"Never mind how--it's a long chance and hardly worth trying, but--may I take the boat?"

"Certainly," said he, "there's one lying at the dock."

He led her to the sh.o.r.e and saw her aboard, then waved good-bye and walked moodily back to the office, gratified that she should try to help him, yet certain that she could not succeed where he and George had failed.

"Fingerless" Fraser had breakfasted late, as was his luxurious custom, and shortly before noon, in the course of his dissatisfied meanderings, he found his friend in the office, lost in sombre thought. It was the first time in many weeks that he had seen this mood in Boyd, and after a fruitless effort to make him talk, he fell into his old habit of imaginary reading, droning away to himself as if from a printed page:

"'Your stay among us has not been very pleasant, has it?' Mr. Emerson inquired.

"'Not so that you could notice it," replied our hero. 'I don't like fish, and I never did.'

"'That is the result of prejudice; the fish is a n.o.ble animal,' Mr.

Emerson declared.

"'He's not an animal at all,' our hero gently corrected. 'He's a biped, a regular wild biped without either love of home or affection for his children. The salmon is of a low order of intelligence, and has a Queen Anne slant to his roof. No person with a retreating forehead like that knows very much. The only other member of the animal kingdom that is as foolish as the salmon is Alton Clyde. The fish has got a shade the best of it over him; but as for friendship and the gentler emotions--why, the salmon hasn't got them at all. The only thing he's got is a million eggs and a sense of direction. If he had a spark of intelligence he'd lay one egg a year, like a hen, and thus live for a million years. But does he?

Not on your Sarony! He's a spendthrift, and turns his eggs loose--a hatful at a time. He's worse than a shotgun. And then, too, he's as clannish as a Harvard graduate, and don't a.s.sociate with n.o.body out of his own set. No, sir! Give me a warm-blooded animal that suckles its young. I'll take a farmer, every time,'

"'These are points I had never considered,' said Mr. Emerson, 'but every business has its drawbacks, you'll agree. If I have failed as a host, what can I do to entertain you while you grace our midst?'

"'You can do most anything,' remarked his handsome companion, 'You can climb a tree, or do anything except fish all the time.'

"'But it is a dark night without, and I fear some mischief is afoot!'

"'True! But yonder beautcheous gel--'"

Roused by the familiarity of these lines, Emerson looked up from his preoccupation and smiled at Fraser's serious pantomime.

"Am I as bad as all that?" he inquired, with an effort at pleasantry.

"You're worse, Bo! I guess you didn't know I was here, eh?"

"No. By-the-way, what about that 'beautcheous gel and the mischief that is afoot? What is the rest of the story?"

"I don't know. I never got past that place. Say! If I had time, I'll bet I could write a good book. I've got plenty to say."

"Why don't you try it?"

"Too busy!" yawned the adventurer, lazily. "Gee, this is a lonesome burg!

Kalvik is sure out in the tall gra.s.s, ain't it? I feel as if I'd like to break a pane of gla.s.s. Let's start something."

"I don't find it particularly dull at the present moment." Boyd rose and began to pace the room.

"Oh, I heard all about your trouble. I just left the pest-house."

"The what?"

"The pest-house--Clyde's joint. Ain't he a calamity?"

"In what way?"

"Is there any way in which he ain't?"

"You don't like him, do you?"

"No, I don't," declared "Fingerless" Fraser stoutly, "and what's more I'm glad I don't like him. Because if I liked him, I'd a.s.sociate with him, and I hate him."

"What's the matter?"

"Well, I like silence and quietude--I'm a fool about my quiet--but Clyde--"

he paused, as if in search for suitable expression. "Well, whenever I try to say anything he interrupts me." After another pause he went on: "He's dead sore on this place, too, and whines around like a litter of pups. He says he was misled into coming up here, and has a hunch he's going to lose his bank-roll."

"Last night's episode frightened him, I dare say."

"Yes. Ever since he got that wallop on the burr in Seattle a guinea pig could lick him hand to hand. You'd think that ten thou' he put up was all the wealth of the Inkers."

"The wealth of what?"

"Inkers! That's a tribe of rich Mexicans. However, I suppose I'd hang to my coin the same way he does if I had a mayonnaise head like his. He's an awful shine as a business-man,"

"So he's homesick, eh?"

"Sure! Offered to sell me his stock." Fraser threw back his head and gave vent to one of his rare laughs. "Ain't that a rave?"

"Here he comes now," Boyd announced, with a glance out the window, and the next instant Alton Clyde entered, a picture of dejection.

"Gee! This is fierce, isn't it?" the club-man began, flinging himself into the nearest chair. "They tell me it's all off, finally. What are you going to do?"

"Put up what fish I can with a short crew," said Boyd.

"We'll lose a lot of money."

"Probably."

Clyde's tone was querulous as he continued:

"I'm sorry I ever went into this thing. You bet if I had known as much in Chicago as I know now, I would have hung on to my money and stayed at home."

"You knew as much as we did," Boyd declared, curtly.

"Oh, it's all right for you to talk. You haven't risked any coin in the deal, but I'm a rotten businessman, and I'll never make my ante back again if I lose it."

"Don't whine about it," said Boyd, stiffly. "You can at least be game and lose like a man."

"Then we _are_ going to lose, eh?" queried Clyde, in a scared voice.

"I thought maybe you had a plan. Look here," he began an instant later, "Cherry pulled us out once before, why don't you let her see what she can do with Marsh?"

Boyd scanned the speaker's face sharply before speaking.