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CHAPTER VI
DREAM MINE

The next morning the party broke camp, and after toiling hard with pole and paddle reached, toward evening, a forest-shrouded gorge through which the flood swept furiously. A quarter of a mile ahead steep rocks pent in the raging water, which was veiled in spray; but nearer at hand the stream widened into a pool at which Andrew gazed with misgivings. Evidently Carnally meant to cross it. A wall of crag formed one bank; the opposite beach was strewn with massy boulders, over which the pine branches stretched; and in between there ran a great wedge-shaped track of foam. No canoe, Andrew thought, could live through that tumult of broken water; but it ran more slackly near the boulder bank, and a short distance higher up an angry eddy swung back, close inshore, to the head of the pool, where it joined the main downward rush. At the junction a spur of rock ran out into the wild side-swirl of the flood. Shut in as it was by dripping pines, the place had a forbidding look.

"It strikes me that the Company will find carrying up its stores and plant very costly work," Andrew remarked, as they rested in an eddy behind a stone. "I'm beginning to understand why Leonard asked for so much capital. My idea is that we'll have to do some preliminary reducing on the spot to save mineral transport."

Carnally nodded. For a novice in such matters, Allinson was showing an unusual grasp of details.

"It's a question of the quality of the ore. In the North you must have a high-grade product that can be handled at a profit in small quantities. It doesn't pay to work rock that carries a low percentage of metal."

"What grade of stuff are we turning out? I've been unable to learn anything about it since I saw the results of the first assays."

"So far, the Company has not got up much ore: the boys have been kept busy at development work. But you'll be able to judge for yourself shortly, and we had better get on. There's a slack along the edge of the spur at the head of the pool which we ought to make, and it will save us some trouble in portaging. I'll land you if you'd rather, but I want a hand, and Lucien must give us a lift by tracking."

"If you can take the canoe up, I'll go with you," said Andrew quietly.

They headed for the boulder beach, where they landed the half-breed. He made a line fast to the craft and went up-stream with the end of it, while Carnally thrust the canoe out and, with Andrew's help, forced her up against the current, aided by the line. It was arduous work. The foam stood high about the bows; eddies swirling up from the rough bottom swung them to and fro and, although they strained every muscle, now and then brought them to a standstill. Angry waves broke on board freely, and Andrew realized that if Lucien lost his footing or slackened his efforts the line would be torn from him and they would be swept back to the tail of the pool. This, however, would be better than being sucked into the cataract close outshore, which would no doubt result in the canoe's capsizing. At last they reached a spot where they must stem the main rush, which swung in nearer the bank.

"Can we get through there?" Andrew asked breathlessly.

"I'll try," said Carnally. "If we fail, I guess you'll have to swim."

Andrew said nothing, but the swollen veins rose on his forehead as he strained upon his pole. Frothing water broke into the canoe; Lucien was knee-deep in the foam, braced tensely against the drag of the line. Spray lashed their hot faces, and the air was filled with the roar of the torrent. For nearly a minute they hung stationary, their strength taxed to the utmost, the pole-shoes gripping the bottom. Then they moved a foot or two, and the work was a little easier when they next dipped the poles. They made a few yards. With a cry to the half-breed, Carnally loosed the line, and they shot forward up-stream with a back-eddy. It swirled about them in curious green upheavals, streaked with lines of foam, and they sped with it past boulder and shingle at a furious pace. This was exhilarating; but when steep rocks dropped to the water Andrew glanced anxiously toward the white confusion where the eddy reunited with the downward stream. Its descent was not to be thought of, but he could see no alternative except being dashed against the crag.

Carnally, however, did not seem disturbed. He knelt in the stern, his eyes fixed ahead, quietly dipping the steering paddle, for they had laid down the poles.

"Use all your strength when I give the word," he said.

They slid on, a tall, projecting spur of rock drawing nearer, with furious waves leaping down-stream a yard or two outshore of it. It seemed to Andrew that destruction surely awaited them. The turmoil grew closer, the rock was only a yard or two away; in another few moments the bow of the canoe would plunge into the tumbling foam. Then came a cry from Carnally:

"Now, with your right! Shoot her in!"

Andrew felt the stout paddle bend and afterward thought he had never made a stronger effort. The bow swung inshore, the rock unexpectedly fell back, and as they drove past its end a narrow basin opened up. The next moment they had entered it and, gliding forward, grounded on a gravelly bank. A man scrambled down a ledge and helped them to drag out the canoe.

"I've been watching you; didn't think you would make it," he said. "The stream's stronger than usual. Come along to my camp; I'll put you up to-night."

"Thanks," responded Carnally. "This is Mr. Allinson, of the Rain Bluff Mine." He turned to Andrew. "Mr. Graham, from the Landing."

Andrew saw that the man was studying him with quiet interest. Graham was elderly; his hair was gray, and his face and general appearance indicated that he led a comfortable, domestic life. Andrew supposed he was in business, but when they reached his camp he recognized that it had been laid out by a man with some knowledge of the wilds.

Graham gave them a supper of gray trout and bannocks and they afterward sat talking while the half-breed went fishing. The rain had ceased, though the mist still drifted heavily down the gorge, and the aromatic smell of wood-smoke mingled with the scent of the pines. Somewhere in the shadows a loon was calling, its wild cry piercing through the roar of water.

"A rugged and beautiful country," Graham remarked. "Is this your first visit to it, Mr. Allinson?"

"No," Andrew replied. "I was once some distance north, looking for caribou. I'm glad of an opportunity for seeing it again. It gets hold of one."

"So you know that; you have felt the pull of the lonely North! Curious how it draws some of us, isn't it?"

"Have you been up there?"

"Oh, yes; as a young man I served the Hudson Bay. I've been through most of the barrens between Churchill and the Mackenzie. Perhaps that's the grimmest, hardest country white men ever entered; but it's one you can't forget."

"It's undoubtedly hard," said Andrew. "We scarcely reached the fringe of it, but I was dressed in rags and worn very thin when we struck Lake Manitoba. I suppose you live at the Landing now?"

"I've been there twenty years; built my house myself when there was only a shack or two and a Hudson Bay store. The railroad has changed all that."

"Mr. Graham is treasurer for the sawmill," Carnally explained.

"Didn't you find it tamer than serving the fur company?" Andrew asked.

A curious smile crept into Graham's eyes.

"One can't have everything, Mr. Allinson. I've been content, a willing slave of the desk, only seeing the wilds for a week or two in summer. But I've thought I might make another trip before I get too old."

"I think I understand," Andrew replied; "if I've a chance, I'm going before I return home. There's so much up yonder that impresses me – the caribou, the timber wolves, the lake storms, and the break up of the rivers in the spring. What a tremendous spectacle the last must be! – six-foot ice, piled up in wild confusion, thundering down the valleys. I've only followed the track of it in summer, but I've seen the wreckage of rubbed-out buttes and islands, and boulders smashed to rubble."

"It is grand," said Graham quietly.

"I wonder if you'd mind telling Mr. Allinson about the silver lode you found?" Carnally suggested. "I guess he'd be interested."

Graham needed some persuasion before he began his tale.

"It happened a long time ago and I seldom mention it now; in fact, I'll confess that the lode is looked upon as a harmless illusion of mine. My friends call it my Dream Mine. When I was a young man I was stationed at a Hudson Bay factory about four hundred miles north of here and was despatched with two half-breeds and a canoe to carry stores to a band of Indians. No doubt you know that the great Company held sovereign authority over the North for a very long time and the Indians depended on it for their maintenance. Well, we set off with the canoe, paddling and portaging up rivers and across the height of land, toward the south."

"Then you were working across country toward the headwaters of this river," Andrew remarked.

"We didn't get so far, but I did my errand, and one day when crossing a divide we nooned beside a little creek. As I filled the kettle I noticed something peculiar about the pebbles and picked up a few. They were unusually heavy and dully lustrous, which made me curious. Following the creek back, I found a vein of the same material among the rocks. I filled a small bag with specimens and took the bearings of the spot, though we had to get on without loss of time because the rivers would soon be freezing up. On reaching the fort I showed the agent the specimens. I can remember his look of disgust. He was a grim old Scot.

"Just pebbles; I'm no saying but they might be pretty,' he remarked, and opening the door threw them out. 'Ye'll think nae mair o' them. The Company's no collecting precious stones, and ye should ken a souter's expected to stick till his last.'"

"I wonder," said Andrew, "which of you hailed from the Border."

"Both," laughed Graham. "He was a Hawick terry; I was born between Selkirk and Ettrick shaws. The official language of the Company was Caledonian; but that's beside the point. I was young enough to feel hurt; though I knew my man and how staunch he was to the Company's traditional policy."

"What was that policy?"

"The North for the Hudson Bay. As you know, in Canada all minerals belong to the Crown. The first discoverer can claim the right to work them, so long as he complies with the regulations."

"I see," said Andrew. "Prospectors might scare away animals with skins worth a good deal of silver. But I didn't mean to interrupt you."

"A day or two later I thought I would look for the stones, but there had been a heavy fall of snow and I found only a few of them. I never got the rest, because I was away when the thaw came. About a year later I was sent back with the same companions to the band of Indians. It was winter, they were starving, and the agent recognized their claim. There was no oppression of native races in the Hudson Bay domains; not a yard of the Indians' land was taken from them, and drink could not be bought at the factories. The Company offered them a higher standard of comfort if they would work for it, but there was no compulsion. If they found English guns and stores and blankets better than the articles they had used, the agents were there to trade."

Graham paused with a smile.

"I'm discursive, Mr. Allinson, but I've a grievance against the Hudson Bay, and I want to be fair."

"I'm interested," Andrew declared. "It's a clean record for a commercial monopoly, considering how cocoa, rubber, and one or two other things, are often procured."

"We reached the Indian camp, handed over the supplies, and started back, with rations carefully weighed out to see us through. In winter starvation stalks one closely across the northern wilds. Now I had meant to visit the creek where I'd found the stones, but there was the difficulty that, as the Indians had changed their location, it would mean a longer trip. I couldn't rob the starving trappers of anything that had been sent them, and I must make our provisions cover an extra three or four days. There was a danger in this, because an unexpected delay might be fatal, and the dogs were already in poor condition. I faced the risk. We set off, the sledge running heavily over soft snow, and we reached the neighborhood of the creek in a raging blizzard, and camped for twenty-four hours. I could not find the creek, it was impossible to wait, and we went on through the bitterest weather I have known. Gales and snowstorms dogged our steps all the way to the fort and we reached it, starving, four days late. One of the half-breeds had a badly frozen foot and I'll carry a memento of that march for the rest of my life."

Graham held up his left hand, which was short of two fingers.

"The result of a small ax cut and putting on a damp mitten, when we were near the creek."

"That put an end to your prospecting?"

"It did. I think the agent suspected me, for he took care that I was not sent south again, and during the next year I left the Company's service. I kept the stones and after some time took them to an American assayer. He found them rich in lead and silver, which are often combined, and his estimate of the value of the matrix rock startled me. It was beyond anything I had imagined."

"Then there's a fortune awaiting exploitation beside that creek," exclaimed Andrew. "Did you do nothing about it?"

Graham smiled at him.

"I was married then, Mr. Allinson; a clerk in a small sawmill. What could I do? Stories of such strikes in the wilderness are common, and I had nothing but two or three bits of stone to show a capitalist. The country's difficult to traverse; it would have needed a well-equipped party to carry up stores and haul a canoe over the divides. In winter, provisions and sledge dogs could be obtained only from the Hudson Bay agents. The Company had to be reckoned with, and it was too strong for me."

"They couldn't have forbidden you to prospect in their territory."

"Oh, no; after all, it belongs to Canada. But their agents could refuse me the assistance and supplies I couldn't do without. It was impossible to hire an Indian guide or packer without their consent. If I'd been able to raise a thousand dollars, I might have beaten them; but that was out of the question."

"You tried, I've no doubt?"

"I spent a year's savings on a visit to Montreal and made the round of the banks and financiers' offices. Here and there a man listened with some interest, but nobody would venture five dollars on the project."

"And then?" said Andrew.

"I gave up all idea of developing the mine. I had two children to bring up; my salary was small. From the beginning, my wife made light of my discovery – I dare say she feared I might go back to the North – the children as they grew up took her view, and my silver mine became a joke among us. For twenty years I've led a happy, domestic life; but I've never forgotten the lode and I've thought of it often the last year or two. My girl is teaching, the boy has got a post, and I have a few dollars accumulating in the bank."

Graham, breaking off, filled his pipe and laughed softly before he went on.

"That's my story, Mr. Allinson; but perhaps it isn't finished yet. I may take the trail again some day, but it will have to be soon. The North is a hard country, and I'm getting old."

Andrew was moved. Loving adventure as he did, he could imagine what Graham's self-denial had cost him while he had cheerfully carried out his duty to his family.

"Prospecting would no doubt be easier now?" he suggested.

"Much easier," said Graham. "The railroad has opened up the country, and the Company finds miners very good customers. Only, when you get back a short distance from the track, the North is still unsubdued. To grapple with its snow and ice, its rapids and muskegs, is mighty tough work."

They talked about other matters, until the chilly mist, gathering thicker round the camp, drove them into the tent.

CHAPTER VII
THE AMATEUR MINER

It was afternoon, and hot sunshine poured down into the little valley. Andrew stood at the foot of a low range, looking about with keen interest. The strip of level ground between rock and river was strewn with small fir stumps, among which lay half-burned logs and branches. On the edge of the clearing stood two log shacks and a smith's shop, with an unsightly heap of empty cans, broken boots and discarded clothing in front of them. A bank of shattered stone stretched toward the stream, and on a scarped slope of the hillside where the rocks shone a warm pink there was a black hole. A stream of water flowing out of it ran down a trench. This was the Rain Bluff Mine. Andrew felt disappointed. There was not much to show for the capital that had been subscribed. He supposed, however, that the pieces of machinery which lay in disorder about the waterside were expensive, and he meant to ascertain their cost.

"Why don't they get those things fitted up and working?" he asked Carnally, who stood near him.

"They're not complete. We're waiting until the Mappin people bring the rest of them."

Andrew pointed to several stacks of small logs.

"I suppose those are props? You seem to use a good many. Do you cut them on the spot?"

"The Mappin boys do. The Company pays for them by the foot."

"It strikes me that Mappin's doing a good deal of the Company's work. However, it looks as if we meant to dig the ore out."

Carnally saw impatience and suspicion in his face.

"I'm asking a good many questions, Jake," Andrew went on: "but I'm in the unfortunate position of having to look after matters I know nothing about. That's a rather remarkable qualification for a director."

"It isn't altogether unusual," Carnally replied. "I could point out one or two men who couldn't tell a pump from a rock drill, and control mining concerns."

"It sounds surprising. How's it done?"

"By hiring subordinates with brains and keeping a careful eye on them."

"I'm serious, Jake. The Company pays my expenses and two hundred dollars a month while I'm in Canada. It's the shareholders' money; I feel that I ought to earn it."

"You may have trouble."

"That won't matter. I've had only a few words with the mine boss, Watson. What kind of man is he?"

"He's straight; a smart manager underground, good at timbering and getting ore out; but that's as far as he goes."

"Well, we'll look at the workings."

As they approached the adit Watson came to meet them. He was a short, wiry man, clad in wet, soil-stained overalls. Andrew indicated the drainage trench.

"There seems to be a good deal of water in the mine."

"That's so," said Watson. "We want to get rid of it. I've several boys in the sump, baling it up with coal-oil cans."

"You mean the five-gallon drums you get your kerosene in?" Andrew asked in surprise. "Why don't you order a pump?"

"We've got half of one and the engine's fixed. Guess we'll get the rest when Mappin's ready."

"I'll send down word about it to the Landing."

"You needn't. One of the river bosses is up here; he's getting his dinner now."

"But dinner has been finished some time."

"That don't count. We had pork to-day and the Mappin man figured he'd like trout, so I had to tell Yan Li to cook him some. If you want your plant brought up, you have to be civil to the transport people."

The color swept into Andrew's face.

"Bring the fellow here!"

Watson grinned and called to a miner at work on the dump. The miner disappeared and presently came back with a man.

"You sent for me, Mr. Allinson?" he said, as if he resented it.

"I did," answered Andrew curtly. "You have a pump of ours which has been in your hands some time. I want it delivered here immediately."

The man looked surprised at his tone.

"We'll do what we can, but most of the boys are busy on the road."

"Then you had better send them back to the canoes. Our supplies must not be stopped."

"It's awkward," said the other. "You don't quite understand yet how things are run here, Mr. Allinson. You want to give and take."

"I expect to understand them better soon," Andrew dryly rejoined. "What we want at present is the pump, and if it isn't here by next week I'll charge your employer with the extra expense we're being put to."

"The office wouldn't allow your claim."

"I won't make one," said Andrew. "I'll knock it off your bill. No accounts will be paid without my sanction."

"Oh, well," said the other, "since you make a point of it, I'll get down the river right away and see where that pump is."

He left them, and Watson looked at Carnally as they entered the mine.

"And I thought he was an English sucker!" he remarked.

"You were wrong," said Carnally. "You'll know Mr. Allinson better in a little while."

Seeing that Andrew was waiting, Watson gave him a small flat lamp to hook in his hat, and they went down a narrow gallery. By the uncertain smoky light Andrew could see that it was strongly timbered: stout props were ranged along its sides, and beams, some cracked and sagging, spanned the roof between. The floor was wet and strewn with large fragments, which seemed to have fallen lately. Watson explained that they were working through treacherous rocks. Presently they stopped at the top of a dark hole, where a man was busy at a primitive windlass.

"Lode dips sharply here," Watson explained. "We had to go down a bit, but we'll push on this heading. Pay dirt's badly broken up, but we'll fix things different when we strike it fair. It's pretty wet in the lower level; do you feel like going down?"

Andrew put on the waterproof jacket that had been given him, and looked at the pit. A rough ladder ran down its side, but the man at the windlass turned to him as he emptied a big can into the drainage trench.

"The rope's quicker and quite as safe," he said. "One of the Mappin boys made that ladder and fixed it wrong. Catch hold here and get a turn round your foot; you don't want to go through the bottom of the can."

Andrew having done as he was directed, the man called a warning to somebody beneath and then let him go. When he had descended a short distance, the rope was checked, and a man seizing it swung him across a murky pool, in which the reflection of faint lights quivered; then springing down, he found himself in a short gallery. A smoky lamp burned here and there among the timbering, and shadowy figures were busy in recesses with hammer and drill. The floor was strewn with broken rock, damming back the stream that ran along it, and water freely trickled in. Near at hand three or four men were building up a square pillar of timber and rock toward the roof. They wore no clothing above the waist, and the drips from the stone splashed on their wet skin. Watson spoke to one of them before he turned to Andrew.

"Ore's pretty good, here," he said. "We had to make a show for the people in Montreal to do some figuring on – that is why I cut so much stuff without leaving more support, though I didn't know the roof was quite so bad. We'll have her shored up in a day or two, but the worst trouble's the water."

Andrew asked him a few questions, and presently went back to the surface, where he sat down in the sunshine and lighted his pipe. A good deal of capital had already been expended, and the result looked discouragingly small. The Company owned a short tunnel, driven into what was evidently inferior ore, and another at the bottom of a pit, which might be choked up by a fall of roof and was threatened with inundation. Still, Andrew supposed that success depended upon the quality of the main body of the ore, which they had hardly reached as yet. When he had finished his pipe, he joined Carnally, who was busy among the machinery by the river.

"Jake," he said, "I want you to go to the Landing and see that the Mappin people send up the plant Watson expects as soon as it's off the cars. I shall stay here a while and try to learn something about my business."

"Well," drawled Carnally with signs of amusement, "there is a good deal to learn."

He set off early the next morning, and Andrew, putting on a suit of overalls, went down into the mine and insisted on being given practical instruction in the use of the drill. It was a painful process: he was forced to kneel on sharp stones and sometimes in water while he held the steel bar, which jarred his hands when his companion struck it. Nor did he find the work easier when he came to strike, standing in a cramped position without room to swing the hammer, his eyes fixed upon the end of the drill, which must be squarely hit. To miss might result in the other man's knuckles being smashed. The inch of metal which glimmered in the lamplight formed a perplexing mark. Andrew had an accurate eye, however, and did not often miss; and he forgave his instructor for hitting him on the wrist, though this necessitated its being bound up for several days. He learned the quick twist of the drill which brings the cutting edge to bear, and how to wedge up the roof by setting a prop, sawed a little too long for the position, slantwise beneath a beam and hammering it straight; and then he turned his attention to more advanced subjects.

"Watson," he commented one morning, "this mine strikes me as being badly arranged. The best ore's on the lower level, the lode dips, and having the shaft underground must give you extra trouble in getting the stone and water out."

"It does," Watson assented. "You want to remember that we took over Rain Bluff after work had been begun, and the fellows who locate these bush mines often don't know much about their job. If they think the ore's there, they start to get it out the best way they can. I've seen that we'll have to drive a lower adit right in from outside sooner or later, but I'm shy of the expense."

"It seems to me that the money will be profitably spent," Andrew said when they had discussed it for a while. "You'll get it back by saving labor and pumping, while the extra cost you're put to now would probably increase. You'd better start the work at once; I'll be responsible."

Watson was beginning to understand that the resident director possessed abilities which he had by no means suspected at first. He did as he was told, and for the next few weeks Andrew was pleasantly occupied. He learned to nip detonators on to fuses, and how a stick of giant-powder should be inserted into a firing hole. He studied the lines of cleavage in the rock, calculated the cost in labor and explosives of the stone brought down, and found it all interesting. As a matter of fact, it was the first time he had seriously interested himself in anything except sport, and there was encouragement in feeling that he possessed some useful powers. Watson spoke to him as to one who could understand; the miners did not seem to notice his clumsiness. He had expected some banter from them, but none was offered, and he remembered that it was Leonard and his relatives who had shown an amused disbelief in his capabilities.

One day he descended to the lower level, where the men were having trouble in the manager's absence. A number of lamps were burning and the place looked wetter than usual in the unsteady light. Water trickled down the end wall, the rows of props were dripping, and the half-naked men splashed through pools when they moved to and fro. They were feverishly busy: one group building a massive pillar, others putting up fresh props; only two or three were breaking out ore at the working face. Then Carnally came toward him, and his wet face showed tense and anxious in the light of Andrew's lamp.

"The blamed roof's very shaky," he said. "We've had two ugly cave-ins. I wish Watson was back. And I'm getting scared about the water; expect we're tapping a tank-pot in the hill, but there's nothing to help us in locating it. You might give the boys a hand with the pillar."

Andrew stripped to shirt and overall trousers, and hurried toward the spot. He saw that the men needed help, for the cracked roof was bulging downward ominously and there were several heaps of freshly fallen stones. They were constructing a square frame of logs, crossed at the ends, and filling it in with broken rock as fast as they could; but there remained a wide gap between its top and the roof it was meant to support. For an hour he worked savagely, wet with falling water and dripping with perspiration, passing up heavy beams and stones to the men who laid them in place. He grew breathless and tore his hand, but the flakes of rock which fell at intervals urged him on. Once or twice there was a crash farther down the tunnel and he saw shadowy figures scatter and others run in with props, but for the most part he fixed his attention on his task, because it looked as if they had no time to lose. When a gush of water flowing down the heading splashed about his boots, he called Carnally.

"Is this tunnel going to cave in?" he asked.

"That's more than I can tell," Carnally replied. "We may be able to shore her up, but if it's not done soon, the chances of her crushing in are steep."

"I see," said Andrew, and turned to his companions. "Boys, I'll stand for a ten-dollar bonus if this job's finished in half an hour."

One of them laughed, but there was no other response and they did not seem to increase their exertions much. This suggested that they had been doing their utmost already, with a clear recognition of the risk they ran. Their pay was good, but something besides their interest urged them to keep the mine open. These were men who would not easily be beaten by inpouring water or crushing rock: they had braced themselves for a grapple with their treacherous natural foes.

Andrew, however, was feeling the strain. His injured hand was painful, the stones he had to lift were heavy, his arms and back ached; but he meant to hold out, for the gap between roof and pillar was getting narrow. He had raised a ponderous piece of rock and was holding it up to a man who reached for it when there was a smashing sound above and a dark mass rushed past him. The tunnel echoed with a crash, and Andrew received a violent blow on his head. The pain of it turned him dizzy, but he heard a clamor of voices and harsh warning cries. They were followed by a smashing of timber; he saw two or three props crush in; and then half the lights went out and he felt the water washing past his boots.