"There is a good deal of heavy timber right down the West Coast," said Jimmy dryly. "There are also quite a few inlets into which one could take a steamer."
"You can't feed a boiler furnace with four-foot-diameter pines."
"They can be sawn and split. Besides, there are probably smaller ones among those four-foot pines. They don't grow that size in a year or two."
The engineer made a last protest. "I'm aware that it won't be much use, but it's my duty to point out the difficulties. You can't saw those trees without a big cross-cut, and I'm not sure what my boiler tubes will do under a stream of resinous flame."
"Well," said Jimmy thoughtfully, "I think I could make some kind of cross-cut out of a thin plate if I were an engineer. In fact, I'd make two, and keep a man filing up one of them while I used the other. Then I'd pump my feed-water rather higher than usual about those tubes."
"You can't pump water round the back-end," said the engineer. "You're going to see that resin flame make a hole in the back plate of the combustion chamber."
He stopped, and smiled when Jimmy looked at him. "Well, now that I've told you, I'll start every man to dumping the coal over."
Worn out as they were, the men worked feverishly until noon. Some panted at the ash-hoist, some standing on slippery iron ladders passed the heavy baskets from one to another, and the rest toiled amidst the stifling dust that streamed from the bunkers. Those who could see it were sincerely glad that the fog still hung about them—clammy, impenetrable, and apparently as solid as a wall.
Then it commenced to stir a little and slide past the vessel in filmy wisps, and it seemed to Jimmy that the smooth gray swell which lapped about her was getting steeper. Once or twice, indeed, it overlapped her depressed rail, and poured on board in a long green cascade. He knew that meant the breeze had already awakened somewhere not far away, and that when the sea that it was stirring up came down on them it would not take it very long to knock the bottom out of the Shasta. So did the men, and they toiled the harder, until when the bunkers were almost empty Jimmy once more stopped them.
"Stand by winch and windlass. We have to heave her off inside the next hour," he said. "Tell Mr. Fleming to shake her with the propeller, and give you all the steam he can."