CHAPTER XX

*

*THE GRAND COUP*

The _Phantom_ was becalmed. The heated atmosphere was freighted with smoke that hung tissuelike along the shores of the Sound, showing only the ghostly lines of the forest. The deck and the white sails reflected, intensified the glare of the sky and the shimmering sea. The top of the cabin and the seats were sprinkled with fine white ashes, and flakes sifted slowly through the still air.

"Some rancher starts his brush pile burning, or a prospector fails to put out his camp-fire, and to pay for it, here is the whole country ablaze; it ought to be a state's prison crime." Kingsley pulled his cap over his cloudy brows and leaned back in his seat, tired and bored.

Stratton, to whom the remark was addressed, made no response. He was stretched full length on a blanket spread on a shady strip of the deck. Like the sea, he was motionless, and a silk handkerchief, laid over his face, outlined his features gruesomely.

Presently Philip started erect and took off his cap. He threw it on the seat beside him, and ran his fingers, defining wavy ridges, through his hair. "It's no use, Stratton," he said, "I'm in a hole. Come, wake up, I want to talk things over."

Stratton swept aside the handkerchief and rose on his elbow. "I am listening," he answered, "but I am afraid of this glare; it brings on this infernal pain in my head. I must get to New York or somewhere, and see an oculist. Anyway, what is the use of going all over the ground again, Captain? We discussed it thoroughly yesterday and the day before. It amounts to this,--you have plunged a little beyond your depth. You are afraid that the mills will be attached for your own personal debts, and when Judge Kingsley comes home, in a few weeks, he is going to find, well, not what he expects, unless--"

"He's going to find that I've made a tremendous mess of things," Philip broke in. "I've got to ask him, first of all, to put up for me, and he can't afford to. Why, he won't be able; he can't sell anything; real estate is dead, completely; he's land-poor, like everybody else these times. Besides, he's gone security for people; he's been ready to stake any one who voted for him--or says he did. They've got him all tied up in new town sites, fisheries, every sort of a scheme."

"If my schooner had made good," said Stratton, "I would be glad to tide you through. But that was pretty hard luck, Captain. I put my faith in her; I could have sworn by that master and crew. And she had picked up a fine lot of peltries, fifteen hundred prime sealskins, when she struck that rock off Unimak Pass and went down. She cost me a good deal of money; I was hard pressed to outfit her, and now--nothing to show for it."

"Too bad," answered Kingsley thoughtfully, "too bad. I guess, Mark, we're in the same hole, together."

There was a brief silence, then Stratton said, "There is just one way out, Captain."

"You mean--well, just what do you mean?"

"I mean with your standing, your family relations, above all to Judge Silas Kingsley, it would be perfectly safe; the _Phantom_ could go unsuspected anywhere; carry anything. And you know every island, current, tide-rip, shoal from Seattle to British Columbia. Then--there is that lonely old ruin around the bluff at Freeport. Why, at high tide you could run almost under the walls."

Philip laughed unpleasantly. "You are reckoning without my wife. She's the sort of woman to make it a matter of conscience and give the whole thing away."

"She would, I have no doubt of it, if she knew." Stratton paused a moment, then said, "It is very unfortunate you never took that house you talked so much about taking, in town. But how is it you never bring her with us on a cruise, now? She used to like the water."

A wave of color crossed Philip's open face. "See here," he said, "leave my wife out."

"As you like." Stratton shrugged his shoulders. "But if you had set up that establishment in town it would have been the best thing for her, and--for Forrest."

"For Forrest?"

"Yes. When two are young, you know, and have practically no other companionship--"

"Oh, you don't know her," Kingsley interrupted lightly; "you don't know Forrest."

"I know that she is a very bright and pretty woman; one of the most interesting I ever met. The kind any man would look at twice. And Forrest is a well set up fellow; the sort all women like. Then, too, music is her passion, and you know what he can do with his violin; he makes it a voice; it speaks for him."

"Paul is a good fellow," answered Philip, growing annoyed; "one in a hundred; a man you can trust. I've known him all my life."

"Possibly," said Stratton, "possibly, but when you have a man to deal with, it is safer to appraise him as such and not as a saint. But, Captain, leaving Mrs. Kingsley out, there is some one I could put in charge of it--there at the ruin. He is familiar with the network of by-ways south and east to the Cascades; under pressure he can travel on his own trail. He could carry the stuff from the top of Duwamish Head by horse, directly to that lodge of mine up the Nisqually. The country there is so rough, so full of natural hiding-places, above all it is so far from the border, it could be cached indefinitely, until I was able to dispose of it in lots at Portland. Or, I had rather convey it in large amounts over the Pass to the Palouse wilderness, and board an east-bound train on the Columbia, somewhere, with a view to making a hunting trip to the Yellowstone. It could be easily forwarded in the camp outfit, and so on to Chicago--perhaps New York."

"You seem to have it pretty well planned," said Kingsley dryly.

Stratton met his look steadily. "I have," he answered.

"Great Scott. Great Scott, it's true, then. Forrest was right; Bates was right; you are connected with that ring."

Stratton smiled. "I admit I once served an apprenticeship."

"You once served an apprenticeship?" repeated Philip quickly. "You mean you are now able to conduct one of your own. And--you know a man who can take charge of the dope at that old hotel. See here, tell me this, have you tried the experiment there, already?"

Stratton nodded his head. "Several times. I had to, Captain. It was my only way to make the final payments on my schooner; she cost me more than I expected; and I had to outfit her."

"What I want to know is, did you smuggle any of the stuff over on my yacht?"

Again Stratton nodded. "You see how well the scheme worked. You never suspected it."

"I could inform on you," said Kingsley hotly. "I will do it, by George, the first time I see Bates."

"No,"--Stratton watched his victim's face,--"you will not, Captain, when you stop to think."

"Why not?"

"Because you yourself would be implicated."

Instantly Kingsley was on his feet. His brilliant eyes flashed. But while he expressed his indignation Stratton remained in his lounging position, smiling, mocking, almost indifferent. "I would like to know, though," said Philip at last, with tempered heat, "just how you would settle the question of the purchase price at Victoria."

Then Stratton rose and came over to the helm. "Leave that with me, Captain," he said. "Understand, all you've got to do is to run the _Phantom_; nothing else concerns you. And I promise to hurry the business through, and see you out of the hole, with firm ground to stand on, in one grand coup."

Kingsley was silent. Presently he went forward into the bows, and stood looking off to where the silver smoke film met the shining sea. Finally his lips breathed a whistle. Stratton had taken his place at the tiller. He lighted a cigar and settled himself comfortably, but his eyes were fixed watchfully on the man forward. It was the look of a gambler who has staked high, and is sure, yet not sure of his antagonist.

At last a shadow cut the Sound far out, northward; the streak broadened, the mainsail flapped loosely, and the _Phantom_ heeled to the sudden flaw. Kingsley sprang to the sheets. The gust passed but was followed by another, veering westerly, and another still, that steadied to a freshening breeze.

Philip came back to the helm. "Well," he said, "it looks like Seattle to-night, after all; dinner, perhaps, at the Arlington."

But Stratton, looking in his companion's face, started a little, and with his hand still on the tiller, swung the _Phantom_ slowly around, shaping a course for Victoria.

They did not dine in Seattle that night, but the next evening found them at _table d'hote_ in the English city. Later, in the long northern twilight, the little yacht crept out of the winding harbor and coasted the island northward to an obscure, forest-girt cove, where she came to anchor.

*