Part 13 (1/2)

”Yes,” said Brooke, whose face had grown a trifle grim, ”I fancy I have.

I am to find out, if I can, how far the third drift runs west, and when the driving of it began. Then one of us will stake off a claim on Devine's holding and endeavor, with the support of the other, to hold his own in as tough a struggle as was probably ever undertaken by two men in our position. You see I have met Devine.”

Saxton laughed. ”I guess he's not going to give us very much trouble.

He'll buy us off instead, once we make it plain that we have got the whip hand of him. Your share's six thousand dollars, and if you lay them out as I tell you, you'll go back to England a prosperous man.”

Brooke smiled a trifle drily. ”I hope so,” he said. ”Still, I shall have left more than I could buy with a great many dollars behind me in Canada.”

”Dollars will buy you anything,” said Saxton. ”That is, when you have enough of them. They're going to buy me a seat in the Provincial Legislature by and by. Then I'll let the business slide, and start in doing something for the other folks. We've got 'most everything but men here, and I'll bring out your starving deadbeats from England and make them happy--like Strathcona.”

Brooke looked hard at him, and then leaned back in his chair, and laughed when he saw that he was perfectly serious.

X.

THE FLUME BUILDER.

It was a hot afternoon, and a long trail of ethereal mist lay motionless athwart the gleaming snow above, when Brooke stood dripping with perspiration in the shadow of a towering pine. The red dust was thick upon him, and his coa.r.s.e blue s.h.i.+rt, which was badly torn, fell open at the neck as he turned his head and looked down fixedly into the winding valley. A lake flashed like a mirror among the trees below, save where the slumbering shadows pointed downwards into its crystal depths, but the strip of hillside the forest had been hewn back from was scarred and torn with raw gashes, and the dull thumping of the stamp-heads that crushed the gold-bearing quartz jarred discordantly through the song of the river. Mounds of debris, fire-blackened fir stumps, and piles of half-burnt branches c.u.mbered the little clearing, round which the towering redwoods uplifted their stately spires, and the acrid fumes of smoke and giant powder drifted through their drowsy fragrance.

The blotch of man's crude handiwork marred the pristine beauty of the wilderness; but it had its significance, and pointed to what was to come when the plough had followed the axe and drill, and cornfields and orchards should creep up the hillsides where now the solemn pines looked down upon the desecrated valley. Brooke, however, was very naturally not concerned with this just then. He was engaged in building a flume, or wooden conduit to bring down water to the mine, and was intently watching two little trails of faint blue smoke with a thin red sparkle in the midst of them which crept up a dark rock's side.

He had no interest whatever in the task when he undertook it, but a somewhat astonis.h.i.+ng and unexpected thing had happened, for by degrees the work took hold of him. He was not by nature a lounger, and was endued with a certain pertinacity, which had, however, only led him into difficulties. .h.i.therto, or he would probably never have come out to Canada. Thus it came about that when he found the building of the flume taxed all his ingenuity, as well as his physical strength, he became sensible of a wholly unantic.i.p.ated pleasure in the necessary effort, and had almost forgotten the purpose which brought him there.

”How long did you cut those fuses to burn?” he said to Jimmy, who, though by no means fond of physical exertion, had come up to a.s.sist him from the ranch.

The latter glanced at the two trails of smoke, which a handful of men, snugly ensconced behind convenient trees, were also watching.

”I guessed it at four minutes,” he said. ”They're 'bout half-way through now. Still, I can't see nothing of the third one.”

”No,” said Brooke. ”Nor can I. That loosely-spun kind snuffs out occasionally. Quite sure they're not more than half-way through?”

”No,” said Jimmy, reflectively. ”I'd give them 'most two minutes yet.

Hallo! What in the name of thunder are you going to do?”

It was not an unnatural question, because when those creeping trains of sparks reached the detonators the rock would be reft asunder by giant powder and a shower of ponderous fragments and flying debris hurled across the valley, while Brooke, who swung round abruptly, bounded down the slope.

Jimmy stared at him in wonder, and then set off without reflection in chase of him. He was not addicted to hurrying himself when it was not necessary, but he ran well that day, with the vague intention of dragging back his comrade, whose senses, he fancied, had suddenly deserted him. The men behind the trees were evidently under the same impression, for confused cries went up.

”Go back! Stop right there! Catch him, Jimmy; trip him up!”

Jimmy did his best, but he was slouching and loose of limb, while Brooke was light of foot and young. He was also running his hardest, with grim face and set lips, straight for the rock, and was scrambling across the debris beneath it, which rolled down at every step, when Jimmy reached up and caught his leg. He said nothing, but when Brooke slid backwards, grabbed his jacket, which tore up the back; and there was a shout from the men behind the trees, two of whom came running towards the pair.

”Pull him down! No, let go of him, and tear the fuses out!”

n.o.body saw exactly what took place next, and neither Brooke nor Jimmy afterwards remembered; but in another moment the latter sat gasping among the debris, while his comrade clambered up the slope alone. It also happened, though everybody was too intent to notice this, that a girl, with brown eyes and a big white hat, who had been strolling through the shadow of the pines on the ridge above, stopped abruptly just then. She could see the trail of sparks creep across the stone, and understood the position, which the shouts of the miners would have made plain to her if she had not. She could not see the man's face, though she realized that he was in imminent peril, and felt her heart throb painfully. Then, in common with the rest of those who watched him, she had a second astonishment, for he did not pull out the burning fuses, but crawled past them, and bent over something with a lighted match in his hand.

Brooke in the meanwhile set his lips as the match went out, and struck another, while a heavy silence followed the shouts. The men, who grasped his purpose, now realized that interference would come too late, and those who had started from them went back to the trees. There only remained Brooke, clinging with one hand to a cranny of the rock while he held the match, whose diminutive flame showed pale in the blaze of sunlight, and Jimmy, rising apparently half-dazed from among the debris.

The girl in the white hat afterwards recalled that picture, and could see the two lonely men, blurred figures in the shadows, and cl.u.s.tering pines. When that happened, she also felt a curious little thrill which was half-horror and half-appreciation.

Then the third fuse sparkled, and Brooke sprang down, grasped Jimmy's shoulder, and drove him before him. There was a fresh shouting, and now every one could see two men running for their lives for the shelter of the pines. It seemed a very long while before they reached them, and all the time three blue trails of smoke and sparkling lines of fire were creeping with remorseless certainty up the slope of stone. The girl upon the ridge above closed her hands tightly to check a scream, and bronzed men, who had braved a good many perils in their time, set their lips or murmured incoherently.