It was towards the end of the arduous day, and Ingleby was glad of the
respite the breakage of a chain cargo-sling afforded him. The white side
of a big Empress liner towered above the open-fronted shed, and a string
of box cars stood waiting outside the sliding doors behind him. A swarm
of men in blue jean were hurrying across the wharf behind clattering
trucks laden with the produce of China and Japan, for the liner had been
delayed a trifle by bad weather, and the tea and silk and sugar were
wanted in the East. Already a great freight locomotive was waiting on
the side track, and, as Ingleby knew, the long train must be got away
before the Atlantic express went out that evening. He had been promoted
to a post of subordinate authority a few weeks earlier, and both he and
Leger were, in the meanwhile, at least contented with their lot, for the
great railway company treated its servants liberally.
There was, however, nothing that he could do for a minute or two, and he
leaned against a tier of silk bales with a bundle of dispatch labels and
a slip of paper in his hand, while Leger sat upon the truck behind him.
He had, though it was no longer exactly his business, been carrying
sugar bags upon his back most of that afternoon, partly to lessen the
labour of Leger who had not his physique, and now the white crystals
glittered in his hair and clung, smeared with dust, to his perspiring
face. His sleeves were rolled back to the elbow, showing his brown arms,
which had grown hard and corded since he came to Canada; while his
coarse blue shirt, which was open at the neck and belted tight at the
waist, displayed as more conventional attire would not have done the
symmetry of a well set-up figure.
"We are still short of a few tea chests," said Leger. "However, if you
would mark the two lots I've got yonder we could clear that car for
dispatch as soon as the rest come out."
Ingleby glanced at his slip. "I'll wait until I get the others. It will
keep the thing straighter. There's a good deal more in sorting cargo
than I fancied there could be until I tried it, and it's remarkably easy
to put the stuff into the wrong car."
"Then it might be well to keep your eye on those chests of tea. I can't
keep the boys off them. There's another fellow at them now."
Ingleby swung round, and signed to a perspiring man who stopped with a
truck beside the cases in question.
"Leave that lot alone! It's billed straight through, express freight,
East," he said. "Stick this ticket on the cases, Tom."
Leger moved away, and Ingleby was endeavouring to scrape some of the
sugar off his person when a man, whom he recognized as one of the
leading citizens of Vancouver, and several ladies, came down the
steamer's gangway. Then he started and felt his heart throb as his
glance rested on one of them, who, as it happened, looked up just then.
It was evident that she saw him, and he was unpleasantly sensible that
his face was growing hot. There was, he would have admitted at any other
time, no reason for this, but in the meanwhile it was distinctly
disconcerting that Grace Coulthurst should come upon him in his present
guise, smeared with dust and half-melted sugar. Then he occupied himself
with his cargo slip, for it was in the circumstances scarcely to be
expected that she would vouchsafe him any recognition.
The longing to see her again, however, became too strong for him, and
looking up a moment he was conscious of a blissful astonishment, for she
was walking straight towards him with a smile in her eyes. She seemed to
him almost ethereally dainty in the dust and turmoil of the big cargo
shed, and for the moment he forgot his uncovered arms and neck, and felt
every nerve in him thrill as he took the little gloved hand she held
out. What she had done was not likely to be regarded as anything very
unusual in that country, where most men are liable to startling
vicissitudes of fortune and there are no very rigid social distinctions;
but Ingleby failed to recognize this just then, and it was not
astonishing that he should idealize her for her courage.
"You are about the last person I expected to meet. What are you doing
here?" she said, with the little tranquil smile that became her well.
Ingleby's heart was throbbing a good deal faster than usual, but he held
himself in hand. Miss Coulthurst was apparently pleased to see him, but
there was an indefinite something in her serene graciousness which put a
check on him. It was, he felt, perhaps only because she was patrician to
her finger-tips that she had so frankly greeted him. A girl with less
natural distinction could, he fancied, scarcely have afforded to be
equally gracious to a wharf-labourer.
"I am at present loading railway cars with tea and silk, though I have
been carrying sugar bags most of the day," he said.
Grace showed no sign of astonishment as she glanced at his toiling
comrades, and, though this was doubtless the correct attitude for her to
assume, Ingleby was, in spite of his opinions, not exactly pleased until
she spoke again.
"Don't you find it rather hard work?" she said. "Of course, one cannot
always choose the occupation one likes here, but couldn't you find
something that would be a little more--profitable?"
Ingleby laughed. "I'm afraid I can't," he said. "In this city the one
passport to advancement appears to be the ability to play in the band,
and I was, unfortunately, never particularly musical. Still, there is no
reason why I should trouble you with my affairs. I wonder if I might
venture to ask you how you came to be here?"
"It is quite simple. Major Coulthurst was appointed Gold Commissioner in
one of the mining districts, and I came out with him; but he has been
sent to an especially desolate post in the Northern ranges, and I am
staying with friends in the city for a week or two. Then I am going to
join him."
She stopped a moment, and then looked at him reflectively. "Why don't
you go North and try your fortune at prospecting, too? They have been
finding a good deal of gold lately in the Green River country where my
father is."
It had seemed to Ingleby almost unnatural that he should be so quietly
discussing his affairs with the girl he had last seen nearly six
thousand miles away. This was not the kind of meeting he would have
anticipated; but as she made the suggestion a little thrill once more
ran through him, for he had heard that the district in question was a
great desolation, and it almost seemed that she desired his company.
However, he shook off the notion as untenable, for there would be, he
knew, a distinction between a placer miner and the Gold Commissioner's
daughter even in that land of rock and snow.
"I have thought of it," he said. "Some day I may go, but it is at the
far end of the province, and for one who works on a steamboat wharf the
getting there is a risky venture. I don't suppose everybody finds gold."
"I'm afraid they don't, and the cost of transporting provisions is a
serious matter to those who fail. In fact, some of them have been giving
my father trouble. They appear to lay the blame of everything on the
mining regulations."
She stopped and glanced at him with a little smile. "From what I
remember of your views, you would no doubt be inclined to agree with
them."
Ingleby laughed, though it was pleasant to be told that she remembered
anything he had said. "I really fancy I have learned a little sense in
Canada, and I am not going to inflict my crude notions upon you again.
Still, there is a question I should like to ask. Did Mr. Esmond of
Holtcar--recover?"
Grace noticed the sudden intentness of his tone, and looked at him
curiously. "Of course. In fact, he got better in a week or two, and I
think behaved very generously. The police could not induce him to give
them any information about the men who injured him."
Ingleby started, and the girl saw the relief in his face.
"I wonder," he said, "if you ever heard who they were supposed to be?"
Grace turned a trifle and gazed at him steadily, though there was now a
little flash in her eyes.
"You," she said, with incisive coldness, "were one of them?"
Ingleby grew hot beneath her gaze, for he felt that all the pride and
prejudices of her station were arrayed against him. "You will remember
the form of my question. I was supposed to be one of them--but that was
all," he said.
Grace's face softened, and she glanced at her companions, who, after
waiting a little while, were just leaving the shed. "Of course," she
said, "I should have known it was absurd to fancy that you could do
anything of that kind."
"I am afraid I have kept you," said Ingleby. "Perhaps I should not have
abused your kindness by letting you stop at all, but the desire to see
you was too strong for me. I wonder whether even you would have dared
to do as much had it been in England?"
There was a faint flush in the girl's cheek, but she smiled as she held
out her hand.
"I scarcely think we need go into that, and I can't keep the others
waiting any longer," she said. "Perhaps I shall meet you in the Green
River country."
She swept away with a soft swish of dainty garments, and Ingleby, whose
face grew curiously intent as he watched her, climbed the slanting
gangway to the deck of the liner when she disappeared. From there he
could see the white tops of the ranges gleaming ethereally as they
stretched back mountain behind mountain towards the lonely North. The
Green River country lay far beyond them, and there were leagues of
tangled forest, and thundering rivers, to be crossed; but that day the
untrodden snow he gazed upon seemed to beckon him, and a sudden longing
to set out upon the long trail grew almost irresistible. There was gold
in the wilderness, and with enough of it a man might aspire to anything,
even the hand of a Crown Commissioner's daughter.
Then the winch beside him clattered, and he shook off the fancies as a
fresh stream of bales and cases slid down the gangway. Whatever the
future might have in store, there were several more hours of arduous
work in front of him then. One of them had passed when Leger came
hastily up to him.
"I suppose you got those last few cases?" he said.
Ingleby started. "I'm afraid I never remembered them until this moment.
Have they pulled the car out, Tom?"
"It's not there, anyway. I fancied you had made the lot up. Somebody has
put those cases in."
While they looked at one another the tolling of a locomotive bell broke
through the clatter of the trucks, and Ingleby sped towards the door of
the shed with Leger close behind him. When they reached it the hoot of a
whistle came ringing down the track, and they saw the great locomotive
vanish amidst the piles of lumber outside a big sawmill, with the long
cars lurching through the smoke behind it. Ingleby said nothing then,
but turned back into the shed with his lips set and questioned several
men before he looked at Leger.
"Nobody seems to know whether they put that tea into the through East
car or not, and it's no use being sorry now we didn't see it done," he
said. "The sooner we have a word with the freight-traffic agent the
better."
The gentleman in question, had, however, very little consolation to
offer them.
"The fast freight has got to make Kamloops ahead of the Atlantic
express," he said. "She's not going to be held up more than ten minutes
there, and they'll have the mountain loco ready to rush her up the loops
and over the Selkirks. I'll send a wire along, but so long as the road
is clear it's going to be more than any man's place is worth, to
side-track that train for freight checking."