Part 14 (1/2)

”That,” he said, ”is the man who didn't want his wages when I offered them to him, though he knew it was quite likely he would never get them afterwards unless I built the dam. He'd been working for me two or three months then, in the flooded river, most of the while. Now, is there any sense in that kind of man?”

Mattawa appeared disconcerted, and his hard face flushed. ”Well,” he explained, ”I felt I had to see you through.” He hesitated for a moment with a gesture which seemed deprecatory of his point of view.

”It seemed up to me.”

”You've heard him,” said Gordon dryly. ”He's from the desolate Bush back East, and n.o.body has taught him to express himself clearly. The men of that kind are handiest with the axe and drill, but it has always seemed to me that the nations are going to sit round and listen when they get up and speak their mind some day.”

He saw the smile in Nasmyth's eyes, and turned to Wheeler, who was from the State of Was.h.i.+ngton. ”It's a solid fact that you, at least, can understand. It's not so very long since your folks headed West across the Ohio, and it's open to anyone to see what you have done.”

Then he flung his hand out towards the east. ”They fancy back yonder we're still in the leading-strings, and it doesn't seem to strike them that we're growing big and strong.”

It was characteristic that Wheeler did not grin, as Nasmyth certainly did. What Gordon had said was, no doubt, a trifle flamboyant, but it expressed the views of others in the West, and after all it was more or less warranted. Mattawa, however, gazed at them both as if such matters were beyond him, and Wheeler, who turned to Nasmyth, changed the subject.

”Well,” he said, ”what are you going to strike next?”

Nasmyth took out his pipe, and carefully filled it before he answered, for he knew that his time had come, and he desired greatly to carry his comrades along with him.

”I have,” he said quietly, ”a notion in my mind, or, anyway, the germ of one, for the thing will want some worrying out. It's quite a serious undertaking. To begin with, I'll ask Gordon who cut these drains we've been falling into, and what he did it for?”

”An Englishman,” Gordon answered. ”n.o.body knew much about him. He was probably an exile, too. Anyway, he saw this valley, and it seemed to strike him that he could make a ranch in it.”

”Why should he fix on this particular valley?”

”The thing's plain enough. How many years does a man usually spend chopping a clearing out of the Bush? Isn't there a demand for anything that you can eat from our miners and the men on our railroads and in our mills? Why do we bring carloads of provisions in? Can't you get hold of the fact that a man can start ranching right away on natural prairie, if he can once get the water out of it?”

”Oh, yes,” a.s.sented Nasmyth. ”The point is that one has to get the water out of it. I would like Mattawa and Wheeler to notice it. You can go on.”

”Well,” said Gordon, ”that man pitched right in, and spent most of two years cutting four-foot trenches through and dyking up the swamp. He went on every day from sun-up to dark, but every time the floods came they beat him. When he walked over the range to the settlement, the boys noticed he was getting kind of worn and thin, but there was clean grit in that man. He'd taken hold of the contract, and he stayed with it. Then one day a prospector went into the valley after a big freshet and came across his wrecked shanty. The river had got him.”

Wheeler nodded gravely. ”It seems to me this country was made by men like that,” he commented. ”They're the kind they ought to put up monuments to.”

There was silence for a moment or two after that, except for the sighing of the wind among the firs and the hoa.r.s.e murmur that came up, softened by the distance, from the canon. It was not an unusual story, but it appealed to those who heard it, for they had fought with rock and river and physical weariness, and they could understand the grim patience and unflinching valour of the long struggle that had resulted, as such struggles sometimes do, only in defeat. Still, the men who take those tasks in hand seldom capitulate. Gordon glanced at Nasmyth.

”Now,” he said, ”if you have anything to say, you can get it out.”

Nasmyth raised himself on one elbow. ”That Englishman put up a good fight, but he didn't start quite right,” he said. ”I want to point out that, in my opinion, the river has evidently just run into the canon.

It's slow and deep until you reach the fall, where it's merely held up by the ridge of rock the rapid runs across. Well, we'll call the change of level twelve to sixteen feet, and, as Gordon has suggested, a big strip of natural prairie is apt to make a particularly desirable property, once you run the water out of it. You can get rid of a lot of water when you have a fall of sixteen feet.”

”How are you going to get it?” asked Wheeler.

”By cutting the strip of rock that holds the river up at the fall. I think one could do it with giant-powder.”

Again there was silence for a few moments, and Nasmyth looked at his comrades quietly, with the firelight on his face and a gleam in his eyes. They sat still and stared at him, for the daring simplicity of his conception won their admiration. Mattawa slowly straightened himself.

”It's a great idea,” he declared. ”Seen something quite like it in Ontario; I guess it can be done.” He turned to Nasmyth. ”You can count me in.”

Wheeler made a sign of concurrence. ”It seems to me that Mattawa is right. In a general way, I'm quite open to take a share in the thing, but there's a point you have to consider. Most of the work could be done only at low water, and a man might spend several years on it.”

”Well?” said Nasmyth simply.

Wheeler waved his hand. ”Oh,” he said, ”you're like that other Englishman, but you want to look at this thing from a business point of view. Now, as you know, the men who do the toughest work on this Pacific slope are usually the ones who get the least for it. Well, if you run the river down, you'll dry out the whole valley, and you'll have every man with a fancy for ranching jumping in, or some d---- land agency's dummies grabbing every rod of it. It's Crown land.