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"I have been reading an account of it in the Insurance Guardian, and it seems to me that there is something worth attending to in the new plan. It looks as if there was life in it, for a company is to be got up called the `Fire and Water Company." "But what is this new plan?" asked Joe, sending forth a violent puff from his pipe, as if to indicate that it would all end in smoke.
He always set everything by the old place, and he had a boy growing up that neither took to his book nor to mill work, and he wanted to farm it too. So Joe got hold of John one day when he come in with some wood, and asked him why he wouldn't take his place for a year or two, if he wanted to get to the village, and let him go out to the old place.
"What'll you charge?" "A dollar and a half, and half-a-dollar for your baggage." "This is all the baggage I have," said Joe, indicating a bundle tied in a red cotton handkerchief. "Then, I'll only charge a dollar and a half," said the hackman. "I'll walk," said Joe. "I can't afford to pay a dollar and a half." "You can't walk; it's too far." "How far is it?"
And Joe having soon forgotten his late perilous adventure, amused himself with the horses. He resolved to make some amends for their long confinement in the stable, and to effect it he galloped them several hours each day over the grounds in the vicinity.
"Well, I suppose, Joe, our best plan will be to tow her away?" "I should think so, sir. When they hear us at it, they may send their boats out after us, but we can beat them off; and I should hardly think that they would try it, for they will be sure that, if we are a privateer, we have been playing the same game as they have, and hiding our guns, and will guess that we carry a strong crew."
"Say!" cried Blake, with sudden thought, "if it's going to be an hour before we start we've got time to get our automatic moving picture camera, Joe." "What for?" "To get some views of this capture. It ought to make a dandy film, and we can set the machine in place, start the motor and then you and I can jump in and help catch these wreckers!" "The very thing!" cried his chum.
By the 14th of October the sledging was sufficiently good for Toolooah to go to Cape Herschel and Terror Bay for the sled and other articles that were left there during the summer for the want of transportation. As his little boy would suffer with the cold, Toolooah exchanged wives with Joe for the trip, a very usual and convenient custom among the Esquimaux.
Joe and Sam stood in the kitchen at work with the dishes; the boy, going busily about, showed the man where to put the clean dishes, and got him dry wiping towels. Sam's coat was off and his sleeves rolled up. The work went on in half awkward silence and a storm went on within Sam's breast.
"I say, Joe, you'd better have a suit made just like this." Joe shuddered at the thought. In refinement of taste he was decidedly ahead of his friend and partner. "I'm going to buy a second-hand suit," he said. "What!" ejaculated Joshua. Joe smiled. "I knew you'd be surprised, but I'll explain. I want people to think at first that I have been unlucky."
Being a sensitive man, Joe felt like a pigmy, a tiny thing walking always in the presence of a giant that might at any moment and by a whim destroy him. All his life he had been somewhat off-hand with his customers. "If they don't like my work, let 'em go to the devil," he said to his apprentices. "I know my trade and I don't have to bow down to any one here."
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