THE GREAT IDEA
The night was cold, and a frost-laden wind set the fir branches
sighing as Nasmyth and his comrades sat about a snapping fire. The red
light flickered upon their faces, and then grew dim again, leaving
their blurred figures indistinct amid the smoke that diffused pungent,
aromatic odours as it streamed by and vanished between the towering
tree-trunks.
The four men were of widely different type and training, though it was
characteristic of the country that they sat and talked together on
terms of perfect equality. Two of them were exiles, by fault and
misfortune, from their natural environment. One had forced himself
upwards by daring and mechanical genius into a station to which, in
one sense, he did not belong, and Mattawa, the chopper, alone, pursued
the occupation which had always been familiar to him. Still, it was as
comrades that they lived together in the wilderness, and, what was
more, had they come across one another afterwards in the cities, they
would have resumed their intercourse on exactly the same footing.
After all, they were, in essentials, very much the same, and, when
that is the case, the barriers men raise between themselves do not
count for much in the West, at least. Wheeler, the pulp-mill builder,
who had once sold oranges on the railroad cars, led up to a
conversation that gave Nasmyth an opportunity for which he had been
waiting.
"You and Mattawa are about through with that slashing contract," he
said. "You will not net a great pile of money out of it, I suppose?"
"My share is about thirty," answered Nasmyth, with a little laugh. "My
partner draws a few dollars more. He got in a week when the big log
that rolled on my cut leg lamed me. I seem to have a particularly
unfortunate habit of hurting myself. Are you going back to Ontario
when we get that money, Mattawa?"
"No," the big axeman replied slowly; "anyway, not yet, though I was
thinking of it. The ticket costs too much. They've been shoving up
their Eastern rates."
"You ought to have a few dollars in hand," remarked Nasmyth, who was
quite aware that this was not exactly his business. "Are you going to
start a ranch?"
Mattawa appeared to smile. "I have one half cleared back in Ontario."
"Then what d'you come out here for?" Gordon broke in.
"To give the boy a show. He's quite smart, and we were figuring we
might make a doctor or a surveyor of him. That costs money, and wages
are 'way higher here than they are back East."
It was a simple statement, made very quietly by a simple man, but it
appealed forcibly to those who heard it, for they could understand
what lay behind it. Love of change or adventure, it was evident, had
nothing to do with sending the grizzled Mattawa out to the forests
of the West. He had, as he said, merely come there that his son might
be afforded opportunities that he had never had, and this was
characteristic, for it is not often that the second generation stays
on the land. Though teamsters and choppers to the manner born are busy
here and there, the Canadian prairie is to a large extent broken and
the forest driven back by young men from the Eastern cities and by
exiled Englishmen. Their life is a grim one, and when they marry they
do not desire their children to continue it. Yet, they do not
often marry, since the wilderness, in most cases, would crush the
wives they would choose. The men toil on alone, facing flood, and
drought, and frost, and some hate the silence of the winter nights
during which they sit beside the stove.
"Then," inquired Wheeler, "who runs the ranch?"
"The wife and the boy. That is, when the boy's not chopping or
ploughing for somebody."
There were reasons why Nasmyth was stirred by what he had heard, and
with his pipe he pointed to Mattawa, as the flickering firelight fell
upon the old axeman's face.
"That," he said, "is the man who didn't want his wages when I offered
them to him, though he knew it was quite likely he would never get
them afterwards unless I built the dam. He'd been working for me two
or three months then, in the flooded river, most of the while. Now, is
there any sense in that kind of man?"
Mattawa appeared disconcerted, and his hard face flushed. "Well," he
explained, "I felt I had to see you through." He hesitated for a
moment with a gesture which seemed deprecatory of his point of view.
"It seemed up to me."
"You've heard him," said Gordon dryly. "He's from the desolate Bush
back East, and nobody has taught him to express himself clearly. The
men of that kind are handiest with the axe and drill, but it has
always seemed to me that the nations are going to sit round and listen
when they get up and speak their mind some day."
He saw the smile in Nasmyth's eyes, and turned to Wheeler, who was
from the State of Washington. "It's a solid fact that you, at least,
can understand. It's not so very long since your folks headed West
across the Ohio, and it's open to anyone to see what you have done."
Then he flung his hand out towards the east. "They fancy back yonder
we're still in the leading-strings, and it doesn't seem to strike them
that we're growing big and strong."
It was characteristic that Wheeler did not grin, as Nasmyth certainly
did. What Gordon had said was, no doubt, a trifle flamboyant, but it
expressed the views of others in the West, and after all it was more
or less warranted. Mattawa, however, gazed at them both as if such
matters were beyond him, and Wheeler, who turned to Nasmyth, changed
the subject.
"Well," he said, "what are you going to strike next?"
Nasmyth took out his pipe, and carefully filled it before he answered,
for he knew that his time had come, and he desired greatly to carry
his comrades along with him.
"I have," he said quietly, "a notion in my mind, or, anyway, the germ
of one, for the thing will want some worrying out. It's quite a
serious undertaking. To begin with, I'll ask Gordon who cut these
drains we've been falling into, and what he did it for?"
"An Englishman," Gordon answered. "Nobody knew much about him. He was
probably an exile, too. Anyway, he saw this valley, and it seemed to
strike him that he could make a ranch in it."
"Why should he fix on this particular valley?"
"The thing's plain enough. How many years does a man usually spend
chopping a clearing out of the Bush? Isn't there a demand for anything
that you can eat from our miners and the men on our railroads and in
our mills? Why do we bring carloads of provisions in? Can't you get
hold of the fact that a man can start ranching right away on natural
prairie, if he can once get the water out of it?"
"Oh, yes," assented Nasmyth. "The point is that one has to get the
water out of it. I would like Mattawa and Wheeler to notice it. You
can go on."
"Well," said Gordon, "that man pitched right in, and spent most of two
years cutting four-foot trenches through and dyking up the swamp. He
went on every day from sun-up to dark, but every time the floods came
they beat him. When he walked over the range to the settlement, the
boys noticed he was getting kind of worn and thin, but there was clean
grit in that man. He'd taken hold of the contract, and he stayed with
it. Then one day a prospector went into the valley after a big freshet
and came across his wrecked shanty. The river had got him."
Wheeler nodded gravely. "It seems to me this country was made by men
like that," he commented. "They're the kind they ought to put up
monuments to."
There was silence for a moment or two after that, except for the
sighing of the wind among the firs and the hoarse murmur that came up,
softened by the distance, from the canyon. It was not an unusual story,
but it appealed to those who heard it, for they had fought with rock
and river and physical weariness, and they could understand the grim
patience and unflinching valour of the long struggle that had
resulted, as such struggles sometimes do, only in defeat. Still, the
men who take those tasks in hand seldom capitulate. Gordon glanced at
Nasmyth.
"Now," he said, "if you have anything to say, you can get it out."
Nasmyth raised himself on one elbow. "That Englishman put up a good
fight, but he didn't start quite right," he said. "I want to point out
that, in my opinion, the river has evidently just run into the canyon.
It's slow and deep until you reach the fall, where it's merely held up
by the ridge of rock the rapid runs across. Well, we'll call the
change of level twelve to sixteen feet, and, as Gordon has suggested,
a big strip of natural prairie is apt to make a particularly desirable
property, once you run the water out of it. You can get rid of a lot
of water when you have a fall of sixteen feet."
"How are you going to get it?" asked Wheeler.
"By cutting the strip of rock that holds the river up at the fall. I
think one could do it with giant-powder."
Again there was silence for a few moments, and Nasmyth looked at his
comrades quietly, with the firelight on his face and a gleam in his
eyes. They sat still and stared at him, for the daring simplicity of
his conception won their admiration. Mattawa slowly straightened
himself.
"It's a great idea," he declared. "Seen something quite like it in
Ontario; I guess it can be done." He turned to Nasmyth. "You can count
me in."
Wheeler made a sign of concurrence. "It seems to me that Mattawa is
right. In a general way, I'm quite open to take a share in the thing,
but there's a point you have to consider. Most of the work could be
done only at low water, and a man might spend several years on it."
"Well?" said Nasmyth simply.
Wheeler waved his hand. "Oh," he said, "you're like that other
Englishman, but you want to look at this thing from a business point
of view. Now, as you know, the men who do the toughest work on this
Pacific slope are usually the ones who get the least for it. Well, if
you run the river down, you'll dry out the whole valley, and you'll
have every man with a fancy for ranching jumping in, or some d----
land agency's dummies grabbing every rod of it. It's Crown land.
Anybody can locate a ranch on it."
"You have to buy the land," said Nasmyth. "You can't pre-empt it
here."
"How does that count?" Wheeler persisted. "If you started clearing a
Bush ranch, you'd spend considerably more."
Nasmyth smiled. "I fancy our views coincide. The point is that the
Crown agents charge the usual figure for land that doesn't require
making, which is not the case in this particular valley. Well, before
I cut the first hole with the drill, they will either have to sell me
all I can take up on special terms, or make me a grant for the work I
do."
Gordon laughed. "Are you going to hammer your view of the matter into
the Crown authorities? Did you ever hear of anyone who got them to
sanction a proposition that was out of the usual run?"
"Well," said Nasmyth, "I'm going to try. If they won't hear reason,
I'll start a syndicate round the settlement."
Wheeler, leaning forward, dropped a hand on his shoulder. "Count on me
for a thousand dollars when you want the money." He turned and looked
at Gordon. "It's your call."
"I'll raise the same amount," said Gordon, "though I'll have to put a
mortgage on the ranch."
Mattawa made a little diffident gesture. "A hundred--it's the most I
can do--but there's the boy," he said.
Nasmyth smiled in a curious way, for he knew this offer was, after
all, a much more liberal one than those the others had made.
"You," he said severely, "will be on wages. Yet, if we put the thing
through, you will certainly get your share."
He looked round at the other two, and after they had expressed their
approval, they discussed the project until far into the night, and
finally decided to recross the range, and look at the fall again,
early next morning. It happened, however, that Mattawa, who went down
to the river for water, soon after sunrise, found a Siwash canoe
neatly covered with cedar branches. This was not an astonishing thing,
since the Indians, who come up the rivers in the salmon season, often
hew out a canoe on the spot where they require it, and leave it there
until they have occasion to use it again. After considering the matter
at breakfast, the four men decided to go down the canyon. They knew
that one or two Indians were supposed to have made the hazardous
trip, but that appeared sufficient, for they were all accustomed to
handling a canoe, and an extra hazard or two is not often a great
deterrent to men who have toiled in the Bush.
They had a few misgivings when the hills closed about them as they
slipped into the shadowy entrance of the canyon. No ray of sunlight
ever streamed down there, and the great hollow was dim and cold and
filled with a thin white mist, though a nipping wind flowed through
it. For a mile or two the hillsides, which rose precipitously above
them, were sprinkled here and there with climbing pines, that on their
far summits cut, faintly green, against a little patch of blue.
By-and-by, however, the canoe left these slopes behind, and drifted
into a narrow rift between stupendous walls of rock, though there was
a narrow strip of shingle strewn with whitened driftwood between the
side of the canyon and the river. Then this disappeared, and there was
only the sliding water and the smooth rock, while the patch of sky
seemed no more than a narrow riband of blue very high above.
Fortunately, the river flowed smoothly between its barriers of stone,
and, sounding with two poles lashed together, the men got no bottom,
and as the river swept them on, they began to wonder uneasily how they
were to get back upstream. Once, indeed, Wheeler suggested something
of the kind, but none of the others answered him, and he went on with
his paddling.
At last a deep, pulsating roar that had been steadily growing louder,
swelled suddenly into a bewildering din, and Mattawa shouted as they
shot round a bend. There was a whirling haze of spray into which the
white rush of a rapid led close in front of them, and for the next
minute they paddled circumspectly. Then Mattawa ran the canoe in
between two boulders at the head of the rapid, and they got out and
stood almost knee-deep in the cold water. The whirling haze of spray
which rose and sank was rent now and then as the cold breeze swept
more strongly down the canyon, and it became evident that the rapid was
a very short one. The walls of rock stood further apart at this point,
and there was a strip of thinly-covered shingle and boulders between
the fierce white rush of the flood and the worn stone. Mattawa grinned
as the others looked at him.
"I'm staying here to hang on to the canoe," he said. "Guess you don't
feel quite like going down that fall."
They certainly did not, and they hesitated a moment until Nasmyth
suddenly moved forward.
"We came here to look at the fall, and I'm going on," he said.
They went with him, stumbling over the shingle, and now and then
floundering among the boulders, with the stream that frothed about
their thighs almost dragging their feet from under them. Each of them
gasped with sincere relief when he scrambled out of the whirling pool.
They reached a strip of uncovered rock that stretched across part of
the wider hollow above the fall, and stood there drenched and
shivering for several minutes, scarcely caring to speak as they gazed
at the channel which the stream had cut through the midst of it.
Wheeler dropped his hand on Nasmyth's shoulder.
"Well," he said--and Nasmyth could just hear him through the roar of
the fall--"it seems to me the thing could be done if you have nerve
enough. Still, I guess if they let you have the whole valley
afterwards, you'd deserve it." Then he seemed to laugh. "I'll make my
share one thousand five hundred dollars. In the meanwhile, if you have
no objections, we'll get back again."