The Secret of the Reef

CHAPTER XXV – PAYING A DEBT

Aynsley, sitting near an open window in his office, laid down his pen and looked out with a sense of satisfaction. A great raft of lumber was ready to start down the river, and men were scrambling about it loosing the mooring-chains. The pond was full of logs lately run down on a freshet, and the green flood swirled noisily past them. Its color indicated that the snow was melting fast on the lofty inland ranges, and sweet resinous scents rose from the stacks of cedar where the sunshine struck hot upon them. A cloud of smoke streamed across the long sheds and streaked the pines behind the mill with a dingy smear; and the scream of saws and the crash of flung-out boards filled the clearing. All this suggested profitable activity; and Aynsley’s satisfaction deepened as he glanced at some letters which a clerk handed him. They contained orders, and he foresaw that he would soon have to increase the capacity of the mill. He was thinking over a scheme for doing so when his father was shown in. Clay smiled at his surprise, and sat down in the nearest chair, breathing heavily.

“Why don’t you locate on the ground-floor instead of making people walk up those blamed awkward steps?” he asked.

“I can see better from here what’s going on,” Aynsley explained. “I find it saves me a little money now and then.”

Clay beamed upon him.

“There was a time when I didn’t expect to hear you talk like that. However, you have a pretty good mill-boss and secretary, haven’t you? Do you think you could leave them to look after matters for a little while?”

“I suppose I could,” Aynsley answered dubiously. “They know more about the business than I do; but, for all that, I’d rather be on the spot. Things seem to go wrong unless you look closely after them.”

“They do; you’re learning fast, my son. It looks as if the mill is getting hold of you.”

Aynsley took a plan of some buildings from a drawer.

“What do you think of this?” he asked. “We could keep the new saws busy, but the job would cost about twenty thousand dollars. Could you let me have the money, or shall I go to the bank?”

Clay inspected the plan carefully.

“It’s a good scheme,” he declared. “If trade keeps steady, you’ll soon get the cost back. I could lend you the money easily but perhaps you’d better try the bank. You’ve got to stand by yourself sooner or later; and it seems to me that you’re getting pretty steady on your feet. Guess you’re not sorry now I made you work?”

Aynsley pondered the question. In some respects the business was not to his taste, but in spite of this it was rapidly engrossing his attention. There was a fascination in directing, planning for the future, and bringing about results.

“No,” he said. “In fact, I’m getting a good deal more satisfaction out of it than I expected.”

“That should help you in another matter. You won’t take your not getting Osborne’s girl quite so hard.”

For a few moments Aynsley sat still with knitted brows. It was his habit to be honest with himself, and he saw that to some extent his father was right. He thought of Ruth with deep tenderness and regret, and he believed that he would always do so, but the poignant sense of loss which he had at first experienced had gone. He did not think that he was fickle or disloyal to her, but his new interests had somehow dulled the keenness of his pain.

“I suppose that’s true,” he answered quietly.

“Your real trouble will begin when you see her getting fond of another man. What are you going to do about it then?”

Aynsley winced.

“It’s rather hard to speak about, but, if the fellow’s fit for her, I’ll try to bear it and wish them well.”

“You’ll make good,” Clay commented with dry approval. “But I’ve been getting off the track. You have been sticking to your work pretty closely, and, as things are going, you can leave it without much risk. I want you to take me North for a few weeks in the yacht. The doctor recommends the trip.”

It struck Aynsley that his father was not looking well. He had lost his high color, his face had grown pouchy under the eyes, and he had a strained, nervous look. Aynsley had some business on hand which demanded his personal attention, but he recognized his duty to his father. Then, the North had its fascination, and the thought of another grapple with gray seas, smothering fog, and biting gales appealed to him.

“Very well,” he said. “When do you want to go?”

“As soon as we can get away. Next week, if possible. You had better tell the captain to get his crew and coal on board.”

Aynsley called his secretary, and when Clay left he had arranged to meet him at Victoria in a fortnight.

The time was, however, extended; for on getting the yacht ready for sea some repairs to rigging and engines were found needful, and these took longer than the skipper expected. At last Clay received word that they would be finished in a few days, and he paid a visit to Osborne. Reaching the house in the evening, he sat talking with his host in the library after dinner. A shaded lamp stood on a table laid out with wine and cigars, but this was the only light and beyond its circle of illumination the large room was shadowy. The floor was of polished wood, but a fine rug stretched from near the table to the door, where heavy portières hung. The men spoke in quiet, confidential voices as they smoked.

“The Farquhar gang have separated, and I’ve lost track of them, but if they can scrape up three or four hundred dollars between them I’ll be surprised,” Clay said. “They’re going to have some trouble in fitting out their boat; and she’s a very small thing, anyway. Though the delay has worried me, we should get up there long before they do, and we only need a few days of fine weather to finish the job.”

“There’s some risk in your taking the diver and Aynsley,” Osborne cautioned. “You may have some difficulty in keeping both in the dark.”

“It oughtn’t to be hard. I take the owner’s berth with the small sitting-room attached, and everything we bring up will go straight in there – and I’ll keep the key. The diver’s business ends when he puts the stuff on deck, and after it’s stowed nobody will touch it but myself.”

“Aynsley may want to see it, and ask questions.”

“Then he won’t be gratified. I have him pretty well drilled, and he knows when to stop. Besides, I’ll find him useful. When anything needs talking over, I’ll have him to consult with instead of a paid man. The skipper’s more of a sailing-master. Aynsley takes command.”

“Still, you can’t keep everything from him,” Osborne persisted. “It seems to me there are too many people who must, to some extent, be taken into your confidence. That’s where Farquhar has the advantage. He has only two partners, whom he can rely upon.”

“Shucks! You get to imagining trouble! Some of the gold is there all right, and, if it’s needful, I can make a show with that. For all that, I’d like a companion who knew as much as I did, and I feel a bit sore because I have to go without. It’s your place to see me through, but you’ve got so blamed fastidious lately.”

“I’m not going,” Osborne answered softly, for Clay had raised his voice. “I’ve had enough to do with the wreck.”

Clay indicated the handsome room and its rich fittings with a wave of his hand.

“You have had your share of the plunder, and you hadn’t a shack to call your own when I first got hold of you. Now, when I’m up against an awkward job, you go back on me. However, if I wanted you – ”

He broke off, looking up sharply as a draught of colder air entered the room; and Osborne, turning with a start, saw Ruth standing on the rug. Her face was in shadow, for she was outside the direct illumination of the shaded lamp, but so far as he could discern, her attitude was easy and natural.

“Walter has just come back with the car and brought this telegram,” she said. “I thought it might be important.”

Osborne was partly reassured by her voice. She spoke in her normal tone, but he wished he could see her better.

“Thank you,” he said, opening the envelope. “We’ll have finished our talk before very long.”

Ruth went out in silence, and Clay looked hard at Osborne.

“Could she have heard?”

“I don’t think so. I hope not.”

“I’d soon have found out if it had been a man,” Clay said grimly. “Anyhow, all she could have picked up wouldn’t give her much of a clew.”

He was wrong. Ruth’s suspicions had already been aroused, and now Clay had justified them out of his own mouth. She knew that he was going north where Jimmy, who had spoken of some plan for improving his fortune, had been engaged at the wreck. Clay had mentioned a share of the plunder, so something was far from straight. Worse still, he seemed to have been urging her father to go with him.

It had cost her an effort to maintain her composure when she gave him the telegram, and her face was pale when she went downstairs and sat in a corner of the empty hall. Ruth had had a shock. Until lately she had given her indulgent father her wholehearted affection and respect. His life had long been hard, but she believed he had at last achieved success by courage and integrity. Then she began to distrust his association with Clay, and by degrees perplexing doubts had grown up. She was imaginative, and when she began to form a theory, odd facts that had accidentally come to her knowledge had fitted in. Vessels, she knew, were sometimes lost by their owners’ consent and frauds perpetrated on the underwriters. It was horrible to think that, but what Clay had said indicated something of the kind.

Then, as she recovered from the shock, she felt pitiful, and tried to make excuses for her father. He must have been hard pressed when he yielded to temptation, and his partner had, no doubt, placed it in his way. She was filled with a desire to protect him. He must be saved from the evil influence that had led him into wrong. She remembered that Clay had declared he owed her a debt of gratitude. She would remind him of it. He must release her father from whatever hold he had on him; she had a curious confidence that he would do so if she begged it.

She waited, nerving herself for the effort, until he came downstairs and then she beckoned him into the empty drawing-room.

“I suppose my father’s busy?”

“Yes; he has a letter to write.”

Clay leaned carelessly on a chair-back, watching her as she stood quietly confronting him. The intentness of her expression and her stillness were significant. She suspected something, and he was sorry for her; if he could remove her suspicions, he would do so.

“Then he won’t be down for some minutes,” she said. “I have something to say – you have been trying to make him go North with you?”

“No; not exactly. I’m not sure I could make him; he’s pretty determined. Don’t you want him to go?”

“No!” she cried. “You mustn’t take him! And in future you must leave him alone. I can’t let you force him to do things he hates!”

Clay smiled at her vehemence.

“It looks as if you suspected me of leading him astray. Now, in a sense, that’s hardly fair to either of us. Don’t you think your father has a will of his own?”

“I know you have some power over him, and I beg you not to use it.”

Clay pulled out a chair.

“I think you had better sit down while we talk this thing over. To begin with, your father and I are old friends; we have faced hard times together and shared very rough luck. It seems to me that gives us some claim on each other.”

“That is not what I mean,” Ruth said firmly.

Clay was determined to spare her as far as he could.

“Then, if you suspect some other influence, I’d better warn you that you’re too young and inexperienced to form a reliable opinion. You hear something that startles you, and, without understanding it, you make a blind guess. Take it from me that your father is known as one of the straightest business men in this State.” He paused and laughed. “In fact, he’s getting too particular for me. I’m ‘most afraid I’ll have to drop him.”

“That is what I want you to do; I mean as a business partner.”

“Then you wouldn’t quite bar me out as a private acquaintance?”

“No,” Ruth answered slowly. “Somehow, I feel that you might prove a good friend.”

“Thanks. Now I want you to listen. I’m not going to defend my commercial character. I’ve taken up a good many risky deals and put them through, fighting the men who meant to down me as best I could; but all my business hasn’t been a raid on somebody else’s property. In fact, you can’t play the bold pirate too often. Very well; now and then, when I was doing an innocent trade, I wanted a respectable associate as a kind of guarantee, and asked your father to stand in. He’s known as a straight man, and my having him helped to disarm suspicion; I’ll admit that I found him useful in that respect. I hope I’ve said enough to satisfy you?”

Though his manner was humorous, Ruth felt somewhat comforted. His explanation sounded plausible, and she was glad to make the most of it; but it did not banish all her doubts.

“I don’t want him to have anything to do with your northern trip,” she persisted.

“Why?”

Ruth hesitated, and Clay felt moved to sympathy. There was distress and perplexity in her face, but what touched him most was something in her manner that suggested confidence in his ability to help her.

“I’m afraid; I feel that no good can come of it,” she said with an appealing look. “You mustn’t let him have any part in it.”

“Very well.” Clay leaned forward, speaking in an earnest tone. “Set your mind at rest. You have my word that your father shall have no share in what I hope to do at the wreck. What’s more, he doesn’t know all my plans about her. There’s nothing in them that can injure him; on the contrary, if I can carry them out, it will be to his benefit, in a way that he doesn’t expect and that you could find no fault with.”

Ruth felt that he was speaking the truth; giving her a pledge of greater importance than she could gage. His manner had impressed her, and she was conscious of keen relief.

“Thank you,” she said, getting up. “You must forgive my frankness – it seemed needful.”

“It’s a compliment, because it shows that, after all, you have some faith in me.” He added, with a smile, “You won’t regret it.”

Ruth left him with a lighter heart. She did not know whether she had been too hard on Clay or not, but she felt that she could trust him.

CHAPTER XXVI – AN UNEXPECTED DELAY

As soon as Aynsley joined her at Victoria, the handsome schooner-yacht, with its auxiliary engines, got under way. For the first day or two the wind was fair, but although she spread a good deal of canvas, Clay insisted on keeping up a full head of steam.

“She’d slip along fast enough with her propeller disconnected and the gaff-topsails set,” Aynsley expostulated. “Keeping the fires going is a waste of coal.”

“I’m willing to meet the bill,” Clay replied. “Guess I’m used to hustling, and I like to feel I’m getting there.”

“We may get there too soon,” Aynsley persisted. “I expect we’ll find ice about the island.”

“Then we can wait until it clears. Keep her going at her best clip to please me.”

Aynsley promised to do so, though his father’s eagerness made him thoughtful. As a matter of fact, Clay was tensely impatient to begin work on the wreck. He had so far never spoiled an undertaking by undue haste, but he had now a foreboding that if he delayed his attempt he might be too late. His life was threatened, and he must finish the work he had on hand while there was an opportunity.

When they lost sight of Vancouver Island the wind drew ahead, and, furling sail, the yacht proceeded under steam. For two days she made a satisfactory run, and then, as the breeze freshened and the sea got up, her speed slackened and, burdened by her heavy masts, she plunged viciously through the white-topped combers. The weather did not improve, and on the third afternoon Clay stood on the sloppy after-deck impatiently looking about. Gray mist obscured the horizon, and long ranks of frothing seas loomed up ahead. The vessel lurched over them, rolling wildly, burying her bows in the foam, which swept in across her low bulwarks and poured out through the waist gangway in streaky cataracts. The sooty cloud from her funnel streamed far to leeward, and Clay could feel her engines throbbing; but he saw that she was making poor speed, and he beckoned to Aynsley, who came aft and joined him.

“I’ve been watching that log since lunch, and she’s doing very badly,” he said, indicating the dial of a brass instrument on the taffrail. “There’s hardly sea enough to account for it, and they seem to be firing up.”

“Saltom is having some trouble with his condenser,” Aynsley explained. “As you’re anxious to get on, he didn’t want to stop, but the vacuum’s falling.”

“Then I’ll go down and see him; but I’m not an engineer, so you’d better come along.”

They climbed down a greasy iron ladder, and found a man in overalls kneeling beside a big iron casting in the bottom of the engine room. Near by piston-rod and connecting-rod flashed with a silvery glimmer between the throbbing cylinders and the whirling cranks that flung a shower of oil about, and floor-plates and frames vibrated in time to the rhythmic clangor. The engineer held an open lamp, its pale flame flickering to and fro as the vessel rolled, while he watched the index of the vacuum gage.

“You have lost half an inch since I was down,” said Aynsley, stooping beside him.

“She’s surely worrying me,” replied the engineer. “I’ll have to let up on feeding from the hot-well before long, and we haven’t too much fresh water.”

“Are you satisfied it’s not the air-pumps?”

“Can’t see anything wrong with them. I suspect there’s something jambing the main inlet-valve, and the tubes may be foul, though those I took out last season were clean.”

“Why didn’t you scrap the blamed condenser if you doubted it?” Clay broke in. “I haven’t cut your bills, and this boat has got to go when I want her.”

His tone was sharp, and the man looked up with a start.

“I don’t waste my employer’s money,” he began; but Clay cut him short.

“Let that go! She won’t run, you say. What are you going to do about it?”

Aynsley was surprised. Clay had a quick temper, but he generally knew how to keep it in check, and now his voice was hoarse with rage.

“I’d like to stop her right away and see what’s wrong, but it’s a long job to strip a surface-condenser and these castings are heavy to move about.”

“She’d fall off into the trough of the sea when her propeller stopped, and the rolling would make his work very difficult,” Aynsley explained.

“Well,” Clay said shortly, “what do you suggest?”

“I’d like a day or two to overhaul her in, up some inlet where we’d get smooth water,” the engineer replied.

“Do you know of a suitable place?” Clay asked Aynsley.

“Yes; but it’s a little off our course, and would take a day to reach.”

Clay turned with a frown to the engineer.

“He’ll sail her in, but if you’re not through in forty-eight hours, I’ll fire you and scrap this machine!” Then he touched Aynsley’s arm. “Leave him to it, and give your orders to Hartley.”

They went up on deck, and Aynsley saw his father light a cigar and then savagely throw it away; and when he came back after speaking to the skipper Clay was standing in the deckhouse with a small bottle and a wineglass in his hand. He looked at his son angrily, and Aynsley, recognizing the bottle, hastily went out.