"Won't they raise trouble at the mill about your staying out?" Vane inquired. "We have still to go for that hundred dollars."
Drayton owned that it might be advisable to hurry, and they set off for the business quarter of the city.
During the remainder of the day Vane was busy on board the sloop, but in the evening he walked over to Horsfield's house with Mrs. Nairn and found Jessy and her brother at home. Horsfield presently took Vane to his smoking-room.
"About that smelter," he began. "Haven't you made up your mind yet? The thing's been hanging fire a long while."
"Isn't it a matter for the board?" Vane asked suggestively. "There are several directors."
Horsfield laughed.
"We'll face the fact: they'll do what you decide on."
Vane did not reply to this.
"Well," he said, "at present we couldn't keep a smelter big enough to be economical going, and I'm doubtful whether we would get much ore from the other properties you were talking about to Nairn."
"Did he say it was my idea?"
"He didn't; I'd reasons for assuming it. Those properties, however, are of no account."
Horsfield made no comment but waited expectantly, and Vane went on:
"If it seems possible that we can profitably increase our output later on, by means of further capital, we'll put up a smelter. But in that case it might be economical to do the work ourselves."
"Who would superintend it?"
"I would, if necessary, with the assistance of an engineer used to such plant."
Horsfield smiled in a significant manner.
"Aren't you inclined to take hold of too much? When you have plenty in your hands, it's good policy to leave a little for somebody else. Sometimes the person who benefits is willing to reciprocate."
The hint was plain, and Nairn had said sufficient on another occasion to make it clearer; but Vane did not respond.
"If we gave the work out, it would be on an open tender," he declared."There would be no reason why you shouldn't make a bid."
Horsfield found it difficult to conceal his disgust. He had no desire to bid on an open tender, which would prevent his obtaining anything beyond the market price.
"The question must stand over until I come back," Vane went on. "I'm going up the west coast shortly and may be away some time."
They left the smoking-room shortly afterward, and when they strolled back to the others, Vane sat down near Jessy.
"I hear you are going away," she began.
"Yes. I'm going to look for pulping timber."
"But what do you want with pulping timber?"
"It can sometimes be converted into money."
"Isn't there every prospect of your obtaining a good deal already? Are you never satisfied?"
"I suppose I'm open to take as much as I can get."
Vane answered with an air of humorous reflection. "The reason probably is that I've had very little until lately. Still, I don't think it's altogether the money that is driving me."
"If it's the restlessness you once spoke of, you ought to put a check on it and try to be content. There's danger in the longing to be always going on."
"It's a common idea that a small hazard gives a thing a spice."
Jessy shot a swift glance at him, and she had, as he noticed, expressive eyes.
"Be careful," she advised. "After all, it's wiser to keep within safe limits and not climb over too many fences." She paused and her voice grew softer. "You have friends who would be sorry if you got hurt."
The man was stirred. She was alluring, physically, while something in her voice had its effect on him. Evelyn, however, still occupied his thoughts and he smiled at his companion.
"Thank you. I like to believe it."
Then Mrs. Nairn and Horsfield crossed the room toward them and the conversation became general.
On the evening of Vane's departure he walked out of Nairn's room just as dusk was falling. His host was with him, and when they entered an adjacent room the elder man's face relaxed into a smile as he saw Jessy Horsfield talking to his wife. Vane stopped a few minutes to speak to them, and it was Jessy who gave the signal for the group to break up.
"I must go," she said to Mrs. Nairn. "I've already stayed longer than I intended. I'll let you have those patterns back in a day or two."
"Mair patterns!" Nairn exclaimed with dry amusement. "It's the second lot this week! Ye're surely industrious, Jessy. Women"—he addressed Vane—"have curious notions of economy. They will spend a month knitting a thing to give to somebody who does no want it, when they could buy it for half a dollar, done better by machinery. I'm no saying, however, that it does no keep them out of mischief."
Jessy laughed.
"I don't think many of us are industrious in that way now. After all, isn't it a pity that so many of the beautiful old handicrafts are dying out? No loom, for instance, could turn out some of the things your wife makes. They're matchless."
"She has an aumrie—ye can translate it bureaufull of them. It's no longer customary to scatter them over the house. If ye mean to copy the lot, ye have a task that will take ye most a lifetime."
Mrs. Nairn's smile was half a sigh.
"There were no books and no many amusements when I was young. We sat through the long winter forenights, counting stitches, in the old gray house at Burnfoot, under the Scottish moors. That, my dear, was thirty years ago."
She shook hands with Vane as he left the house with Jessy, and standing on the stoop she watched them cross the lawn.
"I'm thinking ye'll no see so much of Jessy for the next few weeks," Nairn remarked dryly. "Has she shown ye any of yon knickknacks when she has finished them?"
His wife shook her head at him reproachfully.
"Alic," she admonished, "ye're now and then hasty in jumping at conclusions."
"Maybe. I'm no infallible, but the fault ye mention is no common in the land where we were born. I'm no denying that Jessy has enterprise, but how far it will carry her in this case is mair than I can tell."
He smiled as he recalled a scene at the station some time ago, and Mrs.Nairn looked up at him.
"What is amusing you, Alic?"
"It was just a bit idea no worth the mentioning. I think it would no count." He paused, and added with an air of reflection: "A young man's heart is whiles inconstant and susceptible."
Mrs. Nairn, ignoring the last remark, went into the house. In the meanwhile Jessy and Vane walked down the road, until they stopped at a gate. Jessy held out her hand.
"I'm glad I met you to-night," she said. "You will allow me to wish you every success?"
There was a softness in her voice which Vane wholly failed to notice, though he was aware that she was pretty and artistically dressed. This was possibly why she made him think of Evelyn.
"Thank you," he replied. "It's nice to feel that one has the sympathy of one's friends."
He turned away, and Jessy stood watching him as he strode down the road, noticing, though it was getting dark, the free vigor of his movements. There was, she thought, something in his fine poise and swing that set him apart from other men she knew. None of them walked or carried himself as Vane did. She was, however, forced to recognize that although he had answered her courteously, there had been no warmth in his words. As a matter of fact, Vane just then was conscious of a slight relief. He admired Jessy, and he liked Nairn and his wife; but they belonged to the city; and he was glad, on the whole, to leave it behind. He was going back to the shadowy woods, where men lived naturally. The lust of fresh adventure was strong in him.
On reaching the wharf he found Kitty, with Celia Hartley, whom he had not met hitherto, awaiting him with Carroll and Drayton. A boat lay at the steps, and he and Carroll rowed the others off to the sloop. The moon was just rising from behind the black firs at the inner end of the inlet, and a little cold wind that blew down across them, faintly scented with resinous fragrance, stirred the water into tiny ripples that flashed into silvery radiance here and there. Lights gleamed on the forestays of vessels whose tall spars were etched in high, black tracery against the dusky blue of the sky, athwart which there streamed the long smoke trail of a steamer passing out through the Narrows.
Kitty, urged by Drayton, broke into a little song with a smooth, swinging cadence that went harmoniously with the measured splash of oars; and Vane enjoyed it all. The city was dropping behind him; he felt himself at liberty. Carroll was a tried comrade; the others were simple people whose views were more or less his own. Besides, it was a glorious night and Kitty sang charmingly.
A soft glow shone out from the skylights to welcome them as they approached the sloop. When, laughing gaily, they clambered on board, Carroll led the way to the tiny saloon, which just held them all. It was brightly lighted by two nickeled lamps; flowers were fastened against the paneling, and clusters of them stood upon the table, which was covered with a spotless cloth. What was even more unusual, it was daintily set out with good china and silver. Vane took the head of it, and Carroll modestly explained that only part of the supper had been prepared by himself. The rest he had obtained in the city, out of regard for the guests, who, he added, had not lived in the bush. Presently Vane, who had been busy talking to the others, turned to Celia.
"Now that we can see each other better, I think you ought to recognize me, Miss Hartley."
The girl was young and attractive, and she blushed prettily.
"I do, of course; but I thought I'd wait until I saw whether you remembered me."
"Why should you wait?"
Celia looked confused.
"It's two or three years since I've seen you; and I've left that place."
Vane laughed. He had made her acquaintance at a workman's hotel where she was engaged, when he was differently situated, and he fancied that she was diffident about recalling the fact, now that he was obviously prosperous.
"Well," he responded, "it's only fair that I should give you supper, for once. I've always had an idea that you brought me more dessert than I was really entitled to."
"It was because you were—civil," Celia explained, though her expression suggested that the word did not convey all she meant. "Still, I can't complain of the rest of the boys."
"I wonder if you remember how astonished you were the first time you brought me supper?"
Celia smiled and Vane turned to the others.
"I'd just come in on a schooner. We'd had wild weather, during which the galley fire was generally washed out and the cook had some difficulty in getting us anything to eat. Miss Hartley brought me a double supply. She must have thought I needed it."
"There was mighty little left," the girl retorted.
The others laughed, but Vane went on, in a reminiscent manner:
"I was wearing a pair of old gum-boots with one toe torn off, and my jacket was split right up the back. When I went up-town the next day, people looked at me suspiciously. The trade of the Province is pretty bad when you see men in Vancouver dressed as I was. The fact that sticks in my mind most clearly, however, is that on the following morning, when I'd arranged to see a man who might give me a job, Miss Hartley offered to sew up the tear for me. I was uncommonly glad to let her."
Celia colored again, but it was evident that she was not displeased.Kitty smiled at him, and there was appreciation in Drayton's eyes.
"Were you surprised when she offered to sew it?" Kitty inquired.
"Now, you have helped me on to what I wanted to say. I wasn't surprised—how could I be? The kind of people I'd met out here had seldom much money, or much of anything; but I had generally less, and they held out a hand when I needed it and gave me what they had. It stirs me in a way that almost hurts to think of it."
Then Carroll started the general chatter, which went on after the meal was finished, and nobody appeared to notice that Kitty sat with her hand in Drayton's amid the happy laughter. Even Celia, who had her grief to grapple with, smiled bravely. Vane had given them champagne, the best in the city, though they drank sparingly; and at last, when Celia made a move to rise, Drayton stood up with his glass in his hand.
"We must go, but there's something to be done," he announced. "It's to thank our host and wish him success. It's a little boat he's sailing in, but she's carrying a big freight, if our good wishes count for anything."
They emptied the glasses, and Vane replied:
"My success is yours. You have all a stake in the venture, and that piles up my responsibility. If the spruce is still in existence, I've got to find it."
"And you're going to find it!" declared Drayton. "It's a sure thing!"
Vane divided the flowers between Celia and Kitty, but when they went up on deck Kitty raised one bunch and kissed it.
"Tom won't mind," she laughed. "Take that one back from Celia and me—for luck."
They got down into the boat, and Carroll handed them a basket of crockery and table linen which Drayton promised to have delivered at the hotel. Then, while the girls called back to Vane, Drayton rowed away, and the boat was fading out of sight when Kitty's voice once more reached the men on board. She was singing a well-known Jacobite ballad.
Carroll laughed softly.
"It strikes me as appropriate," he said. "Considering what his Highland followers suffered on his account and what the women thought of him, some of the virtues they credited the Young Chevalier with must have been real." He raised his hand. "You may as well listen!"
Vane stood still a moment, with the blood hot in his face, as the refrain rang more clearly across the sparkling water:
"Better lo'ed ye cannot be—Will ye no come back to me?"
"I don't know whether you feel flattered, but I've an idea that Kitty and Celia would go through fire for you; and Drayton seems to share their confidence," Carroll went on in his most matter-of-fact tone.
"Celia mended my jacket," Vane replied. "I got a month's work as a result of it." Then he began to shake the mainsail loose. "I believe we both went rather far in our talk to-night; but we have got to find the spruce!"
"So you have said already. Hadn't you better heave the boom up with the topping lift?"
They got the mainsail onto her, broke out the anchor and set the jib; and as the boat slipped away before a freshening breeze Vane sat at the helm while Carroll stood on the foredeck, coiling up the gear. The moon was higher now; the broad sail gleamed a silvery gray; the ripples, which were getting bigger, flashed and sparkled as they streamed back from the bows; and the lights of the city dropped fast astern. Vane was conscious of a keen exhilaration. He had started on a new adventure. He was going back to the bush; and he knew that, no matter how his life might change, the wilderness would always call to him. In spite of this, however, he was, as he had said, conscious of an unusual responsibility. Hitherto he had fought for what he could get, for himself; but now Kitty's future partly depended on his efforts, and his success would be of vast importance to Celia.
He had a very friendly feeling toward both the girls. Indeed, all the women he had met of late had attracted him, in different ways. It was hard to believe that any of them possessed unlovable qualities, though there was not one among them to compare with Evelyn. Whatever he liked most in the others—intelligence, beauty, tenderness, courage—reminded him of her. Kitty, he thought, belonged to the hearth; she personified gentleness and solace; it would be her part to diffuse cheerful comfort in the home. Jessy would make an ambitious man's companion; a clever counselor, who would urge him forward if he lagged. Celia he had not placed yet; but Evelyn stood apart from all.
She appealed less to his senses and intellect than she did to a sublimated something in the depths of his nature; and it somehow seemed fitting that her image should materialize before his mental vision as the sloop drove along under the cloudless night sky while the moonlight poured down glamour on the shining water. Evelyn harmonized with such things as these.
It was true that she had repulsed him; but that, he felt, was what he deserved for entering into an alliance against her with her venial father. He was glad now that he had acquiesced in her dismissal of him, since to have stood firm and broken her to his will would have brought disaster upon both of them. He felt that she had not wholly escaped him, after all; by and by he would go back and seek her favor by different means. Then she might, perhaps, forgive him and listen.
The breeze came down fresher as they drove out through the Narrows. Carroll had gone below; and, brushing his thoughts aside, Vane busied himself hauling in some of the mainsheet, while the water splashed more loudly beneath the bows. The great black firs rolled by in somber masses over his port hand, and presently the last of the lights were blotted out. He was alone, flitting swiftly and smoothly across the glittering sea.
The breeze freshened fiercely with the red and fiery dawn. Vane, who had gone below, was advised of it by being flung off the locker in the saloon, where he sat with coffee and crackers before him. The jug, overturning, spilled its contents upon him, and the crackers were scattered, but he picked himself up in haste and scrambled out into the well. He found the sloop slanted over with a good deal of her lee deck submerged in rushing foam, and Carroll bracing himself against the strain upon the tiller. To windward, the sea looked as if it had been strewed with feathers, for there were flecks and blurs of white everywhere.
"I'll let her come up when you're ready!" Carroll shouted. "We'd better get some sail off her, if we mean to hold on to the mast!"
He thrust down his helm; and the sloop, forging round to windward, rose upright, with her heavy main-boom banging to and fro. After that, they were desperately busy for a few minutes. Vane wished that they had engaged a hand in Vancouver, instead of waiting to hire a Siwash somewhere up the coast. There was the headsail to haul to windward, which was difficult, and the mainsheet to get in; then the two men, standing on the slippery, inclined deck, struggled hard to haul the canvas down to the boom. The jerking spar smote them in the ribs; once or twice the reefing tackle beneath it was torn from their hands; but they mastered the sail, tying two reefs in it, to reduce its size; and the craft drove away with her lee rail just awash.
"You'd better go down and get some crackers," Vane advised his comrade. "You'll find them rolling up and down the floor. I spilled the coffee, but perhaps the kettle's still on the stove. Anyhow, you may not have an opportunity later."
"It looks like that," Carroll agreed. "The wind's backing northward, and that means more of it before long. You can call, if you want me."
He disappeared below, and Vane sat at the helm with a frown on his face. An angry coppery glare streamed down upon the white-flecked water which gleamed in the lurid light. It was very cold, but there was a wonderful quality that set the blood tingling in the nipping air. Even upon the high peaks and in the trackless bush, one fails to find the bracing freshness that comes with the dawn at sea.
Vane, however, knew that the breeze would increase and draw ahead, which was unfortunate, because they would have to beat, fighting for every fathom they slowly made. There was no help for it, and he buttoned his jacket against the spray. By the time Carroll came up the sloop was plunging sharply, pitching showers of stinging brine all over her when the bows went down. They drove her at it stubbornly most of the day, making but little to windward, while the seas got bigger and whiter, until they had some trouble to keep the light boat they carried upon the deluged deck. At last, when she came bodily aft amid a frothing cascade which poured into the well, Vane brought the sloop round, and they stretched away to eastward, until they could let go the anchor in smooth water beneath a wall of rock. They were very wet, and were stiff with cold, for winter was drawing near.
"We'll get supper," said Vane. "If the breeze drops a little at dusk, which is likely, we'll go on again."
Having eaten little since dawn, they enjoyed the meal; and Carroll would have been content to remain at anchor afterward. The tiny saloon was comfortably warm, and he thought it would be pleasanter to lounge away the evening on a locker, with his pipe, than to sit amid the bitter spray at the helm. The breeze had fallen a little, but the firs in a valley ashore were still wailing loudly. Vane, however, was proof against his companion's hints.
"With a head wind, we'll be some time working up to the rancherie, and then we have thirty miles of coast to search for the inlet Hartley reached. After that, there's the valley to locate; he was uncertain how far it lay from the beach."
"It couldn't be very far. You wouldn't expect a man who was sick and badly lame to make any great pace."
"I can imagine a man, who knew he must reach the coast before he starved, making a pretty vigorous effort. If he were worked-up and desperate, the pain might turn him savage and drive him on, instead of stopping him. Do you remember the time we crossed the divide in the snow?"
"I could remember it, if I wanted to," Carroll answered with a shiver."As it happens, that's about the last thing I'm anxious to do."
"The trouble is that there are a good many valleys in this strip of country, and we may have to try a number before we strike the right one. Winter's not far off, and I can't spend very much time over this search. As soon as the man we put in charge of the mine has tried his present system long enough to give us something to figure on, I want to see what can be done to increase our output. We haven't marketed very much refined metal yet."
"There's no doubt that it would be advisable," Carroll answered thoughtfully. "As I've pointed out, you have spent a good deal of the cash you got when you turned the Clermont over to the company. In fact, that's one reason why I didn't try to head off this timber-hunting scheme. You can't spend much over the search, and if the spruce comes up to expectations, you ought to get it back. It would be a fortunate change, after your extravagance in England."
Vane frowned.
"That's a subject I don't want to talk about. We'll go up and see what the weather's like."
Carroll shivered when they stood in the well. It was falling dusk, and the sky was a curious cold, shadowy blue. A nipping wind came down across the darkening firs ashore, but there was no doubt that it had fallen somewhat, and Carroll resigned himself when Vane began to pull the tiers off the mainsail.
In a few minutes they were under way, the sloop heading out toward open water with two reefs down in her mainsail, a gray and ghostly shape of slanted canvas that swept across the dim, furrowed plain of sea. By midnight the breeze was as strong as ever, but they had clear moonlight and they held on; the craft plunging with flooded decks through the white combers, while Carroll sat at the helm, battered by spray and stung with cold.
When Vane came up, an hour or two later, the sea was breaking viciously. Carroll would have put up his helm and run for shelter, had the decision been left to him; but he saw his comrade's face in the moonlight and refrained from any suggestion of that nature. There was a spice of dogged obstinacy in Vane, which, although on the whole it made for success, occasionally drove him into needless difficulties. They held on; and soon after day broke, with its first red flush ominously high in the eastern sky, they stretched in toward the land, with a somewhat sheltered bay opening up beyond a foam-fringed point ahead of them. Carroll glanced dubiously at the white turmoil in the midst of which black fangs of rock appeared.
"Will she weather the point on this tack?" he asked.
"She'll have to! We'll have smoother water to work through, once we're round, and the tide's helping her."
They drove on, though it occurred to Carroll that they were not opening up the bay very rapidly. The light was growing, and he could now discern the orderly phalanxes of white-topped combers that crumbled into a chaotic spouting on the point's outer end. It struck him that the sloop would not last long if she touched bottom there; but once more, after a glance at Vane's face, he kept silent. After all, Vane was leader; and when he looked as he did then, he usually resented advice. The mouth of the bay grew wider, until Carroll could see most of the forest-girt shore on one side of it; but the surf upon the point was growing unpleasantly near. Wisps of spray whirled away from it and vanished among the scrubby firs clinging to the fissured crags behind. The sloop, however, was going to windward, for Vane was handling her with nerve and skill. She had almost cleared the point when there was a rattle and a bang inside of her. Carroll started.
"It's the centerboard coming up! It must have touched a boulder!"
"Then jump down and lift it before it strikes another and bends!" criedVane. "She's far enough to windward to keep off the beach without it."
Carroll went below and hove up the centerboard, which projected several feet beneath the bottom of the craft; but he was not satisfied that the sloop was far enough off the beach, as Vane seemed to be, and he got out into the well as soon as possible.
The worst of the surf was abreast of their quarter now, and less-troubled water stretched away ahead. Carroll had hardly noticed this, however, when there was a second heavy crash and the sloop stopped suddenly. The comber to windward that should have lifted her up, broke all over her, flinging the boat on deck upon the saloon skylight and pouring inches deep over the coaming into the well. Vane was hurled from the tiller. His wet face was smeared with blood, from a cut on his forehead, but he seized a big oar to shove the sloop off, when she swung upright, moved, and struck again. The following sea hove her up; there was a third, less violent, crash; and as Vane dropped the oar and grasped the helm, she suddenly shot ahead.
"She'll go clear!" he shouted. "Jump below and see if she's damaged!"
Carroll got no farther than the scuttle, for the saloon floorings on the depressed side were already awash, and he could hear an ominous splashing and gurgling.
"It's pouring into her!" he cried.
"Then, you'll have to pump!"
"We passed an opening some miles to lee. Wouldn't it be better if you ran back there?" Carroll suggested.
"No! I won't run a yard! There's another inlet not far ahead and we'll stand on until we reach it. I'd put her on the beach here, only that she'd go to pieces with the first shift of the wind to westward."
Carroll agreed with this opinion; but there is a great difference between running to leeward with the sea behind the vessel and thrashing to windward when it is ahead, and he hesitated.
"Get the pump started! We're going on!" Vane said impatiently.
Fortunately the pump was a powerful one, of the semi-rotary type, and they had nearly two miles of smoother water before they stretched out of the bay upon the other tack. When they did so, Carroll, glancing down again through the scuttle, could not flatter himself that he had reduced the water. It was comforting, however, to see that it had not increased, though he did not expect that state of affairs to last. When they drove out into broken water, he found it difficult to work the crank. The plunges threw him against the coaming, and the sea poured in over it continually. There are not many men who feel equal to determined toil before their morning meal, and the physical slackness is generally more pronounced if they have been up most of the preceding night; but Carroll recognized that he had no choice. There was too much sea for the boat, even if they could have launched her, and he could make out no spot on the beach where it seemed possible to effect a landing if they ran the sloop ashore. As a result of this, it behooved him to pump.
After half an hour of it, he was breathless and exhausted, and Vane took his place. The sea was higher; the sloop wetter than she had been; and there was no doubt that the water was rising fast inside of her. Carroll wondered how far ahead the inlet lay; and the next two hours were anxious ones to both of them. Turn about, they pumped with savage determination and went back, gasping, to the helm to thrash the boat on. They drove her remorselessly; and she swept through the combers, tilted and streaming, while the spray scourged the helmsman's face as he gazed to weather. The men's arms and shoulders ached from working in a cramped position; but there was no help for it. They toiled on furiously, until at last the crest of a crag for which they were heading sloped away in front of them.
A few minutes later they drove past the end of it into a broad lane of water. The wind was suddenly cut off; the combers fell away; and the sloop crept slowly up the inlet, which wound, green and placid, among the hills, with long ranks of firs dropping steeply to the edge of the water. Vane loosed the pump handle, and striding to the scuttle looked down at the flood which splashed languidly to and fro below.
"It strikes me as fortunate that we're in," he commented. "Another half-hour would have seen the end of her. Let her come up a little! There's a smooth beach to yonder cove."
She slid in quietly, scarcely rippling the smooth surface of the tiny basin, and Carroll laid her on the beach.
"Now," advised Vane, "we'll drop the boom on the shore side to keep her from canting over; and then we'll get breakfast. We'll see where she's damaged when the tide ebbs."
As most of their stores had lain in the flooded lockers, from which there had been no time to extricate them, the meal was not an appetizing one. They were, however, glad to have it; and rowing ashore afterward, they lay on the shingle in the sunshine while the sloop was festooned with their drying clothes. There was no wind in that deep hollow, and they were thankful, for the weather was already getting cold.
"If she has only split a plank or two, we can patch her up," Vane remarked. "There are all the tools we'll want in the locker."
"Where will you get new planks?" Carroll inquired. "I don't think we have any spikes that would go through the frames."
"That is the trouble. I expect I'll have to make a trip across to Comox for them in a sea canoe. We're sure to come across a few Siwash somewhere in the neighborhood." Then he knit his brows. "I can't say that this expedition is beginning fortunately."
"There's no doubt on that point," Carroll agreed.
"Well, the sloop has to be patched up; and until I find that spruce I'm going on—anyway, as long as the provisions hold out. If we're not through with the business then, we'll come back again."
Carroll made no comment. It was not worth while to object, when Vane was obviously determined.
It was a quiet evening, nearly a fortnight after the arrival of the sloop. Pale sunshine streamed into the cove, and little glittering ripples lapped lazily along the shingle. The placid surface of the inlet was streaked with faint blue lines where wandering airs came down from the heights above, and now and then an elfin sighing fell from the ragged summits of the firs. When it died away, the silence was broken only by the pounding of a heavy hammer and the crackle of a fire.
Carroll sat beside the latter, alternately holding a stout plank up to the blaze and dabbling its hot surface with a dripping mop. His face was scorched, and he coughed as the resinous-scented smoke drifted about his head and floated in heavy, blue wisps half-way up the giant trunks behind him. A big sea canoe lay drawn up not far away, and one of its copper-skinned Siwash owners lounged on the shingle, stolidly watching the white men. His comrade was then inside the sloop, holding a big stone against one of her frames, while Vane crouched outside, swinging a hammer. Her empty hull flung back the thud of the blows, which rang far across the trees.
Vane was bare-armed and stripped to shirt and trousers. He had arrived from Comox across the straits at dawn that morning. It was a long trip and they had had wild weather on the journey, but he had set to work with characteristic energy as soon as he landed. Now, though the sun was low, he was working harder than ever, with the flood tide, which would shortly compel him to desist, creeping up to his feet.
It is a difficult matter to fit a new plank into the rounded bilge of a boat, particularly when one is provided with inadequate appliances. One requires a good eye for curves, for the planks need much shaping. They must also be driven into position by force. Two or three stout shores were firmly wedged against the side of the boat, and these encumbered Vane in the free use of his arms. His face was darkly flushed and he panted heavily and now and then flung vitriolic instructions to the Siwash inside the craft. Carroll, watching him with quiet amusement, was on the whole content that the tide was rising, for his comrade had firmly declined to stop for dinner, and he was conscious of a sharpened appetite. It was comforting to reflect that Vane would be unable to get the plank into place before the evening meal, for if there had been any prospect of his doing so, he would certainly have postponed his dinner.
Presently he stopped a moment and turned to Carroll.
"If you were any use in an emergency, you'd be holding up for me, instead of that wooden image inside! He will back the stone against any frame except the one I'm nailing."
"The difficulty is that I can't be in two places at the same time," Carroll retorted good-naturedly. "Shall I leave this plank? You can't get it in to-night."
"I'm going to try," Vane answered grimly.
He turned around to direct the Siwash and then cautiously hammered in one of the wedges a little farther. Swinging back the hammer, he struck a heavy blow. The result was disastrous, for there was a crash and one of the shores shot backward, striking him on the knee. He jumped with a savage cry, and the next moment there was a sharp snapping, and the end of the plank sprang out. Then another shore gave way; and when the plank fell clattering at his feet, Vane whirled the hammer round his head and hurled it violently into the bush. This appeared to afford him some satisfaction, and he strode up the beach, with the blood dripping from the knuckles of one hand.
"That's the blamed Siwash's fault!" he muttered. "I couldn't get him to back up when I put the last spike in."
"Hadn't you better tell him to come out?" Carroll suggested.
"No!" thundered Vane. "If he hasn't sense enough to see that he isn't wanted, he can stay where he is all night! Are you going to get supper, or must I do that, too?"
Carroll merely smiled and set about preparing the meal, which the two Siwash partook of and afterward departed with some paper currency. Then Vane, walking down the beach, came back with the plank. Lighting his pipe, he pointed to one or two broken nails in it. The water was now rippling softly about the sloop, and the splash of canoe paddles came up out of the distance in rhythmic cadence.
"That's the cause of the trouble," he explained. "It cost me a week's journey to get the package of galvanized spikes—I could have managed to split a plank or two out of one of these firs. The storekeeper fellow assured me they were specially annealed for heading up. If I knew who the manufacturers were, I'd have pleasure in telling them what I think of them. If they set up to make spikes, they ought to make them, and empty every keg that won't stand the test out on to the scrap-heap."
Carroll smiled. The course his partner had indicated was the one he would have adopted. He was characterized by a somewhat grim idea of efficiency, and never spared his labor to attain it, though the latter fact now and then had its inconveniences for those who cooperated with him, as Carroll had discovered. The latter had no doubt that Vane would put the planks in, if he spent a month over the operation.
"I wouldn't have had this trouble if you'd been handier with tools," Vane went on. "I can't see why you never took the trouble to learn how to use them."
"My abilities aren't as varied as yours; and the thing strikes me as bad economy," Carroll replied. "Skill of the kind you mention is worth about three dollars a day."
"You were getting two dollars for shoveling in a mining ditch when I first met you."
"I was," Carroll assented good-humoredly. "I believe another month or two of it would have worn me out. It's considerably pleasanter and more profitable to act as your understudy; but a fairly proficient carpenter might have bungled the matter."
Vane looked embarrassed.
"Let it pass. I've a pernicious habit of expressing myself unfortunately.Anyhow, we'll start again on those planks the first thing to-morrow."
He stretched out his aching limbs beside the fire, and languidly watched the firs grow dimmer and the mists creep in ghostly trails down the steep hillside. Presently Carroll broke the silence.
"Wallace," he advised, "wouldn't it be wiser if you met that fellowHorsfield to some extent?"
"No," Vane answered decidedly. "I have no intention of giving way an inch. It would only encourage the man to press me on another point, if I did. I'm going to have trouble with him, and it seems to me that the sooner it comes the better. There's room for only one controlling influence in the Clermont Mine."
Carroll smoked in silence for a while. His comrade had successfully carried out most of the small projects he had undertaken in the bush, and though fortune had, perhaps, favored him, he had every reason to be satisfied with the result of his efforts as a prospector. He had afterward held his own in the city, mainly by simple unwavering determination. Carroll, however, realized that to guard against the wiles of a clever man like Horsfield, who was unhampered by any scruples, might prove a very different thing.
"In that case, it might be as well to stay in Vancouver as much as possible and keep your eye on him," he suggested.
"The same idea has struck me since we sailed. The trouble is that until I've decided about the pulp mill he'll have to go unwatched—for the same reason that prevented you from holding up for me and steaming the plank."
"If any unforeseen action of Horsfield's made it necessary, you could let this pulp project drop."
"You ought to understand why that's impossible. Drayton, Kitty and Hartley count on my exertions; the matter was put into my hands only on the condition that I did all that I could. They're poor people and I can't go back on them. If we can't locate the spruce, or it doesn't seem likely to pay for working up, there's nothing to prevent my abandoning the undertaking; but I'm not at liberty to do so just because it would be a convenience to myself. Hartley got my promise before he told me where to search."
Carroll changed the subject.
"It might have been better if you had made the directors' qualification higher. You would have been more sure of Horsfield then, because he would have been less likely to do anything that might depreciate the value of his stock."
"I had to get a few good names to make it easier for men of standing to join me. They wouldn't have been willing to subscribe for too many shares until they saw how the thing would go. Anyhow, so long as he's a director, Horsfield must hold a stipulated amount of stock. He's actually holding a good deal."
"The limit's rather a low one. Suppose he sold out down to it; he wouldn't mind having the value of the rest knocked down, if he could make more than the difference by some jobbery. Of course, we're only a small concern, and we'll have to raise more capital sooner or later. I've an idea that Horsfield might find his opportunity then."
"If he does, we must try to be ready for him," Vane replied. "I sat up most of last night with the spritsail sheet in my hand, and I'm going to sleep."
He strolled away to the tent they had pitched on the edge of the bush, but Carroll sat a while smoking beside the fire with a thoughtful face. He was suspicious of Horsfield and foresaw trouble; more particularly now that his comrade had undertaken a project which seemed likely to occupy a good deal of his attention. Hitherto, Vane had owed part of his success to his faculty of concentrating all his powers upon one object.
They rose at dawn the next morning, and by sunset had fitted the new planks. Two days later, they sailed northward, and eventually they found the rancherie Hartley mentioned. They had expected to hire a guide there, but the rickety wooden building was empty. Vane decided that its Siwash owners, who made long trips in search of fish and furs, had left it for a time, and he pushed on again.
He had now to face an unforeseen difficulty; there were a number of openings in that strip of coast, and Hartley's description was of no great service in deciding which was the right one. During the next day or two, they looked into several bights, and seeing no valleys opening out of them, went on again. One evening, however, they ran into an inlet with a forest-shrouded hollow at the head of it. Here they moored the sloop close in with a sheltered beach and after a night's rest got ready their packs for the march inland. Carroll regretted they had not hired the Indians with whom his comrade had crossed the straits.
"We would have traveled a good deal more comfortably if you had brought those Siwash along to pack for us," he observed.
"If you had been with them on the canoe trip, you might think differently," Vane answered with a laugh. "Besides, they're in the habit of going to Cornox and might put some enterprising lumber men on our trail."
"There's one thing I'm going to insist on," Carroll declared. "We'll leave enough provisions on board to last us until we get back to civilization, even if we have a head wind. I've made one or two journeys on short rations."
Vane agreed to this, and after rowing ashore and hiding the boat among the undergrowth, they proceeded to strap their packs about them. There is an art in this, for the weight must be carried where it will be felt and retard one's movements least. They had a light tent without poles—which could be cut when wanted—two blankets, an ax, and one or two cooking utensils, besides their provisions. A new-comer from the cities would probably not have carried his share for half a day, but in that rugged land mineral prospector and survey packer are accustomed to travel heavily burdened, and the men had followed both these vocations.
In front of them a deep trough opened up in the hills, but it was filled with giant forest, through which no track led, and only those who have traversed the dim recesses of the primeval bush can fully understand what this implies. The west winds swept through that gateway, reaping as they went, and here and there tremendous trees lay strewed athwart one another with their branches spread abroad in impenetrable tangles. Some had fallen amid the wreckage left by previous gales, which the forest had partly made good, and there was scarcely a rod of the way that was not obstructed by half-rotted trunks. Then there were thick bushes, and an undergrowth of willows where the soil was damp, with thorny brakes and matted fern in between. In places the growth was almost like a wall, and the men, skirting the inlet, were glad to scramble forward among the rough boulders and ragged driftwood at the water's edge for some minutes at a time, until it was necessary to leave the beach behind.
After the first few minutes there was no sign of the gleaming water. They had entered a region of dim green shade, where the moist air was heavy with resinous smells. The trunks rose about them in tremendous columns, thorns clutched their garments, and twigs and brittle branches snapped beneath their feet. The day was cool, but the sweat of tense effort dripped from them, and when they stopped for breath at the end of an hour, Vane estimated that they had gone a mile.
"I'll be content if we can keep this up," he said.
"It isn't likely," Carroll replied with a trace of dryness, glancing down at a big rent in his jacket.
A little farther on, they waded with difficulty through a large stream, and Carroll stopped and glanced round at a deep rift in a crag on one side of them.
"I don't know whether that could be considered a valley; but we may as well look at it."
They scrambled forward, and reaching gravelly soil where the trees were thinner, Vane surveyed the opening. It was very narrow and appeared to lose itself among the rocks. The size of the creek which flowed out of it was no guide, for those ranges are scored by running water.
"We won't waste time over that ravine," Vane concluded. "I noticed a wider one farther on. We'll see what it's like; though Hartley led me to understand that he came down a straight and gently sloping valley. The one we're in answers the description."
It was two hours before they reached the second opening, and then Vane, unstrapping his pack, clambered up the steep face of a crag. When he came back, his face was thoughtful. He sat down and lighted his pipe.
"This search seems likely to take us longer than I expected," he said. "To begin with, there are a number of inlets, all of them pretty much alike, along this part of the coast, but I needn't go into the reasons for supposing that this is the one Hartley visited. Taking it for granted that we're right, we're up against another difficulty. So far as I could make out from the top of that rock, there's a regular series of ravines running back into the hills."
"Hartley told you he came straight down to tidewater, didn't he?"
"That's not much of a guide. The slope of every fissure seems to run naturally from the inland watershed to this basin. Hartley was sick and it was raining all the time, and coming out of any of these ravines he'd only have to make a slight turn to reach the water. What's more, he could only tell me that he was heading roughly west. Allowing that there was no sun visible, that might have meant either northwest or southwest, which gives us the choice of searching the hollows on either side of the main valley. Now, it strikes me as most probable that he came right down the main valley itself; but we have to face the question as to whether we should push straight on, or search every opening that might be called a valley?"
"What's your idea?" Carroll rejoined.
"That we ought to go into the thing systematically, and look at every ravine we come to."
Carroll nodded agreement.
"I guess you're right."
They strapped their packs about them and struggled on again. Stopping half an hour for dinner, they plodded all the afternoon up a long hollow, which rose steadily in front of them. It was narrow, and in places the bottom of it was so choked with fallen trunks that they were forced for the sake of a clearer passage to take to the creek, where they alternately stumbled among big boulders and splashed through shallow pools. The water, which was mostly melted snow, was very cold.
The light was fading down in the deep rift when, winding round a spur through a tangle of clinging underbrush, they saw the timber thin off ahead. In a few minutes Vane stopped with an exclamation, and Carroll, overtaking him, loosened his pack. They stood upon the edge of the timber, but in front of them a mass of soil and stones ran up almost vertically to a great outcrop of rock high above.
"If Hartley had come down that, he'd have remembered it," Vane remarked grimly.
"It's obvious," Carroll agreed, sitting down with a sigh of weariness."We'll try the next one to-morrow; I don't move another step to-night."
Vane laughed.
"I've no wish to urge you. There's hardly a joint in my body that doesn't ache." He flung down his pack and stretched himself with an air of relief. "That's what comes of civilization and soft living. It would be nice to sit still now while somebody brought me my supper."
As there was nobody to do so, he took up the ax and set about hewing chips off a fallen trunk while Carroll made a fire. Then he cut the tent poles and a few armfuls of twigs for a bed, and in half an hour the camp was pitched and a meal prepared. Darkness closed down on them while they ate, and they afterward lay a while, smoking and saying little, beside the sinking fire, while the red light flickered upon the massy trunks and fell away again. Then they crawled into the tent and wrapped their blankets round them.
When Vane rose early the next morning, there was frost in the air. The firs glistened with delicate silver filigree, and thin spears of ice stretched out from behind the boulders in the stream. The smoke of the fire thickened the light haze that filled the hollow, and when breakfast was ready the men ate hastily, eager for the exertion that would put a little warmth into them.
"We've had it a good deal colder on other trips. I suppose I've been getting luxurious, for I seem to resent it now," observed Vane. "There's no doubt that winter's beginning earlier that I expected up here. As soon as you can strike the tent, we'll get a move on."
Carroll made no comment He had a vivid recollection of one or two of those other journeys, during which they had spent arduous days floundering through slushy snow and had slept in saturated blankets, and sometimes shelterless in bitter frost. Carroll had endured these things without complaint, though he had never attained to the cheerfulness his comrade usually displayed. He was willing to face hardship, when it promised to lead to a tangible result, but he failed to understand the curious satisfaction Vane assumed to feel in ascertaining exactly how much weariness and discomfort he could force his flesh to bear.
Vane, however, was not singular in this respect; there are men in the newer lands who, if they do not actually seek it, will seldom make an effort to avoid the strain of overtaxed muscles and exposure to wild and bitter weather. They have imbibed the pristine vigor of the wilderness, and conflict with the natural forces braces instead of daunting them. One recognizes them by their fixed and steady gaze, their direct and deliberate speech, and the proficiency that most display with ax and saw and rifle. But the effect of this Spartan training is not merely physical; the men who leave the bush and the ranges, as a rule, come to the forefront in commerce and industry. Endurance, swiftness of action and stubborn tenacity are apt to carry their possessor far anywhere.
Vane and his comrade needed these qualities during the following week. The valley grew more wild and rugged as they proceeded. In places, its bottom was filled with muskegs, cumbered with half-submerged, decaying trunks of fallen trees; and when they could not spring from one crumbling log to another they sank in slime and water to the knee. Then there were effluents of the main river to be waded through, and every now and then they were forced back by impenetrable thickets to the hillside, where they scrambled along a talus of frost-shattered rock. They entered transverse valleys, and after hours of exhausting labor abandoned the search of each in turn and plodded back to the one they had been following. Their boots and clothing suffered; their packs were rent upon their backs; and their provisions diminished rapidly.
At length, one lowering afternoon, they were brought to a standstill by the river which forked into two branches, one of which came foaming out of a cleft in the rocks. This would have mattered less, had it flowed across the level; but just there it had scored itself out a deep hollow, from which the roar of its turmoil rose in long reverberations. Carroll, aching all over, stood upon the brink and gazed ahead. He surmised from the steady ascent and the contours of the hills that the valley was dying out and that they should reach the head of it in another day's journey. The higher summits, however, were veiled in leaden mist, and there was a sting in the cold breeze that blew down the hollow and set the ragged firs to wailing. Then Carroll glanced dubiously at the dim, green water which swirled in deep eddies and boiled in white confusion among the fangs of rock sixty or seventy feet below. Not far away, the stream was wider and, he supposed, in consequence, shallower, though it ran furiously.
"It doesn't look encouraging, and we have no more food left than will take us back to the sloop if we're economical. Do you think it's worth while going on?"
"I haven't a doubt about it," Vane declared. "We ought to reach the head of the valley and get back here in two or three days."
Carroll fancied they could have walked the distance in a few hours on a graded road; but the roughness of the ground was not the chief difficulty.
"Three days will make a big hole in the provisions," he pointed out.
"Then we'll have to put up with short rations."
Carroll nodded in rueful acquiescence.
"If you're determined, we may as well get on."
He stepped cautiously over the edge of the descent, and went down a few yards with a run, while loosened soil and stones slipped away under him. Then he clutched a slender tree, and proceeded as far as the next on his hands and knees. After that it was necessary to swing himself over a ledge, and he alighted safely on one below, from which he could scramble down to the narrow strip of gravel between rock and water. He was standing, breathless, looking at the latter, when Vane joined him. The stones dipped sharply, and two or three large boulders, ringed about with froth, rose near the middle of the stream, which seemed to be running slacker on the other side of them.
There was nothing to show how deep it was, and Carroll did not relish the idea of being compelled to swim burdened with his pack. No trees grew immediately upon the brink of the chasm, and to chop a good-sized log and get it down to the water, in order to ferry themselves across on it, would cost more time than Vane was likely to spare for the purpose. Seeing no other way out of it, Carroll braced himself for an effort and sturdily plunged in.
Two steps took him up to the waist, and he had trouble in finding solid bottom at the next, for the gravel rolled and slipped away beneath his feet in the strong stream. The current dragged hard at his limbs, and he set his lips tight when it crept up to his ribs. Then he lost his footing, and was washed away, plunging and floundering, with now and then one toe resting momentarily upon the bottom. Sweeping rapidly down the stream he was hurled against the first of the boulders with a crash that almost drove the little remaining breath out of his body. He clung to it desperately, gasping hard; then, with a determined struggle, he contrived to reach the second stone, but the stream pressed him violently against this and he was unable to find any support for his feet. A moment later Vane was washed down toward him and, grabbing at the boulder, held on by it. They said nothing to each other, but they looked at the sliding water between them and the opposite bank. Carroll was getting dangerously cold, and he felt the power ebbing out of him. He realized that if he must swim across he would better do it at once.
Launching himself forward, he felt the flood lap his breast, but as his arms went in he struck something with his knee and found that he could stand on a submerged ledge. This carried him a yard or two, but the next moment he had stepped suddenly over the end of the ledge into deeper water. Floundering forward, he staggered up a strip of shelving shingle and lay there, breathless, waiting for Vane; then together they scrambled up the slope ahead. The work warmed them slightly, and they needed it; but as they strode on again, keeping to the foot of the hillside, where the timber was less dense, a cold rain drove into their faces. It grew steadily thicker; the straps began to gall their wet shoulders, and their saturated clothing clung heavily about their limbs. In spite of this, they struggled on until nightfall, when with difficulty they made a fire and, after a reduced supper, found a little humid warmth in their wet blankets.
The next day's work was much the same, only that they crossed no rivers. It rained harder, however, and when evening came Carroll, who had burst one boot, was limping badly. They made camp among the dripping firs which partly sheltered them from the bitter wind, and shortly after their meager supper Carroll fell asleep. Vane, to his annoyance, found that he could not follow his friend's example. He was overstrung, and the knowledge that the morrow would show whether the spruce he sought grew in that valley made him restless. The flap of the tent was flung back and resting on one elbow he looked out upon shadowy ranks of trunks, which rose out of the gloom and vanished again as the firelight grew and sank. He could smell the acrid smoke and could hear the splash of heavy drops upon the saturated soil, while the hoarse roar of the river came up in fitful cadence from the depths of the valley.
In place of being deadened by fatigue, his imagination seemed quickened and set free. It carried him back to the lonely heights and the rugged dales of his own land, and once more in vivid memory he roamed the upland heath with Evelyn. She had attracted him strongly when he was in her visible presence; but now he thought he understood her better than he had ever done then. He had, he felt, not grasped the inner meaning of much that she said. Words might convey but little in their literal sense and yet give to a sympathetic listener an insight into the depths of the speaker's nature, or hint at a thought too finely spun and delicate for formal expression.
The same thing applied to her physical personality. Contours, coloring, features, were things that could be defined and appraised; but there was besides, in Evelyn's case, an aura that only now and then could dimly be perceived by senses attuned to it. It enveloped her in a mystic light. Again he remembered how he had sought her with crude longing and cold appreciation. He had failed to comprehend her; the one creditable thing he had done was the renouncing of his claim. Then the half-formed idea grew plainer that she would understand and sympathize with what he was doing now. It was to keep faith with those who trusted him that he meant stubbornly to prosecute his search and, if the present journey failed, to come back again. That Evelyn would ever hear of his undertaking, appeared most improbable; but this did not matter. He knew now that it was the remembrance of her that had largely animated him to make the venture; and to go on in the face of all opposing difficulties was something he could do in her honor. Then by degrees his eyes grew heavy, and when he sank down in his wet blankets sleep came to him. Perhaps he had been fanciful—he was undoubtedly overstrung—but, through such dreams as he indulged in, passing glimpses of strange and splendid visions that transfigure the toil and clamor of a material world are now and then granted to wayfaring men.
At noon the next day they reached the head of the valley. It was still raining, and heavy mists obscured the summits of the hills, but above the lower slopes of rock glimmering snow ran up into the woolly vapor. There were firs, a few balsams and hemlocks, but no sign of a spruce.
"Now," Carroll commented dryly, "perhaps you'll be satisfied."
Vane smiled. He was no nearer to owning himself defeated than he had been when they first set out.
"We know there's no spruce in this valley—and that's something," he replied. "When we come back again we'll try the next one."
"It has cost us a good deal to make sure of the fact"
Vane's expression changed.
"We haven't ascertained the cost just yet. As a rule, you don't make up the bill until you're through with the undertaking; and it may be a longer one than either of us think. Well, we might as well turn upon our tracks."
Carroll recalled this speech afterward. Just then, however, he hitched his burden a little higher on his aching shoulders as he plodded after his comrade down the rain-swept hollow. They had good cause to remember the march to the inlet. It rained most of the while and their clothes were never dry; parts of them, indeed, flowed in tatters about their aching limbs, and before they had covered half the distance, their boots were dropping to pieces. What was more important, their provisions were rapidly running out, and they marched on a few handfuls of food, carefully apportioned, twice daily. At last they lay down hungry, with empty bags, one night, to sleep shelterless in the rain, for they had thrown their tent away. Carroll had some difficulty in getting on his feet the next morning.
"I believe I can hold out until sundown, though I'm far from sure of it," he said. "You'll have to leave me behind if we don't strike the inlet then."
"We'll strike it in the afternoon," Vane assured him.
They reslung their packs and set out wearily. Carroll, limping and stumbling along, was soon troubled by a distressful stitch in his side. He managed to keep pace with Vane, however, and some time after noon a twinkling gleam among the trees caught their eye. Then the shuffling pace grew faster, and they were breathless when at last they stopped and dropped their burdens beside the boat. It was only at the third or fourth attempt that they got her down to the water, and the veins were swollen high on Vane's flushed forehead when he sat down, panting heavily, on her gunwale.
"We ran her up quite easily, though we had the slope to face then," he remarked.
"You could scarcely expect to carry boats about without trouble after a march like the one we've made!"
They ran her in and pulled off to the sloop. When at last they sat down in the little saloon, Vane got a glimpse of himself in the mirror.
"I knew you looked a deadbeat," he laughed, "but I'd no idea I was quite so bad. Anyhow, we'll get the stove lighted and some dry things on. The next question is—what shall we have for supper?"
"That's easy. Everything that's most tempting, and the whole of it."
Shortly afterward they flung their boots and rent garments overboard and sat down to a feast. The plates were empty when they rose, and in another hour both of them were wrapped in heavy slumber.