Kitabı oku: «A Damaged Reputation», sayfa 8

XI.
AN EMBARRASSING POSITION

The wooden conduit which sprang across a gorge just there on a slender trestle was full to the brim, and Brooke, who leaned on his long hammer shaft, watched the crystal water swirl by with a satisfaction which was distinctly new to him, while the roar it made as it plunged down into the valley from the end of the uncompleted flume came throbbing across the pines. Though it was a very crude piece of engineering, that trestle had cost him hours of anxious thought and days of strenuous labor, and now, standing above it, very wet and somewhat ragged, with hands as hard as a navvy's, he surveyed it with a pride which was scarcely warranted by its appearance. It was, however, the creation of his hands and brain, and evidently capable of doing its work effectively.

Then he smiled somewhat curiously as he remembered with what purpose he had taken over the contract to build the flume from its original holder, and, turning abruptly away, walked along it until he stopped where the torrent that fed it swirled round a pool. The latter had rapidly lowered its level since the big sluice was opened, and he stood looking at it intently while a project, which involved a fresh struggle with hard rock and forest, dawned upon him. He had gained his first practically useful triumph over savage Nature, and it had filled him with a desire he had never supposed himself capable of for a renewal of the conflict. A little sparkle came into his eyes, and he stood with head flung back a trifle and his corded arms uncovered to the elbow, busy with rough calculations, and once more oblivious of the fact that he was only there to play his part in a conspiracy, until a man with grey in his hair came out of the shadow of the pines.

"I came up along the flume and she's wasting very little water," he said. "Not a trickle from the trestle! It would 'most carry a wagon. You must have spent quite a pile of dollars over it."

Brooke smiled a trifle drily, for that was a point he had overlooked until the cost had been sharply impressed upon him.

"I'm afraid I did, Mr. Devine," he said. "Still, I couldn't see how to get the work done more cheaply without taking the risk of the flume settling a little by and by. That would, of course, have started it leaking. What do you think of it?"

Devine smiled as he noticed his eagerness. "It seems to me that risk would have been mine," he said. "I've seen neater work, but not very much that looked like lasting longer. Who gave you the plan of it?"

"Nobody," said Brooke, with a trace of the pride he could not quite repress. "I worried it out myself. You see, I once or twice gave the carpenters a hand at stiffening the railroad trestles."

Devine nodded, and flashed a keen glance at him as he said, "What are you looking at that pool for?"

Brooke stood silent a moment or two. "Well," he said, diffidently, "it occurred to me that when there was frost on the high peaks you might have some difficulty in getting enough water to feed the flume. You can see how the pool has run down already. Now, with a hundred tons or so of rock and débris and a log framing, one could contrive a very workable dam. It would ensure you a full supply and equalize the pressure."

"You feel equal to putting the thing through?"

"I would at least very much like to try."

Devine regarded him thoughtfully. "Then you can let me have your notions."

Brooke unfolded his crude scheme, and the other man watched him keenly until he said, "If that meets with your approbation I could start two of my men getting out the logs almost immediately."

Devine smiled. "Has it struck you that there is a point you have forgotten?"

"It is quite possible there are a good many."

"You can't think of one that's important in particular?"

"No," said Brooke, reflectively, "not just now."

A little sardonic twinkle crept into Devine's eyes. "Well," he said, "before I took hold of any contract of that kind I would like to know just how much I was going to make on it, and what it would cost me."

Brooke looked at him and laughed. "Of course!" he said. "Still, I never thought of it until this moment."

"It's quite clear you weren't raised in Canada," said Devine. "You can worry out the thing during the afternoon and bring along any rough plan you'd like to show me to the ranch this evening. That's fixed? Then there's another thing. Has anybody tried to stop you getting out lumber?"

"No," said Brooke. "I met two men who appeared to be timber-right prospectors more than once, but they made no difficulty."

Devine, who seemed a trifle astonished, looked at him curiously before he turned away. "Then," he said drily, "you are more fortunate than I am."

Brooke went back to his work, and supper had been cleared away in his double tent when he completed his simple toilet, which had commenced with a plunge into a whirling pool of the snow-fed river, preparatory to his visit to the ranch. Jimmy, who had assisted in it, stood surveying him complacently.

"Now," he said, with a nod of approbation, "I guess you'll do when I've run a few stitches up the back of you. Stand quite still while I get the tent needle."

Brooke glanced at the implement he produced somewhat dubiously, for it was of considerable thickness and several inches long.

"I suppose," he said, resignedly, "you haven't got a smaller one?"

Jimmy shook his head. "I guess I wouldn't trust it if I had," he said. "I want to fix that darn up good and strong so it will do you credit. There are two women at the ranch, and it's quite likely they'll come in and talk to you."

Brooke made no further protest, but he smiled somewhat curiously as Jimmy stitched away. His work was not remarkable for neatness, and Brooke remembered that the two women at the ranch were fresh from the cities, where men do not mend their clothes with pieces of tents or cotton flour bags. Then he decided that, after all, it did not matter what they thought of him. One would probably set him down as a rude bush chopper, and the other, whose good opinion he would have valued under different circumstances, was a kinswoman of his adversary. Sooner or later she would know him for what he was, and then it was clear she would only have contempt for him. That she of all women should be Mrs. Devine's sister was, he reflected with a sense of impotent anger, one of the grim jests that Fate seemed to delight in playing.

"Now," said Jimmy, breaking off his thread at last, "I guess you might go 'most anywhere if you stand with your face to the folks who talk to you, and don't sit down too suddenly. Be cautious how you get up again if you hear those stitches tearing through."

Brooke went out, and discovered that Jimmy had, no doubt as a precautionary measure, sewn several of his garments together as he walked through the shadowy bush towards the ranch. Devine, to whom the scheme suggested had commended itself, was, as it happened, already waiting him in a big log walled room. He sat by the open window, which looked across blue lake and climbing pines towards the great white ramparts of unmelting snow that shut the valley in. The rest of the room was dim, and now the sun had gone, sweet resinous odors and an exhilarating coolness that stirred the blood like wine came in. Two women sat back in the shadow, and Devine moved a little in his chair as he answered one of them.

"I know very little about the man, but I never saw more thorough work than he has put in on the flume," he said. "That's 'most enough guarantee for him, but there are one or two points about him I can't quite worry out the meaning of. For one thing, the timber-righters haven't stopped him chopping."

Mrs. Devine looked thoughtful, for she was acquainted with the less pleasant aspect of mine-owning, but Barbara broke in.

"It is a little difficult to understand what use timber-rights would be to anybody here," she said. "They could hardly get their lumber out, and there are very few people to sell it to if they put up a mill."

"I expect they mean to sell it me," said Devine, a trifle grimly.

"But you always cut what you wanted without asking anybody."

"I did. Still, it seems scarcely likely that I'm going to do it again. If anyone has located timber-rights – which he'd get for 'most nothing on a patent from the Crown – he has never worried about them until the Canopus began to pay. Of course, one has to put in timber as he takes out the ore, and it seems to have struck somebody that the men who started it on the Canopus had burnt off all the young firs they ought to have kept. That's why he bought those timber-rights up."

"Still there are thousands of them nobody can ever use, and you must have timber," said Barbara.

"Precisely!" said Devine. "That man figures that when I get it he's going to screw a big share of the profits in this mine out of me."

A portentous sparkle crept into Barbara's eyes, while Mrs. Devine, who knew her husband best, watched him with a little smile.

"But that is infamous extortion!" said the girl.

Devine laughed. "Well," he said, "it's not going to be good business for the man who puts up the game, but I don't quite see why he didn't strike Brooke for a few dollars as well. Men of his kind are like ostriches. They take in 'most anything."

He might have said more, but Brooke appeared in the doorway just then and stood still with, so Barbara fancied, a faint trace of disconcertion when he saw the women, until Devine turned to him.

"Come right in," he said. "Barbara tells me she has met you, but you haven't seen Mrs. Devine. Mr. Brooke, who is building the new flume for me, Katty."

There was no avoiding the introduction, nor could Brooke escape with an inclination as he wished to do, for the lady held out her hand to him. She was older and more matronly than Barbara, but otherwise very like her, and she had the same gracious serenity. Still, Brooke felt his cheeks burn beneath the bronze on them as he shook hands with her. It was one thing to wrest his dollars back from Devine, but, while he cherished that purpose, quite another to be graciously welcomed to his house.

"We are very pleased to see any of Barbara's friends," she said. "You apparently hadn't an opportunity of calling upon us in Vancouver?"

Brooke glanced at Barbara, who was not exactly pleased with her sister just then, and met his gaze a trifle coldly. Still, he was sensible of a curious satisfaction, for it was evident that the girl who had been his comrade in the bush had not altogether forgotten him in the city.

"I left the day after Miss Heathcote was kind enough to give me permission," he said.

He felt that his response might have been amplified, but he was chiefly conscious of a desire to avoid any further civilities then, and because he was quite aware that Barbara was watching him quietly, it was a relief when Devine turned to him.

"We'll get down to business," he said. "You brought a plan of the dam along?"

He led the way to the little table at the window, and while Mrs. Devine went on with her sewing and Barbara took up a book again, Brooke unrolled the plan he had made with some difficulty. Then the men discussed it until Devine said, "You can start in when it pleases you, and my clerk will hand you the dollars as soon as you are through. How long do you figure it will take you?"

"Three or four months," said Brooke, and looking up saw that the girl's eyes were fixed on him. She turned them away next moment, but he felt that she had heard him and they would be companions that long.

"Well," said Devine, "it's quite likely we will be up here part, at least, of the time. Now you'll have to put on more men, and I haven't forgotten what you admitted the day I drove you in to the settlement. You'll want a good many dollars to pay them."

"If you will give me a written contract, I dare say I can borrow them from a bank agent or mortgage broker on the strength of it."

"Oh, yes," said Devine, drily. "It's quite likely you can, but he would charge you a percentage that's going to make a big hole in the profit."

"I'm afraid I haven't any other means of getting the money."

"Well," said Devine, "I rather think you have. In fact, I'll lend it you as the work goes on."

Brooke felt distinctly uncomfortable and sat silent a moment, for this was the last thing he had desired or expected.

"I have really no claim on you, sir," he said at length. "In this province payment is very seldom made until the work is done, and quite often not until a long while afterwards."

Devine smiled drily. "I guess that is my business. Now is there any special reason you shouldn't borrow those dollars from me?"

Brooke felt that there was a very good one, but it was one he could not well make plain to Devine. He was troubled by an unpleasant sense of meanness already, and felt that it would be almost insufferable to have a kindness thrust upon him by his companion. He was, though he would not look at her, also sensible that Barbara Heathcote was watching him covertly, and decided that what he and Devine had said had been perfectly audible in the silent room.

"I would, at least, prefer to grapple with the financial difficulty in my own way, sir," he said.

Devine made a little gesture of indifference. "Then, if you should want a few dollars at any time you know where to come for them. Now, I guess we're through with the business and you can talk to Mrs. Devine – who has been there – about the Old Country."

Brooke did so, and after the first few minutes, which were distinctly unpleasant to him, managed to forget the purpose which had brought him to the ranch. His hostess was quietly kind, and evidently a lady who had appreciated and was pleased to talk about what she had seen in England, which was, as it happened, a good deal. Brooke also knew how to listen, and now and then a curious little smile crept into his eyes as she dilated on scenes and functions which were very familiar to him. It was evident that she never for a moment supposed that the man who sat listening to her somewhat stiffly, from reasons connected with Jimmy's repairs to his clothes, could have taken a part in them, but he was once or twice almost embarrassed when Barbara, who seemed to take his comprehension for granted, broke in.

In the meanwhile a miner came for Devine, who went out with him, and by and by Mrs. Devine, making her household duties an excuse, also left the room. Then Barbara smiled a little as she turned to Brooke.

"I wonder," she said, quietly, "why you were so unwilling to meet my sister? There is really no reason why anybody should be afraid of her."

Brooke was glad that the dimness which was creeping across the valley had deepened the shadow in the room, for he was not anxious that the girl should see his face just then.

"You assume that I was unwilling?" he said.

"It was evident, though I am not quite sure that Mrs. Devine noticed it."

Brooke saw that an answer was expected from him. "Well," he said, "Mrs. Devine is a lady of station, and I am, you see, merely the builder of one of her husband's flumes. One naturally does not care to presume, and it takes some little time to get accustomed to the fact that these little distinctions are not remembered in this country."

Barbara laughed. "One could get accustomed to a good deal in three or four years. I scarcely think that was your reason."

"Why?" said Brooke.

"Well," said the girl, reflectively, "the fact is that we do recognize the distinctions you allude to, though not to the same extent that you do; but it takes rather longer to acquire certain mannerisms and modes of expressing oneself than it does to learn the use of the axe and drill. To be more candid, any one can put on a flume-builder's clothes."

"I fancy you are jumping at conclusions. There are hotel waiters in the Old Country who speak much better English than I do."

"It is possible. I am, however, not quite sure that they would make good flume-builders. Still, we will let that pass, as well as one or two vague admissions you have previously made me. Why wouldn't you take the dollars you needed when Mr. Devine was perfectly willing to lend them to you?"

"It really isn't usual to make a stranger an advance of that kind," said Brooke, reflectively. "Besides, I might spend the dollars recklessly, and then break away and leave the work unfinished some day. Everybody is subject to occasional fits of restlessness here."

Barbara laughed. "Pshaw!" she said. "You had a much better reason than that. Now I think we were what might be called good comrades in the bush?"

Again Brooke felt a little thrill of pleasure. The girl sat where the dim light that still came in through the open window fell upon her, and she was very alluring with the faint smile, which was, nevertheless, curiously expressive, in her eyes.

"Yes," he said, almost grimly, "I had a better reason. I cannot tell you what it was, but it may become apparent presently."

Barbara asked no more questions, and while she sat silent, Mrs. Devine came in with a little dainty silver set on a tray. Maids of any kind, and even Chinese house-boys, are scarce in that country, especially in the bush, and Brooke realized that it must have been with her own hands she had prepared the quite unusual meal. Supper is served at six or seven o'clock through most of Canada. Probably the stove was burning, and her task was but a light one, but once more Brooke was sensible of a most unpleasant embarrassment when she smiled at him.

"Barbara and I got used to taking a cup of coffee in the evening when we were in England," she said. "Talking of the Old Country reminded me of it. Will you pour it out, Barbara?"

Barbara did so, and Brooke's fingers closed more tightly than was necessary on the cup she handed to him, while the cracker he forced himself to eat came near choking him. This was absurd sentimentality, he told himself, but, for all that, he dared scarcely meet the eyes of the lady who had, he realized, prepared that meal out of compliment to him. It was a relief when it was over and he was able to take his leave, but, as it happened, he forgot the plan he had laid down, and Barbara, who noticed it, overtook him in the log-hall. Devine had not come back yet.

"We shall be here for some little time – in fact, until Mr. Devine has seen the new adit driven," she said.

Brooke understood that this was tantamount to a general invitation, and smiled, as she noticed, somewhat wryly.

"I am afraid I shall scarcely venture to come back again," he said. "Mrs. Devine is very kind, but still, you see – it really wouldn't be fitting."

Then he turned and vanished into the darkness outside, and Barbara went back to the lighted room with a curious look in her eyes.

XII.
BROOKE IS CARRIED AWAY

The flume was finished, and the dam already progressing well, when one morning Devine came out, somewhat grim in face, from the new adit he was driving at the Canopus. The captain of the mine also came with him, and stood still, evidently in a state of perplexity, when Devine looked at him.

"Well," said the latter, brusquely, "what are we going to do, Wilkins?"

The captain blinked at the forest with eyes not yet accustomed to the change of light, as though in search of inspiration, which apparently did not come.

"There's plenty timber yonder," he said.

"There is," said Devine, drily. "Still, as we can't touch a log of it, it isn't much use to us. There is no doubt about the validity of the patent that fellow holds it under either, and it covers everything right back to the cañon. He doesn't seem disposed to make any terms with me."

Wilkins appeared to reflect. "Hanging off for a bigger figure, but there are points I'm not quite clear about. Mackinder's not quite the man to play that game – I guess I know him well, and if it had been left to him, once he saw there were dollars in the thing, he'd have jumped right on to them and lit out for the cities to raise Cain with them. Now, I kind of wonder if there's a bigger man behind him."

"That's my end of the business," said Devine, with a little grim smile. "I'll take care of it. There are men in the cities who would find any dead-beat dollars if he wanted them for a fling at me. The question is – What about the mine? You feel reasonably sure we're going to strike ore that will pay for the crushing at the end of that adit?"

Wilkins glanced round at the forest, and then lowered his voice a trifle, though it was some distance off and there was nobody else about.

"We have got to, sir – and it's there if it's anywhere," he said. "You have seen the yield on the lower workings going down until it's just about worth while to keep the stamps going, and though none of the boys seem to notice anything, there are signs that are tolerably clear to me that the pay dirt's running right out. Still, I guess the chances of striking it again rich on the different level are good enough for me to put 'most every dollar I have by me in on a share of the crushings. I can't say any more than that."

"No," said Devine, drily. "Anyway, I'm going on with the adit. But about the timber?"

"Well, we will want no end of props, and that's a fact. It's quite a big contract to hold up the side of a mountain when you're working through soft stuff and crumbly rock, and the split-logs we've been worrying along with aren't going to be much use to us. We want round props, grown the size we're going to use, with the strength the tree was meant to have in them."

Devine looked thoughtful. "Then I'll have to get you them. Say nothing to the boys, and see nobody who doesn't belong to the gang you have sent there puts his foot in any part of the mine. It is, of course, specially necessary to keep the result of the crushings quiet. I'm not telling you this without a reason."

Wilkins went back into the adit, and Devine proceeded to flounder round the boundaries of the Englishman's abandoned ranch, which he had bought up for a few hundred dollars, chiefly because of the house on it. It consisted, for the most part, of a miry swamp, which the few prospectors who had once or twice spent the night with him said had broken the heart of the Englishman after a strenuous attempt to drain it, while the rest was rock outcrop, on which even the hardy conifers would not grow. Devine, who wet himself to the knees during his peregrination, had a survey plan with him, but he could see no means of extending his rights beyond the crumbling split-rail fence, and inside the latter there were no trees that appeared adapted for mining purposes. Willows straggled over the wetter places, and little, half-rotten pines stood tottering here and there in a tangled chaos a man could scarcely force his way through, but when he had wasted an hour or two, and was muddy all over, it became evident that he was scarcely likely to come upon a foot of timber that would be of any use to him. He had, of course, been told this, but he had on other occasions showed the men who pointed out insuperable difficulties to him that they were mistaken.

Devine, however, was, as that fact would indicate, not the man to be readily turned aside. He wanted mine props, and meant to obtain them, and, though his face grew a trifle grimmer, he climbed the hillside to where Brooke was busy knee-deep in water at the dam. He signed to him, and then, taking out his cigar-case, sat down on a log and looked at the younger man.

"Take one!" he said.

Brooke lighted a cigar, and sat down, with the water draining from him. "We'll have another tier of logs bolted on to the framing by to-morrow night," he said.

Devine glanced at the dam indifferently. "You take kindly to this kind of thing?" he said.

Brooke smiled a little, for he had of late been almost astonished at his growing interest in his work. Of scientific engineering he knew nothing, though he remembered that several relatives of his had made their mark at it, but every man who lives any time in the bush of the Pacific slope of necessity acquires some skill with axe and cross-cut saw, besides a working acquaintance with the principles of construction. Wooden houses, bridges, dams, must be built, and now and then a wagon road underpinned with redwood logs along the side of a precipice. He had done his share of such work, but he had, it seemed, of late become endued with a boldness of conception and clearness of insight into the best means of overcoming the difficulties to be faced, which had now and then astonished those who assisted him.

"I really think I do, though I don't know why I should," he said. "I never undertook anything of the description in England."

"Then I guess it must be in the family. Any of your folks doing well back there as mechanics?"

Brooke smiled somewhat drily. As a matter of fact, a near kinsman of his had gained distinction in the Royal Engineers, and another's name was famous in connection with irrigation works in Egypt. He did not, however, feel it in any way incumbent on him to explain this to Devine.

"I could not exactly say they are," he said. "Anyway, isn't it a little outside the question?"

"Well," said Devine, drily, "I don't quite know. What's born in a man will come out somehow, whether it's good for him or not. Now, I was thinking over another piece of work you might feel inclined to put through for me."

Brooke became suddenly intent, and Devine noticed the little gleam in his eyes as he said, "If you can give me any particulars – "

"Come along," said Devine, a trifle grimly, "and I'll show you them. Then if you still feel willing to go into the thing we can worry out my notion."

Brooke rose and followed him along the hillside, which was seamed with rock outcrop and thinly covered with brushwood, while the roar of water grew louder in his ears. When they had made a mile or so Devine stopped and looked about him.

"It wouldn't cost too much to clear a ground-sled trail from here to the mine," he said. "A team of mules could haul a good many props in over it in a day."

"But where are you going to get them from?" said Brooke.

Devine smiled curiously. "Come along a little further, and I'll show you."

Again Brooke went with him, wondering a little, for he knew that a cañon would cut off all further progress presently, until Devine stopped once more where the hillside fell sheer away beneath them.

"Now," he said, quietly, "I guess we're there. You can see plenty young firs that would make mining props yonder."

Brooke certainly could. The hillside in front of him rose, steep as a roof, to the ridge where the tufts of ragged pines were silhouetted in sombre outline against the gleaming snow behind. Streaked with drifting mist, they rolled upwards in serried ranks, and there was apparently timber enough for half the mines in the province. The difficulty, however, was the reaching it, for, between him and it, a green-stained torrent thundered through a tremendous gap, whose walls were worn smooth and polished for four hundred feet or so. Above that awful chasm rose bare and slippery slopes of rock, on which there was foothold for neither man nor beast, and only a stunted pine clung here and there in the crannies. What the total depth was he did not know, but he recoiled instinctively from the contemplation of it, and would have drawn back a yard or two only that Devine stood still, looking down into the gap with his usual grim smile.

Still, it was a minute or two before he was sensible of more than a vague awe and a physical shrinking from that tremendous display of Nature's forces, and then, by degrees, his brain commenced to record the details of the scene. He saw the snow-fed river diminished by distance to a narrow green riband swirling round the pools, and frothing with a curious livid whiteness over reef and boulder far down in the dimness. The roar it made came up in long pulsations of sound, which were flung back by the climbing pines that seemed to tremble in unison with it. The rocks were hollowed a trifle at their bases, and arched above the river. It was, as a picture, awe-inspiring and sublime, but from a practical point of view an apparently insurmountable barrier between the owner of the Canopus mine and the timber he desired. Devine, however, knew better, for he was a man who had grappled with a good many apparently insuperable difficulties, and Brooke became sensible that he expected an expression of opinion from him.

"The timber is certainly there, but I quite fail to see how it could be of the least use to anybody situated where we are," he said. "That cañon is, I should fancy, one of the deepest in the province."

Devine nodded, but the little smile was still in his eyes, and he pointed to the one where, by crawling down the gully a torrent had fretted out, an agile man might reach a jutting crag a couple of hundred feet below.

"The point is that it isn't very wide," he said. "It wouldn't take a great many fathoms of steel rope to reach across it."

Brooke realized that, because the crag projected a little, this was correct; but as yet the suggestion conveyed no particular meaning to him.

"No," he said. "Still, it isn't very evident what use that would be."

Devine laughed. "Now, if you had told me you knew anything about engineering, you would have given yourself away. Have you never heard of an aerial tramway? It's quite simple – a steel rope set up tight, a winch for hauling, and a trolley. With that working, and a skid-slide up the gully, one could send over the props we want without much difficulty. It would be cheaper than buying off the timber-righters."

Brooke gasped as the daring simplicity of the scheme dawned on him. If one had nerve enough to undertake it the thing was perfectly feasible, and he turned to Devine with a glow in his eyes.

"It could be done," he said. "Still, do you know anybody who would be willing to stretch that rope across?"

Devine looked at him steadily, noticing the slight dilation of his nostrils and the intentness of his face.

"Well," he said, drily, "I was going to ask you."

The blood surged into Brooke's forehead, and for the time he forgot his six thousand dollars and that the man who made the suggestion had plundered him of them. He had, during the course of his English education, shown signs of a certain originality and daring of thought which had slightly astonished those who taught him, and then had lounged three or four years away in the quiet valley, where originality of any kind was not looked upon with favor. The men and women he had been brought into contact with in London were also, for the most part, those who regarded everything from the accepted point of view, and his engagement to the girl his friends regarded with disapproval had, though he did not suspect this at the time, been in part, at least, a protest against the doctrine that no man of his station must do anything that was not outwardly befitting and convenient to it.