Thrice Armed by Harold Bindloss — Read

It was a still, clear evening when Jimmy stood at the _Shasta_'s gangway waiting to receive his guests. She lay out in the Inlet, and he could see the two boats sliding across the smooth, green water with a measured splash of oars, while the voices of their occupants reached him faintly through the clatter of a C. P. R. liner's winches and the tolling of a locomotive bell ashore. A thin jet of steam simmered about the _Shasta_'s rusty funnel, and she lay motionless on the glassy brine, with cracked and splintered decks, and what paint a long exposure to rain and sun had not removed peeling from her. Jimmy had had no time to spare for any attempt at decoration during the voyage down Puget Sound. Indeed, he and his engineer felt thankful they had succeeded in bringing her round at all.

By and by the first boat ran alongside, and, because she belonged to the _Shasta_, Jimmy was relieved to see that there was, after all, not a very great deal of water in her, though his guests sat with their feet drawn up. There were several of them: Jordan, who wore among other somewhat unusual garments a frock-coat, and was talking volubly; Eleanor, in elaborate white dress and a very big white hat; old Leeson, Forster and his wife. Jimmy helped them up with difficulty, for the _Shasta_ was floating high and light and had not been provided with a passenger ladder. Something in his sister's face perplexed him when at last they stood on deck. Eleanor was quieter than usual, and when she looked at him there was a trace of color in her cheeks he could not quite account for.