After exhausting toil and many hardships, their search had failed, and he was too jaded and depressed to wonder whether it would ever be resumed. They were going back bankrupt; he could not see how they were even to retain possession of the sloop. At the best, they could make no use of her until the spring. The outlook was black, and what intensified the gloom was that Jimmy now recognized that since Bethune had first broached the scheme he had been buoyed up by a faint but strongly alluring hope. He had not allowed his mind to dwell on it, but it had hovered in the background, beckoning him on. After all, there had been a certain chance that their project would succeed, and in that case his share of the salvage should have been sufficient to set him on his feet. There were many openings in western Canada for a man with energy and means enough to give him a start, and Jimmy did not see why he should not prosper. Then when he had begun to make progress he might renew his acquaintance with Ruth Osborne.
He had thought of her often, and looking back on their voyage, he ventured to believe that he had to some extent won her favor. He recollected trivial incidents, odd words and glances, which could not have been altogether without their significance. Could he lift himself nearer her social level, it was not impossible that he should gain her love. The thought of this had driven him stubbornly on.
Now he had failed disastrously. He was going back a ruined man. The best he could hope for was that by stern self-denial and rough work on the wharves or in the sawmills, he might earn enough to discharge his debt to the storekeeper who had trusted him. Beyond that there was nothing to look forward to. He must try to forget Ruth.
Jimmy’s heart sank as he sat shivering at the helm while the bitter spray whirled about him and the sloop lurched on through the darkness, chased by foaming seas.
CHAPTER XIX—A DANGEROUS SECRET
A cold snap had suddenly fallen over the northern half of Vancouver Island, and tall pines and unpaved streets were white with frozen snow. A chilling wind swept round Jaques’ store and rattled the loose windows; tiny icicles formed a fringe about the eaves; but the neat little back room, with its polished lamp and its glowing stove, seemed to Jimmy and his comrades luxuriously bright and warm. Supper had been cleared away, and the group sat about the table discussing what could now be done, after the failure of the second attempt to recover the gold.
Jaques leaned his head on his hand, with his elbow resting on the table; Mrs. Jaques sat opposite him, her eyes fixed intently on Bethune, who was the spokesman for the party. Jimmy, with a gloomy expression, gazed toward the one window, where a frozen pine bough occasionally scraped against the pane with a rasping sound that was heard above the rattle of the sashes. Moran, with a downcast face, sat where the lamplight fell full upon him.
There was silence for a few moments, broken only by the cheery crackle of the stove. Then Jaques spoke.
“We might as well thrash the thing out from the beginning,” he said. “The first matter to be decided is what had better be done with your boat.”
“That raises another point,” asserted Bethune. “What we do with her now depends on our plans for the future, and they’re not made yet.”