Thrice Armed

"I don't quite know," he said. "Very likely I shall never go back at all. Circumstances are rather against me."

"And can't you alter them?"

Jimmy drew in his breath, and unconsciously straightened himself a trifle. The girl stood close beside him, looking at him – not as one who asked a question, but rather as though she had expressed her belief in his ability to do what he wished. The confidence this suggested sent a thrill through him, and her quiet graciousness – which, though she addressed him as one of her own world, was not without its trace of natural dignity – and her physical beauty set his heart beating.

"I can try," he said simply. "There are, however, difficulties."

"Of course!" and Anthea smiled. "There generally are. Still, if one is resolute enough, they can usually be got over."

Jimmy said nothing. He was not, after all, especially apt at conversation, and he could not tell her that among all the difficulties he might have to grapple with, the greatest was probably her father.

Just then, as it happened, Jordan turned and called to them, and, moving aft, they descended to the little stern cabin with the rest. It was draped with the least faded flags from the signal locker; the table glittered with glass and silver, and was set out with great bouquets of flowers. The ports were wide open, and the cool evening air, fragrant in spite of the city's propinquity with the smell of the Stanley pines, flowed in. Eleanor Wheelock looked around with a smile of appreciation, and then turned to Jordan.

"Oh," she said, "it's pretty! You have done it all. Jimmy would never have thought of that. But why are both those flags there?"

Jordan glanced at the two big crossed flags that streamed down upon the settee in the vessel's counter. They were new, and athwart the broad red and white crosses gleamed the silver stars.

"Well," he said with a little smile, "I don't know any reason why they shouldn't be there side by side. It seems to me there'd be peace on earth right off if they always hung that way, if only because all the rest of the world would be afraid to break it. You have heard of the first message we sent your folks in the Old Country over the Atlantic cable. Besides, the thing's symbolical of another alliance that's not only to be wished for, but going to be consummated."

Eleanor blushed becomingly amidst the approving laughter, and, as she stood there in the gleaming white dress and big white hat, with the clear color in her cheeks, it seemed to Jimmy that he had never seen his sister look half so captivating. In fact, he was almost astonished that it had not occurred to him before that Eleanor was so exceptionally well-favored. The quiet and somewhat plain-featured Mrs. Forster, and Austerly's sickly daughter, served as fitting foils for her somewhat imperious beauty. Then, as she glanced in his direction, Jimmy moved a pace or two, and Anthea came out of the shadow.

"My sister Eleanor – Miss Merril," he said.

There was a brief silence which Jimmy, at least, found embarrassing, for it seemed to him that everybody was watching the two girls with sudden interest. He also felt that when Anthea Merril moved forward, Eleanor, as it were, receded into second place against her will. His sister was wholly Western, tall, and somewhat spare, with the suppleness of a finely tempered spring rather than that of the willow in her figure. Her quick glance and almost incisive speech matched her bearing. One could see that she was optimistic, daring, strenuous; but with Anthea Merril it was different. There was a reserve about her, and a repose in voice and gesture which in some curious fashion made both more impressive. She was also a trifle warmer in coloring and fuller in outline, and stood for, or so it seemed to Jimmy, cultivated ripeness as contrasted with his sister's vigorous and brilliant crudity. Quite apart from this, he had noticed Eleanor's brows straighten almost imperceptibly, and the slight hardness that crept into her eyes. The others apparently did not see it, but her brother understood those signs.

"Miss Merril! What does she want here?" said old Leeson, who usually spoke somewhat loudly, in what he evidently fancied was an aside, and it seemed to Jimmy that his sister's eyes asked the same question.

Anthea, so far as he could see, did not notice this, and it was she who spoke first.

"I almost fancy I have met you somewhere, Miss Wheelock, though I do not think it was in Vancouver," she said. "Toronto is rather a long way off – but I wonder whether you were ever there?"

"I was," said Eleanor. "I also saw you, though I never spoke to you. Under the circumstances, it was, however, hardly to be expected."

"No?" said Anthea, with a note of inquiry in her voice; and, though Eleanor smiled, there was no softening of her eyes.

"I was being trained to earn my living, and my few friends belonged to a very different set from yours."

Jimmy was not pleased with his sister. She had spoken quietly, indeed more quietly and indifferently than she usually did, and Anthea Merril had not shown the least resentment; but he felt that there was a sudden antagonism between the two women. It was therefore a relief to him when the steward appeared with the dinner, most of which Jordan had wisely had sent from a big hotel, and they sat down at the table.

It was a convivial meal. Jordan talked volubly, and there was a sparkle in most of what he said; Forster and Austerly were quietly jocular; and Eleanor, who sat next their host at the head of the table as his bride-elect, played her part in a fashion that pleased them all. Other things had also their effect upon the company. There was the love-match between the man who had staked every dollar he could raise to send out that little rusty steamer, and the beautiful penniless girl, as well as the presence of the daughter of the man who, they felt reasonably sure, would endeavor to crush him by any means available. As it happened, Anthea Merril talked quietly, and apparently confidentially, to Jimmy most of the time, and even old Leeson, who grinned at them sardonically, seemed to feel that the situation was rife with dramatic possibilities.

By and by the light commenced to fade, but Eleanor's white dress still gleamed against the dull blue and crimson of the crossed flags; and in after-days, when there was anger between them, Jimmy liked to remember her sitting there at Jordan's side to speed him on the Shasta's first voyage. She made a somewhat imposing figure in the little dusky cabin, and what she said struck the right note in the inauguration of that venture, for she was optimistic and forceful in speech and gesture – and Anthea now sat in the shadow.

At last old Leeson rose with a little dry chuckle. "I don't know whether speeches are expected," he said. "Still, I guess there's one toast we ought to honor, and that's the engaged pair. Anyway, it's one that's especially fitting to-night, since it seems to me that if it hadn't been for Miss Wheelock we wouldn't have been here, with steam up, on board the Shasta."

There was a little good-humored laughter, but Leeson, who appeared unconscious that his observations were open to misconception, proceeded calmly.

"Now," he said, "in a general way, the less women have to do with business the better; but in Miss Wheelock we have an exception. If it hadn't been for her, Forster would not have put five thousand dollars into the Shasta, and if he hadn't made the venture, it's quite likely I wouldn't either. It's quite a big one for people of our caliber, but we have a live man to run the thing, and he will have a wife as smart as he is standing right behind him. Well, we'll wish the pair of them long life and happiness."

Jimmy rose with his companions, but he was conscious that Anthea was regarding his sister with grave inquiry. Then Jordan made his reply conventionally, and afterward stood still a moment looking at his guests, until with a little abrupt gesture he commenced again.

"Mr. Leeson's right: it is a big thing we have on hand," he said. "We're going to fight and break a monopoly, and, if all goes as we expect it, put money into our pockets. But in one way that's only half of it. I want you to think of the honest effort, the best thing a man has to offer, that is being wasted in this country. Can't you picture the bush-ranchers hauling produce thirty miles over a trail a city man wouldn't ride a horse along to the railroad, and watching fruit 'most as good as we can raise in California rotting by the ton? I want you to think of the oat crops cut green and half-grown, and the men who raised them mending their clothes with flour-bags and measuring out their groceries by the cent's worth, after spending half a lifetime chopping out the ranch. It's wrong – clean against the economy of things. We want every pound of whatever they can send us. We have mines and mills and money, but in this Province our food is bad and dear. While every man depends on his neighbor, the greatest thing in civilization is facility of transport."

He stopped a moment for breath, and the keen sparkle in his dark eyes grew plainer. "Well, we're going to provide it, and do what we can for the men with the axe and the grub-hoe. Some day this great Province will remember what it owes them. Here it's man against nature, and the fight is hard, while we'll do more than put money in our pockets if we make it a little easier. We want a fair deal – and we'll get it somehow – but we want no more; and if we can hold on long enough, it won't be only those who sent her out who will say, 'Speed the Shasta!'"

He stopped amidst acclamation, for his mobile face and snapping eyes had amplified his words, and, while he handled his theme clumsily, there was, at least, no mistaking the strident ring of the dominant note in it. In that country it was, for the most part, man against nature, and not man against man, and the recognition of the fact was in all who heard him. There men wrung their money from rocky hillside and shadowy forest with toil almost incredible, creating wealth, and not filching it from their fellows; but nature is grim and somewhat terrible in the land of rock and snow, and all down the great Slope, from Wrangel to Shasta, the battle is a stern and arduous one. So there was a little kindling in the listeners' eyes, and the women also raised their glasses high as they said, "Speed the Shasta," knowing that this was in reality but a part of what they felt.

Then Eleanor rose, and the company, scattering for the most part, went back on deck, where it once more happened by some means that Anthea Merril and Jimmy found themselves some distance from any of the rest. The girl looked up at him with a little smile.

"Well," she said, "what did you think of Mr. Jordan's observations?"

Jimmy laughed. "My opinion wouldn't count. I couldn't make a speech for my life."

"No?" said Anthea. "Still, you can hold a steamer's wheel, and perhaps under the circumstances that is quite as much to the purpose. In any case, while your comrade was a little flamboyant, which is much the same thing as Western, I think he meant it. After all, if we parade our sentiments, we generally act up to them."

"Jordan," said Jimmy, "seems to have quite a stock of them."

"And I understand he has put every dollar he has into the venture. Still, I suppose he did it cheerfully; and you may find it necessary to bring those bush-ranchers' produce down against a gale of wind."

There was a smile in her eyes as she looked at him, but in spite of that Jimmy felt his face grow slightly warm. It was not, however, altogether because Anthea noticed it that she changed the subject.

"There was one point that wasn't quite clear to me. Why did he say you were going to break up a monopoly?"

Jimmy wished she had asked him anything else, for he had already decided that Miss Merril knew very little about her father's business.

"Well," he said awkwardly, "that's rather a difficult thing to answer. You see, he mentioned a monopoly – "

"He certainly did."

"Then, to begin with, there is the Dunsmore road. They naturally couldn't handle produce as cheaply as we could, and, anyway, it isn't of much benefit to the ranchers who can't get at it."

"'To begin with?' That implies more than one, which is, one would fancy, the essential point of a monopoly."

"Perhaps it is," said Jimmy vaguely. "Still, when we get our hand in, there will be three."

Anthea may have had her reasons for not pressing the question then, for she laughed. "Of course!" she said. "Three monopolies. Well, I suppose one must excuse you. You can hold a steamer's wheel."

Jimmy, on the whole, felt relieved when the others sauntered in their direction, and was less grieved than he might have been under different circumstances when Austerly drew Miss Merril away. He had felt once or twice before, during discussions with his sister, that keen intelligence is not invariably a commendable thing in a woman. After that, Jordan had a good many instructions to give him, and by the time they had been imparted the rest were clustering around the gangway; while five minutes later Jimmy leaned on the rail watching the boats slide away toward the dusky city. Then he climbed to his bridge, and the windlass commenced to rattle, but he did not know that Anthea Merril, who heard his farewell whistle, kept the others waiting on the wharf a moment or two while she watched the Shasta slowly steam out to sea.

CHAPTER XIV

IN DISTRESS

The clear night was falling when Jimmy leaned on the bridge-rails as the Shasta steamed out of the Inlet beneath a black wall of pines. Over her port quarter the pale lights of the climbing city twinkled tier on tier, with dim forest rolling away behind them into the creeping mist. Beyond that, in turn, a faint blink of snow still gleamed against the dusky blueness of the east. All this was familiar, but he was leaving it behind, and ahead there lay an empty waste of darkening water, into which the Shasta pushed her way with thumping engines and a drowsy gurgle at the bows. It seemed to Jimmy, in one sense, appropriate that it should be so. He had cut himself adrift from all that he had been accustomed to, and where the course he had launched upon would lead him he did not know.

That, however, did not greatly trouble him. His character was by no means a complex one, and it was sufficient for him to do the obvious thing, which, after all, usually saves everybody trouble. It was clear that Tom Wheelock needed him, and he could, at least, look back a little, though this was an occupation to which he was not greatly addicted. He understood now how his father, who had perhaps never been a strong man, had slowly broken down under a load of debt that was too heavy for him, though the nature of the man who had with deliberate intent laid it on his shoulders was incomprehensible. Jimmy, in fact, could scarcely conceive the possibility of any man scheming and plotting to ruin a fellow-being for the value of two old schooners. The apparently insufficient motive made the thing almost devilish. Merril, he felt, was outside the pale of humanity, a noxious creature to be shunned or, on opportunity, crushed by honest men.

Then he wondered for a moment whether the bondholder's daughter had inherited any portion of her father's nature, and brushed the thought aside with a little involuntary shiver. The thing was out of the question. One could, he felt, perhaps illogically, be sure of that after a glance at her; and then he straightened himself with a little abrupt movement, for it was very clear that this was, after all, no concern of his. He had never met any woman who had made the same impression on him that Anthea Merril had done, but he had already decided that he had sense enough to prevent himself from thinking of her too frequently; and it was evident that if he had not he must endeavor to acquire it.