ing K. B. Horsfal.

"Thanks! I'll take the job," I said. "And I'm mighty grateful to you."

"Good boy! You're all right. Leave it there!" His two hands clasped
over mine.

"Gee! but I'm glad that's over at last."

"When do I start in?" I asked.

"Right now. I'll phone for a launch to be ready to start up with us
to-morrow morning. I'll show you over the proposition and leave you
there. Phone for any little personal articles you may want. I'll
attend to the bedding and all that sort of thing. Have the boy call
you at six a. m. sharp."

Nothing was overlooked by the masterly mind of my new, my first
employer.

We breakfasted early. An automobile was standing waiting for us at the
hotel entrance; while, at a down-town slip, a trig little launch,
already loaded up with our immediate necessities, was in readiness to
shoot out through the Narrows as soon as we got aboard.

This launch was named the _Edgar Allan Poe_, and, in consequence, I
felt as if she were an old friend.

As soon as the ropes were cast from the wharf, a glorious feeling of
exhilaration started to run through me; for it seemed that I was being
loosed from the old life and plunged into a new; a life I had been for
so long hungering; the life of the woods, the hills and the sea, the
quiet and freedom; the life of my dreams as well as of my waking
fancies. Whether or not it would come up to my expectations was a
question of conjecture, but I was not in a mood to trouble conjecturing.

The swift little boat fought the tide rip in the Narrows like a lonely
explorer defending his life against a horde of surging savages; and,
gradually, she nosed her way through, past Prospect Point, then,
inclining to the north shore, but heading forward all the time, past
the lighthouse which stands sentinel on the rock at Point Atkinson; and
away up the coast, leaving the city, with its dizzying and
light-blotting sky-scrapers far and still farther behind, until nothing
of that busy terminal remained to the observer but a distant haze.

The _Edgar Allan Poe_ threaded her way rapidly and confidently among
the rocks and fertile little islands, up, up northward, ever northward,
amid lessening signs of life and habitation; through the beautiful
Strait of Georgia.

From eight o'clock in the morning till three o'clock in the afternoon
we sailed on, amid a prodigality of scenic beauty,--sea, mountains and
islands; islands, mountains and sea,--enjoying every