ON THE TRAIL
It was a long, wet sail up the coast with the wind ahead, and Carroll was
quite content when, on reaching Comox, Vane announced his intention of
stopping there until the mail came in. Immediately after its arrival,
Carroll went ashore, and came back empty-handed.
"Nothing," he reported. "Personally, I'm pleased. Nairn could have
advised us here if there had been any striking developments since we left
the last place."
"I wasn't expecting to hear from him," Vane replied tersely.
Carroll read keen disappointment in his face, and was not surprised,
although the absence of any message meant that it was safe for them to go
on with their project and that should have afforded his companion
satisfaction. The latter sat on deck, gazing somewhat moodily across the
ruffled water toward the snow-clad heights of the mainland range. They
towered, dimly white and majestic, above a scarcely-trodden wilderness,
and Carroll, at least, was not pleasantly impressed by the spectacle.
Though not to be expected always, the cold snaps are now and then severe
in those wilds. Indeed, at odd times a frost almost as rigorous as that
of Alaska lays its icy grip upon the mountains and the usually damp
forests at their feet.
"I wish I could have got a man to go with us, but between the coal
development and the logging, everybody's busy," he remarked.
"It doesn't matter," Vane assured him. "If we took a man along and came
back unsuccessful, there'd be a risk of his giving the thing away.
Besides, he might make trouble in other respects. A hired packer would
probably kick against what you and I may have to put up with."
Carroll was far from pleased with this hint, but he let it pass.
"Do you mean that if you don't find the spruce this time, you'll go
back again?"
"Yes, that's my intention. And now we may as well get the mainsail on
her."
They got off shortly afterward and stood out to northward with the wind
still ahead of them. It was a lowering day, and a short, tumbling sea was
running. When late in the afternoon Carroll fixed their position by the
bearing of a peak on the island, he pointed out the small progress they
had made. The sloop was then plunging close-hauled through the vicious
slate-green combers, and thin showers of spray flew all over her.
"The luck's been dead against us ever since we began this search," he
commented.
"Do you believe in that kind of foolishness?" Vane inquired.
Carroll, sitting on the coaming, considered the question. It was not one
of much importance, but the dingy sky and the dreary waste of sad-colored
water had a depressing effect on him, and as it was a solace to talk,
one topic would serve as well as another.
"I think I believe in a rhythmical recurrence of the contrary chance," he
answered. "I mean that the uncertain and adverse possibility often turns
up in succession for a time."
"Then you couldn't call it uncertain."
"You can't tell exactly when the break will come," Carroll explained.
"But if I were a gambler or had other big risks, I think I'd allow for
dangers in triplets."
"Yes," Vane responded; "you could cite the three extra big head seas,
and I've noticed that when one burned tree comes down in a brûlée, it's
quite often followed by two more, though there may be a number just
ready to fall."
He mused for a few moments, with the spray whistling about him. He had
three things at stake: Evelyn's favor; his interest in the Clermont Mine;
and the timber he expected to find. Two of them were undoubtedly
threatened, and he wondered gloomily if he might be bereft of all. Then
he drove the forebodings out of his mind.
"In the present case, anyway, our course is pretty simple," he
declared with a laugh. "We have only to hold out and go on until the
luck changes."
Carroll knew that Vane was capable of doing as he had suggested and he
was not encouraged by the prospect; but he went below to trim and bring
up the lights, and soon afterward retired to get what rest he could. The
locker cushions on which he lay felt unpleasantly damp; his blankets,
which were not much drier, smelt moldy; and there was a dismal splash
and gurgle of water among the timbers of the plunging craft. Now and
then a jet of it shot up between the joints of the flooring or spouted
through the opening made for the lifting-gear in the centerboard trunk.
When he had several times failed to plug the opening with a rag, Carroll
gave it up and shortly afterward fell into fitful slumber.
He was awakened, shivering, by hearing Vane calling him, and scrambling
out into the well, he took the helm as his comrade left it.
"What's her course?" he inquired.
"If you can keep her hammering ahead close-hauled on the port tack,
it's all I ask," Vane laughed. "You needn't call me unless the sea
gets steeper."
He crawled below; and it was a few minutes before Carroll, who was
dazzled by the change from the dim lamplight, felt himself fit for his
task. Fine spray whirled about him. It was pitch dark, but by degrees he
made out the shadowy seas which came charging up, tipped with frothing
white, upon the weather bow. By the way they broke on board it struck him
that they were steep enough already, but Vane had seen them not long ago
and there was nothing to be gained by expostulation if they caused him no
anxiety. Several hours went by, and then Carroll noticed that the faint
crimson blink which sometimes fell upon the seas to weather was no longer
visible. It was evident that the port light had either gone out or been
washed out, and it was his manifest duty to relight it. On the other
hand, he could not do so unless Vane took the helm. He was wet and
chilled through; any fresh effort was distasteful; he did not want to
move; and he decided that they were most unlikely to meet a steamer,
while it was certain that there would be no other yacht about. He left
the lamp alone, and at length Vane came up.
"What's become of the port light?" he demanded.
"That's more than I can tell you. It was burning an hour ago."
"An hour ago!" Vane broke out with disgusted indignation.
"It may have been a little longer. They've stopped the Alaska steamboats
now, but of course there's no reason why you shouldn't light that lamp
again, if it would give you any satisfaction. I'll stay up until you're
through with it."
Vane did as he suggested, and immediately afterward Carroll retired
below. He slept until a pale ray of sunshine crept in through the
skylights, and then crawling out found the sloop lurching very slowly
over a dying swell, with her deck and shaking mainsail white with frost.
The wind had fallen almost dead away, and it was very cold.
"On the whole," he complained, "this is worse than the other thing."
Vane merely told him to get breakfast; and most of that day and the next
one they drifted with the tides through narrowing waters, though now and
then for a few hours they were wafted on by light and fickle winds. At
length, they crept into the inlet where they had landed on the previous
voyage, and on the morning after their arrival they set out on the march.
There was on this occasion reason to expect more rigorous weather, and
the load each carried was an almost crushing one. Where the trees were
thinner the ground was frozen hard, and even in the densest bush the
undergrowth was white and stiff with frost, while overhead a forbidding
gray sky hung.
On approaching the rift in the hillside at which he had glanced when they
first passed that way, Vane stopped a moment.
"I looked into that place before, but it didn't seem worth while to
follow it up," he said. "If you'll wait, I'll go a little farther
along it."
Though the air was nipping, Carroll was content to remain where he was,
and he spent some time sitting upon a log before a faint shout reached
him. Then he rose and, making his way up the hollow, found his comrade
standing upon a jutting ledge.
"I thought you were never coming! Climb up; I've something to show you!"
Carroll joined him with difficulty, and Vane stretched out his hand.
"Look yonder!"
Carroll looked and started. They stood in a rocky gateway with a river
brawling down the chasm beneath them, but a valley opened up in front.
Filled with somber forest, it ran back almost straight between stupendous
walls of hills.
"It answers Hartley's description. After all, I don't think it's
extraordinary that we should have taken so much trouble to push on past
the right place."
"Why?"
Carroll sat down and filled his pipe.
"It's the natural result of possessing a temperament like yours. Somehow,
you've got it firmly fixed into your mind that everything worth doing
must be hard."
"I've generally found it so."
"I think," grinned Carroll, "you've generally made it so. There's a
marked difference between the two. If any means of doing a thing looks
easy, you at once conclude that it can't be the right one. That mode of
reasoning has never appealed to me. In my opinion, it's more sensible to
try the easiest method first."
"As a rule, that leads to your having to fall back upon the other one;
and a frontal attack on a difficulty's often quicker than considering how
you can work round its flank. In this case, I'll own we have wasted a lot
of time and taken a good deal of trouble that might have been avoided.
But are you going to sit here and smoke?"
"Until I've finished my pipe," Carroll answered firmly. "I expect we'll
find tobacco, among other things, getting pretty scarce before this
expedition ends."
He carried out his intention, and they afterward pushed on up the valley
during the remainder of the day. It grew more level as they proceeded,
and in spite of the frost, which bound the feeding snows, there was a
steady flow of water down the river, which was free from rocky barriers.
Vane now and then glanced at the river attentively, and when dusk was
drawing near he stopped and fixed his gaze on the long ranks of trees
that stretched away in front of him; fretted spires of somber greenery
lifted high above a colonnade of mighty trunks.
"Does anything in connection with this bush strike you?" he asked.
"Its stiffness, if that's what you mean," Carroll answered with a smile.
"These big conifers look as if they'd been carved, like the wooden trees
in the Swiss or German toys. They're impressive in a way, but they're
too formally artificial."
"That's not what I mean," Vane said impatiently.
"To tell the truth, I didn't suppose it was. Anyway, these trees aren't
spruce. They're red cedar; the stuff they make roofing shingles of."
"Precisely. Just now, shingles are in good demand in the Province, and
with the wooden towns springing up on the prairie, western millers can
hardly send roofing material across the Rockies fast enough. Besides
this, I haven't struck a creek more adapted for running down logs, and
the last sharp drop to tide-water would give power for a mill. I'm
only puzzled that none of the timber-lease prospectors have recorded
the place."
"That's easy to understand," laughed Carroll. "Like you, they'd no doubt
first search the most difficult spots to get at."
They went on, and when darkness fell they pitched their light tent beside
the creek. It was now freezing hard, and after supper the men lay
smoking, wrapped in blankets, with the tent between them and the stinging
wind, while a great fire of cedar branches snapped and roared in front of
them. Sometimes the red blaze shot up, flinging a lurid light on the
stately trunks and tinging the men's faces with the hue of burnished
copper; sometimes it fanned out away from them while the sparks drove
along the frozen ground and the great forest aisle, growing dim, was
filled with drifting vapor. The latter was aromatic; pungently fragrant.
"It struck me that you were disappointed when you got no mail at
Comox," Carroll remarked at length, feeling that he was making
something of a venture.
"I was," admitted Vane.
"That's strange," Carroll persisted, "because your hearing nothing
from Nairn left you free to go ahead, which, one would suppose, was
what you wanted."
Vane happened to be in a confidential mood; though usually averse to
sharing his troubles, he felt that he needed sympathy.
"I'd better confess that I wrote Miss Chisholm a few lines from Nanaimo."
"And she didn't answer you? Now, I couldn't well help noticing that you
were rather in her bad graces that night at Nairn's--the thing was pretty
obvious. No doubt you're acquainted with the reason?"
"I'm not. That's just the trouble."
Carroll reflected. He had an idea that Miss Horsfield was somehow
connected with the matter, but this was a suspicion he could not mention.
"Well," he said, "as I pointed out, you're addicted to taking the hardest
way. When we came up here before, you marched past this valley, chiefly
because it was close at hand; but I don't want to dwell on that. Has it
occurred to you that you did something of the same kind when you were at
the Dene? The way that was then offered you was easy."
Vane frowned.
"That is not the kind of subject one cares to talk about; but you ought
to know that I couldn't allow them to force Miss Chisholm upon me against
her will. It was unthinkable! Besides, looking at it in the most
cold-blooded manner, it would have been foolishness, for which we'd both
have had to pay afterward."
"I'm not so sure of that," Carroll smiled. "There were the Sabine women,
among other instances. Didn't they cut off their hair to make bowstring
for their abductors?"
His companion made no comment, and Carroll, deciding that he had ventured
as far as was prudent, talked of something else until they crept into the
little tent and soon fell asleep.
They started with the first of the daylight, but the timber grew denser
and more choked with underbrush as they proceeded and for a day or two
they wearily struggled through it and the clogging masses of tangled,
withered fern. Besides this, they were forced to clamber over mazes of
fallen trunks, when the ragged ends of the snapped-off branches caught
their loads. Their shoulders ached, their boots were ripped, their feet
were badly galled; but they held on stubbornly, plunging deeper into the
mountains all the while. It would probably overcome the average man if he
were compelled to carry all the provisions he needed for a week along a
well-kept road, but the task of the prospector and the survey packer, who
must transport also an ax, cooking utensils and whatever protection he
requires from the weather, through almost impenetrable thickets, is
infinitely more difficult.
Vane and Carroll were more or less used to it, but both of them were
badly jaded when soon after setting out one morning they climbed a
clearer hillside to look about them. High up ahead, the crest of the
white range gleamed dazzlingly against leaden clouds in a burst of
sunshine; below, dark forest, still wrapped in gloom, filled all the
valley; and in between, a belt of timber touched by the light shone with
a curious silvery luster. Though it was some distance off, probably a
day's journey allowing for the difficulty of the march, Vane gazed at it
earnestly. The trees were bare--there was no doubt of that, for the
dwindling ranks, diminished by the distance, stood out against the
snow-streaked rock like rows of thick needles set upright; their
straightness and the way they glistened suggested the resemblance.
"Ominous, isn't it?" Carroll suggested at length. "If this is the valley
Hartley came down--and everything points to that--we should be getting
near the spruce."
Vane's face grew set.
"Yes," he agreed. "There has been a big fire up yonder; but whether it
has swept the lower ground or not is more than I can tell. We'll find out
to-night or early to-morrow."
He swung round without another word, and scrambling down the hillside
they resumed the march. They pushed on all that day rather faster than
before, with the same uncertainty troubling both of them. Forest fires
are common in that region when there is a hot dry fall; and where, as
often happens, a deep valley forms a natural channel for the winds that
fan them, they travel far, stripping and charring the surface of every
tree in their way. Neither of the men thought of stopping for a noonday
meal, and during the gloomy afternoon, when dingy clouds rolled down from
the peaks, they plodded forward with growing impatience. They could see
scarcely a hundred yards in front of them; dense withering thickets
choked up the spaces between the towering trunks; and there was nothing
to indicate that they were nearing the burned area when at last they
pitched their camp as darkness fell.