NASMYTH SETS TO WORK
It was a scorching afternoon on the heights above, where rocky slope
and climbing firs ran far up towards the blue heavens under a blazing
sun, but it was dim and cool in the misty depths of the canyon. There
was eternal shadow in that tremendous rift, and a savage desolation
rolled away from it; but on this afternoon the sounds of human
activity rang along its dusky walls. The dull thud of axes fell from a
gully that rent the mountain-side, and now and then a mass of
shattered rock came crashing down, while the sharp clinking of the
drills broke intermittently through the hoarse roar of the fall. Wet
with the spray of the fall, Nasmyth, stripped to blue shirt and old
duck trousers, stood swinging a heavy hammer, which he brought down
upon the head of the steel bar that his companion held so many times a
minute with rhythmic precision. Though they changed round now and
then, he had done much the same thing since early morning, and his
back and arms ached almost intolerably; but still the great hammer
whirled about his head, and while he gasped with the effort, came down
with a heavy jar upon the drill. So intent was he that he did not
notice the three figures scrambling along the narrow log-work staging
pinned against the rocky side above the fall, until his companion
flung a word at him. Turning with a start, he dropped his hammer.
He saw Gordon hold out a hand to Laura Waynefleet, who sprang down
from the staging upon the strip of smooth-worn stone that stretched
out from the wall of the canyon above the fall. Wheeler was a few
paces behind them. Nasmyth looked around for his jacket, and,
remembering that he had left it in the gully, he moved forward to
shake hands with his visitors.
"I scarcely expected to see any of you here. You must have had a hard
scramble," he said.
Gordon waved his hand. "You don't say you're pleased, though after the
trouble we've taken, it's a sure thing that you ought to be," he
declared. "Anyway, I'm not going back up that gully until I've had
supper. Wheeler's held up because his folks haven't sent him some
machines, and I came along to see if I'd forgotten how to hold a
drill. I don't quite know what Miss Waynefleet came for."
Laura laughed good-humouredly. "Oh," she said, "I have my excuse. My
father is at Victoria, and I have been staying with Mrs. Potter for a
day or two. She lent me a cayuse to ride over to Fenton's ranch, and
the trail there leads close by the head of the gully."
Mattawa looked up at Gordon with a grin. "If you want to do some
drilling, you can start right now," he remarked. "Guess Nasmyth
doesn't know he has a back on him."
Gordon took up the hammer, and, when Wheeler went back to the gully to
inquire whether one of the men at work there would undertake some
timber-squaring he wanted done at the mill, Laura Waynefleet and
Nasmyth were left together. It was wetter than was comfortable near
the fall, and, scrambling back across the staging, they sat down among
the boulders near the foot of the rapid that swirled out of the pool.
Nasmyth looked at Laura, who smiled.
"I am afraid I have taken you away from your work, and I haven't
Gordon's excuse," she said. "He, at least, is able to drill."
Nasmyth laughed. "I observe that Tom seems very careful of his
hands," he returned. "As to the other matter, I am very glad you did
come. After all, drilling isn't exactly a luxurious occupation; and
while, as Tom remarked, I'm a little uncertain about my back, I'm
quite sure I'm in possession of a pair of arms, because they ache
abominably. Besides"--and his gaze was whimsically reproachful--"do
you really think any excuse is needed for coming to see me?"
"In any case, I have one; there is something I want to say. You see, I
have not come across you since the meeting at the settlement."
"I suppose you object to your father taking any share in our crazy
venture?"
A faint flicker of colour crept into Laura's cheek. "You know I
don't," she replied. "It is the one thing I could have wished for him;
indeed, I shall be thankful if he takes a sustaining interest in the
scheme, as he seems disposed to do. It will be of benefit to him in
many ways. He grows moody and discontented at the ranch."
She broke off for a moment, and her voice had changed when she went on
again. "There is one point that troubles me--you provided my father
with the money to take his share in the venture."
"No," explained Nasmyth; "I think I can say that I didn't. I have
merely set apart for him so many acres of swamp and virgin forest. He
will have to earn his title to them by assisting in what we may call
the administration, as well as by physical labour."
Laura looked at Nasmyth with quiet eyes. "Would you or Gordon consider
it a good bargain to part with a single acre for all the advice he can
offer you?" she asked.
Nasmyth sat silent a moment, gravely regarding her. There was a little
more colour in her face, but her composure and her fearless honesty
appealed to him. She was attired very plainly in a print dress, made,
as he knew, by her own fingers. The gown had somehow escaped serious
damage in the scramble down the gully. It harmonized with the
pale-tinted stone, and it seemed to him that its wearer fitted
curiously into her surroundings. He had noticed this often before, and
it had occurred to him that she had acquired something of the strength
and unchangeableness of the wilderness. Perhaps she had, though it is
also possible that the quiet steadfastness had been born in her, and
perfected slowly under stress and strain.
"Well," Nasmyth broke out impulsively, "if it had been you to whom we
made that block over, I could have abdicated with confidence and have
left it all to you."
Laura smiled, and Nasmyth became sensible that his face had grown a
deeper red.
"Whatever made you say that?" she asked.
"I don't quite know." Nasmyth's manner was deprecatory. "After all,
it's hardly fair to hold a man accountable for everything he may
chance to say. Anyway, I think I meant it."
Something in his voice suggested that he was of the same mind still,
but Laura glanced at him again.
"Aren't we getting away from the subject?" she queried. "The land you
made over to my father must have cost you something. It is a thing I
rather shrink from mentioning, but have you any expectation of ever
getting the money back?"
Nasmyth did not exactly understand, until a considerable time
afterwards, why he was so deeply stirred by what she had said, and he
was quite mistaken in fancying that it was merely her courage that
touched his heart. In the meanwhile, he was clearly sensible of at
least a great pity for her.
"Well," he told her, "we can look at things openly, and not try to
persuade ourselves that they're something else. I think that is one of
the things that you have taught me. Now, suppose I haven't any
expectation of the kind you mention. How does that count? Didn't you
take me in when you found me lying in the snow? Isn't it practically
certain that I owe my life to you? Admitting all that, is there any
reason why you shouldn't permit me to offer you a trifling favour, not
for your own sake, but your father's?"
He broke off for a moment with a forceful gesture. "I might, no doubt,
have suppressed all this and made some conventional answer, but, you
see, one has to be honest with you. Can you persuade yourself that I
don't know what you have to bear at the ranch, and how your father's
moody discontent must burden you? Isn't it clear that if he takes an
interest in this project and forgets to worry about his little
troubles, it will make life easier for both of you?"
Laura looked at him curiously. "After all, it is my life. Why should
you be so anxious to make it easier?"
The question troubled Nasmyth. It seemed to go beyond the reason he
had offered her a moment or two earlier. Indeed, it flashed upon him
that the fact that he certainly owed a good deal to her was not in
itself quite sufficient to account for the anxiety he felt.
"Well," he answered, "if the grounds I mentioned don't appear to
warrant my doing what I did, I can't at the moment think of anything
more convincing. It's one consolation that you couldn't upset the
little arrangement now, if you wanted to. Your father's going into the
thing headlong."
Somewhat to his astonishment the girl appeared embarrassed as she
glanced away from him. It was a moment or two before she looked around
again.
"Ah!" she exclaimed, "I don't want to upset it. He has not been so
well and contented for several years. It has lifted him out of his
moodiness." Then she leaned a little toward him. "I dare not refuse
this favour from you."
Nasmyth was puzzled by a vague something in her manner.
"I certainly can't see why you should want to; but we'll talk of
something else," he replied. "As you have noticed, I have set to work,
though I expect it will be winter before we make any very great
impression."
Laura glanced up the gloomy canyon, which was filled with the river's
clammy, drifting mist. "Winter," she said, "will be terrible here.
Then you are not going back to the coast or Victoria for some time?"
"Certainly not, if I can help it."
Nasmyth spoke without reflection, but he felt what he said, and it was
a moment before he realized that he might have expressed himself less
decisively. He saw the smile on Laura's lips.
"So you have heard?" he asked. "There was, of course, no reason why
Gordon shouldn't have told you. It was a thing I had meant to do
myself, only, as it happened, I haven't seen you. After that last
speech of mine, I must explain that I feel there is a certain
obligation on me to stay away. Miss Hamilton, as a matter of fact, is
not engaged to me. Nothing can be settled until I carry out this
project successfully."
Laura Waynefleet's face was very quiet, and he sat silent a moment or
two, wondering somewhat uneasily what she was thinking. He was also
slightly surprised at himself, for he realized that, after all, he had
found it considerably easier to stay away than he had expected.
Indeed, during the last few weeks, when every moment of his time had
been occupied, he had thought of nothing except the work before him.
It occurred to him for the first time that it was curious that he had
been able to do so.
"You see," he made haste to explain, "in the meanwhile I must
endeavour to put everything except this scheme out of my mind."
Again he was troubled by Laura Waynefleet's little smile.
"Yes," she said; "in one way, no doubt, that would be the wisest
course. I'm not sure, however, that everybody would have sufficient
strength of will."
Nasmyth said nothing further for a while, but--though he was probably
not aware of this--his face grew thoughtful as he gazed at the river
until his companion spoke again.
"Was it Miss Hamilton's wish that you should make your mark first?"
she inquired.
"No," answered Nasmyth decisively; "I want you to understand that it
was mine. She merely concurred in it."
He changed the subject abruptly. "Tell me about yourself."
"There is so little to tell. One day is so much like another with me,
only I have been rather busier than usual lately. My father has had to
cut down expenses. We have no hired man."
Nasmyth set his lips and half-consciously closed one hand. It seemed
to him an almost intolerable thing that this girl should waste her
youth and sweetness dragging out a life of unremitting toil in the
lone Bush. Still, while her father lived, there was nothing else she
could look forward to, and he could imagine how the long colourless
years would roll away with her, while she lost her freshness and grew
hard and worn with petty cares and labour that needed a stronger arm
than hers. She might grow discontented, he fancied, and perhaps a
trifle bitter, though he could not imagine her becoming querulous.
As yet there was a great patience in her steady eyes. Then it became
evident that she guessed what he was thinking.
"Sometimes I feel the prospect in front of me is not a very attractive
one," she responded in answer to his thoughts. "Still, one can get
over that by not regarding it as a prospect at all. It simplifies the
thing when one takes it day by day."
She smiled at him. "Derrick, you have done wisely. I think you need a
sustaining purpose and a woman to work for."
Nasmyth's face paled. "Yes," he agreed dryly; "it is, perhaps, rather
a significant admission, but I really think I do."
It was a relief to both of them that Wheeler came floundering along
the shingle just then with a box and a coil of wire in his hand.
"I've brought you a little present, Nasmyth," he announced. "Firing by
fuse is going to be uncertain when there's so much spray about, and I
sent down for this electric fixing. We can charge it for you at any
time at the mill. Have you put in any giant-powder yet?"
Nasmyth said they had not fired a heavy charge about the fall, but
that there were several holes ready for filling, and Wheeler's eyes
twinkled.
"I'm quite anxious to try this little toy," he said. "When I was
young, a rancher gave me an old played-out shot-gun, and I was out at
sun-up next morning to shoot something. That's the kind of being a man
is, Miss Waynefleet. Put any kind of bottled-up power in his hands,
and he feels he must get up and make a bang with it. After all, I
guess it's fortunate that he does."
"Are all men like that?" Laura asked with a strange undertone in her
voice.
"Most of them," said Wheeler, with an air of reflection. "Of course,
you do run across one here and there who would put the bottled power
carefully away for fear that, when it went off, it might hurt him or
somebody. The trouble is that when a man of that kind at last makes up
his mind to use it he's quite likely to find that the power has
gradually leaked out of the bottle. Power's a very curious thing. If
you don't use it, it has a way of evaporating."
Gordon had joined them in the meanwhile, and Laura looked at him.
"You agree with that?" she asked.
Gordon's smile was suggestively grim. "Oh, yes," he said. "I guess our
friend now and then says some rather forceful things. Anyway, he has
hit it with this one. For instance, there was that little matter of
the man who was sick at his mill. A surgeon with nerve and hands could
have fixed him up. We"--and he made an expressive gesture--"packed him
out to Victoria."
He laughed harshly as he went on: "Well, that's partly why we're going
to set our mark on this canyon, if it's only to make it clear that
we're not quite played out yet. You'll ram that hole full of your
strongest powder, Derrick."
Nasmyth turned and waved his hand to a man at the foot of the gully.
"Bring me down the magazine!" he ordered. "We're going to split that
rock before supper."
The man, who disappeared, came back again with an iron box, and for
the next few minutes Nasmyth, who scrambled about the rocks above the
fall, taking a coil of thin wire with him, was busy. When he rejoined
his companions, he led them a little further down the canyon until he
pointed to a shelf of rock from which they had a clear view of the
fall. A handful of men had clambered down the gully, and now they
stood in a cluster upon the strip of shingle. Nasmyth indicated them
with a wave of his hand before he held a little wooden box with brass
pegs projecting from it up to Laura.
"It's the first big charge we have fired, and they seem to feel it's
something of an event," he said. "In one way, it's a declaration of
war we're making, and there is a good deal against us. You fit this
plug into the socket when you're ready."
"You mean me to fire the charge?" inquired Laura.
"Yes," answered Nasmyth quietly. "It's fitting that you should be the
one to set us at our work. If it hadn't been for you, I should
certainly not have taken this thing up, and now I want to feel that
you are anxious for our success."
A faint flush of colour crept into Laura Waynefleet's face. For one
thing, Nasmyth's marriage to the dark-eyed girl whom Gordon had
described to her depended on the success of this venture, and that was
a fact which had its effect on her. Still, she felt, the scheme would
have greater results than that, and, turning gravely, she glanced at
the men who had gathered upon the shingle. They looked very little and
feeble as they clustered together, in face of that almost overwhelming
manifestation of the great primeval forces against which they had
pitted themselves in the bottom of the tremendous rift. It seemed
curious that they did not shrink from the roar of the river which rang
about them in sonorous tones, and then, as she looked across the mad
rush of the rapid and the spray-shrouded fall to the stupendous walls
of rock that shut them in, the thing they had undertaken seemed almost
impossible. Wheeler appeared to guess her thoughts, for he smiled as
he pointed to the duck-clad figures.
"Well," he declared, "in one way they're an insignificant crowd. Very
little to look at; and this canyon's big. Still, I guess they're
somehow going through with the thing. It seems to me"--and he nodded
to her with sudden recognition of her part in the project--"it was a
pretty idea of Nasmyth's when he asked you to start them at it."
Laura remembered that the leader of the men had once said that he
belonged to her. She smiled, and raised the hand that held the firing
key.
"Boys," she said, "it's a big thing you have undertaken--not the
getting of the money, but the beating of the river, and the raising of
tall oats and orchards where only the sour swamp-grasses grew." She
turned and for a moment looked into Nasmyth's eyes, as she added
simply: "Good luck to you."
She dropped her hand upon the little box, and in another moment or two
a rent opened in the smooth-worn stretch of rock above the fall. Out
of it there shot a blaze of light that seemed to grow in brilliance
with incredible swiftness, until it spread itself apart in a dazzling
corruscation. Then the roar of the river was drowned in the
detonation, and long clouds of smoke whirled up. Through the smoke
rose showers of stones and masses of leaping rock that smote with a
jarring crash upon the walls of the canyon. After that came a great
splashing that died away suddenly, and there was only the hoarse roar
of the river pouring through the newly opened gap. Laura turned and
handed the box to Nasmyth.
"Now," she said, "I have done my part, and I am only sorry that it is
such a trifling one."
Nasmyth looked at her with a gleam in his eyes.
He answered softly: "You are behind it all. It is due to you that I am
making some attempt to use the little power in my possession, instead
of letting it melt away."