"You can't get over that," he said simply.
Wyllard strode up and down the room, and when he sat down again with a clenched hand laid upon the table he and the sailorman looked at each other steadily for a moment or two. Then the stranger made a little gesture.
"You sent them," he said, "what are you going to do?"
The sailorman smiled. "I knew it would be that. You'll have to start right away if it's to be done this year. I've my eye upon a schooner."
He lighted a cigar, and settled himself more comfortably in his chair. "Well," he said, "I'm coming with you, but you'll have to buy my ticket to Vancouver. It cleaned me out to get here. We'd a difficulty with a blame gunboat last season, and the boss went back on me. Sealing's not what it used to be. Anyway, we can fix the thing up later. I won't keep you from your friends."
Wyllard went out and left him, and though he did not see Mrs. Hastings just then he came upon Agatha sitting outside the house. She glanced at his face when he sat down beside her.
"Ah," she said, "you have had the summons."
Wyllard nodded. "Yes," he said, "that man was the skipper of a schooner I once sailed in. He has come to tell me where those three men are."
Then he told her quietly what he had heard, and the girl was conscious of a very curious thrill.
"You are going up there to search for them?" she said. "Won't it cost you a great deal?"
She saw his face harden as he gazed at the tall wheat, but his expression was very resolute.
"Yes," he admitted, "that's a sure thing. Most of my dollars are locked up in this crop, and there's need of constant watchfulness and effort until the last bushel's hauled in to the elevators. It probably sounds egotistical, but now I've got rid of Martial I can't put my hand on any one as fit to see the thing through as I am. Still, I have to go for them. What else could I do?"
"Wouldn't the Provincial Government of British Columbia, or your authorities at Ottawa take the matter up?"
Wyllard's smile was somewhat grim. "It wouldn't be wise to give them an opportunity. For one thing, they've had enough of sealing cases, and that isn't astonishing. We'll say they applied for the persons of three British subjects who are supposed to be living somewhere in Russian Asia--and for that matter I couldn't be sure that two of them aren't Americans--the Russians naturally enquire what the men were doing there. The answer is that they were poaching the Russians' seals. Then the affair on the beach comes up, and there's a big claim for compensation and trouble all round. It seems to me the last thing those men--they're practically outlaws--would desire would be to have a Russian expedition sent up on their trail. They would want to lie hidden until they could somehow get off again."