Kitabı oku: «The Boy Ranchers of Puget Sound», sayfa 9

CHAPTER XI
MR. BARCLAY JOINS THE PARTY

When the boat brought up to her anchor the boys spent some time straightening up her gear and pumping her out. The work put a little warmth into them, but they were glad to crawl into the cabin when it was done. There was scarcely room in it to sit upright, and with the moisture standing beaded everywhere it looked rather like the inside of a well. Mr. Oliver had lighted the stove and a lamp was burning. By and by he took off a hissing kettle, and when they had made a meal they lay down in their wet clothes amidst a raffle of more or less dripping ropes and sails. Fortunately, the place was warm, and Frank was thankful to stretch himself out along the side of the boat. He was discovering that mental strain of the kind he had undergone during the last few hours is as fatiguing as bodily labor.

But he did not immediately go to sleep. The craft rocked upon the long swell which worked in round the point, with now and then a sharp rattle as she plucked hard at her cable. Sometimes she swung suddenly around upon it as an eddying blast swept down from the rocks above, and the drumming of the halliards against the mast broke continuously through the moan of the wind among the trees ashore and the deeper rumble of the ground sea. At last, however, he fell into a heavy slumber, and it was daylight and Harry had put the spider on the stove when he awoke again. He made his breakfast before he went out on deck, to find that the wind had dropped a little and it was raining hard. The dim, slate-green water lapped noisily upon the wall of rock close by, and glancing seaward he saw nothing but a leaden haze and a short stretch of tumbling combers. Mr. Oliver had gone out earlier and was standing on the deck looking about him.

"There's no great weight in the wind, though the sea's still rather high," he said presently. "I think we can push on for Victoria."

Frank, who fancied they would not get there before that night, was by no means so keen about the sail as he had been on the previous day. He felt that it would be considerably pleasanter to remain in the shelter of the point until the sun came out or the wind went down, and it seemed to him that Harry shared his opinion. The dog also looked very draggled and miserable and had evidently had enough of the voyage. They, however, set the mainsail, leaving the reefs in, hauled up the anchor, and hoisted the jib as the sloop stretched out across the waste of tumbling water, after which the boys went below to straighten up the breakfast things. Frank once or twice felt a little sick as he did so, and he noticed that Harry wore a somewhat anxious look.

"It's not blowing as hard as it was when we ran in, but I don't think dad would have gone unless he'd some particular reason," Harry said at length. "I wonder who the man is he expects to meet in Victoria, because I'm inclined to believe it's not the one who wants him to look at the land. The worst of dad is that he keeps such a lot to himself."

They crawled out again shortly afterward and found the seas getting longer and bigger. Once or twice a blur of something went by that might have been the end of an island, and Mr. Oliver changed his course a little, but after that the dim, green water stretched away before them empty and only broken by smears of snowy froth, and the sloop drove on before the combers which came up out of the haze astern of her in long succession.

It was toward noon, and Mr. Oliver had gone into the cabin to get dinner ready, leaving Harry at the helm, when, glancing around, Frank saw an indistinct mass of something break out of the mist. It grew into the shadowy shape of a steamer while he watched it.

"There's a big vessel close by," he said, touching his companion's arm.

Harry glanced over his shoulder. "Sure," he nodded. "What's more, she's coming right along our track. Get in some mainsheet while I luff her."

He changed the sloop's course a trifle, but in the meanwhile the steamer was growing in size and distinctness with a marvelous rapidity. Her great bow seemed to be rising out of the water like a headland, over which Frank could just see the tiers of white deckhouses, one mast, and the tall smokestack. Then he glanced forward at the sloop's wet deck and the low strip of her double-reefed mainsail, looking very small among the tumbling seas, and it occurred to him that it would probably be difficult for the steamer's lookout to see them. He felt rather anxious when he glanced back astern.

"She still seems to be coming right down on us," he said.

Harry called his father, who hurried out and glanced at the vessel.

"Shall we get up and yell?" the boy asked.

"No," said Mr. Oliver curtly, "they couldn't hear you to windward. Let her come up farther."

Frank helped drag some more mainsheet and then looked around again with a very unpleasant thrill of apprehension. The black bow seemed almost above them, and the sea leaped against a wall of plates as the great mass of iron swung slowly out of it and sank down again. Then from somewhere beside the smokestack a streak of white steam blew out and a great reverberatory roar came hurtling about them. Mr. Oliver's anxious face relaxed.

"They've seen us," he said. "Her helm's going over."

The bow drew out and lengthened into an increasing strip of side. Another mast became visible, with a double row of white deckhouses and a tier of boats between. Here and there a cluster of diminutive figures showed up among them, and then the great ship sped by with the whole of her size revealed. The sloop plunged madly on her screw-torn wake, but in another minute or two she had drawn away and was melting into the haze again.

"A big boat," said Mr. Oliver. "She was very close to us. You had better keep your eyes open while I get dinner."

The rest of the dismal day passed uneventfully, but toward evening the haze commenced to roll aside and they saw blurred black pines looming up ahead of them. A little later they ran into Victoria harbor, and, hiring a Siwash to take them ashore, walked through the streets of what struck Frank as a very handsome city until they reached a hotel. Here they ordered supper, and after the meal was over the boys, who had changed their clothes, sat with Mr. Oliver in the almost deserted smoking room. He seemed to be expecting somebody, which somewhat astonished Frank, but he noticed that Harry smiled meaningly when Mr. Barclay walked in. He was dressed in light-colored sporting garments, with a belt around his waist and a leather patch on one shoulder, and there were gaudy trout flies stuck in his little cloth cap. He threw the cap on the table before he shook hands with Mr. Oliver and the boys, smiling as he caught Harry's eye.

"Well," he asked, indicating the flies, "what do you think of them?"

Harry grinned again as he laid his finger on one.

"You're not going to get many trout with that fellow, unless they've different habits in British Columbia. They won't come on for quite a while."

Mr. Barclay removed the fly and put it into a wallet.

"Thanks," he said. "It's some time since I did any fishing." Then he seemed to notice the manner in which the boy was surveying his clothing. "It's a sport's get-up, but are you acquainted with any reason why a United States citizen shouldn't get a little innocent amusement catching Canadian trout?"

"No, sir," answered Harry coolly. "Still, there are quite a few trout in the rivers on the American side of the boundary. It makes one wonder if you had anything else in view besides fishing in coming to British Columbia."

Mr. Barclay regarded him with an air of ironical reproof.

"In a general way, young man, it's most unwise to blurt the thing right out when you have a suspicion in your mind. It's better to let it stay there until you have good cause to act on it." He turned to Mr. Oliver. "I'm inclined to doubt the advisability of leaving your sloop lying where she is in full view of the wharf."

"Then you recognized her?"

"At a glance. The trouble is that there are one or two acquaintances of yours who might do the same."

Mr. Oliver looked thoughtful.

"I've been considering that, but it was getting dark when we ran in, and we had better move the first thing to-morrow. Now with this unsettled weather I'm not very keen on sailing up the west coast, which is open to the Pacific, and the place we are bound for is rather a long way."

"Then go east," advised Mr. Barclay. "There are a number of inlets on that side of the island within easy reach of the railroad, and you ought to reach the nearest of them in a few hours. I'll go on with the cars to-morrow, and if you don't get in at one of the way stations, I'll wait for you at Wellington. Then we could cross to the west coast by the Alberni stage and hire a couple of Indians and a sea canoe. It wouldn't be a long run from there."

Mr. Oliver agreed to this, and getting up early next morning, they slipped out of the harbor, and some hours afterward crept into a forest-girt inlet, where they left the sloop. There was a depot nearby, and getting on board the cars when the next train came in, they found Mr. Barclay awaiting them. Early in the afternoon they alighted at a little wooden, colliery town, and next day they crossed the island in the stage over a very rough trail which led through tremendous forests. Once they passed a wonderful blue lake lying deep-sunk between steep walls of hills. Then they crossed a divide and came winding down into a valley with water flashing at the foot of it. It was evening when they arrived at a straggling settlement on the banks of a riband of salt water twisting away among the forest-shrouded hills, and found several Indians there who had come up in their sea canoes.

Mr. Oliver hired a couple of them, and they started after they had purchased a few stores. A light, pine-scented breeze was blowing down the valley when they thrust the canoe off from the shingle. They had no sooner done so, however, when the dog arose with a deep growl which indicated that he objected to the Indians going with them. As his actions did not seem to have the desired effect he seized the nearest Indian by the leg, and it was only when Harry belabored him with a paddle that he could be induced to let go. Then he barked at them savagely until Frank drew him down upon his knee with a hand about his neck, while the Siwash raised two little masts. In the meanwhile the boy watched the men with interest, and decided that they had very little in common with the prairie Indians he had seen in pictures and from the cars.

They were dressed neatly in clothes which had evidently been purchased at a store, and though their faces were brown and their hair rather coarse and dark there was nothing else unusual about them. They talked with Mr. Oliver and Mr. Barclay freely in what Harry said was Chinook, a readily learned lingua-franca in use on parts of the Pacific Slope. Then Frank fixed his attention upon the canoe, a long, narrow, and beautifully shaped craft with the usual tall, bird's-head bow. She was rather shallow, but Harry said that this made her paddle fast. He added that though these canoes would sail reasonably well when the breeze was fair the Indians usually drove them to windward with the paddle unless the sea was too heavy, in which case they generally made for the beach and pulled the craft out.

Frank remembered that this, or something like it, was the ancient practice, and that it was only by slow degrees that man had discovered he could still make the wind propel his vessel to its destination when it blew from ahead. Greek and Roman triremes, Alexandrian wheat ships, and Viking galleys, had made wonderful voyages, and they all carried sail, but they set it only when the wind was fair. When it drew ahead they stowed their canvas and thrashed the lean hull through the seas with their long oars. Now, after perfecting his vessel's under-water body, inventing the center board, and learning how to make flat-setting sails, man was going back to the old-time plan, only that instead of relying upon the muscle of close-packed rowers he used improved propellers, tri-compound reciprocators and turbines.

One of the Siwash shook out the two spritsails which sat on a pole stretching up to the peak from the foot of the mast, and when he had led the sheets aft his companion knelt astern with a paddle held over the gunwale. Slanting gently down to the faint breeze, the craft slid away through the smooth, green water with a long ripple running back behind her. The log houses dropped astern and were lost among the trees, a valley filled with somber forest, and a rampart of tall hillside, slipped by, and as they crept on from point to point the strip of still water stretched away before them between somber ranks of climbing trees.

Frank had no idea how far they had gone when the light began to fail, though he fancied that the shallow craft, now slipping forward so smoothly, was sailing a good deal faster than she seemed to be. At length one of the Siwash loosened the sheets and stowed the sails, while his companion turned the bows toward the beach. She slid in and grounded gently on a bank of shingle in a little cove, where a gigantic forest crept down to the water. They got out and ran her up, filled their kettle at a tinkling creek, hewed resinous chips from a fallen fir, and built a fire. Then they cut armfuls of thin spruce branches with which to make their beds, and presently sat down to an ample supper.

When it was over the Indians went down to the canoe, and Mr. Oliver and Mr. Barclay drew a little apart from the boys. Frank, lying near Harry beneath a big cedar, raised himself up on one elbow and watched the firelight flicker upon the mighty trunks. On the one hand they were lost in the gloom of the dense mass of dusky foliage, but on the other their great branches cut against the sky, which was still softly blue, and a blaze of silver radiance stretched across the water, for a half-moon had just sailed up above the opposite hill. Out of the silence there stole a faint whispering from the tops of the taller trees and the languid lapping of water among the stones, but there was no other sound, and once more Frank was glad that he had not exchanged the stillness of the wilderness for the turmoil of the cities. He had now definitely decided to become a rancher.

It grew colder by and by, and wrapping his blanket around him, he wriggled down closer among the yielding spruce twigs. The great trunks grew dimmer and the smoke wisps which drifted among them became less distinct. By degrees they all grew mixed together – a confusion of sliding vapor and spectral trees – and he was conscious of nothing more.

CHAPTER XII
THE STRANGER

A couple of days later the party pitched their camp in the depths of a lonely valley sloping to the Pacific, which was not far away. It was filled with great redwoods, balsams and cedars, and as Frank gazed at the endless rows of towering trunks it struck him as curious that Mr. Oliver's friend should think of buying this tract of giant forest for ranching land. He said so to Harry, who laughed.

"There's no rock or gravel on it and that counts for a good deal," said his companion. "If the soil looks as if it would grow things, it's about all the average man expects on this side of the Rockies. A few trees more or less don't matter. It's the same with us right down the Pacific Slope; the only difference is that on this island the firs seem just a little bigger." He appeared to admit the latter fact reluctantly, adding, "I guess that's because it's wetter in Canada."

They were standing outside a little tent of the kind most often used in the Western bush. It was supported by a ridge pole resting at either end upon two more, which were spread well apart at the bottom and crossed near the top. A short branch stay stretched back from each pair, and a few turns of cord lashing held the whole frame together. They had cut the poles in five minutes in the bush, and had brought the light cotton cover with them rolled up in a bundle. A good many men in that country live in such shelters during most of the year. Mr. Barclay sat on one of the hearth logs which were rolled close together in front of the tent and Mr. Oliver stood in the entrance.

"But the place must be such a tremendous way from a market," said Frank in response to Harry's last remark.

Mr. Oliver smiled. "It's not long since I tried to explain that a good many of the bush ranchers have to wait until the market comes to them. They stake their dollars and a number of years of hard work on the future of the country."

"Some of them get badly left now and then," said Mr. Barclay dryly. "You'll find laid-out townsites that have never grown up all along the Pacific Slope. There are stores and hotels falling to pieces in one or two I've struck." Then changing the subject: "Are you boys coming across with me to the river for some fishing to-morrow?"

They said that they would be glad to do so, and Mr. Barclay turned to Mr. Oliver. "We'll give you another two days to finish your surveying, and then we'll meet you at the rancherie on the inlet we spoke of. We can camp in the bush outside the tent for a couple of nights."

They started early the next morning, taking one Indian with them to pack their provisions, and the dog, who insisted on accompanying them. They were plodding along a hillside toward noon when Mr. Barclay, who was walking in front with their guide, looked back at the boys.

"Get hold of the dog as soon as we stop and keep him quiet," he cautioned.

After that they moved forward in silence for some minutes while the trees grew thinner ahead of them, until Mr. Barclay stopped behind a brake of undergrowth. The dog broke into a short, throaty bark and then growled hoarsely until Frank knelt beside him and laid a hand upon his collar. When he had quieted the animal, who by degrees had become attached to him, he arose and found he could look down upon a narrow slit of valley into which the sunlight poured. A creek swirled through the bottom of it, and he was astonished to see a swarm of blue-clad figures toiling with grubhoe and shovel upon its banks, and a cluster of bark shelters in the widest part of the hollow.

"Chinamen!" he said. "What can they be doing? One never would have expected to find a colony of them here."

Mr. Barclay smiled in a somewhat curious fashion.

"They're washing gold. It's a remarkably simple process, if you're willing to work hard enough. You shovel out the soil and sand and keep on washing it until it's all washed away. Any gold there is remains in the bottom of the pan."

"But if there's gold in that creek, how is it there are no white men about?"

"Probably because they couldn't make wages. There's a little gold in a number of the creeks right down the Slope, but where the quantity's very small nobody but a Chinaman finds it worth while to look for it."

Mr. Barclay sat down and spent some minutes apparently carefully watching the blue-clad figures toiling in the sunlight below, after which he got up and signaled for them to go on again. The boys, however, dropped a little behind, and presently Harry gave his companion a nudge.

"I guess you noticed that when you said one wouldn't have expected to find those Chinamen here Barclay didn't answer it?"

"Yes," said Frank thoughtfully. "I suppose you mean he wasn't astonished when he saw them?"

"You've hit it, first time," Harry assented. "That man's on the trail, and though I can't tell you exactly who he's getting after, I've my ideas." He paused with a chuckle. "I'm not sure now he's quite so much of a stuffed image as he seemed to be."

Frank said nothing in answer to this. A few minutes later Harry touched his arm as Mr. Barclay, turning suddenly, shouted:

"Get hold of the dog!"

Frank grabbed at the animal's collar but missed it, and the next moment the dog had vanished. Then there was a crash in the bush, and a beautiful slender creature with long legs and little horns shot out from behind a thicket and flung itself high into the air. It fell again, this time with scarcely a sound, into a clump of fern, rose out of it, and in a wonderful bound cleared a fallen trunk with broken branches projecting from it. Then it was lost in another thicket and the dog's harsh barking rang through the silence of the woods. Once or twice again Frank caught a momentary glimpse of a marvelously agile creature rising and falling among the undergrowth, and then there was only the yelping of the dog which became fainter and fainter and finally broke out at irregular intervals. Mr. Barclay sat down upon the fallen trees.

"I suppose we'll have to wait until that amiable pet of yours comes back," he said. "On the whole it's fortunate the deer broke out now instead of a quarter of an hour earlier."

They waited a considerable time before the dog crept up to them wagging his ragged tail in a disappointed manner. Harry shook his fishing rod at him threateningly.

"I'd lay into you good, only it wouldn't be any use," he said. "The more you're whacked, the worse you get."

The dog wagged his tail again and jumped upon Frank, who patted him before they resumed the march.

"It's rather curious, but that's the first deer I've seen since I've been in the country," he said. "Do they always jump like that?"

"Well," said Harry, "in a general way they are quite hard to see, and you can walk right past one without noticing it when it's standing still. Their colors match the trunks and the fern, and, what's more important, it's not often you can see the whole of them. In fact, I've struck as many deer by accident as I've done when I've been trailing them. Now and then you almost walk right up to one, though I haven't the least notion how it is they don't hear you, because as a rule the one you're trailing will leave you out of sight in a few moments if you snap a twig. Anyway, a scared deer goes over whatever lies in front of him. There are very few things he can't jump, and he comes down almost without a sound."

The rest of the journey proved uneventful, and early in the evening they made camp on the banks of a frothing river which swept out of the shadow crystal clear. In this it differed, as Harry explained, from most of the larger ones on the Pacific Slope, which are usually fed by melted snow and stained a faint green. Mr. Barclay, whose boots and clothes were already considerably the worse for wear, sat down beside a swirling pool and took out his pipe.

"There's no use pitching a fly across it yet, I suppose," he said. "We may as well get supper before we start."

The Siwash prepared the meal and remained behind with Mr. Barclay when it was over, while the two boys went down stream with a rod he had lent them which Harry insisted Frank should take. There were, he urged, plenty of trout in the river near his father's ranch, though it was very seldom he had leisure to go after them. They wandered on some distance beside the water, which ran almost west toward the Pacific, and wherever the forest was a little thinner the slanting sunrays streaming between the serried trunks smote along it. Frank, who had, as it happened, once or twice got a week or two's fishing in the East, kept his eyes open, but it was only twice that he fancied he noticed the faint dimple made by a short-rising trout.

"I'd have expected to find a river of this kind thick with fish," he said.

"There's sure to be a good many in it," answered Harry. "You wait about another half hour."

"What's the matter with starting now?" urged Frank. "Isn't that one rising in the slack yonder?"

"See if you can get him," said Harry, smiling.

Frank swung the rod, straining every effort to make a neat, clean cast, and he succeeded. The flies dropped lightly about a foot above the dimple made by the fish, and swept down stream across the spot where he had reason to suppose it was waiting. There was no response, however, and nothing broke the rippling surface when the flies floated down a second time. Frank laid down the rod.

"It's curious," he murmured.

Harry laughed. "Hold on a little. You've seen three fish rising now, and that's quite out of the common."

Frank sat down again, and waited until the sunlight faded off the river and the firs about it suddenly grew blacker. Soon afterward what seemed an almost solid cloud of tiny insects drifted along the surface of the water, which was immediately broken by multitudinous splashes.

"Now you can begin," said Harry.

Frank, clambering to a ledge of rock, swung his rod, and as the flies swept across an eddy there was a splash and a swirl and a sudden tightening of the line. He got the butt down as the winch commenced to clink, and Harry waded out into the stream lower down, holding his wide hat.

"Let him run, but keep a strain on," he cried. "You've got a big one."

The fish fought for three or four minutes, gleaming, a streak of silver, through the shadowy flood, as it showed its side, then sprang clear and changed again to a half-seen dusky shape that drove violently here and there. Then it came up toward the bending point of the rod, and at length Harry, slipping his hat beneath it, lifted it out.

"Nearly three quarters of a pound," he said. "Your trace is clear now. Try again, and never mind about the slack and eddies. Pitch your flies anywhere."

Frank did so, and they had scarcely fallen when there was a second rush, but this fish seemed smaller and he dragged it out unceremoniously upon the shingle. It was the same the next cast, and for a while he was kept desperately busy. When at length he laid the rod down Harry announced that they had a dozen fish.

"We'll try the next pool now," he added. "Some of these trout aren't half a pound and I'd like you to get a real big one."

The next pool proved to be some distance away and there was nothing but rock and foaming water between, but when they reached a slacker place where the current circled around a deep basin Frank had four or five more minutes' fishing, during which he landed several trout. Then the flies seemed to vanish and there was scarcely a splash on the shadowy water.

"You may as well put the rod up," Harry advised. "It's a sure thing you won't get another."

Frank tried for a few minutes, but finding his companion's prediction justified, sat down near him among the roots of a big fir. At the foot of the pool where he had been fishing the stream swept furiously between big scattered boulders in a wild white rapid. It was narrower there, and a ledge of rock, slightly hollowed out underneath, rose above it on the side on which they sat a little more than a hundred yards away. The woods were now darkening fast, and the chill of the dew was in the air, which was heavy with the scent of redwood and cedar. In places the water still glimmered faintly, and except for the roar it made, everything was very still.

Suddenly Harry pointed to the dog, who was lying near Frank.

"Get hold of him," he said in a low voice. "If nothing else will keep him quiet, we'll roll your jacket round his head."

Frank, who had taken off his jacket, which was badly torn, when he began fishing, laid his hand on the dog as it arose with a low growl. Then as it tried to break away from him he seized its collar and held on with all his might while Harry flung the jacket over it. Though the thing cost them an effort they managed to hold the animal still between them. In the meanwhile there was a crackle of undergrowth and Frank saw a man who walked in a rather curious manner move out from the shadow. Even when he was clear of the overhanging branches it was impossible to see him distinctly, but Frank recognized him with a start. There was something wrong with one of the dark figure's shoulders.

The man moved on away from them, until he stopped at the edge of the overhanging rock, where he stood for a moment or two. Then he leaped out suddenly and alighted on the top of a boulder about which the white froth whirled. Frank fancied that only a very powerful person could have safely made such a leap, and there was no doubt that whatever it was that had caused the man's unusual gait, it had not affected his agility. The next moment, he jumped again, and, coming down rather more than knee-deep in the rapid, floundered through it and vanished into the shadow beneath the trees. Then Harry looked around at his companion with a smile.

"I'll own up that Barclay's smart, after all," he said. "He's sure on the trail. Anyway, perhaps we'd better head back to camp in case some more of them come along."

It was quite dark when they reached the fire the Siwash had made and found Mr. Barclay, who now seemed rather wet as well as ragged, sitting beside it with his pipe in his hand. When they had compared their fish with those he had killed they lay down among the withered needles on the opposite side of the fire.

"It's good fishing, sir, but you must be very keen to come so far for it," said Harry, looking up innocently at Mr. Barclay.

The red light of the fire was on Mr. Barclay's face and Frank saw that he glanced thoughtfully at Harry.

"It certainly is," he answered. "I believe you have already said something very much like your last remark. Still, you see, I don't propose to come often."

Frank suppressed a chuckle. If Harry had intended to surprise the man into some admission he had not succeeded yet.

"And we go on to the rancherie in a couple of days," Harry added. "From what the Indians told me I don't think we'd get any fishing there. Wouldn't it be better to stay here a little longer?"

"No," said Mr. Barclay, "quite apart from the difficulty of sending your father word, what you suggest doesn't strike me as advisable, for one or two reasons."

Harry seemed to realize that he was making no progress, and, looking meaningly at Frank, suddenly changed his tactics.

"There's something I should perhaps have told you, sir, though I don't know whether it will interest you. Anyway, not long ago Frank and I were up at the Chinese colony behind the settlement near our ranch. Perhaps you have been there?"