THE BUSH
It was a quiet evening, nearly a fortnight after the arrival of the
sloop. Pale sunshine streamed into the cove, and little glittering
ripples lapped lazily along the shingle. The placid surface of the inlet
was streaked with faint blue lines where wandering airs came down from
the heights above, and now and then an elfin sighing fell from the ragged
summits of the firs. When it died away, the silence was broken only by
the pounding of a heavy hammer and the crackle of a fire.
Carroll sat beside the latter, alternately holding a stout plank up to
the blaze and dabbling its hot surface with a dripping mop. His face was
scorched, and he coughed as the resinous-scented smoke drifted about his
head and floated in heavy, blue wisps half-way up the giant trunks behind
him. A big sea canoe lay drawn up not far away, and one of its
copper-skinned Siwash owners lounged on the shingle, stolidly watching
the white men. His comrade was then inside the sloop, holding a big stone
against one of her frames, while Vane crouched outside, swinging a
hammer. Her empty hull flung back the thud of the blows, which rang far
across the trees.
Vane was bare-armed and stripped to shirt and trousers. He had arrived
from Comox across the straits at dawn that morning. It was a long trip
and they had had wild weather on the journey, but he had set to work with
characteristic energy as soon as he landed. Now, though the sun was low,
he was working harder than ever, with the flood tide, which would shortly
compel him to desist, creeping up to his feet.
It is a difficult matter to fit a new plank into the rounded bilge of a
boat, particularly when one is provided with inadequate appliances. One
requires a good eye for curves, for the planks need much shaping. They
must also be driven into position by force. Two or three stout shores
were firmly wedged against the side of the boat, and these encumbered
Vane in the free use of his arms. His face was darkly flushed and he
panted heavily and now and then flung vitriolic instructions to the
Siwash inside the craft. Carroll, watching him with quiet amusement, was
on the whole content that the tide was rising, for his comrade had firmly
declined to stop for dinner, and he was conscious of a sharpened
appetite. It was comforting to reflect that Vane would be unable to get
the plank into place before the evening meal, for if there had been any
prospect of his doing so, he would certainly have postponed his dinner.
Presently he stopped a moment and turned to Carroll.
"If you were any use in an emergency, you'd be holding up for me, instead
of that wooden image inside! He will back the stone against any frame
except the one I'm nailing."
"The difficulty is that I can't be in two places at the same time,"
Carroll retorted good-naturedly. "Shall I leave this plank? You can't
get it in to-night."
"I'm going to try," Vane answered grimly.
He turned around to direct the Siwash and then cautiously hammered in one
of the wedges a little farther. Swinging back the hammer, he struck a
heavy blow. The result was disastrous, for there was a crash and one of
the shores shot backward, striking him on the knee. He jumped with a
savage cry, and the next moment there was a sharp snapping, and the end
of the plank sprang out. Then another shore gave way; and when the plank
fell clattering at his feet, Vane whirled the hammer round his head and
hurled it violently into the bush. This appeared to afford him some
satisfaction, and he strode up the beach, with the blood dripping from
the knuckles of one hand.
"That's the blamed Siwash's fault!" he muttered. "I couldn't get him to
back up when I put the last spike in."
"Hadn't you better tell him to come out?" Carroll suggested.
"No!" thundered Vane. "If he hasn't sense enough to see that he isn't
wanted, he can stay where he is all night! Are you going to get supper,
or must I do that, too?"
Carroll merely smiled and set about preparing the meal, which the two
Siwash partook of and afterward departed with some paper currency. Then
Vane, walking down the beach, came back with the plank. Lighting his
pipe, he pointed to one or two broken nails in it. The water was now
rippling softly about the sloop, and the splash of canoe paddles came up
out of the distance in rhythmic cadence.
"That's the cause of the trouble," he explained. "It cost me a week's
journey to get the package of galvanized spikes--I could have managed to
split a plank or two out of one of these firs. The storekeeper fellow
assured me they were specially annealed for heading up. If I knew who the
manufacturers were, I'd have pleasure in telling them what I think of
them. If they set up to make spikes, they ought to make them, and empty
every keg that won't stand the test out on to the scrap-heap."
Carroll smiled. The course his partner had indicated was the one he would
have adopted. He was characterized by a somewhat grim idea of efficiency,
and never spared his labor to attain it, though the latter fact now and
then had its inconveniences for those who cooperated with him, as Carroll
had discovered. The latter had no doubt that Vane would put the planks
in, if he spent a month over the operation.
"I wouldn't have had this trouble if you'd been handier with tools,"
Vane went on. "I can't see why you never took the trouble to learn how
to use them."
"My abilities aren't as varied as yours; and the thing strikes me as bad
economy," Carroll replied. "Skill of the kind you mention is worth about
three dollars a day."
"You were getting two dollars for shoveling in a mining ditch when I
first met you."
"I was," Carroll assented good-humoredly. "I believe another month or
two of it would have worn me out. It's considerably pleasanter and more
profitable to act as your understudy; but a fairly proficient carpenter
might have bungled the matter."
Vane looked embarrassed.
"Let it pass. I've a pernicious habit of expressing myself unfortunately.
Anyhow, we'll start again on those planks the first thing to-morrow."
He stretched out his aching limbs beside the fire, and languidly watched
the firs grow dimmer and the mists creep in ghostly trails down the
steep hillside. Presently Carroll broke the silence.
"Wallace," he advised, "wouldn't it be wiser if you met that fellow
Horsfield to some extent?"
"No," Vane answered decidedly. "I have no intention of giving way an
inch. It would only encourage the man to press me on another point, if I
did. I'm going to have trouble with him, and it seems to me that the
sooner it comes the better. There's room for only one controlling
influence in the Clermont Mine."
Carroll smoked in silence for a while. His comrade had successfully
carried out most of the small projects he had undertaken in the bush, and
though fortune had, perhaps, favored him, he had every reason to be
satisfied with the result of his efforts as a prospector. He had
afterward held his own in the city, mainly by simple unwavering
determination. Carroll, however, realized that to guard against the wiles
of a clever man like Horsfield, who was unhampered by any scruples, might
prove a very different thing.
"In that case, it might be as well to stay in Vancouver as much as
possible and keep your eye on him," he suggested.
"The same idea has struck me since we sailed. The trouble is that until
I've decided about the pulp mill he'll have to go unwatched--for the same
reason that prevented you from holding up for me and steaming the plank."
"If any unforeseen action of Horsfield's made it necessary, you could let
this pulp project drop."
"You ought to understand why that's impossible. Drayton, Kitty and
Hartley count on my exertions; the matter was put into my hands only on
the condition that I did all that I could. They're poor people and I
can't go back on them. If we can't locate the spruce, or it doesn't seem
likely to pay for working up, there's nothing to prevent my abandoning
the undertaking; but I'm not at liberty to do so just because it would be
a convenience to myself. Hartley got my promise before he told me where
to search."
Carroll changed the subject.
"It might have been better if you had made the directors' qualification
higher. You would have been more sure of Horsfield then, because he would
have been less likely to do anything that might depreciate the value of
his stock."
"I had to get a few good names to make it easier for men of standing to
join me. They wouldn't have been willing to subscribe for too many shares
until they saw how the thing would go. Anyhow, so long as he's a
director, Horsfield must hold a stipulated amount of stock. He's actually
holding a good deal."
"The limit's rather a low one. Suppose he sold out down to it; he
wouldn't mind having the value of the rest knocked down, if he could make
more than the difference by some jobbery. Of course, we're only a small
concern, and we'll have to raise more capital sooner or later. I've an
idea that Horsfield might find his opportunity then."
"If he does, we must try to be ready for him," Vane replied. "I sat up
most of last night with the spritsail sheet in my hand, and I'm going
to sleep."
He strolled away to the tent they had pitched on the edge of the bush,
but Carroll sat a while smoking beside the fire with a thoughtful face.
He was suspicious of Horsfield and foresaw trouble; more particularly now
that his comrade had undertaken a project which seemed likely to occupy a
good deal of his attention. Hitherto, Vane had owed part of his success
to his faculty of concentrating all his powers upon one object.
They rose at dawn the next morning, and by sunset had fitted the new
planks. Two days later, they sailed northward, and eventually they found
the rancherie Hartley mentioned. They had expected to hire a guide there,
but the rickety wooden building was empty. Vane decided that its Siwash
owners, who made long trips in search of fish and furs, had left it for a
time, and he pushed on again.
He had now to face an unforeseen difficulty; there were a number of
openings in that strip of coast, and Hartley's description was of no
great service in deciding which was the right one. During the next day or
two, they looked into several bights, and seeing no valleys opening out
of them, went on again. One evening, however, they ran into an inlet with
a forest-shrouded hollow at the head of it. Here they moored the sloop
close in with a sheltered beach and after a night's rest got ready their
packs for the march inland. Carroll regretted they had not hired the
Indians with whom his comrade had crossed the straits.
"We would have traveled a good deal more comfortably if you had brought
those Siwash along to pack for us," he observed.
"If you had been with them on the canoe trip, you might think
differently," Vane answered with a laugh. "Besides, they're in the
habit of going to Cornox and might put some enterprising lumber men on
our trail."
"There's one thing I'm going to insist on," Carroll declared. "We'll
leave enough provisions on board to last us until we get back to
civilization, even if we have a head wind. I've made one or two journeys
on short rations."
Vane agreed to this, and after rowing ashore and hiding the boat among
the undergrowth, they proceeded to strap their packs about them. There is
an art in this, for the weight must be carried where it will be felt and
retard one's movements least. They had a light tent without poles--which
could be cut when wanted--two blankets, an ax, and one or two cooking
utensils, besides their provisions. A new-comer from the cities would
probably not have carried his share for half a day, but in that rugged
land mineral prospector and survey packer are accustomed to travel
heavily burdened, and the men had followed both these vocations.
In front of them a deep trough opened up in the hills, but it was filled
with giant forest, through which no track led, and only those who have
traversed the dim recesses of the primeval bush can fully understand what
this implies. The west winds swept through that gateway, reaping as they
went, and here and there tremendous trees lay strewed athwart one another
with their branches spread abroad in impenetrable tangles. Some had
fallen amid the wreckage left by previous gales, which the forest had
partly made good, and there was scarcely a rod of the way that was not
obstructed by half-rotted trunks. Then there were thick bushes, and an
undergrowth of willows where the soil was damp, with thorny brakes and
matted fern in between. In places the growth was almost like a wall, and
the men, skirting the inlet, were glad to scramble forward among the
rough boulders and ragged driftwood at the water's edge for some minutes
at a time, until it was necessary to leave the beach behind.
After the first few minutes there was no sign of the gleaming water. They
had entered a region of dim green shade, where the moist air was heavy
with resinous smells. The trunks rose about them in tremendous columns,
thorns clutched their garments, and twigs and brittle branches snapped
beneath their feet. The day was cool, but the sweat of tense effort
dripped from them, and when they stopped for breath at the end of an
hour, Vane estimated that they had gone a mile.
"I'll be content if we can keep this up," he said.
"It isn't likely," Carroll replied with a trace of dryness, glancing down
at a big rent in his jacket.
A little farther on, they waded with difficulty through a large stream,
and Carroll stopped and glanced round at a deep rift in a crag on one
side of them.
"I don't know whether that could be considered a valley; but we may as
well look at it."
They scrambled forward, and reaching gravelly soil where the trees were
thinner, Vane surveyed the opening. It was very narrow and appeared to
lose itself among the rocks. The size of the creek which flowed out of it
was no guide, for those ranges are scored by running water.
"We won't waste time over that ravine," Vane concluded. "I noticed a
wider one farther on. We'll see what it's like; though Hartley led me to
understand that he came down a straight and gently sloping valley. The
one we're in answers the description."
It was two hours before they reached the second opening, and then Vane,
unstrapping his pack, clambered up the steep face of a crag. When he came
back, his face was thoughtful. He sat down and lighted his pipe.
"This search seems likely to take us longer than I expected," he said.
"To begin with, there are a number of inlets, all of them pretty much
alike, along this part of the coast, but I needn't go into the reasons
for supposing that this is the one Hartley visited. Taking it for granted
that we're right, we're up against another difficulty. So far as I could
make out from the top of that rock, there's a regular series of ravines
running back into the hills."
"Hartley told you he came straight down to tidewater, didn't he?"
"That's not much of a guide. The slope of every fissure seems to run
naturally from the inland watershed to this basin. Hartley was sick and
it was raining all the time, and coming out of any of these ravines he'd
only have to make a slight turn to reach the water. What's more, he
could only tell me that he was heading roughly west. Allowing that there
was no sun visible, that might have meant either northwest or southwest,
which gives us the choice of searching the hollows on either side of the
main valley. Now, it strikes me as most probable that he came right down
the main valley itself; but we have to face the question as to whether
we should push straight on, or search every opening that might be called
a valley?"
"What's your idea?" Carroll rejoined.
"That we ought to go into the thing systematically, and look at every
ravine we come to."
Carroll nodded agreement.
"I guess you're right."
They strapped their packs about them and struggled on again. Stopping
half an hour for dinner, they plodded all the afternoon up a long hollow,
which rose steadily in front of them. It was narrow, and in places the
bottom of it was so choked with fallen trunks that they were forced for
the sake of a clearer passage to take to the creek, where they
alternately stumbled among big boulders and splashed through shallow
pools. The water, which was mostly melted snow, was very cold.
The light was fading down in the deep rift when, winding round a spur
through a tangle of clinging underbrush, they saw the timber thin off
ahead. In a few minutes Vane stopped with an exclamation, and Carroll,
overtaking him, loosened his pack. They stood upon the edge of the
timber, but in front of them a mass of soil and stones ran up almost
vertically to a great outcrop of rock high above.
"If Hartley had come down that, he'd have remembered it," Vane
remarked grimly.
"It's obvious," Carroll agreed, sitting down with a sigh of weariness.
"We'll try the next one to-morrow; I don't move another step to-night."
Vane laughed.
"I've no wish to urge you. There's hardly a joint in my body that doesn't
ache." He flung down his pack and stretched himself with an air of
relief. "That's what comes of civilization and soft living. It would be
nice to sit still now while somebody brought me my supper."
As there was nobody to do so, he took up the ax and set about hewing
chips off a fallen trunk while Carroll made a fire. Then he cut the tent
poles and a few armfuls of twigs for a bed, and in half an hour the camp
was pitched and a meal prepared. Darkness closed down on them while they
ate, and they afterward lay a while, smoking and saying little, beside
the sinking fire, while the red light flickered upon the massy trunks and
fell away again. Then they crawled into the tent and wrapped their
blankets round them.