It was late at night, but the red light of a fire flickered among the
trunks where a creek swirled across the bottom of the valley, and Leger,
who had just flung fresh branches upon it, leaned against the rude
windlass at the head of the adjacent shaft. The roar of the river seemed
to have sunk to a lower tone that night, and save for its dull
reverberations there was deep silence among the pines across which the
fleecy mists were drifting. It seemed to emphasize the harshness of the
persistent clink of the pick which broke sharply though the stillness of
the night.
Leger was stiff in every joint, and his limbs were aching from a long
day's labour. He was also wet with the dew and now and then shivered a
little, for the night air was chilled by the snow; but he scarcely
noticed this as he listened to the sound of his comrade's toil below. He
had not Ingleby's incentive, but it is probable that very few men would
have concerned themselves much about weariness or discomfort just then.
The shaft they had painfully driven had at last reached, or was very
close upon, the ancient river bed, and now any stroke of the pick might
make the result of their labour plain to them. It might be disastrous
failure or a competence for the rest of their days, and the oldest
prospector could have done no more than guess at the probabilities.
Placer mining is a gamble in which, in the Northwest, at least, man
stakes the utmost toil of his body, and often his life, on the chance of
finding a very uncertain quantity of the precious metal.
At last the tension grew almost unendurable, and Leger, worn-out as he
was, felt his courage fail him. His body craved sleep, and he dreaded
the answer to the question which had occupied him ceaselessly for the
last few days. He felt that should it be unfavourable he could hardly
face it then, and even the harrowing uncertainty was better than a
negative.
"Come up, Walter. I'm getting cold," he said.
There was a harsh laugh below, and a voice that sounded strained and
hollow rose from the shaft.
"Then sit by the fire!" it said.
"Come up!" said Leger sharply. "If you must have the truth, I've borne
about as much as you could expect of me to-day. We'll probably know the
result soon enough."
"I can't wait," said Ingleby.
Leger said nothing further. He could not leave his comrade there, and he
sat down by the windlass with his fingers trembling a little on the pipe
he did not light. The faint sighing in the fir tops had died away, and
only the noise of man's petty activity ran on, discordant and, it almost
seemed, presumptuous. A half-moon hung above the shoulder of a towering
peak wrapped in a mantle of everlasting white, the river twinkled in the
gloom below; but it counted for nothing with Leger that earth and sky
were steeped in a profound serenity. He was sensible only of the jar of
the pick below.
In the meanwhile Ingleby, stripped to the waist, toiled feverishly by
the light of a few blazing resin-knots in the narrow pit. His hands were
bleeding, and the dew of effort dripped from him while he swung with the
clinking pick like an automaton. He was grimed with mire, his long boots
were sodden, and the drip from the shaft side splashed upon his naked
shoulders, while his face was grim and grey with the weariness he did
not feel. At last there was a sharp ringing as the pick went down, and
while his raw hands tingled he flung the implement aside.
"Bed rock or a boulder!" he said hoarsely. "Send the bucket down."
It was a bald announcement, but that was not a time for speech, and
Leger fully realized the significance of it. The crazy windlass rattled,
and the rude receptacle of deer-hide stretched on a willow-hoop came
down. Ingleby filled it with the shovel, and then pressed down a further
load of sand and soil and pebbles with quivering hands.
"Heave!" he said sharply.
The bucket went up, and it was with a little grim smile Ingleby
struggled into his rent shirt, though the operation cost him at least a
minute. There was, he knew, a necessity for keeping his head now, and,
holding himself in hand by an effort, he crawled slowly up the notched
fir-pole lowered into the little shaft. Then he and Leger, saying
nothing, proceeded to the creek with the heavy bucket and a big
indurated basin. Ingleby went in knee-deep, with the firelight
flickering on him, and with a twirl of his hands washed out half the
lighter contents of the basin. Then he glanced at Leger.
"Shall we try it now?" he said.
"No," said Leger, a trifle hoarsely. "Put in the rest."
Ingleby emptied into a little heap what was left in the basin, after
which he filled it again, and repeated the process several times while
Leger stood still upon the bank watching him. Neither said anything,
though there was a strained expectancy in their faces that showed the
importance of the result. At last there was nothing left in the bucket,
and Leger's hands shook as he scooped up the little heap upon the bank
and flung it into the basin.
"Get it done!" he said.
Ingleby stepped back into the stream, and was busy some little time
tilting and twirling the basin, and now and then stirring its contents
with his hand. Then he very carefully let the water run away, and waded
with a curious slowness to the bank. He stood there for a tense moment
while he and Leger looked at each other, until the latter, turning,
stirred the crackling fire.
"Pour it out!" he said hoarsely. "I can't stand much more of this."
Ingleby shook out the contents of the basin on a little strip of hide,
and for a moment or two could scarcely discern anything, for his heart
throbbed painfully and his sight was a trifle dim. Then he made out that
there were little yellow grains scattered about the hide, and when he
stirred the fragments of stone and pebbles with his fingers larger
particles of the same hue became visible. He straightened himself slowly
with a little gasp, and the blood surged to his face.
"I almost think--we've struck it rich!" he said.
Leger said nothing whatever, for there are times when it is difficult to
express one's feelings articulately, and he stood quite still in the
firelight blinking at Ingleby. Then he sat down, and scraping the
precious grains into a little bag poised it in his hand.
"There will be no need for any more baking--at this rate. We'll go home
and tell Hetty," he said.
"She's asleep," said Ingleby, whose voice shook a little.
"Perhaps she is," said Leger, with a curious smile. "I fancy I shall
rest to-night."
They climbed the hillside together, Ingleby carrying the little bag; but
he scarcely saw the glow of the fire that still burned outside the
shanty or the clustering pines. His heart no longer throbbed as it had
done, and while a curious lassitude came upon him, alluring visions
floated before him. Then as they stopped in front of the shanty a
shadowy figure slipped out of it, and, for the firelight fell upon them,
Hetty felt her fingers quiver as she glanced at Ingleby's face.
"Oh!" she said with a little gasp, "you have found the gold!"
Ingleby gravely held out the bag. "That is the first of it--and it's
yours," he said. "If it hadn't been for you we should never have held
the mine. One third of it all belongs to you."
Hetty took the gold with a little smile.
"I am very glad you found it--and remembered me," she said.
Then she turned away somewhat abruptly, and went back into the shanty.
"Hetty scarcely seems as delighted as one would have expected," said
Ingleby.
Leger, whose face had grown a trifle grave, laughed in a fashion which
suggested that it cost him an effort. "One so seldom gets a windfall of
this kind that it's a trifle difficult to know how to express one's
satisfaction. The only thing that occurs to me is to smash all the
cooking utensils, but, considering the distance from the settlement,
that would scarcely be convenient."
Ingleby, who flung himself down beside the fire, made no answer, but
vacantly drank the coffee and ate the food that Hetty brought him. He
was, in fact, almost oblivious of his surroundings, for again his fancy
was busy with alluring visions, and now that the tension was over his
perceptions were dulled by the weariness of his worn-out body. At last,
however, he became sensible that Leger was no longer there and that
Hetty was sitting alone on the opposite side of the sinking fire.
"Where's Tom?" he asked.
"I think he's asleep," said Hetty. "It's no wonder. Aren't you very
tired, Walter?"
Ingleby laughed drowsily and stretched his aching limbs. "I really
believe I am, though I scarcely felt it until this moment. What are you
sitting up for, Hetty?"
"I don't quite know. Still, one doesn't come into a fortune every day. I
suppose it is a fortune, Walter?"
Ingleby's face grew a trifle grave. "It at least looks like it, but
nobody could tell just now. A placer mine often works out unexpectedly."
"Still, if it doesn't, what are you going to do?"
"Why don't you say--we?"
Hetty smiled curiously, and shook her head. "You will not want Tom and
me now."
"If you fancy I would ever be willing to lose sight of either of you you
are doing me a wrong. Haven't I been living on your bounty--on what you
made by baking with your own little hands? Would we have found the gold
if it hadn't been for you?"
Hetty flushed a little, but she persisted.
"I'm not sure the new friends you will make would approve of us," she
said.
"Then," said Ingleby decisively, "they will not be friends of mine. You
don't seem to understand that you have a third share in the mine, and
Tom holds another. The result of that will be that you will be able to
live as you like and dress as prettily as anybody. Still, don't you
think that old print gown--I suppose it is print--you put on to bake in
is worth all a court-lady's finery?"
Hetty once more shook her head. "I should still be Hetty Leger--who
waited at a boarding-house, and sold bread to the miners," she said. "If
I pretended to be any one else people would only find me out and laugh,
as well as look down on me. Nothing that I could put on or any one could
teach me would make me quite the same as--Miss Coulthurst--you see."
Ingleby, who had not expected this, was not exactly pleased. He was very
grateful to Hetty, and thought, which was how he expressed it, a good
deal of her; but since she had raised the point, there was certainly a
difference between her and Grace Coulthurst. It did not occur to him
that the difference might, after all, be in Hetty's favour, and that
there were qualities she possessed which are worth more than many
accomplishments and a reposeful manner. In the meanwhile Hetty appeared
to expect an answer, and he felt that she had placed him in a
difficulty.
"What you have suggested applies as much to me," he said.
Hetty laughed. "I was wondering what you would say--and I suppose it
does. Still, nobody seems to mind the little difference so much in a man
when he has plenty of money. You are going to marry Miss Coulthurst if
you get rich, Walter?"
"Yes," said Ingleby gravely, "if she will have me, which I am afraid is
far from certain; but I must make myself more than a placer miner first.
That is why, if Tom is willing, I shall probably start a contractor's
business and build roads and bridges. They are always wanted in this
Province, and I fancy making them wouldn't be so very difficult. Tom
would stay in the office--he has the brains, you see--and I like the
outside life in the bush. It is a useful profession that everybody looks
up to here, and we could, of course, bring out a young English
engineer."
He had sunk back a little upon the pile of branches where he lay, and
Hetty noticed that his eyes were heavy; but he roused himself with an
effort.
"We will go back to Vancouver when the mine works out. You shall choose
the house--one of the pretty ones outside the town with the wooden
pillars and painted scrollwork. We will get a China boy to cook for
you--and you shall have a pair of ponies to drive in Stanley Park. Tom
will keep the books and get the orders while I do the work. Roads and
bridges, flumes and dams, are always wanted--and I must be more than a
placer miner."
Then his head sank forward, and Hetty, who sat still for a minute, rose
with a little wistful smile, and looked down at him. He lay with eyes
quite closed now, and one arm stretched out, for the needs of the
worn-out body had at last proved stronger than his will. His jacket had
fallen open to the waist, and Hetty noticed how thin he was and the
hollowness of his quiet face. Then she slipped softly into the tent
where Leger lay asleep, and coming out with a coarse brown blanket,
spread it over Ingleby, though as she did it the flickering light showed
a rich damask in her cheek. Then laying fresh wood on the fire she stole
away and left him to sleep. The great branches that met above him kept
off the dew, and one could sleep as well there as in the tent.
The sun had cleared the redwoods when he opened his eyes again and saw
Leger smiling down at him.
"It's a very long while since I got up so late, and I don't quite know
how I came to be lying here," he said. "I suppose I fell asleep beside
the fire, but in that case it's a little difficult to understand how I
could have got the blanket and tucked myself in."
Then he stood up and stretched himself, while Leger glanced at him
curiously.
"I don't think it matters very much. You looked half-dazed when I left
you, and scarcely likely to remember what you did," he said. "Breakfast
is almost ready, and we have a good deal on hand to-day."
Within the next half-hour they were at work again, and by afternoon had
satisfied themselves of the richness of the claim. They also, in
accordance with established custom, put up a little flag to show all
whom it might concern that they had bottomed on gold. As it happened,
nobody but a police trooper, who asked them a few questions, saw it, for
the pines were thick and most of the placer workings situated farther up
the valley. The trooper mentioned the matter to Esmond, and the latter
forthwith called upon Major Coulthurst. His opportunity had come.
"I wonder if you know that your friend Ingleby has struck gold?" he
said.
"I didn't," said Coulthurst, who did not appear to notice his sardonic
tone. "I'm pleased to hear it."
Esmond's smile might have meant anything. "It would," he said, "have
been wiser if Ingleby had stayed on his claim. You remember that he left
it for a considerable time."
"I do," said Coulthurst, who glanced at him inquiringly, with a trace of
dryness. "In different circumstances it might have cost him his title."
Esmond sat silent for a moment or two.
"So far as I understand the enactments, one only holds a placer claim on
the condition that the work goes on continuously," he said.
"In the case you are referring to I believe it did. Ingleby left his
partner in possession."
Esmond smiled. "It is, one understands, essential that everybody holding
a mineral claim of any kind should have a free miner's certificate."
"Of course! Ingleby and Leger each took one out. I remember it very
well."
"All certificates," said Esmond, "expire on the thirty-first of May."
"Ingleby renewed his," said Coulthurst, and stopped abruptly.
"Ingleby, as you remember, invalidated his title."
Coulthurst rose sharply and took down his register. He flicked over
several pages and closed it with a little bang. Then as he turned to
Esmond his face grew a trifle grim.
"I'm not quite sure how far my authority goes until I look it up," he
said. "I have rather a liking for Ingleby."
Esmond smiled in a deprecatory fashion. "It is not exactly my business,
but one would fancy that you couldn't very well discriminate, sir.
Anything of the kind would have an undesirable effect upon the other
men."
"That is my affair," and Coulthurst glanced at him sharply. "It is a
little difficult to understand why you raised the question only when
they had found the gold."
"I fancy that it is very natural, sir. It is no part of my duty to see
the mining regulations are carried out, and it was not until I heard
they had struck the lead that I remembered the little fact I noticed in
looking over your register. It seemed advisable to let you know. The men
seem inclined to find fault with everything just now, and if it came out
that Ingleby's claim had not been sequestrated when it should have been
they might get it into their heads that you had winked at the
irregularity because you were on good terms with him. That would
naturally increase my difficulties with them."
Coulthurst stood looking at him with a hardening face. "I am," he said,
"very sorry that this has happened, but it will be gone into. May I
trouble you to send one of your troopers over for Ingleby and Leger?"