"The thing's quite plain. He's playing a bigger game. Wants control of all that's going on along that coast, and its carrying. Guess I can't stop his getting the Tyee, and she's the second boat he has taken from me. Well, I may get a freight of ore in a week or two, and, it's quite likely, a load from a cannery—go up light—freight one way. How's that going to count, though, when there's the carpenter's bill to meet, and a big instalment on the bond with interest due?"
"How much?" Jimmy asked, harshly.
He sat silent a while, with a hard, set face, when his father told him.
"Then he must have the vessel. Still, he'll have to sell her by auction," he said by and by.
"That won't count. When I've nobody to run the price up against him, it's quite easy for a man like Merril to fix the thing. He'll get one of his friends to buy her in at 'bout half her value, and the bond don't quite call for that. It isn't everybody wants a vessel, and the few men who do fix these things between them."
Jimmy set his lips, and once more there was silence for a while. Then he looked up with a little abrupt movement. "There's a question in front of us to be faced—and I'm going to find the answer; but we won't talk any more about it now. I'm going over with Jordan this afternoon to see Eleanor. You can get along until to-night without me?"
Wheelock made a sign of concurrence. "I guess it's a thing you ought to do. Got a letter from her yesterday, and she was asking about you. Eleanor's like you. Take after your mother, both of you, and, if anything, the harder grit's in her. You have to remember, Jimmy, you can't afford to show a soft spot when you're fighting a man like Merril."
He stopped a moment, with a sigh. "Guess he is too hard for your father. Won't you light me this pipe again? My hand's shaky."