The next morning it was blowing fresh from the southeast, which was right ahead, and Vane's face was hard when he and Carroll got the boat on deck and set about tying down two reefs in the mainsail.
"Bad luck seems to follow us," he grumbled.
Carroll smiled.
"There's no doubt of that; but I suppose the fact won't have much effect on you."
"No," returned Vane decidedly, "We had our troubles in other ventures, and somehow we got over them—I don't see why we shouldn't do the same again. Now that we've seen the country, we ought to get some useful information out of Hartley—we'll know what to ask him."
"I shouldn't count too much on his help," Carroll answered with a thoughtful air.
They got sail upon the sloop and drove her out into a confused head sea, through which she labored with flooded decks, making very little to windward. When night came, a deluge killed the breeze, and the next day she lay rolling wildly in a heavy calm while light mist narrowed in the horizon and a persistent drizzle poured down upon the smoothly heaving sea. Then they had light variable winds, and their provisions were once more running out when they drew abreast of a little coaling port. Carroll suggested running in and going on to Victoria by train, but they had hardly decided to do so when the fickle breeze died away and the tide-stream bore them past to the south. They had no longer a stitch of dry clothing and they were again upon reduced rations.
Still bad fortune dogged them, for that night a fresh head wind sprang up and held steadily while they thrashed her south, swept by stinging spray. Their tempers grew shorter under the strain, and their bodies ached from the chill of their sodden garments and from sitting hour by hour at the helm. At last the breeze fell, and shortly afterward a trail of smoke and a half-seen strip of hull emerged from the creeping haze astern of them.
"A lumber tug," observed Vane. "She seems to have a raft in tow, and it will probably be for Drayton's people. If you'll edge in toward her I'll send him word that we're on the way."
There was very little wind just then and presently the tug was close alongside, pitching her bows out of the slow swell, while a great mass of timber wonderfully chained together surged along astern, the dim, slate-green sea washing over it. A shapeless oil-skinned figure stood outside her pilot-house, balancing itself against the heave of the bridge, which slanted and straightened.
"Winstanley?" Vane shouted.
The figure waved an arm, as if in assent, and Vane raised his voice again.
"Report us to Mr. Drayton. We'll come along as fast as we can."
The man turned and pointed to the misty horizon astern.
"You'll get it from the north before to-morrow!"' he called.
Then the straining tug and the long wet line of working raft drew ahead while the sloop crawled on, close-hauled toward the south. Late that night, however, the mist melted away, and a keen rushing breeze that came out of the north crisped the water. The vessel sprang forward when the ripples reached her; the flapping canvas went to sleep; and while each slack rope tightened a musical tinkle broke out at the bows. It grew steadily louder, and when the sun swung up red above the eastern hills, she had piled the white froth to her channels and was driving forward merrily with little sparkling seas tumbling, foam-tipped, after her. The wind fell light as the sun rose higher, but the swinging sloop ran on all day, with blurred hills and forests sliding past; and the western sky was still blazing with a wondrous green when she stole into Vancouver harbor.
Carroll gazed at the city with open appreciation. It rose, girded with many wires and giant telegraph poles, roof above roof, up a low rise, on the crest of which towering pines still lifted their ragged spires against the evening sky. Lower down, big white lights were beginning to blink, and the forests up the inlet beyond the smoke of the mills had already faded to a belt of shadow.
"Quebec," he remarked, "looks fine from the river, clustering round and perched upon its heights; and Montreal at the foot of its mountain strikes your eye from most points of view; but I can't remember ever entering either with the pleasure I've experienced in reaching this city."
"You probably arrived at the others traveling in a Pullman or in a luxurious side-wheel steamboat. It wouldn't be any great change from them to a smart hotel."
"That may explain the thing," Carroll agreed with an air of humorous reflection. "I guess the way you regard a city depends largely on the condition you're in when you reach it and on what you expect to get out of it. In the present case, Vancouver stands for rest and comfort and enough to eat."
Vane laughed.
"I'm as glad to be back as you are; but you'd better make the most of any leisure that you can get. As soon as I've arranged things here we'll go north again."
The light faded as they crept across the inlet before a faint breeze, but when they got the anchor over and the boat into the water, Carroll made out two dim figures standing on the wharf.
"It's Drayton, I think," he said, waving a hand to them. "Kitty's with him."
They pulled ashore, and Drayton and Kitty greeted them.
"I've been looking out for you since noon," Drayton told them. "What about the spruce?"
There was eagerness in his voice, and Vane's face clouded.
"We couldn't find a trace of it."
Drayton's disappointment was obvious, though he tried to hide it.
"Well," he said resignedly, "I've no doubt you did all you could."
"Of course!" Kitty broke in. "We're quite sure of that!"
Vane thanked her with a glance. He felt sorry for her and Drayton. They were strongly attached to each other, and he had reasons for believing that even with the advanced salary the man expected to get they would find it needful to study strict economy. It was easy to understand that a small share in a prosperous enterprise would have made things easier for them.
"I'm going to make another attempt. I expect some of our difficulties will vanish after I've had a talk with Hartley."
"That's impossible," Kitty explained softly. "Hartley died a week ago."
Vane started. The prospector had given him very little definite information, and it was disconcerting to recognize that he must now rely entirely upon his own devices.
"I'm sorry", he said "How's Celia?"
"She's very ill." There was concern in Kitty's voice. "Hartley got worse soon after you left, and she sat up all night with him, after her work for the last few weeks. Now she's broken down, and she seems to worry for fear they will not take her back again at the hotel."
"I must go to see her," declared Vane. "But won't you and Drayton come with us and have dinner?"
Drayton explained that this was out of the question; Kitty's employer, who had driven in that afternoon, was waiting with his team. They left the wharf together, and a few minutes later Vane shook hands with the girl and her companion.
"Don't lose heart," he said encouragingly. "We're far from beaten yet."
Some time afterward Vane, rejoicing in the unusual luxury of clean, dry clothes, walked across to call on Nairn. The house struck him as larger, more commodious and better lighted than it had been when he left it, although he supposed that was only the result of his having lived on board the sloop and in the bush. He was shown into a room where Jessy Horsfield was sitting, and she rose with a slight start when he came in; but her manner was reposeful and quietly friendly when she held out her hand.
"So you have come back! Have you succeeded in your search?"
Vane was gratified. It was pleasant to feel that she was interested in his undertaking.
"No," he confessed. "For the time being, I'm afraid I have failed."
There was reproach in Jessy's voice when she answered.
"Then you have disappointed me!"
It was delicate flattery, as she had conveyed the impression that she had expected him to succeed, which implied that she held a high opinion of his abilities. Still, she did not mean him to think that he had forfeited the latter.
"After all, you must have had a good deal against you," she added consolingly. "Won't you sit down and tell me about it? Mr. Nairn, I understand, is writing some letters, and he sent for Mrs. Nairn just before you came in. I don't suppose she will be back for a few minutes."
She indicated a chair beside the open hearth and Vane sat down opposite her, where a low screen cut them off from the rest of the room. A shaded lamp above their heads cast down a soft radiance which lighted a sparkle in the girl's hair, and a red, wood fire glowed cheerfully in front of them. Vane, still stiff and aching from exposure to the cold and rain, reveled in the unusual sense of comfort. In addition to this, his companion's pose was singularly graceful, and the ease of it and the friendly smile with which she regarded him somehow implied that they were on excellent terms.
"It's very nice to be here again," he said languidly.
Jessy looked up at him. He had, as she recognized, spoken as he felt, on impulse, and this was more gratifying than an obvious desire to pay her a compliment would have been.
"I suppose you didn't get many comforts in the bush," she suggested.
"No. Comforts of any kind are remarkably scarce up yonder. As a matter of fact, I can't imagine a country where the contrasts between the luxuries of civilization and—the other thing—are sharper. You can step off a first-class car into the wilderness, where no amount of money can buy you better fare than pork, potatoes and dried apples; and if you want to travel you must shoulder your pack and walk. But that wasn't exactly what I meant."
"Then what did you mean?"
"I don't know that it's worth explaining. We have rather luxurious quarters at the hotel, but this room is somehow different. It's restful—I think it's homely—in fact, as I said, it's nice to be here."
Jessy made no comment. She understood that he had been attempting to analyze his feelings, and had failed clearly to recognize that her presence contributed to the satisfaction of which he was conscious. She had no doubt that if he were a man of average susceptibility, which seemed to be the case, the company of a well-dressed and attractive woman would have some effect on him after his sojourn in the wilds; but whether she had produced any deeper effect than that or not she could not determine. Though she was curious upon the point, it did not appear judicious to prompt him unduly.
"But won't you tell me your adventures?" she begged.
It required a few leading questions to start him but at length he told the story in a manner that compelled her interest.
"You see," he concluded, "it was the lack of definite knowledge as much as the natural obstacles that brought us back—and I've been troubled about the thing since we landed."
Jessy's manner invited his confidence.
"I wonder," she said softly, "if you would care to tell me why?"
Vane knit his brows.
"Hartley's dead, and I understand that his daughter has broken down after nursing him. It's doubtful whether her situation can be kept open, and it may be some time before she's strong enough to look for another." He hesitated. "In a way, I feel responsible for her."
"You really aren't responsible in the least," Jessy declared. "Still, I can understand the idea's troubling you."
"She's left without a cent and unable to work—and I don't know what to do. In an affair of this kind I'm handicapped by being a man."
"Would you like me to help you?"
"I can hardly ask it, but it would be a relief to me," Vane answered with obvious eagerness.
"Then if you'll tell me her address, I'll go to see her, and we'll consider what can be done."
Vane leaned forward impulsively.
"You have taken a weight off my mind. It's difficult to thank you properly."
"Oh, I don't suppose it will give me any trouble. Of course, it must be embarrassing to you to feel that you have a helpless young woman on your hands."
Then a thought flashed into her mind, as she remembered what she had seen at the station some months ago.
"I wonder whether the situation is an altogether unusual one to you?" she queried. "Have you never let your pity run away with your judgment before?"
"You wouldn't expect me to proclaim my charities," Vane parried with a laugh.
"I think you are trying to put me off. You haven't given me an answer."
"Well, perhaps I was able to make things easier for somebody else not very long ago," Vane confessed reluctantly but without embarrassment. "I now see that I might have done harm without meaning to do so. It's sometimes extraordinarily difficult to help people—and that makes me especially grateful for your offer."
For the next few moments Jessy sat silent. It was clear that she had misjudged him, for although she was not one who demanded too much from human nature, the fact that Kitty Blake had arrived in Vancouver in his company had undoubtedly rankled in her mind. Now she acquitted him of any blame, and it was a relief to do so. She changed the subject abruptly.
"I suppose you will make another attempt to find the timber?"
"Yes. In a week or two."
He had hardly spoken when Mrs. Nairn came in and welcomed him with her usual friendliness.
"I'm glad to see ye, though ye're looking thin," she said. "What's the way ye did not come straight to us, instead of going to the hotel. Ye would have got as good a supper as they would give ye there."
"I haven't a doubt of it," Vane declared. "On the other hand, I hardly think that even one of your suppers would quite have put right the defect in my appearance you mentioned. You see, the cause of it has been at work for some time."
Mrs. Nairn regarded him with half-amused compassion.
"If ye'll come over every evening, we'll soon cure that. I would have been down sooner if Alic had not kept me. He's writing letters, and there was a matter or two he wanted to ask my opinion on."
"I think that was very wise of him," Vane commented.
His hostess smiled.
"For one thing, we had a letter from Evelyn Chisholm this afternoon.She'll be out to spend some time with us in about a month."
"Evelyn's coming here?" Vane exclaimed, with a sudden stirring of his heart.
"Why should she no? I told ye some time ago that we partly expected her.Ye were no astonished then."
She appeared to expect an explanation of the change in his attitude, and as he volunteered none she drew him a few paces aside.
"If I'm no betraying a confidence, Evelyn writes—I'm no sure of the exact words—that she'll be glad to get away a while. Now, I've been wondering why she should be anxious to leave home?"
She looked at him fixedly, and, to his annoyance, he felt his face grow hot. Mrs. Nairn had quick perceptions, and now and then she was painfully direct.
"It struck me that Evelyn was not very comfortable there," he replied. "She seemed out of harmony with her people—she didn't belong. The same thing," he went on lamely, "applies to Mopsy."
Mrs. Nairn glanced at him with a twinkle in her eyes.
"It's no unlikely. The reason may serve—for the want of a better." Then she changed her tone. "Ye'll away up to Alic; he told me to send ye."
Vane went out of the room, but he left Jessy in a thoughtful mood. She had seen his start at the mention of Evelyn, and it struck her as significant, for she had heard that he had spent some time with the Chisholms. On the other hand, there was the obvious fact that he had been astonished to hear that Evelyn was coming out, which implied that their acquaintance had not progressed far enough to warrant the girl's informing him. Besides, Evelyn would not arrive for a month; and Jessy reflected that she would probably see a good deal of Vane in the meanwhile. She now felt glad that she had promised to look after Celia Hartley, for that, no doubt, would necessitate her consulting with him every now and then. She endeavored to dismiss the matter from her mind, however, and exerted herself to interest Mrs. Nairn in a description of a function she had lately attended.
Nairn was sitting at a writing-table when Vane entered his room, and after a few questions about his journey he handed the younger man one of the papers that lay in front of him.
"It's a report from the mine. Ye can read and think it over while I finish this letter."
Vane carefully studied the document, and then waited until Nairn laid down his pen.
"It only brings us back to our last conversation on the subject," he said when his host glanced at him inquiringly. "We have the choice of going on as we are doing, or extending our operations by an increase of capital. In the latter case, our total earnings might be larger, but I hardly believe there would be as good a return on the money actually sunk. Taking it all round, I don't know what to think. Of course, if it appeared that there was a moral certainty of making a satisfactory profit on the new stock, I should consent."
Nairn chuckled.
"A moral certainty is no a very common thing in mining."
"Horsfield's in favor of the scheme. How far would you trust that man?"
"About as far as I could fling a bull by the tail. The same thing applies to both of them."
"He has some influence. No doubt he'd find supporters."
Nairn saw that the meaning of his last remark, which implied that he had no more confidence in Jessy than he had in her brother, had not been grasped by his companion, but he did not consider it judicious to make it plainer. Instead, he gave Vane another piece of information.
"He and Winter work into each other's hands."
"But Winter has no interest in the Clermont!"
Nairn smiled sourly.
"He holds no shares in the mine; but there's no much in the shape of mineral developments yon man has no an interest in. Since ye do no seem inclined to yield Horsfield a point or two, it might pay ye to watch the pair of them."
Vane was aware that Winter was a person of some importance in financial circles, and he sat thoughtfully silent for a couple of minutes.
"Now," he explained at length, "every dollar we have in the Clermont is usefully employed and earning a satisfactory profit. Of course, if we put the concern on the market, we might get more than it is worth from investors; but that doesn't greatly appeal to me."
"It's unnecessary to point out that a director's interest is no invariably the same as that of his shareholders," Nairn rejoined.
"It's an unfortunate fact. Yet I'd be no better off if I got only the same actual return on a larger amount of what would be watered stock."
"There's sense in that. I'm no urging the scheme—there are other points against it."
"Well, I'll go up and look round the mine, and then we'll have another talk about the matter."
Vane walked back to his hotel in a thoughtful frame of mind. FindingCarroll in the smoking-room, he related his conversation with Nairn.
"I'm a little troubled about the situation," he confessed. "The Clermont finances are now on a sound basis, but it might after all prove advantageous to raise further capital; although in such a case we would, perhaps, lie open to attack. Nairn's inclined to be cryptic in his remarks; but he seems to hint that it would be advisable to make Horsfield some concession—in other words, to buy him off."
"Which is a course you have objections to?"
"Very decided ones."
"In a general way, Nairn's advice strikes me as quite sensible. Wherever mining and other schemes are floated, there are men who make a good living out of the operations. They're trained to the business; they've control of the money; and when a new thing's put on the market, they consider they've the first claim on the pickings. As a rule, that notion seems to be justified."
"You needn't elaborate the point," Vane broke in impatiently.
"You made your appearance in this city as a poor and unknown man with a mine to sell," Carroll went on. "Disregarding tactful hints, you laid down your terms and stuck to them. Launching your venture without considering their views, you did the gentlemen I've mentioned out of their accustomed toll, and I've no doubt that some of them were indignant. It's a thing you couldn't expect them to sanction. Now, however, one who probably has others behind him is making overtures to you. You ought to consider it a compliment; a recognition of ability. The question is—do you mean to slight these advances and go on as you have begun?"
"That's my present intention," Vane answered.
"Then you needn't be astonished if you find yourself up against a determined opposition."
"I think my friends will stand by me."
Vane looked at him steadily, and Carroll laughed.
"Thanks. I've merely been pointing out what you may expect, and hinting at the most judicious course—though the latter's rather against my natural inclinations. I'd better add that I've never been particularly prudent, and the opposite policy appeals to me. If we're forced to clear for action, we'll nail the flag to the mast."
It was spoken lightly, because the man was serious, but Vane knew that he had an ally who would support him with unflinching staunchness.
"I'm far from sure that it will be needful," he replied.
They talked about other matters until they strolled off to their rooms. The next week Vane was kept occupied in the city; and then once more they sailed for the North. They pushed inland until they were stopped by snow among the ranges, without finding the spruce. The journey proved as toilsome as the previous one, and both men were worn out when they reached the coast. Vane was determined on making a third attempt, but he decided to visit the mine before proceeding to Vancouver. They had heavy rain during the voyage down the straits, and when, on the day after reaching port, the jaded horses they had hired plodded up the sloppy trail to the mine a pitiless deluge poured down on them. The light was growing dim among the dripping firs, and a deep-toned roar came throbbing across their shadowy ranks. Vane turned and glanced back at Carroll.
"I've never heard the river so plainly before," he said. "It must be unusually swollen."
The mine was situated on a narrow level flat between the hillside and the river, and Carroll understood the anxiety in his comrade's voice. Urging the wearied horses they pressed on a little faster. It was almost dark, however, when they reached the edge of an opening in the firs and saw a cluster of iron-roofed, wooden buildings and a tall chimney-stack, in front of which the unsightly ore-dump extended. Wet, chilled and worn out as the men were, there was comfort in the sight; but Vane frowned as he noticed that a shallow lake stretched between him and the buildings. On one side of it there was a broad strip of tumbling foam, which rose and fell in confused upheavals and filled the forest with the roar it made. Vane drove his horse into the water; and dismounting among the stumps before the ore-dump, he found a wet and soil-stained man awaiting him. A long trail of smoke floated away from the iron stack behind him, and through the sound of the river there broke the clank and thud of hard-driven pumps.
"You have got a big head of steam up, Salter," he remarked.
The man nodded.
"We want it. It's a taking me all my time to keep the water out of the workings; and the boys are over their ankles in the new drift. Leave your horses—I'll send along for them—and I'll show you what we've been doing, after supper."
"I'd rather go now, while I'm wet," Vane answered. "We came straight on as soon as we landed, and I probably shouldn't feel like turning out again when I'd had a meal."
Salter made a sign of assent, and a few minutes later they went down into the mine. The approach to it looked like a canal, and they descended the shallow shaft amid a thin cascade. The tunnel slanted, for the lode dipped, and the pale lights that twinkled here and there among the timbering showed shadowy, half-naked figures toiling in water which rose well up their boots. Further streams of it ran in from fissures; and Vane's face grew grave as he plodded through the flood with a lamp in his hand. He spent an hour in the workings, asking Salter a question now and then, and afterward went back with him to one of the iron-roofed sheds, where he put on dry clothes and sat down to a meal.
When it was over and the table had been cleared, he lay in a canvas chair beside the stove, listening to the resinous billets snapping and crackling cheerfully. The little, brightly lighted room was pleasantly warm, and Vane was filled with a languid sense of physical comfort after long exposure to rain and bitter wind. The deluge roared upon the iron roof; the song of the river rose and fell, filling the place with sound; and now and then the pounding and clanking of the pumps broke in.
Vane examined the sheet of figures Salter handed him, and lighted a fresh cigar when he had laid it down. Then he carefully turned over some of the pieces of stone which partly covered the table.
"There's no doubt that those specimens aren't quite so promising," he said at length; "and the cost of extraction is going up. I'll have a talk with Nairn when I get back; but in the meanwhile it looks as if we were going to have trouble with the water."
"It's a thing I've been afraid of for some time," Salter answered. "We can keep down any leakage that comes in through the rock, though it means driving the pumps hard, but an inrush from the river would beat us. A rise of a foot or so would turn the flood into the workings." He paused and added significantly: "Drowning out a mine's a costly matter. My idea is that you ought to double our pumping power and cut down the rock in the river-bed near the rapid. That would take off three or four feet of water."
"It would mean a mighty big wages bill."
Salter nodded gravely.
"To do the thing properly would cost a pile of money; but it's an outlay that you'll surely have to face."
Vane let the matter drop, and an hour later retired to his wooden berth. The roar of the rain upon the vibrating roof was like the roll of a great drum, and the sound of the river's turmoil throbbed through the frail wooden shack; but the man had lain down at night near many a rapid and thundering fall, and in a few minutes he was fast asleep. He was awakened by a new shrill note, which he recognized as the whistle of the pumping engine. It was sounding the alarm. The next moment Vane was struggling into his clothing; then the door swung open and Salter stood in the entrance, lantern in hand, with water trickling from him. There was keen anxiety in his expression.
"Flood's lapping the bank top now!" he gasped. "There's a jam in the narrow place at the head of the rapid and the water's backing up! I'm going along with the boys."
He vanished as suddenly as he had appeared and Vane savagely jerked on his jacket. If the mine were drowned, it would entail a heavy expenditure in pumping plant to clear out the water, and even then operations might be stopped for a considerable time. What was more, it would precipitate a crisis in the affairs of the company and necessitate an increase of its capital.
Vane was outside in less than a minute and stood still, looking about him, while the deluge lashed his face and beat his clothing against his limbs. He could make out only a blurred mass of climbing trees on one side and a strip of foam cutting through the black level, which he supposed was water, in front of him. His trained ears, however, gave him a little information, for the clamor of the flood was broken by a sharp snapping and crashing which he knew was made by a mass of driftwood driving furiously against the boulders. In that region, the river banks are encumbered here and there with great logs, partly burned by forest fires, reaped by gales or brought down from the hillsides by falls of frost-loosened soil. A flood higher than usual sets them floating, and on subsiding sometimes leaves them packed in a gorge or stranded in a shallow to wait for the next big rise. Now they were driving down and, as Salter had said, jamming at the head of the rapid.
Suddenly a column of fierce white radiance leaped up, lower down-stream, and Vane knew that a big compressed air-lamp had been carried to the spot where the driftwood was gathering. Even at a distance, the brightness of the blaze dazzled him, and he could see nothing else when he headed toward it. He stumbled against a fir stump, and the next minute the splashing about his feet warned him that he was entering the water. Having no wish to walk into the main stream, he floundered to one side. Getting nearer to the blaze, he soon made out a swarm of shadowy figures scurrying about beneath it. Some of them had saws or axes, for he caught the gleam of steel. He broke into a splashing run; and presently Carroll, whom he had forgotten, came up calling to him.
When he reached the blast-lamp, which was raised on a tall tripod, Vane stood with his back to the pulsating gaze while he grasped the details of a somewhat impressive scene. A little upstream of him, the river leaped out of the darkness, breaking into foaming waves, and a wall of dripping firs flung back the roar it made, the first rows of serried trunks standing out hard and sharp in the fierce white light. Nearer the spot where he stood, a projecting spur of rock narrowed in the river, which boiled tumultuously against its foot, while about halfway across, the top of a giant boulder rose above the flood.
Vane could just see it, because a mass of driftwood, which was momentarily growing, stretched from bank to bank. A big log, drifting down sidewise, had brought up against the boulder and once fixed had seized and held fast each succeeding trunk. Some had been driven partly out upon those that had preceded them; some had been drawn beneath and catching the bottom had jammed; then the rest had been wedged by the current into the gathering mass, trunks, branches and brushwood all finding a place. When the stream is strong, a jam usually extends downward, as well as rises, as the water it pens back increases in depth, until it forms an almost solid barrier from surface to bed. If it occurs during a log-drive the river is choked with valuable lumber.
Bent figures were at work with handspikes and axes at the shoreward end of the mass; others had crawled out along the logs in search of another point where they could advantageously be attacked; but Vane, watching them with practised eye, decided that they were largely throwing their toil away. Then he glanced down-stream; but, powerful as the light was, it did not pierce far into the darkness and the rain, and the mad white rush of the rapid vanished abruptly into the surrounding gloom. He caught the clink of a hammer on a drill, and seeing Salter not far away, he strode toward him.
"How are you getting to work?" he asked.
Salter pointed to the foot of the rock on which they stood.
"I reckoned that if we could put a shot in yonder we might cut out stone enough to clear the butts of the larger logs that are keying up the jam."
"You're wasting time—starting at the wrong place."
"It's possible; but what am I to do? I'd rather split that boulder or chop down to the king log there—but the boys can't get across."
"Have they tried?" Vane demanded. "I will, if it's necessary."
Salter expostulated.
"I want to point out that you're the boss director of this company. I don't know what you're making out of it; but you can hire men to do that kind of work for three dollars a day."
"We'll let the boys try it, if they're willing."
Vane raised his voice.
"Are any of you open to earn twenty dollars? I'll pay that to the man who'll put a stick of giant-powder in yonder boulder, and another twenty to any one who can find the king log and chop it through."
Three or four of them crept cautiously along the driftwood bridge. It heaved and worked beneath them; the foam sluiced across it and the stream forced the thinner tops of shattered trees above the barrier. It was obvious that the men were risking life and limb, and there was a cry from the others when one of them went down and momentarily disappeared. He scrambled to his feet again, but those behind him stopped, bracing themselves against the stream, nearly waist-deep in rushing froth. Most of them had followed rough and dangerous occupations in the bush; but they were not professional river-Jacks trained to high proficiency in log-driving, and one of them, turning, shouted to the watchers on the bank.
"This jam's not solid!" he explained above the roar of the water. "She's working open and shutting; and you can't tell where the breaks are."
He stooped and rubbed his leg, and Vane understood him to add:
"Figured I had it smashed."
Vane swung round toward Carroll.
"We'll give them a lead!"
Salter ventured another expostulation:
"Stay where you are! How are you going to manage, if the boys can't tackle the thing?"
"They haven't as much at stake as I have," was Vane's reply. "I'm a director of the company, as you pointed out. Give me two sticks of giant-powder, some fuse, and detonators!"
Salter yielded when he saw that Vane meant to be obeyed; and cramming the blasting material into his pocket, Vane turned to Carroll.
"Are you coming with me?"
"Since I can't stop you, I suppose I'd better go."
As they sprang down the bank, Salter addressed one of the miners at work near him.
"I've seen a few company bosses in my time, but this one's different from the rest. I can't imagine any of the others wanting to cross that jam."
Vane crawled out on the groaning timber, with Carroll a few feet behind him. The perilous bridge they traversed rolled beneath their feet; but they had joined the other men before they came to any particularly troublesome opening. Then the clustering wet figures were brought up by a gap filled with leaping foam, in the midst of which brushwood swung to and fro and projecting branches ground on one another. Whether there was solid timber a foot or two beneath, or only the entrance to some cavity by which the stream swept through the barrier, there was nothing to show; but Vane set his lips and leaped. He alighted on something that bore him, and when the others followed, floundering and splashing, the deliberation which hitherto had characterized their movements suddenly deserted them. They had reached the limit beyond which it was no longer needful.
There is courage which springs from knowledge, often painfully acquired, of the threatened dangers and the best means of avoiding them; but it carries its possessor only so far. Beyond that point he must face the risk he cannot estimate and blindly trust to chance. At sea, when canvas is still the propelling power, and in the wilderness, man at grips with the elemental forces must now and then rise above bodily shrinking and disregard the warnings of reason. There are tasks which cannot be undertaken in cold blood; and when they had crossed the gap, Vane and those behind him blundered on in hot Berserker fury. They had risen to the demand on them, and the curious psychic change had come; now they must achieve success or face annihilation. But in this there was nothing unusual; it is the alternative offered many a log-driver, miner and sailorman.
Neither Vane nor Carroll, nor any of those who assisted them, had a clear recollection of what they did. Somehow they reached the boulder; somehow they plied ax or iron-hooked peevy, while the unstable, foam-lapped platform rocked beneath their feet. Every movement entailed a peril no one could calculate; but they toiled savagely on. When Vane began to swing a hammer above a drill, or from whom he got it, he did not know, any more than he remembered when he had torn off and thrown away his jacket although the sticks of giant-powder which had been in his pocket lay near him upon the stone. Sparks leaped from the drill which Carroll held and fell among the coils of snaky fuse; but that did not trouble them; and it was only when Vane was breathless that he changed places with his companion. They heard neither the turmoil of the flood nor the crashing of the timber, and the foam that lapped their long boots whirled unheeded by.
About them, bowed figures that breathed in stertorous gasps grappled desperately with the grinding, smashing timber. Sometimes they were forced up in harsh distinctness by a dazzling glare; sometimes they faded into blurred shadows as the pulsating flame upon the bank sank a little or was momentarily blown aside; but all the while gorged veins rose on bronzed foreheads and toil-hardened muscles were taxed to the utmost. At last, when a trunk rolled beneath him, Carroll missed a stroke and realized with a shock of dismay that it was not the drill he had struck with his hammer.
"I couldn't help it!" he gasped. "Where did I hit you?"
"Get on!" Vane cried hoarsely; "I can hold the drill."
Carroll struck for a few more minutes, and then flung down the hammer and inserted the giant-powder into the holes sunk in the stone. He lighted the fuse and, warning the others, they hastily recrossed the dangerous bridge. They had reached the edge of the forest when, a flash leaped up amid the foam and a sharp crash was followed by a deafening, drawn-out uproar. Rending, grinding, smashing, the jam broke up. It hammered upon the partly shattered boulder, and, carrying it away or driving over it, washed in tremendous ruin down the rapid. When the wild clamor had subsided, Salter gave the men some instructions; and then, as they approached the lamp, he noticed Vane's reddened hand.
"That looks a nasty smash; you want to get it seen to," he advised.
"I'll get it dressed at the settlement; we'll make an early start to-morrow. We were lucky in breaking the jam; but you'll have the same trouble over again any time a heavy flood brings down an unusual quantity of driftwood."
"It's what I'd expect."
"Then something will have to be done to prevent it. I'll go into the matter when I reach the city."
Carroll and Vane walked back to the shack, where the latter bound up his comrade's injured hand. When he had done so, Vane managed to light a cigar, and lying back, still very wet, he looked thoughtful.
"We can't risk having the workings drowned; but I'm afraid the cost of the remedy will force me into sanctioning some scheme for increasing our capital."
"Its a very common procedure," Carroll rejoined. "I've wondered why you had so strong an objection to it. Of course, I've heard your business reasons."
Vane smiled.
"I have some of a different kind—we'll call them sentimental ones—though I don't think I quite realized it until lately."
"You're not given to introspection. Go on; I think I know what's coming."
"To put the thing into words may help me to formulate my ideas; they're rather hazy. Well, ostensibly, I left England as the result of a difference of opinion—which I've regretted ever since—though I know now that really it was from another cause. I wanted room, I wanted freedom; and I got them both—freedom either to do work that nearly broke my heart and wore the flesh off me or to starve."
"The experience is not an unusual one."
"Eventually," Vane proceeded, "I managed to get on my feet. I suppose I got rather proud of myself when I beat the city men over the floating of the mine, and I began to think of going back to the sphere of life in which I was born—excuse the phrase."
"It looked nice, from a distance," Carroll suggested.
"It was tolerable in Vancouver; anyway, while I could go straight ahead and interest myself in the development of the mine. I began to expect a good deal from my English visit."
Carroll laughed softly before he helped him out.
"And you were bitterly disappointed. It's a very old tale. You had cut loose—and you couldn't get back when you wanted to."
"I suppose I'd changed: the bush had got hold of me. The ways and views of the people over yonder didn't seem to be those I remembered. They couldn't look at things from my standpoint; I wouldn't adopt theirs. You and I have had to face—realities."
"Hunger," corrected Carroll softly; "wet snow to sleep in; bodily exhaustion. They probably teach one something, or, at any rate, they alter one's point of view. When you've marched for days on half rations, some things don't seem so important—how you put on your clothes, for instance, or how your dinner's served. But I don't see yet what bearing this has on your reluctance to extend the Clermont operations."
"I could act as director, with such men as Nairn, when it was a question of running a mine; but it's doubtful if I'd make a successful financial juggler. It's hard to keep one's hands off some of the professional tricksters. Bluff, assumption, make-believe—Pshaw! I've had enough of them. Better stick to the ax and cross-cut; that's what I feel to-night."
"Now that you've relieved your mind, I'll show you where you were wrong. You said that you had changed in the wilderness—you haven't; your kind are fore-loopers born. Your place is with the vedettes, ahead of the massed columns. But there's a point that strikes one—is your objection to financial scheming due to honesty or pride?"
Vane laughed.
"I suspect a good deal of it's bad temper. Anyhow, I've felt that rather than truckle with that fellow Horsfield I'd like to pitch him down the stairs. But all this is pretty random talk."
"It is," Carroll agreed. "You haven't said whether you intend to authorize that extension of capital?"
"I suppose it will have to be done. And now it's very late and I'm going to sleep."
They retired to the wooden bunks Salter had placed at their disposal; and early the next morning they left the mine. Vane got his hand dressed when they reached the little mining town at the head of the railroad, and on the following day they arrived in Vancouver.
The short afternoon was drawing toward its close when Vane came out of a large building in the city. Glancing at his watch, he stopped on the steps.
"The meeting went pretty satisfactorily, taking it all round," he remarked to Carroll.
"I think so," agreed his companion. "But I'm far from sure that Horsfield was pleased with the stockholders' decision."
Vane smiled in a thoughtful manner. After returning from the mine, he had gone inland to examine a new irrigation property in which he had been asked to take an interest, and had got back only in time for a meeting of the Clermont shareholders, which Nairn had arranged in his absence. The meeting, of the kind that is sometimes correctly described as extraordinary, was just over, and though Vane had been forced to yield to a majority on some points, he had secured the abandonment of a proposition he considered dangerous.
"Though I don't see what the man could have gained by it, I'm inclined to believe that if Nairn and I had been absent he'd have carried his total reconstruction scheme. That wouldn't have pleased me."
"I thought it injudicious."
"It was only because we must raise more money that I agreed to the issue of the new block of shares," Vane went on. "We ought to pay a fair dividend on the moderate sum in question."
"You think you'll get it?"
"I've not much doubt."
Carroll made no reply to this. Vane was capable and forceful; but his abilities were of a practical rather than a diplomatic order, and he was occasionally addicted to somewhat headstrong action. Knowing that he had a very cunning antagonist intriguing against him, his companion had misgivings.
"Shall we walk back to the hotel?" he suggested.
"No," answered Vane; "I'll go across and see how Celia Hartley's getting on. I'm afraid I've been forgetting her."
"Then I'll come too. You may need me; there are matters which you're not to be trusted to deal with alone."
Just then Nairn came down the steps and waved his hand to them.
"Ye will no forget that Mrs. Nairn is expecting both of ye this evening."
He passed on, and they set off together across the city toward the district where Celia lived. Though the quarter in question may have been improved out of existence since, a few years ago rows of low-rented shacks stood upon mounds of sweating sawdust which had been dumped into a swampy hollow. Leaky, frail and fissured, they were not the kind of places anyone who could help it would choose to live in; but Vane found the sick girl still installed in one of the worst of them. She looked pale and haggard; but she was busily at work upon some millinery; and the light of a tin lamp showed Drayton and Kitty Blake sitting near her. There were cracks in the thin, boarded walls, from which a faint resinous odor exuded, but it failed to hide the sour smell of the wet sawdust upon which the shack was built. The room, which was almost bare of furniture, felt damp and unwholesome.
"You oughtn't to be at work; you don't look fit," Vane said to Celia. He paused a moment, hesitating, before he added: "I'm sorry we couldn't find that spruce; but, as I told Drayton, we're going back to try again."
The girl smiled bravely.
"Then you'll find it the next time. I'm glad I'm able to do a little; it brings in a few dollars."
"But what are you doing?"
"Making hats. I did one for Miss Horsfield, and afterward some friends of hers sent me two or three more to trim. She said she'd try to get me work from one of the big stores."
"But you're not a milliner, are you?" asked Vane, feeling grateful toJessy for the practical way in which she had kept her promise to assist.
"Celia's something better," Kitty broke in. "She's a genius."
"Isn't that a slight on the profession?" Vane laughed.
He was anxious to lead the conversation away from Miss Horsfield's action; he shrank from figuring as the benefactor who had prompted her.
"I'm not quite sure," he continued, "what genius really is."
"I don't altogether agree with the definition of it as the capacity for taking infinite pains," Carroll, guessing his companion's thoughts, remarked with mock sententiousness. "In Miss Hartley's case, it strikes me as the instinctive ability to evolve a finished work of art from a few fripperies, without the aid of technical training. Give her two or three feathers, a yard of ribbon and a handful of mixed sundries, and she'll magically transmute them into—this."
He took up a hat from the table and surveyed it with an air of critical intelligence.
"It was innate genius that set this plume at the one artistic angle. Had it been done by less capable hands, the thing would have looked like a decorated beehive."
The others laughed, and he led them on to general chatter, under cover of which Vane presently drew Drayton to the door.
"The girl looks far from fit," he said. "Has the doctor been over lately?"
"Two or three days ago," answered Drayton. "We've been worried about Celia. It's out of the question that she should go back to the hotel, and she can only manage to work a few hours daily. There's another thing—the clerk of the fellow who owns these shacks has just been along for his rent. It's overdue."
"Where's he now?"
Drayton laughed, for the sounds of a vigorous altercation rose from farther up the unlighted street.
"I guess he's yonder, having some more trouble with his collecting."
"I'll fix that matter, anyway."
Vane disappeared into the darkness, and it was some time later when he re-entered the shack. He waited until a remark of Celia's gave him a lead.
"You're really a partner in the lumber scheme," he told her; "I can't see why you shouldn't draw part of your share in the proceeds beforehand."
"The first payment isn't to be made until you find the spruce and get your lease," the girl reminded him. "You've already paid a hundred dollars that we had no claim on."
"That doesn't matter; I'm going to find it."
"Yes," agreed Celia, with a look of confidence, "I think you will. But"—a flicker of color crept into her thin face—"I can't take any more money until it is found."
Vane, failing in another attempt to shake her resolution, dropped the subject, and soon afterward he and Carroll took their departure. They were sitting in their hotel, waiting for dinner, when Carroll looked up lazily from his luxurious chair.
"What are you thinking about so hard?" he inquired.
Vane glanced meaningly round the elaborately furnished room.
"There's a contrast between all this and that rotten shack. Did you notice that Celia never stopped sewing while we were there, though she once or twice leaned back rather heavily in her chair?"
"I did. I suppose you're going to propound another conundrum of a kind I've heard before—why you should have so many things you don't particularly need, while Miss Hartley must go on sewing when she's hardly able for it in her most unpleasant shack? I don't know whether the fact that you found a mine answers the question; but if it doesn't the thing's beyond your philosophy."
"Come off!" Vane bade him with signs of impatience. "There are times when your moralizing gets on one's nerves. Anyhow, I straightened out one difficulty—I found the rent man, who'd been round worrying her, and got rid of him."
Carroll groaned in mock dismay, which covered some genuine annoyance with himself; but Vane frowned.
"What's the matter?" he inquired. "Do you want a drink?"
"I'll get over it," Carroll informed him. "It isn't the first time I've suffered from the same complaint. But I'd like to point out that your chivalrous impulses may be the ruin of you some day. Why didn't you let Drayton settle with the man? You gave him a check, I suppose?"
"Sure. I'd only a few loose dollars with me." Vane frowned again. "Now I see what you're driving at; and I want to say that any little reputation I possess can pretty well take care of itself."
"Just so. No doubt it will be necessary; but it doesn't seem to have struck you that you're not the only person concerned."
"It didn't," Vane confessed with a further show of irritation. "But who's likely to hear or take any notice of the thing?"
"I can't tell; but you make enemies as well as friends, and you're walking in slippery places which you're not altogether accustomed to. You can't meet your difficulties with the ax here."
"That's true," assented Vane. "It's rather a pity. Anyhow, I'm not to be scared out of my interest in Celia Hartley."
"What is your interest in her? It's a question that may be asked."
"As you pretend that you don't know, I'll have pleasure in telling you again. When I first struck this city, played out and ragged, she was waitress at a little hotel, and she brought me a double portion of the nicest things at supper. What's more, she sewed up some of my clothes, and I struck a job on the strength of looking comparatively decent. It's the kind of thing you're apt to remember. One doesn't meet with too much kindness in this blamed censorious world."
"I'd expect you to remember," Carroll smiled.
They went in to dinner and when the meal was over they walked across to Nairn's. They were ushered into a room in which several other guests were assembled, and Vane sat down beside Jessy Horsfield. A place on the sofa she occupied was invitingly empty; he did not know, of course, that she had adroitly got rid of her previous companion as soon as he came in.
"I want to thank you; I was over at Miss Hartley's this afternoon," he began.
"I understood that you were at the mining meeting."
"So I was, your brother would tell you that—"
Vane broke off, remembering that he had defeated Horsfield; but Jessy laughed encouragingly.
"He did so—you were opposed to him; but it doesn't follow that I share all his views. Perhaps I ought to be a stauncher partizan."
"If you'll be just to both of us, I'll be satisfied."
Jessy reflected that while this was, no doubt, a commendable sentiment, he might have made a better use of the opening she had given him by at least hinting that he would value her sympathy.
"I suppose that means that you're convinced of the equity of your cause?" she suggested.
"I dare say I deserve the rebuke; but aren't you trying to switch me off the subject?" Vane retorted with a laugh. "It's Celia Hartley that I want to talk about."
He did her an injustice. Jessy felt that she had earned his gratitude, and she had no objection to his expressing it.
"It was a happy thought of yours to give her hats and things to make; I'm ever so much obliged to you," he went on. "I felt that you could be trusted to think of the right thing. An ingenious idea of that kind would never have occurred to me."
Jessy smiled up at him.
"It was very simple," she said sweetly. "I noticed a hat and dress of hers, which she admitted she had made. The girl has some talent; I'm only sorry I can't keep her busy."
"Couldn't you give her an order for a dozen hats? I'd be glad to be responsible."
Jessy laughed.
"The difficulty would be the disposal of them. They would be of no use to you; and I couldn't allow you to present them to me."
"I wish I could," Vane declared. "You certainly deserve them."
This was satisfactory, so far as it went, though Jessy would have preferred that his desire to bestow the favor should have sprung from some other motive than a recognition of her services to Celia Hartley. She was, however, convinced that his only feeling toward the girl was one of compassion. Then she saw that he was looking at her with half-humorous annoyance in his face.
"Are you really grieved because I won't take those hats?" she asked lightly.
"I am," Vane confessed, and then proceeded to explain with rather unnecessary ingenuousness: "I'm still more vexed with the state of things that it's typical of—I suppose I mean the restrictedness of this civilized life. When you want to do anything in the bush, you take the ax and set about it; but here you're continually running up against some quite unnecessary barrier."
"One understands that it's worse in England," Jessy returned dryly. "But in regard to Miss Hartley, I'll recommend her to my friends, as far as I can."
Vane made an abrupt movement, and Jessy realized by his expression that he had suddenly become oblivious of her presence. She had no doubt about the reason, for just then Evelyn Chisholm had entered the room. The lamplight fell upon her as she crossed the threshold, and Jessy recognized unwillingly that she looked surprisingly handsome. Handsome, however, was not the word Vane would have used. He thought Evelyn looked exotic: highly cultivated, strangely refined, as though she had grown up in a rarefied atmosphere in which nothing rank could thrive. Exactly what suggested this it was difficult to define; but the man felt that she had brought along with her the clean, chill air of the heights where the cloud-berries bloom. She was a flower of the dim and misty North, which has nevertheless its flashes of radiant, ethereal beauty. Though Evelyn had her faults, the impression she made on Vane was, perhaps, more or less justifiable.
Then he remembered that the girl had been offered to him and he had refused the gift. He wondered how he had exerted the necessary strength of will, for he was conscious that admiration, respect, pity, had now, changed and melted into sudden passion. His blood tingled, and he felt strangely happy.
Laying a check upon his thoughts, he resumed a desultory conversation with Jessy, but he betrayed himself several times during it, for no change of his expression was lost upon the girl. At length she let him go. It was some time, however, before he secured a place beside Evelyn, a little apart from the others. He was now unusually quiet and self-contained.
"Nairn promised me an astonishment this evening, but it exceeds all my expectations," he said. "How are your people?"
Evelyn informed him that their health was satisfactory and added, watching him the while:
"Gerald sent his best remembrances."
"Thank you," Vane responded in a casual manner; "I am glad to have them."
Evelyn was now convinced that Mabel had been correct in concluding that he had assisted Gerald financially, though she was aware that nothing would induce either of the men to acquaint her with the fact.
"And Mopsy?" he inquired.
"I left her in tears because she could not come. She sent you so many confused messages that I'm afraid I've forgotten them."
Vane's face grew gentle.
"Dear little girl! It's a pity you couldn't have brought her. Mopsy andI are great friends."
Evelyn smiled at him. The tenderness of the man appealed to her; and she knew that to be the friend of anyone meant a good deal to him.
"You are her hero," she told him. "I don't think it is because you pulled her out of the water, either; in fact, I think you won her regard when you mended her canoe. You have a reputation to keep up with Mopsy."
There was no answering smile in Vane's eyes.
"Well, I shouldn't like to disappoint her; but isn't it curious what effect some things have? A patch on Mopsy's canoe, for instance—and I've known a piece of cold pie carry with it a big obligation."
The last was somewhat cryptic, and Evelyn looked at him with surprise, until it dawned on her that he had merely been half-consciously expressing a wandering thought aloud.
"I understood from Mrs. Nairn that you were away in the bush," she said.
"That was the case; and I'm shortly going off again. Perhaps it's fortunate that I may be away some time. It will leave you more at ease."
The last remark was more of a question than an assertion. Evelyn knew that the man could be direct; and she esteemed candor.
"No," she answered; "I shouldn't wish you to think that—and I shouldn't like to believe that I had anything to do with driving you away."
Vane saw a faintly warmer tone show through the clear pallor of her skin, but while his heart beat faster than usual he recognized that she meant just what she said and nothing more. He must proceed with caution, and this, on the whole, was foreign to him. Shortly afterward he left her.
When he had gone, Evelyn sat thinking about him. She had shrunk from the man in rebellious alarm when her parents would have bestowed her hand on him; but even then, and undoubtedly afterward, she had felt that there was something in his nature which would have attracted her had she been willing to allow it to do so. Now, though he had said nothing to rouse it, the feeling had grown stronger. Then she remembered with a curious smile her father's indignation when Vane had withdrawn from the field. He had done this because she had appealed to his generosity, and she had been grateful to him; but, unreasonable as she admitted the faint resentment she was conscious of to be, the recollection of the fact that he had yielded to her wishes was somehow bitter.
In the meanwhile Carroll had taken his place by Jessy's side.
"I understand that you steered your comrade satisfactorily through the meeting to-day," she began.
"No," objected Carrol; "I can't claim any credit for doing so. In matters of that kind Vane takes full control; and I'm willing to own that he drove us all, including your brother, on the course he chose."
Jessy laughed good-humoredly.
"Then it's in other matters you exercise a little judicious pressure on the helm?"
The man looked at her in well-assumed admiration of her keenness.
"I don't know how you guessed it, but I suppose it's a fact. It's an open secret, however, that Vane's now and then unguardedly ingenuous; indeed, there are respects in which he's a babe by comparison with, we'll say, either of us."
"That's rather a dubious compliment. By the way, what do you think ofMiss Chisholm? I suppose you saw a good deal of her in England?"
Carroll's eyes twinkled.
"I spent a month or two in her company; so did Vane. I fancy she's rather like him in several ways; and there are reasons for believing that he thinks a good deal of her."
Having watched Vane carefully when Evelyn came in, Jessy was inclined to agree with him. She glanced round the room. One or two people were moving about and the others were talking in little groups; but there was nobody very near, and she fancied that she and her companion were safe from interruption.
"What are some of the reasons?" she asked boldly.
Carroll had expected some question of this description, and had decided to answer it plainly. It seemed probable that Jessy would get the information out of him in one way or another, anyway; and he had also another reason, which he thought a commendable one. Jessy had obviously taken a certain interest in Vane, but it could not have gone very far as yet, and Vane did not reciprocate it. His comrade, however, was impulsive, while Jessy was calculating and clever; and Carroll foresaw that complications might follow any increase of friendliness between her and Vane. He thought it might be wise to warn her to leave Vane alone.
"Well," he answered, "since you have asked, I'll try to tell you."
He proceeded to recount what had passed at the Dene and Jessy listened, sitting perfectly still, with an expressionless face.
"So he gave her up—because he admired her?" she said at length.
"That's my view of it. Of course, it sounds unlikely, but I don't think it is so in my partner's case."
Jessy made no comment, but he felt that she was hit hard, and that was not what he had anticipated. He began to wonder whether he had acted judiciously. He glanced about the room, as it did not seem considerate to study her expression just then. A few moments later she turned to him with a smile in which there was the faintest hint of strain.
"I dare say you are right; but there are one or two people to whom I haven't spoken."
She moved away from him, and a little while afterward Mrs. Nairn came upon Carroll standing for the moment alone.
"It's no often one sees ye looking moody," she said. "Was Jessy no gracious?"