"I guess so. I don't know that I deserve it, but you won't be too hard on me?"

Eleanor saw the gleam in his eyes. "It will depend. Where is Jimmy?"

"Bidding against Forster and the rest for the _Tyee_."

"Ah!" said. Eleanor, and for a moment her face softened. "I don't know why you didn't tell me that earlier. Hadn't you better go back and see that he doesn't get her?"

"I don't care if he does," said Jordan; "that is, as long as he gives me half an hour of your company."

Eleanor laughed. "Leaving out the compliment, what would you do if Jimmy bought her for you?"

"Run her against the first vessel Merril put on a trip she was good for, if I had to carry freight for nothing."

The girl turned and glanced at him again, and a hard glint crept into her eyes. She looked imperious, forceful, and vindictive then, but the man felt a thrill run through him, for he knew his answer had pleased her.

"Ah!" she said; "for that I could forgive you many a failure. Still, you must go back and look after Jimmy. We shall not go away until we hear what you have done."

Jordan reluctantly turned away, and, as it happened, met Jimmy coming out of the auction-room with perfect satisfaction in his face.

"I feel that I owe you a good deal. In fact, I'm afraid I can't express my grat.i.tude as I ought," he said. "Merril's man has got her, but I have a clear thousand dollars to hand over to my father. Still, there's something that puzzles me. What brought Forster here?"

Jordan laughed. "Your sister."

"Eleanor?"

"Of course!" said Jordan dryly. "No doubt, because she is your sister, you don't credit her with any useful capacity."

"Eleanor is clever," said Jimmy reflectively. "Still, there are subjects girls know nothing about--and, anyway, there was Mrs. Forster's att.i.tude to consider. It's hardly in human nature that she should be pleased to see her husband staking his money to please her children's teacher."

"Exactly! That is what made the thing cleverer. She has Mrs. Forster's good-will too."

"Then," said Jimmy decisively, "she must be a very kindly lady."

"Or your sister a very capable young woman. You seem to find it a little difficult to recognize that."

Jimmy dismissed the subject with a little gesture. "Well," he said, "I'm almost bewildered. The thing was so simple. Why didn't Merril think of it?"

"I have no doubt he did. Still, you saw what the little man has to expect if he makes a bid. On thinking it over, it seems to me that Merril trusted to my broker. He figured I'd back down once I realized that he knew my game and was a match for me. There are big men like him who live by bluff, and everybody makes way for them, but they're apt to show themselves very much the same as other people when you face them resolutely. It's just like putting a pin in a bubble."

Then Forster joined them while his wife and Eleanor came out of the store, and a few minutes later the girl and Jordan walked behind the other three as they turned toward the hotel where the wagon had been sent. Eleanor smiled at her companion.

"We are indebted to you, after all," she said, and there was a faint but suggestive something in her voice which satisfied Jordan.

CHAPTER XII

THE "SHASTA" SHIPPING COMPANY

Two or three weeks had slipped away since the sale of the _Tyee_, when Jimmy Wheelock, who had been specially requested to do so, called at Forster's ranch. He did not know why his presence was required, and when he arrived was somewhat astonished to find Jordan, Valentine, and a man he had not met, sitting with his host about a little table in the big general room. A decanter and a box of cigars stood on the table, but the att.i.tude of the men suggested that it was business that had brought them there. Jordan, who was talking animatedly, looked up when Jimmy came in.

"You're not quite on time," he said.

"For which I must make excuses;" and Jimmy turned to Forster. "The fact is, I might not have got here at all if the American skipper whose new mizzen-mast I'm helping to fit hadn't run out of wire-rigging. I couldn't well afford to offend a man who considers my services worth three dollars a day."

The man he had not met made a little sign with his hand. "It's an excuse that will pa.s.s in this country. Sit right down. Jordan insisted on having you here. Got any money to spare?"

"About forty dollars," said Jimmy.

The other man smiled. "That won't go very far. Well, we can consider ourselves a quorum, and Mr. Jordan will go ahead."

"One moment," said Forster. "Mr. Leeson, Jimmy. Help yourself--you see the cigars."

Jimmy sat down, and glanced at the gentleman who had previously addressed him. He fancied he had heard Jordan mention him as one interested in the then somewhat decadent sealing industry, but there was not very much to be gathered from his appearance. He was plainly dressed, and elderly, and had a lean, expressionless face. It was seamed with little wrinkles, his figure was spare, and he leaned forward with an elbow on the table as if it were too much trouble to hold himself upright. In the meanwhile Jordan recommenced.

"I'll be quite frank with you as to how I'm fixed, because it will help you to understand how I got on the track of the notion," he said.

"Merril has now a controlling interest in the coast mill, and I walked out because I couldn't agree with him. Well, I have some money laid by as well as my royalties, and I'm undertaking a few machinery agencies, and starting as mill expert in Vancouver. In fact, I'll sell you an American stump-puller, Mr. Forster, that will save you about half you're spending on grubbing out those fir-roots by hand labor."

"Another time!" said Leeson, with an appreciative grin. "Keep to the shipping business."

Jordan made a little gesture of resignation. "Well, as I told you already, there's a good deal of odd freight to be moved up and down this coast, and there would be more if there were better facilities. I hear of ships held up because the salmon-packers can't get their cases down, and men in Vancouver Island feeding fruit to hogs, and cutting good oats for green fodder because they couldn't put them on the market if they thrashed them. What's more, Mr. Merril has heard about it, too, and he's an enterprising man. Ran me out of that West Coast mill because I wouldn't come down on my royalties--him!"

"Off the track again!" said Leeson. "Merril has bounced a good many men out of things, but if I'm to put any money into this venture, I must have a better reason than that you want to get even."

"You'll get it," and Jordan's dark eyes snapped while his face grew animated. "What Merril thinks safe is good enough for us. He has been working up a notion of a coast shipping combine, one that's to be all Merril's, and he has two or three schooners and a big unhandy lump of a coal-eating steamer. He got her cheap, like the rest of them. Some of us know how he did it."

He glanced at Jimmy sharply before he went on again. "Now, I've been considering his programme, and he's taking hold the wrong way--s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g top freights out of everybody for a bad service, cutting down wages, and running his boats with cheap men who are going to learn to hate him.

Well, with a little handy steamboat that would crawl in wherever there was a beach the ranchers could haul their stuff down to, and a policy of general conciliation, one could cut the ground right from under him."

"Quite sure of that?" said Leeson. "Without his finding it out?"

"Without his finding it out--until we've got the trade;" and Jordan's eyes snapped again. "We're going to oblige people, and make our connection with the ranchers and small cannery men a personal thing.

When he offers a big rebate it will be a little too late; and, anyway, we can carry freight as cheap as Merril."

"How are you going to make it a personal connection?" asked Forster.

"The thing's quite easy. I'm going to send round a man who already knows most of those ranchers to take them up fruit packing-boxes and statistics of produce prices. He'll fix it up with them for the boat to crawl in anywhere for a few jumper loads. Merril can't do it with his schooners or the big steamer. I guess a rancher would sooner face a high freight than feed the stuff to hogs, or haul it thirty miles over a bush-trail to the Dunsmore road. Then I'm going to have a good-humored skipper who'll bring the men off and make friends with them, but one with grit enough to shove the boat round on time when she has a perishable freight in a gale of wind. She's to be just the right size, and, to save us coal, a modern tri-compound."

"The three things seem essential. The last two certainly are," said Forster, with a suggestive smile. "I guess it's scarcely necessary to ask whether you have any idea how to obtain them?"

Jordan laughed, and proceeded to astonish his companions, which was, however, a habit of his.

"Got them all," he said. "The steamboat's lying down the Sound, and I hold a week's option on her. Jim Wheelock would go in command of her, and Mr. Valentine can sail as soon as he's ready in the _Sorata_, and crawl into every inlet from which he can reach half a dozen ranchers.

I'll have ready for him four or five tons of cut box frames that will only want nailing, and they'll go into his saloon. He'll have everything fixed before Merril knows we've despatched him."

Jimmy glanced at Valentine's face, and broke into a soft laugh, though he had been at least as far from expecting this proposition as his companion seemed to be. Jordan looked at them both, and nodded tranquilly.