CONFIDENCE MISPLACED
There was sliding mist in the Somasco valley, and the pines were
dripping when Alton and Miss Deringham stood upon a slippery ledge
above the river. Just there it came down frothing into a deep, black
pool, swung round it white-streaked, and swept on with a hoarse murmur
into the gloom of the bush again. A wall of fissured rock overhung the
pool on the farther side, and a fallen pine wetted with the spray
stretched across the outflow and rested on one jagged pinnacle. A wet
wind which drove the vapours before it called up wild music from the
cedars that loomed through them on the side of the hill.
"I'd cast across the rush at the head of the pool and let the fly come
down," said Alton. "There's generally a big trout lying in the eddy
behind the boulder."
The girl nodded, and the line sweeping back towards the pines behind
her went forward again. It fell lightly amidst the frothing rush, and
Alton smiled approval as he watched the rod point follow it downstream
towards a foam-licked rock. It swung to and fro a moment, then slid on
again towards the still black stretch behind the stone, tightened there
suddenly, and ran, tense and straight, upstream again, while the reel
clacked and rattled.
"A big one," said Alton quietly. "Check the winch a little, and keep
the butt down. He can't face the rapid, and you'll lose him unless you
can keep a strain on when he turns again."
The girl flung herself backwards, with eyes dilated and a warmth in her
cheeks, the rod bending above her, and the line ripping its way towards
the welter at the head of the pool. There it curved inwards a trifle,
and Alton shouted, "Reel!"
There was a quick rattle, something broke the water with a silvery
flash, and the line was shooting downstream again.
"Let him go, unless he makes for the fir yonder," said Alton quietly.
For the space of several minutes the line swept up and down the pool,
and Miss Deringham watched it almost breathlessly with fingers on the
reel. Then it swept straight towards the fallen fir.
"Stop him!" said Alton. "It's a good trace. Keep the butt down."
The rod bent further, a big silvery body rushed clear of the water and
went down again, while next moment the line stopped and quivered as it
rasped against the fallen fir. Miss Deringham turned to her companion
with a gesture of consternation.
"Oh!" she said breathlessly. "It has gone."
"I don't know," said Alton, "That trace is a good deal thicker than
what you use in England. I'll see if I can get him. Keep your thumb
on the reel."
He took up a net, and clambering along the ledge sprang lightly upon
the log. It was sharply rounded, the bark was wet, and the way along
it obstructed by the stake-like ends of torn-off limbs, but the man
crawled forward foot by foot with the swift whirl of current close
beneath him. Then he knelt where the tree dipped almost level with the
flood, and grasping the line with one hand swept the net in and out
amidst the broken-off branches, while the girl watching him fancied she
could see a bright flash between the splashes. Presently he rose again
shaking his head, with nothing in the net.
"Give me a yard or two when I shout," he said.
Grasping a branch with one hand he lay down on the log, and lowered
himself until arm and shoulder were in the river. Then he sank still
further until his head was under too, and the girl shivered a little.
It seemed to her that it would be difficult for even a good swimmer to
extricate himself from the tangle of snapped-off branches between the
log and the bottom of the river. Still, the clinging foot and arm
were visible above the rush of frothing water. Then more of the man
came into sight again, there was a half-smothered shout, and she loosed
the reel, while in another moment or two Alton swung himself up
dripping with part of one hand apparently thrust into a great flapping
fish's head. With the back of it pressed gainst his knee he drew the
head towards him, and the long silvery body became still, while the man
stood up smiling.
"Fingers were made before nets, but I wasn't quite sure of him all the
time," he said.
Miss Deringham, who was flushed and breathless, felt very gracious
towards her companion just then. It was, she realized, a somewhat
perilous thing he had done to please her, and this was gratifying in
itself, while the knowledge that he had postponed several affairs which
demanded his attention was more flattering still. He was also, in such
surroundings, almost admirable as he stood before her bareheaded and
dripping, the river frothing at his feet and the sliding mists behind
him. Deerskin jacket and stained and faded jean, lean, sinewy figure,
and bronzed face were all in keeping with the spirit of the scene.
Then a voice came out of the bush.
"Hallo, Harry! Are you anywhere around?" it said.
Alton answered, and Miss Deringham felt distinctly displeased. She had
been about to say something delicately apposite, and now Seaforth,
whose company she could have dispensed with, stood on the bank above
them, apparently quietly amused.
"You seem to be enjoying yourself, Harry," he said.
"Well," said Alton a trifle curtly, "you didn't come keeyowling through
the bush like a prairie coyote to tell me that?"
"No," said Seaforth, with a sudden change in his voice which Miss
Deringham noticed. "There's a man in from the settlement, and Hallam's
selling Townshead up to-day according to his tale."
Alton scrambled swiftly along the log. "Just one question, Charley.
Quite sure nobody came here with any message for me about it that you
forgot?" he said.
Seaforth made a little gesture of impatience, and there was a trace of
anger in his tone. "It is scarcely likely I should have forgotten
that," he said.
Then he glanced at Miss Deringham, and was slightly bewildered by what
he saw in her face. Seaforth had once or twice admired the girl's
serenity in somewhat difficult surroundings, but there was now a
suggestion of fear in her eyes, and she seemed to avoid Alton's gaze.
It, however, passed in a moment, and she turned towards the rancher
tranquilly.
"I wonder how far I am to blame," she said. "A man came here a day or
two ago, and apparently endeavoured to tell me something. He was,
however, unintelligible, and I fancy somebody had been giving him
whisky."
"Mounted?" said Alton. "What kind of horse?"
Miss Deringham considered for a moment, and then possibly deciding that
Alton would have no difficulty in ascertaining elsewhere, told him.
"Tom!" he said grimly. "Well, I'll talk to him. You'll take Miss
Deringham home, Charley, and then come on to Townshead's after me."
He swung away into the bush next moment, and Seaforth followed him more
slowly with Miss Deringham. Neither of them spoke, but though the
man's thoughts were busy with other affairs, he noticed that his
companion glanced at him covertly. "The girl could have told us
something more," he said to himself, and put a stern check on his
impatience as he kept pace with her.
When they came out into the clearing they heard the thud of hoofs, and
saw a mounted man send a horse at the tall split fence. The slip-rails
were up, and the fence was unusually well put together, but there was a
crash as the top bar flew apart, and presently the thud of hoofs grew
fainter down the fir-shadowed trail. Miss Deringham now appeared quite
serene again.
"Has he ridden off wet through as he was?" she said.
"I expect so," said Seaforth dryly. "Harry does not usually let
trifles of that kind worry him, nor do I think there are many men who
would have ridden at that fence."
Alice Deringham said nothing, but though she smiled Seaforth fancied
that she was not pleased. Her thoughts were, however, of small
importance to him, and he hastened fuming with impatience towards the
stables.
It was some time later when Nellie Townshead stood by a window of her
father's ranch. Jean-clad stock breeders and axemen hung about the
clearing, and a little knot of men from the cities stood apart from
them. A wagon, implements out of repair, old sets of harness, axes,
saws, and shovels were littered about the front of the house, and there
were two or three horses and a few poor cattle in the corral. The
ranchers spoke slowly to one another, and their faces were sombre, but
Hallam, who stood amidst the other men, was smiling over a big cigar.
The girl clenched her hands as she watched him, and then turning her
head looked down the valley.
"I fancy I hear hoofs. He told me he would come," she said, but
Townshead, who sat apathetically in the old leather chair, shook his
head.
"He has, of course, forgotten if he did," he said.
"No," said the girl with a trace of harshness in her voice. "Mr. Alton
never forgets a promise. That must be the drumming of hoofs. Can you
hear nothing?"
"The river," said Townshead despondently. "He will be too late
directly. They are putting up the ranch."
Confidence and dismay seemed to struggle together in the face of the
girl, but the former rose uppermost, for she clung fast to hope.
"There! Oh, why can they not stop talking? That is something now,"
she said.
"No," said Townshead. "Only the wind in the firs."
The girl leaned forward a little, drawing in her breath as she stared
down the valley. The voices drowned the sound she fancied she had
heard, and the colour came and went in her face when she caught one of
them. "The thing's no better than robbery. Why isn't Harry Alton or
his partner here?"
Nellie Townshead had asked herself the same question over and over
again that day when rancher and axemen in somewhat embarrassed fashion
tendered her their sympathy. What she expected from him she did not
quite know, but she had a curious confidence in Alton, and at least as
much in his comrade, and felt that even if the scheme her father had
alluded to was not feasible there would be something they could do.
Then she drew back from the window and sat down, with a little shiver
as the harsh voice of the auctioneer rose from the clearing. She
caught disjointed words and sentences.
"Don't need tell you what the place is worth. You have seen the
boundaries. Richest soil in the Dominion. Grow anything. Now if I
was a rancher. Well, I'm waiting for your offer."
He apparently waited some little time, and then a laugh that expressed
bitterness in place of merriment followed the voice of one of the men
from the cities.
"Put two hundred dollars on to it," said somebody, and there was
another laugh, which the girl, recognizing the voice, understood; for
it was known that the bidder had probably not ten dollars in his
possession and was in debt at the store. The fact that this man whom
she had scarcely spoken to should endeavour to help her while her
friends at Somasco did nothing also brought a little flash of anger to
her eyes. Then she told herself that there was time yet, and they
would come.
The voices rose again more rapidly. "Fifty more. Another to me. Oh,
what's the use of fooling. One hundred better. Twenty again to me."
Miss Townshead glanced at her father. "They'll stop presently," said
he. "The place stands at a third of its value, but it would cripple
most of them to pay for it if they got it now. The man from Vancouver
who goes up by twenties will get it at half of what it cost me, and I
don't think you need watch for rancher Alton."
Still Nellie Townshead did not quite give up hope. The bidding was
only beginning, and there was time yet. She had been taught to look
beneath the surface in Western Canada, and had cherished a curious
respect for rancher Alton. The girl was young still, and he stood for
her as a romantic ideal of the new manhood that was to grow to
greatness in the wildest province of the Dominion, while now and then
she fancied she saw something in his comrade's face which roused her
pity and stirred her to sympathy. That, having made it unasked, the
former should slight a promise of the kind appeared incomprehensible
and she felt that if he did so her faith in the type he served as an
example of would fall with him. There was also pressing need of some
one to look to for guidance in her time of necessity, because Townshead
was not the man to grapple with any difficulty, and most of his
neighbours knew little or nothing about the cities.
"Father," she said, "in case the purchaser turns us out where shall we
go to-night? The stage does not go in to the railroad until a week
to-day, and do you think there will be anything left over to keep us
for a little in Vancouver?"
Townshead glanced at her querulously. "Somebody will take us in," said
he. "I should have fancied, my dear, that you would have seen I am
sufficiently distressed and unwell to-day without having to anticipate
further difficulties. There will, I hope, be a balance. What is the
bidding now?"
The girl listened, but for a few moments there was a significant
silence, and her heart sank when a single voice rose. One or two
others joined in, and there was silence again until the auctioneer
repeated the offer. Then she turned quivering towards her father.
"You heard him?" she said.
Townshead groaned despondently, "I am afraid the prospect of a balance
is very small," he said.
Again there was a stillness in the clearing, until the auctioneer's
voice rose raucously expostulating. "It is really preposterous,
gentlemen," he said. "I'm giving the place away."
"Well, I'll go ten better," said somebody, and the girl held her breath,
"Twenty!" said another man, and there was a laugh.
"Then that takes me. You can have the ranch."
The voice of the auctioneer rose again. "Nobody to follow him? Your
last chance, gentlemen. He's getting it for nothing. Too late in a
moment. Going--going."
Nellie Townshead closed her hands and turned her head away, then sprang
up quivering with the revulsion from despair to hope. Through the
silence she heard a faint drumming down the valley.
"He is coming. Stop them, father," she said.
Nobody else apparently heard the sound. The eyes of all in the
clearing were fixed upon the auctioneer, and while Townshead rose from
his chair he brought down his hand.
"It's yours, sir," he said, "I'll take your cheque, or you can fill
this contract in if you're bidding for the smaller lots."
Nellie Townshead grew white in face as she glanced towards her father.
Townshead stood still, gripping the back of his chair.
"We are homeless now," he said.
It was five minutes before the girl looked out again, and then in spite
of every effort her eyes grew hazy, but it was a long time before she
forgot the scene, for the groups of bronzed men in jean, cattle,
clearing, and the tall firs behind them burned themselves into her
memory. Hallam stood smiling close by the auctioneer's table with a
cigar in his hand, and another man from the cities was apparently
replacing a roll of paper dollars in his wallet. That impressed her
even more than the sympathetic faces turned towards the house, for it
was a token that the sale was irrevocably completed. Then the group
split up as a man rode at a gallop straight towards the table. He was
breathless, the horse was smoking, and there were red smears upon its
flanks as well as flecks of spume. He swung himself from the saddle,
and there followed the sound of an altercation while a noisy group
surged about the table. It opened up again, and rancher Alton walked
out, pale and grim of face, alone.
"You should have come sooner, Harry," said somebody.
The rancher turned, the group closed in again, and the girl did not see
Alton stride up to a big man, and laying a hand upon his shoulder swing
him round. "Tom," he said with a curious quietness, "there was a
message you did not give me, you drunken hog."
The man shook his grasp off, glanced at him bewilderedly, and then
while the bronze grew a little darker in his face doubled a great fist.
"If I take a little more than is good for me now and then, that's my
lookout," he said. "Now I don't want any trouble with you, Harry, but
I'll not take that talk from any man."
Alton's face was almost grey and his eyes partly closed, but there was
a steely glint in them as he said, "Did you bring me the message Miss
Townshead gave you?"
"I did the next thing," said the man. "When I couldn't find you I gave
it to the lady. She promised to tell you."
"Tom," said Alton slowly, "you are worse than a drunken hog, you
are----"
A man stepped in front of him before the word was spoken, while another
pinioned the culprit's arm.
"We've no use for that kind of talk and the fuss that follows it," said
the first one. "Anyway, if Tom mixed things up it was my fault and
Dobey's for giving him the whisky. We'd sold some stock well and we
rushed him in. Well, now, if you still feel you must work it off on
somebody you've got to tackle Dobey and me!"
Alton let his hands drop. "Do you know what you have done?" said he.
"It wasn't very much, anyway," said the other man. "Tom didn't want to
come in; told us he'd a message for you. But we made him, and were
sorry after, because when he got started he left us very little whisky."
Alton glanced at him a moment, and the man grew embarrassed under his
gaze. Then he smiled wryly. "And this is what you have brought
Townshead and his daughter to, and there is more behind. What you have
made of me counts for little after that," he said.
Some time had passed when he walked quietly into the house. Nellie
Townshead rose as he entered and stood looking at him very white in
face.
"I wonder if you will believe what I have to tell you, Miss Townshead,"
he commenced, and stopped when the rancher turned towards him,
"My daughter has, I think, been taught that it is unwise to place much
confidence in any one," he said.
Alton glanced at the girl, and stood silent a moment when she made a
little gesture of agreement. "I am afraid appearances are against me,"
he said.
"Yes," said the girl. "So are the facts."
"Well," said Alton grimly, "the latter are of the most importance, but
I think you should hear me."
"There is," said Miss Townshead, "no reason why I should. You made me
a promise--why I do not know, any more than I do why I allowed you--but
I was very anxious just then. No doubt you spoke on impulse, and
afterwards regretted it."
"My daughter was a trifle injudicious," said Townshead.
Alton made a last endeavour. "I know what you must think of me, and it
hurts," he said. "Still, that is a little thing."
The girl checked him by a gesture, and the man stopped with his meaning
unexpressed. "You have made as much evident," she said.
Alton turned towards her father. "I'm afraid the suggestion I wished
to make would be out of place just now," he said. "Still, I had ridden
over in the hope that you and Miss Townshead would stay with us at
Somasco while you decided on your next step."
"We have to thank you for your offer, but your surmise is correct,"
said Townshead.
Alton said nothing further, but went out into the clearing and stood
apart from the rest while the auctioneer disposed of the household
effects, until a little cabinet was offered, when he moved up to the
table and bid savagely. Hallam for some reason bid against him, and
only stopped when he had quadrupled its value. Alton flung down a roll
of dollar bills and then turned to a man close by. "Will you take that
in to Miss Townshead, and not tell her who bought it?" he said. "It
was her mother's, and I believe she values it."
"I'll do my best," said the other man dryly. "Still, I'm not good at
fixing up a story, and Miss Nellie's not a fool."
"Well," said Alton simply, "there's another thing. Where is Townshead
going?"
The rancher smiled a little. "He's coming home with me. Susie's
driving over with the wagon."
Alton nodded. "Now you needn't be touchy, but we've fruit and things
at Somasco you haven't got," said he. "Well, I want you to come round
with the wagon."
The rancher straightened himself a trifle. "My place isn't Somasco,
but it will be a mean day when I can't feed my friends," said he.
Alton laughed softly. "I don't care ten cents about your feelings,
Jack," he said. "The girl and the old man might like the things, and
there's no reason they should know where you got them."
The other man also laughed. "You ride straight home, Harry, before you
make it worse," said he. "One might figure that you'd mixed things up
enough already."
Alton turned away, and found Seaforth awaiting him. They mounted, and
Alton rode in silence until when they were climbing out of the valley
he said, "I wonder, Charley, if there's a man in the Dominion who feels
as mean as I do."
Seaforth smiled curiously, and there was bitterness in his voice which
Alton was too disturbed to notice. "I think there is," he said. "You
haven't asked what kept me, but you will see if you look at the horse's
knees. It's a little difficult to understand why he must get his foot
in a hole to-day."
It was late that night when they reached Somasco, but Alton found Miss
Deringham upon the verandah, and she glanced at him with very pretty
sympathy. Still, Seaforth fancied that she seemed a trifle anxious.
"Have you seen the man who brought the message?" she said.
"I have," said Alton. "You were right, of course. He'd had too much
whisky."
The girl appeared, so Seaforth fancied, curiously relieved. "I was
almost afraid you might think I was in some respects to blame," she
said.
"No," said Alton simply, "That was one of the things I couldn't do. It
was right out of the question."
He went in, and the warm colour crept into Miss Deringham's face as she
presently followed him.