Читать книгу Larry of Lonesome Lake - Harold Bindloss - Страница 8

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At seven o'clock the mist rolled back, and in the east snow peaks cut the sky; silver haze yet crawled along their slopes where dark forests climbed. In front, six or seven miles off, a high, rocky island rose from the smooth sea. Although the west was dim, a gray smear indicated land. Lawrence, calculating the sloop's drift, reckoned he could make Cheemanco in two hours, if the wind were fair and strong, but the faint ripples that now and then crept across the glimmering water did not reach the boat.

Ruby occupied the cockpit bench. Food and strong coffee had braced her, and the fresh morning had brought a touch of color to her skin, but her look was drearily resigned.

"Those streaks are wind?" she said. "If we started now, d'you think we could land before the steamer goes?"

"It's just possible," Lawrence replied. "As a rule, however, a light wind blows from the south, and the tide is carrying us north."

Ruby shrugged. "For some time my luck has not been good. I'd hoped it might turn, but, so far, you are not much of a mascot. Still, of course, the plan for you to take me across was mine, and if you are invited to help a young woman another time, I expect you'll refuse."

"Looks as if I was rash," Lawrence agreed. "For your sake, I'm sorry I did not use some caution; but I think that's all. Anyhow, I haven't begun to grumble."

"You haven't yet landed me," Ruby rejoined. "In the meantime, you need not bother to be polite, and if to swear is some relief, I shall not be much jarred. A girl is a blasted nuisance on board a boat."

Lawrence smiled and said nothing. On the whole, he liked her frankness, and since he knew her anxious, it implied some pluck. The dark streaks on the water lengthened, two joined, and advancing fast, reached the sloop. Lawrence felt a cool touch on his skin, the slack sails swelled, sheet-blocks rattled, and the boat began to move. In five minutes she was going fast; her tall mast slanted and the ripples splashed against her planks. In ten minutes angry foam ran level with the two-inch rail on the inclined deck's lee side. Lawrence jumped for the cabin door and fastened the sliding hatch.

"Get into the slicker coat. I ought to shorten sail," he said when he was back at the tiller.

"Let her go," said Ruby. "If you cannot catch the Maud, I don't mind if we capsize."

For some time Lawrence risked it. The sea had not got up, and although spray was flying and the water crept farther across the deck, none yet splashed over the coaming ledge. Then a leaping wave curled across the cabin top, the mast slanted sharply, and the wire shrouds rang.

"Stop in the cockpit," he ordered. "Watch out for the boom, and don't stand up!"

Carrying a small sail along the inclined deck, he reached the mast, and for a few moments Ruby was daunted. The sloop, rounding to the wind, lurched upright, and the long boom jerked savagely across the cockpit. She saw Lawrence let go some ropes and the half-lowered jib swell like a balloon. Then it collapsed with a noise like a rifle shot and its thrashing folds swept the narrow deck behind the mast. Lawrence was under the sail, and she thought it must knock him overboard.

After a few harrowing moments, Ruby saw the sail was down. Lawrence, flat on the deck by the bowsprit, his legs round two short posts, pulled ropes, and another sail, tied in folds, slid out along the pole. In the meantime, the boat rolled and plunged; the big mainsail shook and banged, and ropes and blocks thrashed furiously about. The sail went up; Lawrence, moving surprisingly fast, was for a moment back at the tiller, and then again by the mast. Ruby was not a sailor, but she knew him competent, swift, and resolute. She admitted she approved men like that.

The high topsail tilted, its yard across the mast, and she saw Lawrence struggled with three different ropes. Since he had but two hands, she went to help. When she joined him he gave her a rope.

"I ordered you to stop. But that's the tack, and if you hold on, you won't go overboard. Pull when I shout. I believe the blasted sheet is round the gaff end."

He jerked the ropes and shouted. The long yard plunged down and stopped, and they dragged the sail on deck.

"Thanks!" gasped Lawrence, and when the boom lurched put his arm round Ruby's waist and dropped her into the cockpit.

Ruby smiled. Lawrence stripped the topsail from the yard and frowned. Since the boat lurched, he was justified to seize the girl and a variety actress was not easily embarrassed; but he had not reckoned on his not wanting to let her go. She was soft and round; she had allowed him to swing her across the skylight, because she trusted him to see her safe. Well, that was all he had thought to do, and his business was to tie a reef in the mainsail. The boat, with the storm jib pulled to windward, was steadier and he got to work. In five minutes the reef was tied, and he jumped for the tiller.

"The sea is getting up, but by and by the coast will shelter us—"

He stopped, for Ruby touched him, and turning his head, he saw a dark smear on the horizon.

"Smoke? A steamer's smoke?" she said.

"The Maud's smoke! We are nearer than I thought, and had the breeze come sooner—By George, I'm sorry!"

Ruby began to laugh, a queer, jarring laugh.

"Yes, it's awkward," she said, and Lawrence wondered whether she consciously parodied his remark. "Perry has got my money and I expect Pearl has got my clothes. Before I could get to Vancouver, they will be gone. My theatrical career has pretty obviously come to a full stop. If I had a little less pluck, or a little more—I really don't know which—I'd jump overboard."

So far as Lawrence could see, there was nothing to be said, and he concentrated on his steering. The short seas got angrier and broke in leaping foam across the sloop's weather bow. She plunged and the water on deck began to wash across the cockpit ledge.

"The wind veers west and the tide goes north," Lawrence said by and by. "The boat is going through the water, but she's not working to windward much and the seas come on board. I doubt if we can make Cheemanco, and I think we ought to run for shelter behind the island."

"Since the Maud is gone, it's not at all important," said Ruby drearily.

Lawrence pulled the small wet jib to windward, and gave her the tiller.

"Hold it downhill. For a minute or two I'll be busy."

The boat came up into the wind and foam swept her deck. Lawrence lifted the centerboard, and going to the mast, hoisted the boom's outer end and let the gaff swing down. Then he took the tiller from Ruby and put the boat before the wind. The half-lowered mainsail, squared across her, gently swayed and dipped, and she lurched along with a smooth and easy swing. But for the seas that tossed behind her, it looked as if the wind had dropped.

"We'll bring up for three or four hours," Lawrence remarked. "I dare say you will be glad to land, and when the tide turns or the breeze blows out I'll try to meet your plans."

"In the meantime, I do not see a plan. All I know, is Ruby Desmond is done with. When you turned the yacht she went overboard, and on the whole, I think the bottom of the strait is where she ought to be. From now I'm, properly, Alice Thorne. So long as I am your passenger, Alice for short."

"Oh, well," said Lawrence, smiling, "if you were on board for a little time, I believe you'd be a competent first mate."

"I wonder," said Alice. "Anyhow, I shall not be on board for long, and I expect you'll be happier when you dump me on a wharf."

Lawrence wondered, but he said nothing. When he studied the sky, he imagined Alice's voyage might be longer than she thought. Alice was a nicer name than Ruby. One associated the other with third-class cabaret shows and scanty costume; in fact, with the sort of young woman his passenger not long since was. Lawrence frowned. To think about it led him nowhere. All he knew was, he was sorry for the girl.

An hour afterwards Pathfinder rounded a rocky point, and hoisting the mainsail, Lawrence steered up a bay. At its top he lowered sail and sculled into a cove, where, in three feet of water, he made fast to the rocks. Using the long boathook for a leaping pole, one could jump ashore, and when Alice had done so he landed the water breaker.

"I spotted a little creek by a beach we passed, and I might find some black raspberries in the woods," he said. "Nobody is on the island and you will not be disturbed."

Throwing the small cask on his shoulder, he went off, and since the shore was rocky and tangled brush grew between the big pine trunks, Alice imagined an hour or two might go before he was back. Under the lee of the high ground one hardly felt the wind; the pine-tops murmured and sometimes sparkling ripples sped across the bay, but that was all and the sun was hot. There was no bathroom at the Tecumseh House, and the shining water called.

Alice plunged from the cabin top and for some time after she landed occupied herself with her clothes and a very small looking-glass. The clothes were in the recent city fashion, but the material was cheap, and she could not remove the salt-water stains where the spray had run from Bethune's slicker coat. Moreover, she imagined he kept the coat among tarry ropes. Then she opened her shabby hold-all, and shook her head. The flimsy garments it carried were not at all the sort one could wear on board a boat.

The swim had refreshed her, and for a time she lay in the sun and indulged a delightful languidness. The cove was strangely beautiful and on one side reflected the pines' dusky spires. Sometimes the high tops swayed and the shadows trembled; sometimes silver ripples blotted out the picture. On her side of the cove the sun pierced the shade, and tall fern covered the thin soil. Where a bright beam touched a flowering bush, a hummingbird shone with purple and gold.

Alice let herself go slack. At the Tecumseh she had scoured the big dining-room, served three meals a day, and helped cook the food; on Sundays only did she get a few hours' rest. Her body was tired, and for two or three months she and her companions had borne some strain. In fact, the company sometimes went without proper food. At a mining town two girls left the troupe, and Alice wondered where they were now. She imagined they had gone across the track, where the red lights burn. Well, when one was hopeless and hungry, to be virtuous was hard. In Canada, as a rule, pay was good, but one must know one's job, and nobody had much use for a broken comedienne.

She was broke. All she had was two weeks' pay. The hard woman at the Tecumseh was just. She ought to ponder, but she was tired, and her brain would not work. To loaf in the sun and hear the wind in the trees was something fresh, and she admitted she would not be much disturbed if the wind did not drop. The sloop was clean, the cove was a charming spot, and when they sailed she did not know where to go.

She mused about Bethune. He had not planned to arrive after the Maud was gone. Nothing indicated that he wanted to keep his passenger on board. Well, she was glad he was sober, although she did not think him dull. An English public school boy, undergraduate perhaps, and then an officer in the war. Alice knew the type, although some examples did not use Bethune's kind reserve. She had been forced to knock one out with a thick bottle. Anyhow, she did not see a plan, and there was no use in bothering. The smell of the woods was soothing; the trees that smelt perhaps were balsams. Her head went back against the rock, and she was asleep.

Stones rattled on the ledge beside her, she heard a shout, and Lawrence, with the breaker in his arms, staggered down a bank where treacherous gravel rested between steep mossy slabs. At the bottom he sat down, violently, in the stones.

"If I startled you, I'm sorry," he remarked. "When you borrow another fellow's boat, you cannot use boots with creeper spikes."

The spot he had descended was nearly precipitous, and Alice imagined the water breaker weighed fifty or sixty pounds. Then she saw a wild-cabbage leaf, holding large black, and yellow, raspberries, a few yards off.

"Since sunrise you have three or four times declared you were sorry, but I was not really much alarmed," she said. "I imagine to carry a cask down a pitch like that, when you wear any sort of boots, is something of an exploit."

"An old-time rancher would not hesitate to pack a bag of flour across a mountain. The usual size weighs a hundred and forty pounds."

"It looks as if a rancher's job was pretty strenuous."

"To some extent that is so," Lawrence agreed. "On the whole, Canada is a strenuous country."

"Oh, well, you could not carry the raspberries and the cask. When you plunged down the bank I suppose they were here."

"You argue logically; I was back before. The berries are ripe. I hope you'll like them."

Alice pondered. The raspberries were as large and sweet as English garden fruit, and in order that she might enjoy them he had twice scrambled for some distance across the rocks and through tangled brush. All the same, when he first arrived she was asleep, and sometimes when one slept one's pose was uncouth.

"I must get dinner," he resumed. "In the woods one, of course, dines at noon, but since the bill of fare for breakfast and supper is the same, it's not important. I am, however—I'm afraid I'm not a first-class cook."

"If you state you are sorry another time, I might be annoyed. Then I believe I am not a remarkably bad cook, and you might allow me to experiment."

"Very well. The stuff is in the port locker—on the left. The stove is a pressure stove. You pour some spirit in the cup and start the pump. Shall I come on board and help?"

Alice thought not. For one thing, the cabin was narrow and small, and when she was occupied she did not want him to crawl about. When one squatted by a stove, with one's bent head close to the roof, to be dignified was hard.

"Use anything you can find," he said when she jumped on deck. "All the same, if you are very extravagant, we might starve to-morrow."

"To-morrow I shall not be on board, and where you land me I expect you can get fresh supplies."

"Oh, well, I certainly hope we'll soon make port. That is to say, I did hope; but now I think about it—"

"You feel you ought to be polite?"

Lawrence smiled, a crooked smile she liked. "For some years I have lived in the woods, Miss Thorne. What I really did mean was, you cannot run a sailing boat on a time-bill. Much depends on the weather."

Alice crawled into the cabin and lighted the stove. Lawrence's remark, so to speak, was oracular, and might be disturbing, but she was not much disturbed. He was not the man to carry her where she did not want to go, and since she was a good sailor, she was as happy on board the sloop as she could hope to be while she searched for employment at a dreary frontier settlement. If she took a steamer to Vancouver, she would be destitute when she arrived.

Opening a locker, she found a can of beans, some coffee, a very small slab of bacon, a pound or two of flour, and some rather moldy desiccated apples. If one were frugal, the stuff might sustain them for two days. Alice set her mouth. She mustn't calculate, and she put a generous supply of bacon in the frying-pan.