IN THE WILDERNESS
Dusk was closing down on the valley, and the rain had ceased, when
Alton unstrapped his load, and stood with aching shoulders amidst the
dripping pines. He could hear the rattle of the twigs that met and
brushed through the shrill wailing of the wind about the sombre spires
that pierced the growing darkness far above him, and the harmonic
murmuring that rose and fell in cadence along the dim, vaulted roof.
There was, however, nothing else beyond the growl of a rapid somewhere
up the valley, and stretching out his arms wearily, he stooped with a
little smile that was grim rather than mirthful and caught up the axe.
Now one can usually hear the thudding of the axe a mile or more in the
stillness of the woods that is not silence to the bushman's ear. Their
voice is always musical, and the sounds that man makes jar through its
harmonies, but only a forest rancher or free prospector would have
caught the muffled sound, that was lost in the song of the pines a few
score yards from Alton's camp. He knew where to find the resinous
knots with their sticky exudations, and was a master of the axe, while
it was noticeable that when the fire commenced to crackle he stood
still and listened again before he went down to the river with the
kettle. Nor did he at once return into the light, but slipped for a
moment behind a wide-girthed trunk. It was only a deer he heard moving
along the hillside above him, and there was nothing visible but the row
of stupendous columns that appeared and vanished as the red light rose
and sank. Alton set the kettle down amidst the flame, and unrolling
one of the packages laid out his supper.
It was prepared and eaten in twenty minutes, and refilling the kettle
for breakfast he lay smoking in a hollow between the great roots which
crawled away from a cedar-trunk. Nothing moved in the bush now but a
bear that was grubbing amidst the wild cabbage in a swamp, and the
weary man, stretching out his hand instinctively to touch the rifle
that lay within his reach, gave himself up to thought. He had also
much to occupy him, and being a somewhat systematic person he proceeded
to consider the questions that demanded an answer in what appeared to
him their order of importance. It was characteristic that in face of
recent events he placed the probable whereabouts of the silver first.
This was at the first glance a somewhat difficult problem. In front of
him lay the wilderness, a trackless chaos of forest and rock and snow
wherein he had to find the scar made by a stick of giant powder or the
scratching of the shovel. There were, however, points to guide the
searcher, and Alton could deduce a good deal from each of them. Jimmy
the prospector had, it was evident, perished of hunger and exhaustion,
for Alton had traced the last stages of his journey backwards through
the snow, and the grim story of human endurance and anguish was plainly
legible. Here Jimmy had fallen, there lain still, and then dragged
himself forward before he rose again, while the uneven footsteps had
borne their own testimony. Also the bag of specimens was heavy, and
Alton decided that for a man in the last stages of exhaustion, the
river had furnished the only road. The silver was therefore somewhere
up the Valley, and as it was winter when Jimmy found it, it would lie
low down where the snow was cut off by the pines. Alton lay still a
minute with a curious glint in his eyes when the firelight touched them
which was a tribute to the dead man, and then filled his pipe again.
His journey had been marked by petty misfortunes, each of which might
become a more serious one, hitherto, and he was now alone. This might
be due to coincidence, but Alton, admitting that hypothesis, proceeded
to consider an alternative one which resolved itself into two. It was
generally known in Somasco that he and Jimmy had held the clue to a
secret that might be valuable, and strange prospectors for timber
rights and minerals occasionally strayed into the valley. Alton knew
that most of the bushmen and free prospectors had a standard of honour
which was somewhat higher than that usually lived up to in the cities.
They were quiet, fearless, free-handed men, the antitype of the
roystering desperadoes he had now and then seen them depicted as by
those who did not know them. There were, he, however, knew, among them
a few who it was probable had their own reasons for vacating the great
Republic, and these were men of distinctly different calibre. One or
more of them, it seemed, might have heard of his aspirations and be
following him. If so, it was evident that he would be in security
until he found the silver. Then the peril would begin.
This led to the second issue. Alton was quite aware that he had an
enemy whom he had got the better of on several occasions hitherto.
Partly because devious finesse is not always superior to shrewd sense
and fearless honesty, he had as yet held his own against Hallam of the
Tyee. Both knew that a time of prosperity was approaching for Somasco,
and had decided more or less correctly that it would lead to affluence
the man who had control of the valley; but while Alton had striven with
arduous toil to bring about this consummation, Hallam of the Tyee was
waiting while those he meant to plunder worked for him. It was also
plain that there was no room for two leaders with divergent
aspirations, and the rancher had seen sufficient of his opponent's
dealings to recognize that he would not scruple about any measures
which promised to rid him of a rival. Therefore it became him to be
careful, and once more his fingers fell upon the rifle.
Alton had reached the limit of his surmises, and refilling his pipe
again abandoned himself to more pleasant dreams. He heard the whistle
of the locomotive ringing among the pines, and the hum of the great
mills that would grind out wealth for Somasco. Then while the pungent
smoke curled about him visions materialized out of its filmy wreaths,
and he saw the lake at Carnaby shining amidst the woodlands of peaceful
England, and the old grey hall. In place of the sting of the resin he
could smell the English roses, and when the next acrid wisp slid past
him it seemed to change its form, and there grew out of it the
gracious, alluring shape of a woman. Costly fabrics floated about her,
there was a flash of diamonds in the red-gold hair, a face that lost
its patrician serenity as it smiled, and for a setting the glitter of
light and silver in the great hall at Carnaby. Alton, whose eyes were
growing dim, stretched out his arms towards the darkness, and a
chilling gust swept the smoke aside, while great drops of water fell
splashing upon him. He was back once more in the wilderness, a wet and
very weary man, with thorn-rents in his deerskin jacket and the mire
clinging about him, but he smiled as he rose stiffly and stretched his
aching limbs.
"I figure there's a good deal to be done before that time comes, and
some of it can't wait after sun up," he said.
Then, having left the tent behind, he carried his blankets away from
the fire, and rolled himself up in them between two great fir-roots
that afforded concealment as well as shelter. Though he had strewn
them about the blaze the blankets were still clammy, but he drew the
damp folds about him uncomplainingly, and lay down with the rifle at
his side. Ten minutes passed. The fire snapped and crackled, the
growl of the rapid rose and fell fitfully, but the worn-out man heard
neither, for he was sleeping heavily.
There are many like him who dream great dreams scattered across the new
lands by the Pacific from the snow of the Yukon to Mexico, but their
visions are sacred and not expressed in speech, while a smile which is
half ironical flickers in the steadfast eyes when they hear them
caricatured by the platform Imperialist. Their words are scanty, but
their handiwork is plain; the gap hewn in the virgin forest, bridge
flung over frothing river, and the raw rent of the giant powder amidst
the lonely hills. It is crude and unsightly often, the
creosote-reeking railroad track, and the ugly humming mills, but it
means food for the toilers, good wages and trade, and in place of a
pleasance for the rich to seek diversion in, a new and rich dominion
won, not for England, or the Republic, alone, but for humanity.
He started with the sunrise, the pack-straps galling his shoulders, his
feet bleeding in the saturated boots, clammy blankets, flour-bag, and
pork upon his aching back, kettle, frypan, and rifle rattling about
him, and for the first hour every stride that led him farther into the
wilderness was made with pain and difficulty. Still, he made it
cheerfully, for Alton had long borne the burden that was laid on Adam
uncomplainingly, while his rival, sitting beyond the reach of hardship
in his Vancouver office, plotted, and filched the fruits of others'
toil. It was also an apparently unequal conflict they had been drawn
into, subtlety pitted against sturdiness, the elusive, foining rapier
against the bushman's axe, but there are moments in all struggles when
finesse does not avail, and it is by raw, unreasoning valour a man must
stand or fall, while at times like these the ponderous blade is the
equal of the slender streak of steel.
It was two days later when Alton, who may have made ten miles in the
time, noticed something unusual on the opposite hillside. A snowslide
had come down that way, and its path was marked by willows and smaller
trees. Alton, of course, knew that the hollow they sprang from had
been scored out deep by countless tons of debris and snow, and that
prospector Jimmy would scarcely have passed the place. It also seemed
to him that there was a gap in the slighter band of forest which ran
straight towards the snowline up the face of the hill that suggested
the work of man, and his pace quickened a trifle as he pressed forward
towards the river. There he stopped for several minutes, gazing about
him.
The flood came down before him stained green with the clay that
underlies the glaciers, and swollen by rain and snow. There was a big
pool above him, lake-like and still, but it was too wide for any weary
and shivering man to swim, and the wild, white rush of a rapid close
below. Alton glanced at both of them and a cluster of smaller trees
across the river, and smiled somewhat grimly.
"Now I wonder," he said, "why the thing one wants the most is always on
the other side."
The firs behind him were great of girth, the smallest some distance
from the bank, and he was weary; but loosing the straps about him, he
dropped his burdens and fell to with the axe. It was an hour before
the tree went down, and at least another had passed before he had hewn
off a portion. Then very slowly and painfully he rolled it to the
river with skids and levers cut in the bush. He was breathless, and
the perspiration dripped from him when at last it slid into the water
and he seated himself astride, with his possessions on the wet bark in
front of him. The device was a very old one, but there is a difficulty
attached to the putting it in execution, for it is needful to lean out
a little while using the propelling pole, and a log is addicted to
rolling round when anything disturbs its equilibrium.
Alton, of course, knew this, but when still some distance from the
opposite side, had apparently to choose between a somewhat perilous
effort and an unwished-for descent of the rapid. He glanced at its
foaming rush a moment, and then decided upon the former. Several times
he dipped the pole and won a yard with the strenuous thrust, and then
what he partly expected happened. The bark seemed to be slipping away
beneath him, and, as throwing himself forward upon his belongings he
flung an arm about it, the log rolled slowly, and there was a splash in
the water. He had restored the equilibrium, but one blanket and the
flour-bag were in the river. In another few minutes he waded ashore,
and drew the butt of the log out upon the shingle before he turned to
glance ruefully at the sliding water.
"If I went back and plunged for it I might get that flour," he said.
"Still, I should have to go down the rapid with it, and I mightn't want
it then."
Dripping from the waist with snow water, he reslung his traps, glanced
back at the sombre bush behind him and then plunged into that ahead,
while the dusk was closing in when he stood panting amidst the stumps
of smaller trees. The mark of the axe was on them, and somebody had
piled up a mound of rock and stones. Alton drew in a long breath and
shook off his burden.
"Jimmy's claim," he said. "It may mean--most anything--to me."
Then, though his pulses throbbed, and he could feel his blood tingling,
he fell to work systematically, groping about the excavation the dead
man had made where the snowslide had rent apart the forest and scored
out the rock for him. Here and there he smashed a fragment of it with
the back of the axe, or picked up a discoloured stone of unusual
gravity and compared it with the pieces he took out of a little bag,
until at last he stood up stiffly and flung his head back.
All round him the forest rose dim and sombre, flinging back the roar of
the rapid in long pulsations of sound, and its solitude was not
lessened by the presence of the wet and weary man standing so still
that his outline was scarcely perceptible against the trunks behind
him. Save for the light of triumph in his eyes there was nothing in
the whole scene to uplift the fancy. The man's garments were tattered,
the river had not washed the mire from him, and one of his boots was
gaping, but the discovery he had made was fraught with great
possibilities for that lonely valley, and changes in the destinies of
many other men. It had lain wrapped in stillness, a sanctuary for the
beasts of the forest, countless ages since the world was young, being
made ready slowly by frost and sun, and now man had come.
For five long minutes Alton looked into the future, and once more the
fragrance of English roses seemed to steal faintly through the resinous
odours of the firs. Then he shook himself, and glanced again dubiously
at the river.
"And now," he said half aloud, "I'll get supper. It's a pity about
that flour."
As those who have sojourned in the bush of that country know, one can
sup on reasty pork and green tea alone, when it is impossible to get
anything better, but there are more appetizing compounds, and when the
edge of his appetite had been blunted, Alton stopped with greasy
fingers in the frypan and a little smile upon his face.
"And Somasco's mine, and Carnaby--when I ask for it, with all that lies
beneath me here," he said, and sat very still a space, with eyes that
had lost their keenness fixed upon the bush. He did not see the big
balsam in front of him nor the dusky firs, for it was once more the
picture of a woman with red-gold hair standing in an English rose
garden his fancy painted him.
Then he rose abruptly, and the smile faded, while his face grew grim
again. "In the meanwhile I figure there's a good deal to do," he said.
He commenced it by picking the remnants of the pork out of the
frying-pan, and when he had replaced them carefully in the bag, he
filled the former with water and set it on the fire. That done, he
proceeded to hew four square pegs, and spent some little time cutting,
"One Discovery," upon the largest of them. Then with a compass in his
palm he strode with even paces up the slope of the hill, and drove one
of the pegs in, turned sharply, and floundered into the bush, where he
hammered down a second, and came back along the river until he had
paced off and marked down an oblong.
"Now I'll put in the first shot," he said.
He toiled assiduously with the axehead and a little drill, bruising his
fingers as the light grew dim, and when his left hand was smeared with
blood, drew out a plastic yellow roll from one of his bundles. This he
gently rammed into the hole, squeezed down a copper cap upon a strip of
fuse, and, lighting the latter, retired expeditiously towards the
river. Standing behind a big cedar, he watched the train of blue
vapour and thin red sparks creep on through the dusk until a blaze of
yellow flame leapt up, and a stunning detonation rolled across the
woods. The hillsides took up the sound, and flung it from one to
another in great reverberations, while the pines, quivering in all
their sprays, shook drops of water down. Alton stood still and
listened, silent and intent, while the discord died, until there was
once more stillness again, realizing dimly a little of its significance.
It was man's challenge to the wilderness that had lain sterile long,
and he could forecast the grimness, but not the end of the coming
struggle with rock and flood and snow. Other men had gone down
vanquished in such a fight, he knew, and the forest they slept in had
closed once more upon and hidden the little scars they made. Jimmy had
also challenged savage nature, and Jimmy was dead, while the man who
came after him stood alone, dripping still, and weary, amidst the
whispering pines: he had more than the wilderness against him. Alton
turned with a little shiver, strode back to the fire, unrolled a piece
of pork, a packet of green tea, and a little bag of sugar from a strip
of hide. The piece of pork was very small, and a good deal of it
apparently bad. Then he laughed curiously.
"It seems to me that the sooner I can get south and put in my record
the less hungry I'm likely to be," he said. "It would be kind of
convenient if I could find a deer. I wonder just how far back the
other man is?"