THE Story of Hilary Legh.

Clutha Leader, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 13, 18 August 1911, Page 7

THE Story of Hilary Legh.

BY HAROLD BINDLOSS, Author of "In Niger Land," "Ainslie's Ju-Ju," "A Brave Man's Love/' etc., etc. CHAPTER VI. (Continued.) The Salving of the Sunset City. How they found a settlement of miserable Asiatics and procured dried salmon and a few edible sundries for part of the schooner's iron work does not greatly concern this story, nor how they beached her and with hurried toil scraped the clogging sea-grass off; but Legh gave the fishermen a message for the first of the Czar's officers they came across, which ran: "We intend restoring the schooner Sunset City, illegally confiscated, to her rightful owners, ajid enclose a statement for the Minister of Finance of the Otter's salvage claim. A draft ou the Vancouver Bank of Montreal in favor of would be acceptable." "By the way, Gibson, what is our legitimate owner's name? I never asked. Some syndicate appealed on the shipping papers," he said, pausing with the pencil in his hand. "Registered- owner is the man with most money in that syndicate—Robert Crighton, of Vancouver," said Gibson. "I guess he would appreciate this little joke of yours." Then Legh looked at Morsley, and the American grinned, after which the former sat down on the forehatch staring stupidly at the sea. They kept no log of that voyage, partly because there was no book to keep it in, and it woidd have proved an almost monotonous record of hard work and perils undergone. They patched the perished canvas with fragments of worse, spent most of the fine days splicing rotten halliards and sheets, and found out by bitter experience the smallest modicum of food a man can exist upon. Indeed, but for a few seals and birds the Siwash shot even this would have failed them, and it had almost done so' when at last one day a great white-painted steamer with two cream funnels and a clipper stem came racing up from the westward through the long wash of sparkling seas. Then there was a cry of delirious delight when a deep blast of her whistle saluted the ragged ensign which fluttered over the Sunset City, union down. She was one of the fleet liners which complete the last lap of the long race across two oceans and one continent from London to China, but her commander had time to assits the starving, and when her big engines stopped a white boat came flying through the water before the schooner's emaciated crew had made their first preparations for swinging their dory over. "Well, I'm condemned," said the young officer who leapt down from the bulwarks when he had looked around and heard their story. "You brought her from Northern Siberia with that gear Hungry!—oh, anybody could see that by the look of you. Keep her hove-to for ten minutes while I see what our old man can do. We're crammed fore and aft with passenegrs who want feeding too." It was, however, half-an-heur later before the steamer's mate returned with the lifeboat loaded, to say: "You've got to decide in a hurry—we're running the mails, you see. Old man sends you all the provisions we can spare, besides a few bolts of canvas and some coils of Manila; but his advice is, 'Scuttle her and come on with us.' Y'ou're fifteen hundred miles from Vancouver now in the worst season." There was a consultation, and because Gibson was sick below, Legh, who stood a hollow-faced skeleton at the wheel, said: "We're poor men, and this schooner's hull is good. What can any man expect of gear left furled for eight years in all weathers? Anyway, she's carried us so fur, and we'll just hang on to her. Hero's a receipt for the sundries ; and you can tell the skipper with our grateful thanks he has probably saved our lives."

''Then good luck to you, I'm off," said the liner's mate. "We'll let them know in Vancouver you're coming along" ; and in another ten minutes the passengers crowding the steamer's rail raised a cheer as-the Sunset City's tattered ensign, now hoisted union uppermost, rose thrice and dipped. Thrice the great bass whistle hurled out its farewell, then streaking the sea white behind her the Empress liner raced on to the East again and presently melted into a smoke trail which sank into the sea. "'This craft looks mighty mean and lonesome," said Morsley. "Still, but for her, I guess it's quite likely we'd have hung ourselves up yonder by now —brave old barkie! I guess we were mighty foolish in sticking on to you. Come along with the palm-needles while «e darn up her dress for her." ! They were glad of the bolts of canvas, for a fresh gale from the westward blew most of the Sunset City's manypatched rags away; but with wind and high sea behind her she mide brave travelling under the remnants and a spare tarpaulin for a fore-trysail, while her crew laughed excitedly as, watching a. thing like an egg-glass, they counted the knots the logship whipped out over the taffrail. When they told Gibson, who lay sick and helpless in the stern cabin, he rubbed his bony hands and said: "The Vancouver girls are hauling en the towline. Hang on every stitch that will hang on to her, and let her go—south-east by south it is. She's smoking through it like a freight in a hurry to get there down-grade now." Meantime, with one hatch-plank open above them to let light in, and occasionally half-a-ton of salt water down, two white men, one of whom had no skill in the matter, assisted by an Indian, were sewing new cloths into the •each of the mainsails, and when this "as set with two reefs in it from bows to quarters the Sunset City was buried ] n yeasty foam. Starving, waiting, despairing, gathering hope again, trimming sheets to baffling head winds, and swearing at the calms, her crew had possessed their souls in patience long enough, and now with a fresh gab qtw

s the quarter and every sea swinging -them on their way they were going home at a pace which threatened destruction to the tattering fabric over them. At last the breeze fell lighter, and after lurching for two days over a steep heave of troubled waters there was a roar from the look-out one morning, and Gibson was helped out from the cabin. High up against the eastern sky, hanging as it were suspended in midheaven, and in no way connected with the earth below, there glimmered a serrated line of snow, fairy-like and faint, but unmistakable. Gibson stared at it long and earnestly and no one spoke, for they had had no sight of sun or star for several days and nights. Then a murmur ran along the deck, and his voice was almost husky as he said: "The Olympians! You've made a good rlead reckoning, boys. With a very moderate breeze we'll be running through the Straits of San Juan with Victoria harbor opening ahead by noon to-morrow. After all we've gone through it's hard to believe it." Thereupon a big copper-skinned fisher, swinging his cap aloft towards the mountains with the salutation, "Klahowyah!" solemnly pitched it into the sea, after which he strode up to Legh and smote him hard upon the breast, saying: "Hiyu, white man!" Then, as though ashamed of this display, he stalked forward grunting incoherently. But Legh leaned over the bulwarks watching the dim peaks flush into supernatural glories as the sun swung over the lower heights of the coast-range beyond Vancouver, and wondering what strange fate would befall him in the land of lake and forest beneath them, for he had determined to leave the sealing schooners even before he heard that their owner was Robert Crighton. The fate was even stranger than he could have guessed at. CHAPTER VII. In the Shadow of the Pines. It was a clear, bright afternoon late in the year when Thomas Marvin, master of the auxiliary schooner Otter, then out of commission, sat conversing with his employer in the long, log-built hail of the Cedar Kanche. The snows had crept down by gradations to the foot of the steep ranges that walled Robert Crighton's possessions in, outlining the sombre ranks of climbing pines on a sparkling silver field; but winter touched that valley which was open to the Pacific breezes at its western end but lightly. Thomas Marvin sat by a window with the sunlight on his rugged face, ancj Crighton, who bent over a large chari on the table, looked up, saying: "I suppose there's little hope of them ever turning up again; but after my experience in this trade I should be slow to conclude the men you lost were actua' y dead. You paid their share in the catch a.id wages over to the Board of Trade, I suppose? Did they ask any questions when you produced the log?" Marvin's eyes twinkled as he v.nswered: "They did. The Boa.d of Trade is just burned up with an unholy curiosity, but all they found out was that tiie poor fellow got adrift after paying a visit to a Iriendly Russian cruiser. Oh, yes, I paid their share in, and a mighty lot of trouble they'll have if they ever turn up to get it out again. We made a good haul on that ovyage; but 1 don't know but what I'd give my share of the proceeds to see that boat's crew safe ashore. I beg your pardon, sir; what were you observing?" "Only that you will have a chance of doing it," said Crighton, caustically. "See here, Marvin, you landed on that beach against my orders —most of skippers do it, you say—well, it will be bad for the next of mine who does it again. Russians' feelings?—no! sir. If circumstances permitted I'd fit out a privateer ; but I can't have more lives recklessly thrown away. There's blood on too much of my money already, and, though only my cashier knows it, I'm paying a yearly subsidy on account of what happened to the Sunset City." "A bad business!" said Marvin. "The smartest vessel in all the fleet. Aie our talkers in Ottawa asleep?" and Crighton broke in: "The case of the Otter is worse. I could stir up the authorities over the other affair and get some of the men sent home. In this instance 1 can say nothing, but only help myself; and 1 mean to do it. I believe the Russians have got them, and the Otter goes north as soon as ever the ice will be clear; but she goes along the Siberian coast to—buy, smoked salmon, say—as well as fishing; and if she finds any trace of the men, her master will have to bring them off. After your own observation I'll allow you to invest part of your profits in that expedition." Marvin stared blankly for a moment or two, and remembered what some of the latter's commercial rivals said about his employer; then Crighton, who could read most men's thoughts, laughed harshly as he said: "Somebody has told you that I'm getting shaky in my head; well, you can believe it when I've done with you. See here, I've lost three schooners—two unjustly—and while I have the dollars I'm longing to get even without disturbing any Minister's sleep. What is it you are thinking about now ?" "Only that I'd like to take charge on your own terms, sir," said Thomas Marvin. "You shall!" said Crighton. "Let me see; there was poor Gibson, Carsley, and the two new men, Lea and on American. You thought a good deal of the last two?" "Edmund Lea was an Englishman with a kind of tone about him," said Mervin. "Still —and they're not all made that way—he was a smart man, and a general favorite with my crew. The American?—well, he was one of the cutest, merriest rascals a sheriff ever ran out of California. The Russians won't find it easy to hold these two." "There will be time to talk things over ere the spring,, and we can work out details again," answered Crighton. "I'm going Tip the valley to meet the hunters now." It was about this time when Lilian Crighton, whose cheeks the cold wind from the heights had kissed into a ruddy color, stood under a big hemlock looking down on » foe* which Wilfred

Huntingdon had just dropped from his shoulders. He stood close beside her with his broad hat thrust back from his forehead, stalwart and picturesque in fringed deerskin jacket worked by some Blackfoot squaw east of the Rockies, with the snow of the higher forests on his leggings; but he was looking halfwistfully at his companion instead of the deer, which was perhaps not surprising. With glossy hair just showing benea.th the neat fur cap, and the sunlight that slanted through the great red-barked arches flickering among its meshes, .now fresh in color and shapely in form, she made a picture that was worthy of any man's inspection. "Poor beast! And an hour ago it was full of strength and life," she said, turning her glance, away from the fixed glassy eyes of the deer. "Wilfred, it seems horribly cruel, doesn't it?" And the surveyor, looking at her in a bewildered fashion, said: "In one way, I suppose it does; but, after all 4 we're only beasts of prey ourselves, and live by destruction. That is to say—l mean most of us are—but you, you are an "He was going to say an angel, but something in the girl's face restrained him, and he added awkwardly: "You are more like a humming-bird that lives on the breath of flowers. But, seriously, Lilian, I'm puzzled about you lately. You used to shoot well yourself. If it would please you 1 would never kill a deer again." Lilian laughed softly. "I have no right to ask sue!) a sacrifice, especially after the compliment. You have acquired quite a vivid imagination during the last few weeks," she said. "One or two things happened which changed my tastes in that direction, but 1 fancy I could handle a rifle still. "Will you lend me your Winchester?" (To be continued.)