“Well,” said Vane, “she has to be patched up, and until I find that spruce I’m going on.”
Carroll made no comment. It was not worthwhile to object when Vane was obviously determined.
[CHAPTER XVI—THE BUSH.]
It was a quiet evening, nearly a fortnight after the arrival of the sloop, and pale sunshine streamed into the cove. Little glittering ripples lapped lazily along the shingle, and the placid surface of the inlet was streaked with faint blue lines where wandering airs came down from the heights above. Now and then an elfin sighing fell from the ragged summits of the tall black firs, but it died away again, and afterwards the silence was only broken by the pounding of a heavy hammer and the crackle of a fire.
Carroll sat beside the latter, alternately holding a stout plank up to the blaze and dabbing its hot surface with a dripping mop. A big sea canoe lay drawn up near the spot, and one of its copper-skinned Siwash owners sat amongst the shingle, stolidly watching the white men. His comrade was inside the sloop, holding a big stone against one of her frames, while Vane crouched outside her, swinging a hammer.
Vane, who was stripped to shirt and trousers, had arrived from Comox across the Strait at dawn that morning in the sea canoe. It was a long trip and they had had wild weather on the outward journey, but he had set to work with characteristic energy as soon as he landed. Now, though the sun was low, he was working rather harder than ever, with the flood tide, which would shortly compel him to desist, creeping up to his feet.
Carroll, who watched him with quiet amusement, was on the whole content that the tide was rising, because his comrade had firmly declined to stop for dinner, and he was conscious of a sharpened appetite. It was comforting to reflect that Vane would be unable to get the plank into place before the evening meal, because if there had been any prospect of his doing so, he would certainly have postponed the latter.
By and by he stopped a moment and turned to Carroll. “If you were any use in an emergency, you’d be holding up for me instead of that wooden image inside,” he remarked. “He will back the stone against any frame except the one I’m nailing.”
“The difficulty is that I can’t be in two places at the same time,” Carroll pointed out. “Shall I leave this plank? You can’t get it in to-night.”
“I’m going to try,” Vane answered grimly.