He glanced in Jimmy's direction, but the latter said nothing and it was too dark to see his face. "Just got to win," he said again, as he shook the reins. "It has been a pull up grade since I was sixteen, but somehow I got the things I set my mind on, one by one. Perhaps Valentine would tell you they weren't all worth while, and he might be right about some of them, but a man has to be what he was born to be—and now I know there's nothing on this earth worth quite so much as what I'm fighting for."
Still Jimmy did not understand, and therefore, as was usual with him in such cases, made no observation, and his comrade laughed curiously when he complained of the jolting instead as he essayed to light a cigar.
"Well," said Jordan, "you'll go down the Sound and see about bringing the Shasta up just as soon as you're ready."
Jimmy went next day, and Valentine, who went alone to Austerly's, sailed for the West Coast on the following day. It was two weeks later when Jimmy came back with a little two-masted steamer of 250 tons or so. She was not by any means a new boat, nor were her engines especially powerful, and, after finding out her various complaints during the sheltered voyage down the Sound, Jimmy had hoped to spend a week or two overhauling her before he went to sea. This, however, was not to be, for he had hardly brought her up near the wharf when Jordan came off, and found him sitting wearily on the bridge, begrimed all over and heavy-eyed.
"Well," he said, "you look considerably more like the played-out mariner than the wedding guest. What has been worrying you? Anything wrong with her?"
"A good many things," said Jimmy. "If I went through the list I should probably scare you. She has evidently been lying-up for a while, and that is apt to have its effect on any steamboat's constitution. I've had no sleep all the way up, and spent most of the time in manual labor when I wasn't at the helm. The men I have—and they're a tolerably decent crowd—naturally expected to rest now and then."
"What's the matter with your engineer?"
"Nothing, except that he's played-out—and I don't wonder. He'll be fast asleep by now, and I don't think I'd worry him if I were you."
Jordan looked suddenly thoughtful. "Now be quick. Is this boat fit to go to sea, or has that blamed surveyor swindled you and me?"
"She's sound. That is, she will be when we've had a month in which to straighten her up, or have had a carpenter and foundry gang sent on board her."