Thrice Armed

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?"

Jordan laid a hand on his companion's arm. "Jimmy," he said, "there's a thing you haven't mentioned to either of us – and I didn't expect you to – but I feel that by and by your sister is going to make trouble for you."

Jimmy looked at him steadily, and Jordan smiled. "You needn't trouble about making any disclaimer. I see how it is. Somehow you're going to get her. Merril's not likely to run us off. I guess there's no reason to worry about him. Still, I want you to understand that if I can't put a check on your sister – and that's quite likely – I'm going to stand by her. I just have to."

"Of course!" said Jimmy gravely. "Nobody would expect anything else from you. I don't mind admitting that I have been a little anxious about what Eleanor might do – but we'll change the subject. You suggested that Merril was getting into trouble?"

"He is," said Jordan, with evident relief. "They're making the road to the pulp-mill, and I don't quite know where he raised his share of the money, especially as he has just taken over a big old-type steamer. Had to face a high figure, played out as she is. Ships are in demand. Now, there are men like Merril whose money isn't their own; that is, they can get it from other people to make a profit on, as a general thing. But these aren't ordinary times; any man with money can make good interest on it himself just now, and I've more than a fancy that Merril's handing out instead of raking in. He has been at the banks lately, and when there's a demand for money everywhere you can figure what they're going to charge him. Anyway, we won't worry about him in the meanwhile. Get on your shore-clothes. As soon as you're ready you're coming up-town with me."

CHAPTER XXV

AN UNDERSTANDING

Jimmy went to Austerly's, and during the evening related his adventures in the north to a sympathetic audience. His companions insisted on this, and though there was one fact he would rather not have mentioned he complied good-humoredly with their request. The narrative was essentially matter-of-fact, but he had sufficient sense to avoid any affectation of undue diffidence, and the others appeared to find it interesting. Indeed, Nellie Austerly, at least, noticed the faint sparkle which now and then crept into Anthea's eyes as he told them how, in order to keep his promise to the miners that there should be no delay, he had come out of a snug anchorage and groped his way northward through a bewildering smother of unlifting fog. He also told them simply, but, though he was not aware of the latter fact, with a certain dramatic force, how, straining every nerve and muscle in tense suspense, they hove the steamer off just before the gale broke, and of the strenuous labor cutting wood for fuel on the southward voyage.

When he stopped, Nellie Austerly looked up with a little nod. "Yes," she said, "you took those miners in as you had promised, in spite of the fog, and you brought the Shasta down all that way with only a few tons of coal. Still, I don't think you should expect any particular commendation. There are men who can't help doing things of that kind."

Jimmy laughed, though his face grew slightly flushed. "I'm afraid I also put her ashore. One can't get over that." Then he looked at Jordan. "In fact, I scarcely think I'm out of the wood yet. There will be an inquiry."

"Purely formal," said his comrade. "They'll have a special whitewash brush made for you. Nautical assessors have some conscience, after all. Besides, it depends largely on the facts you supply them whether they consider it worth while to have one."

Austerly had a few questions to ask, and then the conversation drifted away to other topics, until some little time later Jimmy found himself sitting alone beside Nellie Austerly. She lay wrapped in fleecy shawls in a big chair near the foot of the veranda stairway, looking very frail, but she smiled at him benevolently.

"I am glad they have gone," she said. "You see, I wanted to talk to you, but the dew is commencing to settle and I must go in soon. That is insisted on, though I don't think it matters."

She smiled again. "It is a beautiful world, Jimmy, isn't it?"

Jimmy drew in his breath as he glanced about him, for he guessed part of what she was thinking, and it hurt him. He could see the dark pines towering against the wondrous green transparency which follows hard upon the sunset splendors in that country. The Inlet shone in the gaps amid that stately colonnade, and far off beyond it there was a faint ethereal gleam of snow. To him, filled as he was with the clean vigor of the sea, it seemed too beautiful a world to leave.

"Still," said his companion, "it has had very little to offer me, and perhaps that is why I feel one should never stand by and let any good thing it holds out go; that is, of course, when one has the strength to grasp it. It usually needs some courage, too."

"I'm afraid it does;" and Jimmy looked down at her gravely, for since this was not quite the first time she had suggested the same thing he commenced to understand where she was leading him. "One might, perhaps, manage to muster enough if one could only be sure – "

He stopped somewhat awkwardly, and the girl laughed. "One very seldom can. You have to reach out boldly and clutch before the opportunity has gone."

"In the dark?"

"Of course! One can't always expect to see one's way. You were not afraid of the fog, Jimmy?"

"I was. It got hold of my nerves and shook all the stiffening out of me. In fact, in the sense you mean, I'm afraid of it still."

He checked himself for a moment, and his face was furrowed when he turned to her again. "You understand, of course. The clogging smother of uncertainty now and then gets intolerable when a man wants to do the right thing. He can't see where he is going. There is nothing to steer by."

"If you had sat down and tried to think of every reef and shoal, and what would become of the Shasta if she struck them, would you ever have reached your destination when the fog shut down?"

"No," said Jimmy; "I should in all probability have turned her round, and steamed south again."

Nellie Austerly laughed. "Instead of that you went on – and got there – as they say in this country. That, as I think you will recognize, is the point of it all."

"I also got ashore."

"In spite of the lead. It wasn't much service, Jimmy. It really seems that one is just as safe when going full-speed ahead. Besides, you got off again, and brought the Shasta back undamaged. Well, perhaps it may occur to you by and by that there must always be a little uncertainty, and in the meanwhile I dare say you won't mind giving me your arm. I must go in, and these steps seem to be getting steeper lately."

Jimmy gravely held out his arm, and when he handed her one of the shawls as they reached the veranda, she smiled at him again.

"Now you are released, and I see Anthea is all alone," she said.

She disappeared into the house, and Jimmy's heart beat a good deal faster than usual when he went down the stairway. Though he did not know what he would say to her, he had been longing all evening for a word or two with Anthea, and now the desire was almost overwhelming. He had, of course, seen the drift of Nellie Austerly's observations, and it scarcely seemed likely that she would have offered him the veiled encouragement unless she had had some ground for believing that it was warranted. He also remembered what he had twice seen in Anthea's face; but he was a steamboat skipper with no means worth mentioning, and she the daughter of a man who was in one sense responsible for his father's death. That was certainly not her fault, but Jimmy felt that even if she would listen to him, of which he was far from certain, he could not expose her to her father's ill-will and the scornful pity of her friends. Still, Nellie Austerly's words had had their effect, and he strode straight across the lawn, with the same curious little thrill running through him of which he had been sensible when he drove the Shasta full-speed into the fog.

Anthea stood waiting for him beneath the dark firs, very much as she had done when he had last seen her, with a smile in her eyes.

"I suppose it is Nellie's fault, but I was commencing to wonder whether you wished to avoid me," she said.

Jimmy stood silent a moment, trying to impose a due restraint upon himself, until she lifted her eyes and looked at him. Then he knew the attempt was useless, and abandoned it.

"The fault was not exactly mine," he said, with a faint hoarseness in his voice. "For one thing, how could I know that you would be pleased to see me?"

"Still," said Anthea quietly, "I really think you did. Were your other reasons for staying away more convincing?"

Then Jimmy flung prudence to the winds. The fog of which he had declared himself afraid was thicker than ever, but that fact had suddenly ceased to trouble him. Again he felt, as he had done when he crouched in the Sorata's cockpit one wild morning, that he and Anthea Merril were merely man and woman, and that she was the one he wanted for his wife. That was sufficient, for the time being, to drive out every other consideration; but he answered her quietly.

"A little while ago I believed they were, but I can't quite think that now," he said. "Something seems to have happened in the meanwhile – and they don't appear to count."

They had as if by mutual consent turned and followed a path that led into the scented shadow of the firs, but when a great columnar trunk hid them from the house Jimmy stopped again.

"Yes," he said, "after that morning when we watched the big combers from the Sorata's cockpit, I think I should have known you were glad to see the Shasta back; but the trouble was that I dared not let myself be sure of it. There were, as you said, reasons for that. I suppose I should be strong enough to recognize and yield to them still, but – while you may blame me afterward for not doing so – I can't."

He moved a pace forward, and laid a hand on her shoulder, holding her back from him, unresisting, while he looked down at her. "Since I carried you through the creek that evening up in the bush I have thought of nothing, longed for nothing, but you. It has been one long effort to hold the folly in check; but it has suddenly grown too hard for me – I can't keep it up. Now, at least, you know."

He let his hand drop to his side, and stood still with his eyes fixed on her. Anthea looked up at him with a smile.

"Ah!" she said, "I knew it all long ago. Was it very hard, Jimmy – and are you sure it was necessary?"

The blood surged to the man's forehead, but there was trouble as well as exultation in his face, for his senses were coming back, and it seemed to him that he must somehow muster wisdom to choose for both of them.

"My dear," he said a trifle hoarsely, "I think it was. I am a struggling steamboat skipper, and you a lady of station in this Province. That was a sufficient reason, as things go."

"If you had been the director of a steamship company, and I a girl without a dollar, would that have influenced you?"

"It would have made it easier. I should have claimed you on board the Sorata. Lord" – and Jimmy made a little forceful gesture – "how I wish you were!"

Anthea smiled at him curiously. "Well," she said, "I may not have very much money, after all – and, if I had, is there any reason why you should be willing to give up more than I would? Does it matter so very much that I may, perhaps, be a little richer than you are?"

The veins showed swollen on the man's forehead, and again he struggled with the impulses that had carried him away, for the discrepancy in wealth was, after all, only a minor obstacle. Anthea, too, clearly realized that, and she roused herself for an effort.

"Jimmy," she said, while he stood silent, "would it hurt you very much if I admitted that you were right, and sent you away? After all, you have scarcely said anything that could make one think you would feel it very keenly."

The man stooped a little, and seized one of her hands. "Dear, you are all I want, and to go would be the hardest thing I ever did; but there is your father's opposition to consider, and, if to stay would bring you trouble, I might compel myself."

"Ah!" said Anthea softly, "the trouble would come if you went away."

Then with a little resolute movement she drew herself away from him, and looked up with a flush in her face and a quickening of her breath, for there was something of moment to be said. "There is a reason you haven't mentioned yet, though your sister did. Does that count for so very much with you?"

"Eleanor!" said Jimmy, while a thrill of anger ran through him. "I might have known she would do this."

He stood quite still for several moments with a hand clenched at his side and his face furrowed, and when he spoke again it was hoarsely.

"What did she tell you?" he asked.

"I think she told me all that she knew about your father's ruin, and his death. It was very hard to listen to, Jimmy – but did it really happen that way?"

She stopped a moment, and cast a little glance of appeal at him. "I have tried to think that she must have distorted things. It would have been no more than natural. If I had borne what she has I would have done the same. One could not regard them correctly. Bitterness and grief must influence one's point of view."

The man turned his face from her, and moved away a pace or two as if in pain. Then once more he turned toward her with a compassionate gesture, for he knew that the blow would be a heavy one to her, and it was almost insufferable that his hand should be the one to deal it.

"Then anything I could say would not be more reliable. My views would as naturally be distorted too."

"Still, I should have an answer. You must realize that, and if it is one that hurts I should sooner it came from you than anybody else."

Jimmy drew in his breath. "Then, while I don't know exactly what Eleanor has said, or whether I can forgive her that cruelty, I think you could believe every word of it."

The color faded from Anthea's face, and she looked at him with a faint horror in her eyes and her lips tight set. She could not doubt him. If there had been no other reason, the pity she saw he had for her was proof enough, and for a moment or two she forgot everything but the grim fact to which Eleanor Wheelock had forced her to listen. She could make no excuses for her father now.

She saw him suddenly as she felt that he was a creature of insatiable greed, cunning, unscrupulous, and without pity, and then she commenced to feel intolerably lonely. It was almost as though he had died, and the longing for the love of the man who stood watching her with grave sympathy in his eyes grew so strong that for the moment she was sensible of nothing else. There was nobody but him to whom she could turn. It was, she felt, his part to comfort her; and then she shivered as she remembered that circumstances had placed that out of the question. The injury her father had done him must, it seemed, always stand between them, and she shrank back a pace from him.

"Ah!" she said, "you must hate me for that, Jimmy."

It was half an assertion, and, though she had perhaps not consciously intended the latter, half a question, and the man recognized the dismay in it. He strode forward, and seizing both her hands laid them on his shoulders, and drew her to him masterfully. For a moment he used compulsion, and then she clung to him quivering with her head on his breast.

"Dear," he said, "it is not your fault. You had no part in it, and, even had it been so, I think I could not have helped loving you. As it is, there is nothing in this world could make me hate you."

Anthea made him no answer, and Jimmy drew her closer still. He had flung prudence and restraint away. What he had said and done was irrevocable, and he was glad that it was so. At last the girl looked up at him again.

"Jimmy," she said, "if you can thrust into the background all that Eleanor told me, you cannot let money come between us. Besides, I haven't any now. Could I lavish money that had been wrung from your father and other struggling men upon my pleasures – or dare to bring it to you? Can't you understand, dear? I am as poor as you are."

Then she suddenly shook herself free from his grasp, and seemed to shiver. "But you can't forgive him – it will be war between you?"

"Yes," said Jimmy slowly, "I am afraid that must be so. If there were no other reason, I cannot desert the men who befriended me, and your father will do all he can to crush them."

"Ah!" said the girl, "it is going to be very hard. Still, I cannot turn against him; he has, at least, been kind to me. I have never had a wish he has not gratified."

Jimmy slowly shook his head. "No," he said; "that is out of the question – I could not ask it of you. There is also this to recognize: your father is a man of station, and would never permit you to marry a steamboat skipper. He will make every effort to keep you away from me."

Just then Austerly's voice reached them from the house, and Anthea turned to the man again. "Jimmy," she said, "I know that you belong to me, and I to you; but that must be sufficient in the meanwhile. We can neither of us be a traitor. You must wait and say nothing, dear."

Then she turned and, slipping by him swiftly, moved across the lawn toward the house, while Jimmy stood where he was, exultant, but realizing that the struggle before them would tax all the courage that was in him and the girl.

Before he left the house, Nellie Austerly contrived to draw him to her side when there was nobody else near the chair in which she lay.

"Well?" she said inquiringly.

Jimmy looked at her with a little grave smile. "I have rung for full-speed," he said. "Still, the fog is thicker than ever, and, when I dare to listen, I can hear breakers on the bow."

CHAPTER XXVI

ELEANOR HOLDS THE CLUE

Mrs. Forster had gone out with her daughters, and there was just then nobody else in the ranch, when Eleanor Wheelock and Carnforth sat talking in the big general room. This was satisfactory to the girl, for she desired to have the next half-hour free from interruption. She was aware that Mrs. Forster might come back before that time had elapsed; but, although she had a purpose to accomplish, any appearance of haste would spoil everything, for it was, as she recognized, advisable that Carnforth should be permitted to take her into his confidence in his own time and way, without her doing anything to suggest that she was encouraging him. He had not been very long in Vancouver, and though he had placed a good deal of money in Merril's hands, and was associated with him in some of his business ventures, she had reasons for believing that he did not know exactly what her relations with Jordan were, or that she had a brother in command of the Shasta. Carnforth, as it happened, had also come there with a purpose in his mind. Indeed, it was one he had been considering for some little time, though he had at length decided that it would have to be modified. This did not exactly please him, but he was prepared to make a sacrifice in case of necessity.

He was a tall, well-favored man, and his tight-fitting clothes displayed the straightness of his limbs as he leaned back in his chair, with his eyes which had a suggestive sparkle in them fixed on the girl. The fashion in which he regarded her would, in different circumstances, have aroused Eleanor's resentment, but she was quite aware that there were certain defects in his character, and she had taken some trouble to discover why he had left Toronto somewhat hastily. She sat in a canvas chair opposite him across the room, and, since she had expected him that afternoon, she was conscious that everything she wore became her well.