THE HIRED TEAMSTER
Speaking generally, winter is much less severe in British Columbia,
especially near the coast, than it is on the prairie, though it is
sufficiently trying high up among the mountains, where as a rule little
work is done at that season. Still, though the number of the track-layers
was largely reduced, the inhabitants of the mining region had waited long
enough, and so, in spite of many hardships, slowly, fathom by fathom, we
carried the rail-head on.
Now and then for several days together we sat in our log-built shelter
while a blinding snowstorm raged outside and the pines filled the valley
with their roaring. Then there were weeks of bitter frost, when work was
partly suspended, and both rock and soil defied our efforts. One of our
best horses died and another fell over a precipice. Hay was hardly to be
bought with money, provisions only at an exorbitant cost, and though we
received a few interim payments it was, as Johnston said, even chances
either way if we kept on top, because every day of enforced idleness cost
us many dollars. However, floundering through snow-slush, swinging the axe
in driving sleet and rain, or hauling the mossy logs through the mire of a
sudden thaw, we persisted in our task, though often at nights we sat
inside the shanty, which was filled with steaming garments, counting the
cost, in a state of gloomy despondency. Except for the thought of Grace,
there were moments when I might have yielded; but we were always an
obstinate race, and seeing that I was steadfastly determined to hold out
to the last, the others gallantly aided me. Now, when the time of stress
is past, I know how much I owe to their loyalty.
At length, however, the winter drew to an end, and the whole mountain
region rejoiced at the coming of the spring. A warm wind from the Pacific
set the cedars rustling, the sun shone bright and hot, and the open fringe
of the forest was garlanded with flowers, while a torrent made wild music
in every ravine. I was sitting outside our shanty one morning smoking a
pet English briar, whose stem was bitten half-way, and reveling in the
warmth and brightness, when the unexpected happened. By degrees, perhaps
under the spell of some influence which stirs us when sleeping nature
awakens once more to life, I lost myself in reverie, and recalled drowsily
a certain deep, oak-shrouded hollow under the Lancashire hills, where at
that season pale yellow stars of primroses peeped out among the fresh
green of tender leaves. Then the bald heights of Starcross Moor rose up
before me, and Grace came lightly across the heather chanting a song, with
her hat flung back, and the west wind kissing her face into delicate
color, until a tramp of footsteps drew nearer down the track.
A man, who evidently was neither a bush-rancher nor a railroad hand,
approached and said with a pure English accent:
"I'm in a difficulty, and it was suggested that Contractor Lorimer might
help me. I presume I have the pleasure of addressing him? My name is
Calvert."
"I will if I can," I answered, and the stranger continued:
"It's my duty to escort two ladies from the main line into the Lonsdale
valley. They have a quantity of baggage, and I have no confidence in the
half-starved Cayuse ponies the Indians offered me. The trails are hardly
safe just now, and the regular freighters hadn't a beast to spare. It
would be a favor if you came with yours, and we should, of course, be
glad to recoup you for the time you lose."
His manner was pleasant, money was very scarce then, and as it happened we
had been compelled to lay off for a day or two, awaiting material; so I
arranged to start with him.
"A little change will be good for you," Harry said, when the man departed.
"You have been looking as grim as a hungry bear lately. Jim Lawrence, I
dare say, would lend you his sisters' saddles."
The outward journey, made partly under cover of darkness, was arduous, for
each torrent came roaring down swollen by melting snow almost bank-full,
and portions of the trail had been washed away; but we reached the station
settlement in safety, and after a few hours' sleep there we turned out to
meet the west-bound train. It came thundering down the valley presently
with the sunlight flashing upon burnished metal and the long car windows,
and when amid a roar of blown-off steam it rolled into the station, I
wondered with mild curiosity what kind of women the new arrivals would be.
The next moment my pulse quickened as a gray-haired lady stepped down from
the platform of a car, for when my companion hurried forward with uplifted
hat I saw that it was Miss Carrington, while fresh and dainty, as though
she had not traveled at all, Grace followed her.
Then I remembered that my place was that of hired teamster, and I stood
waiting outside the baggage-car until Calvert gave me the brass checks,
after which I assisted the man who came with me to cinch a surprisingly
heavy load on our two pack-horses. The battered felt hat probably
concealed my face, all I had on was homely and considerably the worse for
wear, and it was scarcely surprising that they did not recognize me.
Presently, leading Jasper's bay horse forward, I stooped and held out my
hand for Grace to rest her little foot on, and when she swung herself
lightly into the saddle, Calvert said:
"The sooner we start the better, the trails are positively awful.
Contractor Lorimer, you will no doubt take especial care of Miss
Carrington."
Swinging low the broad hat, I looked up and saw a faint tinge of crimson
mantle in the face of the girl, while again a thrill went through me when
she said simply, "Ralph!" for that name had never passed her lips before
in my hearing.
Then, while Calvert looked hard at me and the elder lady bowed, she patted
the bay horse's neck, saying frankly:
"It's an unexpected pleasure, and I have often been thinking about you,
but never expected to meet you here. What a handsome beast you have
brought me!"
Grace seldom showed all her feelings, for a sweet serenity characterized
her, but this time I fancied that our relative positions both puzzled and
troubled her, and I regretted my own stupidity in not asking who the
ladies were. Still, I managed to answer that Caesar should be proud of his
burden.
That was a memorable journey in various ways. In places, beaten by the
hoofs of many pack-horses, the trail was knee-deep in mire, and in others
it was lost under beds of treacherous shale. But Caesar was used to the
mountains, and I strode beside his head, heeding neither slippery shingle
nor plastic mud, for Grace chatted about her English visit, and with such
a companion I should have floundered contentedly over leagues of ice and
snow.
The valleys were filled with freshness, and the air was balmy with scents,
while every bird and beast rejoiced with the vigor of the spring. Now and
then a blue grouse broke out drumming from the summit of a stately fir,
white-headed eagles and fish-hawks wheeled screaming above the frothing
shallows on slanted wing, and silently, like flitting shadows, the little
wood-deer leaped across the trail, or amid a crash of undergrowth a
startled black bear charged in blind panic through the dim recesses of the
bush. Once, too, with a snarl, a panther sprang out from a thicket, and
Calvert's rifle flashed; but the only result was that Caesar tried to rear
upright. With fear I clutched at his rein, and it was a pretty sight to
see the big, rough-coated horse settle down as if ashamed of his fright
when the fair rider spoke soothingly to him. All dumb creatures took
kindly to Grace, and, though Caesar could show a very pretty temper in
ungentle hands, he yielded to the caressing touch of her soft fingers.
Then he turned his eyes upon me with a look that seemed an apology for
dividing his allegiance, while Grace smiled under lowered lashes, as
though she did not wish to meet my gaze. It was a trifling incident, but
inwardly I thanked the good horse for it. Later, when we came up out of a
roaring ford, through which I carefully led Caesar, with the stream boiling
about my waist, into a dim avenue, she looked down at me as she said:
"This is a dream-like country, and I never imagined anything so beautiful.
And yet it is familiar. Do you remember what you once said to me at Lone
Hollow?"
The question was wholly unnecessary, for I could remember each moment of
that night, and any one in touch with nature could understand her comment.
It was a great forest temple through which we were marching, where the
giant conifers were solemn with the antiquity of long ages, for it had
taken probably a thousand years to raise the vaulted roof above us, with
its groined arches of red branches and its mighty pillars of living wood.
Nature does all things slowly, but her handiwork is very good.
"Yes," Grace continued, "it seems familiar--as though you and I had
ridden together through such a country once before; I even seem to know
those great redwoods well. I--I think I dreamed it, but there is another
intangible memory in which you figured too."
"I could not be in better company," I answered, smiling, though my heart
beat. "We are such stuff as dreams are made of, and our little life is
rounded with a sleep, you know; and here among the mountains it seems
borne in on one forcibly that, as I told you my partner said, man's
intellect is feeble and we do not know everything."
Grace sighed, and then, though she answered lightly, there was the same
puzzled look on her face that I had seen for a moment at Cypress Hollow.
It seemed as if her mind reached forward toward something that eluded its
grasp, until we both broke into laughter as a willow-grouse disturbed by
the horse's feet rose whirring to a redwood branch and perched there,
close within reach, regarding us with an assurance that was ludicrous.
"It thinks it is perfectly safe," I said. "You might shoot until you hit
it, or knock it down with a stick, and yet there is no more timorous
creature among the undergrowth, unless it has a brood of chicks, when it
will attack any one."
At noon we rested for luncheon in an open glade, where bright sunlight
beat down upon the boulders of a stream which surged among them, stained
green by the drainage from a glacier; and there was merry laughter over
the viands Calvert produced from his pack.
"I did my best, Miss Carrington," he said, "but as yet they're a primitive
people among these mountains--and it's not to be wondered at, with that
huge rampart between them and civilization. 'Something nice for a lady?'
the storekeeper said. 'Guess I've just got it.' And he planked down a
salmon-fed reistit ham and this bottle of ancient candy, with the dead
flies thrown in. Still, one can't help admiring them for the way they've
held on, growing stuff they cannot sell, building stores where few men
come to buy, and piling up low-grade ore that won't pay its pack-freight
to the smelter. Also I've seen work that three men spent a year over which
a hydraulic monitor would have done in a few days, while the rocks seem
bursting with riches and the valleys with fertility; but they can get
neither produce out nor mining plant in. Their greatest hero now is a
certain enterprising director, and they'd decline an angel's visit at any
time for that of a railroad builder."
"I sometimes wish I had been born a man, with work of that kind to do,"
said Grace, with a fire in her eyes. "We hear of the old romance and lost
chivalry, but there was never more than in these modern days, only it has
changed its guise. If we haven't the knight in armor or the roystering
swashbuckler, we have the man with the axe and drill; and is it not a task
for heroes to drive the level steel road through these tremendous
mountains? You are smiling, Mr. Calvert. I read the papers--Colonial and
British, all I can come across--and I know that some day England will need
all her colonies. You cannot deny that this is a sensible question: Which
is the better for an English gentleman, to use all the strength and valor
that is entrusted him--we are taught there will be a reckoning when he
must account for them--subduing savage Nature, that the hungry may eat
cheaper bread, or lounging about a racecourse, shooting driven
pheasants--I know it needs high skill--or wasting precious hours in the
reeking smoke-room of his club? If I had a brother I should sooner see him
working as a C. P. R. track-shoveler."
"Grace has strong opinions," said the old lady. "I think she is right, in
a measure."
Calvert bowed. "It's in the Carrington blood. Miss Grace, I once heard one
of your father's old comrades say that the Colonel could keep no officers
because he wore them out, and he might have ended as General but that he
reversed the positions and wanted to instruct the War Office. However, you
mustn't be too hard on the poor loungers; they eat the things the other
fellows grow, and some of them subscribe the money to make the new
railroads go--they don't always get dividends on it either. Besides,"--and
there was a twinkle in his eyes--"you are making my new friend
uncomfortable. He is a railroad builder. Are you working for philanthropic
notions, Mr. Lorimer?"
"No," I answered soberly; and the rest of the party laughed as I added:
"Only to pay back what I owe; and we are making slow progress in that
direction. Still, the work has its fascination, and it will last and be
useful after we are gone."
Then, while Calvert spoke to Miss Carrington, Grace turned toward me with
a sudden look of interest.
"You are not exactly prospering, I gather," she said, "and I am very
sorry. Please commence when you left Fairmead and tell me all the story."
I did so--perhaps not very clearly, for she asked many questions during
the course of the narrative; and her eyes sparkled at the story of our
profitless struggle in the coulee.
"Flour--poor thirds; whose brand?--local pork--and doubtless the cheapest
tea, you lived on. I manage the affairs of the Manor, and may I ask what
your grocery list came to? How much maize and oats for the horses? Thank
you. It was just as one might have expected. No, I have never been
disappointed in either Harry Lorraine or you."
She dragged the particulars from me--and no one, much less Ralph Lorimer,
could refuse to answer Grace Carrington--with a skill that came from
practical knowledge of such details, before I even guessed what she
wished to arrive at. Then she laughed at my confusion.
"You have no need to blush. Starved yourselves and fed the cattle. It was
well done. And didn't the new partner grumble?"
"No," I answered, glad to change the subject. "Johnston never grumbled at
anything in his life, I think. It was he who managed the commissariat."
"Do you realize, Mr. Lorimer, that you are in many ways a lucky man?" she
added. "I understand perfectly what it means to lose a crop and carry out
an unprofitable contract. But it is in reference to your comrades I speak.
Fearless, loyal partners are considerably better than the best of gear
with half-hearted help, and it is evident that you have them."
"Yes," I said. "No man ever had better; and it is quite true what you say.
With a loyal partner a man may do very much, and, if he is sure of
himself, with a higher mind to show him the way, he might reach out toward
the heavens and--"
Here I stopped abruptly. Wild thoughts were crystallizing into words I
might not speak, and I grew hot with the struggle to check them, while I
fancied that Grace blushed before she turned her face away. I know my brow
was furrowed and my fingers trembled, so that it was a relief presently to
hear her musical laugh.
"You are not an orator," she said, turning around calmly; "and perhaps it
is as well. It is not orators who are wanted in this country. Your
eloquent beginning too suddenly breaks away. But don't you think we are in
the meantime drifting into idle sentiment? And you have asked me neither
where I am going nor about Colonel Carrington."
It was true; the first would have seemed presumptuous and I did not care
greatly about the redoubtable Colonel's health.
"He has invested some money in a new mine in the Lonsdale district," she
said; and there was a slight cloud on her brow as she continued: "The
Manor farm has lately cost us, through bad seasons, more than we made from
it. So, while Foster takes charge, we are going to live in a ranch up here
this summer, in order that my father may assist in the development of the
mine. He is practically the leading partner, and until your railroad is
finished there will be serious transportation difficulties. I hope you
will come to see us often."
"Time is up!" said Calvert.
I helped Grace into the saddle, and the rest of the perfect afternoon
passed like a happy dream. Even if alone, at that season the mere sounds
and scents of reawakening Nature would have elated me; but then I strode
on, holding Caesar's rein, lost in the golden glamour of it all, until snow
peak and solemn forest seemed but a fitting background for the slender
figure swaying to the horse's stride, while the pale, calm face brought
into the shadowy aisles a charm of its own. Once--and I could not help
myself--a few lines written by a master who loved Nature broke from me,
and for a moment Grace seemed startled. It was a passage from the first
home-coming of Queen Guinevere.
"Shall we thank Providence for a good conceit of ourselves?" she said
lightly, a little later. "You are hardly a Lancelot, Sir Railroad Builder;
and she--is it a compliment to compare me with Arthur's faithless Queen?"
Thereupon I lapsed into silence, feeling like one who has blundered on the
edge of a precipice; and Grace was silent too, for the day drew toward its
close, and a red glare of sunset came, slanting in among the massy trunks,
striking strange glints of color from her hair, while winsome and
graceful to the tiny foot in the stirrup, her lissom shape was outlined
against it. Then for a while we left the woods, and rode down the hillside
under the last of the afterglow, which blazed, orange, green and crimson,
along the heights of eternal snow, calling up ruby flashes from the ragged
edge of a glacier, while Grace seemed lost in wonder and awe. I do not
think there are any sunsets in the world like those of British Columbia.
"It is unearthly--majestic!" she said half to herself. "And once I almost
felt inclined to sympathize with a Transatlantic scribbler, who compared
the Revelation to what he termed a wholesale jewelry show. He was a
townsman who had never crossed the Rockies--and if there are glories like
this on earth, what must the everlasting city be?"
The weird fires paled and faded, and the peaks were coldly solemn under
their crown of snow, while a little breeze awoke strange harmonies among
the cedars, and there was no more talking. Perhaps we were physically
tired, though that day's march was a very slight task for me, but I felt
that after what we had seen silence became me best. It was dark long
before we rode into Cedar Crossing, and Grace was worn-out when I helped
her from the saddle. Miss Carrington apparently found some difficulty in
straightening herself, and when Calvert had installed them in the one
second-rate hotel, after a visit to an acquaintance there, I sat smoking
beneath a hemlock most of the night keeping guard over it. This was, of
course, palpably absurd; but I was young, and from early ages many others
have done much the same, while, though it seems the fashion to despise all
sentiment now, it is probable that future generations will show traces of
equal foolishness.
We finished the journey on the third day, but I did not see Colonel
Carrington. He was busy at the mine, and it was not worth while wasting
precious time in the really comfortable ranch he had hired, awaiting his
return for the mere pleasure of exchanging greetings with him, while Grace
was far too tired to entertain anybody.
Calvert looked awkward when he shook hands with me. "I don't quite know
how to put it," he said, "but you will understand we can't take you away
several days from your work gratuitously, and all transport is charged to
the Syndicate. Being a trained engineer, I'm working manager, and, as a
matter of business, what do I owe you?"
"Nothing!" I answered shortly. "I could take no payment for assisting Miss
Carrington. If you like, you can send five dollars to the Vancouver
hospital."
"I trust we'll be friends" said Calvert. "Hope I didn't offend you. Meant
it in the best of faith. I'm coming round to see you, and whenever you
have leisure you must look upon my quarters yonder as your own."
I rode back wondering whether the work had suffered during my absence,
though I knew my partners would not complain, and when I reached camp
Harry said:
"I hardly thought we'd set up as packers, but in the meantime all is fish
that comes to our net. I'm getting quite a mercenary character. You had a
long journey--how much did you get?"
"Nothing," I answered, "except a gift of five dollars for the Vancouver
hospital. It was Miss Carrington."
Harry made no articulate comment at first, though his whistle, which from
any one else would have been impertinence, was eloquent, while some
moments elapsed before he spoke.
"Then it's Colonel Carrington who is running the Day Spring mine. I've
heard the free prospectors talking about the new Syndicate. They opine
there's nothing in it, and that somebody is going to be hard hit."