“We can’t now,” I said.
“But we don’t want him with us any more. I say, I don’t think much of this place.”
“It’s very beautiful,” I said, looking away over the sea at beautiful islands, and up at the wooded hills in view.
“But it looks just like being at home in England. I expected all kinds of wonderful things in a foreign country, and not to be sitting down on one’s box, with sheds and stacks of timber and wooden houses all about you. We can get that at home.”
I was obliged to own that everything did look rather home-like, even to some names we could see over the stores.
“And do you know where the skipper’s going as soon as he has unloaded?”
“No,” I said.
“Up to some place with a rum name here in this island, to get a load of coals to take back. They only had to call it Newcastle to make it right. What are you looking at over yonder?”
“Those beautiful mountains across the sea, rising up and up in the sunshine. That’s British Columbia, I suppose, and it must be up among those mountains that our river runs, and where Fort Elk lies.”
“All right, I’m ready. How are we to go?”