the neighboring city. One can, however, talk to the bush-ranchers intelligently. In any case, I shouldn't regard that twenty per cent. as a certainty."
Jordan grinned good-humoredly, but there was a twinkle of keener appreciation in Forster's eyes. "There is a good deal the bush can teach the man who wants to understand," he said. "I dare say you are right, Mr. Valentine."
"Well," said Jordan dryly, "the only use I ever had for the bush was as a place for growing saw-logs; but while talk of this kind has nothing to do with business, there's something I want to mention. I met Austerly not long ago, and he wants to see you and Jim Wheelock when you can make it convenient, Valentine. Now, if you'll keep quiet a few minutes, I'll get on a little."
He went on for a considerable time, with features hardening into intentness and dark eyes scintillating, and when at last he stopped, Leeson made a sign of concurrence. Then questions were asked and answered, and afterward Forster, who passed the decanter to his guests, stood up.
"Since Mr. Jordan fancies he can raise another few thousand dollars privately if it's wanted, we can consider the affair arranged," he said. "Here's prosperity to TheShastaSteam Shipping Company!"
It was growing dusk when they drank the toast in the big shadowy room, and, as he glanced at his companions, Jimmy was momentarily troubled with a sense of his and their insignificance. There were only four of them, and none of them, with the possible exception of old Leeson, were men of capital, while he had an uneasy feeling that in view of Merril's opposition it was a very big thing they had undertaken. Leeson set his wine-glass down and shook his head.
"We're going to have to fight for it," he said.
Then the group broke up, and Jimmy, who strolled away to ask for Mrs. Forster, saw nothing of his sister or, as it happened, of Jordan either, until the rancher's hired man brought his comrade's team up. Jimmy drove home with him, but Jordan was unusually silent as the team swung along the dim, white road. Once, however, he appeared to rouse himself.
"Yes," he said, though Jimmy had not spoken, "old man Leeson is right; we will have to fight for it. Still, I have put my pile in, and we have got to win."
He glanced in Jimmy's direction, but the latter said nothing and it was too dark to see his face. "Just got to win," he said again, as he shook the reins. "It has been a pull up grade since I was sixteen, but somehow I got the things I set my mind on, one by one. Perhaps Valentine would tell you they weren't all worth while, and he might be right about some of them, but a man has to be what he was born to be—and now I know there's nothing on this earth worth quite so much as what I'm fighting for."
Still Jimmy did not understand, and therefore, as was usual with him in such cases, made no observation, and his comrade laughed curiously when he complained of the jolting instead as he essayed to light a cigar.
"Well," said Jordan, "you'll go down the Sound and see about bringing theShastaup just as soon as you're ready."
Jimmy went next day, and Valentine, who went alone to Austerly's, sailed for the West Coast on the following day. It was two weeks later when Jimmy came back with a little two-masted steamer of 250 tons or so. She was not by any means a new boat, nor were herengines especially powerful, and, after finding out her various complaints during the sheltered voyage down the Sound, Jimmy had hoped to spend a week or two overhauling her before he went to sea. This, however, was not to be, for he had hardly brought her up near the wharf when Jordan came off, and found him sitting wearily on the bridge, begrimed all over and heavy-eyed.
"Well," he said, "you look considerably more like the played-out mariner than the wedding guest. What has been worrying you? Anything wrong with her?"
"A good many things," said Jimmy. "If I went through the list I should probably scare you. She has evidently been lying-up for a while, and that is apt to have its effect on any steamboat's constitution. I've had no sleep all the way up, and spent most of the time in manual labor when I wasn't at the helm. The men I have—and they're a tolerably decent crowd—naturally expected to rest now and then."
"What's the matter with your engineer?"
"Nothing, except that he's played-out—and I don't wonder. He'll be fast asleep by now, and I don't think I'd worry him if I were you."
Jordan looked suddenly thoughtful. "Now be quick. Is this boat fit to go to sea, or has that blamed surveyor swindled you and me?"
"She's sound. That is, she will be when we've had a month in which to straighten her up, or have had a carpenter and foundry gang sent on board her."
Jordan's face showed his relief. "Well," he said, "you have got to take the month at sea. You start to-night, and can do what's wanted when you have the opportunity. There's another thing. We have arranged for a kind of inaugural banquet, and you'll have to straighten her up a little. I'll send you down some flowers and things."
Jimmy gazed at him in drowsy consternation. "If your guests expect anything fit to eat, you had better send the banquet too. Who in the name of wonder are you bringing here?"
"Eleanor—that is, Miss Wheelock. Austerly and his daughter. I believe Valentine invited them. Forster and Mrs. Forster, and old man Leeson too. You have got to brace up and face the thing."
"I'm going to sleep," said Jimmy, with a gesture of resignation. "You'll take these papers to the respective offices, and I may be able to talk sensibly during the afternoon. But what made you want to bring Eleanor and Mrs. Forster here?"
Jordan laughed, and laid his hand on his comrade's shoulder. "I'll tell you later; you're too sleepy now. In the meanwhile, I'll get round and fix things generally."
He went away in a few minutes, and Jimmy, dragging himself into the little room beneath the bridge, flung himself down in the skipper's berth, dressed as he was.
It was a still, clear evening when Jimmy stood at theShasta's gangway waiting to receive his guests. She lay out in the Inlet, and he could see the two boats sliding across the smooth, green water with a measured splash of oars, while the voices of their occupants reached him faintly through the clatter of a C.P.R. liner's winches and the tolling of a locomotive bell ashore. A thin jet of steam simmered about theShasta's rusty funnel, and she lay motionless on the glassy brine, with cracked and splintered decks, and what paint a long exposure to rain and sun had not removed peeling from her. Jimmy had had no time to spare for any attempt at decoration during the voyage down Puget Sound. Indeed, he and his engineer felt thankful they had succeeded in bringing her round at all.
By and by the first boat ran alongside, and, because she belonged to theShasta, Jimmy was relieved to see that there was, after all, not a very great deal of water in her, though his guests sat with their feet drawn up. There were several of them: Jordan, who wore among other somewhat unusual garments a frock-coat, and was talking volubly; Eleanor, in elaborate white dress and a very big white hat; old Leeson, Forster and his wife.Jimmy helped them up with difficulty, for theShastawas floating high and light and had not been provided with a passenger ladder. Something in his sister's face perplexed him when at last they stood on deck. Eleanor was quieter than usual, and when she looked at him there was a trace of color in her cheeks he could not quite account for.
"You seem almost astonished to see me," she said. "Even if I hadn't wanted to come, Charley would have insisted on it."
Jimmy gazed hard at both her and Jordan, and noticed that Mrs. Forster seemed a trifle amused.
"Charley?" he said.
"Of course. Hasn't he told you?" said Eleanor; and though she laughed, there was diffidence and pride in her eyes when she glanced at the man beside her. It was also, her brother felt, rather more than the pride of possession.
"I must explain," said Jordan. "When I came off this morning, Jimmy was too sleepy to be entrusted with any information of the kind. Still, I quite think I deserve a few congratulations."
Jimmy looked at him with a faint wrinkling of his brows, and then involuntarily turned toward the rest of the company.
"Well," he said, "I suppose it's only natural, though of course I never expected this."
Mrs. Forster laughed outright. "Then everybody else did, and ventured to approve of it."
Jimmy stretched his hand out, and grasped that of his comrade slowly and tenaciously. "After all, there is nobody I should sooner trust her to, and I don'tthink you could have got anybody more—capable, generally," he said. "Eleanor, you see, is cleverer than I am."
Eleanor Wheelock naturally understood her brother, and there was whimsical toleration in her smile, while the little twinkle grew more pronounced in Jordan's eyes. He was a shrewd man, and had already formed a reasonably accurate notion of Jimmy and Eleanor Wheelock's respective capabilities.
"Thank you!" he said. "The other boat should be almost alongside."
He moved aft with Eleanor and the rest of the guests, while Jimmy, who had not quite recovered from his astonishment, was leaning on the rail when another boat slid around theShasta's stern. He recognized Austerly and his daughter on board her, and then felt his heart beat and the blood creep into his face, for Anthea Merril was sitting at Miss Austerly's side. He had not seen her since he stood one morning on the wharf in the man-o'-war cap, but he had thought of her often, and now, though his pleasure at seeing her almost drove out the other feeling, it seemed unfitting that she should be there to take her part in sending out the steamer that was, if theShastaCompany could contrive it, to bring to nothing her father's scheme. The boat was alongside in a few moments, and when her occupants reached the deck Austerly shook hands with Jimmy.
"I must offer you my congratulations on being in command," he said. "My daughter seemed to fancy we should be warranted in bringing Miss Merril."
Anthea smiled at Jimmy. "Yes," she said, "I wantedto come; but of course if it was presumptuous, you can send me back again."
"I think you ought to know there is nobody I should sooner see;" and Jimmy, who was not so alert as usual that evening, looked at her too steadily.
Anthea met his gaze for a moment, and then, considering that she was a young woman accustomed to hold her own in Colonial society, it was, perhaps, a trifle curious that she slowly looked away. None of the others noticed this, except Miss Austerly, and she kept any conclusions she may have formed to herself. Then, though it seemed to come about naturally without anybody's contrivance, Austerly and his daughter joined Jordan, and for a few minutes Anthea and Jimmy were left alone. The girl leaned on the rail looking across the shining water toward the great white hull of the Empress boat lying, immaculate and beautiful in outline, beneath the climbing town. Then she turned, and Jimmy felt that he knew what she was thinking as her eyes wandered over the little rustyShasta. Though he had not spoken, she smiled in a manner which seemed to imply comprehension when he looked at her.
"Yes," she said, "there has been a change since I last saw you—and I am glad you are in command. One can't help thinking that you must find this, at least, a trifle more familiar."
"At least?" said Jimmy.
Anthea nodded, and her eyes rested on the big white mail-boat again. "I think," she said, "you quite know what I mean."
Once more Jimmy's prudence failed him. "Well," he said, "it is rather a curious thing that even when youdon't express it I generally seem to. I don't know"—and he added this reflectively—"why it should be so."
"I think that is rather a difficult question—one, in fact, that we should gain nothing by going into. How long are you going to command theShasta?"
"Until——" and Jimmy, who had not quite recovered from his exertions during the voyage, stopped abruptly. He could not tell his companion that he expected to sail the dilapidated steamer until she had wrested away a sufficient share of the trade her father was laying hands upon to enable Jordan to buy a larger one.
"I don't quite know," he added. "Anyway, I was very glad to get her. It is pleasanter to take command than to carry planks about the Hastings wharf ashore."
"You were doing that?" and for no very ostensible reason a faint tinge of color crept into his companion's face. Labor is held more or less honorable in that country, but, after all, Anthea Merril was a young woman of station.
"It must have been a change," she said a moment later.
"From the lumber schooner, or Valentine'sSorata?"
Anthea looked at him with a sparkle in her eyes. "Pshaw!" she said. "Are you going to masquerade always, or do you think I am quite without intelligence?"
Then she turned, and pointed to the beautiful white Empress boat. "When are you going back again?"
Jimmy understood her, and made no further disclaimer. Still, his face grew somewhat hard, and he moved abruptly.
"I don't quite know," he said. "Very likely I shallnever go back at all. Circumstances are rather against me."
"And can't you alter them?"
Jimmy drew in his breath, and unconsciously straightened himself a trifle. The girl stood close beside him, looking at him—not as one who asked a question, but rather as though she had expressed her belief in his ability to do what he wished. The confidence this suggested sent a thrill through him, and her quiet graciousness—which, though she addressed him as one of her own world, was not without its trace of natural dignity—and her physical beauty set his heart beating.
"I can try," he said simply. "There are, however, difficulties."
"Of course!" and Anthea smiled. "There generally are. Still, if one is resolute enough, they can usually be got over."
Jimmy said nothing. He was not, after all, especially apt at conversation, and he could not tell her that among all the difficulties he might have to grapple with, the greatest was probably her father.
Just then, as it happened, Jordan turned and called to them, and, moving aft, they descended to the little stern cabin with the rest. It was draped with the least faded flags from the signal locker; the table glittered with glass and silver, and was set out with great bouquets of flowers. The ports were wide open, and the cool evening air, fragrant in spite of the city's propinquity with the smell of the Stanley pines, flowed in. Eleanor Wheelock looked around with a smile of appreciation, and then turned to Jordan.
"Oh," she said, "it's pretty! You have done it all. Jimmy would never have thought of that. But why are both those flags there?"
Jordan glanced at the two big crossed flags that streamed down upon the settee in the vessel's counter. They were new, and athwart the broad red and white crosses gleamed the silver stars.
"Well," he said with a little smile, "I don't know any reason why they shouldn't be there side by side. It seems to me there'd be peace on earth right off if they always hung that way, if only because all the rest of the world would be afraid to break it. You have heard of the first message we sent your folks in the Old Country over the Atlantic cable. Besides, the thing's symbolical of another alliance that's not only to be wished for, but going to be consummated."
Eleanor blushed becomingly amidst the approving laughter, and, as she stood there in the gleaming white dress and big white hat, with the clear color in her cheeks, it seemed to Jimmy that he had never seen his sister look half so captivating. In fact, he was almost astonished that it had not occurred to him before that Eleanor was so exceptionally well-favored. The quiet and somewhat plain-featured Mrs. Forster, and Austerly's sickly daughter, served as fitting foils for her somewhat imperious beauty. Then, as she glanced in his direction, Jimmy moved a pace or two, and Anthea came out of the shadow.
"My sister Eleanor—Miss Merril," he said.
There was a brief silence which Jimmy, at least, found embarrassing, for it seemed to him that everybody was watching the two girls with sudden interest.He also felt that when Anthea Merril moved forward, Eleanor, as it were, receded into second place against her will. His sister was wholly Western, tall, and somewhat spare, with the suppleness of a finely tempered spring rather than that of the willow in her figure. Her quick glance and almost incisive speech matched her bearing. One could see that she was optimistic, daring, strenuous; but with Anthea Merril it was different. There was a reserve about her, and a repose in voice and gesture which in some curious fashion made both more impressive. She was also a trifle warmer in coloring and fuller in outline, and stood for, or so it seemed to Jimmy, cultivated ripeness as contrasted with his sister's vigorous and brilliant crudity. Quite apart from this, he had noticed Eleanor's brows straighten almost imperceptibly, and the slight hardness that crept into her eyes. The others apparently did not see it, but her brother understood those signs.
"Miss Merril! What does she want here?" said old Leeson, who usually spoke somewhat loudly, in what he evidently fancied was an aside, and it seemed to Jimmy that his sister's eyes asked the same question.
Anthea, so far as he could see, did not notice this, and it was she who spoke first.
"I almost fancy I have met you somewhere, Miss Wheelock, though I do not think it was in Vancouver," she said. "Toronto is rather a long way off—but I wonder whether you were ever there?"
"I was," said Eleanor. "I also saw you, though I never spoke to you. Under the circumstances, it was, however, hardly to be expected."
"No?" said Anthea, with a note of inquiry in her voice; and, though Eleanor smiled, there was no softening of her eyes.
"I was being trained to earn my living, and my few friends belonged to a very different set from yours."
Jimmy was not pleased with his sister. She had spoken quietly, indeed more quietly and indifferently than she usually did, and Anthea Merril had not shown the least resentment; but he felt that there was a sudden antagonism between the two women. It was therefore a relief to him when the steward appeared with the dinner, most of which Jordan had wisely had sent from a big hotel, and they sat down at the table.
It was a convivial meal. Jordan talked volubly, and there was a sparkle in most of what he said; Forster and Austerly were quietly jocular; and Eleanor, who sat next their host at the head of the table as his bride-elect, played her part in a fashion that pleased them all. Other things had also their effect upon the company. There was the love-match between the man who had staked every dollar he could raise to send out that little rusty steamer, and the beautiful penniless girl, as well as the presence of the daughter of the man who, they felt reasonably sure, would endeavor to crush him by any means available. As it happened, Anthea Merril talked quietly, and apparently confidentially, to Jimmy most of the time, and even old Leeson, who grinned at them sardonically, seemed to feel that the situation was rife with dramatic possibilities.
By and by the light commenced to fade, but Eleanor's white dress still gleamed against the dull blue and crimson of the crossed flags; and in after-days, when therewas anger between them, Jimmy liked to remember her sitting there at Jordan's side to speed him on theShasta's first voyage. She made a somewhat imposing figure in the little dusky cabin, and what she said struck the right note in the inauguration of that venture, for she was optimistic and forceful in speech and gesture—and Anthea now sat in the shadow.
At last old Leeson rose with a little dry chuckle. "I don't know whether speeches are expected," he said. "Still, I guess there's one toast we ought to honor, and that's the engaged pair. Anyway, it's one that's especially fitting to-night, since it seems to me that if it hadn't been for Miss Wheelock we wouldn't have been here, with steam up, on board theShasta."
There was a little good-humored laughter, but Leeson, who appeared unconscious that his observations were open to misconception, proceeded calmly.
"Now," he said, "in a general way, the less women have to do with business the better; but in Miss Wheelock we have an exception. If it hadn't been for her, Forster would not have put five thousand dollars into theShasta, and if he hadn't made the venture, it's quite likely I wouldn't either. It's quite a big one for people of our caliber, but we have a live man to run the thing, and he will have a wife as smart as he is standing right behind him. Well, we'll wish the pair of them long life and happiness."
Jimmy rose with his companions, but he was conscious that Anthea was regarding his sister with grave inquiry. Then Jordan made his reply conventionally, and afterward stood still a moment looking at hisguests, until with a little abrupt gesture he commenced again.
"Mr. Leeson's right: it is a big thing we have on hand," he said. "We're going to fight and break a monopoly, and, if all goes as we expect it, put money into our pockets. But in one way that's only half of it. I want you to think of the honest effort, the best thing a man has to offer, that is being wasted in this country. Can't you picture the bush-ranchers hauling produce thirty miles over a trail a city man wouldn't ride a horse along to the railroad, and watching fruit 'most as good as we can raise in California rotting by the ton? I want you to think of the oat crops cut green and half-grown, and the men who raised them mending their clothes with flour-bags and measuring out their groceries by the cent's worth, after spending half a lifetime chopping out the ranch. It's wrong—clean against the economy of things. We want every pound of whatever they can send us. We have mines and mills and money, but in this Province our food is bad and dear. While every man depends on his neighbor, the greatest thing in civilization is facility of transport."
He stopped a moment for breath, and the keen sparkle in his dark eyes grew plainer. "Well, we're going to provide it, and do what we can for the men with the axe and the grub-hoe. Some day this great Province will remember what it owes them. Here it's man against nature, and the fight is hard, while we'll do more than put money in our pockets if we make it a little easier. We want a fair deal—and we'll get it somehow—but we want no more; and if we can hold onlong enough, it won't be only those who sent her out who will say, 'Speed theShasta!'"
He stopped amidst acclamation, for his mobile face and snapping eyes had amplified his words, and, while he handled his theme clumsily, there was, at least, no mistaking the strident ring of the dominant note in it. In that country it was, for the most part, man against nature, and not man against man, and the recognition of the fact was in all who heard him. There men wrung their money from rocky hillside and shadowy forest with toil almost incredible, creating wealth, and not filching it from their fellows; but nature is grim and somewhat terrible in the land of rock and snow, and all down the great Slope, from Wrangel to Shasta, the battle is a stern and arduous one. So there was a little kindling in the listeners' eyes, and the women also raised their glasses high as they said, "Speed theShasta," knowing that this was in reality but a part of what they felt.
Then Eleanor rose, and the company, scattering for the most part, went back on deck, where it once more happened by some means that Anthea Merril and Jimmy found themselves some distance from any of the rest. The girl looked up at him with a little smile.
"Well," she said, "what did you think of Mr. Jordan's observations?"
Jimmy laughed. "My opinion wouldn't count. I couldn't make a speech for my life."
"No?" said Anthea. "Still, you can hold a steamer's wheel, and perhaps under the circumstances that is quite as much to the purpose. In any case, while your comrade was a little flamboyant, which is much thesame thing as Western, I think he meant it. After all, if we parade our sentiments, we generally act up to them."
"Jordan," said Jimmy, "seems to have quite a stock of them."
"And I understand he has put every dollar he has into the venture. Still, I suppose he did it cheerfully; and you may find it necessary to bring those bush-ranchers' produce down against a gale of wind."
There was a smile in her eyes as she looked at him, but in spite of that Jimmy felt his face grow slightly warm. It was not, however, altogether because Anthea noticed it that she changed the subject.
"There was one point that wasn't quite clear to me. Why did he say you were going to break up a monopoly?"
Jimmy wished she had asked him anything else, for he had already decided that Miss Merril knew very little about her father's business.
"Well," he said awkwardly, "that's rather a difficult thing to answer. You see, he mentioned a monopoly——"
"He certainly did."
"Then, to begin with, there is the Dunsmore road. They naturally couldn't handle produce as cheaply as we could, and, anyway, it isn't of much benefit to the ranchers who can't get at it."
"'To begin with?' That implies more than one, which is, one would fancy, the essential point of a monopoly."
"Perhaps it is," said Jimmy vaguely. "Still, when we get our hand in, there will be three."
Anthea may have had her reasons for not pressing the question then, for she laughed. "Of course!" she said. "Three monopolies. Well, I suppose one must excuse you. You can hold a steamer's wheel."
Jimmy, on the whole, felt relieved when the others sauntered in their direction, and was less grieved than he might have been under different circumstances when Austerly drew Miss Merril away. He had felt once or twice before, during discussions with his sister, that keen intelligence is not invariably a commendable thing in a woman. After that, Jordan had a good many instructions to give him, and by the time they had been imparted the rest were clustering around the gangway; while five minutes later Jimmy leaned on the rail watching the boats slide away toward the dusky city. Then he climbed to his bridge, and the windlass commenced to rattle, but he did not know that Anthea Merril, who heard his farewell whistle, kept the others waiting on the wharf a moment or two while she watched theShastaslowly steam out to sea.
The clear night was falling when Jimmy leaned on the bridge-rails as theShastasteamed out of the Inlet beneath a black wall of pines. Over her port quarter the pale lights of the climbing city twinkled tier on tier, with dim forest rolling away behind them into the creeping mist. Beyond that, in turn, a faint blink of snow still gleamed against the dusky blueness of the east. All this was familiar, but he was leaving it behind, and ahead there lay an empty waste of darkening water, into which theShastapushed her way with thumping engines and a drowsy gurgle at the bows. It seemed to Jimmy, in one sense, appropriate that it should be so. He had cut himself adrift from all that he had been accustomed to, and where the course he had launched upon would lead him he did not know.
That, however, did not greatly trouble him. His character was by no means a complex one, and it was sufficient for him to do the obvious thing, which, after all, usually saves everybody trouble. It was clear that Tom Wheelock needed him, and he could, at least, look back a little, though this was an occupation to which he was not greatly addicted. He understood now how his father, who had perhaps never been a strong man,had slowly broken down under a load of debt that was too heavy for him, though the nature of the man who had with deliberate intent laid it on his shoulders was incomprehensible. Jimmy, in fact, could scarcely conceive the possibility of any man scheming and plotting to ruin a fellow-being for the value of two old schooners. The apparently insufficient motive made the thing almost devilish. Merril, he felt, was outside the pale of humanity, a noxious creature to be shunned or, on opportunity, crushed by honest men.
Then he wondered for a moment whether the bondholder's daughter had inherited any portion of her father's nature, and brushed the thought aside with a little involuntary shiver. The thing was out of the question. One could, he felt, perhaps illogically, be sure of that after a glance at her; and then he straightened himself with a little abrupt movement, for it was very clear that this was, after all, no concern of his. He had never met any woman who had made the same impression on him that Anthea Merril had done, but he had already decided that he had sense enough to prevent himself from thinking of her too frequently; and it was evident that if he had not he must endeavor to acquire it.
He strove to divert his thoughts, and listened to the flow of language that rose through the open skylights from theShasta's engine-room. Taken together with the pungent smell of burning grease and a certain harsh thumping, it suggested that things were not going well down there. Then, looking forward, he watched the black figure of the look-out on the forecastle cut sharp and clean against the pale gleaming of the western skyas the bows swung over the long heave with a rhythmic regularity, for theShastawas drawing out into open water now. She was making eight knots, he fancied, with mastheads swaying athwart the stars, and a long smoke-trail that was a little more solid than the dusky blue transparency streaking the sea astern of her. Jimmy pulled out his pipe when a faint cold breeze fanned his cheek, and lighted it contentedly, for a steamboat travels fastest in smooth water when what moving air there is blows against her, and there was every sign of fine weather.
It lasted several days, and theShastastopped only twice at sea: once to cool a crank-pin, and again for a longer while because there was something wrong with her condenser. In due time she crept into a deep, mountain-walled inlet where the little whiteSoratalay, and Jimmy gazed in astonishment when he saw the piled-up produce on the strip of shingle beach between still, green water and climbing forest. He was even more astonished when certain bronzed men in battered wide hats and soil-stained jean came off, and conveyed him almost by force to the rude banquet laid out in a little frame hotel. Hitherto they had hauled the few goods they put on the market rather more than eight leagues along an infamous trail which for a part of that distance led over a mountain range.
Jimmy feasted that day, for the banquet was repeated with very little variation three times over, and his last speech was very much to the purpose as well as characteristic of him.
"Boys," he said, "we've steam up, and in view of the freight we're charging you Wellington coal is dear.Besides, even to oblige you, I really couldn't eat anything more."
They paddled him off in state in a big Siwash canoe, and their shouts rang far across the silent pines when the little rustyShastacrawled away into the evening mist; while long after it had hid her from their sight, Jimmy, standing on his bridge, heard the faint wail of the pipes. There was, as usual, a North Briton among them, and the wild music of another land of rock and pine and inlet six thousand miles away crept up the screw-torn wake in elfin fashion. Jimmy, at least, knew the burden of it: "Will ye no' come back again?"
His blood tingled a little as he listened. They had held out their hands to him, and made him one of them, and it was, he vaguely felt, a thing to be proud of, for there was a certain greatness in these simple, all-enduring men. They grappled with giant forests and rent stubborn rocks, clearing the way for thousands yet to come, with limbs that ached from the axe stroke and hands that bled upon the drill. They feared nothing, and looked for nothing except the prosperity which they would hardly share, but which would surely come; and all down the long Slope their kind are perfecting a manhood that is probably worth more than all the gold, silver, iron and wheat raised beneath the Beaver or the Stars.
It was the same at the next inlet, for that trip was very much of the nature of a triumphal procession, only that as yet the battle was not won; and when at last theShastaturned her bows southward, she was full to the hatches and deep in the water. As it happened, she met a strong southwester, which piled the long Pacific heave upon the reefs to port in big foam-crested walls, and after the first twelve hours of it there was scarcely a dry inch on board her. She went into it with dipping forecastle that swung up again veiled in cataracts of white and green until her forefoot was clear, and, with complaining engines, made scarcely four knots an hour. There were inlets that offered her shelter, but hour by hour Jimmy, clinging, battered by flying spray, to his reeling bridge, drove her ahead. The time for making speeches, at which he did not shine, had gone, and it was now his business to keep the promise he had made the ranchers, that he would not lose an hour in conveying their produce to the market. That, at least, was a thing he could do, and, though his drenched limbs grew stiff and his eyesight dim, he did it with the dogged thoroughness of his kind, standing high in the stinging drift as he drove her, swept and streaming, at the tumbling seas. He, too, was one of the enduring toilers, and, like the invincible men with the axes who had recognized the stamp he bore, he found a certain grim pleasure in the conflict.
It was toward dusk on the second evening when they steamed into sight of a little schooner, which showed as a gray smear of slanted canvas scarcely distinguishable from the crag a couple of miles to lee of her. Jimmy wondered what she was doing there in that weather with only one jib and a reefed boom foresail set, until his glasses showed him that her mainmast was broken off. That made the thing clearer, and in case more should be wanted, a flag fluttered aloft and blew out half-way up her foremast upside down. It was an appeal that is very seldom made in vain at sea, and meant in thatparticular case that she would be ashore in an hour or two unless somebody towed her off.
Jimmy closed his glasses with a snap, and hailing a very wet seaman sent him for the engineer. The latter climbed to the bridge, and nodded when he glanced at the vessel.
"Well," he said, "you'll have to take them off. She's not going to claw off shore without her mainsail. There would be a little money in the thing if we could tow her, but we can't. I'm taking steep chances of bringing the engines down about my head by shoving her into it as I'm doing."
As though to give point to the speech, theShastaflung her stern high just then, and shook in every plate as with a frantic clanging the engines ran away. Then she put her bows in, and dim crag and wallowing schooner were blotted out by a cloud of spray.
"We have got to try," said Jimmy quietly. "There's a point that would give us shelter twenty miles away."
"Twenty miles!" and the engineer, from whose blackened singlet the water streamed, laughed scornfully. "It's 'bout as likely we'd tow her to Honolulu. Still, I guess you're skipper."
Jimmy nodded. He had not troubled to impress the fact upon his crew, but he invariably acted on it. "You had better raise a little more steam," he said; "it is very likely that we'll want it."
Then, as the dripping engineer vanished from the bridge, he seized the whistle lanyard, and signed to the man behind him who gripped the wheel. A deep blast rent the turmoil of the sea, and theShasta, swinging around a trifle, rolled away to the rescue. It was sometwenty minutes later when she stopped, and lay plunging head to sea with the little wallowing schooner close to lee of her. The light was going, but Jimmy could see a shapeless figure that clung to her rail gesticulating with flung-up arm. The wreck of a boat, apparently smashed by the falling mast, lay across her hatch, and there was another half-seen man at her wheel. Jimmy stood still for a few moments with his hand on the telegraph, and he was glad to remember that there were several former sealing-schooner hands among his crew, for what they do not know about boat-work is worth no man's learning.
He let theShastaswing a little to give them a lee on one side of her, and while the sea smote and spouted in green cataracts across her weather-rail they swung a boat over, and two men, one of whom was a Siwash, dropped into her. That was enough to steer her while she blew to windward, and Jimmy dared risk no more. They got her away, apparently undamaged, and he sent theShastaslowly ahead when she plunged over a seatop veiled in a cloud of spray. It would be beyond the power of flesh and blood to pull that boat back, and theShastaswung in a wide half-circle to leeward of the schooner. Her crew had evidently tried to heave her to, but without her after-canvas she had fallen off again, and was forging ahead with theShasta's boat smothered in foam beneath her rail. She was going to leeward bodily, and Jimmy fancied she was about a mile nearer the crag than when he had first seen her. It was evident to everybody that he had no time to lose.
He shouted with arm flung up, and, though it was doubtful whether anybody heard him, the schooner'sboom foresail came thrashing down, and two men who leapt upon her rail fell into the boat. Then he thrust down his telegraph, and, as theShastaforged by, the boat drove down on her. She struck the steamer's hove-up side with a crash that stove several strakes of planking in, and men jumped for the flung-down lines as she filled. They scrambled up them, four in all, and, for one of them had hooked on the davit falls, theShasta's winch banged and rattled as they hove the boat in with the water streaming out through her shattered side at every roll. The men had, however, brought a rope with them, and the winch next hove the schooner's stoutest hawser off. It was made fast, and rose splashing from the sea when Jimmy touched his telegraph again, while, when at last the schooner fell into line astern, a very wet man clambered to the bridge.
"Are you fit to pull her out?" he asked.
"I don't know," said Jimmy; "I'm going to try. How did you get so far inshore, and have you left anybody to steer her?"
The man made a vague gesture. "Mainmast went beneath the hounds. She's been driving to leeward since, and she'd have been ashore in another hour if we hadn't fallen in with you. The old man's at her wheel. Built her himself 'most fifteen years ago, and nothing would shift him out of her."
Jimmy glanced astern, and for a few moments saw a gray face of rock loom out of the haze with the sea spouting dimly white at its feet. Then a thicker fold of vapor rolled about it, and the daylight faded suddenly. He could scarcely see the schooner lurching along behind them with jib still set, though the sail thrashednow and then. Indeed, his eyes were growing very heavy, and he realized that after forty-eight hours' continuous watching he could not keep himself awake much longer. A simple calculation showed him that it would be daylight again before he could put his helm up and run for shelter, when it would be imperatively necessary for him to be on his bridge; and calling his Scandinavian mate, he left theShastain his charge.
"Keep her going as she's heading now," he said. "You'll see I've headed her up a few points to allow for the leeward drag of the tow. You can call me in a couple of hours, or earlier if there's any change in the weather."
He clawed his way down from the bridge to the little room beneath it, and shed only his streaming oilskins before he flung himself into his bunk. He was asleep in two or three minutes, and slept soundly while the water oozed from his wet garments, until he was roused by a shouting. Then his door was flung open, and a man thrust his head in.
"Mr. Lindstrom figures you'd better get up," he said. "The tow has parted her hawser, and gone adrift."
Jimmy was out of his bunk in a moment, and in a few more had scrambled to his bridge. Lindstrom, the Scandinavian, shouted something he did not hear, but that did not very much matter, for the one question was, where was the schooner, and Jimmy was tolerably certain that nobody knew. His light had been burning, and for the first few moments he could see nothing but blackness, out of which there drove continuous showers of stinging spray. Then he made out the filmy cloud it sprang from at theShasta's bows, and swept his gazealoft toward the pale silver streak above her mastheads, which showed where the half-moon might come through. As he did so, the Scandinavian gripped his shoulder, and he saw a red twinkle widen into a wind-blown flame low down upon the sea. Now he could, at least, locate the tow.
"Did you get a sight of the beach? How far were we off?" he shouted.
"A low point," said Lindstrom, "which I do not know. One mile, I guess it, and we head her out more off shore."
Jimmy was a trifle startled. Though the water is deep along that coast, a mile leaves very small margin for contingencies, and he fancied that the tow, blowing to leeward, would cover it in half an hour. In that case there was not the slightest doubt as to what would then happen to her. She might, perhaps, last five minutes as a vessel, for the reefs are hard and there is a tremendous striking force in the long Pacific seas. Another point was equally clear. He had some twenty minutes in which to overhaul the schooner and take her skipper off, and no boat to do the latter with. If he failed to accomplish it in the time, it was very probable that theShastawould go ashore, and he did not think that any one would escape by swimming. Still, he meant to do what he could, and once more he set the whistle shrieking as he shouted to the helmsman.
TheShastacame round, and drove away into the darkness, for the light had died out again and there was nothing visible ahead but the dim white tops of frothing seas. Five minutes passed, and Jimmy felt the tension, for they were steaming toward destruction, and it wasquite possible that they might run past the schooner or straight over her. Then a shaft of moonlight struck the climbing pines high up in front of him, and it seemed to him that he was already almost under them. He set his lips, and clenched the hand he would not raise in warning to the helmsman while the pale watery moonlight crept lower and lower. It rested for a moment on a fringe of creaming foam where the rock met the water, and then a hoarse shout went up, for as it swept toward him they saw the schooner.
She was not far ahead of them, with jib thrashed to ribands and the sea streaming from her swung-up side. Jimmy thrust down his telegraph and shouted to Lindstrom, who dropped from the bridge as they drove past her stern. Then, as he raised his hand, the man behind him gasped as he struggled with his wheel, and theShasta, stopping, lay rolling wildly beneath the schooner's lee, while a shadowy figure gesticulated to those on board her from her spray-swept rail. Jimmy glanced shoreward over his shoulder toward the tumbling surf, and decided that he had at most five minutes to take that man off. After that it would probably be too late for all of them.
Mercifully the moonlight still streamed down, and he waited with lips set and hands clenched on the telegraph while the schooner, being lighter, drove down upon theShasta. One blow might make an end of both of them, but something must be hazarded, and he spared a glance for the wet men who crouched upon theShasta's rail with lines in their hands. He had smashed one boat not long ago, and the second and smaller one had beendamaged a week earlier, bringing a Siwash to take them up a certain inlet off an unsheltered beach.
The schooner was very near them, and, if he stayed where he was, would come down on top of the steamer in another minute or so. Then Lindstrom sprang out of the galley with a blue light in his hand, and its radiance blazed wind-flung and intense on the narrowing gap of foam between the two wildly rolling hulls. There was a hoarse shouting, and, though he might not have heard the words, it was evident that the man on board the schooner realized what he was expected to do. Jimmy set his lips tighter as he pressed down the telegraph to slow ahead.
TheShasta's propeller thudded, and as the schooner reeled toward her she commenced to move, and a black figure plunged with flung-up hands from the latter's shrouds. It struck the seething water, and vanished for a moment or two, while men held their breath and strained their eyes. Then there was a hoarse clamor, and lines went whirling down from theShasta's rail. In the midst of it black darkness succeeded, as Lindstrom's light went out. Jimmy gasped, wondering when the schooner would strike them, while he clenched his hand on the telegraph. There was faint moonlight still, but it did not seem to touch the schooner, for his eyes were dazzled by the blaze of the blue light.
A moment later another shout rang out. "He has hold! Get down! Can't you stop her, sir?"
Jimmy, knowing what the hazard was, pressed his telegraph, and held his breath until a harsh voice rose again.
"I have a grip of him," it said. "Heave! We'vegot him, sir. Go ahead; she's coming down on the top of us!"
Jimmy moved his hand, and the gong clanged out "Full-speed" this time, while, glancing to windward, he saw the black shape of the schooner hove-up apparently above him. Still, quivering all through, theShastaforged ahead, and he leaned on the rails, for now that the tension had slackened he felt curiously limp.
"The man's all right?" he asked.
Lindstrom, who climbed half-way up the ladder, said that he did not seem to have suffered very much, and Jimmy, looking around, saw nothing of the schooner, for there was sudden darkness as the moon went out.