"Nix! That ain't my line. If you need a piece of rough money quick, why I'll take my gat and stick somebody up in an alley, or I'll feel out a safe combination for you in the dark; but this chaperoning freight cars ain't my game. I'd only crab it."
"I thought you wanted to help."
"I do, sure I do! I'll be glad when you're on your way, but I must respectfully duck all bills-of-lading and shipping receipts."
"You are merely lazy," Emerson smiled. "Nevertheless, if we get in a tight place, I'll make you take a hand in spite of yourself."
"Any time you need me," cheerfully volunteered the other, lighting a fresh cigar. "Only don't give me child's work."
As if Hilliard's conversion had marked the turning-point of their luck, the partners now entered upon a period of almost uninterrupted success. In the reaction from their recent discouragement they took hold of their labors with fresh energy, and fortune aided them in unexpected ways. Boyd signed his charter, securing a tramp steamer then discharging at Tacoma. Balt closed his contracts for Chinese labor, and the scattered car-loads of material, which had been lost en route or mysteriously laid out on sidings, began to come in as if of their own accord. Those supplies which had been denied them they found in unexpected quarters close at hand; and almost before they were aware of it The Bedford Castle had finished unloading and was coaling at the bunkers.
A brigade of Orientals and a miniature army of fishermen had appeared as if by magic, and were quartered in the lower part of the city awaiting shipment. Boyd and Big George worked unceasingly in the midst of a maelstrom of confusion, the centre of which was the dock. There, one throbbing April evening, The Bedford Castle berthed, ready to receive her cargo, and the two men made their way toward their hotel, weary, but glowing with the grateful sense of an arduous duty well performed. The following morning would find the wharf swarming with stevedores and echoing to the rattle of trucks, the clank of hoists, and the shrill whistles of the signalmen.
"Looks like they couldn't stop us now," said Balt.
"It does," agreed Emerson. "We ought to clear in four days—that'll be the 15th."
"It smells like an early spring, too," the fisherman observed, sniffing the air. "If it is, we'll be in Kalvik the first week in May."