VANE POSTPONES THE SEARCH
When Vane rose early the next morning, there was frost in the air. The
firs glistened with delicate silver filigree, and thin spears of ice
stretched out from behind the boulders in the stream. The smoke of the
fire thickened the light haze that filled the hollow, and when breakfast
was ready the men ate hastily, eager for the exertion that would put a
little warmth into them.
"We've had it a good deal colder on other trips. I suppose I've been
getting luxurious, for I seem to resent it now," observed Vane. "There's
no doubt that winter's beginning earlier that I expected up here. As soon
as you can strike the tent, we'll get a move on."
Carroll made no comment He had a vivid recollection of one or two of
those other journeys, during which they had spent arduous days
floundering through slushy snow and had slept in saturated blankets, and
sometimes shelterless in bitter frost. Carroll had endured these things
without complaint, though he had never attained to the cheerfulness his
comrade usually displayed. He was willing to face hardship, when it
promised to lead to a tangible result, but he failed to understand the
curious satisfaction Vane assumed to feel in ascertaining exactly how
much weariness and discomfort he could force his flesh to bear.
Vane, however, was not singular in this respect; there are men in the
newer lands who, if they do not actually seek it, will seldom make an
effort to avoid the strain of overtaxed muscles and exposure to wild and
bitter weather. They have imbibed the pristine vigor of the wilderness,
and conflict with the natural forces braces instead of daunting them. One
recognizes them by their fixed and steady gaze, their direct and
deliberate speech, and the proficiency that most display with ax and saw
and rifle. But the effect of this Spartan training is not merely
physical; the men who leave the bush and the ranges, as a rule, come to
the forefront in commerce and industry. Endurance, swiftness of action
and stubborn tenacity are apt to carry their possessor far anywhere.
Vane and his comrade needed these qualities during the following week.
The valley grew more wild and rugged as they proceeded. In places, its
bottom was filled with muskegs, cumbered with half-submerged, decaying
trunks of fallen trees; and when they could not spring from one crumbling
log to another they sank in slime and water to the knee. Then there were
effluents of the main river to be waded through, and every now and then
they were forced back by impenetrable thickets to the hillside, where
they scrambled along a talus of frost-shattered rock. They entered
transverse valleys, and after hours of exhausting labor abandoned the
search of each in turn and plodded back to the one they had been
following. Their boots and clothing suffered; their packs were rent upon
their backs; and their provisions diminished rapidly.
At length, one lowering afternoon, they were brought to a standstill by
the river which forked into two branches, one of which came foaming out
of a cleft in the rocks. This would have mattered less, had it flowed
across the level; but just there it had scored itself out a deep hollow,
from which the roar of its turmoil rose in long reverberations. Carroll,
aching all over, stood upon the brink and gazed ahead. He surmised from
the steady ascent and the contours of the hills that the valley was dying
out and that they should reach the head of it in another day's journey.
The higher summits, however, were veiled in leaden mist, and there was a
sting in the cold breeze that blew down the hollow and set the ragged
firs to wailing. Then Carroll glanced dubiously at the dim, green water
which swirled in deep eddies and boiled in white confusion among the
fangs of rock sixty or seventy feet below. Not far away, the stream was
wider and, he supposed, in consequence, shallower, though it ran
furiously.
"It doesn't look encouraging, and we have no more food left than will
take us back to the sloop if we're economical. Do you think it's worth
while going on?"
"I haven't a doubt about it," Vane declared. "We ought to reach the head
of the valley and get back here in two or three days."
Carroll fancied they could have walked the distance in a few hours on a
graded road; but the roughness of the ground was not the chief
difficulty.
"Three days will make a big hole in the provisions," he pointed out.
"Then we'll have to put up with short rations."
Carroll nodded in rueful acquiescence.
"If you're determined, we may as well get on."
He stepped cautiously over the edge of the descent, and went down a few
yards with a run, while loosened soil and stones slipped away under him.
Then he clutched a slender tree, and proceeded as far as the next on his
hands and knees. After that it was necessary to swing himself over a
ledge, and he alighted safely on one below, from which he could scramble
down to the narrow strip of gravel between rock and water. He was
standing, breathless, looking at the latter, when Vane joined him. The
stones dipped sharply, and two or three large boulders, ringed about with
froth, rose near the middle of the stream, which seemed to be running
slacker on the other side of them.
There was nothing to show how deep it was, and Carroll did not relish the
idea of being compelled to swim burdened with his pack. No trees grew
immediately upon the brink of the chasm, and to chop a good-sized log and
get it down to the water, in order to ferry themselves across on it,
would cost more time than Vane was likely to spare for the purpose.
Seeing no other way out of it, Carroll braced himself for an effort and
sturdily plunged in.
Two steps took him up to the waist, and he had trouble in finding solid
bottom at the next, for the gravel rolled and slipped away beneath his
feet in the strong stream. The current dragged hard at his limbs, and he
set his lips tight when it crept up to his ribs. Then he lost his
footing, and was washed away, plunging and floundering, with now and then
one toe resting momentarily upon the bottom. Sweeping rapidly down the
stream he was hurled against the first of the boulders with a crash that
almost drove the little remaining breath out of his body. He clung to it
desperately, gasping hard; then, with a determined struggle, he contrived
to reach the second stone, but the stream pressed him violently against
this and he was unable to find any support for his feet. A moment later
Vane was washed down toward him and, grabbing at the boulder, held on by
it. They said nothing to each other, but they looked at the sliding water
between them and the opposite bank. Carroll was getting dangerously cold,
and he felt the power ebbing out of him. He realized that if he must swim
across he would better do it at once.
Launching himself forward, he felt the flood lap his breast, but as his
arms went in he struck something with his knee and found that he could
stand on a submerged ledge. This carried him a yard or two, but the next
moment he had stepped suddenly over the end of the ledge into deeper
water. Floundering forward, he staggered up a strip of shelving shingle
and lay there, breathless, waiting for Vane; then together they
scrambled up the slope ahead. The work warmed them slightly, and they
needed it; but as they strode on again, keeping to the foot of the
hillside, where the timber was less dense, a cold rain drove into their
faces. It grew steadily thicker; the straps began to gall their wet
shoulders, and their saturated clothing clung heavily about their limbs.
In spite of this, they struggled on until nightfall, when with
difficulty they made a fire and, after a reduced supper, found a little
humid warmth in their wet blankets.
The next day's work was much the same, only that they crossed no rivers.
It rained harder, however, and when evening came Carroll, who had burst
one boot, was limping badly. They made camp among the dripping firs which
partly sheltered them from the bitter wind, and shortly after their
meager supper Carroll fell asleep. Vane, to his annoyance, found that he
could not follow his friend's example. He was overstrung, and the
knowledge that the morrow would show whether the spruce he sought grew in
that valley made him restless. The flap of the tent was flung back and
resting on one elbow he looked out upon shadowy ranks of trunks, which
rose out of the gloom and vanished again as the firelight grew and sank.
He could smell the acrid smoke and could hear the splash of heavy drops
upon the saturated soil, while the hoarse roar of the river came up in
fitful cadence from the depths of the valley.
In place of being deadened by fatigue, his imagination seemed quickened
and set free. It carried him back to the lonely heights and the rugged
dales of his own land, and once more in vivid memory he roamed the upland
heath with Evelyn. She had attracted him strongly when he was in her
visible presence; but now he thought he understood her better than he had
ever done then. He had, he felt, not grasped the inner meaning of much
that she said. Words might convey but little in their literal sense and
yet give to a sympathetic listener an insight into the depths of the
speaker's nature, or hint at a thought too finely spun and delicate for
formal expression.
The same thing applied to her physical personality. Contours, coloring,
features, were things that could be defined and appraised; but there was
besides, in Evelyn's case, an aura that only now and then could dimly be
perceived by senses attuned to it. It enveloped her in a mystic light.
Again he remembered how he had sought her with crude longing and cold
appreciation. He had failed to comprehend her; the one creditable thing
he had done was the renouncing of his claim. Then the half-formed idea
grew plainer that she would understand and sympathize with what he was
doing now. It was to keep faith with those who trusted him that he meant
stubbornly to prosecute his search and, if the present journey failed, to
come back again. That Evelyn would ever hear of his undertaking, appeared
most improbable; but this did not matter. He knew now that it was the
remembrance of her that had largely animated him to make the venture; and
to go on in the face of all opposing difficulties was something he could
do in her honor. Then by degrees his eyes grew heavy, and when he sank
down in his wet blankets sleep came to him. Perhaps he had been
fanciful--he was undoubtedly overstrung--but, through such dreams as he
indulged in, passing glimpses of strange and splendid visions that
transfigure the toil and clamor of a material world are now and then
granted to wayfaring men.
At noon the next day they reached the head of the valley. It was still
raining, and heavy mists obscured the summits of the hills, but above the
lower slopes of rock glimmering snow ran up into the woolly vapor. There
were firs, a few balsams and hemlocks, but no sign of a spruce.
"Now," Carroll commented dryly, "perhaps you'll be satisfied."
Vane smiled. He was no nearer to owning himself defeated than he had been
when they first set out.
"We know there's no spruce in this valley--and that's something," he
replied. "When we come back again we'll try the next one."
"It has cost us a good deal to make sure of the fact"
Vane's expression changed.
"We haven't ascertained the cost just yet. As a rule, you don't make up
the bill until you're through with the undertaking; and it may be a
longer one than either of us think. Well, we might as well turn upon
our tracks."
Carroll recalled this speech afterward. Just then, however, he hitched
his burden a little higher on his aching shoulders as he plodded after
his comrade down the rain-swept hollow. They had good cause to remember
the march to the inlet. It rained most of the while and their clothes
were never dry; parts of them, indeed, flowed in tatters about their
aching limbs, and before they had covered half the distance, their boots
were dropping to pieces. What was more important, their provisions were
rapidly running out, and they marched on a few handfuls of food,
carefully apportioned, twice daily. At last they lay down hungry, with
empty bags, one night, to sleep shelterless in the rain, for they had
thrown their tent away. Carroll had some difficulty in getting on his
feet the next morning.
"I believe I can hold out until sundown, though I'm far from sure of
it," he said. "You'll have to leave me behind if we don't strike the
inlet then."
"We'll strike it in the afternoon," Vane assured him.
They reslung their packs and set out wearily. Carroll, limping and
stumbling along, was soon troubled by a distressful stitch in his side.
He managed to keep pace with Vane, however, and some time after noon a
twinkling gleam among the trees caught their eye. Then the shuffling
pace grew faster, and they were breathless when at last they stopped and
dropped their burdens beside the boat. It was only at the third or
fourth attempt that they got her down to the water, and the veins were
swollen high on Vane's flushed forehead when he sat down, panting
heavily, on her gunwale.
"We ran her up quite easily, though we had the slope to face then,"
he remarked.
"You could scarcely expect to carry boats about without trouble after a
march like the one we've made!"
They ran her in and pulled off to the sloop. When at last they sat down
in the little saloon, Vane got a glimpse of himself in the mirror.
"I knew you looked a deadbeat," he laughed, "but I'd no idea I was quite
so bad. Anyhow, we'll get the stove lighted and some dry things on. The
next question is--what shall we have for supper?"
"That's easy. Everything that's most tempting, and the whole of it."
Shortly afterward they flung their boots and rent garments overboard and
sat down to a feast. The plates were empty when they rose, and in another
hour both of them were wrapped in heavy slumber.