Part 22 (1/2)

Saxton shook his head in a fas.h.i.+on that suggested he considered his comrade's case hopeless. ”And it's just his confidence we want!” he said. ”You don't seem able to get hold of the fact that you can't make very many dollars and keep your high-toned notions at the same time. The thing's out of the question. Now, I once heard a lecture on the New England States long ago, and pieces of it stuck to me. There were two or three of the hard old Puritans made their little pile cutting Frenchmen's and Spaniards' throats in the Gulf of Mexico, and built meeting-houses when they came home and settled down. Still, they had sense enough to see that what was the correct thing among the Quakers and Baptists of New England was quite out of place on the Caribbean Sea.”

Brooke felt that there was truth in this, but he meant, at least, to cling to the distinction, even though he disregarded the difference, and Saxton seemed to realize it.

”Well,” he said resignedly, ”we may do something with that prop sling when we jump the claim. How are you getting on about the mine?”

”In point of fact, I'm not getting on at all. Each time I try to saunter into the workings, I am civilly turned out again. Devine, it seems, will not even let the few men who work on top in.”

Saxton appeared to reflect. ”Now, I wonder why,” he said. ”He's too smart to do anything without a reason, and he's not afraid of you, or he'd never have had you round the place. Still, you'll have to get hold of the facts we want before we can do anything, and I'm not quite sure what use I'll make of those timber-rights in the meanwhile. They cost me quite a few dollars, and it may be a while yet before anybody takes them from me. Building that slingway isn't quite what I expected from Devine after buying up forests to oblige him.”

”Well, I will do what I can, but I wish Devine would give me those dollars back of his own accord. I'm almost commencing to like the man.”

Saxton shook his head. ”You can't afford to consider a point of that kind when it's against your business,” he said. ”Anyway, if you can give me a blanket or two, I'll get some sleep now. I have to be on the trail again by sun-up.”

Brooke gave him his own spruce-twig couch, and made him breakfast in the chilly dawn on a kerosene stove, and then was sensible of a curious relief as his confederate vanished into the filmy mists which drifted down the gorge.

XV.

SAXTON GAINS HIS POINT.

Brooke was very wet and physically weary, which in part accounted for his dejected state of mind, when he led his jaded horse up the last few rods of climbing trail that crossed the big divide. It had just ceased raining, and the slippery rock ran water, while a cold wind, which set him s.h.i.+vering, shook a doleful wailing out of the scattered pines. One of them had fallen, and, stopping beside it, he looped the bridle round a broken branch, and sat down to rest and think, for the difficulties of the way had occupied his attention during a long day's journey, and, since he expected to meet Saxton in another hour, he had food for reflection.

It was not a cheerful prospect he looked down upon, and that evening the desolation of the surroundings reacted upon him. The gleaming snow was smothered now in banks of dingy mist, and below him there rolled away a dreary waste of pines, whose ragged spires rose out of the drifting vapors rent and twisted by the ceaseless winds. It was, in words he had not infrequently heard applied to it, a hard country he must spend his years of exile in, and of late nothing had gone well with him.

Since he had last seen Saxton, he had lived in a state of tension, waiting for the time when circ.u.mstances should render the carrying out of their purpose feasible, and yet clinging to a faint hope that he might, by some unknown means, still be relieved of the necessity of persisting in a course that was becoming more odious every day. The dam was almost completed, but it was with dismay he had counted the cost of it, and twice the steel rope had torn up stays and columns, and hurled them into the canon, while he would, he knew, be fortunate if he secured a profit of a couple of hundred dollars as the result of several months of perilous labor. Prosperity, it was very evident, was not to be achieved in that fas.h.i.+on. He had also seen very little of Barbara Heathcote for some time, and she had been to him as a mental stimulant, of which he felt the loss, while now his prospects seemed as dreary as the dripping waste he stared across with heavy eyes. All this, as it happened, bore directly upon his errand, for it once more brought home the fact that a man without dollars could expect very little in that country, while there was, it seemed, only one way of obtaining them open to him. It was true that he shrank from availing himself of it, but that did not, after all, greatly affect the case, and he endeavored to review the situation dispa.s.sionately.

He had decided that he was warranted in recovering the six thousand dollars by any means available, and it was evidently folly to take into account the anger and contempt of a girl who could, of course, be nothing to him. Her station placed that out of the question, since it would, so far as he could see, be a very long time indeed before he could secure even the most modest competence, and he felt that there was a still greater distinction between them morally; but, in spite of this, he realized that the girl's approbation was the one thing he clung to.

He could scarcely nerve himself to fling it away, and yet it seemed, in the light of reason, a very indifferent requital for a life of struggle and poverty. She had, he told himself, merely taken a pa.s.sing interest in him, and once she met a man of her own station fortunate enough to gain her regard, was scarcely likely even to remember him.

Then he rose with a little hardening of his lips, and, flinging himself wearily into the saddle, strove to shake off his thoughts as the jaded horse floundered down into the valley. They were both too weary to attempt to pick their way, and went down, sliding and slipping, with the gravel rattling away from under them, until they reached the thicker timber, and smashed recklessly through thickets of giant fern and salmon berry. Now and then a drooping branch struck Brooke as he pa.s.sed, but he scarcely noticed it, and rode on, swaying in his saddle, while great drops of moisture splashed upon his grim, wet face. It was sunrise when he had ridden out from the Canopus mine, with his horse's head turned towards the settlement, and dark was closing down when at last he dropped, aching all over, from the saddle at the door of Saxton's shanty at the Elktail mine. The latter, who opened it, smiled at him somewhat drily, and was by no means effusive in his greeting.

”I wasn't quite sure the message I sent you from Vancouver would fetch you, though I made it tolerably straight,” he said.

”You certainly did,” said Brooke. ”In fact, I don't know that you could have made it more unlikely to bring me here. Still, what put the fancy that I might disregard it into your head?”

Saxton looked at him curiously. ”Well,” he said, with an air of reflection, ”you seemed to be quite at home in several senses, and making the most of it there. There are folks who would consider that girl with the big eyes pretty.”

Brooke, who was entering the shanty, swung round sharply. ”I think we can leave Miss Heathcote out. It's a little difficult to understand how you came to know what I was doing at the Canopus? You were in Vancouver.”

Saxton appeared almost disconcerted for a moment, but he laughed.

”Well,” he said, ”I figured on what was most likely when I heard Miss Heathcote was still there.”

He saw that he had made another mistake, and wondered whether Brooke, who had, as it happened, done so, had noticed it, while the fact that the latter's face was now expressionless roused him to a little display of vindictiveness.

”I heard something about her in Vancouver, anyway, which it's quite likely she didn't mention to you. It was that she's mighty good friends with one of the Pacific Squadron officers. She has a good many dollars of her own, and they're mostly folks who make a splash in their own country.”

Brooke afterwards decided that this must have been an inspiration, but just then he felt that Saxton was watching him, and showed no sign of interest.

”If she did, I don't remember it, though I should consider the thing quite probable,” he said. ”Still, as Miss Heathcote's fancies don't concern us, wouldn't it be more to the purpose if you got me a little to eat?”