the Americans I have met seemed fond of traveling.”
“The richer ones are,” she answered frankly. “But until quite lately I think we were poor. It was during the Klondyke rush that my father first became prosperous, and for a number of years I never saw him. When my mother died I was sent to a small, old-fashioned, New England town, where some elderly relatives took care of me. They were good people, but very narrow, and all I heard and saw was commonplace and provincial. Then I went to a very strict and exclusive school and stayed there much longer than other girls.” Ruth paused and smiled. “When at last I joined my father I felt as if I had suddenly awakened in a different world. I had the same feeling when I saw Japan.”
“After all, you will be glad to get home.”
“Yes,” she said slowly; “but there’s a regret. We have been very happy since we left; my father has been light-hearted, and I have had him to myself. At home he often has an anxious look, and is always occupied. I have some friends and many acquaintances, but now and then I feel lonely.”
Jimmy pondered, watching her with appreciative eyes. She was frank, but not with foolish simplicity; quite unspoiled by good fortune; and had nothing of the coquette about her. Indeed, he wondered whether she realized her attractiveness, or if the indifference she had shown to admiration were due to pride. He did not know much about young women, but he thought that she was proud and of strong character.
“You must come to see us if you are ever near Tacoma,” Ruth said cordially.
Jimmy thanked her, and soon afterward left her, to keep his watch on the bridge. As they were still out of sight of land he had no companion except the quartermaster at the wheel in the glass-fronted pilot-house. There was no sail or smoke trail in all the wide expanse his high view point commanded. Rolling lazily to port and starboard, the big boat cleft a lonely sea that was steeped in dusky blue save where a broad belt of moonlight touched it with glittering silver. The voices and laughter gradually died away from the decks below, the glow of light was lessening, and the throb of the screws and the roar of flung-off water grew louder. A faint breeze had sprung up, and the smoke stretched out, undeviating, in a broad black smear over the starboard quarter; Jimmy noticed this while he paced to and fro, turning now and then to sweep a different arc of horizon. The last time he did so he stopped abruptly, for the smoke had moved forward. For a moment he fancied that the wind had changed, but a glance at the white-streaked wake showed him that the vessel was swinging round. Then he sprang to the pilot-house, and, looking in through the open door, saw the quartermaster leaning slackly on the small brass wheel. His face showed livid in the moonlight, and his forehead was damp with sweat.
“What’s this, Evans?” Jimmy cried.
Pulling himself together with an effort, the man glanced at the compass in alarm.
“Sorry, sir,” he said thickly, spinning the wheel. “She’s fallen off a bit. Something came over me; but I’m all right now.”
“It may come over you once too often. This isn’t the first time,” Jimmy reminded him.
A shadow obscured the moonlight; and, turning abruptly, Jimmy saw the captain in the doorway. The skipper looked at the compass and studied the quartermaster’s face; then he beckoned Jimmy outside. He had come up in soft slippers which made no noise, and Jimmy was keenly concerned to know how long he had been there. Jimmy had never got on well with his captain.
“Evans had his helm hard over; was she much off her course?” the captain asked with an ominous calm.
“About thirty degrees, sir.”
“How long is it since you checked his steering?”
Jimmy told him.
“You consider that often enough?”
“I had my eye on the smoke, sir.”
“The smoke? I suppose you know a light breeze is often variable?”
“Yes, sir,” said Jimmy. “She couldn’t swing off much without my noticing it.”
“One wouldn’t imagine so after what I discovered. But I gathered that Evans had been seized in this way during your watch before.”
“Yes, sir,” Jimmy repeated doggedly.
“Didn’t it strike you that your duty was to report the matter? You knew that Evans has a weakness of the heart that may seize him unexpectedly at any time. If it did so when we were entering a crowded harbor or crossing another vessel’s course, the consequences might prove disastrous. In not reporting it you took upon yourself a responsibility I can’t allow my officers. Have you anything to say?” Jimmy knew he could make no answer that would excuse him. When, as is now usual, a fast vessel’s course is laid off in degrees, accurate steering is important, and he had been actuated by somewhat injudicious pity. Evans was a steady man, with a family in England to provide for, and he had once by prompt action prevented the second mate’s being injured by a heavy cargo-sling.
“Perhaps the best way of meeting the situation,” the captain said curtly, “would be for you to voluntarily leave the ship at Vancouver. You can let me know what you decide when you come off watch.”
Jimmy moodily returned to his duty. He thought his fault was small, but there was no appeal. He would have no further opportunity for serving his present employers; and mailboat berths are not readily picked up. He kept his watch, and afterward went to sleep with a heavy heart.
The next evening he was idling disconsolately on the saloon deck when he saw Miss Osborne coming toward him. He was standing in the shadow of a boat and stayed there, feeling in no mood to force a cheerfulness he was far from feeling. Besides, he had now and then, when the girl was gracious to him, found it needful to practise some restraint, and now he felt unequal to the strain.
“I have been looking for you,” she said. “As I suppose everybody will be busy to-morrow morning, I may not see you then. But you seem downcast!”
Jimmy shrank from telling her that he had been dismissed; and, after all, that was a comparatively small part of his trouble. The girl’s tone was gentle, and there was in her eyes a sympathy that set his heart beating. He wished he were a rich man, or, indeed, almost anything except a steamboat officer who would soon be turned out of his ship.
“Well,” he said, “for one thing, the end of a voyage is often a melancholy time. After spending some weeks with pleasant people, it’s not nice to know they must all scatter and that you have to part from friends you have made and like.”
A faint tinge of color crept into Ruth’s face; but she smiled.
“It doesn’t follow that they’re forgotten,” she replied; “and there’s always a possibility of their meeting again. We may see you at Tacoma; it isn’t very far from Vancouver.”
Jimmy was not a presumptuous man, but he saw that she had given him a lead and he bitterly regretted that he could not follow it. Though of hopeful temperament, stern experience had taught him sense, and he recognized that circumstances did not permit of his dallying with romance. There was nothing to be gained and something to be lost by cultivating the girl’s acquaintance.
“I may have to sail on a different run before long,” he said.
She gave him a glance of swift but careful scrutiny. The moonlight was clear, and he looked well in his white uniform, which showed his solid but finely molded figure and emphasized the clean brownness of his skin. He had light hair and steady, dark
