Part 35 (1/2)
Then Leger laughed.
”I'm afraid Captain Esmond and his troopers will be very wet,” he said.
”He is a capable officer, but such simple-minded persons as Hetty and Ingleby are now and then a match for the wise.”
”Haven't you left somebody out?” asked Ingleby.
”Major Coulthurst,” said Leger, ”is, of course, the Gold Commissioner, and could not be expected to have any sympathy with such a man as Tomlinson. It would, in fact, be unpardonable to suggest that he could be an accessory. Still, it is, perhaps, not quite out of the question that people outside the cla.s.s to which Hetty and Ingleby and I belong should possess a few amiable qualities.”
”You and Ingleby and Hetty?” said Sewell reflectively.
Leger looked at him with a little smile.
”Yes,” he said, ”you heard me quite correctly. It's not worth discussing, but I scarcely think one could place you in quite the same category.”
XXI
A DOUBTFUL EXCHANGE
It was the Monday morning after the flight of Tomlinson when Ingleby stood beside a pile of debris on the claim which was no longer his. The rain had stopped, and there was a wonderful freshness in the mountain air. Overhead the mists were streaming athwart the forest, pierced by arrows of golden light, and the fragrance of redwood and cedar filled the hollow. It is a scent that brings sound rest to the jaded body when night closes down and braces it as an elixir in the coolness of the dawn. Ingleby drank it in with vague appreciation. There was hope in it and vigour, and as he stood with the torn blue s.h.i.+rt falling apart from his bronzed neck, looking out on the forest with steady eyes, there was something in his att.i.tude which suggested the silent, hasteless strength of the wilderness.
The impulsiveness which had afflicted him in England had gone, and steadfastness had grown in its place. The crude, half-formed thoughts and theories which had worked like yeast in him had ceased their ebullition, purging themselves, perhaps, by the froth of speech, and had left him with a vague optimism too deep for articulate expression. Faith he had always had, and now the half-comprehending hope that looks beyond all formulas had also come. So much, at least, the wilderness had done for him. He laughed as he turned towards Sewell and Leger, who sat on the pile of thrown-up gravel behind him.
”I've been standing here almost five minutes, doing nothing--I don't know why,” he said. ”One does not, as a rule, get rich that way in this country.”
Leger grinned at him. ”You have just finished a remarkably good breakfast, for one thing,” he said. ”Still, haven't you made an admission? You always knew why you did everything in England.”
Ingleby smiled good-humouredly. ”Well,” he said, ”I'm seldom quite so sure now. Perhaps, it's because I'm older--or it may be the fault of the country. Floods and frosts, slides of gravel, and blue-grit boulders are apt to upset the results one feels reasonably certain of here. That recalls the fact that I broke out a quant.i.ty of promising-looking dirt the last time I went down this shaft, and didn't try the colour.”
”You have sunk several shafts now, and you're evidently improving,” said Sewell. ”The original one wasn't sunk or driven. It was scratched out, anyhow.”
”Three or four, and I've made some two hundred dollars out of the lot of them. In fact, I've been spending my labour profitlessly ever since I came into the country. That is, at least, so far as one can see.”
Sewell smiled. ”There's a good deal in the reservation. The whole country's full of just such holes from Caribou to Kootenay. A few men took gold out of them. The rest put something in.”
”Buried hopes,” said Leger with a grin.
”Probably,” answered Sewell. ”Now and then buried men. Still, the ranches and the orchards came up after them. It was presumably good for somebody, although a little rough on the prospectors in question.”
Leger appeared reflective. ”I wonder if any one could grow plums and apples on Captain Esmond. In the language of the country it's about the only use it could have for him. Well, I've smoked my pipe out. Are we going to stay here and maunder any longer, Ingleby?”
”I'm going down the mine; though, as it doesn't belong to me now, I don't know why. Still, it's close on bottom, and I'd like to try the colour of the dirt I broke out on Sat.u.r.day.”
He went down the notched pole, and filled the bucket Sewell lowered after him, and, when the latter hove it up, they proceeded to the creek, and the others sat down while Ingleby washed out its contents. Neither of them showed any particular interest in what he was doing. They had been some time in the gold-bearing region now, and had discovered that it is generally wise to expect very little. Then Ingleby scrambled up the bank with a curious look in his face, and gravely held out the pan.
”Placer mining is a tolerably uncertain thing, but here's a result I never antic.i.p.ated two or three days ago,” he said. ”Look at this!”
They bent over the pan, and their faces grew intent at the sight of the little grains of metal in its bottom. Then Leger looked up with a gasp.
”You've struck it again,” he said. ”Apparently as rich as ever!”