Jordan shook his head. "It 'pears to me you're better where you are," he said.
Montreal sighed, but said nothing, and in a few minutes Niven and Appleby were pulling the skipper ashore. It was raining when they stepped out on the beach, and saw for the first time a ramshackle wooden house that seemed falling to pieces beneath a dripping crag. Two great dogs growled at them as they picked their way towards it amidst a litter of fish-bones and offal that had been apparently flung out of the windows. Then somebody beat off the dogs, and when they went in a man who lay in a skin chair by the stove nodded to them. A smoky lamp hung above him, and the lads felt a curious disgust as they glanced at him. His eyes were red and bleary, though there was a blink of evil cunning in them, and his puffy cheeks overhung his chin. He seemed horribly flabby, and wore greasy canvas garments which looked as though nobody had ever washed them. Appleby realized as he watched him that loneliness is not good for a white man unless he has work to do.
"How are you, Motter?" said Jordan. "This place hasn't made you tired yet? It's kind of forlorn for a Britisher."
Appleby fancied there was a little half-scornful inflection in the skipper's voice, which was not altogether astonishing, for the building had a horrible smell, and here and there the rain dripped in, but Motter laughed.
"Well," he said, "I was an American too, and I guess I'm a Russian now. Up here it pays one better—but it's business you came after?"
Jordan nodded, and the contrast between his lean, bronzed face and steady eyes and that of the other man did not escape the lads' attention. "Got anything to sell?" he asked.
"I might have," said Motter. "Still, I'm in no way anxious, because by and by there's a steamer coming along, and I've no great use for dry talking."
He thrust a bottle towards the skipper, but Jordan shook his head. "That's a stuff I'm not used to, and I don't like the smell," he said. "Well, now, let me hear what you've got and I'll make you a bid. This place is a little too open to leave the schooner long."
Appleby fancied Motter was not pleased at this, but he helped himself freely to the liquor, and for half-an-hour he and the skipper were busy bargaining. Neither of the lads quite understood all they said, and they sat vacantly listening to the rumble of the surf, until at last Motter raised his hand.
"Well," he said with a curious little laugh that jarred upon the lads unpleasantly, "you're too keen for me, and it will save worry if I let you have the skins. I want one hundred dollars down for the bundle I've got here, and you can take them with you or leave them until you come back again. The rest are lying at Peter's Bay, but I'll be there to hand them over or send one of my people along the beach, and across by the skin boat. It's going to take you some time to get there with the wind ahead."