A GOLDEN LINK.
What I have just written is but the connecting link between two
series of events--the hyphen between two words; and I shall not try
to hurry on to the strange drama of a few days to which all that
precedes it has been but the inevitable prologue, without which there
were no clear understanding of its incidents. I am going, therefore,
to dispose of a whole year's events in a few words, though much
occurred in that time which might be worth relating, if I were a
professional writer, able to make things interesting to all, or if I
had the faculty of making word-pictures of places and scenes which
stand out clearly before me whenever I reflect, and the full times of
the past come up for review.
What Jack Harmer and I did for that year truly would take ten times
the space I have allowed myself, and have been allowed, and I shall
say but little now if I can only dispose of that twelve months in a
way that places my readers in a position to clearly understand what
passed in the thirteenth month after I had landed in British Columbia.
Now on our landing we had but £40 between us, and I was the possessor
of nearly all that amount, about two hundred dollars in American
currency. It is true I had a hundred and fifty pounds in England,
which I had sent for, and Harmer had quite coolly asked his father
for fifty, which I may state here he did _not_ get in a letter which
advised him to return to England, and go in for something worth
having before it was too late.
"He means the Civil Service, I know," said Jack, when he read the
letter; "and I hate the notion. They are all fossils in it, and if
they have brains to start with, they rarely keep them--why should
they? They're not half as much use as a friend at court."
Perhaps he was right, yet I advised him to take his father's advice,
and he took neither his nor mine, but stuck to me persistently with a
devotion that pleased and yet annoyed me. For I desired a free hand,
and with him I could not get it. I had some idea of going in for
farming when I landed. I would get a farm near Elsie's father, and
stay there. But I found I hadn't sufficient money, or anything like
sufficient, to buy land near Thomson Forks. So I looked round, and,
in looking round, spent money. Finally, I got Harmer something to do
in a sawmill on Burrard's Inlet, a position which give him sufficient
to live on, but very little more; and yet he had not to work very
hard, in fact he tallied the lumber into the ships loading in the
Inlet for China and Australia, and wrote to me that he liked his job
reasonably well, though he was grieved to be away from me. As for
myself, I went up to Thomson Forks, looked round me there, and at the
hotel fell in with a man named Mackintosh, an American from Michigan,
a great strong fellow, with a long red beard, and an eye like an
eagle's, who was going up in the Big Bend gold-hunting, prospecting
as they call it. I told him, after we got into conversation, that I
wanted to go farming.
He snorted scornfully, and immediately began to dilate on gold-mining
and all the chances a man had who possessed the grit to tackle it.
And as I knew I really had too little money to farm with, it wasn't
long before he persuaded me to be his partner and go with him. For I
liked him at once, and was feeling so out in the cold that I was glad
to chum with anyone who looked like knowing his way about. We were
soon in the thick of planning our campaign, and Mac got very fluent
and ornamental in his language as he drank and talked. However, I
did not mind that much, although his blasphemy was British Columbian,
and rather worse than that in use on board ship. Yet people do not
think the sea a mean school of cursing. Presently, as I turned round
at the bar, I saw Mr. Fleming, who did not notice me until I spoke.
"Good-morning, Mr. Fleming," I said; "will you drink with me?"
He turned round sharply at the sound of my voice, and then shook my
hand, half doubtfully at first, and then more heartily.
"Well, Ticehurst," he said at last, "I am glad to see you, after all.
Hang it, I am! for" (here he lowered his voice to a whisper) "I don't
care about the style of this place after New South Wales. They
nearly all carry revolvers here, damn it! as if they were police; and
last time I came in, my man and another fellow fought, and Siwash Jim
(that's what they call him) tried to gouge out the other chap's eyes.
And when I pulled him off, the other men growled about my spoiling a
fight. What do you think of that?"
And the old man stared at me inquiringly, and then laughed.
"Wish I could ask you over to the Creek, but I can't, and you know
why. Take my advice and go back to sea. Now, look here, let's speak
plain. I know you want Elsie; but it's a mistake, my boy. She
didn't care for you; and I know her, she's just like her mother, the
obstinatest woman you ever saw when she made up her mind. I wouldn't
mind much if she did care for you, though perhaps you aint so rich as
you ought to be, Tom. But then my wife had more money than I had by
a long sight, so I don't care for that. But seeing that Elsie
doesn't want you, what's the use? Take my advice and go to sea
again."
Here he stopped and gave me the first chance of speaking I had had
since I accosted him.
"Thank you, Mr. Fleming," I said firmly; "but I can't go back yet. I
am glad you have no great objection to me yourself, but I believe
that Elsie hasn't either, and I'm bound to prove it; and I will."
"Well, you know best," he replied. "But mind your eye, old boy, when
your friend the Malay comes out. I shouldn't like to be on the same
continent with him, if I were you."
"I don't like being either," I said. "But then it shows how fixed I
am on one object. And I shall not go, even if he were to find out
where I am. For I might have to kill him. Yet I don't see how he
can find out. Nobody knows or will know, except my brother, and he
won't tell him."
Fleming shrugged his shoulders and dropped the subject to take up his
own affairs.
"Damn this country, my boy! give me a plain where I can see a few
miles. On my soul, this place chokes me; I can't look out five
hundred yards for some thundering old mountain! At the Creek there
are hills at the back, at the front, and on both sides, and nearly
all are chokeful of trees, so that riding after the cattle is worse
than going after scrub cattle in Australia. I can't get the hang of
the place at all, and though I am supposed to own nearly two hundred
head of cattle, I can't muster seventy-five on my own place. Some
are up at Spullamacheen, some on the Nicola, and others over at the
Kettle River on the border, for all I know. And the place is full of
cañons, as they call gulches in this place; and thundering holes they
are, two hundred feet deep, with a roaring stream at the bottom. The
Black Cañon at the back of my place gives me the shivers. I am like
a horse bred on the plains; when it gets on the mountains it is all
abroad, and shivers at the sight of a sharp slope. I reckon I can
ride on the flat, old as I am, but here, if it wasn't for my
scoundrel Siwash Jim, who says he knows the country like a book, I
shouldn't know where to go or what to do. Here he comes, the
vagabond!"
I had learnt by this time that Siwash means Indian, for in that
country they say Siwashes instead of Indians, so I thought Jim was
one of the natives. However, I saw at once he wasn't, for though he
was dark, his features were pure white. He had earned his nickname
by living with the Indians for so many years that he was more at home
with them than with white people, and he had acquired all their vices
as well as a goodly stock of his own, probably inherited. He was a
slightly built man of about forty, with a low forehead, a sharp
aquiline nose, and no lips to speak of; his mustache was short, and a
mere line; his teeth were black with smoking and chewing; his legs
bowed with continual riding. He wore mocassins, and kept his hair
long. He was more than half intoxicated when he came in, carrying a
stock-whip coiled round his neck. He did not speak, but drank
stolidly; and when he looked at me, I fancied it was with an air of
dislike, as though he had read my thoughts and knew how I regarded
him.
I drew Fleming aside.
"I don't like him," said I; "and wouldn't trust him farther than I
could swing a bull by the tail. Do the girls like him?"
"Like him!" repeated Fleming, "they hate him, and want me to give him
the bounce, as they say here. Elsie says he looks like a murderer,
and Fanny that he is uglier than a Murrumbidgee black fellow. But
then he knows the country and does his work, and don't want to go. I
don't care much either way, for when I can get all the cattle
together and put the place in order I shall sell out and go back.
Stay in British Columbia--no, sir, I won't! not if they make me
Governor. I tell you I like to be where I can see ten miles. Then I
can breathe. I can go out at home and see all my station and almost
count the sheep and cattle from my door; and here I have to ride up
and ride down, and I never know where I am. I'm going back just as
soon as I can."
And he went away then without asking where I was going or whether I
was doing anything. Next morning I jumped on board the steamer with
Mac and started for the head of the Shushwap Lakes. Thence we went
into the Big Bend, and though we never made the millions Mac was
always prophesying about and hungering for, our summer's work was not
wasted. For before the season was over we had struck a rich pocket
and made about four thousand dollars a piece.
Of course I wanted to up stick and go back as soon as I had as much
as that, but Mac would not hear of it.
"No, Tom--no," said he; "there's more here yet."
And he eyed me so entreatingly that I caved in and promised to remain
with him prospecting, at any rate till the first snow.
But a week after making that agreement we both went down to the
Columbia for more provisions. Finding none there, we had to make the
farther journey to the Landing. There I found a letter waiting for
me from Harmer, saying that he was tired of the sawmill on the Inlet,
and wanted to join me. I wrote back requesting him to be good enough
to stay where he was, but, to console him, promised that if I saw any
chance of his doing better with me I would send for him. He asked
rather timidly for news of Fanny. How could I give him news when I
knew nothing of Elsie? Yet the simple mention of the girl's name
again made me anxious to get back to the Forks, and if one of the
steamers had come up the lake I think I should have deserted Mac in
spite of my promise. Yet we had only brought down half the gold that
trip, perhaps because my partner had made a calculation as to what I
might do, having it on me, if we got within reach of some kind of
civilization, and I thought it best to secure the rest while I could,
though I thoroughly trusted Mac. At the same time that I answered
Harmer's letter I wrote one to my brother, telling him both what I
had done and what I proposed doing later on. And I begged him to be
careful, if he should be in San Francisco then, of the Malay when his
time was up. For although his chief spite was against me, yet Will
was my brother, and I well remembered the look that he had cast on
him when he was kicked in the struggle between Will and myself.
The rest of the summer--and a beautiful season it was in the wooded
mountains--was spent in very unsuccessful prospecting. For one
thing, after our success Mac had taken to prospecting for pockets;
and if gold-mining be like gambling as a general rule, that is almost
pure chance. Once or twice he was in high spirits at good
indications, but on following them up we were invariably
disappointed, and we had to start again. August and September
passed, and the higher summits above us were already white with snow,
which fell on us in the lower valleys as rain. In October there was
a cessation of bad weather for a time, and Mac promised himself a
long fall season, but at the end of it we woke one morning to find a
foot of snow on our very camping ground.
"We shall have to get up and get," said I cheerfully, for I was glad
of it.
"Oh, no!" said Mac; "this is nothing. It will all go again by
to-morrow; there will be nothing to stop us from another week or two.
Besides, yesterday I had a notion that I saw something. I didn't
tell you, but I found another bit of quartz--aye, richer than the
piece I showed you at the Forks, Tom, and we've got to find out where
it comes from."
I groaned, but, in spite of argument, there was no moving him; and
though I was angry enough to have gone off by myself, yet knowing
neither the trail nor the country well, I had no desire to get lost
in the mountains, which would most assuredly have meant death to me.
However, I still remonstrated, and at last got him to fix ten days as
the very longest time he would remain: I was obliged to be content
with that.
But Mac was sorry before the hour appointed for our departure that he
had not taken my advice, "tenderfoot" and Englishman though I was.
On the evening of the eighth day the temperature, which had up to
that time been fairly warm in spite of our altitude and the advanced
season, fell suddenly, and it became bitterly cold. Our ponies, who
had managed to pick up a fair living on the plateau where our camp
stood, and along the creek bottoms, came right up to our tent, and
one of them put his head inside. "Dick," as we called him, was a
much gentler animal than most British Columbian cayuses, and had made
a friend of me, coming once a day at least for me to give him a piece
of bread, of which he had grown fond, though at first he was as
strange with it as a young foal with oats. I put up my hand and
touched his nose, which was soft and silky, while the rest of his
coat was long and rough. He whinnied gently, and I found a crust for
him, and then gently repulsing him, I fastened the fly of the tent.
Mac was fast asleep under his dark blankets, whence there came sudden
snorts like those a bear makes in his covert, or low rumblings like
thunder from a thick cloud.
But it was he who woke me in the morning, and he did it without
ceremony.
"Get up, old man!" he said hurriedly, while he was jamming himself,
as it were, into his garments. "The snow's come at last--and, by
thunder, it's come to stay! There's no time to be lost!" And he
vanished into the white space outside.
When I followed I found him already at work packing the ponies, and
without any words I set to, struck the tent, rolled it up, and got
together everything I thought should go. When I touched the tools
Mac turned round.
"Leave 'em, pard--leave 'em. There's plenty of weight without that.
Aye, plenty--and too much!"
The last I only just caught, for it was said to himself. In half an
hour we were off, leaving behind us nearly three weeks' provisions,
all the tools but two light shovels, and what remained after our
working the quartz.
"It's worth a thousand dollars," said Mac, regretfully, "but without
a proper crusher it's only tailings."
We moved off camp, Mac first, leading the nameless pony, which was
the stronger of the two, and I following with Dick.
The snow was two feet deep in many parts, and in some drifts much
more than that. Fortunately, the trail was for its greater length
well sheltered, both by overhanging rocks and big trees, spruce,
cedar, hemlock, and pine, which helped to keep it clear; but it was
evident to me by the way the ponies traveled, and the labor it was
for me to get along with no other burden than the shovel, from which
I sometimes used to free Dick, that another fall of snow would make
traveling almost impossible. Mac walked on in somber silence,
reflecting doubtless that it was his obstinacy which had brought us
into trouble, a thing I confess I was not so forgiving as to forget,
though merciful enough not to remind him of it. It had taken us
three days to come up from the Columbia, and it seemed barely
possible under the circumstances to retrace our steps in the same
time, even although the horses were not so much burdened and there
was not so much hard climbing to be done. But I could see Mac was
bent on getting out, and he traveled without more rest than we were
absolutely compelled to take on account of the animals. As for
myself, I confess that though I had traveled that same trail twice,
yet so greatly was it altered by the snow that I should have lost my
way in the first mile. For mountaineering and the knowledge of
locality are things not to be learnt in a hurry, they must come by
long custom, or by native instinct.
Sorrowfully--for I am always loth to harm even a noxious animal, as
long as it leaves me alone--I suggested to Mac that we should leave
the horses. He shook his head.
"Who'll carry the provisions, then?" said he.
"Do you think we can get to the Landing, Mac?" I asked.
"We shall be lucky," he answered, with a significant nod, "if we get
to the other side of the Columbia. Tom, I think I have let you in
for a winter up here, unless you care about snow-shoeing it over the
other pass. I was a fool--say yes to that if you like."
It was late when we camped, but my partner was in better spirits than
he had been at noon when we held the above conversation, for we had
done, by dint of forced marching, quite as much as we did in fine
weather. But the ponies were very tired, and there was nothing for
them to eat, or next to nothing, for the grass was deeply buried. I
gave Dick a little bread, however, and the poor animal was grateful
for it, and stood by me all night, until, at the earliest dawn, we
packed them again with a load that was lighter by the day's food of
two men, and heavier to them by a day's hard toil and starvation.
Toward the afternoon of that, the second day, we came to the hardest
part of the whole trail, for, on crossing a river which was freezing
cold, we had to climb the side of an opposing mountain. Mac's pony
traveled well, and though he showed evident signs of fatigue, he was
in much better case than mine, who every now and again staggered, or
sobbed audibly with a long-drawn breath. I drew Mac's attention to
it, but he shook his head.
"He must go on, there's no two ways about it." And he marched off.
I went behind Dick and pushed him for a while, and though I tired
myself, yet I am not sorry for what I did, even that little
assistance was such a relief to the poor wretched animal who, from
the time he was able to bear a weight, had been used by a packer
without rest or peace, as though he were a machine, and whose only
hope of release was to die, starved, wounded, saddle and girth
galled, of slow starvation at last. Such is the lot of the pack
horse, and, though poor Dick's end was more merciful, his fellows
have no better fate to expect, while their life is a perpetual round
of ill-usage and hard work.
By about four o'clock in the afternoon the sky grew overcast, and the
light feathery flakes of snow came at first slowly, and then faster,
turning what blue distances we caught sight of to a gray, finally
hiding them. Dick by this time was almost at a standstill. I never
thought I was a very tender-hearted man, and never set up to be;
indeed, if he had been only stubborn, I might have thrashed him in a
way some folks would call cruel; and yet, being compelled to urge
him, both for his sake and my own, I confess my heart bled to see his
suffering and wretchedness. Having scarcely the strength to lift his
feet properly, he had struck his fetlocks against many projecting
stones and roots until the blood ran down and congealed on his little
hoofs, which were growing tender, as I could see by the way he winced
on a rockier piece of the trail than common. His rough coat was
standing up and staring like that of a broken-haired terrier, in
spite of the sweat which ran down his thin sides and heaving flanks;
while every now and again he stumbled, and with difficulty recovered
himself.
When we came to the divide, just as if he had said that he would do
so much for us, he stumbled again, and fell on the level ground,
cutting his knees deeply. Mac heard the noise, and, leaving his pony
standing, he came back to me.
"He's done up, poor devil!" said he; "he'll go no further. What
shall we do?"
I shook my head, for it was not I who arranged or ordered things when
Mac was about. He was silent for a while.
"There's nothing for it," he said at last, "but one thing. We must
put all the other kieutan can stand on him."
By this time I had got the pack off Dick, and he lay down perfectly
flat upon his side, with the blood slowly oozing from his knees, and
his flanks still heaving from the exertions which had brought him up
the hill to die on the top of it.
"Come on," said Mac, as he moved off with what he meant to put on the
other pony.
But at first I could not go. I put my hand in my pocket, took out a
piece of bread, and, kneeling down by the poor animal, I put it to
his lips. He mumbled it with his teeth and dropped it out. Then in
my hat I got some water out of a little pool and offered it to him.
He drank some and then fell back again. I took my revolver from my
belt, stroked his soft nose once more, and, putting the weapon to his
head between his eye and ear, I fired. He shivered all over,
stiffened a little, and all was still except for the slow drip of the
blood that ran out of his ear from a vein the ball had divided. Then
I went on--and I hope no one will think me weak if I confess my sight
was not quite so clear as it had been before, and if there was a
strange haziness about the cruelly cold trail and mountain side that
did not come from the falling snow.
At our camp that night we spoke little more than was absolutely
necessary, and turned in as soon as we had eaten supper, drunk a tin
of coffee, and smoked a couple of pipes. Fortunately for the
remaining horse, in the place we had reached there was a little feed,
a few tussocks of withering frost-nipped bunch grass, which he ate
greedily to the last roots his sharp teeth could reach. And then he
pawed or "rustled" for more, using his hoof to bare what was hidden
under the snow. But for that we should have left him on the trail
next morning.
The toil and suffering of the third day's march were dreadful, for I
grew footsore, and my feet bled at the heels, while the skin rose in
blisters on every toe, which rapidly became raw. But Mac was a man
of iron, and never faltered or grew tired; and his example, and a
feeling of shame at being outdone by another, kept me doggedly behind
him at a few paces' distance. How the pony stood that day was a
miracle, for he must have been made of iron and not flesh and blood
to carry his pack, while climbing up and sliding down the steep
ascents and slopes of the hills, while every few yards some
wind-felled tree had to be clambered over almost as a dog would do
it. He was always clammy with sweat, but he seemed in better
condition than on the second day, perhaps on account of the grass he
had been able to get during the night. Yet he had had to work all
night to get it, while I and Mac had slept in the torpor of great
exhaustion.
Late in the evening we came to the banks of the Columbia, across
which stretched sandy flats and belts of scrub, until the level
ended, and lofty mountains rose once more, covered with snow and
fringed with sullen clouds, thousands of feet above where we stood.
Mac stopped, and looked anxiously across the broad stream; and when
he saw a faint curl of bluish smoke rising a mile away in the sunless
air, he pointed to it with a more pleased expression that I had seen
on his face since he had roused me so hurriedly on that snowy morning
three days ago.
"There is somebody over there, at any rate, old man," he said almost
cheerfully, "though I don't know what the thunder they're doing here,
unless it's Montana Bill come up trapping. He said he was going to
do it, but if so, what's he doing down here?"
"Can't he trap here, then?" I asked.
"Well," replied Mac, "this might be the end of his line; but still,
he ought to be farther up in the hills. There isn't much to trap
close down on this flat. You see trappers usually have two camps,
and they walk the line during the day, and take out what is caught in
the night, setting the traps again, and sleeping first at one end and
then at the other. However, we shall see when we get across." And
he set about lighting a fire.
When we had crossed before there had been a rough kind of boat built
out of pine slabs, which was as crazy a craft to go in as a
butter-tub. It had been made by some hunters the winter before, and
left there when they went west in the early spring, before we came
up. I asked Mac what had become of it, for it was not where we had
left it, hauled up a little way on a piece of shingle and tied to a
stump.
"Somebody took it," he said, "or more likely, when the water rose
after we crossed, it was carried away. Perhaps it's in the Pacific
by this."
I went down to the stump, and found there the remains of the painter,
and as it had been broken violently and not cut, I saw that his last
suggestion was probably correct.
We sat down to supper by our fire, which gleamed brightly in the
gathering darkness on the surrounding snow and the waters close
beneath us, and ate some very vile bacon and a greasy mess of beans
which we had cooked the night before we left our mountain camp.
"How are we going to cross, Mac?" said I, when we had lighted our
pipes.
"Build a raft," said he.
"And then?"
"When we are over?"
"Yes."
"Why, stay there, I guess, if it snows any more. One more fall of
heavy snow will block Eagle Pass as sure as fire's hot!"
I shrugged my shoulders. Though I had been expecting this, it was
not pleasant to have the prospect of spending a whole winter mewed up
in the mountains, so close before me.
"Does it get very cold here?" I asked at length, when I had reflected
for a while.
He nodded sardonically.
"Does it get cold? Is it cold now?"
I drew closer to the fire for an answer.
"Then this is nothin'--nothin' at all. It would freeze the tail off
a brass monkey up here. It goes more than forty below zero often and
often; and it's a worse kind of cold than the cold back east, for
it's damper here, and not so steady. Bah! I wish I was a bear, so
as to hole up till spring."
All of which was very encouraging to a man who had mostly sailed in
warm latitudes, and hated a frost worse than poison. And it didn't
please me to see that so good-tempered a man as Mac was really put
out and in a vile humor, for he knew what I could only imagine.
The conversation--if conversation it could be called--flagged very
soon, and we got out our blankets, scraping away the snow from a
place, where we lay close to each other in order to preserve what
warmth we could. We lay in the position commonly called in America
"spooning," like two spoons fitting one into another, so that there
had to be common consent for changing sides, one of which grew damp
while the other grew cold. Just as we were settling down to sleep we
heard the sudden crack of a rifle from the other shore, and against
the wind came a "halloa" across the water, Mac sat up very
unconcernedly; but, as for me, I jumped as if I had been shot,
thinking of course at first that the shot had been fired by Indians,
though I knew there were no hostile tribes in that part of British
Columbia, where, indeed, most of the Indians are very peaceable.
"I told you so," said Mac; "that's Montana Bill's rifle. I sold it
him myself. He's the only man up here that carries a Sharp."
He rose, and went down to the water's edge. "Halloa!" he shouted, in
his turn, and in the quietness of the windless air I heard it faintly
repeated in distant echoes.
"Is that you, Mac?" said the mysterious voice.
"You bet it is!" answered my partner, in a tone that ought to have
been heard on the Arrow Lake.
"Bully old boy!" said Bill faintly, as it seemed. "Do you know me?"
"Aye, I reckon I know old Montana's bellow!" roared Mac.
"Then I'll see you in the morning, pard!" came the voice again, after
which there was silence, broken only by the faint lap of the water on
the shingle, as it slipped past, and the snort of our pony as he blew
the snow out of his nostrils, vainly seeking for a tuft of grass.
We rose at earliest dawn, and saw Montana Bill slowly coming over the
level. He sat down while Mac and I built a raft, and fashioned a
couple of rude paddles with the ax.
"Is the pony coming across, Mac?" I asked.
"We'll try it, but it's his own lookout," said he; "if he won't come
easy we shan't drag him, for we shall hev to paddle to do it
ourselves."
Fortunately for him he did want to go over, and, having a long lariat
round his neck, he actually swam in front of us, and gave us a tow
instead of our giving him one.
As we were going over, Mac said to me:
"I never thought I'd be glad to see Montana Bill before. He's got
more gas and blow about him than'd set up a town, and he's no more
good at bottom--that is, he aint no more grit in him than a clay
bank, though to hear him talk you'd think he'd mor'n a forty-two inch
grindstone. But I hope he's got a good stock of grub."
In a few minutes we touched bottom, and we shook hands with the
subject of Mac's eulogium, who looked as bold as brass, as fierce as
a turkeycock, and had the voice of a man-o'-war's bo'son. We took
the lariat off the pony, and turned him adrift.
"Did you fellows strike it?" said Bill, the first thing.
"Enough to pay for our winter's board, I reckon," said Mac. "Have
you got plenty of grub?"
Bill nodded, using the common American word for yes, which is a kind
of cross-breed between "yea" and the German "Ja," pronounced short
like "ye."
"You bet I've plenty. Old Hank kem up with me, and then he cleared
out again. He and I kind of disagreed first thing, and he just
skinned out. Good thing too--for him!"
And Bill looked unutterable things.
"Is there any chance of getting out over the pass?" asked Mac.
"If you can fly," answered Bill. "Drifts is forty foot deep in
parts, and soft too. I could hardly get on snow-shoein' it. Better
stay and trap with me. Better'n gold-huntin' any time, and more
dollars in it."
"Why aint you farther up in the hills?" asked Mac, as we tramped
along.
"Dunno," said Bill; "I allers camp here every year. It's kind of
clear, and there's a chance for the cayuses to pick a bit to keep
bones and hide together. Besides, I feel more freer down here. I
see more than 'ull do me of the hills walking the line."
And with that we came to his camp.
Now, if I tell all that happened during that winter, which was, all
round, the most uncomfortable and most unhappy one I ever spent, for
I had so much time to think of Elsie, and how some other man more to
her mind might go to windward of me in courting her--why, I should
not write one book, but two, which is not my intention now. Besides,
I have been long enough coming to the most serious part of my history
to tire other people, as it has tired me; although I could not
exactly help it, because all, or at least nearly all, that happened
between the time I was on the _Vancouver_ and the time we all met
again seems important to me, especially as it might have gone very
differently if I had never been gold-hunting in the Selkirks, or even
if I had got out of the mountains in the fall instead of the
following spring. For things seem linked together in life, and, in
writing, one must put everything in unless more particular
description becomes tedious, because of its interfering with the
story. And though trapping is interesting enough, yet I am not
writing here about that or hunting, which is more interesting still;
and when a man tells me a yarn he says is about a certain thing, I
don't want him to break off in the middle to say something quite
different, any more than I like a man to get up in the middle of a
job of work, such as a long splice which is wanted, to do something
he wasn't ordered to do. It's only a way of doing a literary Tom
Cox's traverse, "three times round the deck house, and once to the
scuttle-butt"--just putting in time, or making what a literary friend
of mine calls "padding."
So folks who read this can understand why I shall say nothing of this
long and weary winter, and, if they prefer it, they can think that we
"holed up," as Mac said, like the bears, and slept through it all.
For in the next part of this yarn it will be spring, with the snow
melting fast, and the trail beginning to look like a path again that
even a sailor, who was not a mountaineer, could hope to travel on
without losing his life, or even his way.