At last the rumbling motion overhead had ceased. The hum of the screw
and the beat of the engine, with the back-wash of the water as the keel
slipped through, told me that the _Carillon_ had cast off from Gull
Harbour, and was away on her north-eastern trip for the Little Peace
River.
I rose from my recumbent position behind the fish barrels in the hold,
but I went down again, and as promptly as though a pistol had been
levelled at my forehead. A couple of sailors stood together in the
half-light, and I had recognised them at once as the half-breed Leblanc
and the ill-favoured Morrison, who had presumably slipped away together
from deck, so soon as their labours were over, that they might discuss
certain plans of their own out of earshot.
“Gimme a bite of eatin’ tobaccer,” growled Morrison at the outset, and
set me reflecting that the man was always asking for something. I heard
the shuffling of cowhide shoes, followed by sundry unhealthy sounds
of expectoration, then the same voice said, “There’s a-goin’ to be
scrappin’?”
“You min’ yer talk. See, Bill? If you’d ben made wi’ no tongue you’d be
better fixed right now.”