Kitabı oku: «Partners of the Out-Trail», sayfa 6

CHAPTER XI
A CONFIDENTIAL TALK

Shortly after Jim's return, a prospector stopped one evening at the camp.

"There was some mail for you at the settlement, and as I figured on using your line to get into the bush I brought the packet along," he said.

Carrie gave him supper and when he joined the other men Jim opened the packet. In the evening they had leisure for rest and talk, and after the strain and bustle of the day, Jim enjoyed the quiet hour. The air got sharp when the sun sank, the fire they gathered round drove back the creeping shadows, and the pungent smoke kept the mosquitoes off. Sometimes he bantered Carrie and sometimes lounged in contented quietness, watching her while she sewed. Carrie was generally occupied.

"How is your mother getting on?" he asked when she put down the letter he had given her.

Carrie smiled. "She is getting on very well. My cousin keeps store satisfactorily, and I don't know if I'm pleased or not. It's nice to feel you're wanted and people miss you when you're gone."

"If there's much comfort in the thought, you are certainly wanted here."

"The trouble is, one's friends often say what they think one would like to know," Carrie rejoined. "I'm not sure I'd have minded much if mother had owned that Belle breaks things and sometimes forgets how many cents go to the dollar when she makes up a bill. S'pose I'm mean, but Belle does break things."

"You are never mean and I was quite sincere."

"Perhaps you found new buttons on your overalls and that accounted for something."

Jim half consciously moved his hand to his jacket and then stopped. "I'm afraid I didn't know the buttons were there. After all, it ought to persuade you of my sincerity."

"Sometimes I'm not certain if you are nice or not. But is there anything important in your letters?"

"One or two people want to know when we mean to pay our bills; I'm sorry we can't satisfy their curiosity just yet. Then there's a letter from Baumstein. He'll give us an extra five hundred dollars for the Bluebird."

"Ah!" said Carrie. "It's strange he makes the offer when we need money so!"

"It is strange," Jake broke in. "Almost looks as if the fellow knew how we were fixed. But we're not sellers, and, for a clever crook, Baumstein is too keen."

"He states he has reached his limit and we won't get another chance," Jim remarked.

Jake pondered and then resumed: "The thing's puzzling. I can't see why Baumstein's fixed on buying a claim that nobody else wants, but you can reckon it a sure snap for him when he makes a deal. There's the puzzle! The ore is pretty good, but that's all. We were kind of disappointed by the assay. The specimens looked better than the analysis proved."

"I was certainly disappointed and surprised," Jim agreed. "Suppose we ask the prospector about it? He has tested a good many mineral claims."

They waited until the prospector returned to the camp, when Jake gave him some bits of broken rock.

"Feel those and tell me what you think about the metal they carry," he said.

The other examined the specimens and weighed them in his hand.

"If you've got much rock like that, it's a pretty good claim."

"Do you reckon the stuff would come up to assay?" Jake asked, giving him the analyst's report.

The prospector looked at him rather hard. "Come up to assay? If the bulk's like these specimens, it ought to pan out better than the figures show."

He stated his grounds for believing this, and Jake knitted his brows. "I expect you know the big mining men and what they're doing. Have you heard if Baumstein is looking for Northern copper?"

"He bought a claim called the Darien not long since."

Jim smiled. "The Darien? The next block to ours, but the vein begins to peter out before it crosses their boundary."

"When Baumstein gets the next block, you want to sell him your lot or watch out," the prospector rejoined. "If he can't buy you up, he'll make trouble for you. I reckon he knew what kind of ore the Darien boys had got."

"Yes," said Jim, "I imagined something like that."

He said no more about the mine, and next morning the prospector resumed his journey. After this, for a week or two, nothing broke the monotony of their strenuous toil, until one day Martin and his packers arrived.

"I'm going down to the settlements and thought I'd strike your camp and stop a night," he said. "The woods get lonesome, and your line's a pretty good route to the pack trail."

Jim was somewhat surprised, but he took Martin to Jake and went to tell Carrie.

"I wanted to see that man and you had better leave him to me," she said. "To begin with, I'll give him the best supper I know how to cook. Get busy and fix the fire while I see what we've got that's extra nice."

"If you get after him, he's bound to give in," Jim remarked. "However, I want you to study the fellow and tell me what you think."

"Then you would trust my judgment?"

"Of course. In many ways, it's as good as ours."

Carrie laughed. "Sometimes," she said, "you're very modest, Jim."

Martin ate a remarkably good supper and afterwards talked to Carrie with obvious satisfaction. Like the most part of the men who venture much in the wilds, he was marked by a grave quietness, but he had for all that a touch of humor. By and by he turned to Jim and asked: "How are you getting on? Have you struck fresh trouble since I saw you?"

Jim related his adventure at the rapid and Martin gave him a keen glance. "I reckon you had an object for telling me, but I don't quite get it. You think I hired the man who sent down the log, or you know I didn't."

"He knows you didn't," Carrie declared.

"Thank you," said Martin. "I imagine what you say goes at this camp."

"Some way. I belong to the firm."

"It goes all the way," said Jim. "I often think Miss Winter is really the head of the firm."

Martin's eyes twinkled. "Well, you're both making good; I've been looking at the line you've cleared, and I've not often struck a supper like this in the bush. Makes me feel I want to fire my cook." Then his tone got grave. "Anyhow, I had nothing to do with wrecking your canoes and don't think the freighter had. You see, I sometimes hire Somas; he'll put the screw to you if he reckons you can be bluffed, but he's not a crook."

"Then we can rule him out," said Carrie. "I imagine you don't make mistakes."

"Making mistakes about trusting folks sometimes costs you high," Martin remarked. He looked at her thoughtfully and then smiled. "One could trust you all the time."

"Well," said Carrie, "I suppose I gave you a lead, but there's no use in our trying who could be nicest, because I'd certainly beat you. I expect you don't often try and it's a girl's business."

In the meantime, Jim had studied both. He thought he knew Carrie's worth, but somehow the other's approval made it plainer. Although Martin's humorous frankness jarred, Jim recognized its note of sincerity. On the whole, he liked Martin, but he would sooner Carrie did not play up to the fellow. By and by Martin turned to him.

"When I was last at Vancouver a man called Mordaunt asked some questions about you."

"Mordaunt?" said Jim, with a puzzled look.

"He stopped at your telegraph shack."

"Oh, yes; I only met him once before and didn't learn his name. What did he want to know?"

"All I could tell him about you. He was something of a high-brow Englishman and used tact, but I reckoned he was keen on finding out what kind of man you were."

"You couldn't tell him much."

"That is so," said Martin, rather dryly. "In fact, I didn't try."

"Oh, well, it's not important," Jim replied. "Perhaps my books roused his curiosity. They were not the books he'd imagine a telegraph linesman would read. But did he tell you much about himself?"

"He did not. An Englishman like that doesn't talk about himself."

Jim agreed carelessly, but was thoughtful afterwards, and when Martin went off with Jake, stopped by the fire and mused. After a time he looked up and saw Carrie sitting in the shadow. Now and then the flickering light touched her face and he thought she studied him.

"I suppose you're thinking about that Englishman?" she said.

"Yes. It's rather strange he asked Martin about me."

"Perhaps he knows your relations."

"It looks like that," Jim agreed.

"And he was with the girl you met at the restaurant! I expect she was a relation of his. Aren't you curious?"

Jim imagined Carrie was curious, but one could be frank with her, and he wanted to formulate his thoughts.

"In a way, I am curious," he admitted. "I would like to see the girl again. Still, I think it's really as a type she interests me."

Carrie smiled. "It isn't as a type a girl gets interesting, Jim."

"It would be ridiculous to think about her in any other way. I've had nothing to do with girls like that; she's the first I've met."

"Oh, well," said Carrie. "Don't you want to learn something about your English relations?"

"No," said Jim, in a thoughtful voice. "In a sense, I'm half afraid."

"Afraid?" said Carrie.

He was silent for a few moments and then resumed: "On the whole, I've been happy. I feel I've got my proper job and am satisfied. For all that, when those Englishmen talked to me at the shack I had a strange notion that I knew things they knew and belonged to a world I hadn't lived in yet. Sometimes at McGill I got a kind of restlessness that made me want to see the Old Country. I fought against it."

"Why did you fight?"

"For one thing, it's obvious I belong where I am; I can make good in this country, I know my job. Something pulls another way, but I don't want to go."

"Ah," said Carrie, "I think I understand. Still, there's the adventure, Jim. And if you didn't like it in England, you could come back."

"There's a risk. I expect it's hard to get back when you leave your proper place. Then I have much I value; you and Jake and the boys who work for me. I stand on firm ground here; ground I know and like. In the Old Country it might be different – "

"Do you mean you might be different?"

"You are clever, Carrie. I think I do mean something like that. I feel now and then as if there was another Jim Dearham who, so to speak, hadn't developed yet. In a way, I'm afraid of him."

Carrie looked thoughtful, but her eyes were soft. "Jake and I are satisfied with the Jim we know. Still, perhaps, you ought to give the other his chance." She paused, and her voice had a curious note when she resumed: "If I were a man, I'd let nothing stop my development."

"You have grit," Jim said, smiling. "Grit that would carry you anywhere and makes you something of an aristocrat. So long as you're not afraid you must be fine. Well, I suppose I made good when I was up against rotten ice and sliding snow, but when I think about what I have and what I'd risk, my pluck goes."

"Sometimes you're rather nice, Jim, and you're a better philosopher than I thought," Carrie remarked. She got up and, stopping a moment, gave him a half-mocking glance. "But I wonder what you'd get like if you went to the Old Country and met that English girl!"

She went off and Jim sat by the fire with his brows knit. Perhaps he had talked too much and bored Carrie, but he suspected that she had led him on. By and by he roused himself and went to chop some wood. Martin did not start in the morning, as his hosts had expected. He said his packers needed a rest and loafed about the camp, sometimes talking to Carrie and sometimes watching Jake and Jim at work. Next morning, however, he said he must go, and while they were at breakfast turned to Jim.

"In the bush, one often runs up against obstacles one did not expect. If you find you can't put your contract over, I'd like you to send me word."

"I don't see why we should bother you," Jim replied with some surprise.

Martin smiled. "For one thing, you had a notion the Cartner people and I were playing a crooked game. Then you're making a good job, and I wouldn't like to see you beat."

"We imagined you wouldn't like our butting in on jobs you thought were yours," Jake observed.

"That is so," said Martin. "If I help, I'll make a proposition, to which I guess you'll be able to agree. In the meantime, we can let it go. Looks as if you'd make good anyhow."

He began to talk about something else and when he set off Jake and Jim went with him down the line. After a time, he stopped them.

"I must hit the trail and not keep you from your job," he said. "I reckon you'll put it over, but if you want some backing, remember my offer stands."

He paused and gave Jake a steady glance. "I like the way you have treated me; your sister is a queen."

Then he went on with his packers and Jake and Jim returned quietly to camp.

CHAPTER XII
FIRE

The light had got dim, and Carrie put down her sewing and looked about. A belt of yellow sky glimmered above the distant snow, but the valley was dark and the pines rolled in blurred masses up the hill. Thin mist crept out of the deep hollow and Carrie shivered when a cold wind shook the trees. She was beginning to know the wilds, and now and then their austerity daunted her. By and by a red twinkle in the distance drew her glance and she turned to Jim.

"What is that?"

Jim looked and frowned. "Ah," he said, "I'd begun to think our luck was too good!"

"But what is the light?"

"A bush fire."

Jake indicated the drift of the smoke from their cooking fire. As a rule, the valleys of British Columbia that open to the west form channels for the Chinook wind from the Pacific, but now and then a dry, cold current flows down them to the coast.

"It won't bother us unless the wind changes," he remarked. "In this country, however, the wind generally does change when you'd sooner it did not, and it's not safe to trust your luck much. Looks as if Nature had put up her shingle on the mountains, warning the white man off."

"But white men do live in the mountains," Carrie objected.

"Men who are strong enough. They must fight for a footing and then use the best tools other men can make to hold the ground they've won. We're scouts, carrying axes, saws, and giant-powder, but the main body must coöperate to defend its settlements with civilization's heavy machines. It's sure a hard country, and sometimes it gets me scared!"

Carrie laughed. "You're romantic when you talk about the North. Could the fire bother us?"

"That depends. It couldn't burn the line, though it might burn the posts. If it spread and rolled up the valley, it might put us off the ground and stop the job."

"While we waited the boys would have to be fed and wages would run on," Carrie said in a thoughtful voice. "How do the fires start?"

"Nobody knows. I allow it looks ridiculous, but my notion is some fires start themselves; you'll find them burning in belts of woods the Indians and prospectors leave alone. Some are probably started by cooking fires. The man who knows the bush is careful; the tenderfoot is not."

"Then you don't think somebody may have had an object for lighting this fire?"

"On the whole, I reckon not. The chances against its bothering us are too steep. For all that, I'd like it better if the blaze went out."

Carrie said nothing, and for a time they watched the light. Sometimes it leaped up and sometimes it faded, but it got larger, and when they went to bed a red reflection played about the sky. In the morning there was no wind and a heavy trail of smoke stretched across the hills. In places, a bright flicker pierced the dark trail, and Carrie noted a smell of burning when she filled the kettle. Then she saw Jim watching the smoke.

"It's nearer and bigger, isn't it?" she asked.

"Yes," said Jim, quietly. "It's bigger than I like. We'll go along and look at it after breakfast."

They ate quickly and when the meal was over Jim and Carrie set off while Jake went to work. It was not easy to push through the tangled bush, and now and then Jim was forced to clear a path with his ax. After a time he stopped behind a trunk and touched Carrie, who saw an animal leap out from the gloom. It cleared a big fallen branch with a flying bound, vanished almost silently in a brake of tall fern, and shooting out with forelegs bent sprang across a thicket. Carrie thought it hardly touched the ground. It was wonderfully swift and graceful, and although the forest was choked with undergrowth and rotting logs all was very quiet when the animal vanished.

"Oh," she said, "I'm glad you stopped me! I haven't seen a wild deer before."

"They are hard to see," Jim replied. "If they're standing, they melt into their background at a very short distance. However, I didn't like the way that deer was going. It passed pretty close, without seeing we were about."

Noting that the scramble had tired her, he began to rub his ax with a sharpening stone, and Carrie mused while she got her breath. By and by she looked up and saw his twinkling glance.

"Yes," she said, "I was thinking rather hard; I thought it was good for me to come North. All was always just the same at the store; the dull street, the mean frame houses, and the stale smell of groceries. There was nothing different; you knew you would do to-morrow what you did to-day, and you had made no progress when the reckoning came. If there was money enough to pay the bills, you were satisfied, and sometimes there was not. But I really mean you felt you had made no progress of any kind; you were slipping back."

"Slipping back? I'm not sure I get that – "

"Sometimes it's hard to put you wise, but perhaps slipping back wasn't altogether right. I meant things were moving on and leaving me behind. The time I could be happy was going and soon I'd be old and sour. I didn't want to feel I'd done nothing and had never tasted life. Well, my chance came and I pulled out."

"I'm afraid you haven't had your good time yet," Jim remarked.

Carrie's eyes sparkled. "One always wants something better, Jim, but I've begun to live. I've seen the woods and the wild back country; I'm helping at a big job."

"Your help is worth much, and if we put the job over, you can have the things a girl is supposed to like; for example, pretty clothes, opera tickets, a holiday at a fashionable summer hotel. They're things you ought to have."

"I do like pretty clothes and think I'd like to meet smart people. The trouble is, they would know I didn't belong where they belonged and might leave me out. Do you think that would happen, Jim?"

"Certainly not," Jim declared. "Girls of your type don't get left out. I dare say pretty girls are numerous, but you have a calm and a confidence that make their mark."

Carrie smiled, but there was some color in her face. "I suppose you mean to be nice. Yet you have seen me serving at the store and cooking for the boys!"

"I've seen you nursing me when I was ill and hope I'm going to see you wear the smartest clothes money can buy. But there's much to be done first and I'm bothered about the fire."

They pushed on while the smell of burning got stronger, and presently came to a rocky hill. Its top cut off their view, but a dingy cloud rolled up behind it and as they climbed the air got hot. When they reached the summit Carrie gasped and her eyes opened wide.

The spur commanded the valley and the fire that had run through the woods below. In the foreground a wall of tossing flame threw out clouds of sparks, and leaping up here and there, ran in yellow trails to the top of the tall firs. It advanced slowly, with an angry roar, licking up the dry brush and branches before the big trunks caught. In front they were hung with streamers of flame, farther off they glowed red, and in the distance smoldering rampikes towered above a wide belt of ash. Now and then one leaned and fell, and showers of sparks shot up as if the log had exploded.

The shock of the fall hardly pierced the confused uproar, and Carrie, shielding her scorched face with her hand, was appalled by the din. Green wood split with detonating cracks, the snapping of branches was like musketry, and the flames roared in a deep undertone. Her dress fluttered, for eddying draughts swept the rocks. She was dazzled but fascinated, unconscious of heat and fear, for she had not seen or imagined a spectacle like this.

"It's tremendous!" she said in an awed voice.

"Pretty fierce," Jim agreed. "A bush-fire's a big thing, but it doesn't grip you like the break up of the ice. When the river bursts the jam, the floes grind the rocks smooth and rub out the pines. You can hear the wreck drive down the channel a day's journey off."

"I thought it a silent country. It's often so quiet it makes one half-afraid."

Jim nodded. "Something forbidding in its quietness that's like a threat? Well, it wakes up and gets busy in a dramatic way now and then. If you want to live in the mountains, you've got to be watchful."

A wave of smoke rolled about them and sparks drove past like hail. A fiery shower fell on Carrie's thin dress and Jim, seizing her, beat them out. This was needful and he began without embarrassment but presently thrilled, and Carrie's scorched face got red as he ran his smarting hands across the thin material.

"Keep still!" he said, roughly. "It's light stuff and will soon catch fire."

Then, picking off a glowing cinder, he took her arm and they started down hill. When they came out of the smoke he was breathless and Carrie gasped.

"Oh, Jim, you have burned your hands!" she said.

"Not much. They're hard and I have often hurt them worse. It's your dress that bothers me. Look at the charred spots."

"But you're not to blame for that."

"I am to blame. I oughtn't to have let you stay."

"I wanted to stay."

"That doesn't matter," Jim declared. "My business was to take care of you. In fact, it's my business all the time."

"Something of a responsibility, Jim!" Carrie remarked. "However, I think we'll go on."

They stopped again before they reached the camp, for pushing through tangled bush is hard work, and Carrie sat down on a fallen trunk.

"Isn't the fire moving up the valley?" she asked.

"It is," Jim said, frowning. "Fires sometimes do move against a light wind. However, we won't talk about this yet." He paused and touched her dress. "Here's another big hole. You can't mend the thing."

"I'm afraid not," Carrie agreed.

"And the blue one has a nasty tear, besides the stain where Jake spilt the coffee. I must make a trip to the settlement when the fire burns out."

"You mustn't go," said Carrie, firmly. "You can't leave your job. It's much more important than my clothes."

"For all that, I am going, as soon as I can. When we were talking not long since I began to think. We have taken your help for granted, without reckoning what it cost; but it has hurt me to see you occupied with the cooking-pots."

Carrie gave him a level, smiling glance. "It's for Jake and you and the boys. In a way, you're all mine, and I'm rather proud of my family."

"We are yours," Jim declared. "In fact, we were lucky when you, so to speak, took us under your wing. You have a kind of protective instinct that makes you look after folks and makes them trust you; but you oughtn't to be cooking for a crowd of hungry men. I've seen your face scorched, and sometimes you burn your hands. Then your being forced to wear those faded and mended dresses makes me angry."

She laughed, but the careless note in her voice was rather forced. "Don't be foolish, Jim! If I had lots of smart clothes, I couldn't wear them while I work about the fire."

"That is so," he said, frowning. "You oughtn't to work about the fire."

"Oh, well, it's too late to bother now. For one thing, I have educated the boys; they wouldn't eat the hash you or Jake could cook. But I expect you want to get to work and we had better make the camp."

When they reached the camp Jim got to work. He was anxious, but admitted that the fire might die out on a stony belt where the bush was thin, and perhaps he need not fear much trouble unless a Chinook wind drove the flames up the valley. Moreover, since there was a risk of his being stopped, it was prudent to push on.

For two days he strained his muscles and urged the men; and then, one evening, sat in his usual place, listening rather moodily while Jake and Carrie talked. The evening was calm and the smoke had not advanced, although it now covered much of the sky. The men had not gone to fish and lounged about the shack. They were tired and quiet, for Jim had driven them hard all day. He let his pipe go out and pondered. Perhaps his disturbance was not logical, but his habit was to concentrate on the work he undertook and it would hurt to own himself beaten and let the contract go. He had not been badly beaten yet, and he had a vein of rather grim tenacity.

After a time, Carrie's laugh banished his moody reflections and he looked up. The firelight touched her, and although her eyes sparkled her pose was slack. Now he studied her carefully; her face was getting thin. She was obviously playing up to Jake, and he imagined their banter was meant to cheer him. Carrie's clothes were shabbier than he had thought, but they did not spoil her unconscious grace. It was unconscious grace, because Carrie did not pose. She looked at home and somehow made the camp look homelike. She was unembarrassed in the woods, as she was at the store. Jim wondered whether, if they carried out the contract and earned the pay, she would hold her own in different surroundings; among fashionable women at summer hotels, for example. Somehow he thought she would. Then a curious feeling of tenderness moved him. Carrie looked tired and he owed her much.

"I wish you would put down that sewing," he said. "You are hurting your eyes."

"Very well," Carrie agreed. "I wasn't getting on fast, and when you are bothered you have to be indulged. Looks as if you were bothered, Jim."

"I suppose I've got the habit," he replied. "Anyhow, I don't like your sewing when you have hustled round all day."

Carrie laughed. "You and Jake are rough on clothes and somebody's got to mend."

"No," said Jim. "In this country, mending's not economical. It's cheaper to throw away the things and buy another lot."

"Where are you going to buy new clothes, Jim?"

"That is something of a difficulty. I was talking about the principle. You're too practical."

"Oh, well," said Carrie, "I suppose I'm not romantic. Unless you're romantic in the right way, you're ridiculous. I expect it's easier to be useful."

"Jim will agree," Jake remarked. "He judges people by their talent for doing things, but you can't fix a standard for everybody. He reckons I do too little; I allow he does too much."

He stopped and looked about. There was something oppressive in the heavy calm. The smoke went straight up and the pine twigs did not move. For a minute or two he waited with a feeling of tension and the others were silent. Then the pine tops shook and were still again. Jim got up abruptly.

"That draught's not from the east!"

Jake struck a match. The flame burned upright, and then flickered and slanted.

"No," he said, "it's blowing up the valley."

The flame went out, the pine-tops shook and did not stop. The air got hot and a smell of burning stole into the camp.

"I reckon it's a Chinook," Jake remarked.

Jim nodded and his face got stern. "I have expected it all day. The fire will roll up the valley and I don't know where it will stop. We must break camp to-morrow and pitch farther along." He turned to Carrie. "Can you be ready to start for the settlement in the morning?"

"No, but this doesn't matter, because I'm not going."

"You must. The bush will burn like a furnace."

"Do you and Jake mean to quit?"

"You ought to see we can't quit."

Carrie smiled. "I do see it, but if you have good grounds for stopping, so have I. Your grounds, in fact."

"Shucks! You're ridiculous. In a way, of course, I don't want you to go."

"Thank you! Was it hard to own that, Jim? However, you won't have to make the effort to send me off, because I mean to stay."

Jim turned to Jake. "This job is yours; I don't see why you put it on to me. She's your sister and you ought to have some control."

"My control doesn't count for much," Jake admitted with a grin. "Besides, I allow you are the head of the firm."

"If I'm head, some responsibility goes with the post – "

"I suppose I am rather a responsibility," Carrie interposed. "After all, you are not very old and don't know much about managing an obstinate girl."

"I don't want to manage you," Jim rejoined. "My notion is, you have quietly managed us."

"Ah," said Carrie, "it looks as if you're really cleverer than I thought!"

Jim tried to hide his annoyance. "I wish I was clever, or somebody else had my job. Anyhow, you can't stop. In a day or two the line will be smothered in smoke, and we may be forced back among the rocks where we can't take your tent. I don't see how we're going to get provisions through."

"After all," said Carrie, "I don't think I'd catch fire sooner than you and Jake, and I certainly don't eat as much. Then I can save where you would waste." She paused and gave Jim a half-mocking smile. "I imagine you mean well, but I've resolved to stay."

Jim made a resigned gesture. "Then I expect there's no more to be said! Well, I'm tired and we must get busy again at sun-up."

He rose, stretched his arms, and went off.