It was raining as hard as it not infrequently does in the mountain province, and the deluge lashed the sombre pines that towered above the dripping camp, when Brooke stood in the entrance of the Surveyor's tent. He was wet to the skin, as well as weary, for he had walked most of thirty miles that day over a very bad trail, and was but indifferently successful in his attempts to hide his anxiety. The Surveyor also noticed the grimness of his wet face, and dallied a moment with the card he held, for he had known what fatigue and short commons were in his early days.
"I'm sorry I can't take you, but I've two more men than I've any particular use for already," he said at last. "I can't give you a place to spread your blankets in to-night either, because the freighter didn't bring up all our tents. Still, you might make Beasley's Hotel, and strike Saxton's prospectors, if you head back over the divide. He has a few men up there opening up a silver lead."
Brooke said nothing, and the Surveyor turned tohis assistant as he moved away. "It's rough on that man, and he seems kind of played out," he said. "I can't quite figure, either, why Saxton sent him here, when he's putting men on at his mine. It seems to me I told him I was only going to take men who'd packed for me before."
In the meanwhile, Brooke stood still a few moments in the rain. He was aching all over, and his wet boots galled him, while he was also very hungry, and uncertain what to do. There was nothing to be gained by pushing on four leagues to Beasley's Hotel, even if he had been capable of doing it, which was not the case, because he had just then only two or three copper coins worth ten cents in his pocket. It was, he knew, scarcely likely he would be turned out for that reason, but he had not yet come down to asking a stranger's charity. Supper, which he would have been offered a share of, was also over, and there was not a ranch about, only a dripping wilderness, for he had plodded on after the Surveyor from the lonely settlement at Johnston Lake.
It was very enviously he watched two men piling fresh branches on a crackling fire. Darkness was not far away, and already a light shone through the wet canvas of the Surveyor's tent. A cheerful hum of voices came out from the others, and a man was singing in one of them. The survey packers had, at least, a makeshift shelter for the night, food in sufficiency, and such warmth as the fires and theirdamp blankets might supply, while he had nowhere to lay his head. The smell of the stinging wood smoke was curiously alluring, and he felt as he glanced at the black wall of bush which closed in upon the little camp that his hardihood was deserting him, and in another minute he would go back and offer his services in return for food. Then his pride came to the rescue, and, turning away abruptly, he plodded back into the bush, where a bitter wind that came down from the snow blew the drips from the great branches into his face.
He kept to the trail instinctively, though he did not know where he was going, or why, when one place had as little to commend itself as another, he blundered on at all, except that he was getting cold, until the creeping dark surprised him at a forking of the way. He knew that the path he had come by led through a burnt forest and thin willow bush, while great cedars shrouded the other, which apparently wound up a valley towards the heights above. They promised, at least, a little more shelter than the willows, but that, he fancied, must be the trail that crossed the divide and it led into a desolation of rock and forest. He had very little hope of being offered employment at the mine the Surveyor had mentioned, and stood still for several minutes with the rain beating into his face, while, though he did not know it then, a good deal depended on his decision. A little mist rolled out of the valley, and it wasgrowing very cold, while the dull roar of a snow-fed torrent made the silence more impressive.
Then, attracted solely by the sombre clustering of the cedars, which promised to keep off at least a little of the rain, he turned up the valley with a shiver, and finally unrolled his one wet blanket under a big tree. There was an angle among its roots, which ran along the ground, and, scooping a hollow in the withered sprays, he crawled into it, and lay down with his back to the trunk. The roar of the river seemed louder now, and he could hear a timber wolf howling far off on the hillside. He was very cold and hungry, but his weariness blunted the sense of physical discomfort, though as yet his activity of mind remained, and he asked himself what he had gained by leaving the ranch, and could find no answer.
Still, even then, he would not regret that he had broken away, for there was in him an inherent obstinacy, and he would have struggled on at the ranch had not the absence of funds precluded it, and consideration shown him that it would be merely throwing his toil away. Life, it seemed, had very little to offer him, but now he had made the decision he would adhere to it, though he had arrived at the resolution in cold blood, for it was his reason only which had responded to the girl's influence, and as yet what was spiritual in him remained untouched. He would not live as the Indians do, or sink into a sot. Therewere vague possibilities before him which, though this appeared most unlikely, might prove themselves facts, and the place he had been born to in England might yet be his. That was why he would not sell his birthright for a mess of stringy venison, and the deleterious whisky sold at the settlement, which seemed to him a most unfair price. Still, he went no further, even when he thought of the girl, which he did with dispassionate admiration.
Worn-out as he was, he slept, and awakened in the grey dawn almost unfit to rise. There was a distressful pain in his hip-joints, which those who sleep in the open are acquainted with, and at the first few steps he took his face went awry, but his physical nature demanded warmth and food, and there was only one way of obtaining it before the life went out of him. Whatever effort it cost him, he must reach the mine. He set out for it, limping, while the sharp gravel rolled under his bleeding feet as he floundered up the climbing trail. It seemed to lead upwards for ever between endless colonnades of towering trunks, and when at last pine and cedar had been left behind, there was slippery rock smoothed by sliding snow to be clambered over.
Still, reeling and gasping, he held on, and it was afternoon, and he had eaten nothing for close on thirty hours, when a filmy trail of smoke that drifted faintly blue athwart the climbing pines beneath him caught his eye. He braced himself for theeffort to reach it, and went down with loose, uneven strides, smashing through sal-sal and barberry when he reached the bush again. The fern met above his head, there were mazes of fallen trunks to be scrambled through, and he tore the soaken jean that clung about him to rags in his haste. Still, he had learned to travel straight in the bush, and at last he staggered into sight of the mine.
There was a little scar on the hillside, an iron shanty, a few soaked tents and shelters of bark, but the ringing clink of the drills vibrated about them, and a most welcome smell of wood smoke came up to him with a murmur of voices. Brooke heard them faintly, and did not stop until a handful of men clustered about him, while, as he blinked at them, one, who appeared different from the others, pushed his way through the group.
"You seem considerably used up," he said.
"I am," said Brooke, hoarsely, "I'm almost starving."
It occurred to him that the man's voice ought to be familiar, but it was a few moments before he recognized him as the one who had sent him on the useless journey after the Surveyor.
"Then come right along. It's not quite supper-time, but there's food in the camp," he said.
Brooke went with him to the shanty, where he fell against a chair, and found it difficult to straighten himself when he picked it up. Saxton, so far as hecould remember, asked no questions, but smiled at him reassuringly while he explained, somewhat incoherently, what had brought him there, until a man appeared with a big tray. Then Brooke ate strenuously.
"Some folks have a notion that one can kill himself by getting through too much at once when he's 'most starved," said Saxton. "I never found it work out that way in this country."
"Were you ever almost starved?" said Brooke, who felt the life coming back to him, with no great show of interest.
"Oh, yes," said Saxton, drily. "Twice, at least. I was three days without food the last time. One has to take his chances in the ranges, and you don't pick up dollars without trouble anywhere. Still, we'll talk of that afterwards. Had enough?"
Brooke said he fancied he had, and Saxton hammered upon the iron roof of the shanty until a man appeared.
"Give him a pair of blankets, Ike. He can sleep in the lean-to," he said.
Brooke went with the man, vacantly, and in another few minutes found himself lying in dry blankets on a couch of springy twigs. He was sensible that it was delightfully warm, but he could not remember how he got there, and was wondering why the rain no longer lashed his face, when sleep came to him.
It was next morning when he was awakened by the roar of a blasting charge, and lay still with an unusual sense of comfort until the silence that followed it was broken by the clinking of the drills. Then he rose stiffly, and put on his clothes, which he found had been dried, and was informed by a man who appeared while he was doing it that his breakfast was waiting. Brooke wondered a little at this, for he knew that it was past the usual hour, but he made an excellent meal, and then, being shown into a compartment of the little galvanized iron shanty, found Saxton sitting at a table. The latter now wore long boots and jean, and there were pieces of discolored stone strewn about in front of him.
He looked up with a little nod as Brooke came in. "Feeling quite yourself again?" he said.
"Yes," said Brooke, "thanks to the way your men have treated me. This is, of course, a hospitable country, but I may admit that I could scarcely have expected to be so well looked after by one I hadn't the slightest claim upon."
"And you almost wondered what he did it for?"
Brooke was a trifle astonished, for this certainly expressed his thoughts, but he was in no way disconcerted, and he laughed.
"I should, at least, never have ventured to suggest that anything except good-nature influenced you," he said.
"Still, you felt it? Well, you were considerablyused up when you came in, and, as I sent you to the Surveyor, who didn't seem to have any use for you, I felt myself responsible. That appears sufficient?"
Now, Brooke had mixed with men of a good many different stations, and he was observant, and, as might have been expected, by no means diffident.
"Since you ask, I scarcely think it does," he said.
Saxton laughed. "Take a cigar. That's the kind of talk I like. We'll come to the point right away."
Brooke lighted a cigar, and found it good. "Thanks. I'm willing to listen as long as appears necessary," he said.
"You have a kind of grievance against Devine?"
"I have. According to my notion of ethics, he owes me six thousand dollars, and I shall not be quite content until I get them out of him, although that may never happen. I feel just now that it would please me especially to make him smart as well, which I quite realize, is unnecessary folly."
The Canadian nodded, and shook the ash from his cigar. "Exactly," he said. "A man with sense keeps his eye on the dollars, and leaves out the sentiment. It's quite apt to get in his way and trip him up. Well, suppose I could give you a chance of getting those dollars back?"
"I should be very much inclined to take it. Still, presumably, you do not mean to do it out of pure good-nature?"
"No, sir," said Saxton, drily. "I'm here to makedollars. That has been my object since I struck out for myself at fourteen, and I've piled quite a few of them together. I'd have had more only that wherever I plan a nice little venture in mines or land up and down this province, I run up against Devine. That's quite straight, isn't it?"
"I fancy it is. You are suggesting community of interest? Still, I scarcely realize how a man with empty pockets could be of very much use to you."
"I have a kind of notion that you could be if it suited you. I want a man with grit in him, who has had a good education, and could, if it was necessary, mix on equal terms with the folks in the cities."
"One would fancy there were a good many men of that kind in Canada."
Saxton appeared reflective. "Oh, yes," he said, drily. "The trouble is that most of them have got something better to do, and I can't think of one who has any special reason for wanting to get even with Devine."
"That means the work you have in view would scarcely suit a man who was prosperous, or likely to be fastidious?"
"No," said Saxton, simply. "I don't quite think it would. Still, I've seen enough to show me that you can take the sensible point of view. We both want dollars, and I can't afford to be particular. I'm not sure you can, either."
Brooke sat silent awhile. He could, at least, appreciate the Canadian's candor, while events had rubbed the sentiment he had once had plenty of out of him, and left him a somewhat hard and bitter man. The woman he believed in had used him very badly, and the first man he trusted in Canada had plundered him. Brooke was, unfortunately, young when he was called upon to face the double treachery, and had generalized too freely from too limited premises. He felt that in all society there must be a conflict between the men who had all to gain and those who had anything worth keeping, and sentiment, it seemed, was out of place in that struggle.
"As you observed, I can't afford to be too particular," he said. "Still, it is quite possible I might not be prepared to go quite so far as you would wish me."
The Canadian laughed. "I'll take my chances. Nobody can bring up any very low-down game against me. Well, are you open to consider my offer?"
"You haven't exactly made one yet."
"Then we'll fix the terms. Until one of us gives the other notice that he lets up on this agreement, you will do just what I tell you. Pay will be about the usual thing for whatever you're set to do. It would be reasonably high if I put you on to anything in the cities."
"Is that likely?"
"I've a notion that we might get you into a placewhere you could watch Devine's game for me. I want to feel quite sure of it before I take any chances with that kind of man. If I struck him for anything worth while, you would have a share."
Brooke's face flushed just a trifle, and again he sat silent a moment or two. Then he laughed somewhat curiously.
"Well," he said, "I suppose there are no other means, and the man robbed me."
Saxton smiled. "If we pull off the deal I'm figuring on, your share might 'most work up to those six thousand dollars. They're yours."
Brooke realized that it was a clever man he was dealing with, but in his present state of mind the somewhat vague arrangement commended itself to him. He was, he decided, warranted in getting his six thousand dollars back by any means that were open to him. More he did not want, for he still retained in a slight degree the notions instilled into him in England, which had, however, since he was seldom able to indulge in them, not tended to make him happier.
"There is a point you don't seem to have grasped," he said. "Since I am not to be particular, can't you conceive that it would not be pleasant for you if Devine went one better?"
Saxton laughed. "I've met quite a few Englishmen—of your kind—already," he said. "That's why I feel that when you've taken my dollars you'renot going to go back on me without giving me warning. Besides, Devine would be considerably more likely to fix you up in quite another way. Now, I want an answer. Is it a deal?"
"It is," said Brooke, who, in spite of the fashion in which he had expressed himself during the last few minutes, felt a slight warmth in his face. Though he could not afford to be particular, there was one aspect of the arrangement which did not commend itself to him.
Saxton nodded. "Then, as you'll want to know a little about mining, we'll put you on now, helping the drillers, at $2.50 a day. You'll get considerably more by-and-by. Take this little treatise on the minerals of the province, and keep it by you."
There was an amateur concert for a commendable purpose in the Vancouver opera-house, which, since the inhabitants of the mountain province do not expect any organized body to take over their individual responsibilities, was a somewhat unusual event, and Miss Barbara Heathcote, who had not as yet found it particularly entertaining, was leaning back languidly in her chair.
"There are really one or two things they do a little better in the Old Country," she said.
The young man who sat beside her laughed. "There must be, or you never would have admitted it," he said. "Still, I'm not sure you would find many folks who would believe you here."
"One has to be candid occasionally," and Barbara made a little gesture of weariness. "There is still another hour of it, but, I sincerely hope, not another cornet solo. What comes next? We were a little late, and nobody provided me with a programme. They are inconsistent. Milly, I notice, has several."
The man opened the paper which a girl Barbara glanced at handed him.
"A violin solo," he said. "I think they mean Schumann, but it's not altogether astonishing that they've spelt it wrong. A man called Brooke is put down for it."
"Brooke!" said Barbara, a trifle sharply. "Where does he come from? Do you know him?"
"I can't say I do——" the man commenced reflectively, and stopped a moment when he saw the little smile in the girl's brown eyes. "What were you thinking?"
"I was wondering whether that means he can't be worth knowing."
"Well," said the man, good-humoredly, "there are, I believe, one or two decent folks in this city I haven't had the pleasure of meeting, but you were a trifle too previous. I don't know him, but if he's the man I think he is, I've heard about him. He came down from the bush lately, and somebody put him on to Naseby, the surveyor. Naseby's busy just now, doing a good deal for the Government—Crown mineral lands, I think, or something of that kind—and he took the man. I understand he's quite smart at the bush work, and Naseby's pleased with him. That's about all I can tell you. You're scarcely likely to know him."
Barbara sat silent a space, looking about her while the amateur orchestra chased one another throughthe treacherous mazes of an overture. The handsome building was well filled, but there were one or two empty places at hand, for the man who had sent her there had taken a row of them and sent tickets to his friends, as was expected from a citizen of his importance. It was, in the usual course, scarcely likely that she would know a man who had lately been installed in a subordinate place in a surveyor's service, for her acquaintances were people of position in that province, and yet she had a very clear recollection of a certain rancher Brooke who played the violin.
"I once met a man of that name in the bush," she said, with almost overdone indifference. "Still, he is scarcely likely to be the same one."
Her companion started another topic, and neither of them listened to the orchestra, though the girl was a trifle irritated at herself for wishing that the overture had been shorter. At last, when the second violins were not more than a note behind the rest, the music stopped, and Barbara sat very still with eyes fixed on the stage while the usual little stir and rustle of draperies ran round the building. Then there was silence for a moment, and she was sensible of a curious little thrill as a man who held a violin came forward into the blaze of light. He wore conventional evening-dress in place of the fringed deerskin she had last seen him in, and she decided that it became his somewhat spare, symmetrical figure almost as well. The years he had spent swinging axe and pounding drill had toughened and suppled it, and yet left him free from the coarsening stamp of toil, which is, however, not as a rule a necessary accompaniment of strenuous labor in that country. Standing still a moment quietly at his ease, straight-limbed, sinewy, with a little smile in his frost-bronzed face, he was certainly a personable man, and for no very apparent reason she was pleased to notice that two of her companions were regarding him with evident approbation.
"I think one could call him quite good-looking," said the girl beside her. "He has been in this country a while, but I wouldn't call him a Canadian. Not from this side of the Rockies, anyway."
"Why?" asked Barbara, mainly to discover how far her companion's thoughts coincided with her own.
"Well," said the other girl, reflectively, "it seems to me he takes it too easily. If he had been one of us he'd have either been grim and serious or worrying with the strings. We're most desperately in earnest, but they do things as though they didn't count in the Old Country. Now he has got the A right off without the least fussing, as if he couldn't help doing it."
The explanation was rather suggestive than definite, but Barbara was satisfied with it. She was usually a reposeful young woman herself, and theman's graceful tranquillity, which was of a kind not to be met with every day in that country, appealed to her. Then he drew the bow across the strings, and she sat very still to listen. It was not music that a good many of his audience were accustomed to, but scarcely a dress rustled or a programme fluttered until he took the fiddle from his shoulder. Then, while the plaudits rang through the building, his eyes met Barbara's. Leaning forward a trifle in her chair, she saw the sudden intentness of his face, but he gazed at her steadily for a moment without sign of recognition. Then she smiled graciously, for that was what she had expected of him, and again felt a faint thrill of content, for his eyes were fixed on her when as the tumult of applause increased he made a little inclination.
He was not permitted to retire, and when he put the fiddle to his shoulder again she knew why he played the nocturne she had heard in the bush. It was also, she felt, in a fashion significant that it had now, in place of the roar of a snow-fed river, the chords of a grand piano for accompaniment, though the latter, it seemed to her, made an indifferent substitute. The bronze-faced man in deerskin had fitted the surroundings in which she had seen him, and they had been close comrades in the wilderness for a week. It could, she knew, scarcely be the same in the city, but she saw that he was, at least, equally athome there. It was only their relative positions that had changed, for the guide was the person of importance in the primeval bush, and the fact that he had waited without a sign until she smiled showed that he had not failed to recognize it. When at last he moved away she turned to the man at her side.
"Will you go down and ask Mr. Brooke to come here?" she said. "You can tell him that I would like to speak to him."
The young man did not express any of the astonishment he certainly felt, but proceeded to do her bidding, though it afforded him no particular pleasure, for there was a certain imperiousness about Barbara Heathcote which was not without its effect. Brooke was putting away his fiddle when he came upon him.
"I haven't the pleasure of your acquaintance, Mr. Brooke, but it seems you know a friend of mine," he said. "If you are at liberty, Miss Heathcote would like to see you."
"Miss Heathcote?" said Brooke, for it had happened, not unnaturally, that he had never heard the girl's full name. Her companions, of whom he had not felt warranted in inquiring it, had called her Barbara in the bush, and he had addressed her without prefix.
"Yes," said the other, who was once more a trifle astonished. "Miss Barbara Heathcote."
He glanced at Brooke sharply, or he would nothave seen the swift content in his face, for the latter put a sudden restraint upon himself.
"Of course! I will come with you at once," he said, and a minute or two later took the vacant place at Barbara's side.
"You do not appear very much surprised, and yet it was a long way from here I saw you last," she said.
Brooke fancied she meant that it was under somewhat different circumstances, and sat looking at her with a little smile. She was also, he decided, even better worth inspection than she had been in the bush, for the rich attire became her, and the garish electric radiance emphasized the gleam of the white shoulder the dainty laces clung about and of the ivory neck the moonlight had shone upon when first they met.
"No," he said. "The fact is, I have seen you already on several occasions in this city."
Barbara glanced at him covertly. "Then why did you not claim recognition?"
"Isn't the reason obvious?"
"No," said Barbara, reflectively, "I scarcely think it is—unless, of course, you had no desire to renew the acquaintance."
"Does one usually renew a chance acquaintance made with a packer in the bush?"
"It would depend a good deal on the packer," said Barbara, quietly. "Now this country is——"
There was a trace of dryness in Brooke's smile. "You were going to say a democratic one. That, of course, might to some extent explain the anomaly."
"No," said Barbara, sharply, with a very faint flush of color in her face, "I was not. You ought to know that, too. Explanations are occasionally odious, and almost always difficult, but both Major Hume and his daughter invited you to their house if you were ever in England."
"The Major may have felt himself tolerably safe in making that offer," said Brooke, reflectively. "You see, I am naturally acquainted with my fellow Briton's idiosyncrasies."
The girl looked at him with a little sparkle in her eyes. "I do not know why you are adopting this attitude, or assigning one to me," she said. "Did we ever attempt to patronize you, and if we had done, is there any reason why you should take the trouble to resent it?"
Brooke laughed softly. "I scarcely think I could afford to resent a kindness, however it was offered; but there is a point you don't quite seem to have grasped. How could I be certain you had remembered me?"
The girl smiled a little. "Your own powers of recollection might have furnished a standard of comparison."
Brooke looked at her steadily. "The sharpness of the memory depends upon the effect the object onewishes to recollect produced upon one's mind," he said. "I should, of course, have known you at once had it been twenty years hence."
The girl turned to her programme, for now she had induced him to abandon his reticence his candor was almost disconcerting.
"Well," she said. "Tell me what you have been doing. You have left the ranch?"
Brooke nodded and glanced at the hand he laid on his knee, which, as the girl saw, was still ingrained and hard.
"Road-making for one thing," he said. "Chopping trees, quarrying rock, and following other useful occupations of the kind. They are, one presumes, healthy and necessary, but I did not find any of them especially remunerative."
"And now?"
Brooke's face, as she did not fail to notice, hardened suddenly, and he felt an unpleasant embarrassment as he met her eyes. He had decided that he was fully warranted in taking any steps likely to lead to the recovery of the dollars he had been robbed of, but he was sensible that the only ones he had found convenient would scarcely commend themselves to his companion. There was also no ignoring the fact that he would very much have preferred her approbation.
"At present I am surveying, though I cannot, of course, become a surveyor," he said. "The legislature of this country has placed that out of the question."
Barbara was aware that in Canada a man can no more set up as a surveyor without the specified training than he can as a solicitor, though she did not think that fact accounted for the constraint in the man's voice and attitude. He was not one who readily betrayed what he felt, but she was tolerably certain that something in connection with his occupation caused him considerable dissatisfaction.
"Still," she said, "you must have known a little about the profession?"
"Yes," said Brooke, a trifle unguardedly. "Of course, there is a difference, but I had once the management of an estate in England. What one might call the more useful branches of mathematics were also, a good while ago, a favorite study of mine. One could find a use for them even in measuring a tree."
The girl had a question on her lips, but she did not consider it advisable to ask it just then.
"You would find a knowledge of timber of service in Canada?" she said.
"Not very often. You see the only apparent use of the trees on my possessions was to keep me busy two years attempting to destroy them, and of late I have chiefly had to do with minerals."
"With minerals?" said the girl, quickly, and then, as he volunteered no answer, swiftly asked the question she had wished to put before. "Whose was the estate in England?"
Brooke did not look at her, and she fancied he was not sorry that the necessity of affecting a show of interest in the music meanwhile made continuous conversation difficult. His eyes were then turned upon a performer on the stage.
"The estate—it belonged to—a friend of mine," he said. "Of course, I had no regular training, but connection and influence count for everything in the Old Country."
Barbara watched him covertly, and once more noticed the slight hardening of his lips, and the very faint deepening of the bronze in his cheeks. It was only just perceptible, but though the sun and wind had darkened its tinting, Brooke had a clear English complexion, and the blood showed through his skin. His companion remembered the old house in the English valley, with its trim gardens and great sweep of velvet lawn, where he had admitted that he had once been long ago. The statement she had fancied at the time was purposely vague, and she wondered now if he had meant that he had lived there, for Barbara possessed the not unusual feminine capacity for putting two and two together. She, however, naturally showed nothing of this.
"I suppose it does," she said. "I wonder if you ever feel any faint longing for what you must haveleft behind you there. One learns to do without a good deal in Canada."
Brooke smiled curiously. "Of course! That is one reason why I am pleased you sent for me. This, you see, brings it back to me."
He glanced suggestively round the big, brilliantly-lighted building, across the rows of citizens in broadcloth, and daintily-dressed women, and then turned and fixed his eyes upon his companion's face almost too steadily. The girl understood him, but she would not admit it.
"You mean the music?" she said.
"No. The music, to tell the truth, is by no means very good. It is you who have taken me back to the Old Country. Imagination will do a great deal, but it needs a fillip, and something tangible to build upon."
Barbara laughed softly.
"I fancy the C. P. R. and an Allan liner would be a much more reliable means of transportation. You will presumably take that route some day?"
"I scarcely think it likely. They have, in the Western idiom, no use for poor men yonder."
"Still, men get rich now and then in this country."
The man's face grew momentarily a trifle grim. "It would apparently be difficult to accomplish it by serving as assistant survey, and the means employed by some of them might, if they went back to the old life, tend to prevent them feeling very comfortable.I"—and he paused for a second—"fancy that I shall stay in Canada."
Barbara was a trifle puzzled, and said nothing further for a space, until when the singer who occupied the stage just then was dismissed, the man turned to her.
"How long is a chance acquaintance warranted in presuming on a favor shown him in this country?"
Barbara smiled at him. "If I understand you correctly, until the other person allows him to perceive that his absence would be supportable. In this case, just as long as it pleases him. Now you can tell me about the road-making."
Brooke understood that she wished to hear, and when he could accomplish it without attracting too much attention, pictured for her benefit his life in the bush. He also did it humorously, but effectively, without any trace of the self-commiseration she watched for, and her fancy dwelt upon the hardships he lightly sketched. She knew how the toilers lived and worked in the bush, and had seen their reeking shanties and rain-swept camps. Labor is accounted honorable in that land, but it is none the less very frequently brutal as well as strenuous, and she could fancy how this man, who, she felt certain, had been accustomed to live softly in England, must have shrunk from some of his tasks, and picture to herself what he felt when he came back at night to herdclose-packed with comrades whose thoughts and his must always be far apart. That many possibly better men had certainly borne with as hard a lot longer, after all, made no great difference to the facts. She also recognized that there was a vein of pathos in the story, as she remembered that he had told her it was scarcely likely he would ever go back to England again. That naturally suggested a good deal to her, for she held him blameless, though she knew it was not the regularity of their conduct at home which sent a good many of his countrymen out to Canada.
At last he rose between two songs, and stood still a moment looking down on her.
"I'm afraid I have trespassed on your kindness," he said. "I am going back to the bush with a survey expedition to-morrow, and I do not know when I shall be fortunate enough to see you again."
Barbara smiled a little. "That," she said, "is for you to decide. We are 'At home' every Thursday in the afternoon—and, in your case, in the evening."
He made her a little inclination, and turned away, while Barbara sat still, looking straight in front of her, but quite oblivious of the music, until she turned with a laugh, and the girl who sat next to her glanced round.
"Was the man very amusing?" she said.
"No," said Barbara, reflectively. "I scarcely think he was. I gave him permission to call upon us, and never told him where we lived."
"Still, he would, like everybody else in this city, know it already."
"He may," said Barbara. "That, I suppose, is what I felt at the time, but now I scarcely think he does."
"Then one would fancy that to meet a young man of his appearance who didn't know all about you would be something quite new," said her companion, drily.
Barbara flushed ever so slightly, but her companion noticed it. She was quite aware that if she was made much of in that city it was, in part, at least, due to the fact that she was the niece of a well-known man, and had considerable possessions.
It was late at night, and raining hard, when a line of dripping mules stood waiting beneath the pines that crowded in upon the workings of the Elktail mine. A few lights blinked among the log-sheds that clustered round the mouth of the rift in the steep hillside, and a warm wind that drove the deluge before it came wailing out of the blackness of the valley beneath them. The mine was not a big one, but it was believed that it paid Thomas P. Saxton and his friends tolerably well, in spite of the heavy cost of transport to the nearest smelter. A somewhat varying vein of galena, which is silver-lead, was worked there, and Saxton had, on several occasions, declined an offer to buy it, made on behalf of a company.
On the night in question he stood in the doorway of one of the sheds with Brooke, for whom the Surveyor had no more work just then, beside him. Brooke wore long boots and a big rubber coat, on whose dripping surface the light of the lantern Saxton held flickered. Here and there a man was dimlyvisible beside the mules, but beyond them impenetrable darkness closed in.
"It's a wicked kind of night," said Saxton, who, Brooke fancied, nevertheless, appeared quite content with it. "You know what you've got to do?"
"Yes," said Brooke, a trifle drily, "you have given me tolerably complete instructions once or twice already. The ore is to be delivered to Allonby at the Dayspring mine not later than to-morrow night, and I'm to be contented with his verbal acknowledgment. The getting it across the river will, I fancy, be the difficulty, especially as I'm to send half the teamsters back before we reach it."
"Still, you have got to send them back," said Saxton. "Jake and Tom will go on, and when you have crossed the ford that will be two mules for each of you. Not one of the other men must come within a mile of the trail forking. It's part of our bargain that you're to do just what I tell you."
Brooke laughed a little. "I'm not going to grumble very much at leading two mules. I have done a good deal harder work quite frequently."
"You'll find it tough enough by the time you're through. You must be in at the mine by daylight the day after to-morrow, anyway. Allonby will be sitting up waiting for you."
Brooke said nothing further, but went out into the rain, calling to one of the teamsters, and the mules were got under way. The trail that led to the Elktail mine sloped steep as a roof just there, and was slippery with rain and mire, but the mules went down it as no other loaded beasts could have done, feeling their way foot by foot, or glissading on all four hoofs for yards together. The men made little attempt to guide them, for a mule is opinionated by nature, and when it cannot find its own way up or down any ascent it is seldom worth while for its driver to endeavor to show it one.
When they reached the level, or rather the depth of the hollow, for of level, in the usual sense of the word, there is none in that country, Brooke, who was then cumbered with no bridle, turned and looked round. The lights of the Elktail had faded among the pines, and there was only black darkness about him. Here and there he could discern the ghostly outline of a towering trunk a little more solid than the night it rose against, and he could hear the men and beasts floundering and splashing in front of him. A deep reverberating sound rose out of the obscurity beneath, and he knew it to be the roar of a torrent in a deep-sunk gully, while now and then a diminishing rattle suggested that a hundred-weight or so of water-loosened gravel had slipped down into the chasm from the perilous trail.
It was a difficult road to travel by daylight, and, naturally, considerably worse at night, while Brooke had already wondered why Saxton had not sent off the ore earlier. That, however, was not his business,and, shaking the rain from his dripping hat, he plodded on. It was still two or three hours before daylight when they reached a wider and smoother trail, and he sent away three of the men.
"It's a tolerably good road now, and Saxton wants you at the mine," he said.
One of the teamsters who were remaining laughed ironically. "I'm blamed if I ever heard the dip down to the long ford called a good trail before!"
"Well," said one of the others, "what in the name of thunder are you going that way for?"
Brooke, who was standing close by, fancied that a man who had not spoken kicked his loquacious comrade viciously.
"Tom never does know where he's going. It's the mule that does the thinking for both of them," he said.
There was a little hoarse laughter, and those who were going back vanished into the deluge, while Brooke, who took a bridle now, went on with two men again. It was darker than ever, for great fir branches met overhead just there, but they at least kept off a little of the rain, and he groped onward, splashing in the mire, until the roar of a river throbbed across the forest as the night was wearing through. Then the leading teamster pulled up his mules.
"It's a nasty ford in daylight, and she'll be swirling over it waist-deep and more just now," he said."Still, we've got to take our chances of getting through."
"It will be light in two hours," said Brooke, suggestively. "Of course, you know better than I do whether we could make the wasted time up."
The man laughed curiously. "I guess we could, but there's two concerned bush ranchers just started their chopping over yonder. I had a kind of notion the boss would have told you that."
It commenced to dawn on Brooke that Saxton had a reason for not desiring that everybody should know he was sending ore away, but he was too wet to concern himself about the question then.
"I don't think he did," he said. "Anyway, if we have to go through in the dark there's nothing to be gained by waiting here."
They went on, down what appeared to be the side of a bottomless gully, with the stones and soil slipping away from under them, while half-seen trees flitted up out of the obscurity. Then they reached the bed of a stream, and proceeded along it, splashing and stumbling amidst the boulders. In the meanwhile the roar of the river was growing steadily louder, and when they stopped again they could hear the clamor of the invisible flood close in front of them. It came out of the rain and darkness, hoarse and terrifying, but while the wind drove the deluge into his face Brooke could see nothing beyond dim, dripping trees.
"Well," said the leading teamster, "I have struck a nicer job than this one, but it has got to be done. Tether the spare mule, each of you, and then get in behind me."
Brooke had no diffidence about taking the last place in the line. Though he was in charge of the pack train, it was evident that the men knew a good deal more about that ford than he did, and he had no particular desire to make himself responsible for a disaster. Then there was a scrambling and splashing, and he found himself suddenly waist-deep in the river. He was, however, tolerably accustomed to a ford, and though the mule he led objected strenuously to entering the water, it proceeded with that beast's usual sagacity once it was in. He endeavored to keep its head a trifle up-stream, and as close behind his two companions as he could, but apart from that he left the beast to the guidance of its own acumen, for he knew that it is seldom the sagacious mule takes any risk that can be avoided.
Twice, at least, his feet were swept from under him, and once he lost his grip on the bridle, and simultaneously all sight of his companions and the beast he led. Then he felt unpleasantly lonely as he stood more than waist-deep in the noisy flood, but after a few yards floundering he found the mule again, and at last scrambled up, breathless and gasping, beneath the pines on the farther side.
"Hit it square that time!" said the teamster. "I'm not quite so sure as I'd like to be we can do it again."
They went back through the river for the rest of the mules, and were half-way across on the return journey when the leader shouted to them that they should stop. The water seemed deeper than it had been on the previous occasion, and Brooke found it difficult to keep his footing at all as he peered into the darkness. The rain had ceased, but there was little visible beyond the faint whiteness of sliding froth, and a shadowy blur of trees on either shore. He could see nothing that might serve any one as guide, and the leading teamster was standing still, apparently in a state of uncertainty, with dim streaks of froth streaming past him.
"I'm 'most afraid we're too far down-stream," he said. "Anyway, we can't stay here. Head the beasts up a little."
His voice reached the others brokenly through the roar of the torrent, and with a pull at the bridle Brooke turned his face up-stream. He could hear the rest splashing in front of him until his mule lost his footing, and he sank suddenly up to the breast. Then there was a shout, and a struggling beast swept down on him with the swing of an eddy. Brooke went down, head under, and one of the teamsters appeared to be shouting instructions to him when he came up again. He had not the faintest notion of what they were, and swung round with the eddy untilhe was driven violently against a boulder. There was a mule close beside him, and he contrived to grasp the bridle, and found to his astonishment that he could now stand upright without difficulty. Exactly where the others were, or where the opposite side of the river lay, he did not at the moment know; but the mule appeared to be floundering on with a definite purpose, and he went with it, until they scrambled up the bank, and he found two other men and one beast already there.
"One of them's gone," said the teamster. "There'll be trouble when we go back, but I guess it can't be helped. Anyway, there's 'most a fathom in the deep below the ford, and no mule would do much swimming with that load."
"A fathom's quite enough to cover the bags up so nobody's going to find them," said the other man.
Brooke did not quite understand why, since the ore was valuable, this fact should afford the teamster the consolation it apparently did, but he was not in a mood to consider that point just then, and all his attention was occupied when they proceeded again. The trail that climbed the rise was wet and steep, and seemed to consist largely of boulders, into which he blundered with unpleasant frequency. It was but little better when they once more plunged into the forest, for the way was scarcely two feet wide, and wound round and through thickets of thorn and fern which, when he brushed against it, further saturatedhim. He was wet enough already, but the water which remained any time in his clothing got slowly warm. It also dipped into splashy hollows and climbed loose gravel banks, while once a hoarse shout from the leader, which changed to a howl of pain, was followed by a stoppage. The man had stumbled into a clump of the horrible Devil's club thorn, than which nothing that grows anywhere is more unpleasant when it gets a good hold on human flesh.
He was cut loose, and his objurgations mingled with the soft splashing from the branches as they blundered on until a faint grey light filtered down, and the firs they passed beneath grew into definite form. It had also become unpleasantly chilly, and a thin, clammy mist rose like steam from every hollow. Then the trees grew thinner as they climbed steadily, until at last Brooke could see the black hill shoulders rise out of the trails of mist, and the leader pulled up his mules.
"We've done 'bout enough for one spell, and nobody's going to see us here," he said. "Get a fire started. I'm emptier'n a drum."
Brooke, who knew where to find the resinous knots, was glad to help, and soon a great fire blazed upon a shelf of rock. The mules were tethered and forage given them, and the men lay steaming about the blaze until the breakfast of flapjacks, canned stuff, and green tea was ready. It was despatched in ten minutes, and rolling his half-dried blanket about him,Brooke lay down to sleep. He had a strip of very damp rock for mattress, and a bag of ore for pillow, but he had grown accustomed to a hard bed in the bush, and had scarcely laid his head down when slumber came to him. Food and sleep, he had discovered, were things to be appreciated, for it was not always that he was able to obtain very much of either. His stay in the Canadian cities had been brief, and the night he had spent with the brown-eyed girl at the opera-house had already drifted back into the past.
It was raining when he awakened, and they once more took the trail, while during what was left of the day they plodded among the boulders beside frothing streams, crept through shadowy forests, and climbed over treacherous slopes of gravel and slippery rock outcrop round the great hill shoulders above. Everywhere the cold gleam of snow met the eye, save when the mists that clung in ragged wisps about the climbing pines rolled together and blotted all the vista out. The smell of fir and balsam filled every hollow, and the song of the rivers rang through a dead stillness that even to Brooke, who was accustomed to it, was curiously impressive.
There was no sign of man anywhere, save for the smear of trampled mire or hoof-scattered gravel, and no sound that was made by any creature of the forest in all the primeval solitude. For no very evidentreason, tracts of that wild country remain a desolation of grand and almost overwhelming beauty, and in such places even the bushman speaks softly, or plods on faster, as though anxious to escape from them, in wondering silence. The teamsters, however, appeared by no means displeased at the solitude, and Brooke was not in a condition to be receptive of more than physical impressions. His long boots were full of water, his clothes were soaked, the sliding gravel had galled his feet, and his limbs ached. The beasts were also flagging, for their loads were heavy, and the patter of their hoofs rose with a slower beat through the rain, while the teamsters said nothing save when they urged them on.
They rested again for an hour and lighted another fire, and afterwards found the trail smoother, but evening was closing in when, scrambling down from a hill shoulder, they came upon a winding valley. It was filled with dusky cedars, and the mist rolled out of it, but the teamsters quickened their pace a trifle, and smote the lagging beasts. Then, where the trees were thinner, Brooke saw a faint smear of vapor a little bluer than the mist drawn out across the ragged pines above him, and one of his companions laughed.
"Well," he said, "I guess we're there at last, and if Boss Allonby isn't on the jump you'll be putting away your supper, and as much whisky as you've any use for inside an hour."
"Is it a complaint he's often troubled with?" said Brooke.
The teamster grinned. "He has it 'bout once a fortnight—when the pack beasts from the settlement come in. It lasts two days, in the usual way, and on the third one every boy about the mine looks out for him."
Brooke asked no more questions, though he hoped that several days had elapsed since the supplies from the settlement had come up, and in another few minutes they plodded into sight of the mine. The workings appeared to consist of a heap of débris and a big windlass, but here and there a crazy log hut stood amidst the pines which crowded in serried ranks upon the narrow strip of clearing. The door of the largest shanty stood open, and the shadowy figure of a man appeared in it.
"Good-evening, boys," he said. "You have brought the ore and Saxton's man along?"
One of the teamsters said they had, and turned to Brooke with a laugh.
"You're not going to have any trouble to-night," he said. "He's coming round again, and when he feels like it, there's nobody can be more high-toned polite!"
The shanty was draughty as well as very damp, and the glass of the flickering lamp blackened so that the light was dim. It, however, served to show one-half of Allonby's face in silhouette against the shadow, as he sat leaning one elbow on the table, with a steaming glass in front of him. Brooke, who was stiff and weary, lay in a dilapidated canvas chair beside the crackling fire, which filled the very untidy room with aromatic odors. It was still apparently raining outside, for there was a heavy splashing on the shingled roof above, and darkness had closed down on the lonely valley several hours ago, but while Brooke's eyes were heavy, Allonby showed no sign of drowsiness. He sat looking straight in front of him vacantly.
"You will pass your glass across when you are ready, Mr. Brooke," he said, and the latter noticed his clean English intonation. "The night is young yet, that bottle is by no means the last in the shanty, and it is, I think, six months since I have been favored with any intelligent company. I have, ofcourse, the boys, but with due respect to the democratic sentiments of this colony they are—the boys, and the fact that they are a good deal more use to the country than I am does not affect the question."
Brooke smiled a little. His host was attired somewhat curiously in a frayed white shirt and black store jacket, which was flecked with cigar ash, and had evidently seen better days, though his other garments were of the prevalent jean, and a portion of his foot protruded through one of his deerhide slippers. His face was gaunt and haggard, but it was just then a trifle flushed, and though his voice was still clear and nicely modulated, there was a suggestive unsteadiness in his gaze. The man was evidently a victim of indulgence, but there was a trace of refinement about him, and Brooke had realized already that he had reached the somewhat pathetic stage when pride sinks to the vanity which prompts its possessor to find a curious solace in the recollection of what he has thrown away.
"No more!" he said. "I have lived long enough in the bush to find out that is the way disaster lies."
Allonby nodded. "You are no doubt perfectly right," he said. "I had, however, gone a little too far when I made the discovery, and by that time the result of any further progress had become a matter of indifference to me. In any case, a man who has played his part with credit among his equals where life has a good deal to offer one and intellect is appreciated, must drown recollection now and then when he drags out his days in a lonely exile that can have only one end. I am quite aware that it is not particularly good form for me to commiserate myself, but it should be evident that there is nobody else here to do it for me."
Brooke had already found his host's maudlin moralizings becoming monotonous, but he also felt in a half-contemptuous fashion sorry for the man. He was, it seemed to him, in spite of his proclivities, in the restricted sense of the word, almost a gentleman.
"If one may make the inquiry, you came from England?" he said.
Allonby laughed. "Most men put that question differently in this country. They talk straight, as they term it, and apparently consider brutality to be the soul of candor. Yes, I came from England, because something happened which prevented me feeling any great desire to spend any further time there. What it was does not, of course, matter. I came out with a sheaf of certificates and several medals to exploit the mineral riches of Western Canada, and found that mineralogical science is not greatly appreciated here."
He rose, and taking down a battered walnut case, shook out a little bundle of greasy papers with a trembling hand. Then a faint gleam crept into his eyes as he opened a little box in which Brooke saw several big round pieces of gold. The dulness of theunpolished metal made the inscriptions on them more legible, and he knew enough about such matters to realize that no man of mean talent could have won those trophies.
"They would, I fancy, have got you a good appointment anywhere," he said.
"As a matter of fact, they got me one or two. It is, however, occasionally a little difficult to keep an appointment when obtained."
Brooke could understand that there were reasons which made that likely in his host's case, but he had by this time had enough of the subject.
"What are you going to do with the ore I brought you?" he said.
Allonby's eyes twinkled. "Enrich what we raise here with it."
"It is a little difficult to understand what you would gain by that."
Allonby smiled suggestively. "I would certainly gain nothing, but Thomas P. Saxton seems to fancy the result would be profitable to him."
"But does the Dayspring belong to Saxton?"
Allonby emptied his glass at a gulp. "As much as I do, and he believes he has bought me soul and body. The price was not a big one—a very few dollars every month, and enough whisky to keep me here. If that failed me, I should go away, though I do not know where to, for I cannot use the axe. Heis, however, now quite willing to part with the Dayspring, which has done little more than pay expenses."
A light commenced to dawn on Brooke, and his face grew a trifle hot. "That is presumably why he arranged that I should bring the ore down past the few ranches near the trail at night?"
"Precisely!" said Allonby. "You see, Saxton wants to sell the mine to another man—because he is a fool. Now the chief recommendation a mine has to a prospective purchaser is naturally the quality of the ore to be got out of it."
"But the man who proposed buying it would send an expert to collect samples for assaying."
Allonby's voice was not quite so clear as it had been, but he smiled again. "It is not quite so difficult for a mine captain who knows his business to contrive that an expert sees no more than is advisable. A good deal of discretion is, however, necessary when you salt a poor mine with high-grade ore. It has to be done with knowledge, artistically. You don't seem quite pleased at being mixed up in such a deal."
Brooke was a trifle grim in face, but he laughed. "I have no doubt that, considering everything, it is a trifle absurd of me, but I'm not," he said. "One has to get accustomed to the notion that he is being made use of in connection with an ingenious swindle. That, however, is a matter which rests between Saxton and me, and we may talk over it when I go back again. Why did you call him a fool?"
Allonby leaned forward in his chair, and his face grew suddenly eager. "I suppose you couldn't raise eight thousand dollars to buy the mine with?"
Brooke laughed outright. "I should have some difficulty in raising twenty until the month is up."
"Then you are losing a chance you'll never get again in a lifetime," and Allonby made a little gesture of resignation. "I would have liked you to have taken it, because I think I could make you believe in me. That is why I showed you the medals."
Brooke looked at him curiously for a moment or two. It was evident that the man was in earnest, for his gaunt face was wholly intent, and his fingers were trembling.
"It is a very long time since I had the expectation of ever calling eight thousand dollars my own, and if I had them I should feel very dubious about putting them into any mine, and especially this one."
Allonby leaned forward further, and clutched his arm. "If you have any friends in the Old Country, beg or borrow from them. Offer them twenty per cent.—anything they ask. There is a fortune under your feet. Of course, you do not believe it. Nobody I ever told it to would even listen seriously."
"I believe you feel sure of it, but that is quite another thing," and Brooke smiled.
Allonby rose shakily, and leaned upon the table with his fingers trembling.
"Listen a few minutes—I was sure of attention without asking for it once," he said. "It was I who found the Dayspring, not by chance prospecting, but by calculations that very few men in the province could make. I know what that must appear—but you have seen the medals. Tracing the dip and curvature of the stratification from the Elktail and two prospectors' shafts, I knew the vein would approach the level here, and I put five thousand dollars—every cent I could scrape together—into proving it. We struck the vein, but while it should have been rich, we found it broken, displaced, and poor. There had, you see, been a disturbance of the strata. I borrowed money, worked night and day, and starved myself—did everything that would save a dollar from the rapidly-melting pile—and at last we struck the vein again, and struck it rich."
He stopped abruptly and stood staring vacantly in front of him, while Brooke heard him noisily draw in his breath.
"You can imagine what that meant!" he continued. "After what had happened in England I could never go back a poor man, but a good deal is forgiven the one who comes home rich. Then, while I tried to keep my head, we came to the fault where the ore vein suddenly ran out. It broke off as though cut through with a knife, and went down, as the men whoknew no better said, to the centre of the earth. Now a fault is a very curious thing, but one can deduce a good deal when he has studied them, and a big snow-slide had laid bare an interesting slice of the foundations of this country in the valley opposite. It took me a month to construct my theory, and that was little when you consider the factors I had to reckon with—ages of crushing pressure, denudation by grinding ice and sliding snow, and Titanic upheavals thousands of years ago. The result was from one point of view contemptible. With about four thousand dollars I could strike the vein again."
"Of course you tried to raise them?"
Allonby made a grimace. "For six long years. The men who had lent me money laughed at me, and worked the poor ore back along the incline instead of boring. Somebody has been working it—for about five cents on the dollar—ever since, and when I told them what they were letting slip all of them smiled compassionately. I am of course—though once it was different—a broken man, with a brain clouded by whisky, only fit to run a played-out mine. How could I be expected to find any man a fortune?"
His brain, it was evident, was slightly affected by alcohol then, but there was no mistaking the genuineness of his bitterness. It was too deep to be maudlin or tinged with self-commiseration now. The little hopeless gesture of resignation he made was also very eloquent, and while the rain splashed upon theroof Brooke sat silent regarding him curiously. The dim light and the flickering radiance from the fire were still on one side of his face, forcing it up with all its gauntness of outline, but the weakness had gone out of it, and for once it was strong and almost stern. Then a little sardonic smile crept into it.
"A fortune under our feet—and nobody will have it! It is one of Fate's grim jests," he said. "I spent a month making a theory, and every day of six years—that is when I was capable of thinking—has shown me something to prove that theory right. Now Saxton wants to swindle another man into buying the mine for—you can call it a song."
He poured out another glass with a shaking hand, and then turned abruptly to his companion. "Put on your rubber coat and come with me," he said.
Brooke would much rather have retired to sleep, but the man's earnestness had its effect on him, and he rose and went out into the rain with him. Allonby came near falling down the shaft when they stood at its head, but Brooke got him into the ore hoist and sent him down, after which he descended the running chain he had locked fast hand over hand. The level, as he had been told, was close to the surface, and while Allonby walked unsteadily in front of him with a blinking candle in his hat, they followed it into the face of the hill. Twice his companion stumbled over a piece of the timbering, and the light went out, while Brooke wondered uneasilyif there was another sinking anywhere ahead as he lighted it again. He knew a little about mining, since he had on one or two occasions earned a few dollars assisting in the driving of an adit.
Finally, Allonby stopped and leaned against the dripping rock, as he took off his hat and held the candle high above his head. Then he turned and pointed down the gallery the way they had come.
"Look at it!" he said, thickly. "Until we struck the ore where you see the extra timbering, I counted the dollars every yard of it cost me as I would drops of my life's blood. I worked while the men slept, and lived like a Chinaman. There was a fortune within my grasp if those dollars would hold out until I reached it—and fortune meant England, and I once more the man I had been. Then—we came to that."
He swung round and pointed with a wide, dramatic gesture which Brooke fancied he would not have used in his prosperous days, to a bare face of rock. It was of different nature to the sides of the tunnel, and had evidently come down from above. Brooke understood. The strata his companion had been working in had suddenly broken off and gone down, only he knew where. He sat down on a big fallen fragment, and there was silence for a space, emphasized by the drip of water in the blackness of the mine. Brooke was very drowsy, but the scene, with its loneliness and the haggard face of his companion showing pale and drawn in the candle-light, had a curious effect on him, and in the meanwhile compelled him to wakefulness.
"You know where that broken strata has dipped to?" he said, at last.
Allonby, who laughed in a strained fashion, sat down abruptly, and thrust a bundle of papers upon his companion. "Almost to a fathom. If you know anything of geology, look at these."
Brooke, who unrolled the papers, knew enough to recognize that, even if his companion had illusions, they were the work of a clever man. There was skill and what appeared to be a high regard for minute accuracy in every line of the plans, while he fancied the attached calculations would have aroused a mathematician's appreciation. He spent several minutes poring over them with growing wonder, while Allonby held the candle, and then looked up at him.