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[Illustration: "TWO MORE APPEARED ... DRAGGING ALONG A THIRD'"--Page 48]
FOR THE
ALLINSON HONOR
BY
HAROLD BINDLOSS
AUTHOR OF
PRESCOTT OF SASKATCHEWAN,
WINSTON OF THE PRAIRIE, ETC.
FRONTISPIECE
BY CYRUS CUNEO
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
_Copyright, 1913, by
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY_
_All rights reserved_
SECOND PRINTING
[Illustration: FAS Co logo]
_September, 1914_
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE TENANT AT THE FIRS 1
II. THE FAMILY PRIDE 13
III. A COUNCIL 23
IV. THE LAKE OF SHADOWS 35
V. THE FIRST SUSPICIONS 46
VI. DREAM MINE 55
VII. THE AMATEUR MINER 66
VIII. THE ISLAND OF PINES 77
IX. AMONG THE ICE 89
X. A CRISIS 100
XI. THE REAL BOSS 110
XII. INTERRUPTED PLANS 123
XIII. LOVE'S ENCOURAGEMENT 134
XIV. TREACHERY 143
XV. THE SILVER LODE 154
XVI. THE CACHE 167
XVII. THE GAP IN THE RIDGE 175
XVIII. THE EMPTY FLOUR-BAG 188
XIX. A WOMAN'S WAY 194
XX. THE RESCUE PARTY 203
XXI. A BUSHMAN'S SATISFACTION 212
XXII. FRESH PLANS 222
XXIII. UNEXPECTED SUPPORT 235
XXIV. THE TRUTH ABOUT RAIN BLUFF 245
XXV. A DELICATE POINT 257
XXVI. A SUSPICIOUS STRANGER 269
XXVII. ANDREW STAKES HIS CLAIM 282
XXVIII. GERALDINE 292
XXIX. THE JUMPERS 304
XXX. THE EVE OF BATTLE 315
XXXI. ALLINSON'S MAKES GOOD 328
XXXII. THE HEAD OF THE HOUSE 341
FOR THE ALLINSON HONOR
CHAPTER I
THE TENANT AT THE FIRS
It was a hot autumn afternoon. Mrs. Olcott, a young and attractive
woman, reclined in a canvas chair beside a tea-table on the lawn in
front of the cottage she had lately taken in the country. Her thin
white dress displayed a slender and rather girlish form; her dark hair
emphasized the delicate coloring of her face, which wore a nervous
look. As a matter of fact, she felt disturbed. Clare Olcott needed
somebody to take care of her; but she had few friends, and her husband
held a government appointment in West Africa. His pay was moderate and
he had no private means. His relatives justified their neglect of his
wife by the reflection that he had married beneath him; and this was
why he had commended her, with confidence, to the protection of a
friend.
Andrew Allinson, who had made Olcott's acquaintance when serving as
lieutenant of yeomanry during the Boer campaign, sat on a grassy bank
near by with a teacup in his hand. He was strongly built and
negligently dressed, in knickerbockers and shooting jacket. The
bicycle he had just ridden leaned against the hedge. Andrew had lately
reached his twenty-ninth year. He had large blue eyes that met you
with a direct glance, a broad forehead, and a strong jaw. On the
whole, he was a good-looking man, but his characteristic expression
was one of rather heavy good-humor. Though by no means stupid, he had
never done anything remarkable, and most of the Allinsons thought him
slow.
Raising himself a little, he looked slowly round. Beyond the hedge the
white highroad climbed a bold ridge of moor that blazed in the strong
sunshine with regal purple; farther back, smooth-topped hills faded
into an ethereal haziness through varying shades of gray. The head of
the deep valley near the house was steeped in blue shadow, but lower
down oatfields gleamed with ocher and cadmium among broad squares of
green. There were flowers in the borders about the tiny lawn, and
creepers draped the front of the house. The still air was filled with
the drone of bees; all was eminently peaceful.
"How do you like the place?" he asked. "It's nicer than London in
weather like this, and you're looking better than you did when I saw
you there."
Mrs. Olcott gave him a grateful smile.
"I haven't regretted leaving town. I was miserable and scarcely saw
anybody after Tom sailed. Our small flat was too far from the few
people I knew; and even if it had been nearer, I couldn't entertain. I
was feeling very downhearted the day you called."
Andrew remembered having found her looking very forlorn in a dingy and
shabbily furnished room. She was sitting at a writing-table with a
pile of bills before her, about which she had made a naive confession.
"I'm glad you find things pleasant here; I thought you would," he
said.
"It's so fresh and green. In the morning and at sunset the moorland
air's like wine. Then the house is very pretty and remarkably cheap."
She looked at him sharply, for he had found the house for her; but he
answered with heavy calm.
"I don't think it's dear."
After that there was a few moments' silence, during which they heard
the soft splash of a stream falling into the valley. Then he turned to
her with a resolute air.
"And now, about those bills? You have put me off once or twice, but I
want to see them."
Mrs. Olcott colored and hesitated, but she opened a drawer in the
table and took out a bundle of papers, which she handed to him. To her
surprise and consternation, he counted them before he put them into
his pocket.
"These are not all. Give me the others."
"I can manage about the rest," she protested.
"Let me have them; you can't begin here in difficulties."
Mrs. Olcott rose and he watched her enter the house with quiet pity.
She was not a capable woman, and he was thankful that she had not got
into worse embarrassments. She came back, still somewhat flushed, and
gave him a few more papers.
"I'm afraid I'm a wretchedly bad manager," she confessed. "As soon as
my next remittance comes, I will send you a check."
"When it suits you," he said, and added thoughtfully: "One of us
should tell your husband about this; perhaps it had better be you."
She smiled, for he was now and then boyishly ingenuous. He sat
directly opposite the gate, where all passers-by could see him, and he
had somehow an unfortunate air of being at home in the place.
"Yes," she said, "I will write by the first mail. I feel less
embarrassed because Tom told me that if I was ever in any difficulty I
might consult you. He described you as the right sort--and I have
found it true."
"I suppose you know that I owe a good deal to your husband," Andrew
answered awkwardly.
"He told me that you and he were in the field hospital together for a
time, and before then he helped you in some way when you were wounded,
but he never said much about it. What did he do? You may smoke while
you tell me."
"I think you ought to know, because it will show the claim Tom has on
me."
Andrew lighted a cigarette and began in a disjointed manner, for he
was not a fluent speaker:
"It was a dazzlingly bright morning and getting very hot--our side had
been badly cut up in the dark, and we were getting back, a mixed crowd
of stragglers, a few miles behind the brigade. Tom and Sergeant
Carnally, the Canadian, had no proper business with the wreck of my
squadron, but there they were. Anyhow, only half of us were mounted,
and when we found ourselves cut off we tried to hold a kopje--the
horses back in a hollow, except mine, which was shot as I dismounted.
I was fond of the poor faithful brute, and I suppose that made me
savage, for I felt that I must get the fellow who killed it."
He paused and his face hardened.
"There we were, lying among the stones, with the sun blazing down on
us; faint puffs of smoke on the opposite rise, spirts of sand jumping
up where the Mauser bullets struck. Now and then a man dropped his
rifle and the rest of us set our teeth. It wasn't a spectacular
fight, and we kept it up in a very informal way; two or three
commissioned officers, dismounted troopers, and a few lost line
Tommies, firing as they got a chance. The man I wanted had gone to
earth beside a big flat stone, and I dropped the bullets close about
it; a hundred yards I made it and the light good. I suppose I was so
keen on my shooting that I didn't pay much attention when somebody
said they were flanking us; and the next thing I knew a Boer had put a
bullet in my leg. Anyhow, I couldn't get up, and when I looked round
there was no one about. Then I must have shouted, for Tom came running
back, with the sand spirting all round. Carnally was behind him. It
looked like certain death, but Tom got hold of me, and dragged me a
few yards before Carnally came up. Then we all dropped behind a big
stone, and I'm not clear about the rest. Somebody had heard the firing
and detached a squadron with a gun. But I can still picture Tom,
running with his face set through the spirting sand--one doesn't
forget things like that."
The blood crept into Clare Olcott's pale cheeks and her eyes shone. No
one could have doubted that she admired and loved her absent husband.
"Were you not with Carnally when he broke out of the prison camp?" she
asked presently.
"I was. Our guard was friendly and careless, and we picked up a hint
of a movement we thought our army ought to know about. We were caged
in behind a very awkward fence, but I'd found a wire-nipper in the
sand--they were used to cut defense entanglements. Then we held a
council and decided that somebody must break out with the news, but
while two men might do so, more would have no chance to dodge the
guard. Carnally and I were picked, and after waiting for a dark night
we cut the wire and crawled out, close behind a sentry we hadn't seen.
Of course, knowing what we did about the Boers' intentions, we
couldn't give up our plan."
Mrs. Olcott recognized that Andrew Allinson was not the man to abandon
a duty, though he was unarmed and the sentry carried a magazine rifle.
"Well," he resumed, "I crept up and seized the fellow by the leg. He
dropped his rifle, and Carnally slipped away. We'd arranged that if we
got out one was not to stop for the other."
"But what happened to you? Did the Boer pick up his rifle?"
"No," said Andrew quietly; "I got it first."
"But----" said Mrs. Olcott, and stopped.
Andrew smiled.
"You see, he had called out when I grabbed him and several of his
friends were running up. I didn't think he'd noticed Carnally, who had
got clear off, and there was a chance of its being some time before
they missed him. Then the fellow had shown us one or two small
favors--given me some tobacco, among other things he might have got
into trouble for."
"Ah!" said Mrs. Olcott expressively. "So you let them take you back to
prison. But what about the Canadian?"
"He got through safely and they made a fuss over him. Offered him a
commission, which he was too sensible to take."
"Tom came home promoted and got his West African appointment; Carnally
could have had a commission; and you went back to prison. Though of
course they deserved it, didn't it strike you that the rewards were
not very fairly shared out?"
"I believe my people were disappointed when I returned as
undistinguished as I went out, though I don't know that they were
surprised. So far as I was concerned, it was an inglorious
campaign--twice in a hospital, and some months in a prison camp. And
yet, I'll admit that I left England determined on doing something
brilliant."
Mrs. Olcott made no remark. He did not seem to attach much importance
to the incident that had secured his comrade's escape. His conduct was
not of the kind that catches the public eye, but her husband, whose
opinion was worth having, believed in Allinson.
"Well," he resumed, "I've stayed some time. Are you sure you're quite
comfortable here? There's nothing you feel short of?"
"Oh, no," she said. "I ought to be happy. It's perhaps a trifle quiet:
nobody has called on me yet."
"I dare say that can be altered," he replied; and though she did not
suppose her solitude was likely to be enlivened at his request, she
gave him her hand gratefully and let him go.
Picking up his bicycle, he wheeled it up the road, which wound between
yellow harvest fields and dark-green clover to the long ascent of the
moor. Here the gray stone walls broke off and the open heath ran up,
steeped in strong color: the glowing crimson of the ling checkered
with the purple of the heather, mossy patches showing lemon and
brightest green, while the gaps from which peat was dug made blotches
of rich chocolate-brown. Andrew noticed it all with quiet
appreciation, though he was thinking hard as he slowly climbed the
hill. He had made Mrs. Olcott a promise, and he meant to keep it, but
the thing was beginning to look more difficult than he had imagined.
His sisters might have helped him by recognizing the lonely woman,
but they had shown some prejudice against her, and this was
unfortunate, for their attitude would have its effect on their
neighbors.
The Allinsons were people of importance in the countryside and the
history of the family was not without romance. Long ago an Andrew
Allinson had become possessed, by violence most probably, of a strong
stone peel, half fortress, half farmstead, that commanded a fertile
dale up which the Scots moss-troopers often rode to the foray. Little
was known of his descendants, except that they held the peel for
several generations and were buried with a coat of arms roughly cut
upon their tombstones in a moorland kirkyard. Then had come a break,
when they were perhaps driven out by economic changes, for the family
vanished from the dale and next appeared as London goldsmiths in Queen
Anne's reign. Later, Andrew's grandfather, retiring from his banking
business, resumed the coat of arms, bought back the peel and built a
commodious house about it. On his death it was discovered that his
property had shrunk in value owing to changing times, and his shrewd
north-country widow gave up the hall and coat of arms and made her son
reopen the family business. He had prospered and maintained the best
traditions of the ancient firm, for Allinson & Son was noted for
caution, decorum and strict probity. The firm was eminently sound and
carried on its business in an old-fashioned, austere way.
To its head's keen disappointment, his only son, Andrew, showed no
aptitude for commerce, and after two years in the counting-house was
allowed to follow his own devices. Then on the marriage of Andrew's
sister to a clever young business man, the latter was made a partner.
Soon after this Andrew's father died, leaving him a large share of his
money, which was, however, to remain in the business, over which his
brother-in-law, Leonard Hathersage, now had control.
When the gradient grew easier Andrew mounted, but got down again with
a frown a few minutes later. The Boer's nicked bullet had badly torn
the muscles of his thigh, and now and then the old wound troubled him.
Though he loved horses, he could no longer ride far with pleasure,
and, being of active temperament, had taken to the bicycle.
He had not gone far before he saw a girl ride out from behind a grove
of gnarled spruce firs and he joined her when she pulled up her horse
to wait for him. Ethel Hillyard looked well in the saddle: tall and
rather largely built, she was nevertheless graceful and generally
characterized by an air of dignified repose. Now, however, there was
amusement in the fine gray eyes she fixed on Andrew.
"You look moody, and that's not usual," she said.
They were old friends, and Andrew answered her confidentially.
"I've been thinking and, for another thing, I found I couldn't get up
this bit of a hill. I suppose it oughtn't to worry me, but it does.
You see, a lameness that comes on when I least expect it is all I
brought back from South Africa."
Ethel gave him a sympathetic nod as she started her horse.
"It's a pity, but you might have suffered worse; and, after all,
distinction is sometimes cheaply gained."
"You don't win it by keeping people busy curing you and seeing that
you don't break out of prison camps," Andrew retorted grimly.
"But what else were you thinking of that disturbed you?"
"My thoughts were, so to speak, all of a piece--one led to another. I
did nothing in South Africa, and it has struck me lately that I
haven't done much anywhere else, except to catch salmon in Norway and
shoot a few Canadian deer. Now there's Leonard, who's not an Allinson,
making money for all of us and managing the firm."
"Leonard got money and the opportunity for making more from
Allinson's."
"That's true, but it doesn't excuse me. I ought to be a power in the
firm, and I don't suppose I could even keep one of its books
properly."
He walked on in silence for the next minute or two and his companion
watched him with interest. His brows were knit, his brown face looked
strong as well as thoughtful, and Ethel did not agree with his
relatives, who thought him a bit of a fool. She was inclined to
believe that Leonard had spread that impression and the others had
adopted it without consideration. Andrew had been idle, but that was
his worst fault, and he might change. There was, however, nothing
significant in his taking her into his confidence; he had often done
so, though she realized with half regretful acquiescence that it was
only as a confidante that he thought of her. He could not have chosen
a better one, for Ethel Hillyard was a girl of unusual character, and
she now determined to exert her influence for his benefit.
"Isn't Allinson's rather branching out of late?" she asked.
"It is. The West African goldfield was a new kind of venture, though
it's paying handsomely; and we're now taking up a mine in Canada. Of
course, the old private banking business has gone under and one must
move with the times; but, in a sense, it's a pity."
Ethel understood him. Her father had dealt with Allinson's and she
knew the firm had hitherto been dignified and conservative, while
Leonard was essentially modern in his methods and what is known as
pushing. She foresaw disagreements if Andrew ever took an active part
in the business, which he had a right to do.
"Perhaps it isn't necessary that you should be good at bookkeeping,"
she said. "Is there no place for you in these new foreign schemes? You
have traveled in the Canadian bush to shoot deer, and you seemed to
like it; wouldn't it be as interesting if you went there to look for
minerals or manage a mine? You would have the free life in the wilds,
but with an object."
"There's something in that," Andrew replied thoughtfully. "I happen to
know the country where the mine is and it's unusually rough. It's
curious that you have made a hazy idea I've had a little clearer. I'll
think over the thing."
Ethel knew that she had said enough. She would miss the man if he went
away, but it would be better for him and she knew that she would never
have more than his liking.
"Where is the mine?" she asked.
"It's among the rocks some distance back from the Lake of Shadows in
western Ontario."
"The Lake of Shadows!" Ethel exclaimed. "A friend I made in London
used to go there with her father for fishing and shooting; but that's
not important."
"Well," said Andrew, "I've talked enough about myself. There's a
favor I want to ask. Will you call on Mrs. Olcott?"
Ethel started. Mrs. Olcott was young and pretty; nobody knew anything
about her husband; Andrew's visits had already excited comment.
"Why should I call?" she inquired.
He gave her the best reasons he could think of for befriending the
lonely woman, and she pondered them for a moment or two. Then she
asked bluntly:
"How was it that Mrs. Olcott chose this neighborhood, where she knows
nobody?"
"I suggested it," said Andrew, simply. "The Firs was empty, and she
has few friends anywhere."
Though she had attached no importance to the remarks that had been
made about him, Ethel found his unembarrassed candor reassuring. He
had, however, asked her to do something that was harder than he
imagined, and she hesitated.
"Very well," she said; "I will call."
"Thanks. I knew I could count on you."
They had now reached the top of the hill, and Ethel took a crossroad
while Andrew mounted his bicycle, but she turned her head, and watched
him ride across the moor. Andrew, however, did not look back at her,
and by and by she urged her horse to a trot.