He stopped a moment. "First of all, I want to say I'm sorry I went by that day without answering your whistle. Merril had worked me up against you, and since I get a bonus on results, every dollar's worth of freight you picked up was so much out of my pocket. Still, you're not going to remember that against me now. We both earn our bread at sea, and you have to stand by me."
Jimmy nodded. "I'm willing," he said. "Hadn't you better send for your engineer?"
The skipper rose and opening the door called to a man outside. "I want Mr. Robertson here," he said. "If he isn't willing or fit to come, you can drag him."
The engineer arrived on his own feet, and stood still, leaning somewhat heavily on the table with one hand, when the skipper closed the door behind him. A curious furtive look of apprehension crept into his eyes when he heard the snap, and Jimmy glanced at him with a sense of disgust. There was a dirty bandage around his head, and his face showed baggy and pallid under it, while his loosely-hung figure draped in greasy serge seemed disproportionately large and clumsy in the little trim room. There was also something in his attitude that vaguely suggested the viciousness of a rat in a trap, and it was evident that he had been drinking hard of late.
"Well," he asked harshly, "what do you want?"
The Adelaide's skipper turned to Jimmy. "This is Captain Wheelock of the Shasta. He and I have been comparing notes, and the game you have been playing is quite clear to me. If you're wise you'll own up to it before we go any further. In the first place, what were you to get for casting this ship away?"
The man showed more courage than Jimmy had expected from his appearance, though it was clearly the courage of desperation. He braced himself stiffly, and his laugh was contemptuous. "I guess you're going to be sorry for this. You've said it before a third party."
"I'll say it before a magistrate in Vancouver," broke in the skipper; but Jimmy stopped him with a sign.
"I don't think what you asked him is very material," he said reflectively. "In any case, he wouldn't get very much. Mr. Merril is not the man to hand over money when it isn't necessary."
He watched the man closely, and it became evident to him that Jordan had been warranted in the construction he had put on certain scraps of information picked up on the wharf and in the saloons of Vancouver.