UNDER THE SHADOW OF DEATH
In spite of the many new hands who flocked in with the spring, the line
progressed slowly. This was quite comprehensible, and when I traveled over
it afterward as a passenger I wondered how we had ever built it at all.
Portions were hewn out of the solid rock, of a hardness that was often too
much for our most carefully tempered drills; others were underpinned with
timber against the mountain side, or carried across deep ravines on open
trestles; while much of it had to be roofed in by massive sheds, so that
the snow-slides might not hurl it into the valley.
On several occasions we were almost checkmated in our efforts to supply
and clear a way for the builders. There was, of course, no lack of timber,
but the difficulty was to get it out of the forest and into position, for
we often spent days building skidways or hewing roads to bring the great
logs down, after which it cost us even a longer time rigging gear to lower
them over dangerous ledges to those who worked below. Still, we made
progress, and the free miners or forest ranchers who trudged behind their
weary pack-horses down the trail that crossed the track encouraged us in
their own fashion, which was at times slightly eccentric; while now and
then a party of citizens from the struggling town rode over to inspect the
new road they hoped would do so much for them.
Sometimes they brought small presents with them, and I remember one who
watched our efforts admiringly said: "You must be clearing your little
pile by the way you're rustling," and looked blankly incredulous when I
answered: "No; we're only trying to pay back other men their own."
Nevertheless, on occasions when the work was suspended temporarily, I made
a two days' journey to Colonel Carrington's ranch, and spent a few
blissful hours there beneath the cedars with his sister and Grace. Both
seemed pleased to see me, and I managed to console myself for the absence
of the Colonel and Ormond. They returned at sunset, when I took my
departure, and even Ormond was usually disreputable of aspect. Many
difficulties were connected with the development of the Day Spring mine,
and when there was need for it Ormond showed himself a capable man of
action. Night and day the freighters met him riding along the heavy
trails, hurrying in tools and supplies, and the shaft-sinkers said that he
was always foremost when there was risky work to be done. Once also, when
I sat smoking in Calvert's shanty, the latter, who was freely smeared with
the green mountain clay, said:
"We are none of us exactly idlers, but Geoffrey Ormond is tireless. In
fact, I hardly recognize him as the same man, and it is just as well. We
have sunk a good deal in this undertaking, and it will go hard with some
of the Syndicate if we don't get out rich quartz. Ormond in particular
invested, I think, almost recklessly. He's a distant connection of our
leader's, you know, and it's probable he's hoping for Miss Carrington's
hand. There's no doubt that the irascible Colonel would be glad to have
him for a son-in-law, and he is really a very good fellow, but I'm not
sure that Miss Carrington likes him--in that way."
Here Calvert flicked the ash off his cigar, and looked at me before he
continued: "It's not my business, and perhaps I'm gossiping, but Colonel
Carrington is not addicted to changing his mind, and I anticipate a
dramatic climax some day. In any case, she will never with his consent
marry a poor man. You can take my word for it--I'm speaking feelingly."
When, after exchanging a few words of cold politeness with the Colonel, I
rode homeward the next morning I wondered whether Calvert, who certainly
was not given to gossiping, had intended this as a friendly warning. Every
one in their own manner seemed bent on warning me, and yet, as long as
Grace remained Miss Carrington, I could not give up hope, and it was that
very hope that added force to every stroke of the glinting axe or another
hour of toil to the weary day. And so, while spring melted into summer, I
worked and waited until fate intervened.
Now between the mining town and Cedar the river loses itself in a gloomy
canyon, one of those awful gorges which are common among the mountains of
British Columbia. Two great rocks partly close the entrance, and beyond
this the chasm is veiled in spray, while its roar when the floods race
through it can be heard several miles away. Scarcely a ray of sunlight
enters its shadowy depths, and looking up from beside the entrance one can
see the great pines that crown the sheer fall of rock looming against the
skyline in a slender lace-like filigree. Sometimes, when frost bound fast
the feeding snows, the Siwash Indians ran their light canoes through, but
I never heard of a white man attempting the passage, and one glance was
sufficient to show the reason. I understood it better when as by a miracle
I came alive out of the canyon.
It was a still evening, and again the afterglow flamed behind the western
pines, when, holding Caesar's rein, I stood under a hemlock talking to
Grace Carrington. We had been compelled to wait for more ironwork, and I
made the long journey on the specious excuse of visiting a certain
blacksmith who was skilled in sharpening tools. Calvert's offer of
hospitality was now proving an inestimable boon. Harry pointed out that we
had a man in camp who could do the work equally well, but I found a
temporary deafness convenient then.
"It was very kind of you to suggest it, and if you could get the things in
by your supply train we should be very glad," she said. "I really do not
know whom to write to, and the pack-horse freighters often wet or spoil
them. Aunt and I intend to spend a few days at the Lawrences' ranch, and
you could meet us with the package at the canyon crossing on Thursday
morning."
I glanced at the list she handed me, and wondered what Harry, who had to
visit Vancouver, would say when he found I had pledged him to ransack the
dry-goods stores for all kinds of fabrics. Still, I felt I should have
faced much more than my comrades' remonstrances to please Grace Carrington
then, as she stood beside me, glorified as it were by the garish sunset.
"My aunt will be especially grateful," she added. "And now, good-bye. She
will never forgive you if you damage her new dress."
She spoke with a half-mocking and wholly bewitching air, for when Grace
unbent she did it charmingly, holding out a shapely hand, while the light
sparkled among the glossy clusters above her forehead. Grace's hair might
have been intended for a net in which to catch stray sunshine. Then while
I prepared to take up the challenge the slender fingers tightened on my
own.
"What was that?" she asked with a start, for a wild shrill cry rang
suddenly out of the stillness, and the hillside returned the sound in a
doleful wailing before it died away.
"Only a loon, a water-bird!" I said, though the cry had also startled me.
Grace shivered as she answered: "I have never heard it before, and it
sounded so unearthly--almost like a warning of some evil. But it is
growing late, and you have far to go. I shall expect you at the
crossing."
She turned back toward the house, and I laughed at my momentary confusion
as I rode on through the deepening shadow, for though it is strangely
mournful the loon's shrill call was nothing unusual in that land. Still,
mere coincidence as it was, remembering Grace's shiver it troubled me, and
I should have been more uneasy had I known how we were to keep that
fateful tryst.
It was a glorious morning when, with a package strapped to the saddle, I
rode down between the pine trunks to the crossing. The river flashed like
burnished silver below, and the sunlight made colored haloes in the filmy
spray that drifted about the black mouth of the canyon, while rising and
falling in thunderous cadence the voice of many waters rang forth from its
gloomy depths. The package was a heavy one, for there were many domestic
sundries as well as yards of dry-goods packed within it, and Harry assured
me it had taken him a whole day to procure them, adding that he was
doubtful even then whether he had satisfactorily filled the bill.
I had loitered some time on the hillside until I could see the party
winding down the opposite slope. Then the forest hid them, and it appeared
that, perhaps because the waters were high, they were not going straight
to the usual ford, but intended first to send the ladies across in a canoe
which lay lower down near a slacker portion of the rapid stream. The slope
on my own side was steep, but, picking my way cautiously, I was not far
above the river, which boiled in a succession of white-ridged rapids, when
I saw Grace seat herself in the stern of the canoe, which Ormond thrust
off until it was nearly afloat. Then he returned for her aunt, while
Colonel Carrington and rancher Lawrence led the horses toward the
somewhat risky ford up-stream. The river was swollen by melting snow, and
it struck me that they would have some difficulty in crossing.
Then a hoarse shout rang out, "The canoe's adrift!" followed by another
from the Colonel, "Get hold of the paddle, Grace!--for your life paddle!"
It had all happened in a moment. Doubtless some slight movement on the
girl's part had set the light Indian craft afloat, and for another second
or two I stared aghast upon a scene that is indelibly impressed on my
memory. There was Ormond scrambling madly among the boulders, tearing off
his jacket as he ran, Colonel Carrington struggling with a startled horse,
and his sister standing rigid and still, apparently horror-stricken,
against the background of somber pines. Then forest and hillside melted
away, and while my blood grew chill I saw only a slender white-robed
figure in the stern of the canoe, which was sliding fast toward the head
of the tossing rapid that raced in a mad seething into the canyon.
Then I smote the horse, gripped the rein, and we were off at a flying
gallop down the declivity. A branch lashed my forehead, sweeping my hat
away; for an instant something warm dimmed my vision, and as I raised one
hand to dash it away a cry that had a note of agony in it came ringing
down the valley.
"Make for the eddy, Grace! For heaven's sake, paddle!"
How Caesar kept his footing I do not know. The gravel was rattling behind
us, the trunks reeled by, and the rushing water seemed flying upward
toward me. Even now I do not think I had any definite plan, and it was
only blind instinct that prompted me to head down-stream diagonally to cut
off the approaching canoe; but I answered the Colonel's shout with an
excited cry, and drove the horse headlong at a shelf of rock. I felt his
hoofs slipping on its mossy covering, there was a strident clang of iron
on stone, and then with a sudden splash we were in the torrent together.
Caesar must have felt the bottom beneath him a moment or two, for I had
time to free my feet from the stirrups before he was swimming gallantly;
but one cannot take a horse on board a birch-bark canoe, and the light
shell shot down the green and white-streaked rush toward me even as I
flung myself out of the saddle. And, staring forward with drawn-back lips
and eyes wide open, I could see the white face in the stern.
Thanking Providence that I could swim well, I swung my left arm forward
with hollowed palm, and shot away from the beast with head half-buried
under the side-stroke's impetus, making a fierce effort to gain the center
of the flow in time. Something long and dark swept past me. With an
inarticulate gasp of triumph I seized it, managed to fall in head foremost
over the stem, which in a tender craft of that beam is a difficult thing
to do, and then, snatching the second paddle, whirled it madly. I felt the
stout redwood bend at every stroke, my lungs seemed bursting, and there
was a mist before my eyes, but it was borne in on me that I had come too
late, and that already no earthly power could snatch us from the canyon.
Hemlock and boulder, stream-hammered reef and pine, flitted by, closing in
on one another along the half-seen shore. The river frothed white about us
in steep boiling ridges as it raced down the incline, and nearer and
nearer ahead tossed the ghostly spray cloud that veiled the mouth of the
chasm. As we lurched broadside to the rapid each steeper liquid upheaval
broke into the canoe; for every foot I won shoreward the stream swept us
sideways two; and when, grasping the pole, I thrust against a submerged
boulder with all my strength, the treacherous redwood snapped in half.
Then there was a bewildering roar, a blinding shower of spray, and we
were out upon the short slide of glassy green water which divided the tail
of the rapid from the mouth of the canyon. As I flung away the broken pole
and groped for the paddle I saw with eyes that were clouded by blood and
sweat Grace raise her hand as though in a last farewell, and then as she
faced round once more our glances met. She said no word. I could not have
heard if she had, for all sound was swallowed up in one great pulsating
diapason; but she afterward said that she felt impelled to look at me, and
knew that I would turn my head. And so for an instant, there where the
barriers of caste and wealth had melted away before the presence of death,
our two souls met in a bond that should never be broken.
Now there are occasions when even the weakest seem endowed with a special
strength, while a look of blind confidence from the woman he loves is
capable of transforming almost any man, and I knew in the exaltation of
that moment, for my own sake, I had no fear of death. If I could not save
her, I felt it would be a good end to go down into the green depths
attempting it.
Then the canoe lurched forward half its length clear of the water, a white
haze eddied about us, the sunlight went out, and we were in the canyon,
shooting down the mad rush of a rapid toward eternity. I plied the paddle
my hardest to keep the frail craft head on, that she might not roll over
by sheering athwart the stream, not because I had any hope of escape, but
that it seemed better to go under fighting. The work was severe enough,
as, not having learned the back-feather under water, I must dip the blade
on either side alternately, while each time that I dare turn my eyes
backward a moment the sight of Grace kneeling with set white face in the
stern further strengthened me. The pace grew a little easier as we drew
out into a somewhat slacker flow, and I made shift with an empty
fruit-can to free the craft of water, until Grace spoke, and her words
reached me brokenly through the deeper growling of the river:
"Do you think there is any chance of safety?"
"Yes," I answered stoutly, though it is probable my voice belied me. It
was so strained I could hardly recognize it. "The canoe may keep afloat
until we reach the other end, or perhaps we can find a bar to land on and
climb up somewhere." Then I felt glad that my shoulders were turned toward
her as she said:
"I am afraid it is a very small one. There is a fall and a whirlpool
ahead, and no one could climb that awful precipice--look!"
The canoe was shooting onward through dim shadow very fast but more
steadily, and raising my eyes from the dull green water before us--these
craft are always paddled with one's face toward the bow--I looked about me
hopelessly. In these days of easy travel there are doubtless many who have
from a securely railed-off platform gazed down into the black depths of a
Pacific Slope canyon upon a river that seems a narrow thread in the great
gulf below. These will have some idea of what I saw, but they may take the
word of one who knows, which is easier than making the experiment, that
such places look very much worse from the bottom. Those who have not may
try to picture tremendous--and the word is used with its amplest
significance--walls of slightly overhanging rock, through which aided by
grinding boulders and scoring shingle, the river has widened as well as
deepened its channel a little every century, while between the white
welter at their feet lies a breadth of troubled green where the stream
flows heaped up, as it were, in the center.
In places it roared in filmy wreaths about a broken mass of stone that
cumbered the channel, but elsewhere the hollowed sides, upon which the
smallest clawed creature could not have found a foothold, had been worn
down into a smooth slipperiness.
"It is all so horrible," said Grace, bending back her head, so that as I
glanced over my shoulder I could see her firm white neck through the laces
as she stared upward at the streak of blue sky so far above. Then she
turned her face toward me again, and it seemed to my excited fancy that it
had grown ethereal.
"We may pass the whirlpool, and--if not--death can come no harder here
than in any other place," she added.
I tried to answer, and failed miserably, feeling glad that an increasing
tumult covered my silence, for I could not drive out a horrible picture of
that fair face with the gold bronze hair swept in long wet wisps across it
washing out, frozen still forever, into the sunlit valley, or the soft
hands I should have given a life to kiss clutching in a last vain agony at
the cruel stones which mocked them. Then I set my teeth, clenching the
paddle until each muscle swelled as though it would burst the skin, and,
with something that was divided between an incoherent prayer and an
imprecation upon my lips, I determined that if human flesh and blood could
save her she should not perish.
The roar of water grew louder and louder, rolling in reverberations along
the scarped rock's side, until it seemed as if the few dwarf pines which
clung in odd crannies here and there trembled in unison, and once more the
white smoke of a fall or rapid rose up close before us. Then I could see
the smooth lip of the cataract held apart, as it were, by one curved
glittering ripple from the tumult beneath, and I remembered having heard
the Indian packers say that when shooting a low fall one has only to keep
the craft straight before the current, which is not always easy, and let
her go.
"Sit quite still, Grace," I cried. "If the canoe upsets I will at once
take hold of you. We shall know the worst in another few minutes now."
Her lips moved a little, and though I heard no words I fancied it was a
prayer, then I turned my head forward and prepared for the struggle. I had
small skill in handling canoes, but I had more than average strength, and
felt thankful for it as, lifting the light cedar at every wrenching
stroke, I drove it toward the fall. Then a whirling mist shot up, there
was a deep booming in my ears, the canoe leaped out as into mid-air, and I
could feel her dropping bodily from beneath us. A heavy splash followed,
water was flying everywhere, and a boiling wave lapped in, but the paddle
bent under my hand, and breathless and half-blinded we shot out down the
tail rush into daylight again. One swift glance over my shoulder showed
the slanting spout of water behind Grace's pallid face. The fall
apparently must have been more than a fathom in three yards or so, and I
wondered how we had ever come down it alive.
Then, with labored breathing and heart that thumped painfully, I plied the
paddle, while the craft swung off at a tangent across the dark green
whirling which, marked by white concentric rings, swung round and round a
down-sucking hollow in the center. Twice we shot past the latter, and had
time to notice how a battered log of driftwood tilted endways and went
down, but as on the second revolution we swept toward a jutting fang of
quartz I made a fierce effort, because here the stream had piled a few
yards of shingle against the foot of the rock. The craft yielded to the
impulse and drove lurching among the backwash. Then there followed a
sickening crash. Water poured in deep over her depressed side as she
swayed downward and over, and the next moment, with one hand on the ragged
quartz and another gripping Grace's arm, I was struggling in the stream.
Fortunately the dress fabric held, and my failing strength was equal to
the strain, for I found a foothold, and crawled out upon the shingle,
dragging her after me. Then rising, I lurched forward and went down
headforemost with a clatter among the stones, where I lay fighting hard
for breath and overcome by the revulsion of relief, though it may have
been the mere physical overpressure on heart and lungs that had prostrated
me.