Kitabı oku: «For the Allinson Honor», sayfa 9

"Geraldine," he said, "I have something to tell you."

She looked up quickly; somewhat frightened, he thought, and he was not displeased.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "Is it necessary?"

"I think so; you shall judge. For a long while I've been very fond of you."

His ardent glance repelled her. She resented it and this gave her courage.

"I wonder what you mean by that?" she asked coldly.

The man failed to understand her. Love was not a complex thing to him.

"It ought to be pretty simple. You're the girl I mean to marry; I set my heart on it some time ago."

"Mean to marry? You're not diffident."

Mappin laughed and his amusement filled her with repulsion. She was not encouraging, he thought; but he had not expected her to be so.

"No," he replied, "I'm not. Bashfulness doesn't pay, and I haven't had time to study saying pretty things. I want you – there it is."

"It's a pity you didn't tell me this earlier. It might have saved you some disappointment," said Geraldine.

She was angry and alarmed, but keenly interested. She had not expected that her first offer would take this abrupt form; but there was no doubting the strong primitive passion in the man. It was a force to be reckoned with; one could not treat it with indifference. He looked big and clumsy as he stood with his eyes fixed on her, but his face and pose suggested power.

"Well," he explained, "there was a reason. I was pretty low down in the world; I hadn't much to offer, and I wouldn't have you think I wanted you for your money. Now I've got on; I begin to see how I'm going to make a big success. There's no longer anything to stop my claiming you."

This sounded sincere, but it was unthinkable that she should feel any tenderness for the man, and he must be made to understand.

"Mr. Mappin," she began; but he checked her.

"Let me get through. You shall have all you want: a house in Montreal or Toronto, as you like, smart friends and position – guess if I set my mind on it I can get them. In fact, you shall have what you wish – you'll only need to ask for it. I want my wife to take a leading place, and I'll see she gets there."

"I'm sorry, but it's impossible for me to marry you," said Geraldine firmly.

Mappin regarded her with a grim smile.

"You look as if you meant it."

"I do." Geraldine tried hard to preserve her calm. "Please understand that my mind is made up."

"Oh," he replied tolerantly, "I didn't expect to get you first try. Guess I'll have to wait until you get used to the idea."

"I shall never get used to it!"

He had held himself in hand, but as he heard the decision in her tone his passion mastered him.

"Never is a mighty long time; you have got to yield sooner or later. I can make you!"

Geraldine rose with all the dignity she could assume; but he moved between her and the door.

"Wait a bit," he said with a harsh laugh. "Now, what's the matter with me?"

"I think I need only say that you're very far from being the kind of man I could marry. Let me pass!"

Mappin barred her way.

"Well," he said, "I know my value. I'll stand comparison with that finicking Englishman!"

Her blush told that this shot had reached the mark and he turned on her with fury.

"You'll never get him! Count on that; I'll break the fellow!"

Geraldine recoiled. She thought that he meant to seize her; he was capable of it. Indeed, he moved a pace or two, but this gave her an opportunity for reaching the door. There she turned and saw that he was watching her with a curious grim smile.

"The subject is closed," she said. "You have behaved hatefully!"

Escaping into the hall, she sought her room and shut herself in. She felt humiliated, and, although there had once or twice been something ludicrous in the situation, the man's overbearing boldness had strongly impressed her. She was afraid of him; he would not readily be beaten.

Mappin left the house without speaking to Frobisher and returned to the Landing. The next day he sent for the packer who was to lead the party taking up Andrew's supplies. The fellow was some time in coming and Mappin waited for him in a threatening mood. Geraldine's blush had filled him with jealous hatred. Allinson was a dangerous rival. Let him beware!

"You know the Whitefish Creek," he said to the man he had summoned. "What lies between the forks?"

"A piece of high and very rough country; muskegs full of little pines mussed up with blown trees in the hollows."

"Well," said Mappin, "you'll cache the supplies for Allinson where I've put the cross on this map. Think you've got it right?"

"Yes," answered the packer. "It must be near the tall butte, a piece up the creek. That's a pretty good mark."

"Then there's the other lot of supplies. You can see the place for them on the height of land, south of the Whitefish."

The man glanced at the map and nodded.

"We'll dump those first. Everything's ready. We'll pull out as soon as I can get the boys together."

He left the room and Mappin lighted a cigar. He felt somewhat nervous, as if he had undergone a strain.

"If Allinson gets through, I'll allow he's the better man," he mused.

CHAPTER XV
THE SILVER LODE

A half-breed stood on the river bank beside his dog-team while Andrew handed Carnally the packs from the sled. It was late in the afternoon, the valley was swept by driving snow, and the men's hands were so numbed that they found it difficult to strap on their heavy loads. The ice was several feet in thickness on the deeper pools, but the stream ran strong along the opposite shore, and its frozen surface was rough, and broken in places by pools of inky water.

"It would save some trouble if we made our caches among these boulders," Graham suggested.

"That's so," agreed Carnally. "Still I guess it would be safer on the other side, where we'll strike it sooner coming back. It's wise to take no chances in this country."

They were loaded at last, and the gorge looked very desolate when the half-breed vanished with his dogs beyond the summit of the bank. He was not a man of much conversational powers, but they had found his company pleasant in the grim solitudes. Andrew had hired him at an outlying Hudson Bay factory, where he had had no trouble in obtaining food. The fur trade was languishing thereabout, and prospectors for timber and minerals were made welcome. The Scot in charge of the lonely post had, however, no dogs for sale, though he engaged to transport a limited quantity of provisions to a point which one of the company's half-breeds, despatched on another errand, would pass with his team.

Andrew considered Carnally's caution well justified. Their supply of food was scanty, and the journey attended by risks enough; but he could sympathize with Graham. It was snowing hard, the wind was rising, and there was no sign of a camping-place in all the desolation. They had gone a long way since sunrise, and were too tired to think of lengthening the journey by looking for a better place to cross the river. They went forward, carefully avoiding the hummocks, and winding around the larger cracks. Andrew was too occupied in picking his way to notice that Graham had fallen some distance behind; but when he had skirted a tall hummock, a sharp cry reached him, and he stopped in alarm. He could see nothing except a stretch of rugged ice and a high white bank fading into the driving snow. Their companion had disappeared.

"Guess he was straight behind us!" cried Carnally, as they turned back, running.

Andrew fell over a block of ice, but he was up in a moment, for the cry came again, and when they had passed a black pool he saw what seemed to be the head and shoulders of a man projecting from a fissure. He sprang across a dangerous crack and as he ran he saw Graham's face turned toward him, with a strained, tense look. Carnally was a pace or two in front and had seized Graham's arm when Andrew came up and grasped his collar. They dragged him out of the crevice and set him, gasping breathlessly, on the ice, with the water running from one of his moccasins.

"You were only just in time," he said after a moment or two. "There was snow across the crack and it broke under me. Couldn't crawl out, with my pack dragging me down."

"It's blamed unfortunate you got your moccasin wet," Carnally remarked. "It ought to come off right away, but we haven't another. Think the water has got through?"

"I'm afraid it has; the back seam opened up a bit yesterday. But my feet are so cold I can hardly feel."

"If Mappin hadn't played that trick on us, you'd have a sound dry pair to put on. But you want to keep moving, and it's getting dark."

They crossed the ice without further misadventure, toiled up a steep bank where short brush that impeded them badly rose out of the snow, and an hour afterward found a hollow among the rocks sheltered by a few junipers and tottering firs. Carnally loosed the load from his aching shoulders and threw it down with relief.

"It's that hog Mappin's fault we're packing a pile of unnecessary weight along," he said. "I'm looking forward to a talk with him when I get back."

He set to work, hacking rotten branches from a leaning fir, while Andrew scraped away the snow and built a wall of it between them and the wind. Graham lighted a fire, filled the kettle with snow, and spread branches and twigs to lay their blankets on. It took time, and Andrew knew of no labor so irksome as making camp after an exhausting march; but no pains could be spared if they wished to sleep without freezing. At last they gathered about a crackling fire which threw an uncertain light upon their faces, and Carnally cooked a frugal supper.

"I guess we could eat more, but it wouldn't be prudent," he said as he shared out the food. "Your lode's about a hundred miles off yet, isn't it, Graham?"

"Yes, as near as I can calculate."

"Call it six days; a fortnight anyhow before we get back here, and that won't allow much time for thawing out and shot-firing. Then we'll have to reach our first cache before the grub runs out. It's going to be a blamed tight fit."

Andrew consumed his portion and glanced regretfully at the empty frying-pan. Then, for fatigue had soured his temper, he broke out:

"I'd like to have the brute who cut our rations short up here to-night! Blast his greed! It's an infamous thing that a man should make money by starving his fellow creatures!"

"They seem to consider it legitimate in the cities," said Graham dryly. "We have mergers controlling almost everything we eat and drink, and men get rich by bull deals in the wheat pits. However, your sentiments are not exactly new. What do you think, Jake? I haven't heard you on politics."

Carnally grinned.

"As it looks as if I'm going to be hungry, I'm a hard-shelled grit – something like your Radicals," he explained to Andrew. "But if I thought we could get a good one, I'd prefer being governed by an emperor. So far as my experience goes, one live man can run things much better than a crowd, and it's a poor mine or railroad boss who can't beat a board of directors."

"That's so," Graham assented. "They're most capable when they let one of them drive the lot. But there's the trouble that you might get the wrong kind of emperor. It's hard to tell a good man until he gets to work."

"Sure!" agreed Carnally. "If you're not pleased with the Laurier gang, you can fire them out, and then you might not find the other crowd much better. But if a bad emperor meant to stay with it, you'd have to use dynamite."

The others laughed, but Andrew, awkwardly filling his pipe with numbed fingers, looked serious. There was a truth in his companion's remarks that touched him personally. It was undoubtedly difficult to get rid of an able man entrusted with power which he abused. To attack him might imply the break-up of the organization which had appointed him; one might have to use destructive methods, and Andrew wished to build up the Rain Bluff Company, not pull it down. For all that, Leonard must be stripped of the authority he had wrongly used, though the task would be extremely troublesome. With one or two unimportant exceptions, he enjoyed the confidence of the Allinson family, as well as the support of the directors; and Andrew knew what his relatives thought of him. In the first place, however, he must find the lode, and he was glad to think it lay within a week's march from camp.

"Have you got that wet moccasin off yet?" Carnally asked Graham.

Graham confessed that he had been too tired and hungry to remember it, and after drawing it off with some trouble he spent a while in chafing his foot, which he afterward wrapped in a blanket. Then while the men sat silent a long howl came faintly down the bitter breeze.

"A timber wolf," said Carnally. "I saw some tracks this morning and the half-breed told me they'd had a number of the big gray fellows near the factory. They get pretty bold when there's no caribou about, and it's unlucky we haven't struck any caribou. It would help out the grub."

"Three men with a camp-fire going are safe enough," said Graham.

"Oh, yes," Carnally assented. "Still, a timber wolf is a beast I've no kind of use for in winter."

They lay down soon afterward, but Andrew heard the wolves again before he went to sleep. He was very cold when he awakened the next morning and found Carnally busy about the fire. There was no wind, the smoke went straight up, and the snow stretched back from the camp, glistening a faint silvery gray. The firs were very black but indistinct in the growing light.

"Get a move on; we should have been off long ago," Carnally said; and Andrew, rising with cramped limbs and sore shoulders, awkwardly set about rolling up his pack.

He shivered as he did so. The cold bit through him, his mittened hands would hardly bend, but he strapped up his bundle and helped Graham to put on his frozen moccasin. They were careful to hang up their footwear in a warm place at night, but the fire had sunk while they slept. Then they ate a hurried meal and struck out into the white wilderness as the light grew stronger. They made, by estimation, eighteen miles by nightfall, finding a creek and one or two small lakes over which traveling was easy, but most of the way led across hillocks of rounded rock and through tangles of tottering pines, where snow-shoes could not be used. Some of the trees had been partly burned, and others were slanted and distorted by the savage winds.

Toward the end of the march Graham dragged behind, and when they made camp he spent some time rubbing his foot.

"It feels dead," he told them. "I'm afraid I got it nipped a bit, but I don't think it's bad."

"See that you get your moccasin properly dry to-night," Carnally warned him.

The next morning he felt lame and the country was rougher, but they made thirty miles in two days, and set out again on the third dawn with thick snow driving into their faces. Fortunately, the ground was smoother, and they plodded on stubbornly with a short halt at noon, Carnally breaking the trail for the two behind. Graham had trouble in keeping up with his companions; but they had no thought to spare for him during the laborious march. It needed all their resolution to press forward against the searching wind. At nightfall they camped in a sheltered ravine and when supper was over Graham got Carnally to help him off with his moccasin. While they pulled at it he made an abrupt movement, and Carnally, stopping, glanced at a dark stain on the leather.

"That looks like blood!"

"I think it is," said Graham. "I slept with the thing on last night. To tell the truth, I was afraid to take it off."

"It will have to come off now."

Carnally's face turned grave when Graham removed his stocking. Part of his foot felt cold and lifeless; the rest was inflamed, and there was a red patch, rubbed raw by the frozen moccasin.

"Looks bad," Carnally said. "Have you got an old handkerchief or anything to wrap round it?"

"I couldn't walk with a bandage under my stocking."

"You're not going to walk; you ought to know what trouble that might make." Carnally turned to Andrew. "He can't go on. It's a dangerous thing to gall a frostnipped foot. I don't see how it got so bad in four days' time."

Graham broke into a wry smile.

"It began to hurt soon after I left the factory, and getting it wet didn't improve things; but I thought I could hold out until we made the lode."

There was silence for a few moments. Graham's foot was throbbing painfully, and having gone on until compelled to stop, he knew his helplessness. His comrades realized that they were burdened with a crippled man, far from shelter and assistance in an icy waste. Dejection seized them; and Andrew, glancing at the darkness round about, felt a sudden horror of the desolation. This, however, was a dangerous feeling to yield to, and he strove to overcome it.

"We're two days' march from the lode," he said. "It's unthinkable that we should turn back without trying to locate it. Graham may be better after a rest. It might be possible, Carnally, that by forcing the pace we could knock a day off the double journey."

"I'll give you six days," Graham said. "I can stay here; but if you don't start the first thing to-morrow, I'll crawl on myself."

"No," Andrew declared; "whether we strike the lode or not, we'll be back before the fourth morning. The next thing is to consider what to do then. Provisions aren't plentiful."

They discussed the matter at length, for even the finding of the lode was, by comparison unimportant. It would be some time before Graham could walk far, and, with each day's journey seriously curtailed there was grave danger of their food running out. At first, Carnally was in favor of trying to reach the factory, where they would find shelter, but yielded to the objection that it was farther off than the nearer of the caches which Mappin had been engaged to make. He agreed that they would save several days by cutting the back trail between the mine and the spot where they had diverged to reach the factory, and they would then pick up a hand sled they had used for a time and abandoned when the country grew very rough and their load lighter. If Graham's foot was still troublesome, they could haul him on the sled and still make a good day's march. The plan was agreed on, and after carefully arranging their packs for the expedition and getting the clearest instructions that Graham could give them, they went to sleep.

The next morning long before daylight Andrew and Carnally were getting together a supply of branches and logs so that Graham might keep a fire going night and day until their return: for the double purpose of warmth and of protection against the timber wolves. When they had made Graham comfortable, they set off. They had heard no wolves of late, which was reassuring, but they had grave misgivings about leaving the crippled man, and meant to save every possible minute on the march. It was comparatively open country, they could use their snow-shoes, and they pressed on until dusk without stopping, though the last league taxed Andrew's strength. He was badly tired when at noon the next day they reached a hillside commanding a rocky basin filled with stunted pines. A shallow ravine ran at their feet.

Carnally stopped suddenly.

"I believe we've struck it!" he cried. "That must be the creek Graham talks about!"

Forgetting their weariness, they ran down the hill and stopped beside a frozen stream hemmed in by ice-glazed rocks.

"I guess we're somewhere about the spot, and we'll fire a dump shot on yonder ridge where there's not much snow," Carnally said. "That's all we can do."

"Can't we stake three claims?" Andrew suggested. "The recorder might allow Graham one if things were explained."

"It can't be done. You get the frontage you apply for on the reef, but its extent is limited and full particulars must be supplied, while a man can hold only one claim on the same vein. Then a record isn't secret. If you don't stake off the best of the lode, you give the thing away, and send off every prospector who hears of it to locate what you have missed."

The situation was clear to Andrew, and it was daunting. After all the fatigue and dangers of the journey, he must go back without accomplishing anything useful; but there was no help for it.

"I suppose if we had a week we might form some idea of what is worth staking off, even with the snow on the ground," he said. "However, as it is, we have got about two hours. We had better make the most of them."

They lighted a fire and sat beside it, thawing two sticks of dynamite, a proceeding attended by some risk, which Carnally seriously increased when he crimped the powerful detonating caps on the fuses with numbed and clumsy fingers. Both men were moody and dejected, but they did not express their feelings, for they were capable of meeting reverses with silent fortitude. Carnally stood to lose more money than he had ever had a prospect of earning until his companion took him north; Andrew knew at what a disadvantage his failure would place him in the struggle with Leonard. He was sincere in his purpose to see justice done, but he had no romantic ideas about it. His task was based on common honesty: Allinson's had guaranteed the undertaking and Allinson's must make good. Andrew was, however, troubled by two conflicting claims. He had a duty to the shareholders which could best be discharged by remaining near the lode until he proved its value; and a duty to Graham, whom he had promised to bring home safe and sound. Graham, most unfortunately, was crippled, and the scarcity of provisions made it doubtful whether he could be taken back to the Landing, unless they started without delay. The shareholders must wait.

Carnally kneaded the softening dynamite round the detonators.

"Try to scrape down to the rock on the spot I marked," he said. "I'll come when you're ready and we'll fire the shot."

Andrew had some trouble in carrying out his instructions, but when he had done so Carnally laid the cartridges on the stone and covered them with snow carefully pressed down. Then they dragged up a small fallen spruce and, laying it on the spot, lighted the fuses and hastily retired. In a minute there was a flash, a sharp report; and a shower of flying fragments plunged into the snow, while a cloud of vapor curled up. Andrew sprang from his shelter, but Carnally seized his arm.

"Hold on!" he cried. "You don't want the fumes to knock you over. I guess we'll get dinner while we wait. You can't expect any startling results from one shot."

Eager as he was, Andrew ate his share of the scanty meal; he could practise self-control and he had marched a long way on short rations in bitter frost.

When they had examined the cavity made by the explosion, Carnally covered it with snow, and picked up the broken bits of rock. They had gathered a small heap, and Carnally, carefully selecting a few, looked at Andrew with a smile.

"I suppose you feel that you'd like to take the whole lot?"

"I thought we might carry half of them," Andrew admitted.

"Unless you're willing to dump your blankets, these will be enough. It's a long way to the Landing and we have to make the first food cache quick."

"You're right," said Andrew. "Besides, we must reach Graham's camp by to-morrow night."

"Rough on you!" Carnally sympathized; "I haven't as big a stake."

Nothing more was said while they rolled up their packs and set off grimly on the return trail.

It had been dark for several hours the next night when Andrew wearily toiled up a long rise dotted with ragged spruces. He was hungry and very cold, though he panted with the exertion he was forced to make. There was no feeling in his feet, which were bound to big snow-shoes; his hands were powerless in his thick mittens, and he carried a light ax under his arm. Fortunately, the trail they had broken when coming out led straight up the rise, and Carnally pressed on in front, a gray shape outlined against the glitter of the snow. A half-moon hung above them in a cloudless sky, the frost was intense, and the white desolation lay wrapped in an impressive silence. Not a breath of wind stirred the tops of the spruces.

Andrew's knees were giving way, and it seemed to him that the ascent they were laboriously mounting ran on for ever. He felt as if they had spent hours on it, though the frozen river at its foot was not far behind them. It was discouraging to fix his eyes on the black shape of a spruce ahead and see how slowly it grew nearer, but he felt unequal to contemplating the long trail to the summit, and he divided the distance into stages between tree and tree.

At last they crossed the ridge and it was a relief to go downhill, though the spruces grew in thicker belts and there was half a mile of timber that they were forced to traverse in their moccasins. Fallen logs obstructed their passage, they plunged into tangles of blown-down branches, the snow was loose among the slender trunks and here and there they sank deep in it. Andrew was, however, consumed by an anxiety which would brook no delay, and when he had with difficulty replaced his snow-shoes he looked up at his companion.

"We can't be far from camp?" he queried.

"About three miles. We ought to see it when we're through the timber on the lower bench. Graham had wood enough to keep a good fire going."

They pressed on, slipping down the steeper slopes, stumbling now and then, for both had regretted the necessity for leaving Graham alone, and at sunset they had seen the tracks of wolves. At last they plunged into a thick belt of spruce, where the trees were fairly large and there was not much fallen wood. Here and there a broad patch of moonlight glittered on the snow, confusing after the deep gloom, but the men could get through on their snow-shoes and avoid the trunks. They made good speed and when they broke out into the open Andrew stopped. Where a bright blaze should have marked Graham's fire there were only a few dying embers. The old man was nowhere to be seen.