At noon the next day they reached the head of the valley. It was still raining, and heavy mists obscured the summits of the hills, but above the lower slopes of rock glimmering snow ran up into the woolly vapor. There were firs, a few balsams and hemlocks, but no sign of a spruce.

"Now," Carroll commented dryly, "perhaps you'll be satisfied."

Vane smiled. He was no nearer to owning himself defeated than he had been when they first set out.

"We know there's no spruce in this valley--and that's something," he replied. "When we come back again we'll try the next one."

"It has cost us a good deal to make sure of the fact"

Vane's expression changed.

"We haven't ascertained the cost just yet. As a rule, you don't make up the bill until you're through with the undertaking; and it may be a longer one than either of us think. Well, we might as well turn upon our tracks."

Carroll recalled this speech afterward. Just then, however, he hitched his burden a little higher on his aching shoulders as he plodded after his comrade down the rain-swept hollow. They had good cause to remember the march to the inlet. It rained most of the while and their clothes were never dry; parts of them, indeed, flowed in tatters about their aching limbs, and before they had covered half the distance, their boots were dropping to pieces. What was more important, their provisions were rapidly running out, and they marched on a few handfuls of food, carefully apportioned, twice daily. At last they lay down hungry, with empty bags, one night, to sleep shelterless in the rain, for they had thrown their tent away. Carroll had some difficulty in getting on his feet the next morning.

"I believe I can hold out until sundown, though I'm far from sure of it," he said. "You'll have to leave me behind if we don't strike the inlet then."

"We'll strike it in the afternoon," Vane a.s.sured him.

They reslung their packs and set out wearily. Carroll, limping and stumbling along, was soon troubled by a distressful st.i.tch in his side.

He managed to keep pace with Vane, however, and some time after noon a twinkling gleam among the trees caught their eye. Then the shuffling pace grew faster, and they were breathless when at last they stopped and dropped their burdens beside the boat. It was only at the third or fourth attempt that they got her down to the water, and the veins were swollen high on Vane's flushed forehead when he sat down, panting heavily, on her gunwale.

"We ran her up quite easily, though we had the slope to face then,"

he remarked.

"You could scarcely expect to carry boats about without trouble after a march like the one we've made!"

They ran her in and pulled off to the sloop. When at last they sat down in the little saloon, Vane got a glimpse of himself in the mirror.

"I knew you looked a deadbeat," he laughed, "but I'd no idea I was quite so bad. Anyhow, we'll get the stove lighted and some dry things on. The next question is--what shall we have for supper?"

"That's easy. Everything that's most tempting, and the whole of it."

Shortly afterward they flung their boots and rent garments overboard and sat down to a feast. The plates were empty when they rose, and in another hour both of them were wrapped in heavy slumber.

CHAPTER XVIII

JESSY CONFERS A FAVOR

The next morning it was blowing fresh from the southeast, which was right ahead, and Vane's face was hard when he and Carroll got the boat on deck and set about tying down two reefs in the mainsail.

"Bad luck seems to follow us," he grumbled.

Carroll smiled.

"There's no doubt of that; but I suppose the fact won't have much effect on you."

"No," returned Vane decidedly, "We had our troubles in other ventures, and somehow we got over them--I don't see why we shouldn't do the same again. Now that we've seen the country, we ought to get some useful information out of Hartley--we'll know what to ask him."

"I shouldn't count too much on his help," Carroll answered with a thoughtful air.

They got sail upon the sloop and drove her out into a confused head sea, through which she labored with flooded decks, making very little to windward. When night came, a deluge killed the breeze, and the next day she lay rolling wildly in a heavy calm while light mist narrowed in the horizon and a persistent drizzle poured down upon the smoothly heaving sea. Then they had light variable winds, and their provisions were once more running out when they drew abreast of a little coaling port. Carroll suggested running in and going on to Victoria by train, but they had hardly decided to do so when the fickle breeze died away and the tide-stream bore them past to the south. They had no longer a st.i.tch of dry clothing and they were again upon reduced rations.

Still bad fortune dogged them, for that night a fresh head wind sprang up and held steadily while they thrashed her south, swept by stinging spray.

Their tempers grew shorter under the strain, and their bodies ached from the chill of their sodden garments and from sitting hour by hour at the helm. At last the breeze fell, and shortly afterward a trail of smoke and a half-seen strip of hull emerged from the creeping haze astern of them.

"A lumber tug," observed Vane. "She seems to have a raft in tow, and it will probably be for Drayton's people. If you'll edge in toward her I'll send him word that we're on the way."

There was very little wind just then and presently the tug was close alongside, pitching her bows out of the slow swell, while a great ma.s.s of timber wonderfully chained together surged along astern, the dim, slate-green sea washing over it. A shapeless oil-skinned figure stood outside her pilot-house, balancing itself against the heave of the bridge, which slanted and straightened.

"Winstanley?" Vane shouted.

The figure waved an arm, as if in a.s.sent, and Vane raised his voice again.

"Report us to Mr. Drayton. We'll come along as fast as we can."

The man turned and pointed to the misty horizon astern.

"You'll get it from the north before to-morrow!"' he called.

Then the straining tug and the long wet line of working raft drew ahead while the sloop crawled on, close-hauled toward the south. Late that night, however, the mist melted away, and a keen rushing breeze that came out of the north crisped the water. The vessel sprang forward when the ripples reached her; the flapping canvas went to sleep; and while each slack rope tightened a musical tinkle broke out at the bows. It grew steadily louder, and when the sun swung up red above the eastern hills, she had piled the white froth to her channels and was driving forward merrily with little sparkling seas tumbling, foam-tipped, after her. The wind fell light as the sun rose higher, but the swinging sloop ran on all day, with blurred hills and forests sliding past; and the western sky was still blazing with a wondrous green when she stole into Vancouver harbor.

Carroll gazed at the city with open appreciation. It rose, girded with many wires and giant telegraph poles, roof above roof, up a low rise, on the crest of which towering pines still lifted their ragged spires against the evening sky. Lower down, big white lights were beginning to blink, and the forests up the inlet beyond the smoke of the mills had already faded to a belt of shadow.

"Quebec," he remarked, "looks fine from the river, cl.u.s.tering round and perched upon its heights; and Montreal at the foot of its mountain strikes your eye from most points of view; but I can't remember ever entering either with the pleasure I've experienced in reaching this city."

"You probably arrived at the others traveling in a Pullman or in a luxurious side-wheel steamboat. It wouldn't be any great change from them to a smart hotel."

"That may explain the thing," Carroll agreed with an air of humorous reflection. "I guess the way you regard a city depends largely on the condition you're in when you reach it and on what you expect to get out of it. In the present case, Vancouver stands for rest and comfort and enough to eat."

Vane laughed.

"I'm as glad to be back as you are; but you'd better make the most of any leisure that you can get. As soon as I've arranged things here we'll go north again."

The light faded as they crept across the inlet before a faint breeze, but when they got the anchor over and the boat into the water, Carroll made out two dim figures standing on the wharf.

"It's Drayton, I think," he said, waving a hand to them. "Kitty's with him."

They pulled ash.o.r.e, and Drayton and Kitty greeted them.

"I've been looking out for you since noon," Drayton told them. "What about the spruce?"

There was eagerness in his voice, and Vane's face clouded.