A few days subsequent to Andrew Daney's secret scuttling of the
motor-boat Brutus, Nan Brent was amazed to receive a visit from him.
"Good-morning, Nan," he saluted her. "I have bad news for you."
"What, pray?" she managed to articulate. She wondered if Donald had
been injured up in the woods.
"Your motor-boat's gone."
This was, indeed, bad news. Trouble showed in Nan's face.
"Gone where?" she faltered.
"Nobody knows. It disappeared from the garbage-barge, alongside of
which it was moored. I've had men searching for it two days, but we've
given it up as lost. Was the Brutus, by any chance, insured against
theft?"
"Certainly not."
"Well, the Tyee Lumber Company used reasonable care to conserve your
property, and while there's a question whether the company's
responsible for the loss of the boat if it's been stolen, even while
under charter to us, nevertheless, you will be reimbursed for the
value of the boat. Your father had it up for sale last year. Do you
recall the price he was asking?"
"He was asking considerably less than he really believed the Brutus to
be worth," Nan replied honestly. "He would have sold for fifteen
hundred dollars, but the Brutus was worth at least twenty-five
hundred. Values shrink, you know, when one requires ready cash. And I
do not agree with you that no responsibility attaches to the Tyee
Lumber Company, although, under the circumstances, it appears there is
no necessity for argument."
"We'll pay twenty-five hundred rather than descend to argument," Daney
replied crisply, "although personally I am of the opinion that two
thousand would be ample." He coughed a propitiatory cough and looked
round the Sawdust Pile appraisingly. "May I inquire, my girl," he
asked presently, "what are your plans for the future?"
"Certainly, Mr. Daney. I have none."
"It would be a favor to the Tyee Lumber Company if you had, and that
they contemplated removal to some other house. The Laird had planned
originally to use the Sawdust Pile for a drying-yard"--he smiled
faintly--"but abandoned the idea rather than interfere with your
father's comfort. Of course, The Laird hasn't any more title to the
Sawdust Pile than you have--not as much, in fact, for I do believe you
could make a squatter's right stick in any court. Just at present,
however, we have greater need of the Sawdust Pile than ever. We're
getting out quite a lot of airplane spruce for the British government,
and since there's no doubt we'll be into the war ourselves one of
these days, we'll have to furnish additional spruce for our own
government. Spruce has to be air-dried, you know, to obtain the best
results, and--well, we really need the Sawdust Pile. What will you
take to abandon, it and leave us in undisputed possession?"
"Nothing, Mr. Daney."
"Nothing?"
"Precisely--nothing. We have always occupied it on The Laird's
sufferance, so I do not think, Mr. Daney," she explained, with a faint
smile, "that I shall turn pirate and ingrate now. If you will be good
enough to bring me over twenty-five hundred dollars in cash to-day, I
will give you a clearance for the loss of the Brutus and abandon the
Sawdust Pile to you within the next three or four days."
His plan had worked so successfully that Daney was, for the moment,
rendered incapable of speech.
"Will you be leaving Port Agnew?" he sputtered presently. "Or can I
arrange to let you have a small house at a modest rental--"
She dissipated this verbal camouflage with a disdainful motion of her
upflung hand.
"Thank you. I shall leave Port Agnew--forever. The loss of the Brutus
makes my escape possible," she added ironically.
"May I suggest that you give no intimation of your intention to
surrender this property?" he suggested eagerly. "If word of your plan
to abandon got abroad, it might create an opportunity for some person
to jump the Sawdust Pile and defy us to dispossess him."
Mr. Daney sought, by this subterfuge, to simulate an interest in the
physical possession of the Sawdust Pile which he was far from feeling.
He congratulated himself, however, that, all in all, he had carried
off his mission wonderfully well, and departed with a promise to bring
over the money himself that very afternoon. Indeed, so delighted was
he that it was with difficulty that he restrained himself from
unburdening to The Laird, when the latter dropped in at the mill
office that afternoon, the news that before the week should be out
Nan Brent would be but a memory in Port Agnew. Later, he wondered how
far from Port Agnew she would settle for a new start in life and
whether she would leave a forwarding address. He resolved to ask her,
and he did, when he reappeared at the Sawdust Pile that afternoon with
the money to reimburse Nan for the loss of the Brutus.
"I haven't decided where I shall go, Mr. Daney," Nan informed him
truthfully, "except that I shall betake myself some distance from the
Pacific Coast--some place where the opportunities for meeting people
who know me are nebulous, to say the least. And I shall leave no
forwarding address. When I leave Port Agnew"--she looked Mr. Daney
squarely in the eyes as she said this--"I shall see to it that no man,
woman, or child in Port Agnew--not even Don McKaye or The Laird, who
have been most kind to me--shall know where I have gone."
"I'm sorry matters have so shaped themselves in your life, poor girl,
that you're feeling bitter," Mr. Daney replied, with genuine sympathy,
notwithstanding the fact that he would have been distressed and
puzzled had her bitterness been less genuine. In the realization that
it _was_ genuine, he had a wild impulse to leap in the air and crack
his ankles together for very joy. "Will I be seeing you again, Nan,
before you leave?"
"Not unless the spirit moves you, Mr. Daney," she answered dryly. She
had no dislike for Andrew Daney, but, since he was the husband of Mrs.
Daney and under that person's dominion, she distrusted him.
"Well then, I'll bid you good-by now, Nan," he announced. "I hope your
lot will fall in pleasanter places than Port Agnew. Good-by, my dear
girl, and good luck to you--always."
"Good-by, Mr. Daney," she replied. "Thank you for bringing the money
over."