A QUALIFIED SUCCESS
Ida Stirling was sitting by an open window of a very
artistically-furnished room, with an English newspaper lying on the
little table beside her, and _The Colonist_, which is published in
British Columbia, on her knee. She fancied from the writing on the
wrapper that Arabella Kinnaird had sent her the former, and there was
a paragraph in it which had interested her more than a little.
Trouble, it seemed, had broken out up a muddy African river, and a
white officer lying sick of fever at the time had forthwith set off
for the scene of it, with a handful of half-drilled black soldiery.
They had vanished into the steamy bush, and for several weeks nothing
had been heard of them; then, when those acquainted with the country
had decided that the little detachment had probably been cut off to a
man, half of them had unexpectedly appeared again. They now carried
their leader in a hammock, as he had been wounded by several pieces of
cast-iron fired out of a gaspipe gun; but they also brought back the
dusky gentlemen who had been responsible for the abortive rising.
Gregory Kinnaird had, it transpired, blundered into a couple of
ambushes, but that, and the fact that he had marched straight through
them, did not astonish Ida, who was more or less acquainted with his
character. He was, the paper stated, recovering from his injuries,
though it judiciously refrained from mentioning whether the
authorities applauded or censured him.
It was not an uncommon story in connection with the country in
question, but it sent a little thrill through the girl as she read it.
The rising from the sick-bed and the blundering into the ambuscades
were so characteristic of the man. He had recognized what was expected
of him, and had immediately set about doing it, without any
consideration for his safety, or, indeed, for that of his men. Gregory
Kinnaird was not a man of marked ability, but he was, at least, one
who could be relied on to attempt the carrying out of a duty he had
undertaken, at any cost to himself, and this is, after all, a good
deal to say in the favor of any man.
Ida had thought of him with a certain tenderness during the last
half-hour. She liked these simple, downright men, and fancied that the
absence of ostentation which usually characterized them was
essentially English, though she had certainly met a few in that
country who came under quite a different category. They were
continually posing; men who could not afford to be natural lest they
should give themselves away. Though she liked him, Gregory Kinnaird
had, however, passed out of her life. There was a good deal he could
have offered her, but, after all, she had almost as much already in
Canada, and it had become suddenly clear to her, outside of a London
ballroom one evening, that to like the man one would have to live with
was by no means going far enough. She also admitted that she could
have gone considerably further in the case of the man on whose account
she had been somewhat anxiously turning over _The Colonist_, which she
had done regularly during the last few weeks, without, she fancied,
her father, who purchased a good many provincial papers, becoming
aware of it.
There was, however, once more nothing whatever in it about the
adventures of any prospectors, though the paper in question now and
then detailed such things at length; and she laid it down with a
little sigh of weariness, for two men, in one of whom she was
interested, had gone up into the wilderness some time earlier, and
nothing apparently had been heard of them since. Gregory Kinnaird had,
it seemed, won credit as well as blame, serving the Empire under arms
in steamy Africa; but it was, she felt, a sterner and longer fight the
men who were up against it--and she liked the expressive phrase--made
with savage nature in the west.
After all, the rush on a rebel stockade was soon over, while it seemed
to her that the march through the black pine forest, half-fed, with
provisions running out, the sleeping in dripping fern or slushy snow,
and the staggering along the rangeside under a crushing load for days
together, with galled feet and shoulders that bled beneath the
pack-straps, was a much more difficult matter. Weston, her camp
attendant, had done all these things, and, as very frequently
happened, had so far gained nothing by them. She was glad that he had
done them, for the pride of a colonizing people was strong in her,
but, after all, that was not why she loved him. Indeed, it was rather
hard to find a reason for the latter fact. The only thing that
mattered was that she admitted it, and now she was wondering, with an
almost torturing anxiety, whether there would be any news of him in
the next issue of _The Colonist_.
Laying aside the paper, she looked out on the city, which stretched
away before her, with its roofs and spires and towers clear in the
evening light, toward the great gleaming river; but, fair as the
prospect was, her thoughts sped back to the shadowy forests and
towering ranges of the Pacific Slope. As they did so, her eyes grew
curiously soft, for when she had last looked upon those snow-barred
heights the camp-packer had been at her side. Then she turned with a
sudden start and a swift rush of blood to her face as a maid
announced, "Mr. Weston."
It was, however, a moment or two before the man came in, and she was
then mistress of herself, and it was reassuring to know that if there
was anything dramatic in his appearance at that particular time he was
evidently unaware of it. In fact, he entered the room as though he had
left it just on the previous day, and, taking her hand, merely held it
for perhaps a second longer than was absolutely necessary. Then he sat
down and inquired after her health and Stirling's, at which Ida, who
could not help it, laughed. She did not like effusiveness, but this
conventional formality seemed to her singularly out of place, until
she remembered that she had once or twice already found the
matter-of-fact quietness with which the man made his appearance and
went away again almost disconcerting. If this had been the result of
affectation it would have been provocative, but, as Ida was aware, it
seldom occurred to the man that anybody else was greatly interested in
his doings. She felt, however, that he might have made an exception of
her.
"Where have you come from now?" she asked.
Weston named a hotel of repute in that city, and, though this was not
the information Ida had desired, she favored him, unobserved, with a
glance of careful scrutiny. He was attired for once like a prosperous
man, in garments that became him, and, as she had noticed already, he
possessed the knack of wearing anything just as it should be worn,
which, as far as her observation went, was the particular
characteristic of some Englishmen.
"Then you are not at Lemoine's this time?"
"No," said Weston, with a whimsical twinkle in his eyes. "You see, we
have at last succeeded in finding the mine."
Ida started. She regretted this, but she was human, and she knew that
the man loved her. It seemed only reasonable to expect that he would
proceed to make that fact clear to her now that he had found the mine,
but she was a little puzzled about his smile. It indicated rather too
much self-possession for a man on the verge of a proposal, and she did
not know that since he entered the house he had been endeavoring to
impose a due restraint upon himself.
"Oh," she said hastily, "I'm very glad. You found the mine?"
"No," replied Weston, gravely, "Grenfell found it."
"Where is he? Have you brought him with you?"
"I haven't," said Weston, and she noticed the sudden dropping of his
voice, "Grenfell's dead. He--went on--the night before we struck the
lode up there in the bush."
"Before you struck the lode? But you said he found it."
"Yes," admitted Weston, quietly, "I think he did."
He told her the story in a few forceful words, and when he had
finished, her eyes grew a trifle hazy. She had sympathy and intuition,
and the thought of the worn-out man lying still forever beside the
gold he so long had sought affected her curiously. Weston, who felt
his heart throb painfully fast as he watched her, nodded.
"Yes," he said, "it was rather pitiful, and there was a certain
ghastly irony in the situation; but, after all, as he once admitted,
there was very little that gold could have given him."
Ida sat silent a moment or two. She was sorry for Grenfell, but he
had, as his comrade said, gone on, and she was more concerned about
the results of his discovery to those who were left behind.
"The lode," Weston added, "is all that he described it."
It cost Ida an effort to sit perfectly calm while she waited for his
next observation. It was, as she recognized, only his stubborn British
pride which had prevented him from declaring what he felt for her
earlier, and now the obstacle that had counted for most with him had
suddenly been removed. As it happened, however, he said absolutely
nothing.
"Then you and Devine and that storekeeper are prosperous men?" she
asked.
Weston laughed in a rather curious fashion, and when he spoke it was
as if he felt that an explanation of his attitude were due from him.
"No," he said, "not yet. In fact, so far we're nothing more than three
remarkably rash adventurers--little men of no account--who have set
ourselves up against the big professional company jobbers. We have won
the first round, but that was fought with nature. It's comparatively
easy to face weariness and wet and frost when one is used to it, but
to fence with the money handler is quite a different matter. To cry
our wares in the market is a thing to which we're wholly new."
He had said all that was required to make the situation reasonably
clear to a girl of her understanding. The battle was less than half
won, and it seemed that he would not claim her unless he came out
victor, which was, in some respects, as she would have it. Though she
now and then chafed at it, she loved the man's pride, and what he
could win by force she would not have him purchase with the money that
she could give him. She fancied, however, that if she chose to exert
her strength she could sweep away all the resolutions he had formed;
and she made a little of her power felt as she turned and looked at
him.
"You feel that you must fight this thing out with such weapons as you
have?" she asked. "I suppose you wouldn't allow your friends to
provide you with more efficient ones? I know I have suggested as much
already, and you would not listen, but it would make success so much
easier."
It was not remarkably explicit, but Weston, to some extent at least,
understood what she had implied, and he gazed at her with a curious
kindling in his eyes. She leaned forward in her chair, wonderfully
alluring, with a suggestive softness in her face, and he felt his
resolution deserting him. It was clear to the girl, who watched every
change of his expression, that the issue of the moment was in her
hands, and had he told her that the rest of the struggle he was
engaged in would be fought out in the snow-bound ranges where men not
infrequently died, she would have exerted all her strength. As it was,
however, and because of her pride in him, she suddenly determined that
she would let him win his spurs. Though it was beyond defining, there
was a subtle change in her manner when she leaned back in her chair.
"I think," said Weston, "the first course you mentioned is the only
one open to me."
The words did not cost him as great an effort as they would have a
moment or two earlier. He felt that in the meanwhile something had
snapped and the tension had suddenly slackened. This was a vast relief
to him, and he had recovered a good deal of his composure when the
girl spoke again.
"Still," she said, "you evidently have no great liking for the
market-place."
"I'm afraid I haven't," admitted Weston, with a little laugh. "After
all, when one has seen how some of these mining syndicates and
mortgage companies get in their work, a certain prejudice against such
things isn't quite unnatural."
"Ah," said Ida, who had now decided that the conversation must be kept
within safe limits, "you don't, however, mind using the shovel."
Weston was quite ready to follow the lead she had given him.
"What are we to do when we come out here?" he asked, with an air of
whimsical reflection. "Half of us have no professions, and we haven't
a trade. They bring us up to take life easily, and then, when some
accident pitches us out into the Colonies, it's rather a shock to
discover that nobody seems to have any use for us. As a matter of
fact, I don't blame your sawmill bosses, your railroad men and your
ranchers, considering that it takes several years to learn how to chop
a tree, and that to keep pace with an average construction gang is a
liberal education."
Ida laughed. The further they got away from the crisis now the better
she would be pleased.
"I fancy there's still a notion in the old country that the
well-brought-up young Englishman excels at anything he cares to
undertake, even if it's only manual labor," she said.
"Oh, yes," laughed Weston, "I've heard it. Let them keep such notions
over yonder if it pleases them. One naturally likes to think we're as
good as the rest, and perhaps we're warranted, but it seems to me that
the man of equal muscle raised to swing the ax and shovel is going to
beat the one who's new to it every time."
"But the pride of caste!" said Ida. "Doesn't that count? Doesn't
success even at such things as track-laying or chopping trees depend
on moral _as_ well as physical strength?"
"I think with most of us courage is largely a matter of experience,"
said Weston. "We learn to know what can't hurt us and to avoid the
things that can. As to the other kind, the man who hazards his life
and limbs in half-propped wild-cat adits, or running logs down the
rapids, is hardly likely to be less cool in a tight place than the one
who has never been accustomed to anything of the kind."
He was evidently expatiating on this subject merely because he felt
that it was safe ground, but Ida, who partly agreed with what he said,
felt that, after all, there was probably something in the insular
English notion that he was too proud to uphold. This man, at least,
possessed a courage that made him willing to carry the fight into the
market-place with wholly unaccustomed weapons, and a pride that
impelled him to lay a stern restraint upon his passion. She fancied
that there were men in Canada who would not have been deterred by her
money had they wished to marry her, and, for that matter, one or two
in England had delicately permitted the fact to become apparent. In
the meanwhile she had decided that he should have his wish. It would
perhaps be possible to offer support in some shape later on, if it
became apparent that he was badly beaten.
"I suppose it is not a very easy matter to dispose of an undeveloped
mine?" she inquired.
Weston smiled rather dryly.
"It can be done without much trouble if you're content to give the
thing away, but it's rather different if you wish to sell it. In fact,
until the last week I'd no idea how hard the latter was."
"Then you have been here a week?"
There was a hint of reproach in her tone, and Weston, who understood
her to mean that she was a little astonished that he had not presented
himself earlier, realized that here was an opportunity that he might
have profited by had he only succeeded in selling the mine. As it was,
he let it pass, for he felt that if once he let himself go he would
probably say a good deal more than was advisable.
"Yes," he said, with a laugh. "Still, at the rate I'm progressing,
several months will hardly see me through."
Ida had formed a reasonably accurate notion of what was in his mind,
and she was half vexed with him and half pleased. He was, at least,
consistent, and meant to persist in the attitude he had adopted; but
it was significant that he evidently was afraid to venture an inch
outside his defenses. After all, she decided that it was probably
advisable that he should remain behind them in the meanwhile. It was,
however, more or less of a relief to her when her father came in. He
did not appear in the least astonished to see Weston, and shook hands
with him as though it were the most natural thing to find him sitting
there.
"Business in this city?" he asked.
"Yes," said Weston, "I've been endeavoring to sell a mine."
"Then you struck the lode?"
"I've been abusing Miss Stirling's good-nature with an account of how
we did it."
Stirling made a little gesture that might have meant anything, but Ida
was pleased with the fact that he expressed no astonishment. It seemed
to her that he had expected Weston to succeed, and she knew that he
was very seldom wrong in his estimate of any man's character. She made
some excuse and left them together; and when the door closed behind
her Stirling turned to Weston.
"If you'll come along to my room I'll give you a cigar," he said.
"Then, if you feel like it, you can tell me about the thing."