The sun had dipped behind a high black ridge¹ crested² with ragged⁴ pines, when Jimmy, dressed in brown overalls⁵ and a seaman⁶’s jersey⁷, sat cooking supper on a stony⁸ beach of Vancouver Island. In front of him the landlocked sea ran back, glimmering⁹ with a steely luster¹⁰, into the east; behind, where the inlet reached the hillfoot, stood the City of the Springs, which then consisted of a shut-down sawmill, a row of dilapidated wooden houses, and two second-rate hotels. Shadowed by climbing pinewoods, sheltered by the rocks, the site was perhaps as beautiful as any in the romantic province of British Columbia, though man’s crude handiwork defaced its sylvan¹¹ charm with rusty¹² iron chimney-stacks, rows of blackened fir-stumps, and unsightly sawdust heaps. For all that, giant, primeval forest rolled close up to it, and in front lay the untainted sea. The air had in it a curious exhilarating quality; the balsamic scent¹⁴ of the firs mingled¹⁵ with the sharp odors of drying weed, tar¹⁶, and

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