s looking like a leak in a bone dry bar'l. My name's Aylin P.
Cantor, Vancouver, B.C. Maybe you know the name?"

Bull shook his head.

"I'm not--"

"Oh, it don't matter," interjected Mr. Cantor. "You see, the West's one
hell of a long way--west. I just didn't get your--"

"Oh, my name's Sternford."

Mr. Cantor's face beamed.

"Why I'm glad to know you, Mr. Sternford," he exclaimed. Then a quick,
enquiring upward glance of his shrewd eyes suggested recollection. "But
say--you ain't Sternford of Labrador? The groundwood outfit up at--up
at--"

"Sachigo?"

"That's it, sure. Guess I'd lost the name a moment."

Bull nodded amusedly.

"Yes. That's where I hail from. And, as you say, there's big stuff up
there, too."

"Big? Why I'd say. Well, now! That's fine! I've heard tell big yarns of
Labrador. It's just great meeting--"

The man broke off at the sound of the first blast of the dressing bugle.

"Why, it's later than I guessed," he said. "Anyway, you'll take a
cocktail with me? This vessel's good and wet, thanks be to Providence,
and the high seas being peopled with fish instead of cranks. I hadn't a
notion I was goin' to run into a real lumberman on this trip. It's done
me a power of good."

* * * * *

Aylin P. Cantor was a diverting creature for all his appearance of
ostentatious prosperity. Good fortune had undoubtedly been his, and his
whole being seemed to have become absorbed in the trade which had so
generously treated him. Before the cocktail was consumed Bull had
listened to a long story of British Columbia, and forests of
incomparable extent. He had also learned that a country estate, miles in
extent, outside the city of Vancouver, and the luxuries associated with
the multi-millionaire had fallen to the lot of Aylin P. Cantor. But
somehow there was no offence in it all. The man was just a bubbling
fount of enthusiasm and delight that this was so. He simply had to talk
of it.

But the acquaintance was not to terminate over a cocktail. Shipboard
offers few avenues of escape to the man seeking to avoid another. So it
came that Bull found himself sipping a brandy, reputed to be one hundred
years old, over his coffee after dinner, while Aylin P. Cantor told him
the story of how it came into his possession at something far below its
market value.

Later, again, while the auction pool was being sold, he found himself
ensconced on a lounge in a far corner of the smoke