"And you go about with Mrs. Marvin? Is her husband living?"
Sudden anger flared up in the girl"s blue eyes, though he knew that it was not directed against him.
"Yes! It"s a pity he is! Men of his kind always seem to live!"
It occurred to Vane that Miss Blake, who evidently had a spice of temper, could be a staunch partizan, and he also noticed that now that he had inspired her with some degree of trust in himself her conversation was marked by an ingenuous candor.
"Another piece, or some tea?" she asked.
"Tea first, please."
They both laughed when she handed him a second slice of bread.
"These sandwiches strike me as unusually nice," he informed her. "It"s exceptionally good tea, too. I don"t remember ever getting anything to equal them at a hotel."
The blue eyes gleamed with amus.e.m.e.nt.
"You have been in the cold all night--but I was once in a restaurant."
She watched the effect of this statement on him. "You know I really can"t sing--I was never taught, anyway--though there were some of the settlements where we did rather well."
Vane hummed a few bars of a song.
"I don"t suppose you realize what one ballad of yours has done. I"d almost forgotten the Old Country, but the night I heard you I felt I must go back and see it again. What"s more, Carroll and I are going shortly--it"s your doing."
This was a matter of fact; but Kitty Blake had produced a deeper effect on him, although he was not yet aware of it.
"It"s a shame to keep you handing me things to eat," he added disconnectedly. "Still, I"d like another piece."
She smiled delightfully as she pa.s.sed the food to him.
"You can"t help yourself and steer the boat. Besides--after the restaurant--I don"t mind waiting on you."
Vane made no comment, but he watched her with satisfaction while he ate.
There was no sign of the others; they were alone on the waste of tumbling water in the early dawn. The girl was pretty, and there was a pleasing daintiness about her. What was more, she was a guest of his, dependent for her safety upon his skill with the tiller. So far as he could remember, it was a year or two since he had breakfasted in a woman"s company; it was certain that no woman had waited on him so prettily. Then as he remembered many a lonely camp in the dark pine forest or high on the bare rangeside, it occurred to him for the first time that he had missed a good deal of what life had to offer. He wondered what it would have been like if when he had dragged himself back to his tent at night, worn with heavy toil, as he had often done, there had been somebody with blue eyes and a delightful smile to welcome him.
Kitty Blake belonged to the people--there was no doubt of that; but then he had a strong faith in the people, native-born and adopted, of the Pacific Slope. It was from them that he had received the greatest kindnesses he could remember. They were cheerful optimists; indomitable grapplers with forest and flood, who did almost incredible things with ax and saw and giant-powder. They lived in lonely ranch houses, tents and rudely flung-up shacks; driving the new roads along the rangeside or risking life and limb in wild-cat adits. They were quick to laughter, and reckless in hospitality.
Then with an effort he brushed the hazy thoughts away. Kitty Blake was merely a guest of his; in another day he would land her in Victoria, and that would be the end of it. He was a.s.suring himself of this when Carroll crawled up through the scuttle forward and came aft to join them. In spite of his prudent reflections, Vane was by no means certain that he was pleased to see him.
CHAPTER III
AN AFTERNOON ASh.o.r.e
Half the day had slipped by. The breeze freshened further and the sun broke through. The sloop was then rolling wildly as she drove along with the peak of her mainsail lowered down before a big following sea. The combers came up behind her, foaming and glistening blue and green, with seamy white streaks on their hollow b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and broke about her with a roar. Then they surged ahead while she sank down into the hollow with sluicing deck and tilted stern. Vane"s face was intent as he gripped the helm; three or four miles away a head ran out from the beach he was following, and he would have to haul the boat up to windward to get around it. This would bring the combers upon her quarter, or, worse still, abeam. Kitty Blake was below; and Mrs. Marvin had made no appearance yet. Vane looked at Carroll, who was standing in the well.
"The sea"s breaking more sharply, and we"d get uncommonly wet before we hammered round yonder head. There"s an inlet on this side of it where we ought to find good shelter."
"The trouble is that if you stay there long you"ll be too late for the directors" meeting. Besides, I"m under the impression that I"ve seen you run an open sea-canoe before as hard a breeze as this."
"They can"t have the meeting without me, and if it"s necessary they can wait," Vane answered impatiently. "I"ve had to. Many an hour I"ve spent cooling my heels in corridors and outer offices before the head of the concern could find time to attend to me. No doubt it was part of the game, done to impress me with a due sense of my unimportance."
"It"s possible," Carroll laughed.
"Besides, you can drive one of those big Siwash craft as hard as you can this sloop; that is, so long as you keep the sea astern of her."
"Yes; I dare say you can. After all, you hadn"t any pa.s.sengers on the occasion I was referring to. I suppose you feel you have to consider them?"
Vane colored slightly.
"Naturally, I"d prefer not to land Mrs. Marvin and the child in a helpless condition; and I understand they"re feeling the motion pretty badly."
Kitty Blake made her appearance in the cabin entrance, and Vane smiled at her.
"We"re going to give you a rest," he announced. "There"s an inlet close ahead where we should find smooth water, and we"ll put you all ash.o.r.e for a few hours until the wind drops."
There was no suspicion in the girl"s face now. She gave him a grateful glance before she disappeared below with the consoling news.
A quarter of an hour later Vane closed with the beach, and a break in the hillside, which was dotted with wind-stunted pines, opened up. While the two men struggled with the mainsheet, the big boom and the sail above it lurched madly over. The sloop rolled down until half her deck on one side was in the sea, but she hove herself up again and shot forward, wet and gleaming, into a s.p.a.ce of smooth green water behind a head. Soon afterward, Vane luffed into a tiny bay, where she rode upright in the sunshine, with loose canvas flapping softly in a faint breeze while the cable rattled down. They got the canoe over, and when they had helped Mrs. Marvin and her little girl, both of whom looked very wobegone and the worse for the voyage, into her, Vane glanced around.
"Isn"t Miss Blake coming?" he asked.
"She"s changing her dress," explained Mrs. Marvin, with a smile. She glanced at her own crumpled attire as she added: "I"m past thinking of such things as that!"
They waited some minutes, and then Kitty appeared in the entrance to the cabin. Vane called to her.
"Won"t you look in the locker, and bring along anything you think would be nice? We"ll make a fire and have supper on the beach--if it isn"t first-rate, you"ll be responsible!"
A few minutes later they paddled ash.o.r.e, and Vane landed them on a strip of shingle. Beyond it a wall of rock arose, with dark firs clinging in the rifts and crannies. The sunshine streamed into the hollow; the wind was cut off; and not far away a crystal stream came splashing down a ravine.
"There"s a creek at the top of the inlet," Vane told them, as he and Carroll thrust out the canoe, "and we"re going to look for a trout. You can stroll about or rest in the sun for a couple of hours, and if the wind drops after supper we"ll make a start again."
They paddled away, with a fishing-rod and a gun in the canoe, and it was toward six o"clock in the evening when they came back with a few trout. Vane made a fire of resinous wood, and Carroll and Kitty prepared a bountiful supper. When it was finished, Carroll carried the plates away to the stream; Mrs. Marvin and the little girl followed him; and Vane and Kitty were left beside the fire. She sat on a log of driftwood, and he lay on the warm shingle with his pipe in his hand.
The clear green water splashed and tinkled upon the pebbles close at his feet, and a faint, elfin sighing fell from the firs above them. It was very old music: the song of the primeval wilderness; and though he had heard it often, it had a strange, unsettling effect on him as he languidly watched his companion. There was no doubt that she was pleasant to look upon; but, although he did not clearly recognize this, it was to a large extent an impersonal interest that he took in her.
She was not so much an attractive young woman with qualities that pleased him as a type of something that had so far not come into his life; something which he vaguely felt that he had missed. One could have fancied that by some deep-sunk intuition she recognized this fact, and felt the security of it.
"So you believe you can get an engagement if you reach Vancouver in time?" he asked at length.
"Yes."
"How long will it last?"
"I can"t tell. Perhaps a week or two. It depends upon how the boys are pleased with the show."
Vane frowned. He felt very compa.s.sionate toward her and toward all friendless women compelled to wander here and there, as she was forced to do. It seemed intolerable that she should depend for daily bread upon the manner in which a crowd of rude miners and choppers received her song; though there was, as he knew, a vein of primitive chivalry in most of them.