The Boy Ranchers of Puget Sound Part 9

"Your father doesn't seem inclined to look at it that way."

Harry laughed. "I'll allow that there's a good deal of sense in dad. It would be clear to him that he couldn't well give them away afterward if he did nothing this time. They'd certainly have got him; and dad's not the man to let a gang of dope runners order him round." He paused a moment, and added significantly: "If they try any bluffing in this case there'll be trouble."

Frank asked no further questions and they set about the trenching.

CHAPTER VI

AT THE HELM

Mr. Oliver did not come back until nightfall. He said nothing about his visit to the settlement and several days pa.s.sed before the boys heard anything further of the matter. In the meanwhile they went on with the drain they were cutting across a swampy strip of clearing, and one afternoon they stood in the bottom of the four-foot trench. Harry was then busy with a grubhoe, cutting through the roots and breaking up the wet soil, which his companion flung out with a long-handled shovel. It was unpleasantly hot, and the flies were troublesome. Frank's hands were too muddy to brush them away and they crawled about his face and into his ears. He had already decided that draining was about the last occupation he would have chosen for a scorching afternoon, had the choice been open to him.

He stood, stripped to s.h.i.+rt and trousers, in about a foot of water, and because he had not learned the trick of pitching out the soil, part of every shovelful fell back upon him. His s.h.i.+rt was spattered all over, and patches of sticky mire glued it to his skin. There was no doubt that ranching was considerably less romantic than he had supposed it to be, and logging and ditching struck him as particularly uninteresting and somewhat barbarous work, but he was beginning to realize that all the agricultural prosperity of his country was founded on toil of a very similar kind. The wheat and the fruit trees would not grow until man with patient labor had prepared the soil for them, and, what was more significant, Mr. Oliver had made it plain that their yield varied in direct proportion with the work bestowed on them. Nature's alchemy, it seemed, could trans.m.u.te the effort of straining muscle into golden sheaves, glowing-tinted apples, and velvet-skinned peaches and prunes.

It was clear to Frank that if he meant to become a rancher he must make up his mind to face a good many unpleasant tasks, and he swung up the mire shovelful by shovelful, though his back and limbs were aching and he had to work in a horribly cramped position. He was young, and though there were times when the work seemed almost too much for him, it was consoling to feel when he laid down his tools at night that he was growing harder and tougher with every day's toil, for his muscles were now beginning to obey instead of mastering him. He could go on for several hours after they commenced to ache, without its costing him any great effort.

By and by, however, there was an interruption, and Frank was by no means sorry when Mr. Oliver came up with a stranger and called them out of the trench.

"This is Mr. Barclay whose business is connected with the collection of the United States revenue," he said. "I believe he would like a little talk with you."

He walked away and left them with the stranger, who sat down on a log and took out a cigar. He was a little man and rather stout, dressed carelessly in store clothes, with a big soft hat and a white s.h.i.+rt which bulged up above the opening in his half-b.u.t.toned vest. It occurred to Frank that he looked like a country doctor. From out rather bushy eyebrows shone a pair of whimsical, twinkling eyes. When he had lighted his cigar he indicated the trench with a large, plump hand.

"Been making all that hole yourselves?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," replied Harry.

"Interesting work?"

"That depends on how you look at it," said Harry flippantly. "Would you like to try?"

Mr. Barclay waved his hand. "It isn't necessary. Did something of the same kind years ago--only, if I remember, it was rather wetter."

"Where was that?" Harry inquired with an air of languid politeness, at which Frank felt inclined to chuckle.

"Place called Forks b.u.t.te Creek. It was a twenty-foot trench."

Harry seemed astonished and his manner suddenly changed.

"You were with the boys at Forks b.u.t.te when they swung the creek?"

"Sure," a.s.sented Mr. Barclay with a laugh. "I didn't expect you'd have heard of it. You certainly weren't ranching then."

"I've heard of it lots of times," declared Harry, turning excitedly to Frank. "It was one of the biggest things ever done by a few men this side of the Cascades. The old-timers talk about it yet. A mining row--there were about a dozen of them working some alluvial claims on a disputed location. I don't know the whole of it, but the thing turned upon the frontage, and they stood off a swarm of jumpers while they s.h.i.+fted the creek."

"Something like that," said Mr. Barclay. "In those days they interpreted the mining laws with a certain amount of sentiment, which--and in some respects it's a pity--they don't do now." He paused and flicked the ash from his cigar. "I understand you have been seeing a mysterious schooner."

His tone was sufficiently ironical to put Harry on his mettle, and he furnished a full and particular account of the vessel. When he had finished Mr. Barclay glanced at him with amus.e.m.e.nt in his eyes.

"You have an idea there might be smugglers on board of her?" he suggested.

"It's more than an idea. I'm sure."

"I wonder if you could tell me why?"

It was rather difficult to answer, but Harry made the attempt, furnis.h.i.+ng his questioner with half a dozen reasons which did not seem to have much effect on him.

"Well," he persisted, "you're convinced she had opium and Chinamen on board her?"

"Aren't you?"

Mr. Barclay looked up with a smile. "At the present moment I can't form an opinion. After all, it's possible."

He rose, and as he was strolling away toward the house Harry's face contracted into an indignant frown.

"That man must have been cooking, or something of the kind, at Forks b.u.t.te," he broke out contemptuously. "Anyway, it was the last time he ever did anything worth talking about. Did you ever run up against such a stuffed image?"

Frank was far from certain that this description was altogether applicable to the stranger, but Harry seemed so much annoyed that he did not express his opinion, and they got down into the trench again. When they went back to the ranch an hour later they heard that Mr. Oliver and Mr. Barclay had gone to a neighboring ranch and intended to make a journey into the bush if they could borrow horses. When the boys were eating breakfast the next morning Miss Oliver turned to Harry.

"We have run out of pork, and the flour is almost gone," she said. "I meant to ask your father to bring some when he went up to the settlement, but I forgot it, and Jake must bring in those steers to-day."

"We'll go," broke in Harry quickly. "There's a nice sailing breeze."

His aunt looked doubtful. "You have never been so far with the sloop unless Jake was with you; and isn't there a nasty tide-rip somewhere?

Still, I don't know what I shall do unless I get the flour."

She yielded when Harry insisted; and shortly afterward the boys paddled off to the sloop and made the canoe fast astern. They set the big gaff mainsail and Harry sculled her out of the cove before he hoisted the jib. Then he made Frank take the helm.

"It's a head wind until we're round the point yonder, but you'll have to learn to sail her sometime," he said. "The first thing to remember is that she'll only lie up at an angle to the wind and if you make it too small she won't go through the water. You want to feel a slight strain on the tiller."

He hauled the sheets in until the boom hung just over the boat's quarter, and while Frank grasped the tiller she slid out into open water. Bright suns.h.i.+ne smote the little tumbling green ridges that had here and there crests of snowy foam, and she bounded over them with a spray cloud flying at her bows. She seemed to be making an excellent pace, but Harry shook his head.

"No," he objected, "you're letting her fall off. That is, the angle you're sailing her at is too big. She'll go faster that way, but she won't go so far to windward. Don't pull so much on your tiller and she'll come up closer."

Frank tried it, but the boat sailed more slowly, and presently her mainsail flapped.

"Now you're too close," warned Harry. "You're trying to head her right into the wind. Pull your helm up again."

Frank did so, and when the boat gathered speed he ventured a question.

"If you keep her too close to the wind she won't sail, and if you let her fall off she's not going where you want. How do you find out the exact angle she ought to make?"

Harry laughed. "It depends on the boat, the cut of her sails, and how smart you are at the helm. One man would shove her to windward a point closer than another could and keep her sailing faster, too. It's a thing that takes time to learn, and there are men you couldn't teach to sail a boat at all."

Frank found that it became easier by degrees, though his companion did not appear altogether satisfied. The sloop had dipped her lee rail just level with the water now, and she rushed along, bounding with a lurch and splash over the small froth-tipped seas. He began to understand how one arrived at the proper angle by the slant at which the wind struck his face as well as by watching the direction of the seas which came charging down to meet her in regular formation. Then Harry said that as they had stretched out far enough to clear the point they would go about upon the other tack.

"Shove your helm down--that's to lee--not too hard!" he ordered, and as Frank obeyed him there was a sharp banging of sail cloth and the boat, swinging around, swayed upright.