"I wonder where he is now," said Niven. "I should like to have seen him."
Jordan's face grew grave, and he stretched out one hand pointing towards the north. "He's sleeping sound up there," he said.
Appleby bent his head. "I have not often met his equal—and we both owe him a good deal. How did it happen?"
"Stowing jibs," said Jordan quietly. "Wind turned loose on us sudden one night we were carrying everything, and she lay down with her lee rail in. Outer jib wouldn't run down, downhaul jammed, and Charley was clawing out on the bowsprit when the sail whipped over him. None of us saw what came next but Donegal, and when I had a glimpse of him he was hanging out from the foot-rope grabbing at Charley. Then she put her nose into a sea, and when she swung out of it there was nobody under the bowsprit. We'd gone straight over them."
Jordan stopped a moment, and his voice was a trifle hoarse when he went on again. "It was quite ten minutes before we could get the mainsail off her to wear her round, and a boat over, and an hour anyway before we hove her in again. They'd found nothing, and Charley couldn't swim, but Donegal wouldn't never have let go of his partner. He was that kind of a man."
Appleby nodded gravely, but nobody said anything further for several minutes, and then Niven asked, "Where's Stickine?"
"Coast trading. He was kind of saving. Put the dollars he'd scraped up into a little schooner, and it would astonish me if he wasn't making more of them. Montreal and his brother doing quite well too. Gone back to the carpentering and taking contracts for putting up mining flumes."
"Then there's only yourself, and the Champlain," said Niven.
Jordan sighed a little. "We had to part with her. Sealing's not what it used to be—too many gun-boats and too much government fussing—and the holluschackie are getting scarcer too. They'll have to try round the South Pole for them presently. Still, a man has got to live, and I'm figuring on a halibut-catching scheme. There's going to be dollars in it if we can raise enough of them to start us off with the proper outfit."
"Tell me all about it. I'm a business man," said Niven.