The Secret of the Reef Page 2

  CHAPTER II--A NEW VENTURE

  The sun had dipped behind a high black ridge crested with ragged pines,when Jimmy, dressed in brown overalls and a seaman's jersey, sat cookingsupper on a stony beach of Vancouver Island. In front of him thelandlocked sea ran back, glimmering with a steely luster, into the east;behind, where the inlet reached the hillfoot, stood the City of theSprings, which then consisted of a shut-down sawmill, a row ofdilapidated wooden houses, and two second-rate hotels. Shadowed byclimbing pinewoods, sheltered by the rocks, the site was perhaps asbeautiful as any in the romantic province of British Columbia, thoughman's crude handiwork defaced its sylvan charm with rusty ironchimney-stacks, rows of blackened fir-stumps, and unsightly sawdustheaps. For all that, giant, primeval forest rolled close up to it, andin front lay the untainted sea. The air had in it a curious exhilaratingquality; the balsamic scent of the firs mingled with the sharp odors ofdrying weed, tar, and cedar shavings that lay about the camp; and Jimmy,stooping over his frying-pan, sniffed the air with satisfaction. Thesewere odors that belonged to the sea and the wilds; and he had latelyrenounced the comforts of civilization and embarked upon an adventurethat appealed to him.

  Near him, a man with a rugged, weatherbeaten face was engaged in fittinga plank into the bilge of a hauled-up sloop. She was a small but shapelyvessel of about forty feet in length, and had been built after a designadopted by a famous yacht club on the Atlantic coast. Jimmy could seethat she was fast; but she had been put to base uses, and had sufferedfrom neglect. As a matter of fact, he never learned her history, and hadalways some doubt as to whether the man from whom he and his companionbought her had an indisputable right to sell her.

  Moran had been a Nova Scotian lobster catcher before he came to BritishColumbia to engage in the new halibut fishery, which had proveddisappointing. Bethune, who lay upon the shingle in garments much theworse for wear, was a "remittance man," with a cheerful expression and astock of unvarying good humor. It was some time since he had engaged inany exacting occupation, and now, after using the saw all day, he wasresting from his unaccustomed exertions and bantering Moran.

  Jimmy had met them both in a second-rate Vancouver boarding-house, towhich he had resorted after failing to find a ship, and working on thewharf. He might have sailed before the mast, but he knew that when henext applied for a berth on board a liner he must account for hisvoyagings, and the fact that he had served as able seaman would notrecommend him. When there was no cargo to be handled, he worked in thegreat Hastings mill; but he promptly discovered that he would never growrich by this means; and the unrelaxing physical effort, demanded byforemen who knew how to drive hard, began to pall on him. He could havestood it had he come fresh from the sailing ships, but he franklyadmitted that it was trying to a mailboat officer. He had, however, somesmall savings, and when Bethune proposed a venture, in which Moranjoined, Jimmy agreed.

  "Hank," Bethune drawled, after watching Moran for several minutes, "youMaritime Provinces people are a hard and obstinate lot, but you won'tget the plank in that way if you stick at it until to-morrow."

  Moran looked up with the sweat dripping from his brow.

  "I surely hate to be beat," he admitted. "I can spring her plumb uplengthways, but her edges won't bend into the frames."

  "Exactly. This isn't a cod-fishing dory or a lobster punt. Take yourplane and hollow the plank up the middle."

  After doing as he was instructed, Moran had not much trouble in fittingit into place.

  "Why didn't you tell me that before?" he asked.

  "I've known you some time," Bethune answered with a grin. "There arepeople to whom you can't show the easiest way until they've tried thehardest one and found it won't do. It's not their fault; I hold youcan't make a man responsible for his temperament--and it's a point onwhich I speak feelingly, because my temperament has been my bane."

  "How d'you know these things, anyway? I mean about bending planks. Younever allowed you'd been a boatbuilder."

  "Do you expect a man to exhibit all his talents? Here's another tip.Don't nail that plank home now. Leave it shored up until morning, andyou'll get it dead close then with a wedge or two. And now, if Jimmyhasn't burned the grub, I think we'll have supper."

  The meal might have been better, but Moran admitted that he had ofteneaten worse, and afterward they lay about on the shingle and lightedtheir pipes. Bethune, as usual, was the first to speak.

  "The lumber, and the canvas Jimmy gets to work upon to-morrow, haveemptied the treasury," he remarked. "If we incur any furtherliabilities, there's a strong probability of their not being met; butthat gives the job an interest. Prudence is a cold-blooded quality,which no man of spirit has much use for. To help yourself may be good,but doing so consistently often makes it harder to help the otherfellow."

  "When you have finished moralizing we'll get to business," Jimmyrejoined. "Though I'm a partner in the scheme, I know very little yetabout the wreck you're taking us up to look for. Try to be practical."

  "Moran is practical enough for all three of us. I'll let him tell thetale; but I'll premise by saying that when he found the halibut fishingmuch less remunerative than it was cracked up to be, he sailed up thenorthwest coast with another fellow to trade with the Indians for furs.It was then he found the vessel."

  "The reef," said Moran, "lies open to the south-west, and I got sevenfathoms close alongside it at low water. A mile off, and near a lowisland, a bank runs out into the stream, and the after-half of the wrecklies on the edge of it, worked well down in the sand. At low ebb you cansee the end of one or two timbers sticking up out of the broken water."

  "Is it always broken water?" Jimmy interrupted.

  "Pretty near, I guess. Though there's a rise and fall on the islandbeach, the stream ran steady to the northeast at about two miles anhour, the whole week we lay sheltering in the bight, and the swell itbrings in makes a curling sea on the edge of the shoals."

  "Doesn't seem a nice place for a diving job. How did you get down toher?"

  "Stripped and swam down. One day when it fell a flat calm for a fewhours and Jake was busy patching the sail, I pulled the dory across. Iwanted to find out what those timbers belonged to, and I knew I had todo it then, because the ice was coming in, and we must clear with thefirst fair wind. Well, I got a turn of the dory's painter round atimber, and went down twice, seeing bottom at about three fathoms withthe water pretty clear. The sand was well up her bilge, but she washolding together, and when I swam round to the open end of her theredidn't seem much in the way except the orlop beams. I could have walkedright aft under decks if I'd had a diving dress; but I'd been in thewater long enough, and a sea fog was creeping up."

  Moran apparently thought little of his exploit; but Jimmy couldappreciate the hardihood he had shown. The wreck lay far up on thenorthern coast, where the sea was chilled by currents from the Pole, andMoran had gone down to her when the ice was working in. Jimmy couldimagine the tiny dory lurching over the broken swell, and thehalf-frozen man painfully crawling on board her with many precautions toavoid a capsize, while the fog that might prevent his return to hisvessel crept across the water. It was an adventure that required unusualstrength and courage.

  "Why didn't you take your partner out with you?" he asked.

  "I'd seen Jake play some low-down tricks when we traded for the few furswe got, and I suspicioned he wasn't acting square with me. Anyhow, heallowed he didn't take much count of abandoned wrecks, and when he sawI'd brought nothing back, he never asked me about her."

  "But if she was lost on the reef, how did she reach the bank a mileaway?"

  "I can't tell you that, but I guess she shook her engines out after shebroke her back, and then slipped off into deeper water. The stream andsurge of sea may have worked her along the bottom."

  "It came out that she had only a little rock ballast in her," Bethuneexplained. "There may not have been enough to pin her down; but theimportant point is that the strong-room was aft, and Hank says that partis sound."
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br />   Jimmy nodded.

  "Suppose you tell me all you know about the matter," he said.

  It was characteristic of both of them that when they first discussed theventure the one had been content with sketchily outlining his plans, andthe other had not demanded many details. The project appealed to theirimagination, and once they had decided upon it the necessarypreparations had occupied all their attention.

  Leaning back against a boulder, Bethune refilled and lighted his pipe.His clothes were far from new, and were freely stained with tar, but hespoke clean English, and his face suggested intelligence and refinement.

  "Very well," he said. "When Hank mentioned his discovery I thought I sawan opportunity of the kind I'd been waiting for; and I took some troubleto find out what I could about the vessel. She was an old woodenpropeller that came round Cape Horn a good many years ago. When shecouldn't compete with modern steamboats, they strengthened her for awhaler, and she knocked about the Polar Sea; but she burned too muchcoal for that business, and wouldn't work well under sail. It looked asif there wasn't a trade in which she could make a living; but theKlondyke rush began, and somebody bought her cheap, and ran her up toJuneau, in Alaska, and afterward to Nome. There were better boats, butthey were packed full, fore and aft, and the crowd going north was notfastidious: all it wanted was to get on the goldfields as soon aspossible. Well, she made a number of trips all right, though I believeher owners had trouble when the pressure eased and the United Statespassenger-carrying regulations began to be properly applied. It wasprobably because no other boat was available that a small miningsyndicate, which seems to have done pretty well, shipped a quantity ofgold down from the north in her. Besides this, she brought out a numberof miners, who had been more or less successful. Something went wrongwith the engines when she had been a day or two at sea; but they gotsail on her, and she drove south before a fresh gale until she struckthe reef on a hazy night. It broke her back, and the after hold wasflooded a few minutes after she struck. The strong-room was under water,there was no time to cut down to it; but they got the boats away, andafter the crew and passengers were picked up, a San Francisco salvagecompany thought it worth while to attempt the recovery of the gold. Itwas late in the season when their tug reached the spot, and the icedrove her off the reef; the sea was generally heavy, and after a week ortwo they threw up the contract. The underwriters paid all losses, andthat was the end of the matter. It is only the drifting of the sternhalf into shoal water that gives us our chance. Now I think you know asmuch as I do."

  Jimmy sat thoughtfully silent for a few minutes, realizing that it was areckless venture he had undertaken. The wreck lay in unfrequented waterswhich were swept by angry currents that brought in the ice, vexed bysudden gales, and often wrapped in fog. The appliances the party hadbeen able to procure were of the cheapest description, and there was arisk in making the long voyage in so small a vessel as the sloop. Still,Jimmy's fortunes needed a desperate remedy, and he was not much dauntedby the difficulties he must face.

  "Well," he said, "I suppose we have some chance; but I don't quite seewhat made you so keen on taking up the thing."

  "It's explainable," Bethune drawled, picking up a pebble and lazilyflipping it out over the water. "Victoria's a handsome city, and theviews from it are good. For all that, when you can find no occupation,and have spent some years lounging about the waterfront and the bars ofcheap hotels, the place, to put it mildly, loses its charm."

  "You could leave it. As a matter of fact, I met you at Vancouver."

  "Oh, yes. I could leave it for a maximum period of thirty days, because,with the exception of Sundays and one or two holidays, I was required topresent myself at a lawyer's office on the first of every month. Then Iwas paid enough to keep me, with rigid economy, for the next four weeks;but on the first occasion I failed to come up to time the allowance wasto stop for good. It's a system that has some advantages for the peoplewho provide the funds in the old country, since it assures the payee'sstopping where he is--but it has its drawbacks for the latter. How can aman get a job and hold it anywhere outside the town if he must return ata fixed hour every month? When I was in Vancouver it cost me a largeshare of the allowance to collect it."

  "And now, by going north, you throw it up?"

  "Exactly," said Bethune. "It should have been done before, but, as I hadnever been taught to work or go without my dinner, the course I am atlast taking needed some moral courage. It's sink or swim now."

  Jimmy made a sign of agreement. All the money he possessed had been sunkin the undertaking; and now, in order to get it back, he must succeedwhere a well-equipped salvage expedition had failed. Though the wreckhad since changed her position, the prospects were not very encouraging.

  "Well," he said, "we must do the best we can; but I wish our funds hadrun to a better supply of stores."

  "Hank can fish," grinned Bethune. "In fact, he'll have to wheneverthere's anything to catch. Fortunately, fish is wholesome andsustaining. However, as this job must be finished to-morrow, we hadbetter get to sleep early."

  Jimmy sat smoking for a few minutes after the others went on board thesloop. It was getting dark, but a band of pure green light stillglimmered along the crest of the black ridge to the west. The air wascold and very still, and gray wood smoke hung in gauzy wreaths above theroofs of the town. The tall pines were growing blurred, but their keen,sweet fragrance hung about the beach, and the smooth swell lapped with adrowsy murmur upon the shingle.

  Jimmy loved the sea; and now he was to go afloat again, in his ownvessel, bound by no restrictions except the necessity for making thevoyage pay. This would not be easy; but there was a romance about theundertaking that gave it a zest.