AMONG THE ICE
Graham was sitting on the veranda of his house at the Landing after
supper one evening when Andrew joined him. The veranda was broad, and
covered with mosquito-netting, and furnished with a table and one or
two chairs; the wooden house was small but pretty. In front a plot of
grass, kept green throughout the hot summer by an automatic sprinkler,
ran, unfenced, to the edge of the dusty road. Across this a belt of
blackened fir stumps stretched back to the stacks of lumber by the
sawmill, and beyond that the lake lay shining in the evening light.
A window was open and Andrew could hear a girl singing. A rattle of
crockery which suggested that Mrs. Graham was busy with domestic
duties also reached him now and then; and a lad who had greeted him
pleasantly as he passed sat on the nearest fir stump talking with a
companion. Graham seemed to indicate it all with a movement of his
pipe as he turned to Andrew.
"My world, Mr. Allinson," he said. "A happy one, but narrow."
"I feel inclined to envy you," Andrew replied.
"I am to be envied; I admit it with gratitude." Graham glanced half
wistfully at a map on the table. "For all that, I remember the wide
spaces up yonder now and then."
"If I were in your place, I wouldn't study that map too much."
"Ah! It isn't an amusement that I often indulge in; but sometimes,
when I've spent a week making up trumpery lumber bills or getting in
five-dollar accounts, I find it a solace to recall what I used to do.
However, I've inconsistently practised prudent self-denial in other
ways. There was a moose head--a beast I shot--I took off its stand and
gave to the Institute; an old pair of snowshoes that hung above the
mantel I gave my boy. He said they were very poor things and sadly out
of date."
Andrew glanced at the map and noticed the lines penciled across it. He
felt that he was not acting considerately in tempting Graham, but he
could not resist.
"Those marks show the marches you have made?" he asked.
Graham laid his finger on the map, moving it from spot to spot.
"Yes. I don't need a diary; I can see it all again. We started here
one winter and made three hundred miles on half rations, with wind and
snow ahead all the way. There we camped three days in a blizzard among
a clump of willows, while the snow piled up six feet deep to lee of
us. I made this line through a country new to me; two hundred miles
over soft snow, with the dogs playing out and the timber wolves on my
trail for the last few days. This lake ends in a big muskeg, and we
snagged our canoe there one fall. As she'd ripped her bilge open, we
left her and spent a day and a half floundering through two or three
feet of water and tall reeds, and carrying loads of sixty pounds." He
paused and indicated a line that broke off abruptly in a wide bare
space. "The lode lies south of here, and I believe I'm the only
survivor of the few who knew of it. One half-breed was drowned in a
rapid, another lost in a blizzard; the agent, so I heard afterward,
left the factory to visit some Indians three or four miles off and
they found him next day in a snowdrift, frozen to death."
"A grim country," Andrew said thoughtfully, "One to make a man afraid,
and yet----"
Graham laughed, rather harshly.
"Yes; I think you know! Well, I'm glad that for twenty years I've
mastered the longing and kept my head. Now, however, my children have
made a fair start, with prospects of going farther than I have done,
and my responsibility is lightening. A winter up there would satisfy
me--I'm afraid it would be all I could stand now--and though it's
still out of the question, I've a feeling that a way may be found
before I grow too old."
He rolled up the map resolutely and laid it aside, and soon afterward
Mrs. Graham's voice reached them.
"Bring Mr. Allinson in. It's getting chilly."
Andrew rose and followed Graham into his sitting-room. It was very
small and there were signs of economy in its appointments, but it had
a homelike charm. Two or three sketches in color which showed some
talent hung on the varnished board walls. The lamp, though obviously
cheap, was of artistic design; the rug on the stained floor and the
hangings were of harmonious hue. Mrs. Graham, a little, faded woman
with a cheerful air, sat sewing at a table, and opposite her a girl
was busy with some papers. Both greeted Andrew cordially, and a few
minutes later the young man he had seen outside came in with a
humorous tale he had heard.
He was a handsome lad, quicker of speech and more assertive than his
father, and the girl, who now and then made a remark, had a decided
air. Though Graham would occasionally talk without reserve, he was as
a rule quiet and dreamy. It was not from him that his children had
acquired a trace of the somewhat aggressive smartness which
characterizes the inhabitants of the new western cities: he had more
in common with the silent dwellers in the lonely wilds. These are, for
the most part, sentimentalists of a kind; loving the wilderness, not
for what can be made out of it, and untouched by the materialistic
ideas of the towns, where the business chance is the chief thing
sought. Their gifts become most manifest when the ice breaks up on the
rivers across which they must get the dog-sleds, and when all the
powers of mind and body are taxed to traverse the frozen waste before
starvation cuts short the march. It struck Andrew that Graham, dressed
in shabby clothes, listening good-humoredly while his children talked,
had somehow the look of a captive eagle, conscious of crippled wings,
though the simile was a bad one because there was no predatory
fierceness in him.
"One of you might shut the door," said Mrs. Graham. "The nights are
getting colder fast; we'll soon have to light the basement heater."
She turned to Andrew. "This is a hard country in winter. I've seen the
thermometer stand a week at fifty below."
"Don't be scared, Mr. Allinson," laughed the lad, as he closed the
door. "It's not often too fierce, and in a place like the Landing
there's generally something going on. Will the frost interfere with
your mining?"
"Not underground," said Andrew. "I understand that nothing can be done
on the surface, but we expect to send off a good lot of ore for
experimental reduction in the next week or two. Then we'll have
something to base our plans on."
"Mappin's going to handle the transport, I guess. That man's surely on
to a soft thing. I s'pose you know he's making his pile out of the
Rain Bluff?"
Mrs. Graham glanced at her son in rebuke.
"I don't think you should talk to Mr. Allinson in that manner, Jim.
He's a good deal older and more experienced than you are."
"Your ideas are out of date, Mother; we've grown ahead of them. Mr.
Allinson doesn't look as if he minded. Anyway, he doesn't know as much
as I do about the Canadian contractor." He turned to Andrew. "Do you
like it up yonder?"
"Yes," Andrew answered good-humoredly; "I like the work better than
anything I remember having done."
"A matter of taste. Now, I can't see much amusement in rolling rocks
about or standing in wet slickers in a dark pit watching the boys
punch the drills."
"Mr. Allinson is not doing it for amusement," said his mother.
"Well, money isn't often made that way. You don't get rich by knowing
how to use the hammer and giant-powder."
"I believe that's true," Andrew responded with a smile.
"A sure thing! Money is made by sitting tight in your office and
hiring other fellows to do the rough work. They break up the rocks and
cut the milling logs; you take the profit. It's business, first and
last, for mine!"
"Then it's fortunate there are people with different views," his
sister interposed. "If nobody were willing to live in the logging
camps all winter and go prospecting in the bush, you would be badly
off."
"But so long as there are people who like doing that kind of thing,
we're glad to let them."
"This is a favorite pose of his," the girl explained to Andrew. "It's
the latest fashion among the boys; they're afraid of being thought
altruistic."
"Now that everything is controlled by mergers and they make all we
need so dear, one is forced to be practical," Mrs. Graham remarked
feelingly. "For all that, it jars on me to hear our young people talk
as they do."
"We're realists, with no use for sentiment," Jim replied. "We don't
let our imagination run away with us. It doesn't pay."
"You may be wrong in that," said Andrew, smiling, "I'm not much of a
philosopher, but it seems to me that imagination's now and then a
useful thing. I've seen it help a man through tight places. Take your
prospectors, for example; they often face risks that couldn't be
justified by a return in money. I heard of one fellow crossing a lake
in a savage storm in a leaky canoe, to keep the time he'd allowed for
his journey, because he wouldn't be beaten; and of another making two
hundred miles on snowshoes with very little food, because a party he'd
promised to meet was expecting him."
"That," said the lad, "is the kind of thing father would do; he's
given to impractical idealism. There's a mine up in the barrens he has
talked about as long as I remember; but if he found it I believe he'd
be content with that and sell the claim to any one for a few hundred
dollars. Getting yourself frozen for an abstract idea isn't good
business."
Graham laughed and changed the subject, and soon afterward Andrew took
his leave. He spent the next evening with Frobisher, whom he had now
visited several times, and on the following morning set out for the
mine, where he worked very hard for a few weeks. They were still using
the old adit, though the new one was being driven toward the lower
level. Then he and Carnally left the camp in a canoe to hurry forward
some stores and, after arranging for their quicker transport, stood on
a little promontory, looking down the river, late one gloomy
afternoon.
Winter had set in with unusual rigor. The gray sky was barred with
leaden cloud; the pines, which looked strangely ragged and somber,
stood out with harsh distinctness against the first thin snow; and the
river flowed, a dark-colored riband, through a clean-cut channel in
the ice. A nipping wind blew down the gorge, and now and then light
flakes of snow fell.
"We had better push on," Carnally suggested. "It looks as if the
messenger hadn't got through, and we'll hardly make the mine before
midnight. There's heavy snow coming and we have no provisions or camp
outfit."
"Wait an hour," said Andrew. "The smelter people promised to let me
know the results they got and the letter was due yesterday. I'm
anxious about the thing."
Carnally agreed. They had sent out a quantity of ore for reduction,
and particulars of the yield in refined metal would throw a useful
light on the prospects of the mine. The last analysis of specimens
selected to represent the bulk had not been encouraging, but this test
was unsatisfactory because the ore was variable.
"Let's get out of the wind," Carnally said. "If I'd expected this kind
of weather, I'd have brought my fur-coat along."
They found a sheltered spot among a clump of pines, where they sat
down; but Andrew felt disturbed and apprehensive. The Company had
spent money freely, the mine was expensive to work, and of late Watson
had grown morose and reserved. Even when Andrew pressed him, he had
avoided giving his opinion. The report of the smelting company would,
however, show how matters stood, and Andrew looked out anxiously for
the expected messenger.
It got dark, though they could still see the glimmer of the ice, and
at length they heard a faint, regular splashing, made by canoe poles.
A shout answered their hail, and when they ran down the bank a man
came cautiously across the fringe of ice.
"Here's your mail," he said, handing Andrew some letters. "Now that
I've given it to you, we'll get back."
"Won't you come on to the mine with us?"
"No, sir! It's steep chances you don't get there to-night and we can
make a Mappin camp in about three hours down-stream."
"It would be wiser to follow him," Carnally suggested. "We'll have
heavy snow before long."
"I'm going on," said Andrew doggedly. "I must compare the report with
our books and get Watson to tell me what he thinks as soon as
possible."
Launching their canoe, they poled her laboriously against the current,
which ran fast between its banks of ice. Andrew was thankful that the
snow on the frozen surface threw up a faint light and they could see
the glimmer of the floes that drifted down, though it was not always
possible to avoid them. Once or twice there was a crash as a heavy
mass struck the canoe, which was too lightly built to stand much of
this buffeting. Andrew had thick mittens, but they soon got wet and
his hands grew numbed. He was not clad for rigorous weather, and his
exertions failed to keep him warm.
Still, they were making progress, and they met with no serious
difficulty until they entered a slacker reach. It had been open when
they came down, but now the channel made by the current was glazed
with thin ice, through which they could hardly drive the canoe.
Indeed, in some places Carnally was forced to break the crust with the
pole while Andrew paddled.
"If there's much more of this, it will be late to-morrow before we
make camp," Andrew remarked.
"We'll have to leave the river pretty soon, but we'll stick to it as
long as we can," Carnally replied. "It's rough traveling through the
bush, and the shore ice is hardly safe yet."
They got through the reach, paddled laboriously against a swifter
stream, and dragged the canoe over a portage, stumbling among big
stones and across frozen pools. During this passage Andrew fell and
hurt himself; but stopping was out of the question. Launching the
craft on the upper edge of the rapid, they drove her out. For a minute
or two they made no progress, and Andrew, straining at his pole,
feared that they would be swept down the wild, foaming rush; but they
found slacker water and the ominous roar of the rapid died away. Then
snow began to fall, making it difficult to see, though they had the
faint glimmer of the shore-ice for a guide. In the reach up which they
were poling, it did not run out far because the stream was strong,
and they had gone some distance when there was a heavy thud and a
curious crunch at the bows.
"In with her!" cried Carnally. "Head for the slack behind the point!"
They ran in through crackling ice and had reached the thicker strip
along the bank when Andrew felt his knees grow wet. Feeling with his
hand, he found there was an inch or two of water in the bottom of the
craft.
"Skin's punched through," Carnally explained. "We can't bale her and
use the pole. You'll have to get out."
Andrew did so hastily, but the ice on which he landed cracked as he
moved, and he had gone several yards before it seemed strong enough to
bear him. Carnally dragged the canoe out, and then turned cautiously
up-stream.
"We'll have to chance the ice for the next mile or two," he said.
"It's rough country--steep rock and very thick scrub--on this side."
As they moved forward Andrew noticed that the snow was falling faster
and the wind freshening. The cold flakes drove into his tingling face
and he had to brace himself against the gusts. The gorge they followed
was wrapped in obscurity and filled with the roar of water and the
wailing of the trees. However, he held on for some time; and then
suddenly felt no support for his foot. It was too late to stop; the
next moment he was in the water. The shock took his breath away; he
had a horrible fear of being drawn under the ice, and it was with vast
relief that he found he could stand up waist-deep. Moving cautiously,
he got his knee upon the ice, but it broke away; then he saw that
Carnally was lying down near the edge and holding out his hand.
"Get your arms on it, and catch hold," he said. As he obeyed, Andrew
heard the ice crack, but his weight was now well distributed and he
crawled forward, clutching Carnally's hand. Then he got up, dripping
and shaking with cold.
"Thanks!" he said. "That's a risk I don't mean to run again. If it had
been a foot deeper I'd never have got out."
Carnally turned toward the bank and, in thick darkness, they scrambled
up a steep slope among stunted pines. Leaving its summit, they
floundered over the rounded surfaces of outcropping rocks and plunged
into hollows filled with thick brush. The pines were smaller farther
on, which made things worse, for they had to force a passage through
the snow-laden needles. Some had been partly blown down and leaned on
one another in tangles which would have been difficult to traverse in
daylight. How Carnally kept his line Andrew could not tell, for they
had lost the sound of the river, and the snow was thick; but he
steadily pushed on and after a while the country grew more open. Here
the wind was worse and Andrew, who was getting worn out, struggled
forward stupidly with lowered head and labored breath. He could not
remember how long he kept it up, but at last a light blinked among the
trees and he recognized joyfully that it came from a shack at the
mine.