Kitabı oku: «A Damaged Reputation», sayfa 6

The beast plunged, and came near swinging him off his feet, the wagon pole creaked portentously, and the whip fell swishing across the other horse's back again. Then there was a hammering of hoofs, and a rattle; the team bolted incontinently, and because the bridge was narrow, Brooke, who lost his hold, sprang upon the log that very indifferently guarded it. It was, however, rounded on the top, and next moment he found himself standing knee-deep in the river, shaken, and considerably astonished, but by no means hurt. A drop of ten feet or so is not very apt to hurt an agile man who alights upon his feet. He saw the wagon bounce upon the half-round logs, as with the team stretching out in a furious gallop in front of it, it crossed the trestle on the opposite side, and vanish into the forest; and then finding himself very little the worse, proceeded to wade back to the bridge. He was plodding up the climbing trail beneath the firs when a shout came down and he saw the man had pulled the wagon up. When Brooke drew level he looked at him with a little dry smile.

"I guess you and the Cayuses came off the worst," he said.

Brooke glanced at the horses. They were flecked with lather but quiet enough now, and it was evident that the driver had beaten the spirit out of them on the ascent.

"I fancied the result would have been different a little while ago," he said.

The stranger laughed. "I 'most always get my way," he said. "Still, I didn't pull the team up to tell you that. You're going in to the settlement?"

Brooke said he was, and the stranger bade him get up, which he did, and seized the first opportunity of glancing at his companion. There is, it had already appeared to him, a greater typical likeness between the business men of the Pacific slope, in which category he placed his companion, than is usual in the case of Englishmen. Even when large of frame they seldom put on flesh, and the characteristic lean face and spare figure alone supply a hint of restlessness and activity, which is emphasized by mobility of features and quick nervous gesture. The man who drove the wagon was almost unusually gaunt, and while his eyes, which were brown, and reminded Brooke curiously of somebody else's, seemed to scintillate with a faint sardonic twinkle, there was a suggestion of reticence in his firm thin lips, and an unmistakable stamp of command upon him. He also held himself well, and Brooke fancied that he was in his own sphere a man of some importance. His first observation was, however, not exactly what Brooke would have expected from an Englishman of his apparent station.

"I'm much obliged to you," he said. "I don't like to be beaten, and it's a thing that doesn't happen very often. Besides, when a horse is too much for a man it's kind of humiliating. There's something that doesn't strike one as quite fitting in the principle of the thing."

Brooke laughed. "I'm not sure it's worth while to worry very much over a point of that kind, especially when it seems likely to lead to nothing beyond the probability of being pitched into a river."

"Still," said the stranger, with the little twinkle showing plainer in his eyes, "in this case it was the other man who fell in."

"I fancy it quite frequently is," said Brooke, reflectively. "That is usually the result of meddling."

The stranger nodded, and quietly inspected him. "You have been here some time, but you are an Englishman," he said.

"I am," said Brooke. "Is there any reason why I should hide the fact?"

"You couldn't do it. How long have you been here?"

"Four years in all, I think."

"What did you come out for?"

Brooke was accustomed to Western brusquerie, and there was nothing in his companion's manner which made the question offensive.

"I fancy my motive was not an unusual one. To pick up a few dollars."

"Got them yet?"

"I can't say I have."

The stranger appeared reflective. "There are not many folks who would have admitted that," he said. "When a man has been four years in this country he ought to have put a few dollars together. What have you been at?"

"Ranching most of the time. Road-making, saw-milling, and a few other occupations of the same kind afterwards."

"What was wrong with the ranch?"

Persistent questioning is not unusual in that country, for what is considered delicacy depends largely upon locality, and Brooke laughed.

"Almost everything," he said. "It had a good many disadvantages besides its rockiness, sterility, and an unusually abundant growth of two-hundred-feet trees. Still, it was the man who sold it me I found most fault with. He was a land agent."

"One of the little men?"

"No. I believe he is considered rather a big one – in fact about the biggest in that particular line."

The little sardonic gleam showed a trifle more plainly in the stranger's eyes. "He told you the land was nicely cleared ready, and would grow anything?"

"No," said Brooke. "He, however, led me to believe that it could be cleared with very little difficulty, and that the lumber was worth a good deal. I daresay it is, if there was any means whatever of getting it to a mill, which there isn't. He certainly told me there was no reason it shouldn't grow as good fruit as any that comes from Oregon, while I found the greatest difficulty in getting a little green oat fodder out of it."

"You went back, and tried to cry off your bargain?"

Brooke glanced at his companion, and fancied that he was watching him closely. "I really don't know any reason why I should worry you with my affairs. My case isn't at all an unusual one."

"I don't know of any why you shouldn't. Go right on."

"Then I never got hold of the man himself. It was one of his agents I made the deal with, and there was nothing to be obtained from him. In fact, I could see no probability of getting any redress at all. It appears to be considered commendable to take the newly-arrived Britisher in."

The other man smiled drily. "Well," he said, "some of them 'most seem to expect it. Ever think of trying the law against the principal?"

"The law," said Brooke, "is apt to prove a very uncertain remedy, and I spent my last few dollars convincing myself that the ranch was worthless. Now, one confidence ought to warrant another. What has brought you into the bush? You do not belong to it."

The stranger laughed. "There's not much bush in this country, from Kootenay to Caribou, I haven't wandered through. I used to live in it – quite a long while ago. I came up to look at a mine. I buy one up occasionally."

"Isn't that a little risky?"

"Well," said the other, with a little smile, "it depends. There are goods, like eggs and oranges, you don't want to keep."

"And a good market in England for whatever the Colonials have no particular use for?"

The stranger laughed good-humoredly. "Did you ever strike any real good salt pork in Canada?"

"No," said Brooke, decisively, "I certainly never did."

"Then where does the best bacon you get in England come from? Same with cheese – and other things."

"Including mines?"

"Well, when any of them look like paying it's generally your folk who get them. Know anything about the Dayspring?"

"Not a great deal," Brooke said, guardedly. "I have been in the workings, and it is for sale."

"Ore worth anything at the smelter?"

Now Brooke was perfectly certain that such a man as his companion appeared to be would attach no great importance to any information obtained by chance from a stranger.

"There is certainly a little good ore in it," he said, drily.

"That is about all you mean to tell me?"

"It is about all I know definitely."

The stranger smiled curiously. "Well," he said, "I'm not going to worry you, and I guess I know a little more."

Brooke changed the topic, and listened with growing interest, and a little astonishment, to his companion as they drove on. The man seemed acquainted with everything he could mention, including the sentiments of the insular English and the economics as well as the history of their country. He was even more astonished when, as they alighted before the little log hotel at the pine-shrouded settlement, the host greeted the stranger.

"You'll be Mr. Devine who wrote me about the room and a saddle horse?" he said.

"Yes," said the other man, who glanced at Brooke with a little whimsical smile, "you have addressed me quite correctly."

Brooke said nothing, for he realized then something of the nature of the task he and Saxton had undertaken, while it was painfully evident that he had done very little to further his cause at the first encounter. He also found the little gleam in Devine's eyes almost exasperating, and turned to the hotel-keeper to conceal the fact.

"Has the freighter come through?" he said.

"No," said the man. "Bob, who has just come in, said he'd a big load and we needn't expect him until to-morrow."

Devine had turned away now, and Brooke touched the hotel-keeper's arm. "I don't wish that man to know I'm from the Elktail," he said.

"Well," said the hotel-keeper, "you know Saxton's business best, but if I had any share in it and struck a man of that kind looking round for mines I'd do what was in me to shove the Dayspring off on to him."

IX.
DEVINE MAKES A SUGGESTION

There was only one hotel, which scarcely deserved the title, in the settlement, and when Brooke returned to it an hour after the six o'clock supper, he found Devine sitting on the verandah. He had never met the man until that afternoon, and had only received one very terse response to the somewhat acrimonious correspondence he had insisted on his agent forwarding him respecting the ranch. He had no doubt that the affair had long ago passed out of Devine's memory, though he was still, on his part, as determined as ever on obtaining restitution. He had, however, no expectation of doing it by persuasion, though the man was evidently a very different individual from the one his fancy had depicted, and, that being so, recrimination appeared useless, as well as undignified. He was, therefore, while he would have done nothing to avoid him, by no means anxious to spend the remainder of the evening in Devine's company. The latter was, however, already on the verandah, and looked up when he entered it.

"I had almost a fancy you meant to keep out of my way," he said.

Brooke sat down, and there was a trace of dryness in his smile.

"If I had felt inclined to do so, you would scarcely expect me to admit it? I don't mean because that would not have been complimentary to you," he said.

Devine laughed, and handed his cigar-case across. "Take one if you feel like it. I quite see your point," he said. "Some of you folks from the old country are a trifle tender in the hide, but I don't mind telling you that there was a time when I spent an hour or two every day keeping out of other men's way. They wanted dollars I couldn't raise, you see, and now and then I had to spend mornings in the city because I couldn't get into my office on account of them. I meant to pay them, and I did, but there was no way of doing it just then."

Brooke's smile was a trifle curious, and might have been construed into implying a doubt of his companion's commendable intentions, but the latter did not appear to notice it, and he took one of the cigars offered him, and found it excellent. Though they were to be adversaries, there was nothing to be gained by betraying a puerile bitterness against the man, and now he had met him, Brooke was not quite so sure as he could have wished that he disliked him personally. He meant to secure his six thousand dollars if it could be done, which appeared distinctly doubtful, and sentiment of any kind was, he assured himself, out of place. Still, he did not altogether relish Devine's cigar.

"They were probably persistent men," he said.

Devine glanced at him sharply, but Brooke's face was, or at least he hoped so, expressionless.

"Well," he said, tranquilly, "I contrive to pay my debts as the usual thing, but we'll let that slide. What are you at up here in the bush?"

"Mining, just now," said Brooke. "To be more definite, acting as handy man about a mine."

"You'd make more rock-drilling. Feel fond of it?"

"I can't say I do. Still, I have a notion that it is going to lead to the acquisition of a few dollars presently."

Devine sat silent at a space, apparently reflecting, and then looked up again.

"Now," he said, "suppose I was to make you an offer, would you feel inclined to listen to me?"

Brooke had acquired in England a composure which was frequently useful to him, but he was young, and started a trifle, while once more the blood showed through his unfortunately clear skin.

"I think I could promise that much, at least," he said.

"Well," said Devine, "I have some use for a man who knows a little about bush ranches and mines, and understands the English folks who now and then buy them from me. I could afford to pay him a moderate salary."

Brooke closed one hand a trifle, and the bronze deepened in his face. The opportunity Saxton had been waiting for was now, it seemed, being thrust upon him, and yet he felt that he could not avail himself of it. It was clear that he had everything to gain by doing so, but there was, he realized now, a treachery he could not descend to. He strove to persuade himself that this was a sentimental weakness, for it had become even more apparent of late that with the knowledge he had gained of that country there would be no great difficulty in making his way once he had the dollars he had been robbed of again in his hands, and he had had a bitter taste of the life that must be dragged through by the man with none. Still, the fact that his instincts, which, as occasionally happens to other men, would not be controlled by his reason, revolted from the part he must play if he made terms with Devine, remained, and he sat very still, with forehead wrinkled and one hand clenched, until his companion, who had never taken his eyes off him, spoke again.

"It doesn't sound good enough?" he said.

Brooke shook himself together. "As a matter of fact, I am very doubtful if I shall get quite as good an offer again. Still, I am afraid I can't quite see my way to entertaining it."

"No?" said Devine. "I guess you have your reasons?"

Brooke felt that he could scarcely consider the motive which had induced him to answer as he did a reason. It was rather an impulse he could not hold in check, or the result of a prejudice, but he could not explain this, and what was under the circumstances a somewhat illogical bitterness against Devine took possession of him.

"When I first came into this province my confiding simplicity cost me a good deal, and I almost think I should rather feel myself impelled to warn any of my countrymen I came into contact with against making rash ventures in land and mines than induce them to do so," he said.

Devine smiled drily. "That is tolerably plain talk, anyway. Still, it ought to be clear that a man can't keep on taking folks' dollars without giving them reasonable value anywhere. No, sir. As soon as they find out he has only worthless goods to sell, they stop dealing with him right away. There's another point. Are they all fools who come out from England to buy mines and ranching land?"

"I have certainly met a few who seemed to be. Of course, I include myself," said Brooke, grimly.

"Well, you can take it from me, and I ought to know, that there are folks back yonder quite as smart at getting one hundred and fifty cents for the dollar's worth as any man in Canada. We needn't, however, worry about that. I made you an offer, and you have quite decided that it wouldn't suit you?"

Again Brooke sat silent a space. He felt in some degree bound to Saxton, though he had certainly earned every dollar the latter had handed him, and it had been agreed that a verbal intimation from either would suffice to terminate the compact between them. There was also no reason why he should do anything that would prejudice him if he entered Devine's service, and a very faint hope commenced to dawn on him that there might be a way out of the difficulty. Devine appeared to be a reasonable man, and he determined to at least give him an opportunity.

"It is probably an unusual course under the circumstances, but before I decide I would like to ask a question," he said. "We will suppose that you or one of your agents had sold a man who did not know what he was buying a tract of worthless land, and he demanded compensation. What would you do?"

"The man would naturally look at the land and use his discretion."

"We'll assume that he didn't. Men who come into this country at a time when everybody is eager to buy now and then most unwisely take a land-agent's statements for granted. Even if they surveyed the property offered them they would not very often be able to form any opinion of its value."

"Then," said Devine, drily, "they take their chances, and can't blame the other man."

"Still, if the buyer convinced you that your agent knew the land was worth nothing when he sold it him?"

Devine glanced at him sharply. "That would be a little difficult, but I'll answer you. I've been stuck with a good many bad bargains in my time, and I never went back and tried to cry off one of them. No, sir. I took hold and worried the most I could out of them. Nobody quite knows what a piece of land in this country is or will be worth, except that it's quite certain every rod of it is going to be some use for something, and bring in dollars to the man who holds on to it, presently."

"Then you would not make the victim any compensation?"

"No, sir. Not a cent. I shouldn't consider him a victim. That's quite straight?"

"I scarcely think anybody would consider it ambiguous," Brooke said, drily, for he felt his face grow warm, and realized that it was not advisable to give the anger that was gaining on him the rein. "It demands an equal candor, and I have given you one of my reasons for deciding that it would not suit me to enter your service. I can't help wondering what induced you to make me the offer."

Devine laughed. "Well," he said, reflectively, "so am I. I had, as I told you, a notion that I might have a use for a man of the kind you seem to be, but I'm not quite so sure of it now. Though I don't know that I'm especially thin in the skin, some of the questions you seem fond of asking might make trouble between you and me. For another thing, on thinking it over afterwards, it struck me that the team might have tilted that wagon off the bridge this afternoon. I'm not sure that they would have done, but you came along handy."

He rose with a little sardonic smile and went into the hotel, leaving Brooke sitting on the verandah and staring at the dusky forest vacantly, for his thoughts were not exactly pleasant just then. He had been offered a chance Saxton, at least, would have eagerly seized upon, and it was becoming evident that there was little of the stuff successful conspirators are made of in him. He could not ignore the fact that it was a conspiracy they were engaged in, for he meant to get his six thousand dollars back, and found it especially galling to remember that it was a kindness Devine had purposed doing him.

He had also misgivings as to what his confederate – for that was, he recognized, the most fitting term he could apply to Saxton – would have to say about his decision, and after all it was evident that he owed him a little. Once more he fumed at his folly in ever buying the ranch, for all his difficulties sprang from that mistake, and he felt he could not face the result of it and drag out his days cut off from all that made life bearable, a mere wielder of axe and shovel, without a struggle, even though it left a mark on him which could never be quite effaced.

The freighter came in early next morning with the drills, and Brooke, who hired pack-horses, set off with them, but as he drove the loaded beasts out of the clearing he saw Devine watching him from the verandah, with a little smile. He made a salutation, and Brooke, for no apparent reason, jerked the leading pack-horse's bridle somewhat viciously. It was a long journey to the mine, and there were several difficult ascents upon the way, but he reached it safely, and found Saxton expecting him impatiently. They spent an hour or two getting the drills to work, and then sat down to a meal in the galvanized shanty.

Saxton was damp and stained with soil, his long boots were miry, and one of his hands was bleeding, but he laughed a little as he glanced at the heavy, doughy bread and untempting canned stuff on the table and round the comfortless room.

"I guess I don't get my dollars easily," he said. "There are quite a few ways of making them, but the one the sensible man has the least use for is with the hammer and drill. Still, I'm going back to the city, and we'll try another one presently. You'll stay here about a week, and then there'll be work for you. I've heard of something while you were away."

"So have I!" said Brooke. "I met Devine, and he gave me an opportunity of entering his service."

Saxton became suddenly eager. "You took it?"

"No," said Brooke, drily, "I did not. I had one or two reasons for not doing so, though I feel it is very probable that you would not appreciate them."

Saxton stared at him in astonishment, and then made a little gesture of resignation. "Well," he said, "I guess I wouldn't – after what I've seen of you. Still, can't you understand what kind of chance you've thrown away? I might have made 'most anything out of the pointers you could have picked up and given me."

Brooke smiled drily. "I don't think you could," he said. "As a matter of fact, I wouldn't have given you any."

Saxton turned towards him resolutely, with his elbows planted on the table and his black eyes intent. "Now," he said, "I want a straight answer. Are you going back on your bargain?"

"No. If I had meant to do that, I should naturally have taken Devine's offer. As I have told you a good many times already, I am going to get my six thousand dollars out of him. That is, of course, if we can manage it, about which I am more than a little doubtful."

Saxton laughed contemptuously. "You would never get six dollars out of anybody who wasn't quite willing to let you have them," he said. "A struggling man has no use for the notions you seem proud of."

"I really can't help having them," said Brooke, with a little smile.

Saxton shook his head. "Well," he said, "it's fortunate you're not going to be left to yourself, or somebody would take the clothes off you. Now, I've heard from a friend of mine, who has a contract to build the Canopus folks a flume. It seems they want more water, and it's Devine's mine."

"How is that going to help us?"

"Since Leeson made that contract, he got the offer of another that would pay him better, and he's willing to pass it on at Devine's figure to any one who will take it off his hands. Now, I'll find you a man or two and tools, and when they're ready, you'll start right away for the Canopus and build that flume."

"The difficulty is that I haven't the least notion how to build a flume."

Saxton made a little impatient gesture. "Then I guess you have got to learn, and there are plenty of men to be hired in the bush who do. You know how to rough down redwood logs and blow out rocks?"

Brooke admitted that he did, and Saxton nodded.

"Then the thing's quite easy," he said. "You look at the one they've got already, and make another like it. Haven't you found out yet that a man can do 'most anything that another one can?"

"Well," said Brooke, "I'll try it, but that brings us to the question, what else do you expect from me? It is very probable that I shall make an unfortunate mistake for both of us, if you leave me in the dark. I want to understand the position."

Saxton explained it at length, and Brooke leaned back in his chair, glancing abstractedly through the open door as he listened, for his mind took in the details mechanically, while his thoughts were otherwise busy. He saw the dusky forest he had toiled and lost hope in, and then, turning his head a trifle, the comfortless dingy room and Saxton's intent face and eager eyes. He was speaking with little nervous gestures, vehemently, and all the sensibility that the struggle had left in Brooke shrank from the sordidness of the compact he had made with him. The fact that his confederate apparently considered their purpose perfectly legitimate and even commendable, intensified the disgust he felt, but once more he told himself that he could not afford to be particular. There was, it seemed, a price to everything, and if he was ever to regain his status he must let no more opportunities slip past him.

Still the memory of the old house in the English valley, and a certain silver-haired lady who had long ago paced the velvet lawns that swept about it with her white hand upon his shoulder, returned to trouble him. She had endeavored to instil the fine sense of honor that guided her own life into him, and he remembered her wholesome pride and the stories she had told him of the men who had gone forth from that quiet home before him. Most of them had served their nation well, even those who had hewn down the ancient oaks and mortgaged the wheat-land in the reckless Georgian days, and now, when the white-haired lady slept in the still valley, he was about to sell the honor she had held priceless for six thousand dollars in Western Canada. Nevertheless, he strove to persuade himself that the times had changed and the old codes vanished, and sat still listening while Saxton, stained with soil and water from the mine, talked on, and gesticulated with a bleeding hand. He touched upon frontages, ore-leads, record and patents from the Crown, and then stopped abruptly, and looked hard at Brooke.

"Now I think you've got it all," he said.

"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.