The Protector

Two steps took him up to the waist, and he had trouble in finding solid bottom at the next. (Chap, xvii.)
THE PROTECTOR
BY HAROLD BINDLOSS
Author of The Impostor, Hawtrey's Deputy, The Pioneer, etc., etc.
WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED LONDON, MELBOURNE AND TORONTO 1918
CONTENTS
THE PROTECTOR
A light breeze was blowing down the inlet, scented with the smell of the firs, and the tiny ripples it chased across the water splashed musically against the bows of the canoe. There was a thud as the blade struck the water, and the long, light hull forged onwards with slightly lifted, bird’s-head prow, while the two men swung forward for the next stroke with a rhythmic grace of motion. They knelt, facing forward, in the bottom of the craft; and dissimilar as they were in features and, to some extent, in character, the likeness between them was stronger than the difference. Both bore the unmistakable stamp of a wholesome life spent in vigorous labour in the open. Their eyes were clear, and like those of most bushmen singularly steady; their skin was weather-darkened, and they were leanly muscular.
On either side of the lane of green water giant firs, Cedars and balsams, crept down the rocky hills to the whitened driftwood fringe. They formed part of the great coniferous forest which rolls westwards from the wet coast range of Canada’s Pacific province, and, overleaping the Strait, spreads across the rugged and beautiful wilderness of Vancouver Island. Ahead, clusters of little frame houses showed up here and there in openings among the trees, and a small sloop, towards which the canoe was heading, lay anchored near the wharf.
The men had plied the paddle during most of that day, from inclination rather than necessity, because they could have hired Siwash Indians to undertake the labour for them, had they been so minded. They were, though their appearance did not suggest it, moderately prosperous; but their prosperity was of recent date, and they had been accustomed to doing everything for themselves, as are most of the men who dwell among the woods and ranges of British Columbia.