They were, though, or rather they were the waters of Burrard Inlet, an arm of Puget Sound, on which the new but rapidly growing city of Vancouver is located. Just across the wharf, at one side of which the train had stopped, lay a great white clipper-bowed steamship, bearing the name in letters of gold Empress of India. She was one of the fleet of superb ocean flyers that form the Canadian Pacific’s connecting link between America and Asia. The mere sight of this beautiful ship, and of the Japanese stewards and cabin-boys clustered on her snowy decks, made Phil feel as though he had indeed joined the great army of “globe-trotters.”
There was but scant time, though, for romantic reveries concerning the Orient, for near the Empress lay the Premier, another though much smaller white steamer, waiting to convey to Victoria such passengers and mail as the train had brought.
This boat had hardly left the wharf, with Phil comfortably seated on deck, his bag and gun beside him, and his overcoat lying across his knees, before the excitable lad sprang to his feet and ran to the opposite side. He had caught a glimpse as the steamer swung of what he believed to be a canoe. [Yes! it was—a genuine Haida dugout] with projecting beaklike prow, and an Indian crew who were wielding queer-looking sharp-pointed paddles. It was precisely like the pictures in books of British Columbian travel, and Phil recalled at once that it was fashioned out of one of the huge straight-grained logs of yellow cedar that are only found on that coast. He remembered, too, that after it had been laboriously hollowed out, and shaped with fire, adze, and hatchet, it was steamed by means of hot stones and boiling water, until its sides could be flared out so as to give it beam and stability. They are held in this position by means of crossbars; but the process renders the wood so liable to split if exposed for any length of time to a hot sun, that when hauled up on a beach the canoe must be entirely covered with mats or blankets, and while in use water must every now and then be dashed over its sides to keep them damp.
[“YES! IT WAS—A GENUINE HAIDA DUGOUT”]
While Phil was watching this canoe, and wishing he were in it instead of on board a prosaic every-day steamer, a gentleman approached him holding something in his hand, and saying, “I believe this is yours?”
It was a pocket-book.
“I don’t think it can be mine, sir,” began Phil, politely, at the same time clapping a hand to the side where he was accustomed to feel every now and then for his precious money. An expression of comical dismay overspread his face. “Good gracious! yes it is, too!” he cried, extending his hand for his property.
“I thought it must be,” replied the gentleman, with a smile, “for I saw it drop from your overcoat as you left your seat to come to this side of the boat. It seems to me, though, that an overcoat is hardly the proper place for carrying a pocket-book. One is so apt to leave it lying round.”