REALITIES
Though there was bitter frost in the ranges, it had but lightly
touched the sheltered forests that shut in Bonavista. The snow seldom
lay long there, and only a few wisps of it gleamed beneath the
northern edge of the pines. Mrs. Acton, as usual, had gathered a
number of guests about her, and Violet Hamilton sat talking with one
of them in the great drawing-room one evening. The room was
brilliantly lighted, and the soft radiance gleamed upon the polished
parquetry floor, on which rugs of costly skins were scattered. A fire
of snapping pine-logs blazed in the big English hearth, and a faint
aromatic fragrance crept into the room.
Miss Hamilton leaned back in a softly padded lounge that was obviously
only made for two, and a pleasant-faced, brown-eyed young Englishman,
who had no particular business in that country, but had gone there
merely for amusement, sat at the other end of it, regarding her with a
smile.
"After all," he said reflectively, "I really don't think I'm very
sorry the snow drove us down from our shooting camp in the ranges."
Violet laughed. She had met the man before he went into the mountains,
and he had been at Bonavista for a week or two now.
"It was too cold for you up there?" she queried.
"It was," answered the man, "at least, it was certainly too cold for
Jardine, who came out with me. He got one of his feet nipped sitting
out one night with the rifle on a high ledge in the snow, and when I
left him in Vancouver the doctor told him it would be a month before
he could wear a boot again."
He laughed. "I have a shrewd suspicion that one has to get hardened to
that kind of thing, and, surely, this is considerably nicer."
"This," repeated Violet, who fancied she understood what he meant, "is
very much the same thing as you are accustomed to in London, except
that the houses are, no doubt, more luxuriously furnished, and the
company is more brilliant and entertaining."
"You would not expect me to make any admission of that kind?" and the
man looked at her reproachfully. "In any case, it wouldn't be
warranted."
"Then," said Violet, "I must have some very erroneous notions of your
English mansions."
The man smiled. "Ah!" he said, "I was referring to the company."
He had expressed himself in a similar fashion once or twice before,
but Violet did not resent it. She admitted that she rather liked him,
and she did not know that, although he had been a week or two at
Bonavista, he had only intended to stay there a few days. It had
naturally occurred to Mrs. Acton that there might be a certain
significance in this, but she was misled by the open manner in which
another young woman had annexed him.
There were other guests in the room, and among them was a little
bald-headed man, whom Violet had heard had philanthropic tendencies,
and was connected with some emigration scheme. This man was talking to
Acton. He spoke in a didactic manner, tapping one hand with his
gold-rimmed spectacles, and appeared quite content that the rest
should hear him.
"There is no doubt that this country offers us a great field," he
said. "In fact, I have already made arrangements for settling a number
of deserving families on the land. What I am particularly pleased
with is the manner in which the man who makes his home here is brought
into close contact with Nature. The effect of this cannot fail to be
what one might term recuperative. There is a vitality to be drawn from
the soil, and I have of late been urging the manifold advantages of
the simple life upon those who are interesting themselves in these
subjects with me."
Violet glanced at her companion, and saw the amusement in his eyes.
"Do you all talk like that in England?" she inquired.
The man raised his hand reproachfully. "I'm afraid some of us talk a
good deal of rubbish now and then. Still, as a matter of fact, we
don't round up our sentences in that precise fashion, as he does. Just
now we're rather fragmentary. Of course, he's right to some extent.
I'm fond of the simple life--that is, for a month or so, when I know
that a two days' ride will land me in a civilized hotel. The trouble
is that most of the folks who recommend it would certainly go all to
bits in a few weeks after they tried it personally. Can you fancy our
friend yonder chopping tremendous trees, or walking up to his knees in
snow twelve hours with a flour-bag on his back?"
Violet certainly could not. The man was full-fleshed, plethoric, and
heavy of foot, and he spoke with a throaty gasp.
"The tilling of the soil," he went on, apparently addressing anybody
who cared to listen, "is man's natural task, and I think Nature's
beneficent influences are felt to their fullest extent in the primeval
stillness of these wonderful Western woods."
Violet's companion looked up at her with a smile.
"The primeval stillness sounds rather nice, only it isn't still except
you go up into the snow upon the peaks," he said. "In most of the
other places my trail led through you can hear the rivers, and they
make noise enough for anything. Now, there's a man yonder I haven't
seen before, who, I fancy, could tell us something about it if he
liked. His face suggests that he knows. I mean the one talking to Mrs.
Acton."
Violet followed his glance, and saw a man standing beside Mrs. Acton
near the great English hearth; but his face was turned away from her,
and it was a moment or two before he looked round. Then she started,
and the blood crept into her cheeks as she met Nasmyth's gaze.
He had changed since she last saw him--changed, she felt, in an almost
disconcerting fashion. He wore plain city clothes, and they hung about
him with a suggestive slackness. His face was darkened and roughened
by exposure to the winter winds; it had grown sharp and stern, and
there was a disfiguring red scar down one side of it. His eyes were
keen and intent, and there was a look in them that she did not
remember having noticed before, while he seemed to have lost his
careless gracefulness of manner. Even his step seemed different as he
moved towards her. It was, though neither exactly understood why, a
difficult moment for both of them when he stopped close by her side,
and it was made no easier by the fact that they were not alone. Violet
turned to her companion, who rose.
"Mr. Carshalton, from the Old Country," she said. "This is Mr.
Nasmyth."
Carshalton nodded. "Glad to meet you. Won't you sit down?" he said.
"As it happens, I had just pointed you out to Miss Hamilton. We were
talking about the wilderness--or, to be more precise, the great
primeval stillness. I ventured to suggest that you could tell us
something about it."
Nasmyth smiled significantly. "Well," he replied, "I have certainly
spent a few months in the wilderness. That is one of the results."
He meant to indicate the hand that hung by his side in a thick, soft
glove by the gesture he made, but it was the other one that Violet and
Carshalton glanced at. It was scarred and battered, and had opened in
raw red cracks under the frost.
"Ah!" said Carshalton, "I think I was quite warranted in assuring Miss
Hamilton that it was a good deal nicer here. You see, I was up in the
ranges for a week or two. I had to come down with my comrade, who sat
out one night in the snow. The primeval stillness didn't agree with
him."
He met Violet's eyes, and next moment glanced across the room.
"I don't think I've spoken to Mr. Acton this evening," he said. "We'll
have a talk about the wilderness by-and-by, Mr. Nasmyth."
He strolled away, and Nasmyth sat down by Violet's side.
"I fancied the man meant to stay," he remarked.
Violet leaned back in the lounge, and looked at him a moment or two
silently. Her thoughts were confused, and she was uneasy. In the first
place, she almost wished it had not been so easy to make Carshalton
understand that she wished him to go away; for the fact that she had
been able to do so by merely looking at him suggested that there was
at least a certain confidence between them, and she was unwilling to
admit that such was the case. That, however, was only a minor point.
While Carshalton had spoken of the simple life, and admitted that a
few weeks of it was quite enough for him, she had thought with a
certain tenderness of the man who had spent months of strenuous toil
in the misty depths of the canyon. She was glad of this, and felt a
slight compunction over the fact that she had seldom thought of him
of late. Still, when she saw him bearing the marks of those months of
effort on his body and in his worn face, she was sensible that she
shrank from him, as she had once done from the dreary, dripping
wilderness. This was disconcerting, but she could not drive out the
feeling. His worn face vaguely troubled her, and she was sorry for
him, but she would not have liked to touch his scarred and roughened
hands. She glanced at the injured hand inquiringly.
"It is almost well again. It was crushed beneath a mass of timber," he
told her briefly.
Conscious that the meeting so far left a good deal to be desired,
Violet sat still a moment. It certainly had not afforded her the
pleasure she might reasonably have expected, and she subconsciously
resented the fact. There was also, as she noticed, a suggestion of
uneasiness in the man's scarred face.
"I have been in Victoria a few days," he explained. "There was a
machine I had to buy, and one or two other matters had to be attended
to. Then I got a letter forwarded from Waynefleet's ranch, from which
it appeared that Mr. Acton wished to see me."
A faint sparkle crept into Violet Hamilton's eyes. "It is evident,"
she observed, "that we both find it a little difficult to say the
right thing."
"I'm afraid I am now and then a little remiss in that respect. Still,
how have I offended?"
Violet contrived to smile. "I'm not sure it was particularly judicious
of you to explain so fully what brought you here. Couldn't you have
left me to suggest another reason that would have been a little more
satisfactory?"
Nasmyth laughed. "My dear, you know I have been longing to see you."
"Ah!" exclaimed Violet, "I am not altogether sure. Indeed, I could
almost fancy that you have been thinking of nothing beyond what you
are doing in that horrible canyon."
Nasmyth raised his hand in protest, though Violet was quick to notice
the uneasiness in his face; but now the worn look in it roused her
pity.
"Well," she said, "you can show how anxious you were by staying here
at least a week. I want you to stay. Besides, you must for another
reason--you are looking almost ill."
There was, for the first time, a softness in her voice that stirred
the man, but the uneasiness that had troubled him did not disappear.
Indeed, it seemed to grow stronger as he glanced about the room, which
was furnished artistically, and flooded with light. Mrs. Acton's
guests were of the station to which he had belonged, and he would once
have found the sound of their voices and their light laughter
pleasant. These, however, were things that no longer appealed to him,
and he was conscious of a feverish impatience to get back to his work
again in the misty canyon.
"I'm afraid," he replied gravely, "it will be out of the question for
me to stay just now. There is so much to do at the canyon; and I think
you know why I am so anxious to carry the work through."
The girl looked at him in a curious fashion, and though she was
probably not aware of it, there was doubt in her eyes. For the moment
she was troubled with a sense of comprehension, and she could not be
quite sure whether it was only on her account that he was so
determined to carry out the project.
"Well," she told him, "I know that Mr. Acton and your uncle are
anxious to see you. In fact, I believe they have some suggestions to
put before you, and though I do not know exactly what it is, I imagine
that you need not go back to the Bush if you will do what they wish."
She broke off and glanced at him wistfully. "Derrick, you won't decide
rashly. I don't want you to stay away from me."
Nasmyth smiled reassuringly; but one of Violet's companions
approached them just then, and when she leaned upon the back of the
lounge and spoke to the girl, Nasmyth rose. He crossed the room, and a
few minutes later, in the big cedar hall, came upon a man connected
with the Crown land agency. There was an open fire in the hall, and
the man, who sat down by it, offered Nasmyth a cigar.
"Mrs. Acton will excuse us for a few minutes," the Stranger remarked.
"You are evidently fresh from the Bush. How are you getting on
there?"
Nasmyth told him, and the man looked thoughtful.
"You don't hold all the valley," the man said. "I wonder if you
know that folks are taking an interest in the land that's still
unrecorded?"
"I don't," said Nasmyth. "It's mostly heavy timber that would cost a
deal to clear. Any way, as we couldn't take up any more than we hold,
it doesn't appear to affect me at all."
"Well," returned his companion, "that's a point I'm not quite sure
about. You only hold a provisional charter to lower the river. There's
only one unworked holding near the valley, and, as you couldn't injure
anybody's property, we permitted you to go ahead. Still, if any
parties supplied us with a sufficient reason for withdrawing that
permission, we might have to listen to them." He broke off for a
moment and waved his hand. "Of course, I'm not speaking officially.
I'm merely giving you a hint that may be useful. Some persons might
take up that land with the object of putting the screw on you. You
see, it would be possible to get over any difficulty they might raise
by buying them out."
Nasmyth's lips closed firmly. He was quite aware that, in view of the
state of his finances, the course suggested was not one that he could
adopt.
"What kind of people are they?" he inquired.
His companion laughed in an ominous fashion. "Small ranchers, though
it's just possible that there may be some of the big men connected
with the land business behind them. The big promoters occasionally
prefer to act through a dummy. Our object is, of course, to get men
who will cultivate the land, and keep it out of the hands of anyone
who merely wants to hold it. Now, while I'm far from sure my superiors
would be pleased to hear I'd said so much to you, there's one piece of
advice I can offer." He leaned forward and looked at Nasmyth
confidentially. "Get that work through as soon as you can. Once you
lower the level of the river, nobody could compel you to put it back
again. Any man who wanted land would have to buy it as it was."
"A man who wished to start a ranch would naturally prefer it with the
water run out of it."
"Precisely!" argued Nasmyth's informant. "That is why you got the
charter. Still, I wasn't contemplating the man who merely wished to
ranch."
His smile suggested that he intended to say no more upon that subject,
and when he turned and glanced through the doorway into the lighted
room, Nasmyth saw that he was looking at Violet Hamilton. Nasmyth also
noticed that Carshalton was once more seated beside the girl.
"I rather like that Englishman," declared the stranger. "Acton
apparently gets on with him, too. He seems to have been here some
time. In fact, while it's nobody else's business, I've been inclined
to wonder what Miss Hamilton thinks of him."
Nasmyth made no reply, but the observation slightly troubled him. A
little later Acton crossed the hall.
"If you can give us a few minutes, your uncle and I have something to
put before you," he said. "I'll go along with you to my room."