



Produced by Steven desJardins and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net






THRICE ARMED

BY HAROLD BINDLOSS

Author of "Winston of the Prairie," "Delilah of the
Snows," "By Right of Purchase," "Lorimer
of the Northwest," etc.

[Illustration]

NEW YORK
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1908, by
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY




TABLE OF CONTENTS

 CHAPTER                                    PAGE
      I.  JIMMY RENOUNCES HIS CAREER           1
     II.  TO WINDWARD                         12
    III.  JIMMY MAKES FRIENDS                 24
     IV.  IN THE TOILS                        35
      V.  VALENTINE'S PAID HAND               46
     VI.  A VISION OF THE SEA                 60
    VII.  BLOWN OFF                           73
   VIII.  JIMMY TAKES COMMAND                 84
     IX.  MERRIL TIGHTENS THE SCREW           97
      X.  ELEANOR WHEELOCK                   108
     XI.  AT AUCTION                         120
    XII.  THE "SHASTA" SHIPPING COMPANY      134
   XIII.  THE "SHASTA" GOES TO SEA           145
    XIV.  IN DISTRESS                        159
     XV.  ELEANOR'S BITTERNESS               172
    XVI.  UNDER RESTRAINT                    184
   XVII.  THE RANCHER'S ANSWER               196
  XVIII.  ELEANOR SPEAKS HER MIND            209
    XIX.  WOOD PULP                          220
     XX.  ANTHEA MAKES A DISCOVERY           233
    XXI.  JIMMY GROWS RESTLESS               244
   XXII.  ASHORE                             254
  XXIII.  ANTHEA GROWS ANXIOUS               265
   XXIV.  JORDAN KEEPS HIS PROMISE           276
    XXV.  AN UNDERSTANDING                   285
   XXVI.  ELEANOR HOLDS THE CLUE             296
  XXVII.  JORDAN'S SCHEME                    306
 XXVIII.  DISABLED ENGINES                   317
   XXIX.  UNDER COMPULSION                   329
    XXX.  AN EYE FOR AN EYE                  344
   XXXI.  MERRIL CAPITULATES                 354
  XXXII.  ELEANOR RELENTS                    364




Thrice Armed




CHAPTER I

JIMMY RENOUNCES HIS CAREER


It was with somewhat mixed feelings, and a curious little smile in his
eyes, that Jim Wheelock stood with a brown hand on the _Tyee_'s wheel as
the deep-loaded schooner slid out through Vancouver Narrows before a
fresh easterly breeze. Dim heights of snow rose faintly white against
the creeping dusk above her starboard hand, and the busy British
Columbian city, girt with mazy wires and towering telegraph poles, was
fading slowly amidst the great black pines astern. An aromatic smell of
burning followed the schooner, and from the levels at the head of the
Inlet a long gray smear blew out across the water. A fire which had, as
not infrequently happens, passed the bounds of somebody's clearing was
eating its way into that part of the great coniferous forest that rolls
north from Oregon to Alaska along the wet seaboard of the Pacific <DW72>.

The schooner was making her six knots, with mainboom well out on her
quarter and broad wisps of froth washing off beneath her bows, slanted
until her leeward scuppers were close above the sliding foam. Wheelock
stood right aft, with his shoulders just above the roof of the little
deckhouse, and, foreshortened as the vessel was, she seemed from that
point of view a mere patch of scarred and somewhat uncleanly deck
surmounted by a towering mass of sail. Two partly seen figures were busy
bending on a gaff-topsail about the foot of her foremast, and Wheelock
turned as one of them came slouching aft when the sail had been sent
aloft. The man wore dungaree and jean, with a dilapidated oilskin coat
over them, for the wind was keen. He appeared to be at least fifty years
of age. Leaning against the rail, he grinned at