"Then you don't know Pontifex personally?"
"Lord, no! What are you running down, anyhow? Is he a pirate?"
Dennis laughed. "I hope not. I've heard some things about him, though—good human-interest stuff for a magazine feature, if they're true. I'll look him up at Vancouver. What's the name of his ship?"
"The Pelican. Say, if you're there any time, look up my brother; he's doing shipping stuff on The Vancouver Mail. He'll be glad to do the honours, and you might pick up some good dope from him."
When he left the office, Dennis sought the railroad office and bought tickets for himself and Florence to Vancouver, obtaining a compartment; the money which Ericksen had given him, with what he had left of his own, proved quite sufficient. Then, encountering Margate and a couple more men from the office, he went to dinner with them. At seven o'clock he was on the way home to pack.
It had not been a highly romantic wedding-day, he reflected, either for himself or for Florence; but they would have a trip of four days in which to make up for that. The commissions for work at Vancouver were a tremendous aid to Dennis, keeping him from feeling that he was loafing on the job. The money, too, would help. And he anticipated no particular difficulty in getting work. He was one of the well-known men in his profession, and a place would be made for him; he was not a newspaper "tramp". He was not one of the shiftless or incompetent men-of-all-trades who seek the Coast as a haven of refuge. Already, in view of his unexpected marriage and the all-impelling faith of Florence, he had risen above the despondency induced by his Marshville venture.
He had obtained no information from Florence which could serve to throw any light upon Ericksen or Captain Pontifex; she had been entirely ignorant of what knowledge they wished to extract from her or from her paralysed father. Captain Hathaway's last ship, a freighter named the John Simpson, had been lost while en route from San Francisco to Vladivostok. She had gone down with all hands somewhere off the Aleuts, and with Captain Hathaway totally paralysed since his rescue it was unlikely that her story would ever be known.
As Tom Dennis packed together his few belongings, with purchases which he had made that day, he blessed the girl who had that morning married him, and he swore savagely to himself that it would not be for worse, but for better. Not easily had he assented to her proposal; not easily had he grasped her reasons for making it; but now he realized the sheer truth which she had seen from the first. There was no danger whatever that he would be unable to provide the necessities of life. True, heart-trouble, of which he had never before been aware, had barred him from wearing a uniform; but this disease was a remote danger. His ability lay in his head, and he had no doubt about his ability to win a fair living wage. The paralytic Captain Hathaway would be in some ways a burden, but one which Tom Dennis cheerfully assumed.
"With faith in the future and in each other, we would have been fools not to marry!" he confided to his suitcase. "We'll pull through; and we'll make a tenfold better fight for having each other! I'm almost glad that the old Clarion went under——"
He did not hear his door open; nor did he hear the approach of a swift catlike form from the doorway. He did, however, feel the draught from the open door. He half-turned; but he turned only to feel a crashing blow on the head.