"Then we'll bail her."
He laid his top coat back on the counter and turned out the light, and
while he led the way down to the float, he blamed himself and excused
and blamed himself anew, for depending on that little steamer.
Sheltered though it was by the wharves and the headland, the small
landing rose and dipped; breaking crests swept sheer over it. Mason set
his lantern on a pile and the manager helped him turn and empty the
beached canoe. Roughly hewn from a cedar log, with bow and stern cut
square and hollowed slightly like a scow, it had a clumsy appearance
even as dugouts go, and in mild weather two men together could hardly
have risked passage in her. Launched, she swashed in the tide like a
thing water-logged.
No one knew how the craft first drifted to Freeport, though Hop Sing had
appropriated her, to use on still evenings during the salmon run, when
he visited his friends employed at the cannery a mile up the coast. The
paddle was not in its usual hiding-place, a niche under the flooring of
the nearest dock, and Forrest hurried up to the cook-house.
"Give me the paddle to the dugout, Sing," he said, stopping on the
threshold; "I'm going over to Seattle."
The Chinaman whirled on his cork soles and looked at him. Then he swung
his towel over his shoulder and his face expanded in a smile. "What for
you jokee me, Boss? Hully sit down. I bling supper belly click. Steak
muchee cold."
"Never mind supper, Sing; or just give me some coffee right here, while
you find that paddle."
He poured the steaming coffee, black and bitter from long waiting, and
gave the cup to Forrest. "What for you takee dugout? He no good. Too
muchee blow, blow." His voice shrilled incredulously, but something in
the manager's face made him turn abruptly and trip across the kitchen to
his own private closet, where, after a brief search under his bunk, he
brought forth the missing paddle.
He had a catlike aversion to moisture and cold, but Forrest had eased
him through many a buffeting from the mill crew, and presently he
lighted his lantern and followed him down to the float. He found Mason
steadying the lurching dugout while the young man took his place forward
of the stern. And he waited silently, but with growing concern, until
the old sailor cast off the painter and gave the great even push which
propelled the craft out between docks, then he, too, held his light
aloft, vying with the watchman to illuminate the way. The wind filled
his wide, white sleeves, baring his arms above the jade bracelets; it
played havoc with his unwound cue and set all his loose garments
fluttering; but he stood there long, shivering, with teeth chattering,
holding the lantern yet higher and straining his eyes to follow that
small, receding shape.
As he swung clear of the wharves Forrest felt the strong ebb, and low as
the dugout was, she careened to the wind when she drifted out of the
protection of the headland. A wave broke, drenching him through. Far to
the northward he saw the revolving light on West Point; then a smaller
flame appeared on the opposite shore, and he knew by the position of
these lamps when he had reached the open, where the gale had its fullest
sweep of the Sound. Another crest broke over him; another; still he made
headway and held his course quartering to the trough. The deep whistle
of an ocean collier came to him, and off the point he saw her lamps; a
tug passed close at hand. He heard plainly the noise of her screw, but
she went by without heeding his hail, and he caught the counter motion
of her wake. Presently he noticed water about his knees, and groping,
found the can; and while he bailed he tried with one hand to keep the
dugout under control, but she swung broadside, taking a sea. He dropped
the can and grasped the paddle with a great dip that brought her slowly
around. His muscles ached; his fingers cramped; how that year of
confinement at the mills had unfitted him.
When the beacons disappeared he knew that he had made a little more than
half the distance. But the dugout never headed for the city lamps; she
drove before the wind, and the most he could do was to swing her out of
the trough, and ease her northeast by north, hoping to strike the point
which marked the harbor entrance above the town.
A passenger steamer rounded the Head behind him, her brilliant windows
now thrown high, now showing a narrow rim as she rolled in the trough.
She came rapidly and passed far to leeward. While he watched her,
shouting repeatedly, against reason, the dugout shipped a sea that all
but swamped her. He threw off his coat; loosened and kicked off his
shoes. He bailed for a time, then, ceaselessly. The water was very
cold; it swashed over his limbs, numbing him to the core. A cloud broke
overhead, pelting him with a storm of hail. The stones cut the waves
with a sharper swish, hiss; they stung his face, his hands. When he
stopped a breathing space the thought of little Silas spurred him, and
again and again Louise's voice seemed to reach him, audibly, in
desperate appeal.
The hail passed. The city lights grew clearer, off the starboard but
falling astern. Then at last he noticed that a deeper stroke of the
paddle swung the dugout eastward and kept her headed so. The tide was
running in. A black hulk loomed out of the darkness, showing a red
lantern at her bow. Was it not the old collier that was burned at the
coal bunkers, years ago, and towed here to beach north of town? This
light, standing out in advance of all others, became an inspiration.
The lines of a trestle detached from the gloom. His paddle struck
something, presumably a sunken pile, and snapped at the handle, the
blade whirling away in the darkness. He heard the sea breaking on a
gravelly shore; felt the undertow. A crest swept over him, and another
heavier comber lifted the dugout and hurled it full against the trestle.
When the water receded he found himself clinging to a pile; the solid
beach was under him, though the surge washed to his armpits. The next
wave cast him on the gravel.
He dragged himself higher and rested briefly, pulling himself together,
then he rose and made his way, in the teeth of the wind, down to the
water-front of the town. He found a small tug, that sometimes did towing
for the mills, under steam. He hailed her from the dock, sheltering his
numb body behind a pile of cord-wood, while he waited for the master to
answer him. Then, "I'm Forrest," he said, "of Freeport, and I want you
to put me over at the mills as soon as you can. I came for a doctor and
I'll have him down here in fifteen or twenty minutes."
"All right," the man replied, "I'm just starting for a run down to the
Straits, but glad to accommodate you. Hell of a night."
Forrest was already out of hearing. He left a summons as brief at the
doctor's door. "Tug's waiting," he called back. "Arlington Dock."
Then he hurried on to the hotel which Kingsley frequented. He glanced
at the office clock as he entered the lighted room. It was a quarter
past eleven. He had been over three hours making that trip across the
harbor; a distance of two miles.
There was a stove near him and he put his numb hands out to the heat
while he asked for Philip. It was as he had feared; the Captain had not
come back from his last little run to Victoria. The sudden warmth made
him faint, but he leaned on the desk, trying to shape a telegram.
His effort was manifest and the men around the stove watched him
curiously. He was hatless, coatless, without shoes; and the steam rose
from his remaining clothes; the water, dripping from them, formed in
pools on the floor. The clerk went over to the bar and brought him a
glass of brandy. "See here, Forrest," he said, "drink this; then tell
us what happened to you. How did you come over from the mills?"
He drank a part of the liquor and set the glass down. "In a small boat,"
he answered briefly, "and I made a bad landing."
"Looks like it," the clerk said, dryly. "Come in here and get into some
clothes of mine."
"No, thank you," replied Forrest, "I'm going right back; have a tug
waiting. But lend me a coat, Charley, if you can, and some sort of a
fit in shoes."
He wrote his telegram while the man brought the things, and he threw on
the coat on his way to the door.
"Never saw such a man," said the clerk, addressing the group near the
stove. "Ready to tell a story when it's another fellow, just spreads it
on, but when it's himself won't say a blamed word. But he's got the
nerve; yes, sir, he's all nerve and--backbone."
When Forrest reached the wharf he found the doctor waiting with the
tug-master in the little pilot-house. They made a place for him, but he
turned aside into the engine-room, and sinking down on a bench near the
boiler, stretched his hands out again to the heat. The steam and odor
of oil, the lurching of the boat, following that draught of brandy,
affected him strangely. In the uncertain light the engineer seemed to
expand into a figure foreign and grotesque. Once when he stooped to
open the furnace door he paused, looking up at Forrest with a laugh.
With the red glow on his grimy face it became an impish, insulting
laugh, and the manager drew himself up to resent it; but he did not; he
was too weak.
The next time he was roused was when the tug bumped the Freeport dock.
The piles all seemed to be swaying and lifting when he stepped ashore,
but the fresh air steadied him, and the sight of Mason's rugged face
helped to clear his vision. Here also was Hop Sing out again with his
lantern, and his smile rivalled the welcome of the old watchman. The
sailor made fast the line with an extra flourish and thump of the wooden
leg, and the cook demonstrated his satisfaction in a pigeonwing or two,
as he lighted the way to the house.
Forrest was not the man to let these attentions go. "Well, Sing," he
said, "I'm afraid you won't see that boat of yours again."
"Oh, I no clare, Boss, I no clare." He wheeled on his cork soles,
showing his yellow teeth. "Mason, he makee belly good fire your loom.
Byme by, plitty click, I bling supper; oyster soup, flied chicken, belly
hot, nicee."
But Forrest was looking up across the gate and his steps quickened. The
door had opened and Louise stood against the flood of light. She came
forward to the edge of the piazza. "There has been a change," she said
softly. "He seems to be in a quiet sleep."
Forrest waited in the parlor while the doctor followed her to that inner
room. It seemed a long time before they returned, but he was rubbing
his plump hands. "Mrs. Kingsley was right," he said, and smiled.
"There has been a change, undoubtedly. And you should have a diploma,
sir; that ammonia buoyed the child over a crisis. But it must be used
sparingly; sparingly." He opened his medicine case and laid out a box
of tablets and a vial with a few brief directions. Then he took up his
hat and top coat,--the tug was waiting for him,--and went to the door.
"Of course, he is still a very sick child, but, with careful nursing,
and I see he has that, he will pull through. Good night; yes, your baby
will pull through."
Forrest closed the door softly and came back to the fire. "Phil wasn't
in town," he said, "but I left a telegram to be forwarded. He will be
able to catch the mail steamer in the morning, if he isn't already on
the way."
He lifted a piece of bark from the wood-basket and laid it on the fire.
She watched him. Little clouds of steam began to curl up from his
clothes. Suddenly she put her hand on his arm. "Paul," she said, "what
happened? How did you cross the harbor?"
"Why, the _Success_ went by without stopping, and I took a small boat.
I'm going now to change my clothes. When I come back you must lie down;
you need some sleep."
"But there wasn't a small boat; the _Phantom_ is away with the tender;
there isn't a ship's boat; not any kind of a rowboat on this beach.
Unless--Paul, you didn't go in that dugout?"
"Yes," he said lightly, "that's what made me so long. She isn't fleet."
"Fleet." She knew what it meant. He had shared her anxiety and care;
it had been one more responsibility thrust upon him; and now, in her
extremity, he had risked himself for her child. She could not tell what
peril the dugout had lumbered through, but it had been peril in the
darkness and that sea. And Philip, her husband, who should have been
the one to face it, was doubtless passing the night gaily, in some warm
and brilliant room. Oh, the shame of it, the bitterness, the sting of
it! A sob broke from her lips. She sank down on a sofa and dropped her
face on her arm. "I cannot--bear it," she said. "I--cannot--bear--it."
She did not cry as another woman might; there was no easy rush of tears,
but the long pent grief of months, borne silently through weary days and
slower nights, welled and found vent to the search of a probe.
A glory from the crimson lamp-shade touched her hair, which was unbound
for comfort, and held half its length in two loose braids, as she had
worn it when they were children. The strained position of her arm,
thrown up over the head of the sofa, pulled back her sleeve, showing its
smooth whiteness from below the elbow; it tapered perfectly to the
wrist. The slender, shaking figure, her whole attitude, was an
unconscious appeal to him, and roused a tumult of feeling; not only
resentment against Philip, but immeasurable pity, tenderness for her,
out of which rose a sudden and overwhelming desire to take her in his
arms and comfort her.
He turned and looked into the fire; the frowning line deepened between
his level brows. "Don't make so much of it," he said. "I'm none the
worse for a little wetting."
[Illustration: "He turned and looked into the fire."]
"None the worse?" He started at the vibration in her voice. She rose
to her feet. "Do you think I do not know you have done a desperate
thing? Do you think I have no gratitude?"
"Oh, no," he answered smiling, "I couldn't think that."
She came a little nearer. "You have a bruise on your forehead; your
hand--I noticed it when you lifted the wood--is cut--terribly." She
took the hand in her own palm and examined the hurt, touching it gently
with her handkerchief. "How was it, Paul? Tell me."
"Why, I hadn't noticed it, but it probably happened when I made a
landing." He winced slightly under her soft dabs. "I ran the dugout in
at that old trestle above town, and struck a pile. Now you know the
worst; there's nothing left to imagine." He laughed and drew his hand
away. "I'm going down to my room now, but I shall be back in a little
while. Sing is bringing me a supper."
He opened the door and went out, closing it softly. "To have a wife
like that," he thought, "and yet neglect her."
*CHAPTER XIX*
*"ANDROMEDA HAS FOUND A PERSEUS"*
The great boom which cleared Duwamish Head of its big timber and cut the
cable car-track across the face of the promontory, created also frequent
and heavy landslides that changed the gravelly beach at Freeport into
the broad and sandy expanse which became Seattle's favorite bathing
resort. In the earlier times, beyond the old hotel, the high tide
washed sheer to the foot of the bluff, and the incomparable view of blue
sea and wooded island, framed by the shining Olympic Mountains, was
limited to the outlook from the balcony at the rear of the ruin.
Louise stood upon this balcony, facing the northwest. The bluff was on
her left, so near she might have lifted her hand and touched the damp
soil. It was midsummer and a resinous fragrance mingled with the salt
air. The distant coast was veiled in smoke, and the sun, low in the
west, barred the Sound blood red.
The swell broke with a long swash and gurgle under the floor; a passing
gust set the door behind her creaking; the heavier one at the opposite
end of the bar-room was also swinging, and between its widening crack
Stratton appeared on the walk. At sight of her he started and paused,
then he came on into the ruin. His glance swept the interior, from the
threshold, and rested on the door behind the bar. It was closed and
fitted with a new, strong lock.
At the sound of his tread she turned, and he came forward quickly,
smiling and offering his hand. "Good afternoon," he said, in his
conventional way, "it is rather nice here, isn't it? I hope I do not
intrude?"
"No," she said, and answered his smile, "I am glad to share it. Did the
_Phantom_ bring you?"
"No, the _Success_ left me." His gesture called her attention to the
small mail steamer moving westward. "I ran over about a little matter of
business. I saw young Silas on the dock with that old character Mason.
The boy is growing."
"Yes, he lives out of doors so much. They are great playfellows, and I
can trust Mason. He takes him rowing every afternoon, often twice, out
of the shadow of the Head into the sunshine."
"But you,"--he paused with a light emphasis, looking down into her
sweet, inscrutable face,--"you stay in the shadow. Do you know what I
thought of just now, coming up the walk? It was Andromeda--chained."
"You had the sea," she looked about her thoughtfully, "and this bluff;
Andromeda--perhaps--but without a Perseus."
"Are you sure of that?"
"Yes." She met the unmistakable admiration in his eyes with a clear
look and a slight uplifting of her oval chin. "It is too bad, but the
comparison is misapplied."
She moved towards the doorway. He waited a moment, watching her in
mingled amusement and pique. "Another touch-me-not," he told himself;
"I had not thought she could be so like her sister. Don't let me take
you back," he said aloud, following a step; "it is pleasanter here, away
from the interminable buzz of those saws."
But she moved on into the building. He joined her. "We are sailing over
to Tacoma tonight," he said. "The yacht club is arranging a little hop.
Come with us. Go over the harbor with me, when the _Success_ picks me
up on the return trip. I will give you a merry time, I promise you."
"It is always that on board the _Phantom_," she answered brightly. "And
of course Philip would run in for me, if I could leave little Si. You
see I have only Mason to depend on, and at night he is on duty."
"But bring the boy. We will tuck him away in a berth down below. He
will like it. Why, he took that cruise among the islands last year like
an old salt, and then he had just begun to toddle."
She shook her head. "He is better off at home. He couldn't sleep; not
in that gay company."
Stratton wondered how far she meant to disregard that matter of his
escort. He was not accustomed to indifference from a woman. And any
other, in a like position, would grasp at the opportunity he offered.
"My dear Mrs. Kingsley," he said, and his voice was no longer
conventional, "throw aside those Puritan scruples, for once, and let me
show you how easy it is to accomplish--what you desire. I know the
Captain. Come, go with me on this moonlight excursion, tonight."
She met his gaze bravely, smiling a little, but there was in her eyes
the look of one who has felt in a wound the quick turn of a probe.
"Thank you, no," she said.
The child was coming up the walk and she hurried to meet him. "Muvver,"
he called excitedly, "Mason can take us to row, now." Then he stopped,
looking at Stratton, and added doubtfully, "The boat is big 'nough for
you, too."
Stratton laughed and took out his watch. "Thank you. I have over an
hour to spare, but you must put me aboard the _Success_, sure, when she
comes back."
Mason, who had waited at the branch walk, turned and stumped ahead to
the landing. He held the boat steady and the young man stepped into the
stern and lifted the boy in. But when he offered his hand to Louise she
drew back and said, "Oh, I am not going; did you think so? Good-by,
Silas. Take care of him, Mason."
"Ay, mum?" The old sailor's voice held a note of inquiry. He had lost
his shyness, in a measure, at the time of the child's illness. And
since then Forrest had seen that there was always a rowboat at the
mills. He had made it Mason's duty, during the boy's convalescence, to
take him and his mother out in search of the sunshine. She had rarely
missed these little trips.
But whatever chagrin Stratton may have felt was not apparent. He
settled into his place, lifted his hat to her, and taking a cigar from
his case, occupied himself, while the boat was under shelter of the
wharves, with getting a light.
She watched them out, waving her hand and smiling an answer to her
baby's repeated "Good-by." Then she turned and went up from the
landing. "If it was a way," she said under her breath, "then I have let
it go."
She walked in the direction of the mills, on past the last cabins, to
the beginning of a path that zigzagged up the side of the promontory.
She pushed up quickly, finding in the tangible difficulty of the ascent
relief for her hot thoughts. Sometimes the earth gave under her and she
sprang to a spur of rock; she grasped the tough, springy boughs of young
firs to ease her weight. She invited the touch of the prickly needles
on her hands and face, and she drew full breaths of the fragrance
exhaled from her palms.
She gained the summit moist and panting, and paused to look down on the
rowboat, and on across the harbor to the infant city on her hills.
There was no dwelling near; the trail took the contour of the bluff,
which in places became a precipice, and everywhere around her stretched
the forest or the sea. She crossed to the westward side and stopped
where a fallen hemlock had cut a swathe through the timber, creating an
unobstructed view. Out of the smoke film that shrouded the distant
shore, rising columns parted in dun rolling clouds, showing where the
forest fires burned; but the Olympics reared their giant heads from the
pall, sometimes thrusting a shoulder through. And to this woman it was
not solitude; she had come into the presence of old friends. She turned
her eyes to that grand company of peaks and forgot the narrow limits of
the life below the bluff; she stood above the drift and shadow and, for
a moment, Philip.
Her hands were clasped loosely behind her; her lifted head exposed the
beautiful lines of throat and chin; her breath came a little hard and
quick and there was a soft color in her cheeks. The likeness to her
sister had never seemed as marked to Forrest as it was then, when he
came upon her unexpectedly, by the fallen hemlock, on his way to the
mills. Was not this the trail to the headwaters? Had they not paused
to choose a way through the windfall?
She did not see him, and he waited, mastered by that brief illusion.
And while he watched her face she saw the heights of the Olympics change
from rose to burnished brass; every peak and spur flamed a signal to the
departing sun.
"'But breathe the air of mountains
And their unapproachable summits will lift thee
to the level of themselves.'"
She repeated the words softly with a clear modulation, deepening to a
contralto note, and after a moment added a preceding line.
"'Assert thyself; rise up to thy full height.'"
But there she stopped, and lifting her arms with a little outward
gesture, expressive of futile effort, let them drop, and turning her
face, saw Forrest.
He came forward quickly to say, "I've only been here a moment, and I
couldn't help listening; I'm fond of those lines. But, when did you
ever assert yourself?" He looked down at her with his smile of the
eyes. "It's there the resemblance stops."
"You mean to Alice?"
"Yes, sometimes you are very like her," and he turned his glance to the
mountain-tops.
"You mean physically. I think, in other ways, I must often seem
purposeless, even weak--to you."
"Ob, no," he said quickly, "I couldn't ever believe that. You are
stronger than most women; strong to endure. But you lack her executive
ability." Then he stopped, for he saw that she had given his words a
personality he had not meant.
"What would you have me do?" The vibration in her voice hurt him; he
could not meet the intensity of appeal in her eyes. "It had commenced
before we came to Freeport. I felt that he was growing tired of me, but
I believed, if I could be alone with him, in a dull place like this, I
might win him back. It seemed the only chance; but--it has failed."
The tears were streaming down her face; she reached out her hands to
him. "What would you have me do?" she repeated. "Tell me."
Forrest had never known her to lose her self-control but once before;
the night he had crossed the harbor in the dugout. Even then it was
quickly over; she had not spoken of Kingsley's neglect; he had never
heard her so much as breathe a reproach. His great heart ached for her,
while he felt the futility of any sympathy he could offer her. He broke
away some young growth in front of the fallen tree, and she allowed him,
passively, to seat her in the crotch of a great branch. "You are pretty
tired," he said gently. "It's a hard pull up the bluff. And this
solitary life is telling on you; I feel the strain of it, myself,
sometimes. We will both be glad to get away from Freeport."
She threw her arm up over the bole, and dropped her face on it, sobbing.
He stood looking seaward. Far out the water was still barred blood-red.
Presently he said, "You know the mills are about to shut down? We have
been waiting for the Judge, but he will be here in another month,
perhaps sooner. There isn't a doubt he will close. You know we are
falling behind. Lumber has dropped to seven dollars a thousand; the San
Francisco market is glutted; the bone-yard there has stopped receiving."
She knew that he had said all this to give her time, and she struggled
with those crowding emotions, trying and failing, and trying again to
beat them down. He waited, with his back towards her, his face to the
painted sea. He was a resourceful man, quick to grasp a difficulty and
its solution, for others as well as himself, but now he halted, baffled,
like a man come to a blind wall. His mind ran through that first slow
year at Freeport, and it flashed over him what an interminable blank it
would have been without her. Confined as they were to the narrow limits
of the mills, it had been as close as life on shipboard. They had taken
their meals together; they had met, passed and repassed countless times
daily on the short walks. He had been glad to show a helpful interest
in little Silas. He had fallen easily into the way of spending his
evenings, when he could, with her; she loved his violin. He saw now how
those hours had dulled the poignancy of putting Alice out of his life.
He remembered how he had commenced to watch in Louise for a repetition
of those many little airs he liked; the lifting of the chin, the high
pose of the head, the ready change of color; all modified, it was true,
softened and blended with much that was not her sister's, but there,
palpable, near, breathing, flesh and blood. And most of all he
understood what she had done for him when that business depression laid
a fatal hand on the mills. He had meant to do great things and he was
one to take defeat hard; but she, this sweet, proud woman, with the
courage in her voice and the heart-break in her eyes, had taught him by
example how to fight a losing battle to the end, and--like a man.
The silence was broken by the neigh of a horse. It was unusual on that
promontory; saddle-animals never took the foot-path over the bluff to
the mills, and afterwards Forrest remembered the sound. Then, though he
turned and looked in the direction of the neigh, he gave it small
attention. His glance fell to her; and that attitude, the hidden face,
the slender shaking figure, brought back an onrush of the tumult he had
felt the night she so nearly lost her child; bitter resentment against
Philip, immeasurable pity, tenderness for her, and a desire to take, and
protect and comfort her.
"See here," he said, and his deep voice vibrated a a little, holding
each word like a caress, "See here, don't make so much of it; he isn't
worth it. No man on earth is."
She became suddenly still. Her hand clenched on a fold of her skirt,
but she did not lift her face. Her head was uncovered and he stood
regarding the blue and purple lights of that high, dark coil of her
hair. "See here," he went on finally, "I can't let you be discouraged.
You've done too much for me. Don't you know it? Of course you made a
mistake; you should never have come to the mills. But it was my
mistake, too, and I don't like to think what this life here would have
meant without you. Why, you and little Si have stood for what I like
best; you've made a home for me. Without you I should have lived like a
miserable castaway."
She lifted her face with a supreme effort. Her eyes said, "Thank you,"
and her lips shaped an explanation he was not slow to grasp. "You were
right, it's the solitude. I exaggerate--lately--I am annoyed by
the--smallest things. Just now it was Mr. Stratton. He happened--to
ask me to go--with him--on an excursion aboard the _Phantom_. As
if--Philip--would not run in for me--any time--that I wished. But,
Paul, if the mills close, what will you do?"
"I?" he answered and smiled, "why, there's a piece of land out on the
upper Des Chutes that I've been anxious to secure for a long time. I'm
going to homestead it and, incidentally, prospect the hills. You see
this business depression is giving me an opportunity I've been waiting
for."
"The upper Des Chutes," she repeated. "I see, you are going to take up
a systematic search for the lost prospect, and make your headquarters on
the ground."
"Yes," he said, "or pretty close to it. I can't tell you how I want to
find myself in the thick of the timber again. You don't know how I
hesitated between that homestead and this position at the mills. My
inclinations, every fiber in me reached out to that section at the
headwaters, but, of course, I needed a little more capital to start
with; that is, to carry on the developments I had in view. I am afraid,
though, it was Alice who turned the scales." He paused, smiling a
little and shaking his head. "You see I hadn't learned, then, to take
defeat, and I never could believe her refusal was final. I couldn't ask
her to bury herself up there in the wilderness."
"You mean you asked Alice to be your wife, and she--refused. Oh, Paul,
how could she?" She rose to her feet. Her voice was low and thrilling,
and she looked at him again through springing tears. "How could she?
To--to think we have always taken so much--your best--and in return have
given you--worse than nothing."
She held out her hands once more, and this time he took them in his
friendly grasp. "You forget," he said, with his smile of the eyes, "You
forget all I've been saying. The debt is on my side. I never can do as
much for you."
While he said this a workman came down the path. He was the sawyer at
the mills. Her hands dropped and she stepped back to the seat she had
left. The man looked at her and then at Forrest as he passed, turning
his head slowly to prolong the stare.
"I didn't know the mill men ever came up here," she faltered.
"They don't, often." Forrest stood watching the curve where the man had
disappeared. "A lighter grounded on Alki Point; he has been helping to
float her. That's what took me up the trail." He began to walk in the
direction the man had gone. Presently he looked back. "I must hurry
on," he said. "Come with me, if you are ready; I would be glad to help
you down."
She followed him in silence along the promontory. When they passed
beyond the curve another man pushed out of the thicket into the trail.
He ran with a gliding, half writhing motion to a point where a branch
track, faint, little used, dipped over the Head. He took this course,
twisting, swinging himself by low boughs, doubling where the path was
lost in a precipitous gully, and so gained the beach. He crept under
the bluff, rounding it and splashing ankle-deep in water, for the tide
was running in, until he reached the rear balcony of the old hotel. He
paused a moment, listening, with his beady eyes fixed on the walk
stretching from the main entrance; then he laid the saddle-bags which he
carried on the platform while he swung himself up. He waited another
instant,--the sea broke with a gurgle among the piles; a passing gust
set one of the doors creaking,--and picking up the empty bags he ran
through the tap-room behind the bar. He found a key, strung on a cord
around his neck, and fitted it in the new lock and opened the door.
When he came out the saddle-bags were filled, and heavy, for he made his
way up the promontory with difficulty. As he reached the summit the
stillness was again broken by the neigh of a horse.
Forrest heard the sound faintly, while he helped Louise down the last
pitch of the trail. But again he gave it little attention, for he
noticed that the sawyer was the center of a small crowd at the corner of
the cookhouse. The whole group turned to look at these two as they
approached; curiously, as though they were strangers but just arrived.
She raised her face to Forrest with a mute question. He felt it, though
his own gaze was directed straight ahead to the quiet harbor. The right
hand at his side clenched, twice, and the line deepened to a great cleft
between his brows. But he knew this crew and the futility of trying to
put their rough conjectures down. To call the sawyer to account was to
invite a wider notoriety, such as this woman could not endure. "I have
been a fool," he told himself; "a blind fool. My God, the shame, the
folly of it. And the most I can do is to keep it from her."
Aloud he said, and met that question in her face with his quiet smile,
"I'm afraid that was a pretty steep grade for you; I hope the outlook up
there paid you for the climb." His glance moved then over the stacked
lumber of the mill yard, and he paused to say to a man in the crowd,
"Dickman, that pile of scantling is listing; see to it in the morning,
the first thing. And say, Johnson," he added, stopping again, "that new
chain came today; I'll give it to you, now, at the store. You'll need
it in the morning when you hoist that big red fir from the boom."
The rowboat was waiting for the _Success_ outside the docks. The little
steamer, veering from her course, slowed down to take Stratton aboard.
He sprang lightly over the side and stood watching Mason pull away.
Then he looked shoreward. He lifted his hat and smiled at the man and
woman on the walk, and his lingering glance said, "Andromeda has found a
Perseus."
*CHAPTER XX*
*THE GRAND COUP*
The _Phantom_ was becalmed. The heated atmosphere was freighted with
smoke that hung tissuelike along the shores of the Sound, showing only
the ghostly lines of the forest. The deck and the white sails
reflected, intensified the glare of the sky and the shimmering sea. The
top of the cabin and the seats were sprinkled with fine white ashes, and
flakes sifted slowly through the still air.
"Some rancher starts his brush pile burning, or a prospector fails to
put out his camp-fire, and to pay for it, here is the whole country
ablaze; it ought to be a state's prison crime." Kingsley pulled his cap
over his cloudy brows and leaned back in his seat, tired and bored.
Stratton, to whom the remark was addressed, made no response. He was
stretched full length on a blanket spread on a shady strip of the deck.
Like the sea, he was motionless, and a silk handkerchief, laid over his
face, outlined his features gruesomely.
Presently Philip started erect and took off his cap. He threw it on the
seat beside him, and ran his fingers, defining wavy ridges, through his
hair. "It's no use, Stratton," he said, "I'm in a hole. Come, wake up,
I want to talk things over."
Stratton swept aside the handkerchief and rose on his elbow. "I am
listening," he answered, "but I am afraid of this glare; it brings on
this infernal pain in my head. I must get to New York or somewhere, and
see an oculist. Anyway, what is the use of going all over the ground
again, Captain? We discussed it thoroughly yesterday and the day
before. It amounts to this,--you have plunged a little beyond your
depth. You are afraid that the mills will be attached for your own
personal debts, and when Judge Kingsley comes home, in a few weeks, he
is going to find, well, not what he expects, unless--"
"He's going to find that I've made a tremendous mess of things," Philip
broke in. "I've got to ask him, first of all, to put up for me, and he
can't afford to. Why, he won't be able; he can't sell anything; real
estate is dead, completely; he's land-poor, like everybody else these
times. Besides, he's gone security for people; he's been ready to stake
any one who voted for him--or says he did. They've got him all tied up
in new town sites, fisheries, every sort of a scheme."
"If my schooner had made good," said Stratton, "I would be glad to tide
you through. But that was pretty hard luck, Captain. I put my faith in
her; I could have sworn by that master and crew. And she had picked up
a fine lot of peltries, fifteen hundred prime sealskins, when she struck
that rock off Unimak Pass and went down. She cost me a good deal of
money; I was hard pressed to outfit her, and now--nothing to show for
it."
"Too bad," answered Kingsley thoughtfully, "too bad. I guess, Mark,
we're in the same hole, together."
There was a brief silence, then Stratton said, "There is just one way
out, Captain."
"You mean--well, just what do you mean?"
"I mean with your standing, your family relations, above all to Judge
Silas Kingsley, it would be perfectly safe; the _Phantom_ could go
unsuspected anywhere; carry anything. And you know every island,
current, tide-rip, shoal from Seattle to British Columbia. Then--there
is that lonely old ruin around the bluff at Freeport. Why, at high tide
you could run almost under the walls."
Philip laughed unpleasantly. "You are reckoning without my wife. She's
the sort of woman to make it a matter of conscience and give the whole
thing away."
"She would, I have no doubt of it, if she knew." Stratton paused a
moment, then said, "It is very unfortunate you never took that house you
talked so much about taking, in town. But how is it you never bring her
with us on a cruise, now? She used to like the water."
A wave of color crossed Philip's open face. "See here," he said, "leave
my wife out."
"As you like." Stratton shrugged his shoulders. "But if you had set up
that establishment in town it would have been the best thing for her,
and--for Forrest."
"For Forrest?"
"Yes. When two are young, you know, and have practically no other
companionship--"
"Oh, you don't know her," Kingsley interrupted lightly; "you don't know
Forrest."
"I know that she is a very bright and pretty woman; one of the most
interesting I ever met. The kind any man would look at twice. And
Forrest is a well set up fellow; the sort all women like. Then, too,
music is her passion, and you know what he can do with his violin; he
makes it a voice; it speaks for him."
"Paul is a good fellow," answered Philip, growing annoyed; "one in a
hundred; a man you can trust. I've known him all my life."
"Possibly," said Stratton, "possibly, but when you have a man to deal
with, it is safer to appraise him as such and not as a saint. But,
Captain, leaving Mrs. Kingsley out, there is some one I could put in
charge of it--there at the ruin. He is familiar with the network of
by-ways south and east to the Cascades; under pressure he can travel on
his own trail. He could carry the stuff from the top of Duwamish Head
by horse, directly to that lodge of mine up the Nisqually. The country
there is so rough, so full of natural hiding-places, above all it is so
far from the border, it could be cached indefinitely, until I was able
to dispose of it in lots at Portland. Or, I had rather convey it in
large amounts over the Pass to the Palouse wilderness, and board an
east-bound train on the Columbia, somewhere, with a view to making a
hunting trip to the Yellowstone. It could be easily forwarded in the
camp outfit, and so on to Chicago--perhaps New York."
"You seem to have it pretty well planned," said Kingsley dryly.
Stratton met his look steadily. "I have," he answered.
"Great Scott. Great Scott, it's true, then. Forrest was right; Bates
was right; you are connected with that ring."