THE FIRST SUSPICIONS
Trails of mist floated among the pines that stretched their ragged
branches across the swollen river. Though there had been rain in
abundance, it flowed crystal clear out of the trackless wilderness of
rock and forest that rolls north from the Lake of Shadows toward
Hudson Bay. This rugged belt, which extends from Ottawa River to the
fertile prairie, had until very recent days been regarded as valueless
to man, except for the purpose of trapping fur-bearing animals. The
pines are, for the most part, too small for milling, and there is
little soil among the curiously rounded rocks. Moreover, the agents of
the Hudson Bay Company, which long held dominion over the Canadian
wilds, did not encourage the intrusion of adventurous settlers into
their fur preserves. At last, however, the discovery that there were
valuable minerals in the rocks was made, and hardy treasure-seekers
braved the rigors of the North.
Andrew and Carnally knelt in the bottom of their canoe, plying the
paddle, while a big half-breed stood upright, using an iron-shod pole
when the nature of the bottom permitted it. The stream ran strong
against them; they were wet, and had laboriously forced a passage
between big boulders, up rapids, and a few slacker reaches, since
early morning. A fine drizzle obscured their view, but so far as they
could see, the prospect was far from cheerful. Ahead, stony ledges
broke the froth-streaked surface of the flood; the pines were green by
the waterside, growing with vigor where they could find a hold among
the rocks, but farther back they were small and tangled, leaning
athwart each other, stripped of half their branches. Some had been
blackened by fire, and there were unsightly avenues of tottering
charred logs. The picture was dreary and desolate.
"Isn't it getting time for supper?" Andrew asked as they rounded a
bend in the river.
"Not quite. Besides, there's a Mappin camp not far ahead, and if we
can make it we'll be saved some trouble."
Andrew nodded, for he had discovered that cooking supper and arranging
a shelter for the night is a tiresome business when one is wet and
worn out by a long day's journey.
"Then we'd better go on. I suppose Mappin's boys are road-making?"
"Yes," said Carnally. "Transport is going to be one of the Company's
biggest expenses. Though the river is available it pays to cut out the
worst of the portages. Packing ore over a mile or two of slippery rock
costs money, and the river makes a big bend full of rapids a little
higher up."
"I remember now. The road is to go straight across by the old
fur-trade traverse, and when it's finished we'll put wagons on. From
the looks of the country it will be an undertaking."
"Sure!" agreed Carnally. "Still, if you get it done at a reasonable
figure, it ought to pay."
"It has struck me that we're giving a good deal of work to Mappin.
Ever since we left the landing we have come across his men."
"It's usual to put jobs you're unable to attend to into a contractor's
hands," Carnally replied.
The men were now on more friendly terms, but Andrew had noticed that
his companion was generally content with answering questions and
seldom made a suggestion. Moreover, he had an idea that Carnally was
quietly studying him. The man's attitude was puzzling, but he thought
he would in due time find an explanation.
They paddled on for another half-hour, and then a sharp report rang
out of the mist ahead. It was followed by a succession of heavy
crashes that might have been made by falling rock, and Carnally turned
the canoe's head toward the bank.
"Giant-powder," he explained. "The camp's near by, and the boys
haven't quit for supper yet."
On landing, they left the half-breed to look after the canoe, while
they followed a narrow track through a belt of dismal tottering pines.
A low log-building stood in a clearing and beyond it the new road led
up a ravine with rocky slopes. In one place they had been violently
rent, for the ground was strewn with great fragments, over which a
cloud of dust still floated. A group of men stood a short distance
away, as if afraid to approach nearer, and their attitude suggested
that something unusual was going on. As Andrew hurried toward them,
two more appeared, staggering out of the dust and vapor in a curious
drunken manner and dragging along a third. His limpness and the slack
way his arms hung down were unpleasantly suggestive.
"What's happened? Has he been hit by a stone?" Andrew asked the
nearest man; but the tall, light-haired fellow shook his head as if he
did not understand.
Andrew questioned another, with no better success, and then noticed
two others moving cautiously toward the dust and smoke. Their care
seemed uncalled for, as the explosion had already occurred; but it was
obvious that somebody was lying in need of assistance among the stones
brought down by the shot, and Andrew ran forward.
Plunging into the dust he noticed that it had an acrid smell, and a
moment later he felt dizzy. Then he was conscious of an intolerable
headache and a feeling of nausea. He could hardly see; he was losing
control of his limbs; but he struggled on and, overtaking the others,
helped to drag out an unconscious man. Then he sat down, gasping, and
found it difficult to prevent himself from slipping off the stone.
"I'm sorry," said Carnally, coming up at that moment. "I stopped
behind to talk to one of the boys and as I didn't know what you were
doing I couldn't warn you. You'll feel better presently."
"What is it?" Andrew asked. "What knocked me and the other fellows
over?"
"Giant-powder gas. Some kinds are worse than others, though they're
all poisonous. Sit quiet while it works off."
After a while Andrew's head got clearer and the pain less severe, and
then Carnally took him to the log-building, where supper was ready.
Finding him a seat at the end of a long table, he handed him a
pannikin of strong tea. Andrew felt better when he had drunk it, and
he began to look about.
The building was a wretched, decrepit hovel. The logs were small and
sagged in the middle; one could hardly stand up in the room; and the
rain that had run in through the leaking roof stood in pools on the
earthen floor. The bunks consisted of two split-board ledges against
the walls, littered with dirty, damp blankets and miry clothing which
filled the place with a sour, unpleasant smell. The long table which
ran up the middle of the one room was crowded with unkempt men, eating
voraciously and talking in what Andrew presently recognized as
Norwegian, though he thought he caught a word or two of German
occasionally. A very neat Chinaman laid a plate before him; but,
hungry as he had been before he breathed the powder fumes, he revolted
from the food. The greasy pork smelt rancid; the potatoes were rotten.
"I couldn't eat this if I were feeling fit," he said disgustedly.
Carnally called the Chinaman, who took the plate away and substituted
a piece of pie and one or two desiccated apricots. This was better,
and Andrew ate a little, although he suspected that there was
something wrong with the lard used in the pie, and the fruit was small
and worm-eaten.
"Let's get out," he said. "I don't think I'm dainty, but this place is
too much for me."
Leaving the building, they sat down at the foot of a rock which kept
the drizzle off them. Andrew breathed the clean fragrance of the pines
with delight.
"This is a great improvement," he declared. "Will you tell Lucien to
pitch our tent where there's shelter?"
"As you wish," said Carnally. "I had figured on our sleeping and
getting breakfast in the shack."
"Heavens, no!"
Andrew lighted his pipe.
"I've recovered enough to feel curious. How did the accident happen?
The men who use it must know that the fumes of giant-powder are
dangerous; why didn't they wait?"
"It might be better if I let the man responsible explain."
Carnally beckoned the foreman.
"Mr. Allinson wants to know why you didn't keep the boys back until
the fumes had cleared."
"I gave them about the usual time; but it looks as if I'd cut it too
fine. Guess the damp and there being no wind stopped the gas from
getting away. Besides, we're not using a high-grade powder."
"But if there was any doubt, couldn't you have given them another few
minutes?" Andrew asked.
The foreman smiled.
"I had to hold up a dozen men while that shot was fired, and the rain
has kept us back lately. Now a boss contractor knows how many yards of
dirt a man can move in a day and how much rock you ought to shift with
a stick of giant-powder. It's easy figuring how far the road should be
pushed ahead for the money spent, and I've got to keep up to
schedule."
Andrew studied the man. He looked hard, capable of getting the most
out of his subordinates, but not brutal.
"Then no allowances are made?" he suggested.
"No, sir; not on a Mappin job. You have to put through the work or
get!"
He left them and Andrew turned to Carnally.
"Is the shack these fellows live in better or worse than the average?"
he asked.
"Worse. The boys are often quite comfortably fixed."
"What about the food?"
"You can judge for yourself," Carnally drawled. "It's the meanest hash
I ever struck; and you want to remember it's no fault of the cook's.
The stuff is mighty bad when a Chinaman can't dish it up fit to eat."
"Are the men boarded free?"
"Not much! They pay about six dollars a week; and it's enough. Now, as
a rule, an employer doesn't look for a profit on the grub; taking
camps all round, the boys get pretty good value for their money."
"Then it looks as if this one were an exception," said Andrew. "Why do
they employ so many Scandinavians?"
"They get them cheap: catch them newly landed, anxious for a job,
before they find out what they ought to have. A dollar looks big after
a kroner. That's my notion, but we'll see if it's right." He called a
Canadian workman. "What would you fix a road-maker's wages at, Jim?"
"You ought to know. A good chopper and shoveler would get up to
two-fifty, so long as he was west of cleared Ontario."
"Two dollars and a-half a day," Carnally repeated to Andrew in
emphasis, and addressed the man again: "What are you making now?"
"Dollar, seventy-five. I was cleaned out when I took the job. These
blamed Dutchmen get one-fifty. The Mappin crowd's the meanest I've
ever been up against."
"That leaves them three dollars a week for clothing and all expenses,"
Andrew observed, when the workman went away. "Considering what things
cost in Canada, it isn't a great deal. Mappin seems a hard master. Do
you know anything about him?"
"He's a smart man," said Carnally with a smile. "I met him for the
first time when I hired out with your Company, but I heard that he
hadn't a dollar a few years ago." He paused and added: "In fact, I've
wondered where he got the capital to finance this job."
When they moved off to the camp which the half-breed had pitched,
Andrew sat thoughtfully smoking outside the tent while the mist
gathered thicker about the dripping pines and the roar of the river
rang in his ears. He had been unfavorably impressed by Mappin, and had
since learned that he treated his workmen with marked injustice;
indeed, he had suffered in person from the fellow's greed. Andrew felt
that a Company of which he was a director ought not to make a profit
by trickery and oppression; but that was taking something for granted,
for he had not ascertained that the Rain Bluff Company received the
benefit. He must reserve the question for future consideration.
Moreover, he had been struck by the manner in which Carnally had
explained how the contractor conducted his business. He had called in
outsiders to check his statements, and allowed them to supply the most
damaging particulars. It had been done with some skill. Andrew felt
that Carnally was anxious that he should learn the truth about Mappin,
though his object was far from clear.
Then he began to think about Carnally. He had learned in South Africa
that the man had courage and keen intelligence; and that he was to be
trusted. Though fond of the vernacular, his intonation was clean; he
had good manners; and there were signs that he had enjoyed an
excellent education.
"Jake," he said at last, "is there any reason why the Company
shouldn't do its own transport work?"
"I don't know of any. You would have to let Mappin get through with
his contracts first."
"Of course. What I mean is, could we do it as cheaply as he does and
pay regulation wages?"
"It would take some figuring to answer that. Speaking without the
book, you ought to do the work at the contractor's prices and have a
profit. He must make one; and you can buy plant and tools on as good
terms as he can."
"That's obvious. Then, on the whole, it ought to pay the Company?"
"What do you mean by the Company?"
"Well, the shareholders."
"It might pay--them," said Carnally with suggestive emphasis.
Andrew smoked his pipe out before he answered.
"I'll consider it when I've a little more to go on. It strikes me that
I'm learning things. And now I think I'll get to sleep; my head's
aching."
He lay down on a bed of spruce twigs and soon sank into restful
slumber, but Carnally sat a while in the tent door, watching the dark
river roll by. Allinson evidently meant to make him his confidential
adviser, and he felt his responsibility.