"This is the kitchen. It has a pantry and a good cooking-stove. There are four bedrooms in the house. This can be yours;--it's the one I used to occupy. This is a spare one. This is Eileen's. You won't require it; and one never knows when Eileen might take it into her head to come up here and live. "This is my Helen's room,--my wife's. It has not been changed since she died." He went in. I remained respectfully in the adjoining apartment. I waited for five minutes. When he returned, there were tears in his eyes. He locked the door with a sigh. "George,--here are the keys to the whole she-bang. There isn't much more to keep me here. You have signed the necessary papers in connection with the trust account for $5,000 in the Commercial Bank of Canada in Vancouver. Draw your wages regularly. Pay Jake his fifty a month at the same time. We find his grub for him. "Run things at a profit if you can, for that's business. Stand strictly to the instructions I have given you regarding orders for supplies from the various camps and from the cannery. Use your own judgment as to credit with the settlers. I leave you a free hand up here. "Send your monthly reports, addressed to me care of my lawyers, Dow, Cross & Sneddon of Vancouver. They will forward them. "If any question should arise regarding the property itself, get in touch with the lawyers." I walked with him down to the launch as he talked. "Thanks to you, George,--I'll get to Vancouver in the small hours of the morning and I will be able to pull out for Sydney in the afternoon of to-morrow. "Good-bye, boy. All being well, I'll be back within a year." In parting with him, as he shook me by the hand, I experienced a tightening in my throat such as I had never felt when parting from any other man either before or since. Yet, I had only known him for two days. I could see that he, also, was similarly affected. It was as if something above and beyond us were making our farewell singularly solemn. CHAPTER IX The Booze Artist I stood watching until the tiny launch rounded the point; then, as the light was still fairly good,--it being the end of the month of May,--and as I had no inclination for sleep as yet, I got into the smallest of the rowing boats that were tied up alongside the wharf, loosed it and pulled leisurely up the bay, with the intention of making myself a little better acquainted with the only living soul with whom I was within hail,--Jake Meaghan. As I ran the boat into his cove, I could hear his dog bark warningly. The door of his barn,--for it was nothing else,--was closed, and it was some time before I heard Meaghan's deep voice in answer to my knock, inviting me to come in and bidding his dog to lie down.