Hawtrey's Deputy

e gale. There were no luxurious, steam-propelled hotels in the Canadian trade just then, and, loaded deep with railway metal as she was, she slopped the green seas in every

r, blew itself out at length, and the evening after it moderated Agatha was sitting near the head of one fiddle-guarded table in the saloon waiting for dinner, which the stewards had still some difficulty in bringing in. Wyllard's place was next to hers, but he had not appeared y

he resented being summoned by a gesture. She did not think anybody else had noticed Wyllard, and she waited with some curiosity to see what he would do. He made a sign with a lifted

ause that would have set everybody wondering what you were wanted for; but on

tor. "I'll see to

d Wyllard. "He's losing

est that you apply

where he is, I

, which I think is as far as your concern in the matter goes. I may add

of the others apparently did, the skipper appear a few paces behind them, and glance at them sharply. He

Wyllard? They were making a great

d Wyllard. "One of the boys

r quietly; but Agatha fancied he had

you had better go

ed, and Wyllard, who entered the saloon wi

u do it?"

Wyllard, attac

other folks to see

as it happens, I'm indebted to his prejudices. He's one of the old type-a seaman first of all-and wha

d not like it, either, bu

d. "What was the trouble over? You were,

each other with tin plates, and some of them tried to use hoop-iron knives, which fortunately doubled up. They broke quite a few of the

encoura

and the slothfulness that's a plague to the community. Is

who pulled his gun in British Columbia was hanged right away, and they've scarce

n't take long to straighten it out. Same feelings in the Germans and Scandin

down the second hatch on to the orlop deck. Th

owd?" sa

mes-log at first, frame and stone afterwards. They go on from a quarter-section and a team of oxen to the biggest farm they can handle, and every fresh furrow they cut enriches all of us. The other kind wan

as a driving force in him that made for progress and order. It was apparently his mission to straighten things out. Some folks of his kind, she reflected, now and then made a good deal of avoidable trouble; but there was in t

ouds flying about her hove up weather side, he almost invariably appeared with a pair of powerful glasses. She was watched over, her wishes anticipated, and the man was seldom obtrusively present when she felt disposed to talk to somebod

p, rolling wildly on grey slopes of sea. Once, too, a tiny dory, half filled with lines and buoys, slid by plunging on the wash flung off by the Scarrowmania's bows, and Agatha understood that the men in her had escaped death by a hairsbreadth. They were cod fishers, Wyll

eas smashing about her bows. It was bitterly cold and clammy, the raw wind pierced to the bone, but the voyage was, at least, rapidly shortening, and one evening Agatha paced the

e in the sight of the fog that hid everything, for she had of late been troubled with a half-apprehensive longing to see what lay before her. In the meanwhile, she noticed the look-out standing, a lonely, shapeless figure, amidst the spray that whir

waying above a strip of hull that moved amidst a broad white smear of foam. It was a brig under fore-course and tops

eadfully near

tle hurled out a great warning blast. It hardly seemed to her that the two ves

arding. We'll go roun

nto a belt of driving fog. She was not sure that there had been any peril, but it was certainly over now, and she was rather puzzled by her sensations when Wyllard had held her shoulder. For one thing, she had felt

ike the fog any more

uiet forcefulness that almos

u go as fa

a very bad few minutes every now and the

ha simply, "if you wo

tched out a hand and pointed to the sliding fog and ranks of tumbling seas. "It was very much this kind of night, and we were lying, reefed down, off

id you want

, as it usually does where the Polar ice comes down into the Behring Sea. They'd

e boat have

om the other schooner. You see, those seals belonged to the Russians, and we free-lances could only shoo

for further particu

o got the wrecked men, but we had trouble while we were getting the boats off again. The surf was running in savagely, and the fog shut down

you to le

ed in a rathe

ns' hands. Well, we cleared the beach, and once or twice as I tried to bale there was a shout somewhere near us, and the loom of a vanishing boat. It was all we could make out, for the sea was slopping into her, an

ached the schooners. There was a nasty sea running then, and it

atha, "they w

it's difficult to see how they could have faced the sea that piled up when the gale came down. In all probability, they had an oar short, a

befallen them if

e been handed over to the Russian authorities. Still

t the gathering darkness. "Now," he

dn't help it,

w mine came out of those schooners. It's just possible those men are l

Agatha went down to the saloon, where Miss Rawlinson, who had not b

music-room to play for Mr.

ur or longer in the little music-room every evening, with Wyllard standing near the

id, "I don't

will wonder it you ha

out wi

ing both of you, and, in a general way, there's

little, but her c

love with me, I'd black his boots for him," she said. Then she add

her with a little

e epithet was not a remarkably fortunate one. "In that connection, I should lik

heighten Gregory's credit, I've nothing more to say. Anyway, I'll reserv

e meanwhile, Mrs. Hastings came upon Wyllard in th

uite seriou

and Gregory," said Wyllard. "In fact,

hich

ions upon Gregory, I someho

, you see, there's the important fact that she's fond of him, and it should smooth out a good many difficu

t them," he said. "I was wondering if she really could be fo

not a man

ut one could fancy that Miss Ismay has changed a good deal since she last saw h

, it isn't y

help feeling a little troubled about the thi

ng out to marry him,

, "is quite uncalled for. I w

e lady sat still in

m with Hawtrey, there can be

spray also froze, and the decks grew slippery, until when darkness came nobody but the seamen faced the stinging cold. Agatha felt the engines stop late that night, and when she went out next morning the decks were white, and she could see dim ghosts of sliding pines

ut against a gloomy, lowering sky. Deck-house, boat, and stanchion dripped, and every now and then the silence was broken by a doleful blast o

and beneath her arm, and led her down to the lighted saloon. Then her heart grew a little