Golden Crescent
I had been sitting in my room for two hours, reading, and once in a
while, thinking over the strange adventures that had befallen me since
I had started out from home some three short weeks before. I was
trying to picture to myself how it had all gone in the old home; I was
wondering if my father's heart had softened any to his absent son.
I reasoned whether, after all, I had done right in interfering between
my brother Harry and his fiancee; but, when I thought of poor little
Peggy Darrol and the righteous indignation and anger of her brother
Jim, I felt, that if I had to go through all of it again, I would do as
I had done already.
My telephone bell rang. I answered.
It was the hotel exchange operator.
"Hello!--is that room 280?"
"Yes!" I answered.
"Mr. George Bremner?"
"Yes!"
"A gentleman in room 16 wishes to see you. Right away, if you can,
sir!"
"What name?" I asked.
"No name given, sir."
"All right! I'll go down at once. Thank you!"
I laid aside my pipe and threw on my coat. On reaching the right
landing, I made my way along an almost interminable corridor, until I
stood before the mysterious room 16.
As I entered, a respectably dressed, middle-aged man was coming out,
hat in hand. Two others were sitting inside, apparently waiting an
interview, while a smart-looking young lady,--evidently a
stenographer,--was showing a fourth into the room adjoining.
It dawned on me that this request to call must be the outcome of the
letter I had written that morning in answer to the newspaper
advertisement.
I immediately assumed what I thought to be the correct, meek expression
of a man looking for work; with, I hope, becoming timidity and
nervousness, I whispered my name to the young lady. Then I took a seat
alongside one of my fellow applicants, who eyed me askance and with
what I took to be amused tolerance.
Five minutes, and the young lady ushered out the man who had been on
the point of being interviewed as I had come in.
"Mr. Monaghan?" queried the lady.
Mr. Monaghan rose and followed her.
An interval of ten minutes, and Mr. Monaghan went after his predecessor.
"Mr. Rubenstein?" asked the lady.
Mr. Rubenstein, who, every inch of him, looked the part, went through
the routine of Mr. Monaghan, leaving me alone in the waiting room.
At last my turn came and I was ushered into the "sanctum." I had put
my head only inside the door, when the bluff voice I had learned that
day to know shouted merrily:
"Hello! George. What do you know? Come on in and sit down."
And there was Mr. Horsfal, as large as life, sitting behind a desk with
a pile of letters in front of him.
I was keenly disappointed and I fear I showed it. Only this,--after
all my rising hopes,--the genial Mr. Horsfal wished to chat with me now
that he had got his business worries over.
"Why!--what's the matter, son? You look crestfallen."
"I am, too," I answered. "I was not aware which rooms you occupied
and, when I received the telephone message to come here and saw those
men waiting, I felt sure I had received an answer to my application for
a position I saw in the papers this morning."
Mr. Horsfal leaned back in his chair and surveyed me.
"Well,--no need to get crestfallen, George. When you had that thought,
your thinking apparatus was in perfect working order."
My eyes showed surprise. "You don't mean----"
"Yes! George."
"What?--'wanted,--alert, strong, handy man, to supervise up-coast
property. One who can run country store preferred. Must be sober,'" I
quoted.
"The very same. I've been interviewing men for a week now and I'm sick
of it. I got your letter this evening. But all day I have had it in
my mind that you were the very man I wanted, sent from the clouds right
to me."
"But,--but," I exclaimed. "I am afraid I have not the experience a man
requires for such a job."
K. B. Horsfal thumped his desk.
"Lord sakes! man,--don't start running yourself down. Boost,--boost
yourself for all you're worth."
"Oh, yes! I know," I said. "But this is different. I have become
acquainted with you. I cannot sail under false colours. I have no
experience. I am a simple baby when it comes to business."
He banged his desk again.
"George,--I'm the boss of this affair. You must just sit back quiet
and listen, while I tell you about it; then you can talk as much as you
want.
"There's a thousand acres of property that I, or I should say, my
daughter Eileen owns some hundred miles up the coast from here. The
place is called Golden Crescent Bay. My wife took a fancy to it in the
early days, when she came with me on a trip one time I was looking over
a timber proposition. I bought it for her for an old song and she grew
so fond of the place that she spent three months of every year, as long
as she lived, right on that very land. She left it all to Eileen when
she died.
"As a business man, I should sell it, for its value has gone away up;
but, as a husband, as a father and as a sentimentalist, I just can't do
it. It would be like desecration.
"There's two miles of water frontage to it; there's the house we put
up, also a little cabin where the present caretaker lives. The only
other place within a couple of miles by water and four miles round by
land through the bush, is a cottage that stands on the property
abutting Eileen's, and close to her bungalow. It has been boarded up
and unoccupied for quite a while. Of course, up behind, over the
hills, there are ranches here and there, while, across the bay and all
up the coast, there are squatters, settlers, fishermen and ranchers for
a fare-you-well."
"You say there is a caretaker there already?" I put in.
"Yes!--I was just getting to that. He's an old Klondike miner; came
out with a fortune. Spent the most of it before he got sober. Came
to, just in time. Now he hoards what's left like an old skinflint.
Won't spend a nickel, unless it's on booze. Drinks like a drowning man
and it never fizzes on him. A good enough man for what he's been
doing, but no good for what I want now."
"You don't want me to do him out of his place, Mr. Horsfal?" I asked.
"I was coming to that, too,--only you're so darned speedy.
"He's all right as a caretaker with little or nothing to do, and he
will prove useful to you for odd jobs,--but, I have a salmon cannery
some miles north of this place and I am going to have half a dozen
lumber camps operating south, and further up, for the next few years.
Some of them are going full steam ahead now.
"They require a convenient store, where they can get supplies; grub,
oil, gasoline, hardware and such like. I need a man who could look
after a proposition of that kind,--good. The settlers would find a
store up there a perfect god-send.
"The property at Golden Crescent is easily got at and is the most
central to all my places. Now, having an eye to business, and with
Eileen's consent, I have decided to convert the large front living-room
of her bungalow into a store. It is plain, and can't be hurt. It's
just suited for the purpose. I have had some carpenters up there this
past week, putting in a counter and shelves and shutting the new store
off completely from the rest of the house.
"A stock of groceries, hardware, etc., has already been ordered from
the wholesalers and should be up there in a few days.
"Steamers pass Golden Crescent twice a week. When they have anything
for you, they whistle and stand by out in the bay; when you want them,
you hoist a white flag on the pole, on the rock, at the end of the
little wharf; then you row out and meet them.
"These are the main features, George. Oh, yes! I'm paying one hundred
dollars a month and all-found to the right man."
He stopped and looked over at me a little anxiously.
"George!--will you take the job?"
"What about those other poor beggars who have applied?" I asked.
"There you are again," he exclaimed impatiently. "They had the same
chance as you had. Didn't I even keep you waiting out there till I had
seen them in turn. Not one of them has the qualifications you have. I
want a man with a brain as well as a body."
"But you don't know me, Mr. Horsfal. I have no friends, no
testimonials; and I might be,--why! I might be the biggest criminal
unhung."
"Testimonials be blowed! Who wants testimonials? Any dub can get
them. As for the other part,--do you think K. B. Horsfal of Baltimore,
U. S. A., by this time, doesn't know a man after he has been a whole
day in his company?
"Sonny, take it from me,--there are mighty few American business men,
who have topped a million dollars, who don't know a man through and
through in less time than that, and without asking very many questions,
either. Why, man!--that's their business; that's what makes their
millions."
There was no resisting K. B. Horsfal.
"Thanks! I'll take the job," I said. "And I'm mighty grateful to you."
"Good boy! You're all right. Leave it there!" His two hands clasped
over mine.
"Gee! but I'm glad that's over at last."
"When do I start in?" I asked.
"Right now. I'll phone for a launch to be ready to start up with us
to-morrow morning. I'll show you over the proposition and leave you
there. Phone for any little personal articles you may want. I'll
attend to the bedding and all that sort of thing. Have the boy call
you at six a. m. sharp."
Nothing was overlooked by the masterly mind of my new, my first
employer.
We breakfasted early. An automobile was standing waiting for us at the
hotel entrance; while, at a down-town slip, a trig little launch,
already loaded up with our immediate necessities, was in readiness to
shoot out through the Narrows as soon as we got aboard.
This launch was named the _Edgar Allan Poe_, and, in consequence, I
felt as if she were an old friend.
As soon as the ropes were cast from the wharf, a glorious feeling of
exhilaration started to run through me; for it seemed that I was being
loosed from the old life and plunged into a new; a life I had been for
so long hungering; the life of the woods, the hills and the sea, the
quiet and freedom; the life of my dreams as well as of my waking
fancies. Whether or not it would come up to my expectations was a
question of conjecture, but I was not in a mood to trouble conjecturing.
The swift little boat fought the tide rip in the Narrows like a lonely
explorer defending his life against a horde of surging savages; and,
gradually, she nosed her way through, past Prospect Point, then,
inclining to the north shore, but heading forward all the time, past
the lighthouse which stands sentinel on the rock at Point Atkinson; and
away up the coast, leaving the city, with its dizzying and
light-blotting sky-scrapers far and still farther behind, until nothing
of that busy terminal remained to the observer but a distant haze.
The _Edgar Allan Poe_ threaded her way rapidly and confidently among
the rocks and fertile little islands, up, up northward, ever northward,
amid lessening signs of life and habitation; through the beautiful
Strait of Georgia.
From eight o'clock in the morning till three o'clock in the afternoon
we sailed on, amid a prodigality of scenic beauty,--sea, mountains and
islands; islands, mountains and sea,--enjoying every mile of that
beautiful trip. We conversed seldom, although there was much to
discuss and our time was short.
At last, we sped past a great looming rock, which stood almost sheer
out of the sea, then we ran into a glorious bay, where the sea danced
and glanced in a fairy ecstasy.
"Golden Crescent Bay," broke in Mr. Horsfal. "How do you like it?"
"It is Paradise," I exclaimed, in breathless admiration. And never
have I had reason to change that first impression and opinion.
We ran alongside a rocky headland close to the shore, on which stood
two little wooden sheds bearing the numbers one and two. We clambered
up.
"Number one is for gasoline; two for oil," volunteered my ever
informing employer.
The rock was connected to the shore by a well-built, wooden wharf on
piles, which ran directly into what I rightly guessed had been the
summer home of Mrs. Horsfal. It was a plainly built cottage and trim
as a warship. It bore signs of having been recently painted, while,
all around, the grass was trim and tidy.
On the right of this, about fifty yards across, on the same cleared
area, but out on a separate rocky headland, stood another well-built
cottage, the windows of which were boarded up.
"My property starts ten yards to the south of the wharf here, George,
and runs around the bay as far, almost, as it goes, and back to the
hills quite a bit. That over there is the other house I spoke to you
about. It, and the property to the south, is owned by some one in the
Western States.
"But I wonder where the devil old Jake Meaghan is. Folks could land
here and walk away with the whole shebang and he would never know of
it."
As he spoke, however, a small boat crept out from some little cove
about three hundred yards round the bay. It contained a man, who rowed
it leisurely toward the wharf. We leaned over the wooden rail and
waited.
The man ran the boat into the shingly beach, pulled in his oars,
climbed out and made toward us. An Airedale dog, which had evidently
been curled up in the bottom of the boat, sprang out after him, keeping
close to him and eyeing us suspiciously and angrily.
In appearance the man reminded me of one of R. L. Stevenson's pirates,
or one of Jack London's 'longshoremen.
He wore heavy logging boots, brown canvas trousers kept up by a belt,
and a brown shirt, showing hairy brown arms and a bared, scraggy
throat. A battered, sun-cast, felt hat lay on his head. His face was
wrinkled and weather-beaten to the equivalent of tanned hide. He wore
great, long, drooping moustaches snow white in colour. His eyes were
limpid blue.
"It's you, Mr. Horsfal," he mumbled rather thickly, in a voice that
seemed to come from somewhere underground; "didn't know you in the
distance."
"Jake,--shake with Mr. George Bremner;--he's going to supervise the
place and the new store, same as I explained to you two weeks ago.
Hope you make friends. He's to be head boss man, and his word goes;
but you'll find him twenty-four carat gold."
"That's darned fine gold, boss," grunted Jake.
He held out his horny hand and grasped mine, exclaiming heartily enough:
"Glad to meet you, George."
He pulled out a plug of tobacco from his hip pocket, brushed some of
the most conspicuous dirt and grime from it, bit off what appeared to
me to be a mouthful and began to look me over.
"He's new," he grunted, as if to himself; "but he's young and big. He
looks tough; he's got the right kind of jaw."
Then he turned to Mr. Horsfal. "Guess, when he gets the edges rubbed
off, he'll more than make it, boss," he said.
K. B. Horsfal laughed loudly.
"That's just what I thought myself, Jake. Now, give us the keys to the
oil barns and the new store. Go and help unload that baggage and truck
from the launch. You can follow your usual bent after that, for I'll
be showing George over the place myself."
I found the prospective store just as it had been described: a large,
plain, front room, now fitted with shelves and a counter, and all
freshly painted. Everything was in readiness to accommodate the stock,
most of which was due to arrive the next afternoon. Where a door had
been, leading into the other parts of the house, it was now solidly
partitioned up, leaving only front and back entrances to the store.
We spent the afternoon in the open air, inspecting the property, which
was perfectly situated for scenic beauty, with plenty of cleared,
fertile land near the shore and rich in giant timber behind.
In the early part of the evening, after a cold lunch aboard the launch,
we went back to the house and, for the first time, Mr. Horsfal inserted
a key into the front door of the dwelling proper.
I had been not a little curious regarding this place and I was still
wondering where it was intended that I should take up my quarters.
Jake Meaghan seemed all right in his own Klondikish,
pork-and-beans-and-a-blanket way, but I hardly fancied him as a rooming
partner and a possible bedfellow. To be candid, I never had had a
bedfellow in all my life and I had already made up my mind that, rather
than suffer one now, I would fix up one of the several empty barns
which were scattered here and there over the property, and thus retain
my beloved privacy.
My employer pushed his way into the house and invited me to follow him.
I found myself in a small, front room, neatly but plainly furnished.
The floor was varnished and two bearskin rugs supplied the only
carpeting. It had a mahogany centre table, on which a large
oil-burning reading lamp was set. Three wicker chairs, designed solely
for comfort, and a stove with an open front helped to complete its
comfortable appearance. A number of framed photographs of Golden
Crescent and some water colour paintings decorated the plain, wooden
walls. In the far corner, beside a small side window, there stood a
writing desk; while, all along that side of the wall, on a long curtain
pole, there was hung, from brass rings, a heavy green curtain.
I took in what I could in a cursory glance and I marvelled that there
could be so much apparent concentrated comfort so far away from city
civilisation; but, when my guide pulled aside the curtain on the wall
and disclosed rows and rows of books behind a glass front, books
ancient and modern, books of religion, philosophy, medicine, history,
fiction and poetry,--at least a thousand of them,--I gave up trying any
more to fathom what manner of a man he was.
My eyes sparkled and explained to K. B. Horsfal what my voice failed to
utter.
"Well,--what d'ye think of it all?" he asked at last.
"It is a delight,--a positive delight," I replied simply.
As I walked over to the front window, I wondered little that Mrs.
Horsfal should have loved the place; and, when I looked away out over
the dancing waters, upon the beauties of the bay in the changing light
of the lowering sun, upon the rocky, fir-dotted island a mile to sea,
and upon the lonely-looking homes of the settlers over there two miles
away on the far horn of Golden Crescent, with the great background of
mountains in purple velvet,--I wondered less.
"Yes! George,--it's pretty near what heaven should be to look at. But
I guess it's the same old story that the poet once sang:
"'Where every prospect pleases and only man is vile.'
"That poet kind of forgot that, if what he said was true, it was only
the vile man that the prospect could please, eh!
"You notice the house has been cleaned from top to toe. I had that
done last week. I see to that every time I come west."
He put his hand on my shoulder. "George, boy,--no one but myself and
Eileen has slept under this roof since my wife died, but I want you to
make it your home."
I turned to remonstrate.
"Now,--don't say a word," he hurried on. "You can't bluff me with your
self-defamatory remarks. You are not a Jake Meaghan, or one of his
stamp. You are of the kind that appreciates a home like this to the
extent of taking care of it.
"Come and have a look at the other apartments.
"This is the kitchen. It has a pantry and a good cooking-stove. There
are four bedrooms in the house. This can be yours;--it's the one I
used to occupy. This is a spare one. This is Eileen's. You won't
require it; and one never knows when Eileen might take it into her head
to come up here and live.
"This is my Helen's room,--my wife's. It has not been changed since
she died."
He went in. I remained respectfully in the adjoining apartment. I
waited for five minutes.
When he returned, there were tears in his eyes. He locked the door
with a sigh.
"George,--here are the keys to the whole she-bang. There isn't much
more to keep me here. You have signed the necessary papers in
connection with the trust account for $5,000 in the Commercial Bank of
Canada in Vancouver. Draw your wages regularly. Pay Jake his fifty a
month at the same time. We find his grub for him.
"Run things at a profit if you can, for that's business. Stand
strictly to the instructions I have given you regarding orders for
supplies from the various camps and from the cannery. Use your own
judgment as to credit with the settlers. I leave you a free hand up
here.
"Send your monthly reports, addressed to me care of my lawyers, Dow,
Cross & Sneddon of Vancouver. They will forward them.
"If any question should arise regarding the property itself, get in
touch with the lawyers."
I walked with him down to the launch as he talked.
"Thanks to you, George,--I'll get to Vancouver in the small hours of
the morning and I will be able to pull out for Sydney in the afternoon
of to-morrow.
"Good-bye, boy. All being well, I'll be back within a year."
In parting with him, as he shook me by the hand, I experienced a
tightening in my throat such as I had never felt when parting from any
other man either before or since. Yet, I had only known him for two
days. I could see that he, also, was similarly affected. It was as if
something above and beyond us were making our farewell singularly
solemn.