Jimmy stood up and straightened himself in a curious slow fashion. "No," he said, "I'm with you. As you say, the thing has to be done—and it naturally falls to me. Well, though it'll probably cost me a good deal, I'm ready. When do you expect him to try it?"
"I don't quite know—you couldn't expect me to. Still, I should figure it won't be until she goes north, after the lay-off, in spring. Guess he'll hold on as long as he can. Freights won't drop much before then."
He rose and laid his hand on his comrade's shoulder as they went out. "I think I understand how you are fixed, but you have to face it," he went on. "There's another thing I want to mention. If you can, get hold of Merril's engineer, and scare him into some admission."
CHAPTER XXVIII
DISABLED ENGINES
Spring had come, and all down the wild West Coast the tall pines had shaken off their load of snow and the rivers were thundering in their misty cañons, but there was very little sign of it at sea when one bitter morning a cluster of deeply bronzed men hung about the Adelaide's engine-room skylights. They were lean and somewhat grim of face, as well as ragged and suggestively spare of frame, for they had borne all that man may bear and live through during the winter they had spent in the ice-bound wilderness. Now they were going back to civilization with many ounces of gold, and papers relating to auriferous claims, to invoke the aid of capital before they once more turned their faces toward the frozen north.
It was noticeable that although they were of widely different birth and upbringing there was the same stamp which revealed itself in a certain quietness of manner and steadiness of gaze upon them all, for these were the pick of the mining community, men who had grappled with the wilderness in its most savage moods long before they blazed a new trail south from the wilds of the Yukon. They had proved their manhood by coming back at all, for that winter the unfit had died. Still, though they had endured things beyond the comprehension of the average city man, they were glad of the shelter of the tall skylights, because the Adelaide's flush deck was swept by a stinging wind and little showers of bitter spray blew all over it. She was rolling viciously across a waste of gray-blue sea which was flecked by livid froth, and her mastheads swung in a wide sweep athwart a sky of curious dingy blue. There was no warmth anywhere in the picture, and apparently very little light; but for all that, every sea stood out from its fellows, and those back in the clear distance were etched upon the indented horizon with harsh distinctness. One of the men shook his head as he gazed at them.
"They look like the pines on the ridge did the day the blizzard struck us down on the Assiniboia Creek," he said. "It was a full-powered one. The boys who'd camped ahead of us were frozen stiff by morning. The two we scraped the snow off were sitting there like statues, and we didn't worry 'bout the others. There was ten feet over them, anyway. I've no use for this kind of weather."
One of his companions swept his glance astern toward the smear of smoke on the serrated skyline, which was blotted out next moment when the Adelaide swung her stern aloft.
"If you're right in your figuring, I'm glad I came along in this boat," he said. "Anyway, she's bigger, though I 'most took my berth in the Shasta. Seems to me we're quite a long while getting away from her."