Thrice Armed

This time it was Anthea who said nothing, and Merril went on again. "You might never have had to face it had you been a pretty fool, but that could hardly have been expected. You are my daughter. Still, intelligence, as other people have no doubt discovered, is not always a blessing to a woman."

Again he made a little abrupt movement. "You see, I offer no palliation. The one question is simply – do you mean to turn your back on me?"

Anthea looked at him steadily. "No," she said, "I could never do that. Still, must you continue what you are doing? Can't you give it up?"

"Sit down," said Merril quietly, and, rising, drew her a chair. "I think we must understand each other now and altogether. To commence with, I should have liked you to continue to think well of me, though, considering what you are, I knew the thing was hardly likely. Now you have made a discovery that hurts you."

He stopped a moment, and though there had been a certain elusive gentleness in his voice, the girl was sensible that she shrank from him. He was, she realized, without compunction, and had no regret for what he had done. Indeed, his passionless quietness conveyed the impression that some of the usual attributes of humanity had been left out of him. A trace of confusion or anger would have appeared more natural, and invective would have been easier to bear than this suggestive tranquillity.

"Well," he said, "you asked a very natural question. What I am doing – my view of life, in fact – displeases you. You ask, can't I give it up? I ask why? Can you offer me any reason?"

Anthea said nothing. Reasons occurred to her, but they were rather felt than concretely formulated, and, as she realized, would suffer from being forced into shallow and inadequate expression. She also naturally shrank from an unsuccessful attempt to play the teacher to her father, and had sense enough to know that trite maxims and virtuous platitudes would have very small effect on such a man. It was, perhaps, not an unusual feeling in one respect, for the deep optimistic faith of the wise cannot be rashly formulated without its suffering in the process. It is, as a rule, the people with shallow beliefs who have the ready tongues, and the result of their well-meaning efforts is seldom the one they desire. Anthea, at least, recognized her disabilities, and kept silence. She also saw that her father understood her, for he nodded.

"It is clear that you are not a fool," he said. "If you had been, the thing would have been easier for both of us. I allowed you to be brought up in the conventional morality, knowing that you would grow above what was spurious in it, and cling to what you felt was real. If you felt that, it would be sufficient for you. Still, that morality was never mine. I had to face life as I found it, without the money that might have made it easier to regard it virtuously, and scruples would have insufferably handicapped me. As a matter of fact, I do not think I ever had any. This existence is a struggle, as no doubt you have heard often without realizing it, and it is the strong and cunning who get out of it what is worth having. That, at least, is my point of view. It may be the wrong one, but I am satisfied with it, and, what is more to the purpose, quite content to leave you yours."

He broke off once more, and smiled before he went on. "We have done with that subject. I would not influence you against your belief – which is the prettier one – if I could, and I do not think you could influence me. In fact, one feels diffident about having said so much. Well, it is the days to come we have to consider. I am not likely to change my code, and you do not wish to leave me?"

Again, for just a moment, the faint tenderness crept into his voice, and the girl's nature stirred in answer.

"No," she said, "there is nothing that could make me wish to do that."

"Well," said the man, with a dry smile, "we will try to avoid offending each other, and I should have been sorry had you gone away. In fact, it is a relief to know that you will be with me. My affairs have not been going well lately."

This was sufficiently matter-of-fact, but in spite of the vague shrinking from him of which she was still sensible, Anthea was touched. She could not, however, concretely realize what she felt, and wisely made no attempt to express it. Instead, she spoke of something else, seizing on an immaterial point that casually occurred to her.

"I fancied you were a prosperous man," she said.

"So do many people," said Merril dryly. "It was by leading them to believe it that I've done what I have done. My operations are for the most part conducted with other people's money. Still, one has to face reverses now and then, and when two or three of them come together the people who support one commence to doubt their wisdom. Then they are apt to back down and become virtuously scrupulous, while the men with a grudge against one waken up and fancy their turn has come. In my case there are evidently quite a few of them."

He laughed softly, but in a fashion that jarred on the girl. "Still, it is very probable that I shall keep ahead of them, after all. In any case, I won't offend you by suggesting that the odd chance of your having to dispense with what I have been able to offer you so far would count for very much."

"Thank you for that," said Anthea softly.

Merril turned to the papers before him. "Well," he said, "now we understand, and, as you see, I am busy."

Anthea went out, not reassured, but more tranquil. She realized what her duty was, and purposed to do it; but while there was still a tenderness for the man in her, there was also something about him besides his avowed point of view and the actions it led to, that repelled her. He had, it seemed, an intellect that was unhampered by the usual passions and affections of humanity.

CHAPTER XXI

JIMMY GROWS RESTLESS

The city was almost insufferably hot, and Jimmy, who had time on his hands that afternoon, found it pleasant to saunter through the dim green shadow among the Stanley pines which crowd close up to its western boundary. They rose about him, old and great of girth, a tremendous colonnade of towering trunks, two hundred feet above the narrow riband of driving road which was further walled in by tall green fern. There was drowsy silence in those dim recesses, and a solemnity which the occasional faint hoot of a whistle or tolling of a locomotive bell did not seem to dissipate, for the civic authorities had, up to that time, at least, with somewhat unusual wisdom made no attempt to improve on what nature had done for them. Here they cut a little foot-path, there a wavy driving road, but except for that they left the Stanley Park a beautiful strip of primeval wilderness.

Jimmy had arrived in Vancouver a few hours earlier with the Shasta loaded deep, but, although affairs had been going tolerably well with the Company, this fact afforded him no very great satisfaction. He liked the sea, and had succeeded in making firm friends of most of the ranchers and salmon-packers whose produce he carried; but there was ambition in him, and of late he had been growing vaguely restless. After all, the command of a boat like the Shasta, with some two hundred and fifty odd tons of carrying capacity, could not be expected to prove a very lucrative occupation, and Jimmy now and then remembered regretfully that he might have had a commission in the Navy. He had also an incentive for desiring advancement, upon which, however, he seldom permitted himself to dwell, since on two occasions he and Anthea Merril had read in each other's eyes a fact that had a vital significance to both of them. Jimmy scarcely dared remember it, but he felt that the girl would listen when he thought it fit to speak.

That, however, was in the meanwhile out of the question. He must by some means first make his mark, and, as happens not infrequently in similar circumstances to other men, he did not know how it was to be done. One thing, at least, was clear: he could not expect to advance himself very much by commanding the Shasta. There was also, in any case, Merril's opposition to count on, while the bitterness Eleanor had endued him with against the man she held responsible for the death of his father had its effect, and it was in an unusually somber mood that Jimmy strolled through the shadow of the pines that hot afternoon.

By and by he heard a soft thud of hoofs, and, looking up, felt the blood creep into his face. He recognized the costly team that swung out of the shadow, and the girl in the white dress who held the reins in the vehicle behind them. He also recognized the lady beside her, for her husband was an Englishman who held high office under the Crown in Victoria. The fact that she was sitting by Anthea Merril's side suggested how far circumstances held the latter apart from the Shasta's skipper. Silver-mounted harness and splendid horses had the same effect, and, since these things also reminded him of something else, Jimmy unfortunately lost his head. A sudden vindictive anger came upon him as he remembered that the money that provided them and stood as a barrier between him and the girl had been wrung from struggling men, and that some of it at least was the result of his father's ruin.

It was, of course, not reasonable to blame Anthea for this, but Jimmy was scarcely in a mood just then to make any very nice distinction, and, straightening himself a trifle, he stood still a moment looking at the girl. He saw the little friendly smile fade out of her face and a look of perplexity take its place, and then, while his heart thumped furiously, he turned and stepped aside into a little trail that led into the shadow of the bush. In another moment the team swept past, and he was left uncomfortably conscious that he had made a fool of himself. The feeling, while far from pleasant, is no doubt wholesome, which is fortunate, since there are probably very few men who are not now and then sensible of it.

It was half an hour later when Anthea came up with him again. The road was narrow and crossed a little bridge near where he was standing. As it happened, another lady was then driving a pair of ponies over it. Anthea pulled up her team close behind Jimmy, and when the impatient horses moved and drew the vehicle partly across the road, he turned and seized the head of the nearest. He did not know much about horses, but he contrived to back the team sufficiently to leave a passage, and was unpleasantly sensible that Anthea was watching him with a little smile. It brought a tinge of darker color to her face, and hurt him considerably more than if she had shown resentment of his previous attitude by any suggestion of distance. There is, after all, a certain vague consolation in feeling that one is able to offend a person whose good-will is valuable. Anthea perhaps realized this, for when the other team had gone by she made a sign to him. Jimmy, who felt far from comfortable, approached the vehicle, and the girl looked down at him, with the twinkle still in her eyes.

"Thank you! That is permissible?" she said.

Jimmy flushed again. "In any case, I'm not sure it's exactly what I deserve."

"Well," said Anthea reflectively, "I really was wondering whether you saw us a little while ago."

"I did," said Jimmy, meeting her inquiring gaze. "Still, perhaps there were excuses for me."

There was a scarcely perceptible change in Anthea's expression, but Jimmy noticed it, though he did not know that she was thinking of what his sister had told her. Next moment she smiled at him again.

"I scarcely think it would be worth while to make them," she said.

Then she shook the reins, and left him standing in the road. When they were out of earshot her companion turned to her.

"Who is that young man?" she asked.

"Captain Wheelock of the Shasta."

"Ah!" said the other; "I remember hearing about him. The man who took off the schooner's skipper? But what did he mean by saying that there were excuses for his not seeing you?"

"I don't know," said Anthea, who contrived to smile, though she was rather more thoughtful than usual. "I don't mind admitting that the question has a certain interest. Still, one cannot always demand an explanation."

Her companion flashed a keen glance at her. "Well," she said, "I almost fancy it would have been a sufficient one if you had heard it. In fact, I think I should like that man. After all, honesty is a quality that wears well. But what is a man of his description doing in that very little and somewhat dirty Shasta? I made somebody point her out to me one day in Victoria."

"I don't know," said Anthea; "that is, I know why he went on board her in the first case, but not why he seems content to stay there altogether. Still, it naturally isn't a matter of any particular consequence."

Then they spoke of other things, while Jimmy, who suddenly remembered that he was standing vacantly in the road, turned toward the city, wondering as Anthea had done why he had remained so long the Shasta's skipper. Now that the trade Jordan and his associates had inaugurated had been well established in spite of Merril's opposition, he felt that they had no longer any particular need of him.

The city was unusually hot when he reached it, but he fancied that alone did not account for the crowded state of the saloons he passed. It also seemed to him that the groups of men who stood here and there on the sidewalks talking animatedly must have found some unusually interesting topic; but he had his own affairs to think of, and, as they appeared sufficient for him just then, he walked on quietly until he reached Jordan's office. It was not elaborately furnished. In fact, there was very little in it besides a table, a safe, a chair or two, and an American stump-puller standing against one wall. Jordan sat reading a newspaper, with a cigar, which had gone out, in his hand, but he looked up and threw the paper on the table when Jimmy came in.

"Read that. They've struck it rich at last," he said. "Guess there are men who have believed in that gold ever since we bought Alaska from the Russians. Ran across one of them, 'most eight years ago, Commercial Company man, and he told me it was a sure thing there was gold up the Yukon. Odd prospectors had struck a pocket here and there, but though they brought a few ounces out, nobody seemed inclined to take up the thing. Practically every white man in that country was connected with the Indian trade in furs, and I'm not sure they were anxious to see an army of diggers marching in. Anyway, the few men who believed in the gold couldn't put up the money to prove their confidence warranted. Now, as you see, they've found it, and before long the whole Slope will be humming from Wrangel to Lower California."

Jimmy read a column of the paper with almost breathless interest, as many another man had done that day in every seaboard city and lonely wooden settlement to which the news had spread. Then he looked at Jordan.

"The thing appears almost incredible," he said.

"It isn't," said his companion. "I know what the Alaska Commercial old-timer told me quite a while ago. It's going leagues ahead of Caribou. They'll be going up in their thousands in a month or two. Now, you sit still a minute, and listen to me. This is a thing I believe in, and I'll tell you what I know."

He spoke for ten minutes with dark eyes snapping, and Jimmy's blood tingled as he listened. Jordan's faith, the all-daring optimism of the Pacific Slope of which many men have died in the wilderness, was infectious, and something in Jimmy's nature responded. He had fought with bitter gales and frothing seas, and it seemed to him that the struggle with ice and frost, rock and snow, could not be harder. He was also, though he had not quite realized it until that moment, one of those who are born to play their part in the forefront of the battle between man and nature – and nature is not beneficent, but very grim and terrible until she is subdued, as everybody who has seen that strife knows.

Then Jimmy stood up and slowly straightened himself, with a quiet smile.

"You'll have to get a new skipper for the Shasta– I'm going north," he said.

Jordan gazed at him a moment in amazement, and then laughed in a fashion which suggested that comprehension had dawned on him.