Part 37 (1/2)
”I--I didn't mean to give out any secrets--I don't remember doing it,”
Alton apologized, lamely. ”You know I can't drink much. I don't remember a thing about it, honestly.” Boyd regarded him coldly, but the young man's penitence seemed so genuine, he looked so weak, so pitifully incompetent, that the other lacked heart to chastise him. It requires resistance to develop heat, and against the absence of character it is impossible to create any sort of emotion.
”When you got drunk that night you not only worked a great hards.h.i.+p on all of us, but afterward you allowed me to misjudge a very faithful man,”
declared Boyd. ”Fraser's ways are not mine, and I have said harsh things to him when my temper prompted; but I am not ungrateful for the service he has done me and the sacrifices he has made. Now, Alton, you have chosen to join us in a desperate venture, and the farther we go the more vigorous will be the resistance we shall meet. If you can't keep a close mouth, and do as you are told, you'd better go back to Chicago. By rare good luck we have averted this disaster, but I have no hope of being so fortunate again.”
”Don't climb any higher,” admonished ”Fingerless” Fraser. ”He's all fluffed up now. I'll lay you eight to one he don't make another break of the kind.”
”No, I was so com-cussed-pletely pickled that I forgot I even spoke about the salmon-canning business. I'll break my corkscrew and seal my flask, and from this moment until we come out next fall the demon rum and I are divorced. Is that good news?”
”Everything is a joke to you, isn't it?” said Boyd. ”If this trip doesn't make a man of you, you'll never grow up. Now I've got work for all of us, including you, Fraser.”
”What is it?”
”Go down to the freight-office and trace a s.h.i.+pment of machinery, while I--”
”Nix! That ain't my line. If you need a piece of rough money quick, why I'll take my gat and stick somebody up in an alley, or I'll feel out a safe combination for you in the dark; but this chaperoning freight cars ain't my game. I'd only crab it.”
”I thought you wanted to help.”
”I do, sure I do! I'll be glad when you're on your way, but I must respectfully duck all bills-of-lading and s.h.i.+pping receipts.”
”You are merely lazy,” Emerson smiled. ”Nevertheless, if we get in a tight place, I'll make you take a hand in spite of yourself.”
”Any time you need me,” cheerfully volunteered the other, lighting a fresh cigar. ”Only don't give me child's work.”
As if Hilliard's conversion had marked the turning-point of their luck, the partners now entered upon a period of almost uninterrupted success. In the reaction from their recent discouragement they took hold of their labors with fresh energy, and fortune aided them in unexpected ways. Boyd signed his charter, securing a tramp steamer then discharging at Tacoma.
Balt closed his contracts for Chinese labor, and the scattered car-loads of material, which had been lost en route or mysteriously laid out on sidings, began to come in as if of their own accord. Those supplies which had been denied them they found in unexpected quarters close at hand; and almost before they were aware of it _The Bedford Castle_ had finished unloading and was coaling at the bunkers.
A brigade of Orientals and a miniature army of fishermen had appeared as if by magic, and were quartered in the lower part of the city awaiting s.h.i.+pment. Boyd and Big George worked unceasingly in the midst of a maelstrom of confusion, the centre of which was the dock. There, one throbbing April evening, _The Bedford Castle_ berthed, ready to receive her cargo, and the two men made their way toward their hotel, weary, but glowing with the grateful sense of an arduous duty well performed. The following morning would find the wharf swarming with stevedores and echoing to the rattle of trucks, the clank of hoists, and the shrill whistles of the signalmen.
”Looks like they couldn't stop us now,” said Balt.
”It does,” agreed Emerson. ”We ought to clear in four days--that'll be the 15th.”
”It smells like an early spring, too,” the fisherman observed, sniffing the air. ”If it is, we'll be in Kalvik the first week in May.”
”Is your sense of smell sharp enough to tell what's happening up there?”
”Sure.”
”Suppose it's a backward season?”
”Then we'll lay in the ice alongside the Company boats till she breaks.
That may be in June.”
”I would like to get in early, and have the buildings started before Marsh arrives. There's no telling what he may try.”
George gave his companion a short nod. ”And there ain't no telling what we may try right back at him. Anyhow, he'll have to fight in the open, and that's better than this shadow-boxing that we've been doing.”