"Well, maybe not quite rich, for that, o' course, would call for saving, but certainly I'd had a roll to spend before I was done—if only they'd let us alone. But would they? Man, the meddlers they were!—the brass-buttoned, steam-winched buttinskis!"
"But if that is their business, Alec?"
"M-m—maybe. But Russians, English, Japs—yes, an' American cutters and gunboats before they were done—you ought to seen them!"
Alec paused, but only for a quick breath. "We had the finest little scheme of sealing till they took to hunting us. Up and down the length and breadth of the sealing-grounds they'd up and chase us whenever they'd get word of us—from the Japan coast back by way of the Aleutians—clear down, one time, a pair of 'em, till we had to put in behind Vancouver Island and hide the Hattie behind a lot o' screen boughs."
Alec paused; this time for a longer, an almost reflective, breath. "That being their business, p'r'aps they were all right; but ain't it a fine thing when a gang wants to go seal-hunting that a lot o' gover'ment people must specify where they can kill 'em, and when?—and they swimmin' the wide ocean as the Lord intended! And our little vessel—the Hattie Rennish when she used to go fresh halibutin' out o' here—remember her?"
There were several who heartily remembered the fast and able Hattie.
Presently, letting the elevated front legs of his chair drop to the floor, Alec rested one forearm on the table and went on to tell of how at last they got the Hattie Rennish.
"'Twas a Californian man named Trumbull bought the Hattie when she was fresh halibutin' out o' Gloucester. A good sort of a man, and 'twas him got me, with Archie Gillis for mate, to bring her 'round to Frisco.
"But the time I'm going to speak of, the Hattie—painted green she was, and called the Pioneer—was layin' into Seattle, when a chap comes aboard with a letter from Trumbull to me explaining that certain aspects of the sealing business 'd been taking on a serious look to him lately and he'd sold the Hattie, and the party who'd bought her, letter herewith, might want to do business with me.
"The looks of the new owner didn't warm me toward him in the start-off. Looks, of course, ain't everything, but when you don't know much about a man you got to go a lot by his looks. Yes, you sure have. And I'd seen him before, joy cruisin' on the Barbary Coast one night with a lot of drunken sailors—only he wasn't drunk. And I knew what he was—some Chinese blood in him, and the name o' being a slick one. But I didn't say anything about that. Gratu'tously telling a man you don't like him don't lay you up to wind'ard any. No. And we sat down and he explains what he wanted. There was a consignment of a few bales of hemp waiting up on the British Columbia coast, and would I run the Hattie over and slip back with 'em? And we'd have to leave right away.