The Silver Horde Part 54

"Then there will be time enough to--to consider what you suggest. I don't like to think about it."

"You don't have to," said Balt, lowering his voice so that the helmsmen could not hear. "I've been thinking it over all night, and it looks like I'd ought to do it myself. Marsh is coming to me anyhow, and--I'm older than you be. It ain't right for a young feller like you to take a chance.

If they get me, you can run the business alone."

Boyd laid his hand on his companion's shoulder.

"No," he said. "Perhaps I wouldn't stick at murder--I don't know. But I won't profit by another man's crime, and if it comes to that, I'll take my share of the risk and the guilt. Whatever you do, I stand with you. But we'll hope for better things. It's no easy thing for me to go to Mr.

Wayland asking a favor. You see, his daughter is--Well, I--I want to see her very badly."

Balt eyed him shrewdly.

"I see! And that makes it dead wrong for you to take a hand. If it's necessary to get Marsh, I'll do it alone. With him out of the way, I think you can make a go of it. He's like a rattler--somebody's got to stomp on him. Now I'm off for the trap. Let me know what the old man says."

Boyd returned to the cannery with the old mood of self-disgust and bitterness heavy upon him. He realized that George's offer to commit murder had not shocked him as much as upon its first mention. He knew that he had thought of shedding human blood with as little compunction as if the intended victim had been some noxious animal. He felt, indeed, that if his love for Mildred made him a criminal, she too would be soiled by his dishonor, and for her sake he shrank from the idea of violence, yet he lacked the energy at that time to put it from him. Well, he would go to her father, humble himself, and beg for protection. If he failed, then Marsh must look out for himself. He could not find it in his heart to spare his enemy.

At the plant he found Alton Clyde tremendously excited at the arrival of the yacht, and eager to visit his friends. He sent him to the launch, and, after a hasty breakfast, joined him.

On their way out, Boyd felt a return of that misgiving which had mastered him on his first meeting with Mildred in Chicago. For the second time he was bringing her failure instead of the promised victory. Now, as then, she would find him in the bitterness of defeat, and he could not but wonder how she would bear the disappointment. He hoped at least that she would understand his appeal to her father; that she would see him not as a suppliant begging for mercy, but as a foeman worthy of respect, demanding his just dues. Surely he had proved himself capable. Wayne Wayland could hardly make him contemptible in Mildred's eyes. Yet a feeling of disquiet came over him as he drew near _The Grande Dame_.

Willis Marsh was ahead of him, standing with Mr. Wayland at the rail. Some one else was with them; Boyd's heart leaped wildly as he recognized her.

He would have known that slim figure anywhere--and Mildred saw him too, pointing him out to her companions.

With knees shaking under him, he came stumbling up the landing-ladder, a tall, gaunt figure of a man in rough clothing and boots stained with the sea--salt. He looked older by five years than when the girl had last seen him; his cheeks were hollowed and his lips cracked by the wind, but his eyes were aflame with the old light, his smile was for her alone.

He never remembered the spoken greetings nor the looks the others gave him, for her soft, cool hands lay in his hard, feverish palms, and she was smiling up at him.

Alton Clyde was at his heels, and he felt Mildred disengage her hand. He tore his eyes away from her face long enough to nod at Marsh,--who gave him a menacing look, then turned to Wayne Wayland. The old man was saying something, and Boyd answered him unintelligibly, after which he took Mildred's hands once more with such an air of unconscious proprietors.h.i.+p that Willis Marsh grew pale to the lips and turned his back. Other people, whom Boyd had not noticed until now, came down the deck--men and women with field-gla.s.ses and cameras swung over their shoulders. He found that he was being introduced to them by Mildred, whose voice betrayed no tremor, and whose manners were as collected as if this were her own drawing-room, and the man at her side a casual acquaintance. The strangers mingled with the little group, levelled their gla.s.ses, and made senseless remarks after the manner of tourists the world over. Boyd gathered somehow that they were officers of the Trust, or heavy stockholders, and their wives. They seemed to accept him as an uninteresting bit of local color, and he regarded them with equal indifference, for his eyes were wholly occupied with Mildred, his ears deaf to all but her voice. At length he saw some of them going over the rail, and later found himself alone with his sweetheart. He led her to a deck-chair, and seated himself beside her.

"At last!" he breathed. "You are here, Mildred. You really came, after all?"

"Yes, Boyd."

"And are you glad?"

"Indeed I am. The trip has been wonderful."

"It doesn't seem possible. I can't believe that this is really you--that I am not dreaming, as usual."

"And you? How have you been?"

"I've been well--I guess I have--I haven't had time to think of myself.

Oh, my Lady!" His voice broke with tenderness, and he laid his hand gently upon hers.

She withdrew it quickly.

"Not here! Remember where we are. You are not looking well, Boyd. I don't know that I ever saw you look so badly. Perhaps it is your clothes."

"I am tired," he confessed, feeling anew the weariness of the past twenty- four hours. He covertly stroked a fold of her dress, murmuring: "You are here, after all. And you love me, Mildred? You haven't changed, have you?"

"Not at all. Have you?"

His deep breath and the light that flamed into his face was her answer. "I want to be alone with you," he cried, huskily. "My arms ache for you. Come away from here; this is torture. I'm like a man dying of thirst."

No woman could have beheld his burning eagerness without an answering thrill, and although Mildred sat motionless, her lids drooped slightly and a faint color tinged her cheeks. Her idle hands clasped themselves rigidly.

"You are always the same," she smiled. "You sweep me away from myself and from everything. I have never seen any one like you. There are people everywhere. Father is somewhere close by."

"I don't care-"

"I do."

"My launch is alongside; let me take you ash.o.r.e and show you what I have done. I want you to see."

"I can't. I promised to go ash.o.r.e with the Berrys and Mr. Marsh."

"Mars.h.!.+"

"Now don't get tragic! We are all going to look over his plant and have lunch there--they are expecting me. Oh, dear!" she cried, plaintively, "I have seen and heard nothing but canneries ever since we left Vancouver.

The men talk nothing but fish and packs and markets and dividends. It's all deadly stupid, and I'm wretchedly tired of it. Father is the worst of the lot, of course."

Emerson's eyes s.h.i.+fted to his own cannery. "You haven't seen mine--ours,"

said he.

"Oh yes, I have. Mr. Marsh pointed it out to father and me. It looks just like all the others." There was an instant's pause before she ran on. "Do you know, there is only one interesting feature about. them, to my notion, and that is the way the Chinamen smoke. Those funny, crooked pipes and those little wads of tobacco are too ridiculous." The lightness of her words damped his ardor, and brought back the sense of failure. That formless huddle of buildings in the distance seemed to him all at once very dull and prosaic. Of course, it was just like scores of others that his sweetheart had seen all the way north from the border-line. He had never thought of that till now.

"I was down with the fis.h.i.+ng fleet at the mouth of the bay this morning when you came in. I thought I might see you," he said.

"At that hour? Heavens! I was sound asleep. It was hard enough to get up when we were called. Father might have instructed the captain not to steam so fast."

Boyd stared at her in hurt surprise; but she was smiling at Alton Clyde in the distance, and did not observe his look.

"Don't you care even to hear what I have done?" he inquired.

"Of course," said Mildred, bringing her eyes back to him.

Hesitatingly he told her of his disappointments, the obstacles he had met and overcome, avoiding Marsh's name, and refraining from placing the blame where it belonged. When he had concluded, she shook her head.

"It is too bad. But Mr. Marsh told us all about it before you came. Boyd, I never thought well of this enterprise. Of course, I didn't say anything against it, you were so enthusiastic, but you really ought to try something big. I am sure you have the ability. Why, the successful men I know at home have no more intelligence than you, and they haven't half your force. As for this--well, I think you can accomplish more important things than catching fish."

"Important!" he cried. "Why, the salmon industry is one of the most important on the Coast. It employs ten thousand men in Alaska alone, and they produce ten million dollars every year."

"Oh, let's not go into statistics," said Mildred, lightly; "they make my head ache. What I mean is that a fisherman is nothing like--an attorney or a broker or an architect, for instance; he is more like a miner. Pardon me, Boyd, but look at your clothes." She began to laugh. "Why, you look like a common laborer!"

He became conscious for the first time that he cut a sorry figure.

Everything around him spoke of wealth and luxury. Even the sailor that pa.s.sed at the moment was better dressed than he. He felt suddenly awkward and out of place.

"I might have slicked up a bit," he acknowledged, lamely; "but when you came, I forgot everything else."

"I was dreadfully embarra.s.sed when I introduced you to the Berrys and the rest. I dare say they thought you were one of Mr. Marsh's foremen."