THE LAKE OF SHADOWS
The evening was gloomy and there was a boisterous onshore wind when
Jake Carnally stood on a sawmill dump, looking out across the Lake of
Shadows. Its troubled waters reflected the color of the leaden clouds
above, though they were laced with tumbling foam, and short,
white-topped waves broke angrily upon the sweating sawdust at
Carnally's feet. The tall pines that rolled back from the beach had
faded to a deep somber hue; the distance was blurred and gray. The
lake is a large one, stretching many leagues to the south, but it is
strewn with forest-clad islets, and those inshore obstructed
Carnally's view. On the nearest of them wisps of smoke drifted out
from among the shadowy trunks and an aromatic smell of burning cedar
reached him across the spray-swept sound. Holiday-makers from Winnipeg
had pitched a summer camp there.
Seeing nothing out on the lake, he turned and glanced past the tall
iron chimney-stacks toward a row of pretty wooden houses beside the
river mouth. A moving cloud of sooty smoke floated above them, and he
knew that a west-bound train was pulling out of the station. Then a
man came up to him.
"Why, Jake!" he cried. "You look as if you'd been up against it! When
did you come down?"
Carnally smiled. He was tall, and sparely but strongly built. His
knee-boots were dilapidated; his brown overalls badly torn.
"This afternoon," he answered. "Took the river for it with two of the
boys, and a mighty tough time we had in getting through. Water was on
the rock portages and we had to shove round through the bush. It
didn't seem worth while getting out my glad rags, as I have to take
the new boss up early to-morrow."
"Looks as if he'd got lost," said the other. "I guess you heard he
left for Duck Island with two of the Company's roustabouts day before
yesterday. They hadn't much grub with them, but he allowed he'd be
back this morning."
"What did he go to Duck Island for?"
"To prospect the fireclay bed. Seemed to think the Company might put
up a smelter."
"It's early for that," said Carnally with a grin. "They've got to
raise milling ore and pack it down first. I suppose you've seen him;
what's he like? I don't even know his name."
"Big man, about your age. Kind of slow, thinks before he speaks, but
for an English sucker he shows some sense. It's my notion he's a
stayer."
"Were they river-jacks he took along?"
"Struck me as more like railroad shovelers, though they could paddle
in smooth water. As there's a nasty sea running in the open, you'd
better look for him. If those fellows wreck his canoe and he has to
spend the night on an island with nothing to eat while you sit in the
hotel, it's steep chances he fires you."
"I don't care two bits whether I get fired or no. The Rain Bluff
Mining Company is the meanest business proposition I've ever run up
against, except the Mappin Transport, which is worse. All the same, I
guess I'll have to go. If you're going back to the hotel, you might
tell the boys to bring my canoe and blankets."
The man promised to do so, and Carnally sat down out of the wind to
smoke until the craft arrived. He was tired by an arduous journey down
a river swollen by heavy rain, which, throughout a good deal of its
course, poured over ledges and ran furiously between fangs of rock. It
had needed nerve and skill to shoot the rapids, and to force a passage
over the rugged portages had taxed the party's strength. Now he must
launch out again and paddle, perhaps all night, in search of his
missing chief.
The canoe came lurching to the foot of the dump, and as there was a
chance of swamping her alongside it, Carnally ran out on a treacherous
drift-log and sprang on board. A man untrained to river work would
have upset the craft or gone through her bottom, but Carnally came
down safely and seized the steering paddle.
"This is rough on us, boys, but it has to be done," he said. "Shove
her straight out for the gap."
His companions were wiry, dark-faced and dark-haired men whose
French-Canadian blood had in it a strain of the Indian--hard to beat
at river work or travel through the wilds. Toiling strenuously, they
drove the light craft over the short seas, with the spray whipping
their faces and the foam washing in at the bows. Now and then they
made no headway for a minute or two against a savage gust, but when it
lulled they slowly forged on again, though they knew that to find a
canoe among the maze of islands was as difficult a task as could be
set them. When they labored out into the more open spaces of the lake
as dusk was closing in, Carnally roused himself to keen alertness.
Here the waves were dangerously high and an error of judgment might
involve a capsize.
As it happened, the craft they sought was battling with the breeze
some distance offshore, and Andrew Allinson, kneeling astern, glanced
anxiously to leeward when he dared take his eyes off the threatening
seas ahead. They rolled down on the canoe, ridged with foam, and it
needed quick work with the paddle to help her over them. To make
things worse, she was half full of water, and nobody could spare a
hand to bale it out. Andrew was not an expert at canoeing, but he had
once made a journey up the Canadian waterways and had been a yachtsman
at home; and when the breeze freshened and the waves got steeper it
had become evident that neither of his companions was capable of
managing the craft in broken water. He had accordingly taken the
helmsman's post and after running before the sea for the greater part
of the day without a meal, had discovered at dusk a long ridge of
rocks and pines looming up not far ahead.
They lost it in the growing darkness, for Andrew knew the risk of
trying to land among big boulders on which the surf was breaking. He
must paddle out and clear the end of the island, in the hope of
finding a harbor on its sheltered side; but it still lay to lee of
him, and breaking waves and savage gusts drove them nearer the
threatening shore. He was wet through and very tired, one galled hand
bled freely, and the party had consumed the last of their provisions
at breakfast. This was the cause of the distressful stitch in his
side, and he was painfully cramped, but he knew that he had to choose
between paddling and trying to crawl out of the surf on a rugged beach
amid the wreckage of the canoe. So far as the other two could judge,
he was still serene, and now and then his voice reached them, hoarse
but cheerful:
"A bit of a lull, boys; drive her at it in the smooth!"
He could see nothing to leeward except flying spray, but he was not
deceived by the emptiness. The island must be close to them. He did
not think he could clear it, but he meant to fight until the last
moment.
"Put some weight into the stroke! We'll make a few yards now!" he
cried.
"Hold on!" shouted one of the others. "What's that?"
A hail reached them faintly and, when they answered, rose again, a
little nearer.
"Are you the Rain Bluff crowd?"
"Sure we are!"
"Then follow us!" cried a voice, as the blurred shape of a canoe
appeared ahead. "Don't let her sag to lee; keep right astern!"
They got the canoe round, stern to sea, in some peril of being
overturned, and drove away at a furious pace, with the other craft
lurching before them through the spray. In a few minutes shadowy pines
appeared, then a strip of foam-swept beach, at which Andrew glanced
anxiously. He could not turn back now; the dark, froth-ridged seas
drove him on, but in a few more minutes the end of the beach slipped
past and a narrow strip of water with pines about it opened up. They
ran in, the wild lurching ceased, and they paddled through smooth
water, until the craft ahead gently took the beach. Andrew now
realized that he had mistaken two islands for one, and was in the
sound between them. It was very dark among the trees when he came
ashore, but he heard one of the strangers asking for the boss, and
answered him.
"Sit down out of the wind while we make a fire and get supper," said
the other. "I understood that your grub might be running out, so we
brought some along."
The man's voice sounded familiar, but Andrew was too tired and cold to
exert his memory. Finding a sheltered place among the rocks, he waited
until he was called. Then he saw that a fire had been lighted, a
shelter of bark and branches made, and a meal which looked very
inviting laid out beside it. All had been done with remarkable
neatness as well as celerity, and Andrew recognized the experienced
bushman's skill. Then the firelight fell on his pilot's face, and he
started.
"Carnally, by all that's wonderful!" he cried.
Carnally gazed at him in astonishment for a moment or two, and then
his expression grew reserved.
"Yes," he said; "that's my name."
"Then you ought to remember me!"
"Sure! You're Lieutenant Allinson, late of the Imperial Yeomanry, and,
I understand, in charge of the Rain Bluff mining operations. I'm the
mine boss's assistant, at your service."
It was the greeting of a subordinate to his superior, and Andrew was
puzzled. He owed a good deal to the man and they had treated each
other as comrades in South Africa when, as had happened once or twice,
the accidents of the campaign had enabled them to sink the difference
of rank. Now it was the inferior who obviously meant to bear their
relative positions in mind; and that is not the Canadian employee's
usual attitude toward his master. The man he had known and liked as
Sergeant Carnally had rather pointedly declined to see that he wished
to shake hands.
"I'm very glad to run across you again and to find that we shall be
working together," Andrew said.
"Mutual pleasure," Carnally replied. "Sit right down; supper will be
getting cold."
The united party gathered round the fire, sharing the meal, but Andrew
failed in his attempts to lead Carnally into friendly talk. The man
answered readily, but he would not continue a conversation and there
was a strange reserve about him. Indeed, Andrew was glad when the meal
was over; and soon afterward he lay down, wrapped in damp blankets,
and went to sleep. The next morning the wind had fallen, the lake lay
shimmering with light under a cloudless sky, and they paddled smoothly
between islands covered with dusky pines whose reflections quivered in
the glassy water, until they reached the little wooden town. When they
landed, Andrew touched Carnally's arm.
"Will you have supper with me to-night at my hotel?" he asked.
"Sorry I can't," said Carnally. "Got to meet a man at the other place.
If it will suit, I'll come over during the evening."
Andrew told him to do so, though he was piqued. He took supper with
Mappin, the head of a transport and contracting company with which it
seemed he was to have business relations. Mappin, he thought, was
about thirty years of age; a powerfully built man of city type, with
sleek black hair and a fleshy but forceful face. His manner to the
waitresses jarred on Andrew, for he gazed at one who was pretty with
insolent admiration, and bullied another who was nervous and plain. In
conversation he was brusque and opinionated; but Andrew was soon
convinced that he possessed marked business ability. After supper they
sat smoking on a wooden balcony while the clean fragrance of the pines
and the murmur of running water filled the cooling air. Andrew, who
was by no means oversensitive, was unpleasantly affected by the way
Mappin bit off the end of his cigar. He had large and very white
teeth, but his lower lip was unusually thick, and there was something
suggestive of an animal in the trifling action which made it
repulsive, though on the whole the fellow was coarsely handsome.
"I noticed a very pretty wooden house on one of the islands we passed
this morning," Andrew said. "Whom does it belong to?"
"You must mean Frobisher's place. Calls it a summer camp, though it's
fitted up luxuriously. He's from across the frontier and a bit of a
sport; the Americans are coming north largely now for shooting and
fishing. However, as he'll be here soon, you're sure to meet him."
"A pleasant man?"
Mappin laughed.
"He can be very dry and you'd find it hard to get ahead of him; but
he's hospitable, and you can't get a dinner like he puts up out of
Montreal. I'll take you across some evening; he's by way of being a
friend of mine. Then Geraldine Frobisher's a picture: figure like
classical sculpture, face with each feature molded just as it ought to
be. It's a feast for the eyes to watch that girl walk."
Andrew had occasionally listened to similar descriptions of young
women, but he resented something in Mappin's appreciation of Miss
Frobisher. It struck him as wholly physical and gross.
"Well," he said curtly, "I'll think over the matters we have talked
about and let you know my decision."
Mappin looked surprised, as if he had taken Andrew's assent to his
suggestions for granted.
"No hurry, but you'll have to write," he said. "As you're going up to
the mine, I'll pull out on the Toronto express in the morning. And now
there are some letters I must get off by the mail."
Andrew was not sorry to have him go; and when Carnally entered the
balcony a few minutes later he was struck by the contrast between the
two men. The bushman was lean and wiry; there was a lithe grace in his
quick movements, and a hint of the ascetic in his keen, bronzed face.
One could imagine that this man's body was his well-trained servant
and would never become his pampered master.
"Sit down, Jake," said Andrew, determined to penetrate his reserve.
"Take a cigar. Now, we got on pretty well in the hospital and the
prison camp, didn't we?"
Carnally's eyes twinkled when he had lighted his cigar.
"That's so; I wasn't in your squadron then. Besides, you've got moved
up since; you're colonel now."
"In a sense, I am. I don't know how you rank yet, but I have some say
in choosing my officers. But we'll drop this fencing. Why did you hold
off last night when I meant to be friendly?"
Carnally considered before he answered.
"I know my place; you're my boss. If my attitude didn't please you,
tell me what you expect."
"I'll try. To begin with, when I speak as the Company's
representative, I must have what I want done."
"That's right. I'm agreeable, so long as I hold my job."
"Don't you mean to hold it?"
"That depends. I haven't made up my mind yet."
"Then I want a man that I can rely on to help me through any trouble
I meet," Andrew went on. "One that I can consult, when it's needful,
with confidence."
"It's quite likely that we might look at things from a different point
of view."
Andrew was frankly puzzled by his companion's manner. His reserve and
lack of response were not in accordance with what he knew of Carnally.
"Well," he asked, "what are you going to do?"
"We might give the thing a trial. Do you know much about mining?"
"Nothing," said Andrew. "I'll admit that to you. I don't think you'll
take advantage of it."
"But how did you come to be sent over in charge of the mine if you
don't know your work?"
"I'm a director of the Company, and a good deal of the family money
has gone into it."
Carnally looked grave at this, and sat silent a few moments studying
his companion.
"Did you have anything to do with fixing up things on this side?" he
asked.
"No. My brother-in-law, Hathersage, came over and made all
arrangements. I'm rather ignorant about them."
"Then he didn't take you much into his confidence about this mining
proposition?"
"No; I can't say that he did."
"And you expect a fair return on your money and mean to see that your
friends who have invested don't get left? That's all?"
"Of course; I've no claim to anything else."
"That," said the Canadian dryly, "is a point on which there might be
some difference of opinion. You want the shareholders to make a good
thing?"
"Yes. The firm has backed this mine; I believe the name helped to
float the scheme. That makes me responsible to the people who found
the money."
Carnally gave him a long searching glance, and his expression changed.
"Well," he said with an air of quiet resolve, "I guess I'll have to
see you through."
When Carnally left a half-hour later he met a storekeeper of the town
outside the hotel.
"You're looking serious, Jake," the man remarked. "Been with your new
boss, I heard. What do you think of him?"
"Well," Carnally answered gravely, "it's my idea he's white."
"Then you're not going to quit, as you talked of doing?"
"No, sir; I guess the new boss and I will pull along."
"If he's square, why's he working with Mappin and the other grafters?"
Carnally laughed.
"That's a point I don't understand yet. But it's my notion there's
going to be less graft about this Rain Bluff proposition than you
fellows think."