Chapter II: Part II: San Francisco and Northward

I never felt so miserable and so inclined to go to sea to forget myself in hard work as I did that evening after I had bidden farewell to Elsie and her people. It seemed to me that she had let me go too easily out of her life for her to really care for me enough to make her influence my course in the way I had hoped, and hoped still. Indeed, I think that if she had not stayed that one undecided moment after she withdrew her hand from mine, I should have never done what I did do, but have looked for a ship at once. For, after all, I said to myself, what could a modest girl do more? Why, under the circumstances, when she thought me guilty of a deliberate crime, hateful to any woman, to say nothing of my having made love to her at the same time, it was really more than I could have expected or hoped. It showed that I had a hold upon her affections; and then Fanny thought so too, or she would have never said what she did. "Go to Mexico!" indeed; if I wasn't a fool, it was not Mexico the country, but _Mexico_ the steamer she meant. I had one ally, at any rate. Still, I wondered if she knew what Elsie did, though I thought not, for she alone kissed Helen when they said good-by, and Elsie had only given her her hand unwillingly. If I could speak to Fanny it might help me. But I was determined to go northward, and sent my dunnage down on board the steamer that very evening.

In the morning, and early, for I lay awake all that night, a thing I did not remember having done before, I went down on the Front at the bottom of Market Street, where all the tram cars start, and walked to and fro for some hours along the wharves where they discharge lumber, or ship the coal. It was quite a bright morning in the late autumn, and everything was pleasant to look upon in the pure air before it was fouled by the oaths of the drivers of wagons and the jar of traffic. Yet that same noise, which came dimly to me until I was almost run over by a loaded wagon, pleased me a great deal better than the earlier quiet of the morning, and by eight o'clock I was in a healthy frame of mind, healthy enough to help three men with a heavy piece of lumber just by way of exercise. I went back to my room, washed my hands, had breakfast, and went on board the steamer, careless if the Flemings saw me, though at first I had determined to keep out of their way until the vessel was at sea. I thanked my stars that I did so, for I saw Fanny by herself on deck, and when she caught sight of me she clapped her hands and smiled.

"Well, and where are you going, Mr. Ticehurst?" said she, nodding at me as if she guessed my secret.

"I am going to take your advice and go to Mexico!" I answered.

"Is it far here? By land do you go, or water?"

"Not far, Fanny; in fact----"

"You are----"

"There now!" said I, laughing in my turn.

"Oh, I am so glad, Mr. Ticehurst!" said she; "for----" and then she stopped.

"For what, Fanny?" I asked.

"I'm afraid I can't tell you. I should be a traitor, and that is cowardly."

"No, Fanny, not when we are friends. If you tell me, would you do any harm?"

"No," she answered doubtfully.

"Then treachery is meant to do harm, and if you don't mean harm it isn't treachery," I replied coaxingly, but with bad logic as I have been told since.

"Well, then, perhaps I'll say something. Now suppose you liked me very much----"

"So I do, Fanny, I swear!"

"No you don't, stupid! How can you? I'm not twins--that is, I and somebody else aren't the same--so don't interrupt. Suppose you liked me very much, and I liked you very much----"

"It would be very nice, I dare say," I said, in a doubtful way that was neither diplomatic nor complimentary.

"And suppose you went off, and suppose I didn't speak to my sister for hours, and kept on being a nasty thing by tossing and tumbling about all night, so that she, poor girl, couldn't go to sleep; and then suppose when she did go off nicely, she woke up to find me--what do you think--crying, what would it mean?"

"Fanny," I exclaimed, in delight, "you are a dear girl, the very dearest----"

"No," she said, "no!"

"That I ever saw. If there weren't so many folks about, I would kiss you!"

And I meant it, but Fanny burst into laughter.

"The idea! I should like to see you try it. I would box your ears till they were as red as beetroot. But there, Tom, I am glad you are coming on this dirty steamer. For I have no one to talk to now but Elsie, and she won't talk at all."

However, Fanny's little woes did not trouble me much, for I was thinking of my own, and wondering how I ought to act.

"Fanny," said I, "tell me what I shall do. Shall I lie low and not show up until we are out at sea, or what?"

"If you don't want them to see you, you had better look sharp, for they are coming up now, I see Elsie's hat," said Fanny. And I dived out of sight round the deck house, and by dint of skillful navigation I got into my bunk without any one seeing me.

Now, the way Elsie found out I was on board was very curious, and perhaps more pleasing to Fanny than to her. My bunk was an upper one, and through the open porthole I could look out on to the wharf. As I lay there, in a much happier frame of mind than I had known for many days, I stared out carelessly, watching the men at work, and the passers-by; and suddenly to my great astonishment, I saw young Harmer looking very miserable and unhappy. He had left the _Vancouver_, too, but of course without leave, as he was an apprentice. Now, if I was surprised I was angry, too. It was such a foolish trick, and I thought I would give him a talking to at once. I spoke through the port.

"You infernal young fool!" said I, "what are you doing here? Why did you leave your ship?"

If ever I saw a bewildered face it was Harmer's. For some seconds he looked everywhere for the voice, and could not locate it either on the wharf, deck, or anywhere else.

"You ought to be rope's-ended for an idiot!" I went on, and then he saw part of my face, but without knowing who I was. He flushed crimson, and looked like a young turkeycock, with his wings down and his tail up.

"Who the devil are you, anyhow," he asked fiercely. "You come out here and I'll pull your ugly head off!"

"Thank you," I answered calmly, "my head is of more use to me than yours is, apparently; and if you don't know my voice, it belongs to Tom Ticehurst!"

Harmer jumped.

"Hurrah! Oh, I'm so glad. I was looking for you, Mr. Ticehurst, and hunting everywhere."

"And not for anyone else, I suppose?" I put in, and then I saw him look up. I knew just as well as he did that he saw Fanny, and I hoped that Elsie was not with her. But she was.

"How d'ye do, Miss Fleming?" said he nervously; "and you, Miss Fanny? I hope you are well. I was just talking to Mr. Ticehurst."

I swore a little at this, and tumbled out of my bunk, and went on deck to face the music, as the Americans say, and I got behind the girls in time to hear the little hypocrite Fanny say sweetly:

"Oh, Mr. Harmer, you must be mistaken, I'm sure! Mr. Ticehurst if going to Mexico or somewhere. He can't be here."

"Miss Fanny," said the boy earnestly, "I tell you he is, and there--just behind you. By Jove, I am coming on board!"

And he scrambled up the side like a monkey, as Elsie turned and saw me.

I said good-morning to her and we shook hands. I could see she was nervous, and fancied I could see traces of what Fanny, who talked hard, had told me.

"Dear me, Mr. Ticehurst!" said Fanny vigorously. "You didn't shake hands with me, and see the time it is since we last met! Why, was it yesterday, or when? But men are so forgetful. I never did like boys when I was a little girl, and I shall keep it up. Yes, Mr. Harmer, now I can shake hands, for not having arms ten feet long I couldn't reach yours over the rail, though you did hold them out like a signal post."

Then she and Harmer talked, and I lost what they said.

"Where is your father, Miss Fleming?" I asked, for though I felt obliged to talk, I could say nothing but that unless I remarked it was a fine day. But it had been fine for six months in California.

"He went ashore, Mr. Ticehurst, and won't be back until the steamer is nearly ready to go. But now I must go down. Come, Fanny!"

"What for?" demanded that young lady. "I'm not coming, I shall stay; I like the deck, and hate the cabin--misty stuffy hole! I shall not go down; as the pilot told the man in the stupid song: 'I shall pace the deck with thee,' Mr. Ticehurst, please."

"Thank you, Fanny," said I; "but I want to talk to Harmer here before the steamer goes, and if you will go with your sister perhaps it will be best."

She pouted and looked about her, and with a parting smile for Harmer, and a mouth for me, she followed Elsie. I turned to the lad.

"Now," I began, "you're a nice boy! What does it all mean?"

"It means that I couldn't stay on the _Vancouver_ if you weren't there, Mr. Ticehurst. I made up my mind to that the moment I heard you were leaving. I will go on your next ship; but you know, if you don't mind my saying it, I couldn't stand your brother; I would rather be struck by you than called a cub by him. A 'cub,' indeed--I am as big as he is, and bigger!"

So he was, and a fine handsome lad into the bargain, with curly brown hair, though his features were a little too feminine for his size and strength.

"Harmer," I said drily "I think you have done it now very completely. This is my next ship, and I am a passenger in her."

He didn't seem to mind; in fact, he took it so coolly that I began to think he knew.

"That doesn't matter, Mr. Ticehurst," he said cheerfully; "I will come with you."

I stared.

"The devil you will! Do you know where I am going, what I am going to do?--or have you any plans of your own cut and dried for me?"

"I don't see that it matters, Mr. Ticehurst," he answered, with a coolness I admired; "I have more than enough to pay my fare, and if you go to British Columbia I dare say I can get something to do there."

"Ah? I see," I replied; "you are tired of the sea, and would like to marry and settle down, eh?"

He looked at me, and blushed a little.

"All the more reason I should go with you, sir; for then--then--there would be--you know."

"What, Harmer?" I asked.

"A pair of us," he answered humbly.

"H'm, you are a nice boy? What will your father say if he hears you have gone off in this way?"

Harmer looked at me and laughed.

"He will say it was your fault, sir! But I had better get my dunnage on board."

And away he went.

"Harmer, come back!" I cried, but he only turned, nodded cheerfully, and disappeared in the crowd.

On the whole, although the appearance of Harmer added a new responsibility to those which were already a sufficient burden, I was not ill-pleased, for I thoroughly liked him, and had parted with him very unwillingly when I shook his hand on board the _Vancouver_ for the last time, as I thought then. At any rate, he would be a companion for me, and if by having to look after him I was prevented in any measure from becoming selfish about Elsie, I might thank his boyish foolishness in being unable to prevent himself running after Fanny, whom, to say the truth, I considered a little flirt, though a dear little girl. And, then, Harmer might be able to help me with Elsie. It was something to have somebody about that I could trust in case of accident.

It was nearer eleven than ten when the steamer's whistle shrieked for the last time, and the crew began to haul the warps on board. I could see that Elsie and Fanny were beginning to think that their father would arrive too late, when I saw him coming along the wharf with Harmer just behind him. Up to this time I really believed Mr. Fleming, with the curious innocence that fathers often show, even those who from their antecedents and character might be expected to know better, had never thought of me as being his daughter's lover; but when he had joined his daughters on the hurricane deck, and caught sight of Harmer and myself standing on the main, I saw in a moment that he knew almost as much as we could tell him, and that for a few seconds he was doubtful whether to laugh or to be angry. I saw him look at me sternly for a few seconds, then he shook his head with a very mixed smile on his weather-beaten face, and, sitting down on the nearest beach, he burst into laughter. I went up the poop ladder and caught Fanny's words:

"Why, father, what is the matter with you? Don't laugh so, all the people will think you crazy?"

"So I am, my dear, clean crazy," he answered; "because I fancied I saw Tom Ticehurst and young Harmer down on deck there, and of course it is impossible, I know that--quite impossible. It was an hallucination. For what could they want here, I should like to know? You don't know, of course? Well, well, I am surprised!"

Just then I came up and showed myself, looking quite easy, though I confess to feeling more like a fool than I remember doing since I was a boy.

"Oh, then you are here, Ticehurst?" said the old man. "It wasn't a vision, after all. I was just telling Fanny here that I thought I was going off my head."

I laughed.

"Why, Mr. Fleming," I said, "is it impossible that I, too, should go to Victoria, on my way to Alaska?"

Fleming looked at me curiously, and almost winked. "Ah! Alaska, to be sure," said he. "You did speak of Alaska. It must be a nice place. You will be quite close to us. Come over and give us a call."

"Thank you for the invitation," I replied, laughing. "I will come to tea, and bring my young friend with me."

For Harmer now walked up, shook hands with the old man in the most ordinary way, and sat down between him and Fanny with a coolness I could not have imitated for my life. It is a strange thing to think of the amount of impudence boys have from seventeen to twenty-three or so; they will do things a man of thirty would almost faint to attempt, and succeed because they don't know the risk they run. Harmer was soon engaged in talk with Fanny, and I tried in vain to imitate him. I found Elsie as cold as ice; I could make no impression on her and was almost in despair at the very outset. If Fanny had told me the truth in the morning, then Elsie held a great command over herself. I soon gave up the attack and retreated to my berth, where I smoked savagely and was miserable. You can see I did not understand much about women then.

The passage from San Francisco to Victoria takes about four days, and in that time I had to make up my mind what I was going to do. If what Fanny said were true, Elsie loved me, and it was only that foolish and wretched affair with Helen that stood in my way. Yet, could I tell the girl how matters were? It seemed to me then, and seems to me now, that I was bound in honor not to tell her. I could not say to her brutally that my brother's wife had made love to me, and that I was wholly blameless. It would be cowardly, and yet I ought to clear myself. It was an awkward dilemma. Then, again, it was quite possible that Fanny was mistaken; if she did not care for me, it was all the harder, and I could not court her with that mark against me. Yet I was determined to win her, and as I sat in my berth I grew fierce and savage in my heart. I swore that I would gain her over, I would force her to love me, if I had to kill any who stood in my way. For love makes a man devilish sometimes as well as good. I had come on board saying, "If I see no chance to win her before I get to Victoria, I will let her go." And now when we were just outside the Golden Gate, I swore to follow her always. "Yes, even if she spurns me, if she mocks, taunts me, I will make her come to me at last, put her arms round my neck, and ask my forgiveness." I said this, and unconsciously I added, "I will follow her night and day, in sunshine and in rain, in health or sickness."

Then I started violently, for I was using words like those of the Malay, who was waiting his time to follow me, and for ever in the daytime or nighttime I knew he was whetting the keen edge of his hate. I could see him in his cell; I could imagine him recalling my face to mind, for I knew what such men are. I had served as second mate in a vessel that had been manned with Orientals and the off-scourings of Singapore, such as Matthias was, and I knew them only too well. He would follow me, even as I followed her, and as she was a light before me, he would be a dark shadow behind me. I wished then that I had killed him on board the _Vancouver_, for I felt that we should one day meet; and who could discern what our meeting would bring forth in our lives? I know that from that time forward he never left me, for in the hour that I vowed to follow Elsie until she loved me, I saw very clearly that he would keep his word, though he had but strength to crawl after me and kill me as I slept. Henceforth, he was always more or less in my mind. Yet, if I could win Elsie first, I did not care. It might be a race between us, and her love might be a shield to protect me in my hour of need. I prayed that it might be so, and if it could not, then at least let me win her love before the end.

For two days I kept out of the Flemings' way, or rather out of the way of the girls, for Mr. Fleming himself could not be avoided, as he slept in the men's berth in a bunk close to mine. I believe that the first day on board he spoke to Elsie about me; indeed I know he did, for I heard so afterward; and I think it was only on her assurance that there was and could be nothing between us, that he endured the situation so easily. In the first place, although he was not rich, he was fairly well off in Australia; and though the British Columbian ranch property was not equal in value to that which he had made for himself, yet it represented a sum of money such as I could not scarcely make in many years in these hard times. It would hardly be human nature for a father to look upon me as the right sort of man for his daughter, especially since I was such a fool as to quit the sea without anything definite awaiting me on land. So, I say, that if he had thought that Elsie loved me I might have found him a disagreeable companion, and it was no consolation to me to see that he treated me in a sort of half-contemptuous, half-pitying way, for I would rather have seen him like one of the lizards on the Australian plains, such as the girls had told me of, which erect a spiny frill over their heads, and swell themselves out the whole length of their body until their natural ugliness becomes a very horror and scares anything which has the curiosity or rashness to approach and threaten them.

"What are you going to do in Alaska or British Columbia, Tom?" said he to me one day. "Do you think of farming, or seal-hunting, or gold-mining, or what? I should like to hear your plans, if you have any." And then he went on without waiting for an answer, showing plainly that he thought that I had none, and was a fool. "And that young idiot Harmer, why didn't he stick to his ship?"

"Because he will never stick to anything, Mr. Fleming," I answered, "though he is a clever young fellow, and fit for other things than sailoring, if I'm a judge. But as for myself I don't think I am, and yet when I make up my mind to a thing, I usually do it."

"You usually succeed, then?" said he, with a hard smile. "It is well to have belief in one's own strength and abilities. But sometimes others have strength as well, and then"----

"And then," I answered, "it is very often a question of will."

He smiled again and dropped the subject.

On the third day out from San Francisco, when we were running along the coast of Oregon, I found at last an opportunity of speaking to Elsie. I first went to Fanny.

"Fanny, my dear girl, I want to speak to you a few minutes." I sat down beside her.

"I think you know, Fanny, why I am here, don't you?" I asked.

"It is tolerably obvious, Mr. Ticehurst," she answered rather gravely, I thought.

"Yes, I suppose it is; but first I want to be sure whether you were right about what you told me on the morning we left San Francisco."

I was silent, and looked at her. She seemed a trifle distressed.

"Well, Tom, I thought that I was," she answered at length; "and I still think I am--and yet I don't know. You see, Elsie is a strange girl, and never confides in anyone since dear mother died, and she would never confess anything to me. Still, I have eyes in my head, and ears too. But since you have been with us she has been harder and colder than I ever saw her in all my life, and she has said enough to make me think that there is something that I know nothing about which makes her so. You know, I joked her about you yesterday, and she got so angry all of a sudden, like pouring kerosene on a fire, and she said you were a coward. When I asked her why, she turned white and wouldn't answer. Then I said of course you must be a coward if she said so, but I didn't think she had any right to say it or think it when you had saved all our lives by your coolness and courage. And then, you know, I got angry and cried, because I like you very much, just as much as I do my brother on the station at home. And I said she was a cruel beast, and all kinds of horrid things, until I couldn't think of anything but making faces at her, just as I did when I was a child. And we are having a quarrel now, and it is all about you--you ought to be proud." And Fanny looked up half laughing and half crying, for she dearly loved Elsie, as I knew.

"Well, my dear little sister Fanny," I said, "for you shall be my sister one day, there is something that makes her think ill of me, but it is not my fault, as far as I can see. And I can't convince her of that, except by showing her that I am not the man she thinks, unless some accident puts me back into the place I once believed I held in her thoughts. But I want to speak to her, and I must do it to-day. To-morrow we shall be in Victoria, and I should not like to part with her without speaking. If I talk with her now, it will probably take some time, so I want you, if you can, to prevent anyone interrupting us."

Fanny nodded, and wiped away a tear in a quick manner, just as if it were a fly.

"Very well, I will. You know I trust you, if Elsie doesn't." And she went over to Harmer, who was in a fidget, and kept looking at me as if he was wondering what I meant by talking so confidentially to Fanny.

I found Elsie sitting by herself just forward of the funnel. She was reading, and though when I spoke she answered and put the book down in her lap, she kept looking at it in a nervous way, as if she wished I had not interrupted her; and we had been talking some minutes before she seemed to wholly forget that it was there.

I spoke without any thought of what I was going to say.

"Miss Fleming (see, I call you that, though a little while ago it was Elsie), I have determined to speak to you in spite of the way you avoid me."

"I would rather you did not, Mr. Ticehurst," she said.

"It has come to a time when I must do as I think fit, even if I am rude and rough. I have something to say, and mean to say it, Miss Fleming; and if I word it in rough or broken fashion, if I stumble over it or stammer with my tongue, you will know why, just as you know why I am here. Come now, why am I on this steamer?"

She remained mute, with her head bent down, and the gold of her hair loose over her eyes, so that I could not see them. But she trembled a little, and was ripping one of the pages of her book. I took hold of it and put it down. She made no remonstrance, and I began to feel that I had power over her, though how far it went I could not tell.

"Why am I here?" I went on scornfully. "Oh, on a pleasure trip to see the advertised coast from San Francisco to Sitka, to behold Mount Elias and its glaciers! By Heavens, I think I have ice nearer at hand! Oh, it is business? I wish to gain wealth, so I give up what I understand, and go into what is as familiar to me as a sextant is to a savage! It can't be business. Do you know what it is, Miss Fleming? Look, I think there was a girl who I knew once, but she was a kind, bright girl, who was joyous, whom I called by her Christian name, who walked by my side in the moonlight, when the sails were silvered and their shadows dark, when I kept the first watch in the _Vancouver_. I wonder what has become of her? That girl would have known, but----"

I stopped, and she was still stubborn. But she did not move. I went on again:

"There must be evil spirits on the sea that fly like petrels in the storm, and come on board ship and enter into the hearts of those they find there. Why----"

"I fear, Mr. Ticehurst," she interrupted, "that you think me a fool. If I am not, then your talk is vain; and if I am, I surely am not fit to mate with you. Let us cease to talk about this, for it is useless!"

I was almost choking with passion; it was so hard to be misconceived, even though she had so much reason on her side. Yet, since I knew she was wrong, I almost wished to shake her.

"No!" I said at last, "I will not go until I have an understanding one way or the other. We have been beating about the bush, but I will do it no longer. You know that I love you!"

She drew herself up.

"How many can you love at a time, Mr. Ticehurst?" she said.

"One, only one," I replied. "You are utterly mistaken."

"I am not mistaken!" she said; "and I think you are a coward and a traitor. If you were not, I might love you; but as you are, such a thing is impossible."

I caught her by the wrist. Instinctively she tried to free herself, but finding she could not, looked up. When she caught my eye, her indignant remonstrance died on her lips.

"Look you, Elsie, what can I do? Perhaps I cannot defend myself; there are some situations where a man cannot for the sake of others. I can say no more about that. And I will make you see you are wrong, if not by proof, by showing you what I am--a man incapable of what you think me--and in the end I will make you love me." I paused for a moment, but she did not move.

"You have listened to me; Elsie, and you can see what I mean, you can think whether I shall falter or swerve; and now I ask you, for I am assured you do love me, or that you did, whether you will not trust me now? For you cannot believe that I could speak as I do if I had done what you think."

I looked at Elsie, and she was very pale. I could see that I had moved her, had shaken her conviction, that she was at war with herself. I got up, went to the side, and then turned, beckoning to her to look over to seaward with me. She came almost like a woman walking in her sleep, and took a place by my side. I did so to avoid notice, for I feared to attract attention; indeed, I saw two passengers looking at us curiously, one of whom smiled so that I began to wish to throw him overboard. Yet I think, as a matter of fact, I did wrong in allowing her to move; it broke the influence I held over her in a measure, for I have often noticed since that to obtain control of some people one should keep steadily insisting on the one point, and never allow them to go beyond, or even to think beyond it. But then to do so one must be stronger than I was, or he will lose control over himself, as I did, and so make errors in judgment.

"Elsie," I said quietly, "are you not going to answer me? Or am I not worth it?"

Now, up to this moment I had taken her away from the past; in her emotion she had almost forgotten Helen; she was just wavering and was on the point of giving in to me. Yet by that last suggestion of mine I brought it back to her. I could see in her mind the darker depths of her fear and distrust of me, and what I rightly judged her hatred and jealousy of Helen. Though I do not think I know much of character, yet in the state of mind that I was in then I seemed to see her mind, as a much more subtle man might have done, and my own error. I could have cursed my own folly. She had taken the book again, and was holding it open in her hand. Until I spoke she held it so lightly that it shook and wavered, but she caught it in both hands and shut it suddenly, as though it was the book of her heart that I had been reading, and she denied my right to do it. And she turned toward me cold once more, though by a strange influence she caught my thought.

"This is a closed book, Mr. Ticehurst. It is the book of the past, and--it is gone for ever." She dropped it over the side with a mocking smile. But I caught hold of her hand and held it.

"Ah!" said I, "then we begin again. If the past is dead, the present lives, and the future is yet unborn. You mean one thing now, and I mean the other; but in the future we shall both mean the same. Remember what I say, Elsie--remember it. For unless I am dead, I will be your acknowledged lover and your husband at last."

I dropped her hand and walked away, and when I looked back I saw her following me with her eyes. I would have given much then to have been able to know of what she thought. I went below and slept for many hours a sleep of exhaustion, for though a man may be as strong as a lion physically, an excess of emotion takes more from him than the most terrible physical toil.

The next morning we were in Victoria, and I neither had, nor did I seek, an opportunity of again speaking with Elsie. But I did talk for a few moments with Fanny. I told her some part of what occurred, but not much. She said as much:

"You are keeping something back, Tom. I think you know some reason why Elsie won't have anything to do with you?"

"I do, Fanny," I replied: "but there is nothing in it at all, and one of these days she will discover it."

"I hope so," said she, a little dryly for so young a girl; "but Elsie is a little obstinate, and I have seen horses that would not jump a gate. You may have to open it yet, Tom."

"It may open of it itself, Fanny, or the horse may desire the grass and jump at last; but I will never open it myself."

And I shook hands with her and Mr. Fleming. I took off my hat to Elsie, but said in a low voice:

"Remember what I said, Elsie, for I shall never forget." And then she turned away; but did not look back this time, as she had done when we parted in the hotel. Yet such is the curious state a lover is in that I actually comforted myself that she did not, for if she had, I said, it would have showed she was callous and cold. Perhaps, though she kept command over herself just for the time, it failed her at the last, and she would not let me see it.

When they were gone, Harmer and I went ashore too. As to the boy, he was so desperately in love--calf-love--that I had to cheer him up, and the way I did it makes me laugh now, for I have a larger experience of boys and men than I had then.

"Never mind, Harmer," said I, "you will get over this in no time--see if you don't."

He turned round in a blazing rage, and I think if it had not been for the effects of the old discipline, which was yet strong upon him, he would have sworn at me; for although Harmer looked as if butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, I knew he had a very copious vocabulary of abuse at his command, such as one learns only too easily at sea.

"What, Mr. Ticehurst!" he said stammering. "Get over it? I never shall, and I don't want to, and, what's more, I wouldn't if I could! It's not kind of you to say so, and I think--I think----"

"What, Jack?" said I, thunderstruck at this outburst, when I meant consolation.

"That you'll get over it first. There now!" said he, triumphant with this retort I burst into laughter.

"Well--well, Harmer, I didn't mean to vex you. We must not quarrel now, for Jordan's a hard road to travel, I believe, and you and I have got to make lots of money; at least you have; if we are going to do anything in this country. For it's what the Yankees call a tough place."

"Yes," replied Harmer, now ashamed of of being angry. "I heard one fellow say to another on the steamer, 'You goldarned fellers from the East think you're going to get a soft seat over here, but you bet you'll have to rustle on the Pacific Slope or else git!' And then he turned to me. 'D'ye hear that, young feller?--you've got to rustle right smart, or you'll get left.'"

And Jack laughed heartily trying to imitate the accent of his adviser, but he found it hard to disguise his own pure English, learnt in a home far across the seas and the wide stretch of the American Continent.

That night we stayed in Victoria in a rough hotel kept by two brothers, Cornishmen, who invited us both to have drinks on the strength of our all being Englishman, though I should never have suspected that they were such, so well did their accent disguise the truth from me. And in the morning, two days after, we went on board the _Western Slope_ bound for New Westminster, on the mainland of British Columbia, whither the Flemings had preceded us.