The wharfinger nodded. "Well," he said, "I'd keep you if I could, but after the circus that's going on about the thing it's out of the question. I guess I'd try the Green River diggings if I were you."
They went out together, and when Ingleby was about to speak Leger checked him with a gesture. "I think I know what you mean to say—but there's another question to consider," he said. "Trade's slack in the city just now, and taking it all round I fancy that man's advice is good. If we can induce Hetty to stay here we'll try the new mining country."
In different circumstances Ingleby would have been exultant at the prospect, but as it was he recognized his responsibility. It was, however, late that evening before they were able to lay the state of affairs before Hetty, and Ingleby was almost astonished at the quietness with which she listened.
"Well," she said, "there's no use worrying about it now.All you have to do is to try the mines. The man who came down with the gold yesterday said they were offering five and six dollars to anybody who would work on some of the claims."
"But you don't seem to realize that we should have to leave you behind," said Leger.
Hetty laughed, and flashed a covert glance at Ingleby. "No," she said, "I'm coming with you."
The two men looked at each other, and Leger protested. "Hetty," he said, "it's out of the question. You couldn't face the snow and frost, and I don't even know how we could get you there. There are forests one can scarcely drag a pack-horse through, as well as rivers one has to swim them across, and we should probably have to spend several weeks on the trail. In fact, it seems to be an appalling country to get through."
"Go on!" said Hetty drily. "Isn't there anything else?"
"There are certainly mosquitoes that almost eat you alive. You know you never could stand mosquitoes!"
"Are they quite as big as bluebottles?" said Hetty.
Leger made a little gesture, and glanced at Ingleby, as if to ask for support, but though Hetty's brows were assuming a portentous straightness she smiled again.
"Walter was anxious to leave me behind once before, so you needn't look at him," she said. "In fact, there's not the least use in talking. I'm coming."
Ingleby said nothing. He did not wish to hurt the girl, though he fancied he knew how hard she would find the life they must lead in the great desolation into which they were about to venture. That Grace Coulthurst was going there did not affect the question, for there could be no comparison between the lot of a prospector's sister and that of the daughter of the Gold Commissioner. Then he saw that Hetty was watching him.
"Of course you don't want me, Walter," she said.
Ingleby felt his face grow hot. "Hetty," he said simply,"you ought to know that isn't so. If you must come we shall be glad to have you, and if you find the life a hard one you must try to forgive me. If I had known what I was doing I might have spared you this."
They had decided it all in half an hour, but Ingleby frowned when he and his comrade were left alone.
"The whole thing hurts me horribly, Tom," he said. "Of course, we can worry along, and may do well—but you have read what the country is like—and Hetty——"
Leger appeared unusually grave. "It is," he said, "certainly a little rough on Hetty. She, at least, was not to blame, but she will have to face the results all the same, and whatever we have to put up with will be twice as hard on her."
Ingleby said nothing, for he realized his responsibility. In compensation for the few minutes he had spent with Grace Coulthurst, Hetty Leger must drag out months of privation and peril.
Darkness was settling down upon the mountains and the chill of the snow was in the air when Hetty Leger and Ingleby sat beside a crackling fire. Down in the great gorge beneath them the white mists were streaming athwart the climbing pines, and no sound broke the deep stillness but the restless stamping of the tethered pack-horses and the soft splash of falling water. Hetty had a brown blanket rolled about her, and there were hard red blotches where the mosquitoes had left their virus on the hand she laid upon it. Leger lay not far away, and his face was swollen, but Ingleby had escaped almost scatheless, as some men seem to do, from the onslaughts of the buzzing legions which had pursued them through the swampy hollows.
A blackened kettle, a spider—as a frying-pan is usually termed in that country—and a few plates of indurated fibre lay about the fire, for the last meal of the day was over, and it had been as frugal as any one who had not undertaken twelve hours' toil in that vivifying air would probably have found it unappetizing. Where resinous wood was plentiful Ingleby could make a fire, but he could not catch a trout or shoot a deer. Indeed, a man unaccustomed to the bush usually finds it astonishingly difficult even to see one, and provisions were worth a ransom in the auriferous wilderness into which they were pushing their way. They had spent several weeks in it now, travelling, where the trail was unusually good, eight to twelve miles a day, thoughthere were occasions when they made less than half the distance with infinite difficulty, and Hetty alone knew what that journey had cost her.
The white peaks that gleamed ethereally high up in the blue, crystal lakes, and the endless ranks of climbing pines, scarcely appealed to her as she floundered through tangled undergrowth and ten-foot fern, or stumbled amidst the boulders beside thundering rivers. She had lain awake shivering, with the ill-packed fir twigs galling her weary body, high up on great hill shoulders, and fared Spartanly on a morsel of unsavoury salt pork and a handful of flour, while Ingleby set his lips now and then when he saw the little forced smile in her jaded face. It was no great consolation to reflect that other women in that country had borne as much and more.
"Walter," she said, "you and Tom are very quiet. I expect you're tired."
Ingleby smiled, though his heart smote him as he saw the weariness in her eyes.
"I certainly am," he said. "Still, we can't be half as worn out as you are. You were limping all the afternoon."
"If I was it was only the boot that hurt me," said Hetty. "All those loose stones and gravel made it worse, you see. How many miles have we come to-day?"
"I feel that it must have been forty, but you shall have a rest to-morrow; and you don't look as comfortable as you ought to now. Would you mind standing up a minute?"
Hetty rose, hiding the effort it cost her, and when he had shaken up the cedar twigs into a softer cushion sank gratefully down on them. Then she turned her face aside that he might not see the little flush that crept into it as he gravely tucked the coarse brown blanket round her.
"Now," he said, "I think that ought to be a good deal nicer. You're too patient, Hetty, and I'm almost afraid we don't take enough care of you."
The girl saw his face in the firelight, and sighed as shenoticed the gentleness in it. She knew exactly how far his concern for her went. Leger noticed it, but his shrewdness failed him now and then.
"He will make somebody a good husband by and by," he said. "She will have a good deal to thank you for, Hetty."
Ingleby smiled with an absence of embarrassment which had its significance for one of the party.
"There are, after all, a good many advantages attached to being a single man, and I shall probably have to be content with them," he said.
"Of course!" said Hetty softly. "It is no use crying for the moon."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Nothing in particular," and Hetty glanced reflectively at the fire. "Still, I don't think you would be content with any girl likely to look at you, and most of us would like to have a good deal more than we ever get."
Ingleby was a trifle disconcerted, though Hetty had an unpleasant habit of astonishing him in this fashion, but Leger laughed.
"It probably wouldn't be good for us to have it. At least, that is the orthodox view, and, after all, one can always do without."
"Of course!" said Hetty, with a curious little inflection in her voice. "Still, it is a little hard now and then. Isn't it, Walter?"
"Is there any special reason why you should ask me?"
Hetty appeared reflective. "Perhaps there isn't. I really don't know. Do you hear a sound in the valley, Tom?"
They listened, and a beat of hoofs came out of the sliding mists below. For the last week they had met nobody upon the trail, but now several men and horses were apparently scrambling up the hillside, for they could hear the gravelrattling away beneath them. The sound grew louder, and at last a man called to them.
"Lead that beast of yours out of the trail," he said.
Ingleby glanced at his comrade, for the voice was English and had a little imperious ring in it, and Leger smiled.
"There is no doubt where that man comes from, but I scarcely think there's any great need of haste," he said.
"Do you mean to keep us waiting?" the voice rose again sharply. "It's some of your slouching prospectors, Major. Get down and cut that beast's tether, trooper."
Ingleby rose and moved out into the trail, and had just led the pack-horse clear of it when a horseman rode up. He was dressed in what appeared to be cavalry uniform and was, Ingleby surmised, that worn by the Northwest Police, a detachment of which had lately been dispatched to the new mining districts of the far North. It was also evident that he held a commission, for the firelight, which forced it up out of the surrounding gloom, showed the imperiousness in his face. It also showed Ingleby standing very straight in front of him with his head tilted backwards a trifle. Then there was a jingle of accoutrements as the young officer, turning half-round in his saddle with one hand on his hip, glanced backward down the trail.
"Look out for the low branch as you come up, sir," he said.
Ingleby stood still, nettled by the fashion in which the man ignored him, for no freighter or prospector would have passed without at least a friendly greeting, and while he waited it happened that Leger stirred the fire. A brighter blaze sprang up and flashed upon the officer's accoutrements and spurs, and then there was a pounding of hoofs, and a horse reared suddenly in the stream of ruddy light. The officer wheeled his beast with a warning shout, but Ingleby had seen the shadowy form in the habit, and seized the horse's bridle.
"Hold fast!" he said. "There's a nasty drop just outside the trail."
Then for a few seconds man and startled horse apparently went round and round scattering fir needles and rattling gravel, until the half-broken cayuse yielded and Ingleby stood still, gasping, with his hand on the bridle, while a girl who did not seem very much concerned looked down on him from the saddle.
"You!" she said. "I fancied the voice was familiar. So you are going to the mines after all?"
The firelight still flickering redly upon the towering trunks showed Hetty Leger the curious intentness in Ingleby's gaze. Then, having done enough to disturb her peace of mind for that night, at least, it sank a trifle, and as two more men rode out of the shadow the officer turned to Ingleby.
"Have you no more sense than build your fire right beside the trail?" he asked.
Ingleby quietly turned his back on him, and patted the still trembling horse.
"I hope you were not frightened, Miss Coulthurst," he said.
Grace smiled at him, but before she could speak the young officer pushed his horse a few paces nearer Ingleby.
"I asked you a question," he said.
Ingleby glanced at him over his shoulder. "Yes," he said drily, "I believe you did."
He turned his head again, and Hetty, sitting unseen in the shadow, failed to see his face as he looked up at the girl whose bridle he held. She could, however, see the young officer glancing down at him apparently with astonishment as well as anger, and the police trooper behind sitting woodenly still with a broad grin on his face, until a burly man appeared suddenly in the sinking light. Then Grace Coulthurst laughed.
"Will you be good enough to ride on, Reggie? I toldyou my opinion of this horse," she said. "Father, I really think you ought to thank Mr. Ingleby."
Major Coulthurst turned suddenly in his saddle.
"Ingleby?" he said. "Very much obliged to you, I'm sure. I have a fancy I've seen you before."
"I once had the pleasure of handing you a cup of tea at a tennis match at Holtcar."
Coulthurst laughed. "Yes," he said. "I remember it now, especially as it was a remarkably hot day and I would a good deal sooner have had a whisky-and-soda. Still, I've seen you somewhere since then, haven't I?"
"Yes, sir," said Ingleby drily. "On a Sunday afternoon—at Willow Dene."
Coulthurst laughed again, good-humouredly. "Of course I remember that, too, though I hope you've grown out of your fondness for taking liberties with other people's property. That kind of thing is still less tolerated in this country. In the meanwhile we have a good way to go before we camp. Once more, I'm much obliged to you."
He touched his horse with the spur, and when he and the troopers melted into the night Ingleby turned, with one hand closed a trifle viciously, towards the fire.
"Major Coulthurst is human, anyway, but the other fellow's insolence made me long to pull him off his horse," he said. "Is there, after all, any essential difference between an officer of the Northwest Police and a mineral claim prospector?"
"One can't help admitting that in some respects there seems to be a good deal," said Leger drily. "Still, I should scarcely fancy the Canadian ones are likely to be so unpleasantly sensible of it. The gentleman in question was apparently born in England."
"Where else could you expect a man of his kind to come from?" and Ingleby kicked a smouldering brand back into the fire, "I fancied we had left that languid superciliousness behind us. It's galling to run up against it again here."
"My uncle's spirit in these stones!" said Leger. "Still, aren't you getting a little too old now to run a tilt against the defects of the national character? One feels more sure of doing it effectively when he's younger."
Ingleby laughed, for his ill humour seldom lasted long. "I suppose nobody can help being an ass now and then, and, after all, the best protest is the sure and silent kick when people who treat you like one unnecessarily add to your burden. Anyway, that trooper's grin was soothing. It suggested that there was a good deal of human nature under his uniform."
"I was looking at the officer man, and scarcely noticed him. It occurred to me that the attitude you complain of probably runs in the family."
"I can't say I understand you."
"Well," said Leger reflectively, "I can't help a fancy that we once met somebody very like him on another occasion when we both lost our temper."
"At Willow Dene?"
"Exactly!" said Leger. "You can think it over. I'll wash the plates at the creek and get some water."
He turned away, leaving Ingleby considerably astonished and half-persuaded that he was right. The latter was still looking into the darkness when Hetty spoke to him.
"It's not worth worrying about. Come and sit down," she said. "Who was that girl, Walter?"
"Miss Coulthurst," said Ingleby.
Hetty moved a little so that the firelight no longer fell upon her, and Ingleby noticed that she was silent a somewhat unusual time. Then she asked, "The girl you used to play tennis with at Holtcar?"
"Yes."
Hetty wished that she could see his face. "You have met her before, in Canada?"
"Once only. On the Vancouver wharf, the day I let them put the tea into the wrong car. She was coming from the steamer."
Hetty's face grew a trifle hard for a moment as she made a tolerably accurate guess at the cause of his neglect on the afternoon in question. Then with a sudden change of mood she laid her hand gently on his arm.
"Don't you think it would have been better for everybody if she had stayed in England, Walter?"
"I expect it would have been for Tom and you. If I had remembered what my business on the wharf was I should never have brought all this upon you."
Hetty's hand closed almost sharply on his arm. "No," she said, "I don't mean that. You see, I was really glad to get away from the boarding house."
"You assured me you liked it once," said Ingleby.
"Well, perhaps I did, but we needn't go into that. I was thinking of you just now."
Ingleby would not pretend to misunderstand her. He felt it would probably be useless, for Hetty, he knew, could be persistent.
"Men get rich in this country now and then," he said. "It would, at least, be something to work and hope for."
He could not see Hetty's face, but he noticed that there was a faint suggestion of strain in her voice.
"Do you think she would ever be happy with you even if you found a gold mine?" she said.
"What do you mean, Hetty?" and Ingleby turned towards her suddenly with a flush in his face.
"I only want to save you trouble. Don't you think when a girl of that kind found out how much there was that she had been accustomed to think necessary and that you knew nothing about, she might remember the difference between herself and you. After all, it's not always the most important points that count with a girl, you know."
She stopped somewhat abruptly, but Ingleby made alittle gesture. "I would rather you would go on and say all you mean to."
"Well," said Hetty reflectively, "if I had been rich I think I should like the man I married to do everything—even play cards and billiards and shoot pheasants—as well as my friends did. It wouldn't be nice to feel that I had to make excuses for him, and I'm not sure I wouldn't be vexed if he didn't seem to know all about the things folks of that kind get for dinner."
Ingleby's laugh was a protest, but it was only half-incredulous, for he had now and then realized with bitterness the deference paid to conventional niceties in England.
"You can't believe that would trouble any sensible woman?" he said.
"Well," answered Hetty, "perhaps it mightn't, for a little while, or if there was only one thing, you see—but if you put everything together and kept on doing what jarred on her?"
"One could get somebody to teach him."
Hetty laughed. "To be like the officer man, or Mr. Esmond of Holtcar?"
Ingleby understood the significance of the question. The little conventional customs might be acquired, but the constant jarring of opinion, and absence of comprehending sympathy or a common point of view was, he realized, quite a different thing. Still, though there was concern in his face, he had the hope of youth in him. There was silence for a moment or two, and then Hetty spoke again.
"Besides," she said, "after all, aren't gold mines a little hard to find?"
Just then Leger made his appearance, somewhat to Ingleby's relief, and ten minutes later Hetty retired to the tent while the men, rolling themselves in their blankets, lay down upon the cedar twigs beside the fire. One of them, however, did not sleep as well as usual, and Legernoticed that his sister appeared a little languid when she rose in the morning. They were weary still, and it was afternoon when they once more pushed on into the wilderness along the climbing trail that had for guide-posts empty provision cans.
The day's work was over, and once more the white mists were streaming athwart the pines when Ingleby lay somewhat moodily outside the tent that he and Leger occupied on the hillside above the Green River. Just there the stream swirled, smeared with froth and spume, through a tremendous hollow above which the mountains lifted high their crenellated ramparts of ice and never-melting snow. Still, though usually termed one, that gorge was not a cañon in the strict sense of the word, for a sturdy climber could scale one side of it through the shadow of the clinging pines, and there was room for a precarious trail, the one road to civilization, between the hillside and the thundering river.
Farther back, the valley opened out, and up and down it were scattered the Green River diggings. From its inner end an Indian trail, which as yet only one or two white men had ever trodden, led on to the still richer wilderness that stretched back to the Yukon. Above the tent stood a primitive erection of logs roofed with split cedar and hemlock bark which served at once as store and Hetty's dwelling. She was busy inside it then, for Ingleby could hear the rattle of cooking utensils and listened appreciatively, for he was as hungry as usual, although dispirited. His limbs ached from a long day's strenuous toil, and the stain of the soil was on his threadbare jean. He and Leger had spent a good many weeks now upon a placerclaim, and the result of their labours was a few grains of gold.
He rose, however, when Hetty came out of the shanty and stood looking down into the misty valley. She was immaculately neat, as she generally was, even in that desolation divided by a many days' journey from the nearest dry-goods store and where the only approach to a laundry was an empty coal-oil can, and she turned to Ingleby with a little smile in her eyes. Hetty had her sorrows, and the life she led would probably have been insupportable to most women reared in an English town, but she had long been accustomed to turn a cheerful face upon a very hard world, and Ingleby, though he did not know exactly why, felt glad that she was there. There are women who produce this effect on those they live among, and they are seldom the most brilliant ones. Still, he did not speak, for Hetty Leger was not a young woman who on all occasions demanded attention.
"No sign of Tom!" she said.
"No," said Ingleby. "I only hope he brings something with him, and hasn't lost the flies again. I gave a man who went out a dollar each for them, and I couldn't get another if I offered ten. The plain hooks I got in Vancouver are no use either when there apparently isn't a worm in the country."
Hetty smiled, though there were reasons why a trout fly was worth a good deal to them, and one of them became apparent when she glanced at the empty spider laid beside the fire, which burned clear and red between two small logs laid parallel to each other and about a foot apart.
"If he doesn't you'll have to put up with bread and dried apples. The pork's done," she said.
It was, perhaps, not the kind of conversation one would have expected from a man at an impressionable age and a distinctly pretty girl, especially when they stood alone in such a scene of wild grandeur as few men's eyes have lookedupon, but Hetty did not appear to consider it in any way out of place. Indeed, though there had been a time when she had accepted Ingleby's compliments with a smile and even became a trifle venturesome in her badinage, there had been a difference since they left England, and while Ingleby did not realize exactly what that difference was he felt that it was there. Hetty Leger had not enjoyed any of the training which is, usually, at least, bestowed upon young women of higher station; but she had discovered early that, as she expressed it, there is no use in crying for the moon, and she had a certain pride. It was also a wholesome one and untainted by petulance or mortified vanity.
"I don't think," she said reflectively, "I would worry too much about those flies."
"No?" said Ingleby. "Nobody could have called that pork good; but dried applesad libitumare apt to pall on one."
Hetty shook her head. "I'm afraid they're not even going to do that," she said. "There's very few of them left in the bottom of the bag."
Just then Leger appeared, carrying a fishing-rod which Ingleby had laboriously fashioned out of a straight fir branch. He had also a string of trout, but was apparently dripping below the knees and somewhat disconsolate. The trout were dressed ready, and he laid two or three of them in the pan, and then sat down upon one of the hearth logs.
"I expect that's the last we'll get," he said.
"You haven't whipped those flies off?" said Ingleby.
Leger nodded ruefully. "I'm afraid I have," he said. "At least, I let them sink in an eddy and hooked a boulder. It comes to very much the same thing."
Hetty laughed as she saw Ingleby's face. "Perhaps I'd better go away," she said. "Aren't there times when it hurts you to be quiet?"
"There are," said Ingleby drily. "This is one of them."
"Well," said Hetty, "you can talk when you break out.I heard you one night in the car—but we'll get supper, and then if you're very good I'll show you something."
She stirred the fire, and laid out the inevitable dried apples and a loaf of bread which was not exactly of the kind somewhat aptly termed grindstone in that country. Then when the edge of their hunger was blunted she took out a very diminutive fluffy object and handed it to Ingleby.
"I wonder if the trout would be silly enough to jump at that," she said. "It's a little plumper than the other ones, but I hadn't any silk to tie it with."
Ingleby stared at the fly in blank astonishment, and then gravely passed it to Leger.
"Look at that, and be thankful you have a sister," he said.
"I am," said Leger with a little smile, though something in his voice suggested that he meant it. "But whatever did you make it out of, Hetty?"
"Strips of frayed-out cloth, the blue grouse's feathers, and the very little threads there are in a piece of cotton when you unwind it."
"The tail was never made of feathers or cotton," said Ingleby. "No more was this wing hackle. That's quite sure. Look at it, Tom. You'll notice the bright colour."
Hetty unwisely snatched at the fly, but Leger's hand closed upon it, and a moment or two later he laughed softly. "It certainly won't come out in the water, and that is presumably more than could be said of everybody's hair."
Ingleby took the fly from him, and Leger proceeded. "Now we have got over that difficulty there is another to consider."
"There generally is," said Hetty.
"This one is serious," said her brother. "One can no more live upon trout and nothing else than he can upon dried apples, and while the flour is running out we have neither dollars nor dust to buy any more with. Our friend the freighter cannot be induced to grub-stake everybody,and I'm not sure one could blame him for asking five or six times as much for his provisions as they are worth in the cities when you consider the nature of the trail. Of course, Walter and I could earn a few dollars at Tomlinson's mine."
He stopped, and looked at Ingleby, whose face grew a trifle grave.
"A placer claim," said the latter, "can only be held while you work upon it continuously."
"Exactly! Seventy-two hours after we lay down the shovel any other man who thinks it worth while can seize upon our last chance of making a fortune. I think you understand that, considering the present cost of provisions, we are scarcely likely to save as much as would keep us while we try again, out of what we make on Tomlinson's claim."
Ingleby realized this and said nothing. The giving up of his claim implied the parting with certain aspirations which had of late supported him through long days of feverish toil; but one must live, and he had discovered that to work as the free miners do in that country a somewhat ample diet is necessary. He sat near the fire, and Hetty, who saw the hardness of his face, understood it.
"You really think there is gold in the claim?" she said.
"Yes," said Ingleby. "Tomlinson and one or two of the others who have played this game half their lives admitted that the signs were as good as any they had seen. Still, I'm by no means sure we can hold out until we strike it."
Hetty smiled in a curious fashion. "Especially while you have me to keep?"
Even Leger appeared astonished, and Ingleby flushed hotly as he turned to her. "Hetty," he said sternly, "what do you mean by that?"
The girl laughed, and pointed to the loaf. "That is nice bread?"
"It is," said Ingleby. "Still, I don't see what that has to do with it."
"There's no bread like it in the Green River country," persisted Hetty. "They taught me to bake at the boarding-house. I made it."
Ingleby looked at her in astonishment. "Go on," he said. "I'll wait a little."
"Well," and though Hetty spoke quietly her voice was not quite her usual one, "what are you and Tom longing for just now more than anything?"
"The means to go on working on our claim."
"Then what would you say if I gave you them?"
Ingleby gasped. For days he had been haunted by the fear that their provisions would run out before they found the gold he believed in, for a little very simple figuring had shown that there was only a faint hope of their making more than the value of their day's labour once they relinquished the hitherto unprofitable claim. There was also, it was evident, no great probability that a mere wielder of pick and shovel would ever gain the regard of the Gold Commissioner's daughter, though Miss Coulthurst, whom he met occasionally, had of late been unusually gracious to him. He had, however, not the faintest notion of the fact that Hetty Leger read his thoughts.
"You see, it's quite simple," she said. "I made this bread, and there are men up the valley who are really finding gold. They don't want to waste a minute doing anything else, and it takes time to bake. You can't even make flapjacks in a moment. Now, if I had two or three sacks of flour I think I could get almost what I liked to ask for every loaf."
Leger looked up with a little expressive smile. "I believe she has found the way out of the difficulty."
It was, however, Ingleby at whom Hetty glanced, though it did not strike him then—as it did long afterwards—thatshe must have been quite aware what she was offering him.
"Well?" she said.
Ingleby's lips were set, and his face a trifle grim. To live, even for the purpose of working for a result by which she would benefit, upon the yield of a woman's enterprise and toil did not commend itself to him, though he could not very well tell her so.
"We haven't got the flour," he said.
"No," said Hetty. "Still, it can be bought at the settlement, and no doubt you could find the pack-horses in the bush. You could go down and get it while Tom holds the claim."
"There is still the difficulty that I haven't got the money."
Hetty laughed. "I have. The wages were really good at the boarding-house. Of course, you and Tom could build the oven and chop the wood, while I wouldn't mind your kneading the dough either if you wanted to. That would leave me with nothing to do but watch the bread baking."
Ingleby still said nothing; but his face, as the firelight showed, was a trifle flushed, and Leger shook his head at him. "One can't afford to be whimsical up here," he said. "Anyway, I'm willing to give the thing a trial, and if we don't strike gold we can always go over to Tomlinson's or start baking, too. I shouldn't wonder if it should turn out as profitable as mining, and it is certainly likely to be a good deal more reliable."
Hetty once more glanced at Ingleby. "Of course, we can't make you join us if you don't want."
At last Ingleby turned to her. "Hetty," he said quietly, "I don't think you could understand how much you have done for me. I would sooner cut my hand off than let the claim go."
Hetty only smiled, and they had almost thrashed out thescheme when a thud of hoofs came up faintly through the roar of the river from the gorge below. Then the figure of a horseman became visible, and when he swung himself very stiffly from the saddle in front of the fire Ingleby rose hastily and held out his hand.
"Mr. Sewell!" he said. "I don't mean it conventionally, this—is—a pleasure."
The stranger, who swept his wide hat off as he turned to Hetty, laughed. "I have just come in. I wonder if I could ask—Mrs. Ingleby, isn't it—for a little supper?"
The request was a very usual one in a country where the stranger is rarely turned away unfed; but Hetty, who seemed to draw a little farther back into the shadow, was a trifle slow in answering it.
"Miss Leger!" she said. "Of course, you shall have supper. Put on two more trout and fill the kettle, Tom."
Sewell gratefully took his place beside the fire, and, for he had an engaging tongue, had almost gained Hetty's confidence, which was not lightly given, by the time the meal was over. Then she looked hard at him.
"What did you come here for?" she asked.
"Wouldn't the fame of the Green River mines be excuse enough?" said the man.
Hetty shook her head. "No," she said, "I don't think it would. People who talk as you do aren't generally fond of digging."
"Then finding I wasn't wanted in Vancouver I went back into the States, and as usual got into a trifling difficulty there. That was in Colorado, where the men and the manager of a certain big mine couldn't come to terms. The manager was, as not infrequently happens, friendly with the constituted authorities, and between them and the men's executive, with whom I managed to quarrel, they made that town unpleasant for me. Of course, one gets accustomed to having his character pulled to pieces and beinghustled in the streets, but they go rather farther than that in Colorado."
"And so you ran away?"
Sewell laughed. "I certainly went when it was evident that I could do no good. Still, it was in the daylight, and half the populace came with me to the station."
"I asked you what brought you here," said Hetty severely.
Sewell made a little expressive gesture. "Between friends—I think I can go so far?" he asked, and it was Hetty alone he looked at. "You see, I met your brother and Mr. Ingleby in Vancouver."
Hetty regarded him silently for a moment or two. He was a well-favoured man with a curiously pleasing manner. "Yes," she said. "I think you can."
"Then I came here to see what I could do at mining—I have really used the shovel oftener than you seem to fancy—and, when it is necessary, go through by the Indian trail to the camps between this country and the Yukon. Though they will probably work on quietly while the ground is soft, they're not pleased with the mining regulations yonder."
He looked out into the soft blue darkness which now veiled the great white peaks that lay between him and the vast desolation of the Northwest, and the smile died out of his eyes. A few moments slipped by before Leger broke the silence.
"I believe that trail is scarcely practicable to a white man. Only one or two have ever tried it," he said.
"That is so much the better. I am, however, certainly going in."
There was a little silence, and then Ingleby said suggestively, "They have been sending a good many of the Northwest Police into that country."
Sewell smiled. "From one point of view I think they were wise. It's not the contented that one usually findsmining in the wilderness. The soil, of course, is British, but that, after all, does not imply very much."
"You mean that the men up there have no country?" asked Leger.
"Some of them, at least, have unpleasantly good memories. They are the cast-outs and the superfluities; but, as no doubt you know, it is not their criminals the older lands get rid of now."
"That," said Hetty sharply, "is all nonsense. If they're really bad they are put into prison."
Sewell laughed. "I believe they are, now and then. Now, suppose you tell me about the Green River country."
They sat late that night about the crackling fire, though there was a vague uneasiness upon two of them. Hetty liked the stranger, as a man, but she had seen that trouble came of following out the theories he believed in; while all Ingleby wished for just then was an opportunity for toiling quietly at his claim.
Sewell naturally slept in their tent, and it was not until he had breakfasted next morning that he rode into the valley. Ingleby walked with him a short distance, and as it happened they met Grace Coulthurst on the trail. She smiled as she passed Ingleby. Sewell, his companion fancied, looked at her harder than was necessary as he sat still in the saddle, a somewhat striking figure of a man, with his wide hat in his hand.
"Who is that?" he asked.
"Miss Coulthurst, daughter of the Gold Commissioner."
"There is no reason why a prospector shouldn't look at a queen, and she has a striking face. Of course, one would hardly call it beautiful—still, it is distinctly attractive."
"You have no doubt met a good many beautiful women of her station?" asked Ingleby, who was a trifle nettled and could not quite restrain the ironical question.
Sewell laughed. "Well," he said, "I have certainly comeacross one or two. Besides, I had rather a fancy that I might be an artist once—a good while ago."
Ingleby was duly astonished, but no more was said on the subject, and in another few minutes Sewell rode on up the valley alone.
It was as hot as it can be now and then during the fierce brief summer of the North, and the perspiration rose in beads on the Crown Recorder's face as he stood on the rude verandah of his log-built dwelling looking down at the tents and shanties which showed here and there amidst the pines. He was a little man with a quiet and almost expressionless face, and attired, although he lived far remote from civilization in the wilderness, with a fastidious neatness which with the erectness of his carriage furnished a hint as to his character. There was, however, nothing that any one could have termed finicking about him. He was precise, formal, and unemotional, a man of fixed opinions, as little to be moved by argument as by any attempt at compulsion, for Recorder Eshelby was one of the Insular Englishmen who, when entrusted with authority on the outskirts of the Empire, are equally capable of adding to their nation's credit or involving it in difficulties by their soulless and undeviating regard for its law. There are a good many of them, and, while occasionally respected, they are, as a rule, not greatly loved in any of England's dependencies.
Sitting in the shadowy room behind him a hard-bitten Canadian of a very different stamp watched Eshelby with an ironical twinkle in his eyes. He had won his promotion, on merit, in the Northwest Police, and there was red dust on his faded uniform, which showed a roughly stitched-up rent here and there.
Outside the sunglare was dazzling, and when he turnedhis eyes from Eshelby he could see the peaks gleaming with a hard whiteness against the blue. They were by no means high, for the level of perpetual snow is low in that country, and it was only on the eastern hand that they rose to any elevation. West and north a desolation of swamp muskeg, wherein few living creatures could face the mosquitoes, rock and river, stretched back to the Yukon, and Eshelby was there to carry out the mining laws of that district, which are less lenient than those of the province to the south of it.
The valley was very still, and the drowsy fragrance of the firs crept into the dwelling; but Slavin, who would sooner have heard the clatter of shovels or the crash of a blasting charge, was not in the least deceived. He knew that unusual quietness now and then presages storm, and he had felt that there was a tension in the atmosphere for some little time. He smiled, however, when Eshelby glanced into the room.
"If they do not turn up in another minute I will walk across to the outpost with you," said the latter. "The time is up."
He spoke concisely, with a clean English intonation, and, as usual, betrayed no impatience; but Slavin fancied he was by no means pleased at the fact that a band of miners with grievances should presume to keep him waiting for even a few moments.
"I guess they'll come," he said. "If I were you I'd promise them something if it's only to humour them."
Eshelby glanced at him coldly, for he was not as a rule addicted to considering any advice that might be offered him.
"A concession," he said, "is usually regarded as a sign of wavering. In dealing with a mob of this kind firmness is necessary."
Slavin made a little gesture, and smiled in a somewhat curious fashion. He had shepherded the Blackfeet on theplains, as well as put down whisky-runners and carried out the prohibition laws, and he knew that to gain an end one must yield a point occasionally. It was, however, not his business to instruct the Crown Recorder, and Eshelby seldom deviated a hair's-breadth from the course he had once decided on.
"Well," Slavin said, "I guess I hear them, and I'll stay right where I am. They can't see me in the shadow, and if they knew I was hanging round it might worry them. You don't want to hang out a red rag when you have a difference of opinion with a bull."
He moved his chair back a little farther from the door when a murmur of voices and patter of feet came up through the dimness beneath the stunted pines, for he was quite aware that his warning was not likely to restrain Eshelby from a display of the exasperating crimson on the smallest provocation. Then he leaned forward with a quiet intentness in his eyes as a group of men came out of the shadows. They were dressed for the most part in soil-stained jean, and were all of them spare of flesh and sinewy. They had bronzed faces with a significant grimness in them, and moved with a certain air of resolution that did not astonish Slavin. They were hard men—English, Canadians, Americans, Teutons, by birth—though that meant very little to most of them then; men who had faced many perils and borne as much privation as flesh and blood is capable of. To men of their kind all countries are the same, and they have not as a rule any particular tenderness for the land which had, in their phraseology, no use for them.
They had also, or, at least, so they thought, legitimate grievances; for the exactions of the Crown were heavy, and it is because the opinions of such as they were are seldom listened to that news now and then reaches England which is unpleasant to complacent optimists with Imperialistic views. The wonder is, however, that the latter are not more frequently disturbed in their tranquillity, for evenwhen peace and prosperity are proclaimed at St. Stephen's there is usually, and probably must necessarily be, all round the fringe of the Empire a vague unrest which is occasionally rife with unpleasant probabilities. The men of the outer marches have primitive passions, and, or they would in all probability never have been there at all, an indomitable will. Slavin, at least, understood them, and knew that while it is well to keep a tight grasp on the reins, it is not always advisable to make those driven unduly sensible of it.
Two who came foremost stopped in front of the veranda, and one of them was a well-favoured man with restless dark eyes. Slavin fancied he had seen the picture of somebody very like him in an American paper. The rest waited a few yards away, and the man with the dark eyes greeted Eshelby, who responded with the curtest inclination, courteously.
"We have come for an answer to the request we handed you," he said.
Eshelby glanced at him coldly. "You are a free miner? What is the name on your certificate?"
"Sewell," said the other. "You may, perhaps, have heard of it?"
Slavin started a little, and then smiled to himself, for there was, at least, no sign in the Recorder's face that he attached any particular significance to the announcement.
"Well," he said, "I have, as I promised, glanced at what you are pleased to term your request, though it bears a somewhat unfortunate resemblance to a demand."
"We're not going to worry 'bout what you call it," said the man who had not spoken yet. "We have come here so you can tell us what you mean to do."
Eshelby smiled a little, though it would have been wiser if he had refrained from it.
"Personally," he said, "I can do nothing whatever."
There was a low murmur with an unpleasant note in itfrom the rest of the deputation. The curtnon possumusis usually the last resource of the diplomatist when argument has failed, and it very seldom makes for peace, as everybody knows. Slavin wondered why the Crown authorities should have inflicted upon him such a man as Eshelby when his burden was already sufficiently heavy.
"Well," said the miner grimly, "something has got to be done. We let you know what we wanted. Haven't you anything to say?"
"Only that I shall send your petition to the proper quarter."
"I wonder," said Sewell drily, "if you would tell us what is likely to be done with it there?"
"It will receive attention when the department is at liberty to consider it."
Sewell laughed. "Presumably at any time during the next two years! Can you guarantee that it will not be neatly docketed and put away for ever?"
"And," said one of the men who stood behind, "we may be dead by then. How're we going to worry through when the snow comes and it's going to cost a fortune to get provisions in when the Crown takes the big share of what most of us make?"
Eshelby did not even look at the last speaker as he answered Sewell.
"I certainly can't guarantee anything," he said.
There was a little murmur from the men, but Sewell raised his hand restrainingly. "We had," he said, with a quietness which had, nevertheless, a suggestion of irony in it, "the honour of pointing out to you some of our difficulties and suggesting how they could be obviated. We may now take it that you can give us no assurance that the matter will even receive the attention we, at least, think necessary?"
"I am," said Eshelby, "not in a position to promise youanything. The petition will be submitted to men qualified to deal with it."
"With a recommendation that as the matter is urgent it should be looked into?"
Eshelby straightened himself a trifle. "My views will be explained to those in authority. I do not recognize any necessity for laying them before you."
The rest of the deputation had drawn a little closer to Sewell, and Slavin was watching their faces intently. He felt that unless they had confidence in their leader, and he was endued with all the qualities necessary for the part, there was trouble on hand. Sewell, who made a little forceful gesture as he glanced at the rest, was, however, apparently still master of the situation.
"Then," he said, "there is in the meanwhile nothing you can suggest?"
"I fancied you understood that already," said Eshelby. "If those whose business it is think fit to modify the regulations you complain of I will let you know. Unless that happens they will be adhered to as usual, rigorously."
His coldly even voice was in itself an aggravation, and Slavin, who saw one of the deputation move forward with a little glow in his eyes, rose sharply to his feet. He, however, sat down again next moment with a smile, for Sewell quietly laid his hand upon the man's arm, and the rest stood still in obedience to his gesture. Slavin was not astonished, for he, too, was a man who understood how to wield authority.
"Then," said Sewell, "we need not waste any more of your time. We have heard nothing that we did not expect, boys, and now we at least know where we stand."
He turned once more to Eshelby, raising his wide hat, and then moved back into the shadow of the pines, taking care, as Slavin noticed, that the others, who did not seem greatly desirous of doing so, went on in front of him. TheRecorder glanced at Slavin complacently when they disappeared.
"A little firmness is usually effective in a case of this kind," he said. "I will, of course, send on the petition, but as I scarcely suppose it will be referred to again we can consider the affair as closed."
Slavin smiled. "I am not quite so sure as you seem to be. The fellow's last remark was a significant one, and he's not the kind of man to stand still anywhere very long. Anyway, he and you between you have forced my hand, and, while I have got to take your lead, the game is going to be a risky one."
Eshelby sat down with a little gesture which implied that he had already given the trifling affair rather more attention than it merited; and Slavin went out to take such proceedings as appeared advisable, though it was not until that night that the result of them became evident.
Sewell was then sitting with eight or nine men in the general room of Hobson's Oregon Hotel. It had walls of undressed logs, but the roof was still of canvas, for Hobson had been too busy watching over his interests in several profitable claims and dispensing deleterious liquor to split sufficient cedar. There was another room in the building in which he slept with any newcomer who was rash enough to put his hospitality to the test. Rather more than a hundred miners were at work in that valley, but only a few whose views and influence with the rest were known had been invited to attend the conference.
The room was foul with tobacco smoke and the reek of kerosene, for the big lamp smoked when the roof canvas flapped now and then. Sewell sat in a deer-hide chair with a pipe in his hand, and a man with a grim, bronzed face and a splendid corded arm showing through the torn sleeve of his shirt was speaking. He spoke quietly and like a man of education.
"We have," he said, "as our host has pointed out, donethe straight thing and given constituted authority a show. The constituted authority, as usual, prefers to do nothing. We naturally consider our grievances warranted, but I need not go into them again. Some of us risked our lives to get here; the rest will probably do so by holding on through the winter, and, considering how we work, it is not exactly astonishing that we wish to take back a little gold with us—which we are scarcely likely to do under the present regulations. I, however, fancy the position is plain enough to everybody."
"The question, Hobson," said another man, "is how's it going to be altered?"
"By kicking," said Hobson drily. "You want to start in hard, and stay right there with it."
There was a murmur of approval, and a man stood up.
"That, I guess, is just the point—who's to begin, and when?" he said. "There's mighty little use in three or four of us wearing our shoes out before the rest. No, sir, Slavin would come round with his troopers and run those men out."
Sewell nodded. "Our friend has hit it; we have got to go slow," he said. "There are at least a hundred men in this valley, and a good many more with the same grievances farther west, without mentioning the Green River country, where the regulations are easier. Now, it will be your business to go round and make sure of the men here joining us. A good many of them are ready, and we'll strike when you can get the rest. The kick will have to be unanimous."
"That's so," said another man. "Lie low until we're ready. Well, when the time comes you'll have your programme?"
Sewell leaned forward in his chair with a little glow in his eyes. "Then," he said, "we will, for one thing, show Recorder Eshelby out of the valley by way of a protest, and, if it appears necessary, as it probably will do, seize Slavin's armoury. We'll make our regulations and givethe Crown people a hint that they had better sanction them."
There was a little hum of approbation, and a man stood up. "I guess that's the platform," he said. "Half the men in this country are Americans, and Alaska is not so far away. Once we show we mean it they're coming right in, and when we start in twisting the Beaver's tail we're going to get some backing at home. Do you know any reason why we shouldn't send somebody down south to whip up a campaign fund? There was plenty of money piled up when the Chicago Irishmen were going over to ask why the British nation threw out the Home Rule Bill."
Most of the others laughed, but while there was no expression of sympathy it was significant that there was as little astonishment. Visionaries talked of founding a new republic in the North just then, and some of annexation, but still the Beaver flag flapped over every Government outpost. There were many men with grievances in that country, but they knew the world and were far from sure that there was anything to be gained by changing their accustomed burden for what might prove to be a more grievous one. There were others who, while by no means contented with the mining regulations, were still characterized by the sturdy Imperialism which is to be met with throughout most of Canada.
Hobson turned to the speaker with a whimsical grin. "The Chicago Irishmen stayed right where they were," he said. "I don't know what they did with the money, but they bought no rifles—they weren't blame fools. The moral is that what an Irishman looks at twice is too big a thing for us. No, sir, you wouldn't raise ten dollars in a month down there. America has all the trouble she has any use for already. What we want to do is to put up a good big bluff—and no more than that—on the British Empire."
"How's the Empire going to take it?" asked another.
Sewell smiled. "Patiently, I think. That is, if we gojust far enough and know when to stop. They move slowly in England—I was born there—and I'm not sure they're very much quicker in Ottawa. In fact, they rather like an energetic protest, and you very seldom get anything without it. Once we show we're in earnest they'll send over a special commissioner with instructions to make any concessions he thinks will please us."
"There are Slavin and his troopers to consider," said the man who had spoken first. "They're not going to sit still, and if any of them got hurt during the proceedings it's quite likely we might be visited by a column of Canadian militia."
Others commenced to speak—two or three together, in fact—but Sewell raised his hand.
"That eventuality will have to be carefully guarded against," he said. "Slavin seems to be a man of ability and sense, and he would never pit his handful of troopers against a hundred men. In the meanwhile, everything depends on secrecy, and no move must be made until you are sure of everybody. I will answer for the Green River men. I am going back there shortly."
Then they put their heads together to consider a scheme, and there was only a low hum of voices until Hobson stood up suddenly. A tramp of feet and a sharp order rose from outside.
"Slavin and the troopers!" he said. "We don't want him to know who's here. Get out through the roof, boys. Put the lamp out."
It was done, and while a sound of ripping and scrambling became audible in the black darkness Hobson touched Sewell's arm.
"You and I have got to see it out. I guess he's sure of us," he said.
In another moment or two somebody beat upon the door, and getting no answer drove it open. Then a sulphurmatch sputtered, and the trooper who stood in the entrance turned to a man behind him.
"There are only two men here, sir," he said.
"Light that lamp," said the other man. "I feel tolerably certain there were considerably more."
Hobson stood forward when the feeble light of the blue flame made him dimly visible.
"I guess it's broke," he said.
"Bring Rignauld's lantern!" said the man in the darkness.
It was at least a minute before another trooper appeared with a light, and Sewell surmised that his companions had made good use of the time. Slavin, who, as he quite expected, was standing in the doorway, seemed to realize it too, for he glanced at the torn canvas.
"I might have thought of that," he said. "You and Rignauld will start down the trail and stop any man you come across, though I guess they're back in their tents or in the bush by now."
The trooper went out, and Slavin turned to Hobson with a smile on his face. "We have got you, anyway, and you'll spend to-night, at least, in the outpost. To-morrow I'll look into the question of the liquor-sale permits, and it's quite likely this saloon will be closed. I'll have to take you along as well, Mr. Sewell."
Sewell made a good-humoured gesture of resignation. "I suppose I'll have to come. It's a proceeding I'm not altogether unaccustomed to. Still, I'm not sure there is any charge you can work up against me."
Slavin looked at him almost appreciatively. "Well," he said, "I fancy you're not going to make any trouble here. In fact, it's very probable that you will leave this settlement early to-morrow, though it would have been a good deal better had I choked you off from coming here. I would have done it had I known who you were. You will takeany steps that seem necessary if these gentlemen try to get away, Trooper Nixon."
Sewell spent that night at the outpost, but not in the same room with Hobson, and when he had breakfasted tolerably well Slavin came in.
"Your horse is waiting, and you will start at once—for wherever you like so long as it's outside my boundaries, though I may as well mention that every officer in the district will be warned against you," he said. "If you feel yourself aggrieved you can, of course, complain to Victoria."
Sewell made no protest. When he knew it would be useless he seldom did, and Slavin, who handed him several days' provisions, waited until he swung himself into the saddle.
"It wouldn't be wise to push your luck too hard by coming back," he said.
Sewell smiled from the saddle, and rode away. He knew that the seed was sown and need only be left to spring and ripen, though he would have felt easier had he been sure that Slavin did not know it, too. Eshelby could be trusted to stimulate the growth of the crop, but he had already grasped the capabilities of the quiet police officer, who, it was evident, was a very different kind of man.