"There might be if we had anybody to bid against him and run the figure up, but we haven't. Anyway, Bob and I have been talking things over this morning. He has had 'most enough of the sea, and one of the C.P.R. men will put him on a soft thing on the wharf. Well, we're going to take one of the little frame-houses just back of the town between us. Not quite a mansion, Jimmy, but there are four rooms in it."
Jimmy felt inclined to groan, for he had seen the very primitive and unattractive dwellings in question, but he knew that rents are high in that city and money somewhat hard to earn anywhere. Still, it was in one way a relief to turn the conversation in this direction, and by and by he remembered that Jordan was awaiting him and went up on deck. The latter sat down and pulled out his cigar-case.
"Take one, and then tell me what's troubling you," he said. "I'll own up that I got some notion out of Prescott."
Jimmy found it a relief to comply, and talked for several minutes while Jordan listened attentively.
"You have got to stay here," said the latter. "That's a sure thing; but there's not much sense in your notion of track-grading for the railroad or wharf-laboring. You wait a week or two, and I fancy I can suggest something by then that will suit you."
"I don't know why you should trouble about it," said Jimmy.
"We'll let that go;" and Jordan looked at him with a smile in his keen dark eyes. "Your sister and I have been talking about you. She feels that you ought to stay with the old man, too."
It did not occur to Jimmy that there was anything significant in this, for he was too anxious to concern himself about anything then except the question as to how he was to secure his father's comfort.
"I've been thinking about the auction," he said.
"So have I," said Jordan. "Now, I'm going to talk straight to you. I've invented one or two sawmill fixings; and they've brought me in some money, as you know; but I want considerably more, and I've always had a notion that it was business and not sawing redwood logs I was meant for. Well, Merril wants me out of that mill, and it seems to me there's room for a big extension of the coast-carrying trade of this country. That's Merril's notion too. I once thought of buying this schooner—that is, wiping out your father's loan—and putting you in command of her. Now, don't get hold of it the wrong way—it was the money there might be in it I was after."