it seemed to Jimmy, who had noticed the solicitude with which he had endeavored to minister in every way to the comfort or pleasure of their delicate passenger, that his companion had some special reason for understanding what the girl's lot had been.
"Well," he said reflectively, "one would suppose that to be born foredoomed is hard upon such as Miss Austerly."
Valentine made a little abrupt gesture. "It's evident they once had a yacht of their own. Any one could see how fond of it she is; and I'm taking her father's money – he hasn't too much of it – like a – moneylender that she may have a last taste of the one thing she can take pleasure in. Lord, when one has so much for nothing, what selfish hogs we are!"
"It can't be helped, anyway. You couldn't offer a favor to a man like Austerly."
"No;" and Valentine frowned. "He's a man with all the condemned prejudices of his class, and he would, naturally, sooner see his daughter's one wish ungratified. After all, women now and then rate the value of things more justly than we do. There's Miss Merril who came with them, and somehow it was she who brought this trip about. She has her pride, full measure of it, but she has sense as well, sense of proportion, and if we had only her to deal with we'd let every other charter slide and go south to-morrow to find the summer."
Jimmy was not in the least astonished. He had, of course, listened to a certain amount of forecastle ribaldry, though, after all, conversation and badinage of that nature is, at least, as frequent in a mail-boat's smoking-room; but he knew the ways of his fellows, and it seemed a very natural thing to him that Valentine the pariah should in his own fashion reveal these depths of chivalrous compassion. He had seen hard-handed men of coarse fiber do many a gentle deed with a curse on their lips that was probably worth a good deal more than a conventional platitude. Still, it would have been wholly extraordinary if he had mentioned anything of this.
"One would fancy Miss Merril has a good deal of character," he said.
"Too much for the man she marries, if there's anything small and mean in him. That's a girl with a capacity for doing more than sail a boat to windward well, and she will probably expect a good deal. In one way there's something humorous in the fact that her father is one of the – est rogues in this Province, though there are naturally a good many people who look up to him. Of course, she isn't aware of it yet. Brought up back East, I believe, and somebody told me she had lived a good deal with her mother's people. It probably means trouble for her when she understands the reality."
He rose with a little shrug of his shoulders. "I'm talking like an old woman, and these things have nothing to do with us. We have our wet watches to keep at sea, and perhaps we are better off than the rest of them because that is all. You can turn in if you want to; I'll wait for Louis."
Five minutes later Jimmy crawled into his bunk, and fell fast asleep. When he awakened, he found that the day had broken still and sunny. There was a Siwash rancherie a mile or two up the Inlet, and when an Indian had been found who would carry a message through the forest, Austerly, who never forgot what was due to a Crown-land official, decided to stay where he was and allow the agent to visit him. He was not in any way an active man, and appeared quite content to sit in the cockpit reading, when Valentine, who had procured a Siwash river canoe – a long, light shell of cedar with some two feet beam – offered to take his daughter up the Inlet to see the rancherie. Miss Austerly was pleased to go with him, and Anthea Merril, who watched the knife-edge craft slide away, turned to Jimmy.
"If you will get the trolling-spoon I will go fishing," she said.
"Yes, miss," said Jimmy, touching his cap – a thing that is very seldom done in Western Canada. Hauling the dory alongside, he handed her into it. Then he dipped the oars, and they slid slowly up the Inlet with the silver and vermilion spoon trailing astern. He had laid Valentine's shot-gun across the thwarts.
The lane of clear green water was, perhaps, two hundred yards wide, and the stately pines which shroud all that lonely coast rose in somber ranks on either side, distilling their drowsy fragrance as their motionless needles dried in the sun. There was not a sound when the splash of Valentine's paddle died away, and Jimmy dipped his oars leisurely, now and then venturing a glance at his companion. It seemed to him that the big white hat she wore became her wonderfully well, and it is possible that she guessed as much and did not resent it, for Jimmy was, after all, a personable man.
"Your skipper is very good to Nellie Austerly," she said. "I am rather pleased with him because of it. There are, naturally, not many things in which she can take any great interest."
"I suppose," said Jimmy reflectively, "there are people who would consider it good of him, but, in one way, it really isn't. It doesn't cost him anything, and he can't help it. That man would do what he could for anybody who didn't want to take advantage of him. What's more, he would do it almost without realizing what he was about."
"Do you know why he lives as he does at sea?"
"I don't. Probably because he likes it."
Anthea Merril smiled. "Is that all? It has not occurred to you that there is, perhaps, a reason why he and Nellie Austerly understand each other?"
"Both fond of the sea?"
"That mightn't go far enough. Nellie has had to give up so much, or rather it has been taken away from her. You can understand that?"
Jimmy nodded assent. It had already occurred to him that his comrade was a man who had lost something he greatly valued, and it did not appear incongruous that Miss Merril should be speaking in this familiar fashion to him. In fact, she frequently contrived to make him forget that he was Valentine's hired hand and wore the man-o'-war cap.
"What would a boat like the Sorata cost to build?" she asked.
"Perhaps four thousand dollars in this country."
"Ah!" said the girl; "and with that sum one could probably set up a store, buy one of the little sawmills near a rising settlement, or start on one of the other paths that are supposed to lead to affluence."
Jimmy laughed. "Supposing he owned the big Hastings mill, what more could it offer a man with his views? As he will tell you, he gets what he likes almost for nothing. He may be right, too. After all, it is clean dirt one has to eat at sea."
"There are not many men who could live as he does; the rest would go to pieces. And isn't it rather shirking a responsibility?"
"You mean that one ought to make money?"
"I think one ought to take one's part in the struggle that is going to make this the greatest Province in the Dominion; but not exactly for that reason." Then Miss Merril apparently decided to change the subject. "You had a good halibut season?"
Jimmy saw the twinkle in her eyes, and understood it. "I hadn't. I'm afraid I wouldn't know a halibut when I saw it. There are, one believes, plenty of them, but so far very few people go fishing."
"Then you were probably killing the Americans' seals?"
"I wasn't. I am, I may mention, mate on board a lumber-carrying schooner."
His companion's nod might have meant anything. "I fancied," she said, "you had not gone to sea very often as a yacht-hand."
Jimmy, who was uncertain what she wished him to understand, pulled on leisurely, until, as they crept along the shore, a widening ripple that spread from beyond a point caught his eye, and, laying down the oars, he reached for the gun.
"I was told to bring back a duck for Miss Austerly if I could," he said. "You don't mind?"
Anthea
