The Protector Part 21

"Will she weather the point on this tack?" he asked.

"She'll have to," said Vane, who was steering.

They stood on, though it occurred to Carroll that they were not opening up the bay very rapidly. The light was growing, and he could now discern the orderly phalanxes of white-topped combers that crumpled into chaotic spouting on the point's outer end. The sloop would not last long if she touched bottom there; but once more, after a glance at his companion's face, he kept silent. After all, Vane was leader, and when he looked as he did then he usually resented advice. The mouth of the bay grew wider, until Carroll could see most of the forest-girt sh.o.r.e on one side of it; but the surf upon the point was also growing unpleasantly near. Wisps of spray whirled away from it and vanished among the scrubby firs clinging to the fissured crags behind. The sloop, however, was going to windward, for Vane was handling her with skill, and she had almost cleared the point when there was a bang, and the sloop stopped suddenly. The comber to windward that should have lifted her up broke all over her; flinging the boat on deck upon the saloon skylight, and pouring inches deep over the coaming into the well. Vane was hurled from the tiller and cut his forehead, for his wet face was smeared with blood, but he had seized a big oar to shove her off when she swung upright, moved, and struck again. The following sea hove her up; there was another less violent crash, and while Vane dropped the oar and grasped the helm she suddenly shot ahead.

"She'll go clear," he shouted, "Jump below and see if she's damaged."

Carroll got no farther than the scuttle, for the saloon floorings on the depressed side were already awash and he could hear an ominous splas.h.i.+ng and gurgling.

"It's pouring into her," he reported.

Vane nodded. "You'll have to pump."

"We pa.s.sed an opening some miles to lee. Wouldn't it be better if you ran back there?" Carroll suggested.

"No," said Vane; "I won't run a yard. There's another inlet not far ahead, and we'll stand on until we reach it. I'd put her on the beach here, only that she'd go to pieces with the first s.h.i.+ft of wind to the westward."

Carroll agreed with this opinion; but there is a great difference between running to leeward with the sea behind the vessel, and thras.h.i.+ng to windward when it is ahead, and he hesitated.

"Get the pump started. We're going on," Vane said shortly.

The pump was, fortunately, a powerful one, and they had nearly two miles of smoother water before they stretched out of the bay upon the other track; but when they did so Carroll, who glanced down again through the scuttle, could not flatter himself that he had reduced the water.

After half an hour of it, he was breathless and exhausted, and Vane took his place. The sea was higher, the sloop wetter than she had been, and there was no doubt that the water was rising fast inside her. Carroll wondered how far ahead the inlet his companion had mentioned lay, and the next two hours were anxious ones to both of them. Turn about, they pumped with savage determination and went back, gasping, to the helm, to thrash the boat on. They drove her remorselessly; and she went through the combers, swept and streaming, while the spray scourged the helmsman's face as he gazed to weather. Their arms and shoulders ached from working in a cramped position, but since there was no help for it, they toiled doggedly, until at last the crest of a crag they were heading for sloped away in front of them.

A few minutes later, they drove past the end of it into a broad lane of water with long ranks of firs dropping steeply to its edge. The wind was suddenly cut off; the combers fell away, and the sloop crept slowly up the inlet, which wound, green and placid, among the hills. Vane strode to the scuttle and looked down at the flood which splashed languidly to and fro below.

"It's fortunate that we're in. Another half-hour would have seen the end of her," he said. "Let her come up a little. There's a smooth beach to yonder cove."

She slid in quietly, scarcely rippling the smooth surface of the tiny basin, about which there rose great black firs, and Carroll laid her on the beach.

"Now," said Vane, "drop the boom on the sh.o.r.e side, to keep her from canting over; and then we'll get breakfast. We'll see where she's damaged when the tide ebbs."

Since most of their stores had lain in the flooded lockers, from which there had been no time to extricate them, the meal was not an appetising one. They were, however, glad of it, and, rowing ash.o.r.e afterwards, they lay on the s.h.i.+ngle in the suns.h.i.+ne while the sloop was festooned with their drying clothes.

"If she has only split a plank or two we can patch her up," Vane remarked, "There are all the tools we'll want in the locker."

"Where will you get new planks from?" Carroll inquired. "I don't think we have any spikes that would go through the frames."

"That," said Vane, "is the trouble. I expect I'll have to make a trip across to Comox for them in a sea canoe. We're sure to come across a few Siwash somewhere in the neighbourhood. I can't say that this expedition is beginning fortunately."

"There's no doubt on that point," Carroll agreed.

"Well," said Vane, "she has to be patched up, and until I find that spruce I'm going on."

Carroll made no comment. It was not worthwhile to object when Vane was obviously determined.

CHAPTER XVI

THE BUSH.

It was a quiet evening, nearly a fortnight after the arrival of the sloop, and pale suns.h.i.+ne streamed into the cove. Little glittering ripples lapped lazily along the s.h.i.+ngle, and the placid surface of the inlet was streaked with faint blue lines where wandering airs came down from the heights above. Now and then an elfin sighing fell from the ragged summits of the tall black firs, but it died away again, and afterwards the silence was only broken by the pounding of a heavy hammer and the crackle of a fire.

Carroll sat beside the latter, alternately holding a stout plank up to the blaze and dabbing its hot surface with a dripping mop. A big sea canoe lay drawn up near the spot, and one of its copper-skinned Siwash owners sat amongst the s.h.i.+ngle, stolidly watching the white men. His comrade was inside the sloop, holding a big stone against one of her frames, while Vane crouched outside her, swinging a hammer.

Vane, who was stripped to s.h.i.+rt and trousers, had arrived from Comox across the Strait at dawn that morning in the sea canoe. It was a long trip and they had had wild weather on the outward journey, but he had set to work with characteristic energy as soon as he landed. Now, though the sun was low, he was working rather harder than ever, with the flood tide, which would shortly compel him to desist, creeping up to his feet.

Carroll, who watched him with quiet amus.e.m.e.nt, was on the whole content that the tide was rising, because his comrade had firmly declined to stop for dinner, and he was conscious of a sharpened appet.i.te. It was comforting to reflect that Vane would be unable to get the plank into place before the evening meal, because if there had been any prospect of his doing so, he would certainly have postponed the latter.

By and by he stopped a moment and turned to Carroll. "If you were any use in an emergency, you'd be holding up for me instead of that wooden image inside," he remarked. "He will back the stone against any frame except the one I'm nailing."

"The difficulty is that I can't be in two places at the same time,"

Carroll pointed out. "Shall I leave this plank? You can't get it in to-night."

"I'm going to try," Vane answered grimly.

He turned round to direct the Siwash and then cautiously hammered in one of the wedges a little farther, after which, swinging back the hammer, he struck a heavy blow. The result was disastrous, for there was a crash and one of the sh.o.r.es shot backwards, striking him on the knee. He jumped with a savage cry, and next moment there was a sharp snapping, and the end of the plank sprang out. Then another sh.o.r.e gave way, and when the plank fell clattering at his feet he whirled the hammer round his head, and hurled it violently into the bush. This appeared to afford him some satisfaction, and he strode up the beach, with the blood dripping from the knuckles of one hand.

"That's the blamed Siwash's fault," he said. "I couldn't get him to back up when I put the last spike in."

"Hadn't you better tell him to come out?" Carroll suggested.

"No," said Vane. "If he hasn't sense enough to see that he isn't wanted, he can stay where he is all night. Are you going to get supper, or must I do that, too?"

Carroll set about preparing the meal, which the two Siwash partook of and afterwards departed, with some paper currency. Then Vane, walking down the beach, came back with the plank, and after lighting his pipe, pointed to one or two broken nails in it.

"That's the cause of the trouble," he said. "It cost me a week's journey to get the package of galvanised spikes--I could have managed to split a plank or two out of one of these firs. The storekeeper fellow a.s.sured me they were specially annealed for heading up. If I knew who the manufacturers were, I'd have pleasure in telling them what I think of them. If they set up to make spikes, they ought to make them, and empty every keg that won't stand the test on to the sc.r.a.p heap."

Carroll smiled. The course his partner had indicated was the one he would have adopted. He was characterised by a somewhat grim idea of efficiency, and never spared his labour to attain it, though the latter fact had now and then its inconveniences for those who had co-operated with him, as Carroll had discovered. The latter had no doubt that Vane would put the planks in, if he spent a month over the operation.

"I wouldn't have had this trouble if you'd been handier with tools," he resumed.

"My abilities aren't as varied as yours, and the thing is bad economy,"

Carroll replied. "Skill of the kind you mentioned is worth about three dollars a day."

"You were getting two dollars for shovelling in a mining ditch, when I first met you."

"I was," Carroll a.s.sented good-humouredly; "I believe another month or two of it would have worn me out. It's considerably pleasanter and more profitable to act as your understudy; but a fairly proficient carpenter might have bungled the latter."

Vane looked embarra.s.sed. "Let it pa.s.s; I've a pernicious habit of expressing myself unfortunately. Anyhow, we'll start again on those planks first thing to-morrow."

He stretched out his aching limbs beside the fire, and languidly watched the firs grow dimmer and the mists creep in ghostly trails down the steep hillside, until Carroll broke the silence.

"Wallace," he said, "wouldn't it be wiser if you met that fellow Horsfield to some extent?"