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Wagstaff had caused the stockholders of Free Gold a heavy loss which was only offset by the fact that the Free Gold properties were producing richly. None of this was even openly flung at her. She gathered it piecemeal. And it galled her. She could not openly defend either Bill or herself against the shadowy scandalmongers.
"I have got plenty to see you through. And you can easily buy clothes." They were now ten days on the road. Their course had lain across low, rolling country, bordered by rugged hills, spotted with lakes, and cut here and there by streams that put Bill Wagstaff to many strange shifts in crossing.
Hazel at once appropriated the baby. It lay peacefully in her arms, staring wide-eyed, making soft, gurgly sounds. "The little dear!" Hazel murmured. "Lauer, our name iss," the man said casually, when they were seated. "Wagstaff, mine is," Bill completed the informal introduction. "So?" Lauer responded. "Id hass a German sount, dot name, yes." "Four or five generations back," Bill answered.
Bill Wagstaff had once told her that few people know just what they can do until they are compelled to try, and upon this, her second journey northward, the truth of that statement grew more patent with each passing day. Little by little the vast central interior of British Columbia unfolded its orderly plan of watercourses, mountain ranges, and valleys.
She could not escape the conclusion that Roaring Bill Wagstaff was something of a law unto himself, capable of hewing to the line of his own desires at any cost. She realized her utter helplessness, and the realization left her without words. He had drawn a vivid picture, and the instinct of self-preservation asserted itself. "You misled me." She found her voice at last. "Why?"
In 1861 was built, in company with other parties, the S. H. Kimball, 418 tons; in 1863 the Wagstaff, 412 tons; in 1864 the J. F. Gard, 370 tons; in 1865 the schooner Escanaba, 568 tons; in 1866-7, the schooner Negaunee, 850 tons, a splendid vessel, costing over $52,000, which has been running in the Lake Superior iron ore trade, and which has proved a very profitable investment; in 1868 he built the schooner Fayette Brown, 713 tons, and the tug W. Cushing, for harbor towing; in 1869 the S. F. Tilden, 1,000 tons, was launched from the yard of Quayle & Martin, completing the list of vessels built by or for Captain Bradley, making a list of nineteen vessels, and a tug, besides a number of vessels purchased.
And she could not recall one not even Jack Barrow with whom she would have felt at ease in a similar situation. She knew that there was a something about her that drew men. If the presence of her had any such effect on Bill Wagstaff, he painstakingly concealed it. And she was duly grateful for that. She had not believed it a characteristic of his type the virile, intensely masculine type of man.
He had often had that appeal made to him before, but tonight from Janet's lips it seemed to have a new force for him, and he gave way. At first, indeed, he only did so on condition that she would let Mrs. Wagstaff go with her; but Janet had determined to walk home alone. She preferred solitude; she wished not to have her present feelings distracted by any conversation.
"I dare say it's quite an impertinent question, and you'd be well within your rights to tell me it's none of my business. But I should like to confound some of these petty tattlers. I haven't been home forty-eight hours; yet I've heard tongues wagging. I hope there's nothing in it. I warned Mr. Wagstaff against Paul." "Warned him? Why?" Hazel neglected the question entirely.
Murch, smiling, suggested that the bleeding begin as soon as possible. In the Guardian itself, opinion was divided. No one in the office knew much, if anything, about the new underwriter, and most of the men were inclined, in view of Mr. Wintermuth's recommendation, to take him at his own assessed valuation. But not so Wagstaff, and not so Smith.
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