It seemed to Nasmyth that there was a little reason in the skipper’s observations, though he thought that Martial’s strictures upon the coffee accounted for most of them.
“I guess it might have been wiser if Martial had kept on good terms with the skipper,” he laughingly rejoined.
George chuckled softly. “Well,” he declared, “when anyone up and says my coffee’s only fit for the hog-pen, I’m going to get even with him. I kind of feel I have to. It’s up to me.”
He said nothing further for some little time, and Nasmyth, who fancied that he would sooner or later carry out his amiable intentions, lay prone upon the deck smoking placidly. Nasmyth was one who adapted himself to his environment with readiness, and on board the Tillicum the environment was particularly comfortable. Through Acton’s hospitality, he was brought into contact with the luxuries of civilization without the galling restraints. Miss Hamilton had been gracious to him of late. That was a cause for satisfaction in itself. The days when he swung the heavy axe, or, drenched with icy water, stood gripping the drill had slipped far away behind him. For the time, at least, he could bask in the sunshine with ears stopped against the shrill trumpet-call to action that he had heard in the crash of rent trees and the turmoil of the wild flood.
A faint cry came from the shore out of the stillness of the woods, and George listened carefully.
“That can’t be the boss. Guess he’s stopping at the hotel,” he said. “It’s quite likely it’s that blame insect Martial coming back. Those ranchers he has been trying to freeze off their holding have no use for him.”
The cry rose again, a trifle louder, and George nodded complacently.
“Oh, yes,” he exulted, “it’s Martial sure! We’ll let him howl. Any way, he can walk down the beach until he’s abreast of us. When anybody expects me to hear him, he has got to come within half a mile.”
It seemed to Nasmyth that Martial would not have a pleasant walk in the dark, for most of the beach lay in the black shadow of the pines, and beneath highwater mark was covered with the roughest kind of boulders. Above the tide-line, a ragged mass of driftwood interspersed with undergrowth separated the water from the tangled Bush. Both George and Nasmyth were aware that one could readily tear one’s clothes to pieces in an 154 attempt to struggle through such a labyrinth. Judging by the shouts he uttered at intervals, Martial appeared to be floundering along the beach, and presently Nasmyth laughed.