Kitabı oku: «Delilah of the Snows», sayfa 6

"Do you think she would ever be happy with you even if you found a gold mine?" she said.

"What do you mean, Hetty?" and Ingleby turned towards her suddenly with a flush in his face.

"I only want to save you trouble. Don't you think when a girl of that kind found out how much there was that she had been accustomed to think necessary and that you knew nothing about, she might remember the difference between herself and you. After all, it's not always the most important points that count with a girl, you know."

She stopped somewhat abruptly, but Ingleby made a little gesture. "I would rather you would go on and say all you mean to."

"Well," said Hetty reflectively, "if I had been rich I think I should like the man I married to do everything – even play cards and billiards and shoot pheasants – as well as my friends did. It wouldn't be nice to feel that I had to make excuses for him, and I'm not sure I wouldn't be vexed if he didn't seem to know all about the things folks of that kind get for dinner."

Ingleby's laugh was a protest, but it was only half-incredulous, for he had now and then realized with bitterness the deference paid to conventional niceties in England.

"You can't believe that would trouble any sensible woman?" he said.

"Well," answered Hetty, "perhaps it mightn't, for a little while, or if there was only one thing, you see – but if you put everything together and kept on doing what jarred on her?"

"One could get somebody to teach him."

Hetty laughed. "To be like the officer man, or Mr. Esmond of Holtcar?"

Ingleby understood the significance of the question. The little conventional customs might be acquired, but the constant jarring of opinion, and absence of comprehending sympathy or a common point of view was, he realized, quite a different thing. Still, though there was concern in his face, he had the hope of youth in him. There was silence for a moment or two, and then Hetty spoke again.

"Besides," she said, "after all, aren't gold mines a little hard to find?"

Just then Leger made his appearance, somewhat to Ingleby's relief, and ten minutes later Hetty retired to the tent while the men, rolling themselves in their blankets, lay down upon the cedar twigs beside the fire. One of them, however, did not sleep as well as usual, and Leger noticed that his sister appeared a little languid when she rose in the morning. They were weary still, and it was afternoon when they once more pushed on into the wilderness along the climbing trail that had for guide-posts empty provision cans.

IX
HETTY FINDS A WAY

The day's work was over, and once more the white mists were streaming athwart the pines when Ingleby lay somewhat moodily outside the tent that he and Leger occupied on the hillside above the Green River. Just there the stream swirled, smeared with froth and spume, through a tremendous hollow above which the mountains lifted high their crenellated ramparts of ice and never-melting snow. Still, though usually termed one, that gorge was not a cañon in the strict sense of the word, for a sturdy climber could scale one side of it through the shadow of the clinging pines, and there was room for a precarious trail, the one road to civilization, between the hillside and the thundering river.

Farther back, the valley opened out, and up and down it were scattered the Green River diggings. From its inner end an Indian trail, which as yet only one or two white men had ever trodden, led on to the still richer wilderness that stretched back to the Yukon. Above the tent stood a primitive erection of logs roofed with split cedar and hemlock bark which served at once as store and Hetty's dwelling. She was busy inside it then, for Ingleby could hear the rattle of cooking utensils and listened appreciatively, for he was as hungry as usual, although dispirited. His limbs ached from a long day's strenuous toil, and the stain of the soil was on his threadbare jean. He and Leger had spent a good many weeks now upon a placer claim, and the result of their labours was a few grains of gold.

He rose, however, when Hetty came out of the shanty and stood looking down into the misty valley. She was immaculately neat, as she generally was, even in that desolation divided by a many days' journey from the nearest dry-goods store and where the only approach to a laundry was an empty coal-oil can, and she turned to Ingleby with a little smile in her eyes. Hetty had her sorrows, and the life she led would probably have been insupportable to most women reared in an English town, but she had long been accustomed to turn a cheerful face upon a very hard world, and Ingleby, though he did not know exactly why, felt glad that she was there. There are women who produce this effect on those they live among, and they are seldom the most brilliant ones. Still, he did not speak, for Hetty Leger was not a young woman who on all occasions demanded attention.

"No sign of Tom!" she said.

"No," said Ingleby. "I only hope he brings something with him, and hasn't lost the flies again. I gave a man who went out a dollar each for them, and I couldn't get another if I offered ten. The plain hooks I got in Vancouver are no use either when there apparently isn't a worm in the country."

Hetty smiled, though there were reasons why a trout fly was worth a good deal to them, and one of them became apparent when she glanced at the empty spider laid beside the fire, which burned clear and red between two small logs laid parallel to each other and about a foot apart.

"If he doesn't you'll have to put up with bread and dried apples. The pork's done," she said.

It was, perhaps, not the kind of conversation one would have expected from a man at an impressionable age and a distinctly pretty girl, especially when they stood alone in such a scene of wild grandeur as few men's eyes have looked upon, but Hetty did not appear to consider it in any way out of place. Indeed, though there had been a time when she had accepted Ingleby's compliments with a smile and even became a trifle venturesome in her badinage, there had been a difference since they left England, and while Ingleby did not realize exactly what that difference was he felt that it was there. Hetty Leger had not enjoyed any of the training which is, usually, at least, bestowed upon young women of higher station; but she had discovered early that, as she expressed it, there is no use in crying for the moon, and she had a certain pride. It was also a wholesome one and untainted by petulance or mortified vanity.

"I don't think," she said reflectively, "I would worry too much about those flies."

"No?" said Ingleby. "Nobody could have called that pork good; but dried apples ad libitum are apt to pall on one."

Hetty shook her head. "I'm afraid they're not even going to do that," she said. "There's very few of them left in the bottom of the bag."

Just then Leger appeared, carrying a fishing-rod which Ingleby had laboriously fashioned out of a straight fir branch. He had also a string of trout, but was apparently dripping below the knees and somewhat disconsolate. The trout were dressed ready, and he laid two or three of them in the pan, and then sat down upon one of the hearth logs.

"I expect that's the last we'll get," he said.

"You haven't whipped those flies off?" said Ingleby.

Leger nodded ruefully. "I'm afraid I have," he said. "At least, I let them sink in an eddy and hooked a boulder. It comes to very much the same thing."

Hetty laughed as she saw Ingleby's face. "Perhaps I'd better go away," she said. "Aren't there times when it hurts you to be quiet?"

"There are," said Ingleby drily. "This is one of them."

"Well," said Hetty, "you can talk when you break out. I heard you one night in the car – but we'll get supper, and then if you're very good I'll show you something."

She stirred the fire, and laid out the inevitable dried apples and a loaf of bread which was not exactly of the kind somewhat aptly termed grindstone in that country. Then when the edge of their hunger was blunted she took out a very diminutive fluffy object and handed it to Ingleby.

"I wonder if the trout would be silly enough to jump at that," she said. "It's a little plumper than the other ones, but I hadn't any silk to tie it with."

Ingleby stared at the fly in blank astonishment, and then gravely passed it to Leger.

"Look at that, and be thankful you have a sister," he said.

"I am," said Leger with a little smile, though something in his voice suggested that he meant it. "But whatever did you make it out of, Hetty?"

"Strips of frayed-out cloth, the blue grouse's feathers, and the very little threads there are in a piece of cotton when you unwind it."

"The tail was never made of feathers or cotton," said Ingleby. "No more was this wing hackle. That's quite sure. Look at it, Tom. You'll notice the bright colour."

Hetty unwisely snatched at the fly, but Leger's hand closed upon it, and a moment or two later he laughed softly. "It certainly won't come out in the water, and that is presumably more than could be said of everybody's hair."

Ingleby took the fly from him, and Leger proceeded. "Now we have got over that difficulty there is another to consider."

"There generally is," said Hetty.

"This one is serious," said her brother. "One can no more live upon trout and nothing else than he can upon dried apples, and while the flour is running out we have neither dollars nor dust to buy any more with. Our friend the freighter cannot be induced to grub-stake everybody, and I'm not sure one could blame him for asking five or six times as much for his provisions as they are worth in the cities when you consider the nature of the trail. Of course, Walter and I could earn a few dollars at Tomlinson's mine."

He stopped, and looked at Ingleby, whose face grew a trifle grave.

"A placer claim," said the latter, "can only be held while you work upon it continuously."

"Exactly! Seventy-two hours after we lay down the shovel any other man who thinks it worth while can seize upon our last chance of making a fortune. I think you understand that, considering the present cost of provisions, we are scarcely likely to save as much as would keep us while we try again, out of what we make on Tomlinson's claim."

Ingleby realized this and said nothing. The giving up of his claim implied the parting with certain aspirations which had of late supported him through long days of feverish toil; but one must live, and he had discovered that to work as the free miners do in that country a somewhat ample diet is necessary. He sat near the fire, and Hetty, who saw the hardness of his face, understood it.

"You really think there is gold in the claim?" she said.

"Yes," said Ingleby. "Tomlinson and one or two of the others who have played this game half their lives admitted that the signs were as good as any they had seen. Still, I'm by no means sure we can hold out until we strike it."

Hetty smiled in a curious fashion. "Especially while you have me to keep?"

Even Leger appeared astonished, and Ingleby flushed hotly as he turned to her. "Hetty," he said sternly, "what do you mean by that?"

The girl laughed, and pointed to the loaf. "That is nice bread?"

"It is," said Ingleby. "Still, I don't see what that has to do with it."

"There's no bread like it in the Green River country," persisted Hetty. "They taught me to bake at the boarding-house. I made it."

Ingleby looked at her in astonishment. "Go on," he said. "I'll wait a little."

"Well," and though Hetty spoke quietly her voice was not quite her usual one, "what are you and Tom longing for just now more than anything?"

"The means to go on working on our claim."

"Then what would you say if I gave you them?"

Ingleby gasped. For days he had been haunted by the fear that their provisions would run out before they found the gold he believed in, for a little very simple figuring had shown that there was only a faint hope of their making more than the value of their day's labour once they relinquished the hitherto unprofitable claim. There was also, it was evident, no great probability that a mere wielder of pick and shovel would ever gain the regard of the Gold Commissioner's daughter, though Miss Coulthurst, whom he met occasionally, had of late been unusually gracious to him. He had, however, not the faintest notion of the fact that Hetty Leger read his thoughts.

"You see, it's quite simple," she said. "I made this bread, and there are men up the valley who are really finding gold. They don't want to waste a minute doing anything else, and it takes time to bake. You can't even make flapjacks in a moment. Now, if I had two or three sacks of flour I think I could get almost what I liked to ask for every loaf."

Leger looked up with a little expressive smile. "I believe she has found the way out of the difficulty."

It was, however, Ingleby at whom Hetty glanced, though it did not strike him then – as it did long afterwards – that she must have been quite aware what she was offering him.

"Well?" she said.

Ingleby's lips were set, and his face a trifle grim. To live, even for the purpose of working for a result by which she would benefit, upon the yield of a woman's enterprise and toil did not commend itself to him, though he could not very well tell her so.

"We haven't got the flour," he said.

"No," said Hetty. "Still, it can be bought at the settlement, and no doubt you could find the pack-horses in the bush. You could go down and get it while Tom holds the claim."

"There is still the difficulty that I haven't got the money."

Hetty laughed. "I have. The wages were really good at the boarding-house. Of course, you and Tom could build the oven and chop the wood, while I wouldn't mind your kneading the dough either if you wanted to. That would leave me with nothing to do but watch the bread baking."

Ingleby still said nothing; but his face, as the firelight showed, was a trifle flushed, and Leger shook his head at him. "One can't afford to be whimsical up here," he said. "Anyway, I'm willing to give the thing a trial, and if we don't strike gold we can always go over to Tomlinson's or start baking, too. I shouldn't wonder if it should turn out as profitable as mining, and it is certainly likely to be a good deal more reliable."

Hetty once more glanced at Ingleby. "Of course, we can't make you join us if you don't want."

At last Ingleby turned to her. "Hetty," he said quietly, "I don't think you could understand how much you have done for me. I would sooner cut my hand off than let the claim go."

Hetty only smiled, and they had almost thrashed out the scheme when a thud of hoofs came up faintly through the roar of the river from the gorge below. Then the figure of a horseman became visible, and when he swung himself very stiffly from the saddle in front of the fire Ingleby rose hastily and held out his hand.

"Mr. Sewell!" he said. "I don't mean it conventionally, this – is – a pleasure."

The stranger, who swept his wide hat off as he turned to Hetty, laughed. "I have just come in. I wonder if I could ask – Mrs. Ingleby, isn't it – for a little supper?"

The request was a very usual one in a country where the stranger is rarely turned away unfed; but Hetty, who seemed to draw a little farther back into the shadow, was a trifle slow in answering it.

"Miss Leger!" she said. "Of course, you shall have supper. Put on two more trout and fill the kettle, Tom."

Sewell gratefully took his place beside the fire, and, for he had an engaging tongue, had almost gained Hetty's confidence, which was not lightly given, by the time the meal was over. Then she looked hard at him.

"What did you come here for?" she asked.

"Wouldn't the fame of the Green River mines be excuse enough?" said the man.

Hetty shook her head. "No," she said, "I don't think it would. People who talk as you do aren't generally fond of digging."

"Then finding I wasn't wanted in Vancouver I went back into the States, and as usual got into a trifling difficulty there. That was in Colorado, where the men and the manager of a certain big mine couldn't come to terms. The manager was, as not infrequently happens, friendly with the constituted authorities, and between them and the men's executive, with whom I managed to quarrel, they made that town unpleasant for me. Of course, one gets accustomed to having his character pulled to pieces and being hustled in the streets, but they go rather farther than that in Colorado."

"And so you ran away?"

Sewell laughed. "I certainly went when it was evident that I could do no good. Still, it was in the daylight, and half the populace came with me to the station."

"I asked you what brought you here," said Hetty severely.

Sewell made a little expressive gesture. "Between friends – I think I can go so far?" he asked, and it was Hetty alone he looked at. "You see, I met your brother and Mr. Ingleby in Vancouver."

Hetty regarded him silently for a moment or two. He was a well-favoured man with a curiously pleasing manner. "Yes," she said. "I think you can."

"Then I came here to see what I could do at mining – I have really used the shovel oftener than you seem to fancy – and, when it is necessary, go through by the Indian trail to the camps between this country and the Yukon. Though they will probably work on quietly while the ground is soft, they're not pleased with the mining regulations yonder."

He looked out into the soft blue darkness which now veiled the great white peaks that lay between him and the vast desolation of the Northwest, and the smile died out of his eyes. A few moments slipped by before Leger broke the silence.

"I believe that trail is scarcely practicable to a white man. Only one or two have ever tried it," he said.

"That is so much the better. I am, however, certainly going in."

There was a little silence, and then Ingleby said suggestively, "They have been sending a good many of the Northwest Police into that country."

Sewell smiled. "From one point of view I think they were wise. It's not the contented that one usually finds mining in the wilderness. The soil, of course, is British, but that, after all, does not imply very much."

"You mean that the men up there have no country?" asked Leger.

"Some of them, at least, have unpleasantly good memories. They are the cast-outs and the superfluities; but, as no doubt you know, it is not their criminals the older lands get rid of now."

"That," said Hetty sharply, "is all nonsense. If they're really bad they are put into prison."

Sewell laughed. "I believe they are, now and then. Now, suppose you tell me about the Green River country."

They sat late that night about the crackling fire, though there was a vague uneasiness upon two of them. Hetty liked the stranger, as a man, but she had seen that trouble came of following out the theories he believed in; while all Ingleby wished for just then was an opportunity for toiling quietly at his claim.

Sewell naturally slept in their tent, and it was not until he had breakfasted next morning that he rode into the valley. Ingleby walked with him a short distance, and as it happened they met Grace Coulthurst on the trail. She smiled as she passed Ingleby. Sewell, his companion fancied, looked at her harder than was necessary as he sat still in the saddle, a somewhat striking figure of a man, with his wide hat in his hand.

"Who is that?" he asked.

"Miss Coulthurst, daughter of the Gold Commissioner."

"There is no reason why a prospector shouldn't look at a queen, and she has a striking face. Of course, one would hardly call it beautiful – still, it is distinctly attractive."

"You have no doubt met a good many beautiful women of her station?" asked Ingleby, who was a trifle nettled and could not quite restrain the ironical question.

Sewell laughed. "Well," he said, "I have certainly come across one or two. Besides, I had rather a fancy that I might be an artist once – a good while ago."

Ingleby was duly astonished, but no more was said on the subject, and in another few minutes Sewell rode on up the valley alone.