Bindloss Harold
Thrice Armed

CHAPTER XII
THE "SHASTA" SHIPPING COMPANY

Two or three weeks had slipped away since the sale of the Tyee, 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 would be 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 lying down 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 the Sorata, 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 profitable occupation, 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 The Shasta Steam 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 the Shasta up 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 her engines 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.

CHAPTER XIII
THE "SHASTA" GOES TO SEA

It was a still, clear evening when Jimmy stood at the Shasta'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 the Shasta'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 bring her round at all.

By and by the first boat ran alongside, and, because she belonged to the Shasta, 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 the Shasta was 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't think 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 the Shasta'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 the Shasta Company 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 wanted to 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 rusty Shasta. 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 you don'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 the Shasta?"

"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's Sorata?"

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 shall never 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 there was anger between them, Jimmy liked to remember her sitting there at Jordan's side to speed him on the Shasta'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.