Part 15

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."

Stratton smiled. "I admit I once served an apprenticeship."

"You once served an apprenticeship?" repeated Philip quickly. "You mean you are now able to conduct one of your own. And--you know a man who can take charge of the dope at that old hotel. See here, tell me this, have you tried the experiment there, already?"

Stratton nodded his head. "Several times. I had to, Captain. It was my only way to make the final payments on my schooner; she cost me more than I expected; and I had to outfit her."

"What I want to know is, did you smuggle any of the stuff over on my yacht?"

Again Stratton nodded. "You see how well the scheme worked. You never suspected it."

"I could inform on you," said Kingsley hotly. "I will do it, by George, the first time I see Bates."

"No,"--Stratton watched his victim's face,--"you will not, Captain, when you stop to think."

"Why not?"

"Because you yourself would be implicated."

Instantly Kingsley was on his feet. His brilliant eyes flashed. But while he expressed his indignation Stratton remained in his lounging position, smiling, mocking, almost indifferent. "I would like to know, though," said Philip at last, with tempered heat, "just how you would settle the question of the purchase price at Victoria."

Then Stratton rose and came over to the helm. "Leave that with me, Captain," he said. "Understand, all you've got to do is to run the _Phantom_; nothing else concerns you. And I promise to hurry the business through, and see you out of the hole, with firm ground to stand on, in one grand coup."

Kingsley was silent. Presently he went forward into the bows, and stood looking off to where the silver smoke film met the shining sea. Finally his lips breathed a whistle. Stratton had taken his place at the tiller. He lighted a cigar and settled himself comfortably, but his eyes were fixed watchfully on the man forward. It was the look of a gambler who has staked high, and is sure, yet not sure of his antagonist.

At last a shadow cut the Sound far out, northward; the streak broadened, the mainsail flapped loosely, and the _Phantom_ heeled to the sudden flaw. Kingsley sprang to the sheets. The gust passed but was followed by another, veering westerly, and another still, that steadied to a freshening breeze.

Philip came back to the helm. "Well," he said, "it looks like Seattle to-night, after all; dinner, perhaps, at the Arlington."

But Stratton, looking in his companion's face, started a little, and with his hand still on the tiller, swung the _Phantom_ slowly around, shaping a course for Victoria.

They did not dine in Seattle that night, but the next evening found them at _table d'hote_ in the English city. Later, in the long northern twilight, the little yacht crept out of the winding harbor and coasted the island northward to an obscure, forest-girt cove, where she came to anchor.

*CHAPTER XXI*

*HIDE AND SEEK*

An hour after the _Phantom_ left her moorings in Victoria harbor, Bates, of the United States Customs, reported to his superior officer on board the cutter at anchor in the stream. When he had finished with the matter on which he had been detailed, he stopped to state that on his way through Chinatown he had noticed Stratton entering the house of a certain merchant and highbinder. "And," he continued, "returning, probably two hours later, my attention was attracted to a coolie who came out of the same place. He carried the baskets of a vegetable vender, suspended from the usual shoulder pole, but it was singular that, at the close of the day, and so far from the Chinese garden tracts in the suburbs, from which he must have been supplied,--those baskets should be full. I was walking in the same direction, and, at the end of the second block, a second fellow came up the cross street and fell in behind. His baskets also were heaped, apparently with produce, to the brim. They moved away in their swinging trot, more and more rapidly, and so bent on a direct course, that I felt justified in taking a hansom and following. On the edge of the town they turned out of the main thoroughfare, which would have led them to the gardens, and entered a little used trail; what seemed to be a short cut through the forest to some obscure harbor on the coast. I could go no farther in the cab, but, coming back by the park road, I saw from a height of Beacon Hill, which overlooks the channel, a small yacht with the lines and rigging of the _Phantom_, stealing up the shore."

This self-imposed task had delayed Bates an extra hour, during which he had held the cutter, which was under steam and ready to make the run across the Straits to the American port of entry. But his commanding officer accepted the information without comment. However, when the revenue boat had steamed out of the Arm, headed for her home port, he remained on the bridge, searching with his binoculars, first the Vancouver coast astern, and then, slowly, the great reach of running sea, that stretched away to the distant and tawny pall which hung over the American side and showed the vast sweep of the forest fires.

There was a strong wind, drawing in from the Pacific, and the little steamer labored in an ugly trough. When she staggered, quartering, up a mother wave, she plunged down, and half seas over, in the next crest. She made her harbor, decks streaming, port light stove in, at midnight, and, after a brief stop and slight repairs, she was under way again, moving southward into the smoke. Finally, at the end of several hours, she was brought to, and, under slow bells, began to patrol a certain course.

The smoke gathered density. It was permeated with a lurid glare, and, driven by cross winds, it moved around a center, enfolding the cutter with the effect of a vast, brassy, electrical cloud. It was also a place of conflicting seas. The long, white, wicked fingers of a tide-rip reached out ceaselessly, and withdrew to the center of the whirlpool. The moon hung like a crimson lantern directly above and cast a red trail through the vortex. Then suddenly, while the little steamer skirted, listing to the maelstrom, a great gust tore the smoke asunder and Foulweather Bluff loomed through the rift. At the same moment a small yacht, under full sail bore down upon the headland.

The next instant she veered and coming around in the narrow space between the cutter and the cliff, raced out, all but grazing the side of the steamer, and heeled to the whirlpool. Her great mainsail dipped lower and lower; the white fingers of the tide-rip clutched at it, caught it, held it, dragged it slowly in. The decks were awash. Then the grip of the maelstrom relaxed; the little craft righted, shivering; her canvas filled with a big gust from the Straits and she swung away into the night.

It all happened very swiftly, and the smoke closed in, curtaining Foulweather, with a greater density. Bates, who was on the bridge, had seen that the yacht carried no headlight, and he had recognized clearly, one of the two men who sailed her. The face of the first was hidden, for he leaned, straining every muscle, on the stumbling helm; but the second stood on the slanting deck, bracing his back on the canting cabin, alert, watchful, like a man on guard. His glance was raised to the steamer's bridge, and fixing his eyes on the inspector, his right hand crept to his hip pocket. There was no doubt; he was Stratton. And even while the little vessel hovered on the edge of the maelstrom, the officer gave the command to back, turn, go ahead. The cutter was in hot pursuit. Directly the gun on her port bow boomed through the thick atmosphere. No response. Again the report rang peremptory, threatening. And still no answer.

At daybreak the steamer doubled back on her course and headed for the lower end of Whidby Island, which divides the Sound into two long broad channels. She patrolled this point for a long interval, and finally the lookout saw the bowsprit and rigging of a small yacht detach from the gray pall that shrouded the west passage. But instantly she swung away from the cutter and vanished like a phantom in the smoke. Once more the gun thundered a halt; and once more the silence was broken only by the noise of the ship's machinery, and the breaking of the sea on the cutwater. The revenue vessel steamed on under slow bells toward Seattle.

*CHAPTER XXII*

*FOR LITTLE SILAS*

The lamps across the harbor began to show red spots through the smoke; the nearer lights on the landings of the mills, and at the ends of the wharves, shone with pale rings around their disks. With twilight a fog was creeping in. The burning slab-pile sent up its great tongues of flame against the blackness of the bluff, and became a beacon for such craft as groped along the Head, feeling a way to the city. It illuminated the usual groups of workmen, and singled out the old watchman's square figure. He was seated on a block, shaping a miniature boat for little Silas, and the child, standing by his knee, with his hands clasped loosely behind him, awaited the results with grave interest.

The boy's mother had just left him, with permission to stay until the toy was finished. She felt the increasing dampness in the air, but she stopped at her gate, shrinking from the silence of the house, and looked back to the group at the fire. Presently she turned and walked slowly in the direction of the old hotel. The swell broke with a long tramp and swash at the foot of the bluff, for it was flood-tide. In dark places, where the water ruffled about the piers, there were flashes of phosphorous light. Louise watched it, leaning from the railing. It was a light she loved. She liked, too, those night voices of the sea. They intruded on her loneliness with a mild insistence; in sympathy, yet expostulation.

But it was at such times she most excused Philip. "Men seldom are as constant as women," she told herself. "Marriage to them can never mean as much. Our work, our whole living must hinge on it; every hour is shaped to it; but with them it is only a halt at the end of the day."

She lifted her glance and started erect. She brushed her clouding eyes and stood staring out into the thick atmosphere. Something loomed there from the sea. It was the bowsprit and forward rigging of a small vessel, close in beyond the walls of the ruin. There was a familiar dip in the lines of the loosely furled jib. "The _Phantom_," she exclaimed. "She has missed the landing in the smoke." And she hurried up the approach to the front entrance and on through the empty bar-room to the rear balcony.

But the hail that sprang to her lips failed, and she shrank back into the shadow of the interior. This craft carried no lights. There was no stir of landing; none of the excitement of going unintentionally aground. Instead there was a great hush, strange, sinister. Then, while Louise wavered, afraid of she knew not what, a tender pushed out from the side, and was pulled with muffled oars to the ruin. She heard the bow touch the piling, and the two men in her stood up, head and shoulders above the platform. But the light was too uncertain for her to determine whether or not one was Philip, and she withdrew farther into the room.