Part 46 (1/2)

”Then I'm coming down,” said the other man. ”We have got to get him out of the stink if there's anything left of him.”

Jimmy grasped the necessity for this, since the fumes of giant-powder are in confined s.p.a.ces usually sufficient to prostrate a strong man, and several of his comrades apparently came down instead of one, bringing lanterns and blazing brands with them. There was a slippery ledge a little lower down the gully, and while the nauseating vapor eddied about them and the shattered wreckage went thundering past below, they made their way along it until they came on Brooke.

He was lying partly up on the ledge with his feet in the swirling torrent and his s.h.i.+rt rent open. There was a big red smear on it, his lips were bloodless, and one arm was doubled limply under him. Jimmy stooped and shook him gently, but Brooke made no sign, and his head sank forward until his face was hidden. Then Jimmy, who slipped his hand inside the torn s.h.i.+rt, withdrew it, smeared and warm, with a little s.h.i.+ver.

”He's bleeding quite hard, and that shows there's life in him. We have got to get him out of this right now,” he said.

None of them quite remembered how they did it, for few men unaccustomed to the ranges would have cared to ascend that gully unenc.u.mbered by daylight, but it was accomplished, and when a litter of fir branches had been hastily lashed together they plodded behind it in silence down the hillside. If anything could be done, and they were very uncertain on that point, it could only be done in the shanty.

As they floundered down the trail a man met them with the news that very little of the water had got into the mine, but that did not appear of much importance to any one just then. After all, the Dayspring belonged to an English company, and it was Brooke, who lay in the litter oblivious of everything, they had worked for.

x.x.x.

THE OTHER CHANCE.

The blink of sunlight was pleasantly warm where Barbara sat with Hetty Hume on a seat set back among the laurels which just there cut off the shrewd wind from the English lawn. A black cloud sailed slowly over the green hilltop behind the old grey house, and the close-cropped gra.s.s was sparkling still with the sprinkle of bitter rain, but the scent of the pale narcissus drifted up from the borders and the sticky buds of a big chestnut were opening overhead. Barbara glanced across the sweep of lawn towards the line of willows that swung their ta.s.seled boughs above the palely flas.h.i.+ng river. They were apparently dusted with silver and ochre, and here and there a flush of green chequered the ridge of thorn along the winding road that led the eye upwards to the clean-cut edge of the moor. It was, however, a regular, even line, cropped to one unvarying level save for the breaks where the neat gates were hung; the road was smooth and wide, with a red board beside the wisp of firs above to warn all it might concern of the gradient; while the square fields with the polled trees in the trim hedgerows all conveyed the same impression. This was decorous, well-ordered England, where Nature was broken to man's dominion centuries ago. As she glanced at it her companion laughed.

”The prospect from here is, I believe, generally admitted to be attractive, though I have not noticed any of my other friends spend much time in admiring it,” she said. ”Still, perhaps it is different in your case. You haven't anything quite like it in Canada.”

”No,” said Barbara. ”Anyway, not between Quatomac and the big glacier.

You remember that ride?”

”Of course!” said Hetty Hume. ”I found it a little overwhelming. That is, the peaks and glaciers. I also remember the rancher. The one who played the violin. I suppose you never came across him again?”

”I met him once or twice. At a big concert--and on other occasions.”

Barbara's smile was indifferent, but she was silent for the next minute or two. She had now spent several weeks in England, and had found the smooth, well-regulated life there pleasant after the restless activity of the one she had led in Western Canada, where everybody toiled feverishly. She felt the contrast every day, and now the sight of that softly-sliding river, whose low murmur came up soothingly across the lawn, recalled the one that frothed and foamed amidst the Quatomac pines, and the roar that rose from the misty canon. That, very naturally, also brought back the face of the flume-builder, and she wondered vaguely whether he was still at the Dayspring, and what he was doing then, until her companion turned to her again.

”We will really have to decide about the Cruttendens' dance to-night,”

she said. ”It will be the last frivolity of the season in this vicinity.”

”I haven't met Mrs. Cruttenden, have I?” said Barbara, indifferently.

”You did, when you were here before. Don't you remember the old house you were so pleased with lower down the valley? In any case, she remembers you, and made a point of my bringing you. Cruttenden has a relative in your country, though I never heard much about the man.”

Barbara remembered the old building very well, and it suddenly flashed upon her that Brooke had on one occasion displayed a curious acquaintance with it. Everything that afternoon seemed to force him upon her recollection.

”You would like to go?” she said.

”I, at least, feel I ought to. We are, of course, quite newcomers here.

In fact, we had only bought Larchwood just before you last came over, and it was Mrs. Cruttenden who first took us up. One may live a very long while in places of this kind without being admitted within the pale, you see, and even the rank of Major isn't a very great warranty, especially if it has been gained in foreign service instead of Aldershot.”

Miss Hume stopped as her father came slowly down the pathway with a grey-haired lady, whose dress proclaimed her a widow, and the latter's voice reached the girl's clearly. Her face was, so Barbara noticed, very expressive as she turned to her companion.

”I think you know what I really came for,” she said. ”I feel I owe you a very great deal.”

Major Hume made a little deprecatory gesture. ”I have,” he said, ”at least, seen the papers, and was very glad to notice that Reggie has got his step. He certainly deserved it. Very plucky thing, especially with only a handful of a raw native levy to back him. Frontal attack in daylight--and the n.i.g.g.e.rs behind the stockade seem to have served their old guns astonis.h.i.+ngly well!”