The Pirate Story Megapack. R.M. Ballantyne

He envied his ready intimacy with Kitty Whiting and devoted himself to squiring with Lynda Warner. His liking for her readily ripened into real friendship. She would have made a wonderful wife for some chap, he thought, but she had been handicapped. Naturally a man preferred a girl with a pretty face and good figure—such as Kitty Whiting—though Jim did not allow his thoughts to wander in that direction, consciously at least. He found in the elderly spinster a quick appreciation of affairs, discussing with her details of the voyage while Newton haled his cousin off to the observation platform. Not that they did not all have serious consultations. Newton was a partner in the enterprise and full of suggestions, but it was plain that to him the expedition was one of romance and adventure intimately connected with his pretty cousin. He was gay, impractical, good-looking and likeable, if he did attempt to monopolize Kitty. Jim acquitted him early of being a snob.

      Lynda Warner appeared to weigh Newton lightly, though she made no comments. Jim believed that Lynda understood his own feelings toward the girl and sympathized with him. Naturally, he never discussed it. The gap between them was still open and unbridged, he considered. Only in the matter of his reading was he on equal terms. Her life had held a thousand things he had never come in touch with.

      But every now and then Lynda Warner spoke of American democracy. Sometimes she quoted Burns.

      “Every man in this country of ours may not be literally equal,” she said, “but at least he has an equal start in the race of life. It is up to him to win the race. Some are bound to drop behind, but the real man can gain the prizes. Superficial qualities do not count. They can always be acquired. And the man is lucky who has a chance to show his real manhood in the big things.”

      All this was pleasant talk to Jim, though he bent his mind to the task in hand, without contemplation of possible rewards. A man’s first job was his duty, he believed firmly. And he privately subscribed to Lynda Warner’s theories.

      “There are only two classes in America,” she said. “Some call them the rich and the poor; better perhaps the successful and the unsuccessful. It’s grit that tells.”

      When it came to pedigree—which Lynda declared did not count—Jim knew his forebears to be as good as those of those of the Whitings and the Fosters. He had seen the selvage edge of life, and Kitty and Newton the softer nap, that was all. And Kitty’s life had not been without its reverses; had now its present sorrow that she hid under the bright cloak of courage. How she had taken up with business and made a success of it; what a life partner she would make! Too sterling, he could not help but feel, for the airy, ease-loving happy-go-lucky Newton.

      It was Jim’s idea to try and get the vessel they needed from one of the yacht clubs of San Francisco Bay, rather than attempt to purchase a commercial vessel. Those of the latter type likely to be available would be old hulks moored and half rotting over in Oakland Creek. The war had taken all bottoms that were any good. The Alaska Packing Company’s northern fleet consisted of sailing ships; there were scow-bottomed schooners that plied up the Sacramento River and other waterways connected with the bay, but outside these, old hulks and pleasure craft, everything was steam. But he felt sure that on the Pacific, as on the Atlantic Coast, there would be people willing to dispose of their yachts, or charter them. Fortunes had been turned topsy-turvy during the war. Those who had made money were not the kind who understood yachting or looked upon it as a pastime. Those who had lost, on the other hand, were that type of the comparatively leisured class. Moreover, a yacht of the right size and engine power, if they could find out, would be built for comfort aft, and he had the two women to consider.

      Newton Foster had brought along letters from his father to business friends. These letters would undoubtedly act as an open sesame to the clubs of the city, and through them to the San Francisco and Corinthian yacht clubs, whose quarters were, as Jim knew, across the bay at Sausalito and Belvedere. But Jim relied upon the advertisements he might read or insert.

      Arrived in the city, they went to the Palace Hotel where rooms were already reserved for them. It was late afternoon, too late for Newton to present his letters. He proposed a theatre and they went, but no one enjoyed much of the play. They were on the threshold of adventure and eager to step across. Kitty Whiting’s unrest showed in her eyes, in flashes of absent-mindedness. She had not been sleeping since they left Foxfield, Lynda Warner told Jim. Next morning Newton busied himself with his introductions. He was also going, he said, to get hold of all the literature he could concerning the South Seas.

      “Not fiction stuff,” he announced. “Travel. We’ll have to read on the trip to kill time. And I wouldn’t wonder if I came back with news of just the boat we want.”

      There were several advertisements in the papers for the sale of launches and sloops, but none that offered anything suitable. Jim saw disappointment in Kitty Whiting’s face, and for a second saw them failing to get anything at all; his suggestions discredited at the outset; himself looking like a fool stripped of all pretense of knowledge.

      “I’m going to put ads in the Chronicle, Examiner and Bulletin,” he said. She nodded and gave him a look that fired his imagination.

      “I know you’ll get one,” she said. “But the seconds seem like hours and the hours like weeks. Now that we have actually started—it seems to me as if dad was waiting over there eating his heart out for the sight of a sail, waiting, waiting, and growing old. He isn’t a young man, my daddy, and I want—I want—”

      Her lips quivered; her eyes were moist with tears; she gave a pitifully twisted, brave little smile. Right then Jim would have charged through a regiment of devils for her sake, wished he could. Something of it showed in his look, for she said thank you before he answered her at all.

      “I’ll get you one, if I have to turn pirate. It might he a good idea if we went across to Sausalito and then over to Belvedere. There is sure to be someone round the clubhouses. The stewards or the boat-tenders would be likely to know of anything that might be available.” Kitty’s face brightened immediately and she dragged the willing Lynda off to dress. Within the hour they were on the Sausalito ferry, ploughing across toward the strait of the Golden Gate, the loom of Mount Tamalpais ahead of them. The steward of the San Francisco Yacht Club forgot house rules when he saw the ladies and heard Jim’s question, recognizing him immediately for a man of the sea and one who knew blue water.

      “A power schooner?” he said, a little doubtfully. “I don’t know. There’s one in the fleet, the Seamew, built in the East, Gloucester fisherman type. She can outsail anything round here if there’s any sort of weather, and she’s got an engine in her. Her owner was a bluewater man. Name of Rickard. Never more than mate, I understand. But he struck oil, or oil was struck for him and he came into a fortune. First thing he wanted a yacht and had this built. Sailed her round himself—plumb round the Horn, just to say it could be done these days. And they say—” the steward sank his voice to a confidential whisper—“they say he bucko’d his crew so they near mutinied. They quit, anyway, and he had to get others. He’s always short-handed. He’s a visiting member here—we exchange courtesies with a lot of clubs—or I wouldn’t be discussing him, you understand. I don’t know if he’d sell her outright, or even charter her, but I heard him say he was sick of her. Fact is, he don’t get along first rate with all the members. We do most of our racing inside the bay, and he laughs at us for bein’ mollycoddles. And he’s got a professional crew, you see, whereas we are all amateurs—strictly.

      “There’s one or two rumors he’s going to be married to a widow. He’s willing enough, I fancy, and maybe his oil stock looks good to her—begging your pardon, ladies. The point I’m making is that he’s always with her and that she hates yachting. Blows her hair about a bit too much, perhaps,” said the steward with fine scorn.

      “If you could arrange a charter for us,” said Jim, “we should be pleased to allow you the usual agent’s commission.” The steward touched his cap visor.

      “Thank you, sir. I’ll show you the Seamew if you’ll come through to the float. I know the caretaker pretty well. I think I could venture to take you off.”

      “I wouldn’t want to do that,” said Kitty. “It’s like walking into a stranger’s