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Few words were spoken, and she could not remember what she said, but when he swung himself up again and the wagon jolted away into the white prairie she went back to the house with a feeling of loss and depression. For a fortnight after they reached Vancouver Wyllard and Dampier were very busy.
It struck her as strange that his admission should have aroused in her very little indignation; but she felt that it would be unreasonable to suspect this man of anything that savored of impertinence. His manner was reassuring, and she liked his face. "Well?" she said inquiringly. Wyllard waved his hand toward a big oak trunk that lay just inside the gate.
In any case, Wyllard was satisfied when they thrashed the Selache out of the inlet under whole mainsail in a fresh breeze, and when evening came he sat smoking near the wheel in a contemplative mood as the climbing forests and snow-clad heights dropped back astern. He wondered what his friends were doing upon the prairie, and whether Agatha had married Gregory yet.
For several hours the Selache stretched out close-hauled into what they supposed to be open water, and they certainly saw no ice. They hove her to, and when the wind fell light brought her round and crept back slowly upon the opposite tack. Wyllard had gone to sleep after his day of anxious work, and daylight was just breaking when he next went out on deck.
He paused and pointed towards the distant sea. "You have got to push right on with Lewson as fast as you can while I try to bring the Siwash along." Wyllard started in the next few minutes, and afterwards never quite forgot the strain and stress of that arduous march.
It was clear to Wyllard that he was to a large extent in this man's hands already, since he could not reach the inlet without provisions, and Overweg could, if he thought fit, send back a messenger to the Russian authorities. He was one who could think quickly and make a momentous decision, and he realised that if he could not win the man's sympathy there must be open hostility between them.
"No," he objected, "there are two other and wiser courses. Tell the girl what things are like here, and just how you stand. She'd face it bravely. There's no doubt of that." Hawtrey looked at him sharply. "I believe she would, but considering that you have never seen her, I don't quite know why you should be sure of it." Wyllard smiled. "The girl who wrote that letter wouldn't flinch."
While Wyllard pondered upon these things he went to sleep and slept soundly, though Dampier expected to raise the beach some time next morning.
Agatha saw Wyllard slip between the doctor and the entrance to the saloon, but she saw also the skipper appear a few paces behind them, and glance at them sharply. He was usually a silent man, at home in the ice and the clammy fog, but not a great acquisition in the saloon. "Something wrong down forward, Mr. Wyllard? They were making a great row a little while ago," the skipper said.
Now and then Wyllard felt a curious shrinking as he glanced at Lewson, for his fixed look suggested what he had borne in the awful solitudes of the frozen North. Slowly, with infinite toil, they crossed the weary leagues, lying at night with a single skin between them and the soil, for they traveled light.
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