Again the expression Appleby had noticed crept into Jordan's eyes. "Well," he said with a little laugh, "I figure I can, and if I put you ashore on the beach you'd starve in the bush. Now, I don't quite like the way you're talking, because while there's no kicking on board the Champlain, we've no use for more than one skipper—and that's me. When you've got that into your head we'll go on a little. Says you, 'The other lad's father will pay you.' Well, I don't know him, and he's living six thousand miles away, while if he'd sense enough to raise dollars he could heave away, he'd never have sent his son to sea. That's quite plain to me."
"My father is a rich merchant, and a clever one," said Niven indignantly. "The value of a good many schooners like this one wouldn't be much to him."
"Then," said Jordan with a grim smile, "it's quite clear you don't take after him. Folks of that kind know when talking's not much use to them, but it's time we got ahead a little. We were nigh a month behind when we started from Vancouver, and with five boats way up before me, I'm not stopping one hour for anybody, and the Champlain is going north like a steamer while this breeze lasts. You've heard all I've got to tell you as to that. Now it might be two or three months before I could put you on board anything coming south, and in the meanwhile I've got to give you clothes and feed you, while, as I want all the dollars I've got, to do it for nothing wouldn't be square to me. So since you came on board the Champlain, I'm wanting your word that you'll stay there until we get back to Vancouver. You'll get half a man's share in what we make, if we find you useful and willing, and that seems to me a square offer."
Appleby looked at Niven. "It can't be helped—and we couldn't be worse off than we were in the Aldebaran," he said. "There's no use in telling him any more about your father."
Niven sat silent a little, and then nodded. "We'll come, sir," he said.
"Then," said Jordan, "it's a deal. Now those things of yours aren't quite fit to go sealing in, and you can take these along. Stickine will show you how to fix them up to-morrow."
He took out several curiously smelling garments from a cupboard, and shouted, "Stickine!" and in another minute the lads went out on deck and down a hatchway with a big silent man who grinned at them reassuringly.
CHAPTER VIII
THE 'CHAMPLAIN,' SEALER
A streak of sunlight that crept warm across his face and then swung away again awakened Appleby next morning, and for a moment or two he lay still staring about him in dreamy wonder. The Aldebaran's deckhouse was held together by little iron beams, and in place of these great square timbers and ponderous knees ran into the vessel's framing above his head. There was something curiously unfamiliar about them. Then he saw that a long shelf, divided into wooden bunks, extended beyond the one he lay in, and there were more of them on the opposite side of the vessel. Between lay a space of shadow save where a shaft of sunlight came down through an opening, and Appleby remembered suddenly when as he watched it swing to and fro he felt a quick rise and fall which was very different from the long upward lurch of the Aldebaran. Reaching over he laid his hand on Niven's shoulder.