"Without his finding it out—until we've got the trade;" and Jordan's eyes snapped again. "We're going to oblige people, and make our connection with the ranchers and small cannery men a personal thing. When he offers a big rebate it will be a little too late; and, anyway, we can carry freight as cheap as Merril."
"How are you going to make it a personal connection?" asked Forster.
"The thing's quite easy. I'm going to send round a man who already knows most of those ranchers to take them up fruit packing-boxes and statistics of produce prices. He'll fix it up with them for the boat to crawl in anywhere for a few jumper loads. Merril can't do it with his schooners or the big steamer. I guess a rancher would sooner face a high freight than feed the stuff to hogs, or haul it thirty miles over a bush-trail to the Dunsmore road. Then I'm going to have a good-humored skipper who'll bring the men off and make friends with them, but one with grit enough to shove the boat round on time when she has a perishable freight in a gale of wind. She's to be just the right size, and, to save us coal, a modern tri-compound."
"The three things seem essential. The last two certainly are," said Forster, with a suggestive smile. "I guess it's scarcely necessary to ask whether you have any idea how to obtain them?"
Jordan laughed, and proceeded to astonish his companions, which was, however, a habit of his.
"Got them all," he said. "The steamboat's lying down the Sound, and I hold a week's option on her. Jim Wheelock would go in command of her, and Mr. Valentine can sail as soon as he's ready in the Sorata, and crawl into every inlet from which he can reach half a dozen ranchers. I'll have ready for him four or five tons of cut box frames that will only want nailing, and they'll go into his saloon. He'll have everything fixed before Merril knows we've despatched him."
Jimmy glanced at Valentine's face, and broke into a soft laugh, though he had been at least as far from expecting this proposition as his companion seemed to be. Jordan looked at them both, and nodded tranquilly.
"You'll go?" he said, and then laid a sheet of paper on the table. "Here's my notion of costs, capital, salaries, and general expenses. Kind of prospectus. Shows the usual twenty-per-cent. profit—only we're going to make it."
It was quite clear that he meant it, for this was a man who had a full share of the optimism which characterizes most of the inhabitants of the Pacific Slope. He smiled reassuringly at his companions; but there was silence for several minutes while Leeson examined the paper and then passed it to Forster. Jimmy, who felt that his opinion would not be particularly valuable, and had noticed the little smile in Valentine's eyes, sat still, looking out through the open window at the shadowy bush beyond Forster's orchard.
It cut, vague and black and mysterious, against the wondrous green and saffron glow of the sunset, and the little trail that wound away into it had just then a curious interest for him. He wondered where it led, and how long it wandered through the dim shadow before it came out again into the garish brilliancy. The thing seemed an allegory, for when he came into that country and flung his career away he had felt lost and adrift, without a mark to guide him, while now Jordan and those others were about to set his feet on the trail. It must lead somewhere, as all trails resolutely followed do, though now and then they plunge into tangles of morasses where the rotting pines fall or climb the snow-barred passes of towering ranges. He had a curious confidence in the daring American. Still, he felt that in all probability there was a long and difficult march in front of him and the little party then sitting in the slowly darkening room of Forster's ranch. It was Leeson who spoke first.