"It's you, Mr. Horsfal," he mumbled rather thickly, in a voice that seemed to come from somewhere underground; "didn't know you in the distance."

"Jake,--shake with Mr. George Bremner;--he's going to supervise the place and the new store, same as I explained to you two weeks ago.

Hope you make friends. He's to be head boss man, and his word goes; but you'll find him twenty-four carat gold."

"That's darned fine gold, boss," grunted Jake.

He held out his h.o.r.n.y hand and grasped mine, exclaiming heartily enough:

"Glad to meet you, George."

He pulled out a plug of tobacco from his hip pocket, brushed some of the most conspicuous dirt and grime from it, bit off what appeared to me to be a mouthful and began to look me over.

"He's new," he grunted, as if to himself; "but he's young and big. He looks tough; he's got the right kind of jaw."

Then he turned to Mr. Horsfal. "Guess, when he gets the edges rubbed off, he'll more than make it, boss," he said.

K. B. Horsfal laughed loudly.

"That's just what I thought myself, Jake. Now, give us the keys to the oil barns and the new store. Go and help unload that baggage and truck from the launch. You can follow your usual bent after that, for I'll be showing George over the place myself."

I found the prospective store just as it had been described: a large, plain, front room, now fitted with shelves and a counter, and all freshly painted. Everything was in readiness to accommodate the stock, most of which was due to arrive the next afternoon. Where a door had been, leading into the other parts of the house, it was now solidly part.i.tioned up, leaving only front and back entrances to the store.

We spent the afternoon in the open air, inspecting the property, which was perfectly situated for scenic beauty, with plenty of cleared, fertile land near the sh.o.r.e and rich in giant timber behind.

In the early part of the evening, after a cold lunch aboard the launch, we went back to the house and, for the first time, Mr. Horsfal inserted a key into the front door of the dwelling proper.

I had been not a little curious regarding this place and I was still wondering where it was intended that I should take up my quarters.

Jake Meaghan seemed all right in his own Klondikish, pork-and-beans-and-a-blanket way, but I hardly fancied him as a rooming partner and a possible bedfellow. To be candid, I never had had a bedfellow in all my life and I had already made up my mind that, rather than suffer one now, I would fix up one of the several empty barns which were scattered here and there over the property, and thus retain my beloved privacy.

My employer pushed his way into the house and invited me to follow him.

I found myself in a small, front room, neatly but plainly furnished.

The floor was varnished and two bearskin rugs supplied the only carpeting. It had a mahogany centre table, on which a large oil-burning reading lamp was set. Three wicker chairs, designed solely for comfort, and a stove with an open front helped to complete its comfortable appearance. A number of framed photographs of Golden Crescent and some water colour paintings decorated the plain, wooden walls. In the far corner, beside a small side window, there stood a writing desk; while, all along that side of the wall, on a long curtain pole, there was hung, from bra.s.s rings, a heavy green curtain.

I took in what I could in a cursory glance and I marvelled that there could be so much apparent concentrated comfort so far away from city civilisation; but, when my guide pulled aside the curtain on the wall and disclosed rows and rows of books behind a gla.s.s front, books ancient and modern, books of religion, philosophy, medicine, history, fiction and poetry,--at least a thousand of them,--I gave up trying any more to fathom what manner of a man he was.

My eyes sparkled and explained to K. B. Horsfal what my voice failed to utter.

"Well,--what d'ye think of it all?" he asked at last.

"It is a delight,--a positive delight," I replied simply.

As I walked over to the front window, I wondered little that Mrs.

Horsfal should have loved the place; and, when I looked away out over the dancing waters, upon the beauties of the bay in the changing light of the lowering sun, upon the rocky, fir-dotted island a mile to sea, and upon the lonely-looking homes of the settlers over there two miles away on the far horn of Golden Crescent, with the great background of mountains in purple velvet,--I wondered less.

"Yes! George,--it's pretty near what heaven should be to look at. But I guess it's the same old story that the poet once sang:

"'Where every prospect pleases and only man is vile.'

"That poet kind of forgot that, if what he said was true, it was only the vile man that the prospect could please, eh!

"You notice the house has been cleaned from top to toe. I had that done last week. I see to that every time I come west."

He put his hand on my shoulder. "George, boy,--no one but myself and Eileen has slept under this roof since my wife died, but I want you to make it your home."

I turned to remonstrate.

"Now,--don't say a word," he hurried on. "You can't bluff me with your self-defamatory remarks. You are not a Jake Meaghan, or one of his stamp. You are of the kind that appreciates a home like this to the extent of taking care of it.

"Come and have a look at the other apartments.

"This is the kitchen. It has a pantry and a good cooking-stove. There are four bedrooms in the house. This can be yours;--it's the one I used to occupy. This is a spare one. This is Eileen's. You won't require it; and one never knows when Eileen might take it into her head to come up here and live.

"This is my Helen's room,--my wife's. It has not been changed since she died."

He went in. I remained respectfully in the adjoining apartment. I waited for five minutes.

When he returned, there were tears in his eyes. He locked the door with a sigh.

"George,--here are the keys to the whole she-bang. There isn't much more to keep me here. You have signed the necessary papers in connection with the trust account for $5,000 in the Commercial Bank of Canada in Vancouver. Draw your wages regularly. Pay Jake his fifty a month at the same time. We find his grub for him.

"Run things at a profit if you can, for that's business. Stand strictly to the instructions I have given you regarding orders for supplies from the various camps and from the cannery. Use your own judgment as to credit with the settlers. I leave you a free hand up here.

"Send your monthly reports, addressed to me care of my lawyers, Dow, Cross & Sneddon of Vancouver. They will forward them.

"If any question should arise regarding the property itself, get in touch with the lawyers."

I walked with him down to the launch as he talked.

"Thanks to you, George,--I'll get to Vancouver in the small hours of the morning and I will be able to pull out for Sydney in the afternoon of to-morrow.

"Good-bye, boy. All being well, I'll be back within a year."

In parting with him, as he shook me by the hand, I experienced a tightening in my throat such as I had never felt when parting from any other man either before or since. Yet, I had only known him for two days. I could see that he, also, was similarly affected. It was as if something above and beyond us were making our farewell singularly solemn.

CHAPTER IX

The Booze Artist

I stood watching until the tiny launch rounded the point; then, as the light was still fairly good,--it being the end of the month of May,--and as I had no inclination for sleep as yet, I got into the smallest of the rowing boats that were tied up alongside the wharf, loosed it and pulled leisurely up the bay, with the intention of making myself a little better acquainted with the only living soul with whom I was within hail,--Jake Meaghan.

As I ran the boat into his cove, I could hear his dog bark warningly.

The door of his barn,--for it was nothing else,--was closed, and it was some time before I heard Meaghan's deep voice in answer to my knock, inviting me to come in and bidding his dog to lie down.