Kitabı oku: «The Greater Power», sayfa 20
“Have you offered to sell the mortgage to anybody?”
“I saw Martial and the Charters people not long ago. They’d give about eighty cents on the dollar. Hutton said he’d make me a bid, but he didn’t.”
“Well,” said Acton, “my friend here wants that ranch for a particular purpose. He’d bid you ninety.”
“I can’t do it. If the new roads that have been suggested are made, the ranch ought to bring me a little more. Still, I don’t mind letting you in at what I gave for it.”
Acton looked at Nasmyth.
“Then,” said Acton, “we’ll call it a bargain. You can write me a note to that effect, and I’ll send my clerk across with the papers presently.”
The man went out a few minutes later, and Acton rose.
“I’ll charge you bank interest; but if you care to put the mortgage up for sale, you’ll get your money back ’most any time after they start those roads,” Acton said to Nasmyth. “Now we’ll go along and call on Waynefleet.”
They went out with Hames, and a little while later came upon Waynefleet sitting on the veranda of a second-rate hotel. He was dressed immaculately, and with a cigar in his hand, lay in a big chair. He started when he saw them. Hames grinned, and sat down close in front of him.
“I’m going back on my bargain. I want my money and you can keep your land,” he said. “The fact is Mr. Acton has got on my trail, and he’s not the kind of man I have any use for fighting.”
There was consternation in Waynefleet’s face, but he straightened himself with an effort.
“I suppose you have brought this man, Mr. Nasmyth, and I scarcely think it is quite what one would have expected from you–at least, until you had afforded me the opportunity of offering you an explanation,” he blustered.
“Can you offer me one that any sensible man would listen to?” Nasmyth asked sharply.
“He can’t,” Acton broke in. “We’re out on business. You may as well make it clear that we understand the thing.”
Waynefleet turned and looked at Acton with lifted brows, and had he been less angry, Nasmyth could have laughed at his attitude. Waynefleet’s air of supercilious resentment was inimitable.
“You have some interest in this affair?” he inquired.
“Oh, yes,” answered Acton cheerfully. “Still, you needn’t worry about me. All you have to do is to hand this man over the money and record the new sale. We don’t want any unpleasantness, but it has to be done.”
Waynefleet appeared to recognize that there was no remedy.
“In that case there is the difficulty that I can’t quite raise the amount paid,” he said. “Travelling and my stay in the city have cost me something.”
“How much are you short?”
“About a hundred dollars.”
“Then,” replied Acton, “I’ll take a bill for the money. We’ll go along and record the sale as soon as Mr. Nasmyth’s ready. I expect he has something to say to you.”
Acton went into the hotel with Hames, and there was an awkward silence when they had disappeared. Nasmyth leaned against a wooden pillar, and Waynefleet sat still, waiting for him to speak. Nasmyth turned to him.
“It would, perhaps, be preferable to regard this affair from a strictly business point of view,” said Nasmyth. “You are, of course, in our hands, but to save your credit and to protect Miss Waynefleet from any embarrassment, we shall probably not insist upon your handing over the land to anybody else. I think we are safe in doing that. Now that you have signally failed, you will not have nerve enough to attempt to betray us again.”
Waynefleet waved his hand. “I resent the attitude you have adopted. It is not by any means what I am accustomed to, or should have expected from you.”
Nasmyth felt a faint, contemptuous pity for the man, who still endeavoured to retain his formality of manner.
“I’m afraid that hasn’t any great effect on me, and my attitude is, at least, a natural one,” he said. “I believe that Gordon and I can arrange that the boys do not hear of your recent action, and though you will take no further part in our affairs, you will stay on at the ranch. I may mention that I have just bought up your mortgage.”
A flush of anger showed in Waynefleet’s cheeks.
“Is it in any way your business where I live?” he asked.
“No,” answered Nasmyth, “not in the least–that is, as far as it affects yourself. Still, I am determined that Miss Waynefleet shall have no fresh cause for anxiety. I don’t mind admitting that I owe a great deal to her.” He paused for a moment, and then turned to Waynefleet with a forceful gesture. “When you have bought back the land from Hames, I don’t suppose you will have a dollar in your possession, and the ranch belongs to me. As I said, you will stay–at least, until you can satisfy me that you can maintain yourself and Miss Waynefleet in some degree of comfort if you go away. Now I believe the others are waiting. We will go along and get the sale recorded.”
CHAPTER XXX
SECOND THOUGHTS
It was getting dusk when Wheeler swung himself from the saddle near the head of the gully and, with the bridle of the jaded horse in his hand, stood still a few moments looking about him. A wonderful green transparency still shone high up above the peaks, whose jagged edges cut into it sharply with the cold blue-white gleam of snow, but upon the lower slopes there was a balmy softness in the air, which was heavy with the odours of fir and cedar. Summer was breaking suddenly upon the mountain-land, but Wheeler, who had crossed the divide in bright sunshine, was sensible of a certain shrinking as he glanced down into the depths of the cañon. A chilly mist streamed up out of it, and the great rift looked black and grim and forbidding.
Wheeler noticed a dusky figure beneath the firs, and, moving towards it, came upon a man with a pipe in his hand, sitting upon a fallen tree. In view of the strenuous activity that was the rule in the cañon, such leisure was unusual.
“Well,” he remarked, “you don’t seem busy, any way.”
The man grinned. “I’m looking out,” he replied. “Guess I’ve had my eye on you for the last few minutes, and a stranger wouldn’t have got quite so far. You haven’t got any papers from the courts on you?”
“No,” said Wheeler, who noticed that there was a rifle lying near the man, “I haven’t. Still, if I’d looked like a lawyer or a court officer–”
“Then,” asserted the man, “it’s a sure thing you wouldn’t have got in. The boys have enough giant-powder rammed into the heading to lift the bottom right out of the cañon two minutes after any suspicious stranger comes along.”
Wheeler laughed, for it was evident to him that Nasmyth had been taking precautions, and, turning away, he led his horse down the gully. It grew colder as he proceeded, and a chilly breeze swept the white mist about him. The trees, that shook big drops of moisture down on him, were wailing, but he could hear them only faintly through the clamour of the fall. He left the horse with a man he came upon lower down, and, reaching the shingle at the water’s edge, saw the great derrick swing black athwart the glare of a big fire. The smoke whirled about the dark rock wall, and here and there dusky figures were toiling knee-deep amid the white froth of the rapid. The figures emerged from the blackness and vanished into it again, as the flickering radiance rose and fell. Scrambling to the ledge above the fall, Wheeler found two men standing near the mouth of the heading, which was just level with the pool.
“Where’s Nasmyth, boys?” he inquired.
“Inside,” answered one of the men. “Guess he’s wedging up the heading. If you want him, you’d better crawl right in.”
Wheeler glanced down at the black mouth of the tunnel, on which the streaming radiance fell. He fancied that the river flowed into it, and the man’s suggestion did not appeal to him.
“Won’t you tell him that I’d like a talk with him?” he asked.
The man laughed. “Guess that’s not going to bring him. It will be daylight, any way, before he lets up. You’ll have to go right in.”
Wheeler dropped cautiously upon a slippery staging, across which the water flowed, and, crawling into the heading, with a blinking light in his eyes, fell into a sled that was loaded with broken rock. He crept round the obstruction, and a few moments later found himself knee-deep in water before a little dam that had been thrown across the heading. The heading dipped sharply beyond it, which somewhat astonished him, and when he had climbed over the barricade, he descended cautiously, groping towards another light. Big drops of water fell upon him, and here and there a jet of it spurted out. At last he stopped, and saw Nasmyth lying, partly raised on one elbow, in an inch or two of water, while he painfully swung a heavy hammer. The heading was lined with stout pillars, made of sawn-up firs, and Nasmyth appeared to be driving a wedge under one of them. Two or three other men were putting heavy masses of timber into place.
The smoky flame of a little lamp flared upon the rock above, which trickled with moisture, and the light fell upon Nasmyth’s wet face, which was deeply flushed. Nasmyth gasped heavily, and great splashes of sand and mire lay thick upon his torn, drenched shirt. He appeared to see Wheeler, for he looked up, but he did not stop until he had driven the wedge in. Then he rose to his knees and stretched himself wearily.
“The rock’s badly fissured. We’ve got to get double timbers in as soon as we can,” he explained. “I’m going to do some boring. We’ll go along.”
Wheeler crept after him down the inclined heading until they reached the spot where Gordon sat crouched over a machine. Gordon did not move until Nasmyth seized his shoulders.
“You can get back to the wedging, and send two or three boys along to heave the water out. I’ll keep this thing going,” he said.
Gordon, who greeted Wheeler, floundered away, and Wheeler sat down in the dryest spot he could find, while Nasmyth grasped the handle of the machine.
“There’s no reason why you shouldn’t smoke,” he said.
“That,” replied Wheeler, “is a point I’m not quite sure about. How many sticks of giant-powder have you rammed into this heading? As you know, it’s apt to be a little uncertain.”
Nasmyth laughed as he glanced at the flaring lamp above his head. “There’s a hole with a stick in it just at your elbow. I’ve been filling the holes as we made them. In view of what I expect those folks in the city are arranging, it seemed advisable.”
Wheeler was sensible of a certain uneasiness as he listened to the crunch of the boring tool and the jarring thud of the hammers.
“What are you going so far down for?” he asked.
“To get into sounder rock. It’s costing us considerable time that we can badly spare, but once or twice I fancied the whole river was coming in on us. Now we’re getting almost through, I want to make quite sure.”
Wheeler nodded. “I guess that’s wise. So far, we have come out ahead of Hutton and the rest of them,” he asserted. “Our people hold the timber rights, and we have got the shingle-splitting plant in. You headed him off in Waynefleet’s case, and there only remains the man with the old Bush claim. There’s, unfortunately, no doubt about his title to the ranch, and it’s a sure thing the folks in the city will put him up again. Have you heard from him lately?”
“I have,” answered Nasmyth, with a smile. “As you know, I made him half a dozen different offers to buy him out. He naturally didn’t close with them, but he wrote trying to raise me, and kept the thing up rather well. Of course, it was evident that his friends were quite willing to let me get most of the work done before they showed their hand too visibly. I scarcely fancy they know how near we are to getting through, though that rancher man’s lawyer said something about taking proceedings a little while ago.”
“Suppose they went to court, and served you with a notice to quit what you’re doing?”
Nasmyth, turning, pointed with a wet, scarred hand to several holes in the side of the heading, from which a wire projected.
“Well,” he said, “they’d have to serve it, and while their man was trying to get down the gully I’d rip most of the bottom out of this strip of cañon. I’m not sure we haven’t gone far enough already to split up the whole ridge that’s holding back the river. Still, I’m going on a little. I mean to make sure.” He bent over the machine. “You have brought up some letters? The man has, perhaps, been trying to worry me again.”
“Two or three,” replied Wheeler. “I called at the settlement for them. One is evidently from a lady.”
Nasmyth swung round again and took the little dainty envelope from him. He smeared it with his wet hands as he opened it, and then his voice broke sharply through the thud of the hammers.
“Can’t you move? I’m too far from that lamp,” he said.
He scrambled by Wheeler and crouched close beneath the smoky, flickering flame, dripping, spattered with mire, and very grim in face. The note was from Violet Hamilton, and it was brief.
“I should like to see you as soon as you can get away,” it read. “There is something I must say, and since it might spare both of us pain, I feel almost tempted to try to explain it now. That, however, would perhaps be weak of me, and I think you will, after all, not blame me very greatly.”
He flung the note down in the water, and straightened himself wearily.
“I am invited to go down to Bonavista, and it’s tolerably clear that I have another trouble to face,” he announced in a dull tone. “In the meanwhile there’s this heading to be pushed on, and it seems to me that the thing that counts most is what I owe the boys.”
Wheeler, who had heard something from Gordon, looked at him with grave sympathy, but Nasmyth made an expressive gesture as he glanced down at his attire.
“Well,” he remarked, “I probably look very much what I am–a played-out borer of headings and builder of dams, who has just now everything against him. Still, I was fool enough to indulge in some very alluring fancies a little while ago.” He turned to Wheeler with a sudden flash in his eyes. “You can take those letters to Gordon and tell him to open them. I’ve a little trouble to grapple with, and I don’t feel inclined for conversation.”
Wheeler could take a hint, and he crawled away along the heading, while Nasmyth toiled for the next half-hour strenuously at the machine. The perspiration dripped from him. He gasped as he ripped the handle around; then he let it go suddenly, and his face became softer as he picked up the letter again.
“Well,” he told himself, “I don’t think I can blame her, after all, and with what she has to say it would hurt if I kept her waiting.”
He sat down again at the machine, and the boring tool crunched on steadily into the rock until after some time, a man took his place, and, crouching in the narrow heading, swung the heavy hammer as they wedged the extra timbers fast. A faint grey light was creeping into the eastern sky when Nasmyth crawled out of the heading and scrambled back to the shanty. Gordon, who was getting up when he entered, looked at him curiously.
“I’m going into Bonavista after breakfast,” Nasmyth said. “I don’t want to leave the boys now, but I can’t help it.”
Gordon asked no injudicious questions, for Wheeler had mentioned the letter, and his comrade’s voice had its significance for him.
“Then,” he said, “I’ll tell Mattawa to have the horse ready.”
Nasmyth slept soundly until the meal was laid out. He rode into the settlement a little before dark that night. It was the next afternoon when he reached Bonavista, and he found Violet Hamilton sitting upon the veranda alone. She appeared embarrassed when she saw him, and he leaned against one of the pillars, quietly looking down on her. For a moment or two neither of them said anything, and it was Nasmyth who broke the awkward silence.
“I felt very bitter when I got that note,” he said. “When I grappled with the thing, however, I commenced to realize that you might be right. Of course, I quite realized all you wished to imply.”
“Ah!” answered the girl softly, “then you are not very angry with me.” She leaned forward and met his gaze. “I think we were both very nearly making a terrible mistake.”
“I scarcely think that is a thing you could expect me to admit–that is, at least, as far as my part in it goes,” said Nasmyth.
“Still,” replied Violet, “you admitted that you felt I might be right.”
She looked anxious, and Nasmyth realized that, since she might have written what she had to say, it must have cost her a good deal to break with him personally. The courage which had prompted her to summon him appealed to him, and, in place of anger, he was conscious of a certain sympathy for her.
“In one sense you were certainly right,” he said. “We belong to different worlds, and I should never have spoken to you as I did. That is a thing you must try to forgive me, and you have no reason to blame yourself. As I told you at the time, you were free.”
“Ah!” cried Violet, “you are very generous. After all, I expected that from you, and I think it will not hurt you very much to give me up.”
“I wonder why?” asked Nasmyth gravely.
Violet sat silent a moment or two, and then looked up at him quietly.
“Oh,” she said, “you owe so much to that girl in the Bush! She would always have come between us. I think you made me recognize it when you told me about her, though it was only by degrees I came to understand it clearly.”
Nasmyth’s face flushed. “That,” he queried, “is your reason for wishing to get rid of me?”
Violet looked away from him, and there was a telltale self consciousness in her manner when she turned to him again. Nasmyth, who noticed it, winced.
“Well,” he hazarded, “it was, perhaps, not the only one.”
“No,” confessed Violet very softly, “there was another thing which influenced me rather more.”
Nasmyth, who understood her, stood silent a moment or two, with one hand tightly closed. “In that case there is nothing to be said, and I must try to face it gracefully,” he told her. “Reproaches are not exactly becoming in the case of a discarded man.” He took off his wide hat as he held out his hand. “Miss Hamilton, the thing naturally hurts me, but perhaps I cannot reasonably blame you. I’m not sure you could expect me to go any further now.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Violet, “you have made it easy. I would like to assure you of my good-will.”
He held her hand a moment and swung abruptly away. He met Mrs. Acton as he went down a corridor. He stopped in front of her, and she looked at him questioningly when she saw his face.
“I have not come up to expectations. It is, perhaps, fortunate Miss Hamilton found it out when she did,” he said.
“Oh!” Mrs. Acton replied, “I told you it would not be well to stay away very long.”
“I scarcely think the result would have been different in any case,” Nasmyth declared.
Mrs. Acton was silent for a moment. Then she looked at him sharply.
“Where are you going now?” she asked.
“Back to the world I belong to,” answered Nasmyth,–“to the railroad, in the first case. I’m not sure that Miss Hamilton would like to feel that I was in the house.”
Mrs. Acton made no protest, and ten minutes later he had crossed the clearing and plunged into the Bush.
Mrs. Acton, crossing the veranda, laid her hand on the girl’s shoulder.
“I naturally don’t know what he said to you, but I can’t help believing that he acquitted himself rather well,” she observed. “After all, it must have been a little painful to him.”
“Perhaps it was,” replied Violet. “Still, I don’t think it hurt him dreadfully.”
She was more or less correct in this surmise, for, as Nasmyth walked on through the Bush, he became conscious of a faint relief.
CHAPTER XXXI
THE LAST SHOT
Laura Waynefleet was preparing breakfast, and the door of the ranch stood open, when she heard the sharp clatter of the flung-down slip-rails in the fence across the clearing jar upon the stillness of the surrounding woods. It was early in the morning, and since it was evident that, if the strangers who were approaching came from the settlement, they must have set out as soon as it was light, she decided that their business was probably urgent. Laying down the frying-pan in which she was making flapjacks, she moved toward the door, and stood watching two men ride across the clearing in the direction of the house. They did not belong to the settlement, for she had never seen either of them before, a fact which made it clear that they had not ridden in from the cañon. She had quick eyes, and she noticed that, although they could not have ridden very far that morning, their horses appeared jaded, which suggested that they had made a long journey the previous day. The men appeared weary, too, and she imagined that they were not accustomed to the Bush.
As she watched them she wondered with a trace of uneasiness what their business could be, and decided that it was, perhaps, as well that her father was busy in the stable, where he could not hear them arrive. Since Gordon usually called at the ranch when he went down to the settlement, she was more or less acquainted with what was being done at the cañon and with Nasmyth’s affairs, and she was on her guard when one of the strangers pulled his horse up close in front of her.
“Can we hire a couple of horses here?” he asked. “Ours are played out.”
There was then a cayuse pony in Waynefleet’s stable, but it belonged to a neighbouring rancher, and Laura had no intention of handing it over to the strangers.
“I’m afraid not,” she answered. “The only horse on the ranch does not belong to us, and I wouldn’t care to hire it out unless I had permission. Besides, I may want it myself. You could have obtained horses at the settlement hotel.”
“We didn’t put up there.”
“But you must have come through the settlement. You have evidently ridden in from the railroad.”
The man laughed. “Well,” he admitted, “we certainly did, but we got off the trail last night, and they took us in at Bullen’s ranch. Soon after we started out a chopper told us we could save a league by riding up the valley instead of by the settlement. Does the man you said the horse belonged to live in the neighbourhood?”
Laura did not answer immediately. She was quick-witted, and she recognized that, while the man’s explanation was plausible, there were weak points in it. For one thing, the previous night had not been dark, and it was difficult to understand how anyone could have wandered off the wide trail to the settlement into the one which led through thick undergrowth to Bullen’s ranch. She guessed that the strangers must have had an object in not visiting the settlement. Then there was, it seemed to her, something suggestive in the fact that Bullen, who had a share in Nasmyth’s project, and owned several horses, had not seized upon the opportunity to aid the travellers, for, if he had not been willing to lend his horses, it could only have been because he was a little dubious about the strangers.
“The man who owns the horse lives at least an hour’s ride away,” she informed the stranger. “You are going on into the Bush?”
“Yes,” answered the man. “Can you tell us the easiest way to reach the cañon?”
Laura was glad that he had asked for the easiest route, for soon after the snow had gone, Nasmyth had broken out a shorter and somewhat perilous trail over the steepest part of the divide. Only the pack-horses now went round by the longer way. She thought hard for a moment or two, and then told the man how to find the old trail.
He rode away with his companion, and Laura’s face was thoughtful when she sat down again. She made a hasty breakfast, and went out to the stable. Waynefleet was still busy when she reached it, and she took down the side-saddle before she turned to him.
“I have left your breakfast ready, but you must excuse me,” she announced; “I am going to the cañon.”
Waynefleet raised his brows and looked at her with his most precise air, but, seeing that had no effect, he made a gesture of resignation.
“Very well,” he said. “I presume you do not, as usual, think it worth while to acquaint me with your object.”
Laura laughed. “I’m not exactly sure of it myself. I may tell you a little more when I come back.”
She led the horse out, and, crossing the clearing, rode hard for a league or so, and then made sure by the prints of their horses’ feet that the strangers had followed her instructions before she struck into the shorter trail. It was scarcely wide enough to ride along, and for a while dense thickets of fern and undergrowth closed in on it. Further on, it skirted a quaggy swamp, and led through several rapid creeks, while here and there great fallen trees compelled her to turn aside, and there were groves of willows to be painfully struggled through. The cayuse she rode was, however, more or less accustomed to that kind of work, and she made tolerable progress until she reached the foot of the big divide. There she dismounted, and led the cayuse up a steep gully through which a torrent poured. They stumbled amidst big boulders and over slippery shingle until they reached the head of the gully, and then there were almost precipitous slopes of rock to be faced. They climbed for a couple of hours, and Laura gasped with relief when at last she stood upon the crest of the divide.
The descent was perilous, but already the sun hung low above the western hills, and she went down in the saddle with the cayuse slipping and stumbling horribly, until the roar of the river came faintly up to her. Then she drew bridle, and glanced ruefully at her attire. Her skirt was rent in places, and one little shoe had burst. A branch that had torn her hat off had loosened a coil of gleaming hair, and, anxious as she was, she stopped for several minutes to set these matters straight as far as it was possible. There was, she felt, after all, no reason why Nasmyth should see her in that state. Then she rode on, and a little later a man appeared among the pines at the head of the gully. She was very weary when she got down beside him.
“Have two strangers arrived here yet?” she asked.
“They haven’t,” answered the man.
Laura was glad she had undertaken the journey when she saw the sudden intentness of his face.
“Two of them are on the trail?” he inquired sharply.
“Yes,” said Laura. “They have gone round by the pack-horse trail. I rode in by the new one.”
The man was astonished that she had accomplished the trip, and she saw that he was troubled.
“Well,” he advised, “you had better go right on and tell Nasmyth as quick as you can. It’s my business to see no strangers get in, or I’d go with you.”
Laura left the horse with him, and, descending the gully, found an unusual number of men busy beside the river. In fact, she believed that all those who had been at work in the valley must have crossed the range to the cañon. It was also evident from their faces that most of them were in a state of eager expectation. Something out of the usual course was clearly going on. She asked for Nasmyth, and a few moments later he came scrambling towards her along the log staging. There was, she was quick to notice, a strained look in his eyes, but he shook hands with her, and then, remembering the state of her attire, she coloured a little.
“Do you expect two men from the city to-night?” she asked.
Nasmyth started. “I have, at least, been wondering when they would turn up,” he answered. “There are two men of that kind on the trail?”
His voice was sharp and insistent, and Laura told him hastily about the men who had called at the ranch.
“From what you say, they can’t well be here for another hour or two,” he said, and there was a determined glint in his eyes. “I fancy we’ll be through by then.”
He swung around, and raised a hand to the men. “Boys, you’ll get the last holes filled with giant-powder as quick as you can, and couple up the firing battery. We’ll lift that rock right out when you’re ready.”
He turned again to Laura. “I’m not sure you understand all that you have done,” he said. “For one thing, I think, you have saved us from being beaten when what we have fought for was almost in our hand.”
He paused for a moment, and then his voice became hoarse as he indicated the clustering men with a little forceful gesture.
“They have come in to see the last shot fired. We had arranged to put in a few more sticks of powder, and then lower the river once for all in another hour or two. Some of the boys are now getting a big supper ready to celebrate the occasion, but if you hadn’t brought us the warning, it’s scarcely likely that any of us would have felt much inclined for festivity. In all probability, those strangers are bringing an order to restrain me from going any further. Once it was in my hands, I could not have fired the shot. All we have done would have been thrown away.”
“Ah!” cried Laura, “that would be intolerable!”
Nasmyth laughed significantly.
“Any way,” he declared, “until the papers are served on me, my charter stands. We’ll have scattered the last strip of rock when those men ride in.”
He made her a grave little bow. “You set us to work,” he said. “It is only fitting that you should once more hold the firing battery.”
He moved away abruptly from her and crawled into the heading. It was half an hour later when he came back, and almost every man who had a share in the undertaking gathered upon the strip of shingle. Nobody spoke, however, and there was tense expectancy in the bronzed faces. Nasmyth beckoned to Laura and moved forward with Gordon, and Wheeler, who carried the battery. Nasmyth swung his battered hat off as he held out his hand, and Laura, clinging to him, climbed to a shelf of rock where she stood still a moment or two, looking about her.
In front the white spray of the fall whirled beneath the tremendous wall of rock, and about her stood groups of hard-handed men, who had driven the heading with strenuous, insistent toil. She knew what the work had cost them, and could understand the look in their steady eyes. They had faced the river in the depths of the tremendous rift, borne with the icy winter, and patiently grappled with obstacle after obstacle. Their money had not sufficed to purchase them costly machines. They had pitted steadfast courage and hardened muscle against the vast primeval forces of untrammelled Nature. Laura felt deeply stirred as she glanced at them. They were simple men, but they had faced and beaten roaring flood and stinging frost, caring little for the hazard to life or limb as they played their part in that tremendous struggle with axe and drill.
