“No, no, mum, dear,” Claire cried, forcing a smile to her tired eyes. “We mustn’t lose hope. We surely mustn’t. Why, even the paper reckons the crew must have got away. Just think. Twenty-four hours and the storm quitting. You know Jim. I reckon he isn’t the boy to lie around waiting to drown. I’d bet our last cent they got the boats out, and——”
“What then, Claire?” cried the mother, in a sudden passionate outburst. “I’ve looked up those figgers on the map. That boat, with our Jim on it, was right out in mid-ocean, thousands of miles from land. Think of it, girl, and don’t talk foolish. Mid-ocean! Open boats that couldn’t stand half a gale! And they’re not reported picked up. I tell you——”
But the girl had turned to the doorway. A horse-man had just ridden up and flung out of the saddle. It was Jake Forner, Bad Booker’s clerk, and he came straight to the doorway where Claire was standing.
It was a moment of complete reaction. The sight of the broad shoulders of the real estate man’s clerk, with his dark, mild eyes and mild, almost gentle manner, did that for the troubled women which no effort of their own could have achieved. The pressure of despairing thought was flung into the background in face of the urgency of the thing which this man’s arrival heralded. Even, perhaps, because of the enormity of the trouble which had befallen, this man’s coming was of greater significance.
The mother remained unmoving. But Claire bravely faced the newcomer with a smile that had no inspiration from any pleasurable emotion.
“How do, Mr. Forner,” she said, with a cheerfulness that had seemed impossible seconds ago. “Guess you’ve come along for my mother’s answer? Will you come right in?”
Then she turned swiftly to the woman at the stove. She moved over to her and stood close beside her as though to protect her as the man obeyed her invitation.
“I’m kind of sorry, dear,” she said quickly. “I didn’t tell you about it before because—because—Mr. Booker offered you two thousand dollars for that city block he has a mortgage on. Guess Mr. Forner has ridden out for his answer.”
Then she looked straight into the man’s dark eyes while she went on speaking to her mother.