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"She's been wanting to go on a vacation. When I heard about it I asked her how she'd like a cruise to Alaska remember we have the Tillicum leaving at six to-night for St. Michael's. She said that would be fine; so I gave her a pass and the owner's suite on the Tillicum." "So I hear. Her trunk was sent to the Tillicum's dock this morning and she has her suit case in the office.
So I decided to play safe and ask sixty per cent. of the through rate, figuring that the Panama Railroad would give it to me rather than have the Tillicum's cargo diverted over their competitor's road at Tehuantepec.
When they reached the inlet the river fell into, and found only the Tillicum's dinghy lying on the shingle, Nasmyth, looking down the lane of smooth green water somewhat anxiously, noticed that the sea was flecked with white. The Tillicum, as he remembered, was also lying well out from the beach. "We had better get off at once," he said. "The breeze is freshening, and this dinghy isn't very big."
Martial was brusque in mariner, and, though that is not usually resented in British Columbia, he now and then went even further than is considered permissible in that country, and he had gained the sincere dislike of the red-haired George, who acted as the Tillicum's deck-hand, cook, and skipper.
There was not a breath of wind, and the night was soft and warm, when Nasmyth lay stretched upon the Tillicum's deck, with his shoulder against the saloon skylights and a pipe in his hand. The little steamer lay with her anchor down under a long forest-shadowed point, behind which a half-moon hung close above the great black pines.
He was the man who had followed Miss Hamilton out on to the veranda one night, and Nasmyth, who did not like him, understood that he was connected with a big land exploitation agency. Nasmyth felt more or less contented with everything, as he lay upon the Tillicum's deck listening to the faint murmur of the swell upon the boulder beach.
Acton would have been pleased had she known where Miss Hamilton was, the matter was, he reflected, after all, no concern of his. It was with somewhat natural misgivings, the next afternoon, that Nasmyth strolled forward along the Tillicum's deck toward the place where Mrs. Acton was sitting.
"Not in that dinghy, any way," answered Nasmyth. "She has knocked all one bilge in. They'll probably send the Tillicum's gig ashore for us by-and-by." "But she's going away!" said the girl, with a gasp of consternation. Nasmyth, who turned round, saw that this was certainly the case.
Their progress was slow, for there was no trail at all, and while they laboriously plodded over the shingle, or crept in and out among the thickets, the wail of the breeze grew louder. Half an hour had passed when the faint hoot of the Tillicum's whistle reached them among the trees. "What can the skipper be whistling for?" asked the girl.
He endeavoured to keep awake, and resolutely straightened himself once or twice, but at last his eyes closed altogether, and he did not hear the shriek of the Tillicum's whistle ring far across the shadowy Bush.
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