MR. BARCLAY JOINS THE PARTY
When the boat brought up to her anchor the boys spent some time
straightening up her gear and pumping her out. The work put a little
warmth into them, but they were glad to crawl into the cabin when it was
done. There was scarcely room in it to sit upright, and with the
moisture standing beaded everywhere it looked rather like the inside of
a well. Mr. Oliver had lighted the stove and a lamp was burning. By and
by he took off a hissing kettle, and when they had made a meal they lay
down in their wet clothes amidst a raffle of more or less dripping ropes
and sails. Fortunately, the place was warm, and Frank was thankful to
stretch himself out along the side of the boat. He was discovering that
mental strain of the kind he had undergone during the last few hours is
as fatiguing as bodily labor.
But he did not immediately go to sleep. The craft rocked upon the long
swell which worked in round the point, with now and then a sharp rattle
as she plucked hard at her cable. Sometimes she swung suddenly around
upon it as an eddying blast swept down from the rocks above, and the
drumming of the halliards against the mast broke continuously through
the moan of the wind among the trees ashore and the deeper rumble of the
ground sea. At last, however, he fell into a heavy slumber, and it was
daylight and Harry had put the spider on the stove when he awoke again.
He made his breakfast before he went out on deck, to find that the wind
had dropped a little and it was raining hard. The dim, slate-green
water lapped noisily upon the wall of rock close by, and glancing
seaward he saw nothing but a leaden haze and a short stretch of tumbling
combers. Mr. Oliver had gone out earlier and was standing on the deck
looking about him.
"There's no great weight in the wind, though the sea's still rather
high," he said presently. "I think we can push on for Victoria."
Frank, who fancied they would not get there before that night, was by no
means so keen about the sail as he had been on the previous day. He felt
that it would be considerably pleasanter to remain in the shelter of the
point until the sun came out or the wind went down, and it seemed to him
that Harry shared his opinion. The dog also looked very draggled and
miserable and had evidently had enough of the voyage. They, however, set
the mainsail, leaving the reefs in, hauled up the anchor, and hoisted
the jib as the sloop stretched out across the waste of tumbling water,
after which the boys went below to straighten up the breakfast things.
Frank once or twice felt a little sick as he did so, and he noticed that
Harry wore a somewhat anxious look.
"It's not blowing as hard as it was when we ran in, but I don't think
dad would have gone unless he'd some particular reason," Harry said at
length. "I wonder who the man is he expects to meet in Victoria, because
I'm inclined to believe it's not the one who wants him to look at the
land. The worst of dad is that he keeps such a lot to himself."
They crawled out again shortly afterward and found the seas getting
longer and bigger. Once or twice a blur of something went by that might
have been the end of an island, and Mr. Oliver changed his course a
little, but after that the dim, green water stretched away before them
empty and only broken by smears of snowy froth, and the sloop drove on
before the combers which came up out of the haze astern of her in long
succession.
It was toward noon, and Mr. Oliver had gone into the cabin to get dinner
ready, leaving Harry at the helm, when, glancing around, Frank saw an
indistinct mass of something break out of the mist. It grew into the
shadowy shape of a steamer while he watched it.
"There's a big vessel close by," he said, touching his companion's arm.
Harry glanced over his shoulder. "Sure," he nodded. "What's more, she's
coming right along our track. Get in some mainsheet while I luff her."
He changed the sloop's course a trifle, but in the meanwhile the steamer
was growing in size and distinctness with a marvelous rapidity. Her
great bow seemed to be rising out of the water like a headland, over
which Frank could just see the tiers of white deckhouses, one mast, and
the tall smokestack. Then he glanced forward at the sloop's wet deck and
the low strip of her double-reefed mainsail, looking very small among
the tumbling seas, and it occurred to him that it would probably be
difficult for the steamer's lookout to see them. He felt rather anxious
when he glanced back astern.
"She still seems to be coming right down on us," he said.
Harry called his father, who hurried out and glanced at the vessel.
"Shall we get up and yell?" the boy asked.
"No," said Mr. Oliver curtly, "they couldn't hear you to windward. Let
her come up farther."
Frank helped drag some more mainsheet and then looked around again with
a very unpleasant thrill of apprehension. The black bow seemed almost
above them, and the sea leaped against a wall of plates as the great
mass of iron swung slowly out of it and sank down again. Then from
somewhere beside the smokestack a streak of white steam blew out and a
great reverberatory roar came hurtling about them. Mr. Oliver's anxious
face relaxed.
"They've seen us," he said. "Her helm's going over."
The bow drew out and lengthened into an increasing strip of side.
Another mast became visible, with a double row of white deckhouses and a
tier of boats between. Here and there a cluster of diminutive figures
showed up among them, and then the great ship sped by with the whole of
her size revealed. The sloop plunged madly on her screw-torn wake, but
in another minute or two she had drawn away and was melting into the
haze again.
"A big boat," said Mr. Oliver. "She was very close to us. You had better
keep your eyes open while I get dinner."
The rest of the dismal day passed uneventfully, but toward evening the
haze commenced to roll aside and they saw blurred black pines looming up
ahead of them. A little later they ran into Victoria harbor, and, hiring
a Siwash to take them ashore, walked through the streets of what struck
Frank as a very handsome city until they reached a hotel. Here they
ordered supper, and after the meal was over the boys, who had changed
their clothes, sat with Mr. Oliver in the almost deserted smoking room.
He seemed to be expecting somebody, which somewhat astonished Frank, but
he noticed that Harry smiled meaningly when Mr. Barclay walked in. He
was dressed in light-colored sporting garments, with a belt around his
waist and a leather patch on one shoulder, and there were gaudy trout
flies stuck in his little cloth cap. He threw the cap on the table
before he shook hands with Mr. Oliver and the boys, smiling as he caught
Harry's eye.
"Well," he asked, indicating the flies, "what do you think of them?"
Harry grinned again as he laid his finger on one.
"You're not going to get many trout with that fellow, unless they've
different habits in British Columbia. They won't come on for quite a
while."
Mr. Barclay removed the fly and put it into a wallet.
"Thanks," he said. "It's some time since I did any fishing." Then he
seemed to notice the manner in which the boy was surveying his clothing.
"It's a sport's get-up, but are you acquainted with any reason why a
United States citizen shouldn't get a little innocent amusement catching
Canadian trout?"
"No, sir," answered Harry coolly. "Still, there are quite a few trout in
the rivers on the American side of the boundary. It makes one wonder if
you had anything else in view besides fishing in coming to British
Columbia."
Mr. Barclay regarded him with an air of ironical reproof.
"In a general way, young man, it's most unwise to blurt the thing right
out when you have a suspicion in your mind. It's better to let it stay
there until you have good cause to act on it." He turned to Mr. Oliver.
"I'm inclined to doubt the advisability of leaving your sloop lying
where she is in full view of the wharf."
"Then you recognized her?"
"At a glance. The trouble is that there are one or two acquaintances of
yours who might do the same."
Mr. Oliver looked thoughtful.
"I've been considering that, but it was getting dark when we ran in, and
we had better move the first thing to-morrow. Now with this unsettled
weather I'm not very keen on sailing up the west coast, which is open to
the Pacific, and the place we are bound for is rather a long way."
"Then go east," advised Mr. Barclay. "There are a number of inlets on
that side of the island within easy reach of the railroad, and you ought
to reach the nearest of them in a few hours. I'll go on with the cars
to-morrow, and if you don't get in at one of the way stations, I'll wait
for you at Wellington. Then we could cross to the west coast by the
Alberni stage and hire a couple of Indians and a sea canoe. It wouldn't
be a long run from there."
Mr. Oliver agreed to this, and getting up early next morning, they
slipped out of the harbor, and some hours afterward crept into a
forest-girt inlet, where they left the sloop. There was a depot nearby,
and getting on board the cars when the next train came in, they found
Mr. Barclay awaiting them. Early in the afternoon they alighted at a
little wooden, colliery town, and next day they crossed the island in
the stage over a very rough trail which led through tremendous forests.
Once they passed a wonderful blue lake lying deep-sunk between steep
walls of hills. Then they crossed a divide and came winding down into a
valley with water flashing at the foot of it. It was evening when they
arrived at a straggling settlement on the banks of a riband of salt
water twisting away among the forest-shrouded hills, and found several
Indians there who had come up in their sea canoes.
Mr. Oliver hired a couple of them, and they started after they had
purchased a few stores. A light, pine-scented breeze was blowing down
the valley when they thrust the canoe off from the shingle. They had no
sooner done so, however, when the dog arose with a deep growl which
indicated that he objected to the Indians going with them. As his
actions did not seem to have the desired effect he seized the nearest
Indian by the leg, and it was only when Harry belabored him with a
paddle that he could be induced to let go. Then he barked at them
savagely until Frank drew him down upon his knee with a hand about his
neck, while the Siwash raised two little masts. In the meanwhile the boy
watched the men with interest, and decided that they had very little in
common with the prairie Indians he had seen in pictures and from the
cars.
They were dressed neatly in clothes which had evidently been purchased
at a store, and though their faces were brown and their hair rather
coarse and dark there was nothing else unusual about them. They talked
with Mr. Oliver and Mr. Barclay freely in what Harry said was Chinook, a
readily learned lingua-franca in use on parts of the Pacific Slope. Then
Frank fixed his attention upon the canoe, a long, narrow, and
beautifully shaped craft with the usual tall, bird's-head bow. She was
rather shallow, but Harry said that this made her paddle fast. He added
that though these canoes would sail reasonably well when the breeze was
fair the Indians usually drove them to windward with the paddle unless
the sea was too heavy, in which case they generally made for the beach
and pulled the craft out.
Frank remembered that this, or something like it, was the ancient
practice, and that it was only by slow degrees that man had discovered
he could still make the wind propel his vessel to its destination when
it blew from ahead. Greek and Roman triremes, Alexandrian wheat ships,
and Viking galleys, had made wonderful voyages, and they all carried
sail, but they set it only when the wind was fair. When it drew ahead
they stowed their canvas and thrashed the lean hull through the seas
with their long oars. Now, after perfecting his vessel's under-water
body, inventing the center board, and learning how to make flat-setting
sails, man was going back to the old-time plan, only that instead of
relying upon the muscle of close-packed rowers he used improved
propellers, tri-compound reciprocators and turbines.
One of the Siwash shook out the two spritsails which sat on a pole
stretching up to the peak from the foot of the mast, and when he had led
the sheets aft his companion knelt astern with a paddle held over the
gunwale. Slanting gently down to the faint breeze, the craft slid away
through the smooth, green water with a long ripple running back behind
her. The log houses dropped astern and were lost among the trees, a
valley filled with somber forest, and a rampart of tall hillside,
slipped by, and as they crept on from point to point the strip of still
water stretched away before them between somber ranks of climbing trees.
Frank had no idea how far they had gone when the light began to fail,
though he fancied that the shallow craft, now slipping forward so
smoothly, was sailing a good deal faster than she seemed to be. At
length one of the Siwash loosened the sheets and stowed the sails, while
his companion turned the bows toward the beach. She slid in and grounded
gently on a bank of shingle in a little cove, where a gigantic forest
crept down to the water. They got out and ran her up, filled their
kettle at a tinkling creek, hewed resinous chips from a fallen fir, and
built a fire. Then they cut armfuls of thin spruce branches with which
to make their beds, and presently sat down to an ample supper.
When it was over the Indians went down to the canoe, and Mr. Oliver and
Mr. Barclay drew a little apart from the boys. Frank, lying near Harry
beneath a big cedar, raised himself up on one elbow and watched the
firelight flicker upon the mighty trunks. On the one hand they were lost
in the gloom of the dense mass of dusky foliage, but on the other their
great branches cut against the sky, which was still softly blue, and a
blaze of silver radiance stretched across the water, for a half-moon had
just sailed up above the opposite hill. Out of the silence there stole a
faint whispering from the tops of the taller trees and the languid
lapping of water among the stones, but there was no other sound, and
once more Frank was glad that he had not exchanged the stillness of the
wilderness for the turmoil of the cities. He had now definitely decided
to become a rancher.
It grew colder by and by, and wrapping his blanket around him, he
wriggled down closer among the yielding spruce twigs. The great trunks
grew dimmer and the smoke wisps which drifted among them became less
distinct. By degrees they all grew mixed together--a confusion of
sliding vapor and spectral trees--and he was conscious of nothing more.