Thus, The Laird was enabled to command a view of the bight, with Port
Agnew nestled far below; of the silver strip that is the Skookum River
flowing down to the sea through the logged-over lands, now
checker-boarded into little green farms; of the rolling back country
with its dark-green mantle of fir and white cedar, fading in the
distance to dark blue and black; of the yellow sandstone bluffs of the
coast-line to the north, and the turquoise of the Pacific out to the
horizon.

This room Hector McKaye enjoyed best of all things in life, with the
exception of his family; of his family, his son Donald was nearest and
dearest to him. This boy he loved with a fierce and hungry love,
intensified, doubtless, because to the young Laird of Tyee, McKaye
was still the greatest hero in the world. To his wife, The Laird was
no longer a hero, although in the old days of the upward climb, when
he had fiercely claimed her and supported her by the sweat of his
brow, he had been something akin to a god. As for Elizabeth and Jane,
his daughters, it must be recorded that both these young women had
long since ceased to regard their father as anything except an
unfailing source of revenue--an old dear who clung to Port Agnew,
homely speech, and homely ways, hooting good-naturedly at the
pretensions of their set, and, with characteristic Gaelic
stubbornness, insisting upon living and enjoying the kind of life that
appealed to him with peculiar force as the only kind worth living.

Indeed, in more than one humble home in Port Agnew, it had been said
that the two McKaye girls were secretly ashamed of their father. This
because frequently, in a light and debonair manner, Elizabeth and Jane
apologized for their father and exhibited toward him an indulgent