EVELYN GOES FOR A SAIL
Vane sat in Nairn's office with a frown on his face. Specimens of ore
lately received from the mine were scattered about a table and Nairn had
some papers in his hand.
"Weel?" inquired the Scotchman when Vane, after examining two or three of
the stones, abruptly flung them down.
"The ore's running poorer. On the other hand, I partly expected this.
There's better stuff in the reef. We're a little too high, for one thing;
I look for more encouraging results when we start the lower heading."
He went into details of the new operations, and when he finished Nairn
looked up from the figures he had been jotting down.
"Yon workings will cost a good deal," he pointed out "Ye will no be able
to make a start until we're sure of the money."
"We ought to get it."
Nairn looked thoughtful.
"A month or two ago, I would have agreed with ye; but general investors
are kittle folk, and the applications for the new stock are no numerous."
"Howitson promised to subscribe largely; and Bendle pledged himself to
take a considerable block."
"I'm no denying it. But we have no been favored with their formal
applications yet."
"You had better tell me if you have anything particular in your mind,"
Vane said bluntly.
An unqualified affirmation is not strictly in accordance with the
Scottish character, and Nairn was seldom rash.
"I would have ye remember what I told ye about the average investor," he
replied. "He has no often the boldness to trust his judgment nor the
sense to ken a good thing when he sees it--he waits for a lead, and then
joins the rush when other folk are going in. What makes a mineral or
other stock a favorite for a time is now and then no easy to determine;
but we'll allow that it becomes so--ye will see men who should have mair
sense thronging to buy and running the price up. Like sheep they come in,
each following the other; and like sheep they run out, if anything scares
them. It's no difficult to start a panic."
"The plain English of it is that the mine is not so popular as it was,"
retorted Vane impatiently.
"I'm thinking something of the kind," Nairn agreed. Then he proceeded
with a cautious explanation: "The result of the first reduction and the
way ye forced the concern on the market secured ye notice. Folk put their
money on ye, looking for sensational developments, and when the latter
are no forthcoming they feel a bit sore and disappointed."
"There's nothing discouraging in our accounts. Even if the ore all ran as
poor as that,"--Vane pointed to the specimens on the table--"the mine
could be worked on a reasonably satisfactory paying basis. We have
issued no statements that could spread alarm."
"Just so. What was looked for was more than reasonable satisfaction--ye
have no come up to expectations. Forby, it's my opinion that damaging
reports have somehow leaked out from the mine. Just now I see clouds on
the horizon."
"Bendle pledged himself to take up a big block of the shares," repeated
Vane. "If Howitson does the same, as he said he would, our position would
be secure. As soon as it was known that they were largely interested,
others would follow them."
"Now ye have it in a nutshell--it would put a wet blanket on the project
if they both backed down. In the meanwhile we canna hurry them. Ye will
have to give them time."
Vane rose.
"We'll leave it at that. I've promised to take Mrs. Nairn and Miss
Chisholm for a sail."
By the time he reached the water-front he had got rid of the slight
uneasiness the interview had occasioned him. He found Mrs. Nairn and
Evelyn awaiting him with Carroll in attendance, and in a few minutes they
were rowing off to the sloop. As they approached her, the elder lady
glanced with evident approval at the craft, which swam, a gleaming ivory
shape, upon the shining green brine.
"Ye have surely been painting the boat," she exclaimed. "Was that for
us?"
Vane disregarded the question.
"She wanted it, and paint's comparatively cheap. It has been good drying
weather the last few days."
It was a little thing, but Evelyn was pleased. The girls had not been
greatly considered at the Dene, and it was flattering to recognize that
the man had thought it worth while to decorate his craft in her honor;
she supposed it had entailed a certain amount of work. She did not ask
herself if he had wished to please her; he had invited her for a sail
some days ago, and he was thorough in everything he did. He helped her
and Mrs. Nairn on board and when they sat down in the well he and Carroll
proceeded to hoist the mainsail. It looked exceedingly large as it
thrashed and fluttered above their heads, and there seemed to be a
bewildering quantity of ropes, but Evelyn was interested chiefly in
watching Vane.
He was wonderfully quick, but no movement was wasted. His face was
intent, his glances sharp, and she liked the crisp, curt way in which he
spoke to Carroll. The man's task was, in one sense, not important, but he
was absorbed in it. Then while Carroll slipped the moorings, Vane ran up
the headsails and springing aft seized the tiller as the boat, slanting
over, commenced to forge through the water. It was the first time Evelyn
had ever traveled under sail and, receptive as she was of all new
impressions she sat silent a few minutes rejoicing in the sense of swift
and easy motion. The inlet was crisped by small white ripples, and the
boat with her boom broad off on her quarter drove through them, with a
wedge of foam on her lee bow and a stream of froth sluicing past her
sides. Overhead, the great inclined sail cut, sharply white, against the
dazzling blue of the mid-morning sky.
Evelyn glanced farther around. Wharves stacked with lumber, railroad
track, clustering roofs, smoking mills, were flitting fast astern. Ahead,
a big side-wheel steamer was forging, foam-ringed, toward her, with the
tall spars of a four-master towering behind, and stately pines, that
apparently walled in the harbor, a little to one side. To starboard,
beyond the wide stretch of white-flecked water, mountains ran back in
ranks, with the chilly gleam of snow, which had crept lower since her
arrival, upon their shoulders. It was a sharp contrast: the noisy,
raw-new city and, so close at hand, the fringe of the wilderness.
They swept out through the gate of the Narrows, and Vane luffed the boat
up to a moderately fresh breeze.
"It's off the land, and we'll have fairly smooth water," he explained.
"How do you like sailing?"
Evelyn watched the white ridges, which were larger than the ripples in
the inlet, smash in swift succession upon the weather bow and hurl the
glittering spray into the straining mainsail. There was something
fascinating in the way the gently-swaying boat clove through them.
"It's glorious!" she cried, looking first ahead then back toward the
distant snow. "If anything more were wanted, there are the
mountains, too."
Vane smiled, but there was a suggestive sparkle in his eyes.
"Yes; we have them both, and that's something to be thankful for. The sea
and the mountains--the two grandest things in this world!"
"If you think that, how did you reconcile yourself to the city?"
"I'm not sure that I've done so." He indicated the gleaming heights.
"Anyway, I'm going back up yonder very soon."
Mrs. Nairn glanced at Carroll, who affected to be busy with a rope; then
she turned to Vane.
"It will no be possible with winter coming on."
"It's not really so bad then," Vane declared. "Besides, I expect to get
my work done before the hardest weather's due."
"But ye canna leave Vancouver until ye have settled about the mine!"
"I don't want to," Vane admitted. "That's not quite the same thing."
"It is with a good many people," Carroll interposed with a smile.
Evelyn fancied that there was something behind all this, but it did not
directly concern her and she made no inquiry. In the meanwhile they were
driving on to the southward, opening up the straits, with the forests to
port growing smaller and the short seas increasing in size. The breeze
was cold, but the girl was warmly clad and the easy motion in no way
troubled her. The rush of keen salt air stirred her blood, and all round
her were spread wonderful harmonies of silver-laced blue and green,
through which the straining fabric that carried her swept on. The
mountains were majestic, but except when tempests lashed their crags or
torrents swept their lower slopes they were wrapped in eternal repose;
the sea was filled with ecstatic motion.
"The hills have their fascination; it's a thing I know," she said, to
draw the helmsman out. "I think I should like the sea, too; but at first
sight it's charm isn't quite so plain."
"You have started him," interposed Carroll. "He won't refuse that
challenge."
Vane accepted it with a smile which meant more than good-humored
indulgence.
"Well," he declared, "the sea's the same everywhere, unbridled,
unchanging; a force that remains as it was in the beginning. Once you're
out of harbor, under sail, you have done with civilization. It has
possibly provided you with excellent gear, but it can do no more; you
stand alone, stripped for the struggle with the elements."
"Is it always a struggle?"
"Always. The sea's as treacherous as the winds that vex it, pitiless,
murderous. When you have only sail to trust to, you can never relax your
vigilance; you must watch the varying drift of clouds and the swing of
the certain tides. There's nothing and nobody to fall back upon when the
breeze pipes its challenge; you have sloughed off civilization and must
stand or fall by the raw natural powers with which man is born, and chief
among them is the capacity for brutal labor. The thrashing sail must be
mastered; the tackle creaking with the strain must be hauled in. Perhaps,
that's the charm of it for some of us whose lives are pretty smooth--it
takes one back, as I said, to the beginning."
"But haven't human progress and machines made life more smooth for
everybody?"
Vane laughed somewhat grimly.
"Oh, no; I think that can never be done. So far, somebody pays for the
others' ease. At sea, in the mine and in the bush man still grapples with
a rugged, naked world."
The girl was pleased. She had drawn him out, and she thought that in
speaking he had kept a fair balance between too crude a mode of
colloquial expression and poetic elaboration. There was, she knew, a vein
of poetic conception in him, and the struggle he had hinted at could be
described fittingly only in heroic language. It was in one sense a pity
that those who had the gift of it and cultivated imagination had, for the
most part, never been forced into the fight; but that was, perhaps, not a
matter of much importance. There were plenty of men, such as her
companion, endowed with steadfast endurance who, if they seldom gave
their thoughts free rein, rejoiced in the struggle; and by them the
world's sternest work was clone.
"After all," she went on, "we have the mountains in civilized England."
Vane did not respond with the same freedom this time. He was inclined to
think he had spoken too unrestrainedly.
"Yes," he agreed, smiling; "you can walk about them--where you won't
disturb the grouse--and they're grand enough; but if you look down you
can see the motor dust trails and the tourist coaches in the valleys."
"But why shouldn't people enjoy themselves in that way?"
"I can't think of any reason. No doubt most of them have earned the right
to do so. But you can't rip up those hills with giant-powder where you
feel inclined, or set to work to root out some miles of forest. The
Government encourages that kind of thing here."
"And that's the charm?"
"Yes; I suppose it is."
"I'd better explain," Carroll interposed. "Men of a certain temperament
are apt to fall a prey to fantasies in the newer lands; any common sense
they once possessed seems to desert them. After that, they're never happy
except when they're ripping things--such as big rocks and trees--to
pieces, and though they'll tell you it's only to get out minerals or to
clear a ranch, they're wrong. Once they get the mine or ranch, they don't
care about it; they set to work wrecking things again. Isn't that true,
Mrs. Nairn?"
"There are such crazy bodies," agreed the lady. "I know one or two;
but if I had my way with them, they should find one mine, or build
one sawmill."
"And then," supplied Carroll, "you would chain them up for good by
marrying them."
"I would like to try, but I'm no sure it would act in every case. I have
come across some women as bad as the men; they would drive their
husbands on."
She smiled in a half wistful manner.
"Maybe," she added, "it's as well to do something worth the remembering
when ye are young. There's a long while to sit still in afterward."
Half in banter and half in earnest, they had given Evelyn a hint of the
master passion of the true colonist, whose pride is in his burden.
Afterward, Mrs. Nairn led the conversation until Carroll laid out in the
saloon a somewhat elaborate lunch which he had brought from the hotel.
Then the others went below, leaving Vane at the helm. When they came up
again, Carroll looked at his comrade ruefully.
"I'm afraid Miss Chisholm's disappointed," he said.
"No," declared Evelyn; "that would be most ungrateful. I only expected a
more characteristic example of sea cookery. After what Mr. Vane told us,
a lunch like the one you provided, with glass and silver, struck me as
rather an anachronism."
"It's better to be broken in to sea cookery gently," Vane interposed with
some dryness.
Evelyn laughed.
"It's a poor compliment to take it for granted that we're afraid of a
little hardship. Besides, I don't think you're right."
Vane left the helm to Carroll and went below.
"He won't be long," Carroll informed the girl, with a smile. "He hasn't
got rid of all his primitive habits yet. I'll give him ten minutes."
When Vane came up, he glanced about him before he resumed the helm and
noticed that it was blowing fresher. They were also drawing out from the
land and the short seas were getting bigger; but he held on to the whole
sail, and an hour or so afterward a white iron bark, light in ballast,
with her rusty load-line high above the water, came driving up to meet
them. She made a striking picture, Evelyn thought, with the great curve
of her forecourse, which was still set, stretching high above the foam
that spouted about her bows and tier upon tier of gray canvas diminishing
aloft. With the wind upon her quarter, she rode on an even keel, and the
long iron hull, gleaming snowily in the sunshine, drove on, majestic,
through a field of white-flecked green and azure. Abreast of one
quarter, a propeller tug that barely kept pace with her belched out a
cloud of smoke.
"Her skipper's been up here before--he's no doubt coming for
salmon," Vane explained. Then he turned to Carroll. "We'd better
pass to lee of her."
Carroll let a foot or two of a rope run out and the sloop's bows swung
round a little. Her rail was just awash, and she was sailing very fast.
Then her deck slanted more sharply and the low rail became submerged in
rushing foam.
"We'll heave down a reef when we're clear of the bark," Vane said.
The vessel was now to windward and coming up rapidly; to shorten sail
they must first round up the boat, for which they no longer had room. A
few moments later a fiercer blast swept suddenly down and the water
boiled white between the bark and the sloop. The latter's deck dipped
deeper until the lower part of it was lost in streaming froth. Carroll
made an abrupt movement.
"Shall I drop the peak?"
"No. There's the propeller close to lee."
The tug was hidden by the inclined sail, but Evelyn, clinging tightly to
the coaming, understood that they were running into the gap between the
two vessels and in order to avoid collision with one or the other, must
hold on as they were through the stress of the squall. How much more the
boat would stand she did not know, but it looked as if it were going over
bodily. Then a glance at the helmsman's face reassured her. It was fixed
and expressionless, but she somehow felt that whatever was necessary
would be promptly done. He was not one to lose his nerve or vacillate in
a crisis, and his immobility appealed to her, because she knew that if
occasion arose it would be replaced by prompt decisive action.
In the meanwhile the slant of sail and deck increased. One side of the
sloop was hove high out of the sea. It was all the girl could do to hold
herself upright, and Mrs. Nairn had fallen against and was only supported
by the coaming to leeward. Then the wind was suddenly cut off and the
sloop rose with a bewildering lurch, as the tall iron hull to weather
forged by, hurling off the sea. She passed, and while Vane called out
something and Carroll scrambled forward, the sloop swayed violently down
again. Everything in her creaked; the floorings sloped away beneath
Evelyn's feet, and now the madly-whirling froth poured in across the
coaming. The veins stood out on the helmsman's forehead, his pose
betrayed the tension on his arms; but the sloop was swinging round, and
she fell off before the wind when the upper half of the great sail
collapsed.
Rising more upright, she flung the water off her deck, and for some
moments drove on at a bewildering speed; then there was a mad thrashing
as Vane brought her on the wind again. The two men, desperately busy,
mastered the fluttering sail, and in a few more minutes they were running
homeward, with the white seas splashing harmlessly astern. It was now
difficult to believe they had been in any danger, but Evelyn felt that
she had had an instance of the sea's treachery; what was more, she had
witnessed an exhibition of human nerve and skill. Vane, with his
half-formulated thoughts which yet had depth to them and his flashes of
imagination, had interested her; but now he had been revealed in his
finer capacity, as a man of action.
"I'd have kept to weather of the bark, where we'd have had room to luff,
if I'd expected that burst of wind," he explained. "Did you hurt yourself
against the coaming, Mrs. Nairn?"
The lady smiled reassuringly.
"It's no worth mentioning, and I'm no altogether unused to it. Alic once
kept a boat and would have me out with him."
The remainder of the trip proved uneventful, and as they ran homeward the
breeze gradually died away. The broad inlet lay still in the moonlight
when they crept across it with the water lapping very faintly about the
bows, and it was over a mirror-like surface they rowed ashore. Nairn was
waiting at the foot of the steps and Evelyn walked back with him,
feeling, she could not tell exactly why, that she had been drawn closer
to the sloop's helmsman.