Barbara flashed a swift, keen glance at him, though she smiled. "Then beware in what quarrel you draw it—if I did. One would expect such a gift to be used with honor. It could, however, be legitimately employed against timber-righters, claim-jumpers, and all schemers and extortioners of that kind."
She stopped a moment, and looked at him, steadily now. "Do you know that I am glad you left the ranch?"
"Why?"
"What you are doing now is worth while. You would consider that priggishness in England, but it's the truth."
"You mean helping your brother-in-law to get ahead of the timber-righters?"
"No," said Barbara. "That is not what I mean, though if it is any consolation to you, it meets with my approbation, too."
"Then what I was doing before was not worth while?"
"That," said Barbara, with a trace of dryness, "is a question you can answer best, though I saw no especial evidence of activity of any kind. The question is—Can you do nothing better still? This province needs big bridges and daringly-built roads."
"I'm afraid not," and Brooke smiled a trifle wryly. "It costs a good many dollars to build a big bridge, and it is apparently very difficult for any man to acquire them so long as he works with his own hands."
"Still, isn't it worth the effort—not exactly for the dollars?"
Brooke looked at her gravely, with a slight hardening of his lips.
"I think it would be in my case," he said. "The difficulty is that I should run a heavy risk if the effort was ever made. Now, however, I had, perhaps, better show you how far we have got with the tramway."
There was, as it happened, not very much to show, and before half an hour had passed Barbara and Mrs. Devine climbed the steep ascent, while Brooke returned to redeem the hour spent with them by strenuous toil. It was also late that night before he flung aside the sheet of crude drawings and calculations he was making, and leaned back wearily in his chair. His limbs were aching, and so were his eyes, and he sat still awhile with them half-closed in a state of dreamy languor. He had dropped a tin shade over the lamp, and the tent was shadowy outside the narrow strip of radiance. There was no sound from the workmen's bark and canvas shanty, and the pulsating roar of the cañon broke sharply through an impressive stillness, until at last there was a faint rattle of gravel outside that suggested the approach of a cautious foot, and Brooke straightened himself suddenly as a man came into the tent. His face was invisible until he sat down within the range of light, and then Brooke started a little.
"Saxton!" he said.
Saxton laughed, and flung down his big hat. "Precisely!" he said. "There are camps in the province I wouldn't have cared to come into like this. It wouldn't be healthy for me, but in this case it seemed advisable to get here without anybody seeing me. Left my horse two hours ago at Tomlinson's ranch."
"It was something special brought you so far on foot?"
"Yes," said Saxton, "I guess it was. I came along to see what in the name of thunder you were doing here so long."
"I was building Devine a dam, and I am now stretching a rope across the cañon to bring his mine props over."
Saxton straightened himself, and stared at him, with blank astonishment in his face.
"I want to understand," he said. "You are putting him a rope across to bring props over with?"
"Yes," said Brooke. "Is there anything very extraordinary in that?"
Saxton laughed harshly. "Under the circumstances, I guess there is. Do you know who's stopping him cutting all the props he wants right behind the mine?"
"No," said Brooke, drily. "Devine doesn't either, which I fancy is probably as well for the man. The one who holds the rights is, I understand, only the dummy."
"Then I'll tell you right now. It's me."
Brooke started visibly, and then laid a firm restraint upon himself. "I warned you against leaving me in the dark."
Saxton slammed his hand down on the table. "Well," he said, "who would have figured on yourtaking up that contract? What in the name of thunder do you want to build his slingway for?"
Brooke sat thoughtfully silent for a moment or two. "To tell the truth, I'm not quite sure I know. The thing, you see, got hold of me."
"You don't know!" and Saxton laughed again, unpleasantly. "It's no great wonder they were glad to send you out here from the Old Country. The last thing I counted on was that my partner would spoil my game. You'll have to stop it right away."
Brooke closed his eyes a trifle, and looked at him. "No," he said. "That is precisely what can't be done."
There was no anger in his voice, and he made no particular display of resolution, but Saxton seemed to realize that this decision was definite. He sat fuming for a space, and then made a little emphatic gesture, which expressed complete bewilderment as well as desperation. Still, even then, he was quick enough of wit to make no futile protest, for there are occasions when the quiet inertia of the insular Englishman, who has made up his mind, is more than a match for the nervous impatience of the Westerner.
"Well," he said again, as though it was the only thing that occurred to him, "what did you do it for?"
Brooke smiled quietly. "As I told you not long ago, I really don't know."
"Then I guess there's nobody could size you up,and put you in the grade you belong to. You wouldn't take Devine's dollars when he wanted to hire you, and now you're building flumes and dams for him. I can't see any difference. There's no sense in it."
"I'm afraid there is really very little myself. It's rather like splitting hairs, isn't it? Still, there is, at least, what one might call a distinction. You see, I took over another man's contract, and what I'm doing now doesn't make it necessary for Devine to favor me with his confidence."
Saxton shook his head in a fashion that suggested he considered his comrade's case hopeless. "And it's just his confidence we want!" he said. "You don't seem able to get hold of the fact that you can't make very many dollars and keep your high-toned notions at the same time. The thing's out of the question. Now, I once heard a lecture on the New England States long ago, and pieces of it stuck to me. There were two or three of the hard old Puritans made their little pile cutting Frenchmen's and Spaniards' throats in the Gulf of Mexico, and built meeting-houses when they came home and settled down. Still, they had sense enough to see that what was the correct thing among the Quakers and Baptists of New England was quite out of place on the Caribbean Sea."
Brooke felt that there was truth in this, but he meant, at least, to cling to the distinction, eventhough he disregarded the difference, and Saxton seemed to realize it.
"Well," he said resignedly, "we may do something with that prop sling when we jump the claim. How are you getting on about the mine?"
"In point of fact, I'm not getting on at all. Each time I try to saunter into the workings, I am civilly turned out again. Devine, it seems, will not even let the few men who work on top in."
Saxton appeared to reflect. "Now, I wonder why," he said. "He's too smart to do anything without a reason, and he's not afraid of you, or he'd never have had you round the place. Still, you'll have to get hold of the facts we want before we can do anything, and I'm not quite sure what use I'll make of those timber-rights in the meanwhile. They cost me quite a few dollars, and it may be a while yet before anybody takes them from me. Building that slingway isn't quite what I expected from Devine after buying up forests to oblige him."
"Well, I will do what I can, but I wish Devine would give me those dollars back of his own accord. I'm almost commencing to like the man."
Saxton shook his head. "You can't afford to consider a point of that kind when it's against your business," he said. "Anyway, if you can give me a blanket or two, I'll get some sleep now. I have to be on the trail again by sun-up."
Brooke gave him his own spruce-twig couch, andmade him breakfast in the chilly dawn on a kerosene stove, and then was sensible of a curious relief as his confederate vanished into the filmy mists which drifted down the gorge.
Brooke was very wet and physically weary, which in part accounted for his dejected state of mind, when he led his jaded horse up the last few rods of climbing trail that crossed the big divide. It had just ceased raining, and the slippery rock ran water, while a cold wind, which set him shivering, shook a doleful wailing out of the scattered pines. One of them had fallen, and, stopping beside it, he looped the bridle round a broken branch, and sat down to rest and think, for the difficulties of the way had occupied his attention during a long day's journey, and, since he expected to meet Saxton in another hour, he had food for reflection.
It was not a cheerful prospect he looked down upon, and that evening the desolation of the surroundings reacted upon him. The gleaming snow was smothered now in banks of dingy mist, and below him there rolled away a dreary waste of pines, whose ragged spires rose out of the drifting vapors rent and twisted by the ceaseless winds. It was, in words he had not infrequently heard applied to it, a hardcountry he must spend his years of exile in, and of late nothing had gone well with him.
Since he had last seen Saxton, he had lived in a state of tension, waiting for the time when circumstances should render the carrying out of their purpose feasible, and yet clinging to a faint hope that he might, by some unknown means, still be relieved of the necessity of persisting in a course that was becoming more odious every day. The dam was almost completed, but it was with dismay he had counted the cost of it, and twice the steel rope had torn up stays and columns, and hurled them into the cañon, while he would, he knew, be fortunate if he secured a profit of a couple of hundred dollars as the result of several months of perilous labor. Prosperity, it was very evident, was not to be achieved in that fashion. He had also seen very little of Barbara Heathcote for some time, and she had been to him as a mental stimulant, of which he felt the loss, while now his prospects seemed as dreary as the dripping waste he stared across with heavy eyes. All this, as it happened, bore directly upon his errand, for it once more brought home the fact that a man without dollars could expect very little in that country, while there was, it seemed, only one way of obtaining them open to him. It was true that he shrank from availing himself of it, but that did not, after all, greatly affect the case, and he endeavored to review the situation dispassionately.
He had decided that he was warranted in recovering the six thousand dollars by any means available, and it was evidently folly to take into account the anger and contempt of a girl who could, of course, be nothing to him. Her station placed that out of the question, since it would, so far as he could see, be a very long time indeed before he could secure even the most modest competence, and he felt that there was a still greater distinction between them morally; but, in spite of this, he realized that the girl's approbation was the one thing he clung to. He could scarcely nerve himself to fling it away, and yet it seemed, in the light of reason, a very indifferent requital for a life of struggle and poverty. She had, he told himself, merely taken a passing interest in him, and once she met a man of her own station fortunate enough to gain her regard, was scarcely likely even to remember him.
Then he rose with a little hardening of his lips, and, flinging himself wearily into the saddle, strove to shake off his thoughts as the jaded horse floundered down into the valley. They were both too weary to attempt to pick their way, and went down, sliding and slipping, with the gravel rattling away from under them, until they reached the thicker timber, and smashed recklessly through thickets of giant fern and salmon berry. Now and then a drooping branch struck Brooke as he passed, but he scarcely noticed it, and rode on, swaying in his saddle, while greatdrops of moisture splashed upon his grim, wet face. It was sunrise when he had ridden out from the Canopus mine, with his horse's head turned towards the settlement, and dark was closing down when at last he dropped, aching all over, from the saddle at the door of Saxton's shanty at the Elktail mine. The latter, who opened it, smiled at him somewhat drily, and was by no means effusive in his greeting.
"I wasn't quite sure the message I sent you from Vancouver would fetch you, though I made it tolerably straight," he said.
"You certainly did," said Brooke. "In fact, I don't know that you could have made it more unlikely to bring me here. Still, what put the fancy that I might disregard it into your head?"
Saxton looked at him curiously. "Well," he said, with an air of reflection, "you seemed to be quite at home in several senses, and making the most of it there. There are folks who would consider that girl with the big eyes pretty."
Brooke, who was entering the shanty, swung round sharply. "I think we can leave Miss Heathcote out. It's a little difficult to understand how you came to know what I was doing at the Canopus? You were in Vancouver."
Saxton appeared almost disconcerted for a moment, but he laughed. "Well," he said, "I figured on what was most likely when I heard Miss Heathcote was still there."
He saw that he had made another mistake, and wondered whether Brooke, who had, as it happened, done so, had noticed it, while the fact that the latter's face was now expressionless roused him to a little display of vindictiveness.
"I heard something about her in Vancouver, anyway, which it's quite likely she didn't mention to you. It was that she's mighty good friends with one of the Pacific Squadron officers. She has a good many dollars of her own, and they're mostly folks who make a splash in their own country."
Brooke afterwards decided that this must have been an inspiration, but just then he felt that Saxton was watching him, and showed no sign of interest.
"If she did, I don't remember it, though I should consider the thing quite probable," he said. "Still, as Miss Heathcote's fancies don't concern us, wouldn't it be more to the purpose if you got me a little to eat?"
Saxton summoned his cook, and nothing more was said until Brooke had finished his meal. Then his host looked at him as they sat beside the crackling stove.
"Isn't it 'bout time you made a move at the Canopus?" he said. "So far as you have gone, you have only spoiled my hand. You didn't go there to build Devine flumes and dams."
"In point of fact, I rather think I did. The difficulty, however, is that I am still unable to get into the mine. I have invented several excuses, which did not work, already. Nobody except the men who get the ore is even allowed to look at the workings."
A little gleam crept into Saxton's eyes. "Now, it seems to me that Devine has struck it rich, or he wouldn't be so concerned particular. It's quite plain that he doesn't want everybody to know what he's getting out of the Canopus. It's only a mine that's paying folks think of jumping."
"Has it struck you that he might wish to sell it, and be taking precautions for exactly the opposite reason?"
Saxton made a little gesture of approval, though he shook his head. "You show you have a little sense now and then, but there's nothing in that view," he said. "Is a man going to lay out dollars on dams and wire-rope slings when he knows that none of them will be any use to him?"
"I think he might. That is, if he wanted investors, who could be induced to take it off his hands, to hear of it."
"The point is that he has only to put the Canopus into the market, and they'd pile down the dollars now."
"Still, it is presumably our business, and not Devine's, you purposed to talk about."
Saxton nodded. "Then we'll start in," he said."You can't get into the mine, and it has struck me that if you could your eyes wouldn't be as good as a compass and a measuring-chain. Well, that brings us to the next move. When Devine left Vancouver a week ago, he took up a tin case he keeps the plans and patents of the Canopus in with him. You needn't worry about how I'm sure of this, but I am. Those papers will tell us all we want to know."
"I have no doubt they would. Still, I don't see that we are any nearer getting over the difficulty. Devine is scarcely likely to show them me."
"You'll have to lay your hands upon the case. It's in the ranch."
Brooke's face flushed, and for a moment his lips set tight, while he closed one hand as he looked at his confederate. Then he spoke on impulse, "I'll be hanged if I do!"
Saxton, who had, perhaps, expected the outbreak, regarded him with a little sardonic smile.
"Now," he said, quietly, "you'll listen to me, and put aside those notions of yours for a while. I've had about enough of them already. Devine robbed you—once—and he has taken dollars out of my pocket a good many times, while I can't see any great difference between glancing at another man's papers and crawling into his mine. We're not going to take the Canopus from him anyway—it would be too big a deal—but we have got to find out enough to put the screw on him. You don't owe him anything, foryou're building those flumes and dams cheaper than he would get it done by anybody else."
Brooke sat silent a space, with the blood still in his cheeks and one hand closed. He was sensible of a curious disgust, and yet it was evident that his confederate was right. There was, after all, no great difference between the scheme suggested and what he had already been willing to do, and yet he was sensible that it was not that fact which chiefly influenced him, for Saxton had done wisely when he hinted at Barbara Heathcote's supposititious fondness for the naval officer. Brooke had already endeavored to contemplate the likelihood of something of this kind happening, with equanimity, and there was nothing incredible about the story. The men of the Pacific Squadron were frequently in Victoria, and steamers crossed to Vancouver every day; but now probability had changed to what appeared to be certainty, he was sensible almost of dismay. At the same time, the restraint which had counted most with him was suddenly removed, and he turned to Saxton with a little decisive gesture. He certainly owed Devine nothing, and his confederate had, when he needed it badly, shown him what he fancied was, in part, at least, genuine kindness.
"Well," he said, "I will do what I can."
"Then," said Saxton, drily, "you had better do it soon. Devine goes across to the Sumas valley, where he's selling land, every now and then, and I havereason for believing he's expected there not later than next week. I guess he's not likely to take that case with him. It's quite a big one. You'll get hold of it, and find out what we want to know, as soon as he's gone."
"The question is—How am I to manage it? You wouldn't expect me to pick the lock of his safe, presumably?"
Saxton, who appeared reflective, quite failed to notice the irony of the inquiry. "Well," he said, "if I figured I could do it, I guess I wouldn't let that stand in my way. Still, I'm not sure that he has any, and it's even chances he keeps the case under some books or truck of that kind in the room he has fixed up as office at the ranch. You see, the dollars for the men come straight up from Vancouver every pay-day."
Brooke straightened himself in his chair, with a little shake of his shoulders. "Now," he said, "we'll talk of something else. This isn't particularly pleasant. I had, of course, realized before I came out that one might find it necessary to follow an occupation he had no particular taste for in the Dominion of Canada, which is, it seems, the home of the adaptable man who can accustom himself to anything, but I really never expected that I should consider it an admissible thing to steal my employer's papers. That, however, is not the question. Give me a cigar, and tell me how you purpose stimulating the progressof this great province when you get into the Legislature."
Saxton did so at length, and it was perfectly evident that he saw no incongruity between what he purposed to do when in the Legislature and the means he adopted of getting there, for he sketched out reforms and improvements with optimistic ability. Once or twice a sardonic smile crept into Brooke's eyes, for there was no mistaking the fact that the man was serious, and then his attention wandered, and he ruminated on the position. Saxton appeared curiously well informed as to Devine's movements, but though Brooke could find no answer to the question how he had obtained the information, it did not, after all, seem to be of any great importance, and he once more found himself listening to his comrade languidly. Saxton was then declaiming against official corruption and incapacity.
"We want to make a clean sweep, and put the best and squarest men into office. This country has no use for any other kind," he said.
"That," said Brooke, drily, "is no doubt why you are going in. Anyway, I fancy it is getting late, and I have a long ride before me to-morrow."
Saxton smiled good-humoredly. "Well," he said, "I can go just as straight as any man when I've made my little pile. Most folks find it a good deal easier then."
It seemed to Brooke, who had not found adversityespecially conducive to uprightness, that there was, perhaps, a certain truth in his comrade's notion, but he felt no great inclination to consider the question, and in another ten minutes was sinking into sleep. He also started before sunrise next morning, and was walking stiffly up the climbing trail to the Canopus mine, with the bridle of the jaded horse in his hand, when he came upon Barbara Heathcote amidst the pines. She apparently noticed his weariness and the mire upon the horse.
"The trail must have been very bad," she said.
"It certainly was," said Brooke, who, because it did not appear advisable that any one should suspect he was riding to the Elktail mine, had taken the trail to the settlement when he set out. "When there has been heavy rain, it usually is. The trail-choppers should have laid down logs in the Saverne swamp."
"But what took you that way?" said the girl. "It must have been a tremendous round."
Brooke realized that he had been indiscreet, for nobody who wished to reach the settlement was likely to cross that swamp.
"As a matter of fact, it is," he said. "As you see, the horse is almost played out."
Barbara glanced at him, as he fancied, rather curiously, but she changed the subject. "I have a friend from Vancouver, who heard you play at the concert, here, and we had hoped you might be persuaded tobring your violin across to the ranch to-night. Katty asked Jimmy to tell you that we expected you. That is, if you were not too tired."
Brooke felt the blood creep into his face. He longed to go, but he had a sense of fitness, and he felt that, although such scruples were a trifle out of place in his case, he could not, after the arrangement he had made with Saxton, betray the girl's confidence by visiting the ranch again as a respected guest. No excuse but the one she had suggested, however, presented itself, and it seemed to him advisable to make use of it with uncompromising candidness. Her friendliness hurt him, and, since it presumably sprang from a mistaken good opinion, it would be a slight relief to show her that he was deficient even in courtesy.
"I'm almost afraid I am," he said.
Barbara Heathcote had a good deal of self-restraint, but there was a trace of astonishment in her face, and, for a moment, a suspicious sparkle in her eyes.
"Then we will, of course, excuse you," she said. "You will, I hope, not think it very inconsiderate of me to stop you now."
Brooke said nothing, but tugged at the bridle viciously, and trudged forward into the gloom of the pines, while Barbara, who would not admit that she had come there in the hope of meeting him, turned homewards thoughtfully. As it happened, she alsomet the freight-packer, who brought their supplies up on the way.
"Where is Saverne swamp? Behind the range, isn't it?" she said.
"Yes, miss," said the freighter, pointing across the pines. "Back yonder."
"Then if I wished to ride into the settlement I could scarcely go round that way?"
The man laughed. "No," he said. "I guess you couldn't. Not unless you started the night before, and then you'd have to climb right across the big divide. Nobody heading for the settlement would take that trail."
He went on with his loaded beasts, and Barbara stood still, looking down upon the forest with a little pink tinge in her cheeks and a curious expression in her eyes. Remembering the trace of disconcertion he had shown, she very much wished to know where Brooke had really been.
Darkness had closed down outside, and the lamp was lighted in Devine's office, which occupied a projection of the wooden ranch. Behind it stood the kitchen, and a short corridor, which gave access to both, led back from its inner door to the main building. Another door opened directly on to the clearing, and a grove of willows, past which the trail led, crept close up to it, so that any one standing among them could see into the room. There was, however, little probability of that happening, for nobody lived in that stretch of forest, except the miners, whose shanty stood almost a mile away. Devine sat opposite the captain of the mine across the little table, and he had let his cigar go out, while his face was a trifle grim.
"The last clean-up was not particularly encouraging, Tom," he said.
Wilkins nodded, and there was a trace of concern in his face, which was seamed and rugged, for he was one of the old-time prospectors, who, trusting solely to their practical acquaintance with the rocks,had played a leading part in the development of the mineral resources of that province.
"The trouble is that the next one's going to be worse," he said. "The pay-dirt's getting scarcer as we cut further in, and I have a notion that the boys are beginning to notice it now and then, though there's not a man in the crowd who would make his grub prospecting. They're road-makers, most of them."
Devine glanced at the little leather-bound book he held, in which was entered the net yield of gold from the ore the stamps crushed down, and noted the steady decrease.
"It's quite plain to me that the vein is working out," he said. "It remains to be seen whether we'll strike better rock with the adit on the different level. I don't notice very many signs of that yet."
Wilkins shook his head. "I guess I haven't seen any for a week, and we're spending quite a pile of dollars trying to hold the hillside up. The signs were all on top," he said. "There are ranges where you can strike it just as sure and easy as falling off a log, but I guess something long ago shook these mountains up, and mixed up all the rock. There's only one man figures he knows how it was done, and he won't talk about it when he's sensible."
"Allonby, of the Dayspring!" said Devine. "Now, the last time we worried about the thing you told me you considered our chances good enough to put yoursavings in. Would you feel like doing it to-day? I want the information, not the dollars. You know it's generally wisest to be straight with me."
"No, sir," said Wilkins, drily, "I wouldn't."
Devine sat thoughtfully silent for a minute or two, and the captain, who lighted his cigar again, wondered what was in his mind. He felt tolerably certain there was, as usual, a good deal, and that something would result from it presently.
"You went through the Dayspring?" Devine said, at length.
"I did. So far as I can figure, it's a mine that will make its living, and nothing worth while more. 'Bout two or three cents on the dollar."
"Allonby thinks more of it."
A little incredulous smile crept into the captain's eyes. "When he has got most of a bottle of rye whisky into him! Allonby's a skin."
"Well," said Devine, "I'm going over to talk to him, and I needn't keep you any longer in the meanwhile. You will remember that only you and I have got to know what the Canopus is really doing."
The captain's smile was very expressive as he went out, but when the door closed behind him Devine sat still with wrinkled forehead and thoughtful eyes while half an hour slipped by. He was, however, not addicted to purposeless reflections, and the results of his cogitations as a rule became apparent in due time. He cheerfully took risks, or chances, ashe called them, which the average English business man would have shrunk from, for the leaders of the Pacific Slope's activities have no time for caution. Life is too short, they tell one, to make sure of everything, and it is, in point of fact, not particularly long in case of most of them, for there is a significant scarcity of old men. Like the rest, he staked his dollars boldly, and when he lost them, which happened now and then, accepted it as what was to be expected, and usually recouped himself on another deal.
That was why he had bought the Canopus under somewhat peculiar circumstances, and extended the workings without concerning himself greatly as to whether every stipulation of the Crown mining regulations had been complied with, until the mine proved profitable, when it had appeared advisable not to court inquiry, which might result in the claim being jumped by applying for corrected records. It also explained the fact that although he had no safe at the ranch, he had brought up all the plans and papers relating to it from his Vancouver office, and kept them merely covered by certain dusty books. Nobody who might feel an illegitimate interest in them would, he argued, expect to find them there.
While he sat there the inner door opened softly, and Barbara, who came in noiselessly, laid a hand upon his shoulder. Devine had not, as it happened, heard her, but it was significant that he did not startat all, and only turned his head a trifle more quickly than usual. Then he looked up at her quietly.
"Are you never astonished or put out?" she said. "You didn't expect me?"
Devine smiled a little. "Well," he said, "I don't think I often am. The last time I remember, a cinnamon bear ran me up a tree. What brought you, anyway?"
"It's getting late," and Barbara sat down. "You have been here two hours already. Now, of course, you show very little sign of it, but I can't help a fancy that you have been worrying over something the last day or two. I suppose one could scarcely expect you to take me into your confidence."
"The thing's not big enough to worry over, but I have been thinking some. We have struck no gold in the adit, and now when we're waiting for the props the Englishman has dropped the rope into the cañon. That little contract is going to cost him considerable."
Barbara wondered whether he had any particular reason for watching her, or if she only fancied that his gaze was a trifle more observant than usual.
"Still, I think he will get a rope across," she said.
"Oh, yes," said Devine, indifferently. "There's grit in him. A curious kind of man. Wouldn't take a good offer to work for me, and yet he jumped right at those contracts. He's going to find it hardto make them pay his grocery bill. I guess he hasn't told you anything?"
"No," said Barbara, a trifle hastily, for once more she felt the keen eyes scan her face. "Of course not. Why should he?"
Devine smiled. "If you don't know any reason you needn't ask me. You can't make a Britisher talk, anyway, unless he wants to."
He made a little gesture as though to indicate that the subject was not worth discussing, and then, taking up a bundle of documents, turned to her again.
"You see those papers, Bab? They're plans and Crown patents for the mine. I'm going away to-morrow, and can't take them along, so I'll put them under that pile of old books yonder. Now, if I was to tell Katty to make sure the doors were fast she'd get worrying, but you have better nerves, and I'll ask you to see that nobody gets in here until I come back again. Nobody's likely to want to, but I'll put a screw in the window, and give you the key."
Barbara laughed. "I shall not be afraid. Are the papers valuable?"
"No," said Devine, with a trace of dryness. "Not exactly! In fact, I'm not quite sure they would be worth anything to anybody in a month or two. Still, the man who got hold of them in the meanwhile might fancy he could make trouble for me."
"How?" said Barbara. "You said they mightn't be much use to anybody."
Devine smiled a little, but it was evident that he had considerable confidence in the discretion of his wife's sister.
"I can't explain part of it," he said. "When I took hold of the Canopus, it didn't seem likely to pay me for my trouble, and I didn't worry about the patents or how far they covered what I was doing. Now, if you drive beyond the frontage you've made your claim on, it constitutes another mine, which isn't covered by your record and belongs to the Crown. It's open to any jumper who comes along. Besides, unless you do a good many things exactly as the law lays down, your patent mayn't hold good, and any one who knows the regulations can re-record the claim."
"That means you or the previous owner neglected one or two formalities, and an unscrupulous person who found it out from those papers could take the Canopus, or part of it, away from you?"
Devine smiled grimly. "Yes," he said. "That is, he might try."
"I understand," said Barbara. "Still, there are no strangers here, and I don't think you have a man who would attempt anything of that kind about the mine."
"Or at the cañon?"
Barbara was sensible of a curious little thrill ofanger, for Brooke was at the cañon, but she looked at him steadily.
"No," she said. "I am quite sure that is the last thing one would expect from anybody at the cañon, but if we stay here Katty will be wondering what has become of me."
Devine rose and followed her out of the room, and in another half-hour the ranch was in darkness. He rode away early next morning, and the big, empty living-room seemed lonely to the two women who sat by the window when night drew in again. The evening was very still and clear, and the chill of the snow was in the motionless air. No sound but the distant roar of the river broke the silence, and when the white line of snow grew dimmer high up in the dusky blue, and the pines across the clearing faded to a blur of shadow, Mrs. Devine shivered a little.
"I suppose quietness is good for one, if only because it isn't very nice, but it gets a trifle depressing now and then," she said. "Why didn't you ask Mr. Brooke to come across?"
"You may have noticed that he never comes when my brother-in-law is not here, and then he brings drawings or estimates of some kind with him."
Mrs. Devine appeared reflective. "Grant has not been away for almost two weeks now, and it is quite that time since we have seen Mr. Brooke," she said. "Didn't we ask him to come when you had Minnie here?"
"You did," said Barbara, with a faint flush, which the shadows hid. "He asked me to excuse him."
"Because Grant was away?"
"No," said Barbara, drily. "That, at least, was not the reason he gave me. He said he was—too tired."
Mrs. Devine laughed, for she had noticed the hardness in her sister's voice.
"It really must have been exasperating. He should have thought of a better excuse," she said. "You have only to hold up a finger at Vancouver, and they all flock round, eager to do a good deal more than you wish them to, while this flume-builder doesn't seem to understand what is implied by a royal invitation. No doubt you will find a way of making him realize his contumacy."
"I am almost afraid I shall not have the opportunity."
"And you can't very well attempt to make one, especially as I remember now that Grant told me he was very hard at work at the cañon. It would be even worse to be told he was too busy, since that implies that one has something better to do."
Barbara had a spice of temper, as her sister naturally knew, but she smiled at this, for she was unwilling to admit, even to herself, and much less to anybody else, that she felt the slightest irritation at the fact that Brooke had shown no eagerness to avail himself of the invitation she had given him. Still,she was, on this score, very far from feeling pleased with him.
"I dare say he has," she said.
"Then he is, at least, not doing it very successfully. The rope—I forgot how much Grant said it cost—fell into the cañon."
"I am not very sure there are many men who would have attempted to put a rope across at all," said Barbara, and did not realize for a moment that she had, to some extent, betrayed herself. She might, though she did not admit it, feel displeased with the flume-builder herself, but that was no reason why she should permit another person to disparage his capabilities, all of which her sister was probably acquainted with.
"Well," she said, indifferently, "we hope he will be successful. The man pleases me, but I would very much like to know what Grant thinks about him."
"Then why don't you ask him?"
Mrs. Devine shook her head. "Grant never tells anybody his opinions until he's tolerably sure he's right, and I fancy he is a little undecided about Mr. Brooke as yet," she said. "Still, it's getting shivery, and this silence is a trifle eerie. I'm going to bed."
She lighted a lamp, but when she went out Barbara made her way to her room without one. There was nobody else beyond Wilkins' wife in the ranch, and she had retired some time ago. The ramblingwooden building was not dark, but dusky, with black depths of shadow in the corners of the rooms, for the dim crepuscular light would, at that season, linger almost until the dawn. To some natures it would also have been more suggestive of hidden dangers than impenetrable obscurity, but Barbara passed up the rickety stairway and down an echoing passage fearlessly, and then sat down by the open window of her room, looking out into the night. A half-moon was now slowly lifting itself above the faintly-gleaming snow, and she could see the pines roll away in sombre battalions into the drifting mists below. Their sleep-giving fragrance reached her through the dew-cooled air, but she scarcely noticed it as she lay with her low basket-chair drawn close up to the window-sill.
It was the flume-builder her thoughts hovered round, and she endeavored fruitlessly to define the attraction he had for her, or, as she preferred to consider it, the reason for the interest she felt in him. She admitted that this existed, and wondered vaguely how much of it was due to vanity resulting from a recognition of the fact that it was she who had roused him from a state of too acquiescent lethargy. What she had seen at the Quatomac ranch had had its significance for her, and she had realized the hopelessness of the life he was leading there. Even if she had not done so, he had told her, more or less plainly, that it was she who had given him new aspirations,and re-awakened his sense of responsibility. That, perhaps, accounted for a good deal, since she was endued with the compassionate maternal instinct which, when it finds no natural outlet, prompts many women to encourage, and on opportunity, shelter the beaten down and fallen.
It was, however, evident that the flume-builder did not exactly come under that category. Indeed, of late, his daring and pertinacity had won her admiration as well as sympathy, and that led her to the question what his aspirations pointed to. She would not consider it, for the fashion in which she had once or twice felt his eyes dwell upon her face was, in that connection, almost unpleasantly suggestive. Then she wondered why the fact that he had not long ago excused himself from spending an evening in her company at the ranch should have hurt her, as she now almost admitted that it did. It was, she decided, not exactly due to pique or wounded vanity, for, though very human in many respects, she, at least, considered herself too strong for either. That, however, brought her no nearer any answer which commended itself to her.
The man was less brilliant than several she had met. She could not even be sure that there were not grave defects in his character, and he was, in the meanwhile, a mere flume-builder. Yet he was different from those other men, though, since the difference was by no means altogether in his favor, itwas almost irritating that her thoughts should dwell upon him, to the exclusion of the rest. There was presumably a reason for this, but she made a little impatient movement, and resolutely put aside the subject as one suggested itself. It was, she decided, altogether untenable, and, in fact, preposterous.
Still, she felt far from sleepy, and sat still, shivering a little now and then, while the moon rose higher above the snow, until its faint light drove back the shadows from the swamp. The clustering pines shook off their duskiness, and grew into definite tracery; an owl that hooted eerily flitted by on soundless wing, and she felt the silence become suddenly almost overwhelming. There was no wind that she could feel, but she could hear the little willow leaves stirring, it seemed, beneath the cooling dew, for the sound had scarcely strength enough to make a tangible impression upon her senses. It, however, appeared to grow a trifle louder, and she found herself listening with strained attention when it ceased awhile, until it rose again, a trifle more clearly. She glanced at the cedars above the clearing, but they stood sombre and motionless in silent ranks, and she leaned forward in her chair with heart beating more rapidly than usual as she wondered what made those leaves move. They were certainly rustling now, while the ranch was very silent, and the rest of the clearing altogether still.
Then a shadow detached itself from the rest, andits contour did not suggest that of a slender tree. It increased in length, and, remembering Devine's papers, she rose with a little gasp. Her sister, as he had pointed out, had delicate nerves, Mrs. Wilkins was dull of hearing, and, as the men's shanty stood almost a mile away, it was evident that she must depend upon her own resources. She stood still, quivering a little, for almost a minute, and then with difficulty repressed a cry when the dim figure of a man appeared in the clearing. Two minutes later she slipped softly into the room where Katty Devine lay asleep, and opened a cupboard set apart for her husband's use, while, when she flitted across the stream of radiance that shone in through the window, she held an object, that gleamed with a metallic lustre, clenched in one hand.
The half-moon Barbara watched from her window floated slowly above the serrated tops of the dusky pines when Brooke groped his way through their shadow across a strip of the Englishman's swamp. The ranch which he was making for rose darkly before him with the willows clustering close up to that side of it, and he stopped and stood listening when he reached them. The night was very still, so still, indeed, that the deep silence vaguely troubled him. High above the climbing forests great ramparts of never-melting snow gleamed against the blue, and standing there, hot, breathless, and a trifle muddy, he felt their impressive white serenity, until he started at a faint rattle in the house. It ceased suddenly, but it had set his heart throbbing unpleasantly fast, though he was sensible of a little annoyance with himself because this was the case.
There was nothing he need fear, and he was, indeed, not quite sure that the prospect of facing a physical peril would have been altogether unpleasant then. Devine was away, the women were doubtlessasleep, and it was the fact that he was about to creep like a thief into a house where he had been hospitably welcomed which occasioned his uneasiness. It was true that he only meant to acquire information which would enable him to recover the dollars he had been defrauded of, but the reflection brought him no more consolation than it had done on other occasions when he had been sensible of the same disgust and humiliation.
He was, however, at the same time sensible of a faint relief, for the position had been growing almost intolerable of late, and, though he shrank from the revelation, it seemed preferable that Barbara Heathcote should see him in the true light at last. This, it was evident, must happen ultimately, and now it would, at least, dispense with the hateful necessity of continuing the deception. He had also, though that appeared of much less importance then, met with further difficulties at the cañon, and he realized almost with content that Devine would in all probability pay him nothing for the uncompleted work. He did not wish to feel that he owed Devine anything.
In the meanwhile a little bent branch from which the bruised leaves drooped limply caught his eye, for he had trained his powers of observation following the deer at the ranch, and moving a trifle he noticed one that was broken. It was evident that somebody had recently forced his way through the thickettowards the house, and he wondered vacantly why anyone should have done so when a good trail led round the copse. The question would probably not have occupied his attention at any other time, but just then he was glad to seize upon anything that might serve to distract his thoughts from the purpose he had on hand.
He could not, however, stay there considering it, and following the bend of the willows he came to the door of the ranch kitchen, behind which the office stood, and once more he stopped to listen. There was nothing audible but the distant roar of the cañon, and, though nobody could see him, he felt his face grow hot as he laid one hand upon the door and inserted the point of a little steel bar in the crevice. Devine's office was isolated from the rest of the ranch, but Brooke felt that if anybody heard the sound he expected to make he would not be especially sorry. He would not abandon his project, but he could have borne anything that made it impracticable with equanimity.
The door, however, somewhat to his astonishment, swung open at a touch, and he crept in noiselessly with an even greater sense of degradation. The inmates of the ranch were, it seemed, wholly unsuspecting, and he whom they had treated with gracious kindliness was about to take a shameful advantage of their confidence. Still, he crossed the kitchen carrying the little bar and did not stop until he reachedthe office door. This stood ajar, but he stood still a moment in place of going in, longing, most illogically, for any interruption. The ranch seemed horribly and unnaturally still, for he could not hear the sound of the river now, until there was a low rustle that set him quivering. Somebody, it appeared, was moving about the room in front of him. Then a board creaked sharply, and with every nerve strung up he drew the door a trifle open.
A faint stream of radiance shone in through the window, but it fell upon the wall opposite, and the rest of the room was wrapped in shadow, in which he could just discern a dim figure that moved stealthily. It was evidently a man who could have come there with no commendable purpose, and as he recognized this a somewhat curious thing happened, for Brooke's lips set tight, and he clenched the steel bar in a fit of venomous anger. It did not occur to him that his own object was, after all, very much the same as the stranger's, and creeping forward noiselessly with eyes fixed on the dusky figure he saw it stoop and apparently move a book that stood on what seemed to be a box. That movement enabled him to gain another yard, and then he stopped again, bracing himself for the grapple, while the dim object straightened itself and turned towards the light.
Brooke could hear nothing but the throbbing of his heart, and for a moment his eyes grew hazy; but that passed, and he saw the man hold up an objectthat was very like a tin case. He moved again nearer the light, and Brooke sprang forward with the bar swung aloft. Quick as he was, the stranger was equally alert, and stepped forward instead of back, while next moment Brooke looked into the dully glinting muzzle of a pistol.
"Stop right where you are!" a voice said.
Brooke did as he was bidden, instinctively. Had there been any unevenness in the voice he might have risked a rush, but the grim quietness of the order was curiously impressive, and for a second or two the men stood tense and motionless, looking at one another with hands clenched and lips hard set Brooke recognized the intruder as a man who wheeled the ore between the mine and stamps, and remembered that he had not been there very long.
"What do you want here?" he said, for the silence was getting intolerable.
The man smiled grimly, though he did not move the pistol, and his eyes were unpleasantly steady.
"I was going to ask you the same thing, but it don't count," he said. "There's a door yonder, and you have 'bout ten seconds to get out of it. If you're here any longer you're going to take tolerably steep chances of getting hurt."
Brooke realized that the warning was probably warranted, but he stood still, stiffening his grasp on the bar, for to vacate the position was the last thing he contemplated. Barbara Heathcote was in theranch, and he did not remember that she had also two companions then. Nor did he know exactly what he meant to do, that is, while the stranger eyed him with the same unpleasant steadiness, for it was evident that a very slight contraction of his forefinger would effectually prevent him doing anything. Then while they stood watching each other breathlessly for a second or two a door handle rattled and Brooke heard a rustle of draperies.
"Look behind you!" said the stranger, sharply.
Brooke, too strung up to recognize the risk of the proceeding, swung round almost before he heard him, and then gasped with consternation, for Barbara stood in the entrance holding up a light. She was, however, not quite defenseless, as Brooke realized when he saw the gleaming pistol in her hand. Next moment his folly, and the fact that the stranger had also seen it, became evident, for there was a hasty patter of feet, and when Brooke turned again he had almost gained the other door of the room. Barbara, who had moved forward in the meanwhile, however, now stood between him and it, and turning half round he raised the pistol menacingly. Then with hand clenched hard upon the bar Brooke sprang.
There was a flash and a detonation, the acrid smoke drove into his eyes, and he fell with a crash against the door, which was flung to in front of him. He had, as he afterwards discovered, struck it with his head and shoulder, but just then he was onlysensible of an unpleasant dizziness and a stinging pain in his left arm. Then he leaned somewhat heavily against the door, and he and the girl looked at each other through the filmy wisps of smoke that drifted athwart the light, while a rapid patter of footsteps grew less distinct. Barbara was somewhat white in face, and her lips were quivering.
"Are you hurt?" she said, and her voice sounded curiously strained.
"No," said Brooke, with a little hollow laugh. "Not seriously, anyway. The fellow flung the door to in my face, and the blow must have partly dazed me. That reminds me that I'm wasting time. Where is he now?"
Barbara made a little forceful gesture. "Halfway across the clearing, I expect. You cannot go after him. Look at your arm."
Brooke turned his head slowly, for the dizziness he was sensible of did not seem to be abating, and saw a thin, red trickle drip from the sleeve of his jean jacket, which the moonlight fell upon.
"I scarcely think it's worth troubling about. The arm will bend all right," he said. "Still, perhaps, you wouldn't mind very much if I took this thing off."
He seized the edge of the jacket, and then while his face went awry let his hand drop again.
"It might, perhaps, be better to cut the sleeve," hesaid. "Could you run this knife down the seam? The jean is very thin."
The girl's hand shook a little as she opened the knife he passed her, and just then a cry came down faintly from one of the rooms above. Barbara swung round swiftly, and moved into the corridor.
"Nothing very dreadful has happened, and I am coming back in a minute or two, but whatever you do don't come down," she said authoritatively, and Brooke heard a door swing to above.
Then she came towards him quietly, and laid a hand on his shoulder.
"Keep still, and I will not be long. Katty is apt to lose her head," she said.
Her fingers still quivered a little, but she was deft in spite of it, and when the slit sleeve fell away Brooke sat down on the table with a little smile.
"Very sorry to trouble you," he said. "I don't know much about these things, but the artery evidently isn't cut, and I don't think the bone is touched. That means there can't be very much harm done. Would you mind tying my handkerchief tightly round it where I've laid my finger?"
Barbara, who did so, afterwards sat down in the nearest chair, for she felt a trifle breathless as well as somewhat limp, and there was an embarrassing silence, while for no very apparent reason they now avoided looking at one another. A little filmy smoke still drifted about the room, and a short steel bar, atin case, and a litter of papers lay between them on the floor. There were red splashes on one or two of the latter.
"The man must have dropped them," said Barbara, quietly, though her voice was still not quite her usual one. "He, of course, brought the bar to open the door with."
Brooke did not answer the last remark.
"I fancy he dropped them when he flung the door in my face," he said.
"Of course!" said Barbara. "He had his hands full."
The point did not seem of the least importance to her, but she was shaken, and felt that the silence which was growing significant would be insupportable. Then a thought struck her, and she looked up suddenly at the man.
"But, now, I remember, you had the bar," she said.
"Yes," said Brooke, very simply, though his face was grim. "I certainly had."
The girl had turned a little so that the light shone upon her, and he saw the faint bewilderment in her eyes. It, however, vanished in a moment or two, but Brooke decided that if he guessed her thoughts correctly he had done wisely in admitting the possession of the bar.
"Of course! You hadn't a pistol, and it was, no doubt, the only thing you could find," she said. "I'mafraid I did not even remember to thank you, but to tell the truth I was too badly frightened to think of anything."
Brooke nodded comprehendingly, but Barbara noticed that the blood was in his cheeks and he smiled in a very curious fashion.
"I scarcely think I deserve any thanks," he said.
Barbara made a little gesture. "Pshaw!" she said. "You are not always so conventional, and both I and Grant Devine owe you a great deal. The man must have been a claim-jumper, and meant to steal those papers. They are—the plans and patents of the Canopus."
She stopped a moment, and then, seeing Brooke had noticed the momentary pause, continued, with a little forced laugh and a flush in her cheeks, "That was native Canadian caution asserting itself. I am ashamed of it, but you must remember I was rather badly startled a little while ago. There is no reason why I should not tell—you—this, or show you the documents."
Brooke made a little grimace as though she had hurt him physically.
"I think there is," he said.
The girl stared at him a moment, and then he saw only sympathy in her eyes.
"I'm afraid my wits have left me, or I would not have kept you talking while you are in pain. Your arm hurts?" she said.
"No," said Brooke, drily. "The arm is, I feel almost sure, very little the worse. Hadn't you better pick the papers up? You will excuse me stooping to help you. I scarcely think it would be advisable just now."
Barbara knelt down and gathered the scattered documents up, while the man noticed the curious flush in her face when one of them left a red smear on her little white fingers. Rising, she held them up to him half open as they had fallen, and looked at him steadily.
"Will you put them straight while I find the band they were slipped through?" she said.
Brooke fancied he understood her. She had a generous spirit, and having in a moment of confusion, when she was scarcely capable of thinking concisely, suggested a doubt of him, was making amends in the one fashion that suggested itself. Then she turned away, and her back was towards him as she moved slowly towards the door, when a plan of the Canopus mine fell open in his hand. The light was close beside him, but he closed his eyes for a moment and there was a rustle as the papers slipped from his fingers, while when the girl turned towards him his face was awry, and he looked at her with a little grim smile.
"I am afraid they are scattered again," he said. "It was very clumsy of me, but I find it hurts me to use my left hand."
Barbara thrust the papers into the case. "I am sorry I didn't think of that," she said. "Even if you don't appreciate my thanks you will have to put up with my brother-in-law's, and he is a man who remembers. It might have cost him a good deal if anybody who could not be trusted had seen those papers—and now no more of them. Take that canvas chair, and don't move again until I tell you."
Brooke made no answer, and Barbara went out into the corridor.
"Will you dress as quickly as you can, Katty, and come down," she said. "I don't know where you keep the decanters, and I want to give Mr. Brooke, who is hurt a little, a glass of wine."
Brooke protested, but Barbara laughed as she said, "It will really be a kindness to Katty, who is now, I feel quite sure, lying in a state of terror, with everything she dare reach out to get hold of rolled about her head."
It was three or four minutes later when Mrs. Devine appeared, and Barbara turned towards her, speaking very quietly.
"There is nothing to be gained by getting nervous now," she said. "A man came in to steal Grant's papers about the mine, and Mr. Brooke, who saw him, crept in after him, though he had only a little bar, and the man had a pistol. I fancy Grant is considerably indebted to him, and we must, at least,keep him here until one of the boys brings up the settlement doctor."
Brooke rose to his feet, but Barbara moved swiftly to the door and turned the key in it.
"No," she said, decisively. "You are not going away when you are scarcely fit to walk. Katty, you haven't brought the wine yet."
Brooke sat down again, and making no answer, looked away from her, for though he would greatly have preferred it he scarcely felt capable of reaching his tent. Then there was silence for several minutes until Mrs. Devine came back with the wine.
"You are going to stay here until your arm is seen to. My husband would not be pleased if we did not do everything we could for you," she said.