Bindloss Harold
Thrice Armed

Jimmy smiled, for he considered it very likely. "Well," he said, "what are you going to do to make them serviceable?"

"Sit up all night re-gulletting them with a file. I want four loads of billets before we start again; but we'll take another axe ashore in the morning."

They went off early, when the tide was slack, taking an extra axe along, while it was noon when they came back, with one man who had badly cut his leg lying upon the billets. Fleming, however, insisted on his four loads, and it was evening when he brought the last two off. The men were almost too wearied to pull across the tide, and only the handles attached to them suggested that the two worn strips of iron they passed up had been meant for saws.

"That," said Fleming, who held one up before Jimmy, "says a good deal for the boys; but if I drove them the same way any longer there would be a mutiny."

Jimmy laughed, and told him to raise steam enough to take the Shasta to sea. She made six knots most of that night; and two days later the men went ashore again. Fleming, at least, never forgot the rest of that trip down the wild West Coast. He mixed his resinous billets with saturated coal-dust and broken hemlock bark, but in spite of it he stopped the Shasta every now and then when his boilers gave him water instead of steam.

Still, she crept on south, and at last all of them were sincerely glad when the pithead gear of the Dunsmore mines rose up against the forests of Vancouver Island over the starboard hand. An hour or two later Fleming stood blackened all over amidst a gritty cloud while the coal that was to free him from his cares clattered into the Shasta's bunkers, and Jimmy sat in the room beneath her bridge with one of the coaling clerks writing out a telegram.

"I'll get it sent off for you right away," said the coaling man. "Guess it will be a big relief to somebody. It seems they've 'most given you up in Vancouver."

Jimmy laughed. "Well," he said, "we have brought her here. Still, I think there were times when my engineer felt that the contract was almost too big for him."

CHAPTER XXIII
ANTHEA GROWS ANXIOUS

The afternoon was hot, but Jordan failed to notice it as he swung along, as fast as he could go without actually running, down a street in Vancouver. He walked in the glaring sunlight, because there was more room there, as everybody else was glad to seek the shadow cast across one sidewalk by the tall stores and offices, and he appeared unconscious of the remarks flung after him by the irate driver of an express wagon which had almost run over him. Jordan was one of the men who are always desperately busy, but there were reasons why his activity was a little more evident than usual just then. His associates had contrived to raise sufficient money to purchase a boat to take up the Shasta's usual trip, but the finances of the Company were in a somewhat straitened condition as the result of it, and he was beset with a good many other difficulties of the kind the struggling man has to grapple with.

For all that, he stopped abruptly when he saw Forster's driving-wagon, a light four-wheeled vehicle, standing outside a big dry-goods store. He was aware that Mrs. Forster seldom went to Vancouver without taking Eleanor with her, which appeared sufficient reason for believing that the girl was then inside the store. If anything further were needed to indicate the probability of this, there was a well-favored and very smartly-dressed man standing beside the wagon, and Jordan's face grew suddenly hard as he looked at him. As it happened, the man glanced in his direction just then, and Jordan found it difficult to keep a due restraint upon himself when he saw the sardonic twinkle in his eyes. It was more expressive than a good many words would have been.

Jordan had for some time desired an interview with him, but, warm-blooded and somewhat primitive in his notions upon certain points as he was, he had sense enough to realize that he was not likely to gain anything by an altercation in a busy street, which would certainly not advance him in Eleanor's favor. Besides this, it was probable that somebody would interfere if he found it necessary to resort to physical force. Jordan, who was by no means perfect in character, had, like a good many other men brought up as he had been in the forests of the Pacific Slope, no great aversion to resorting to the latter when he considered that the occasion warranted it.

Still, he held himself in hand, and strode into the store where, as it happened, he came upon Mrs. Forster. There was a faint smile in her eyes when she turned to him, for she was a lady of considerable discernment; but she held out her hand graciously. She liked the impulsive man.

"It is some time since we have seen anything of you," she said.

"That," said Jordan, "is just what I was thinking, though it's quite likely there are people who wouldn't let it grieve them. In fact, I was wondering whether you would mind if I asked myself over to supper with your husband this evening?"

Mrs. Forster laughed.

"I really don't think it would trouble me very much, and I have no doubt that Forster would enjoy a talk with you," she said. "I wonder whether you know that Mr. Carnforth is coming?"

"I do;" and Jordan looked at her steadily with a trace of concern in his manner. "In fact, that was one of my reasons for asking you."

The lady shook her head. "So I supposed," she said. "Still, while everybody is expected to know his own business best, I'm not sure you're wise. You see, I really don't think Eleanor is very much denser than I am, though you can tell her you have my invitation to supper."

Jordan, who expressed his thanks, strode across the store and came upon Eleanor standing by a counter with several small parcels before her. She turned at his approach, and he found it difficult to believe that his appearance afforded her any great pleasure. While he gathered up the parcels, she made him a little imperious gesture, and they moved away toward a quieter part of the big store. Then she turned to him again.

"Charley," she said sharply, "what are you doing here?"

"I saw Forster's wagon outside, and that reminded me that it was at least a week since I had seen you."

Eleanor smiled somewhat curiously, for it was, of course, clear to her that he could not have seen the wagon without seeing Carnforth too.

"And?" she said.

"I'm coming over to supper with Forster. You don't look by any means as pleased as one would think you ought to be."

The girl appeared disconcerted. "I should sooner you didn't come to-night."

"Of course!" said Jordan. "I can quite believe it."

A tinge of color crept into Eleanor's face, and there was now nothing that suggested a smile in the sparkle in her eyes. "Pshaw!" she said. "Charley, don't be a fool!"

"I'm not," said Jordan slowly. "That is, I don't think I am, in the way you mean. In fact, though it shouldn't be necessary, I want to say right now that I have every confidence in you."

"Thanks! There are various ways of showing it. You haven't chosen one that appeals to me."

Jordan flung out one hand. "After all, I'm human – and I don't like that man."

"You are. Now and then you are also a little crude, which is probably what you mean. Still, that's not the question. I think I mentioned that I should sooner you didn't come to supper this evening."

The gleam in her pale-blue eyes grew plainer, and it said a good deal for Jordan's courage that he persisted, since most of Eleanor's acquaintances had discovered that it was not wise to thwart her when she looked as she did then.

"I'm afraid I can't allow that to influence me, especially as Mrs. Forster expects me."

"Very well!" and Eleanor's tone was dry. "You may carry those parcels to the wagon."

Jordan did so, and felt his blood tingle when Carnforth favored him with a glance of unconcerned inquiry. There was a suggestive complacency in his faint smile that was, in the circumstances, intensely provocative, but Jordan contrived to restrain himself. Then Mrs. Forster and Eleanor came out, and the latter took the parcels from him.

"Four of them?" she said. "You haven't dropped any?"

Jordan did not think he had, and the girl pressed one or two of the parcels between her fingers. "Then I wonder where the muslin is?"

"I guess they can tell me in the store," said Jordan.

He swung around, and in a moment or two was back at the counter. The clerk there, however, had to refer to one of her companions, and, as the latter was busy, Jordan had to wait a minute or two.

"I wrapped up the muslin with the trimming," she said at last. "Miss Wheelock had four parcels, and I saw you take up all of them."

Jordan turned away with an unpleasant thought in his mind, and was out of the store in a moment. There was, however, no wagon in the street, and after running down most of it he stopped with a harsh laugh. Forster's team was a fast one, and Jordan realized that it was very unlikely that he could overtake it, especially when Eleanor, who usually drove, did not wish him to. After all, her quickness and resolution in one way appealed to him, and he remembered that he had promised to dine with Austerly that evening. Still, he went back to his business feeling a trifle sore, and one or two of the men who called on him noticed that his temper was considerably shorter than usual.

He had, in fact, not altogether recovered his customary good-humor when he sat on the veranda of Austerly's house some hours later. The meal which Austerly insisted on calling dinner, though he had found it impossible to get anybody to prepare it later than seven o'clock in the evening, was over, and the rest of the few guests were scattered about the garden. Valentine, who had arrived in the Sorata a day or two earlier, sat at the foot of the short veranda stairway close by the lounge chair where Nellie Austerly lay looking unusually fragile, but listening to the bronzed man with a quiet smile. Austerly leaned on the balustrade, and Anthea sat not far from Jordan. She was, as it happened, looking out through a gap in the firs which afforded her a glimpse of the shining Inlet. A schooner crept slowly across the strip of water, on her way to the frozen north with treasure-seekers.

"She seems very little," said Anthea. "One wonders whether she will get there, and whether the men on board her will ever come back again."

"The chances are against it," said Austerly. "It is a long way to St. Michael's, and one understands that those northern waters are either wrapped in fog or swept by sudden gales. Besides that, it must be a tremendous march or canoe trip inland, and before they reach the gold region the summer will be over. One would scarcely fancy that many of them could live out the winter. In fact, it seems to me scarcely probable that the Yukon basin will ever become a mining district. Nature is apparently too much for the white man there. What is your opinion, Jordan?"

Jordan smiled, though there was a snap in his eyes.

"It seems to me you don't quite understand what kind of men we raise on the Slope," he said. "Once it's made clear that the gold is there, there's no snow and ice between St. Michael's and the Pole that would stop their getting in. When they take the trail those men will go right on in spite of everything. You have heard what their fathers did here in British Columbia when there was gold in Caribou? They hadn't the C.P.R. then to take them up the Fraser, and there wasn't a wagon-road. They made a trail through the wildest cañons there are on this earth, and blazed a way afterward, over range and through the rivers, across the trackless wilderness. It was too big a contract for some of them, but they stayed with it, going on until they died. The others got the gold. It was a sure thing that they would get it. They had to."

"Just so!" said Austerly, with a smile. "Still, if I remember correctly, they were not all born on the Pacific Slope. Some of them, I almost think, came from England."

"They did," said Jordan, who for no very evident reason glanced in Anthea's direction. "The ones who got there were for the most part sailormen. They and our bushmen are much of a kind, though I'm not quite sure that the hardest hoeing didn't fall to the sailor. He hadn't been taught to face the forest with nothing but an axe, build a fire of wet wood, or make a pack-horse bridge; but he started with the old-time prospectors, and he went right in with them. It's much the same now – steam can't spoil him. When a big risky thing is to be done anywhere right down the Slope, that's where you'll come across the man from the blue water."

He stopped a moment as if for breath, with a deprecatory gesture. "There are one or two things that sure start me talking. It's a kind of useless habit in a man who's shackled down to his work in the city, but I can't help it. Anyway, the men who are going north won't head for St. Michael's and the Yukon marshes much longer. They'll blaze a shorter trail in from somewhere farther south right over the coast range. It won't matter that they'll have to face ten feet of snow."

Neither of the other two answered him, but the fact that they watched the fading white sails of the little schooner had its significance. There was scarcely a man on the Pacific Slope whose thoughts did not turn toward the golden north just then, and one could notice signs of tense anticipation in all the wooden cities. The army of treasure-seekers had not set out yet, but big detachments had started, and the rest were making ready. So far there was little certain news, but rumors and surmises flew from mouth to mouth in busy streets and crowded saloons. It was known that the way was perilous and many would leave their bones beside it, and though, as Jordan had said, that would not count if there were gold in the land to which it led, men waited a little, feverishly, until they should feel more sure about the latter point.

By and by Austerly, who spoke to Valentine, went down the stairway, and Anthea smiled when the latter, after walking a few paces with him, turned back again to where Nellie Austerly was lying.

"There are things it is a little difficult to understand," she said. "Valentine has, perhaps, seen Nellie three or four times since she left the Sorata, and yet, as no doubt you have noticed, he will scarcely leave her. She would evidently be quite content to have him beside her all evening, too."

"You didn't say all you thought," and Jordan looked at her gravely. "You mean that the usual explanation wouldn't fit their case. That, of course, is clear, since both of them must realize that she can't expect to live more than another year or so. I naturally don't know why she should take to Valentine; but I have a fancy from what Jimmy said that she reminded him of somebody. What is perhaps more curious still, I think she recognizes it, and doesn't in the least mind it."

"Somebody he was fond of long ago?"

Jordan appeared to consider. "That seems to make the thing more difficult to understand? Still, I'm not sure it does in reality. He is one of the men who remember always, too. He would not want to marry her if she were growing strong instead of slowly fading. It would somehow spoil things if he did."

"Of course!" said Anthea slowly. "In any case, as you mentioned, it would be out of the question. But how – "

Jordan checked her, with a smile this time. "How do I understand? I don't think I do altogether; I only guess. A man who lived alone at sea or on a ranch in the shadowy bush might be capable of an attachment of that kind, but not one who makes his living in the cities. One can't get away from the material point of view there."

He broke off, and sat still for a minute or two, for though it was clear that Anthea had no wish to discuss that topic further, he felt that she had something to say to him.

"Mr. Jordan," she asked at last, "have you had any news about the Shasta?"

Jordan's face clouded, but he did not turn in her direction, for which the girl was grateful.

"No," he said, "I have none. As perhaps you know, she should have turned up two or three weeks ago."

It was a moment or two before he glanced around, and then Anthea met his gaze, in which, however, there was no trace of inquiry.

"You are anxious about her?" she asked.

"I am, a little. It is a wild coast up yonder, and they have wilder weather. The charts don't tell you very much about those narrow seas. One must trust to good fortune and one's nerve when the fog shuts down. That," and he smiled reassuringly, "was why I sent Jimmy."

Anthea felt her face grow warm, but she looked at him steadily.

"Ah!" she said, "you believe in him. Still, skill and nerve will not do everything."

"They will do a great deal, and what flesh and blood can do, one can count on getting from the Shasta's skipper. I believe" – and he lowered his voice confidentially – "Jimmy will bring her back again. That's why I sent her up there less than half-insured. Premiums were heavy, and we wanted all our money. Still, if he does not, I know he will have made the toughest fight – and that will be some relief to me. You see, I'm fond of Jimmy – and I'm talking quite straight with you."

There was a hint of pain in the girl's face, and she realized that it was there, but his frankness had had its effect on her. It suggested a sympathy she did not resent, and she smiled at him gravely.

"Thank you!" she said. "There is another thing I want to ask, Mr. Jordan. If you get any news of the Shasta, will you come and tell me?"

"Within the hour," said Jordan, and Anthea, who thanked him, rose and turned away.

Jordan, however, sat still, gazing straight in front of him thoughtfully, for, though she had perhaps not intended this, the girl's manner had impressed him. He fancied that he knew what she was feeling, and that she had in a fashion taken him into her confidence. It was also a confidence that he would at any cost have held inviolable. Then he rose with a little dry smile.

"She is clear grit all through," he said. "And her father is the – rogue in all this Province."

CHAPTER XXIV
JORDAN KEEPS HIS PROMISE

Right sunshine streamed down on the Inlet, and there was an exhilarating freshness in the morning air; but Anthea Merril sat somewhat listlessly on the veranda outside her father's house, looking across the sparkling water toward the snows of the north. She had done the same thing somewhat frequently of late, and, as had happened on each occasion, her thoughts were fixed on the little vessel that had apparently vanished in the fog-wrapped sea. Anthea had grown weary of waiting for news of her.

Hitherto very little that she desired had been denied her, and though that had not been sufficient to pervert her nature, it naturally made the suspense she had to face a little harder to bear, since the money before which other difficulties had melted was in this case of no avail. The commander of the Shasta had passed far beyond her power to recall him; and, if he still lived, of which she was far from certain, it was only the primitive courage and stubborn endurance which are not confined to men of wealth and station that could bring him back to her in spite of blinding fog and icy seas. Anthea had no longer any hesitation in admitting that this was what she greatly desired. Now that he had – it appeared more than possible – sailed out of her life altogether into the unknown haven that awaits the souls of the sailormen, she knew how she longed for him. Still, the days had slipped by, and there was no word from the silent north which has been for many a sailorman and sealer the fairway to the tideless sea.

At last she started a little as a man came up the drive toward the house. He appeared to be a city clerk, but, though Merril had not yet gone out, she did not recognize him as one of those in her father's service. He turned when he saw her and came straight across the lawn, and Anthea felt a thrill run through her as she noticed that he had an envelope in his hand.

"Miss Merril?" he said. "Mr. Jordan sent this with his compliments."

Anthea thanked him, but did not open the envelope until he turned away. Even then she almost felt her courage fail as she tore it apart and took out a strip of paper that appeared to be a telegraphic message addressed to Jordan.

"Held up by fog and got ashore, but arrived here undamaged. Clearing again morning," it read, and the blood crept into her face as she saw that it was signed, "Wheelock Shasta."

For the next five minutes she sat perfectly still, conscious only of a great relief, and then she roused herself with an effort as Merril came out of the house.

"A telegram!" he said, with a smile. "Who has been wiring you? Have you been speculating?"

"In that case, don't you think I should have come to you for information?" asked Anthea, who was mistress of herself again.

"I'm not sure that you would have been wise if you had," said Merril, with a whimsical grimace. "I don't seem to have been very successful with my own affairs of late. Anyway, you haven't told me what I asked."

Anthea was never quite sure why she placed the message in his hand. She was aware that he was not interested in the subject, and would certainly not have pressed her for an answer. In fact, he very seldom inquired as to what she did, and had never attempted to place any restraint upon her. He glanced at the message, and then turned to her again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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