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[Illustration: "ALL DAY LONG THEY PADDLED UP THE GLEAMING LAKE"
--Page 290]
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THE LONG PORTAGE
By
HAROLD BINDLOSS
Author of
A Prairie Courtship,
Winston of the Prairie, etc.
With a Frontispiece in colors by
ARTHUR HUTCHINS
New York
GROSSET & DUNLAP
Publishers
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Copyright, 1912, by
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign
languages, including the Scandinavian
Published in England under the title, "The Pioneer"
September, 1912
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Gladwyne Expedition 1
II. The Divide 12
III. The Cache 23
IV. A Painful Decision 35
V. Millicent Gladwyne 47
VI. Nasmyth Tells his Story 58
VII. On the Moors 68
VIII. Gladwyne Receives a Shock 81
IX. Lisle Gathers Information 92
X. Bella's Champion 102
XI. Crestwick Gives Trouble 118
XII. Mrs. Gladwyne's Appeal 129
XIII. A Futile Protest 142
XIV. Lisle Comes to the Rescue 153
XV. Bella's Defeat 165
XVI. Gladwyne Surrenders 177
XVII. A Bad Fall 189
XVIII. A Prudent Decision 200
XIX. Gladwyne Gains a Point 211
XX. Mrs. Gladwyne's Temptation 223
XXI. The Last Afternoon 233
XXII. Startling News 243
XXIII. A Forced March 254
XXIV. Millicent Summons Her Guide 265
XXV. A Reliable Man 276
XXVI. Lisle Turns Autocrat 287
XXVII. An Unpleasant Surprise 298
XXVIII. Clarence Reaches Camp 309
XXIX. A Bold Scheme 321
XXX. The End of the Pursuit 332
XXXI. Lisle Goes To England 343
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THE LONG PORTAGE
CHAPTER I
THE GLADWYNE EXPEDITION
Vernon Lisle was fishing with a determination that did not spring
altogether from love of the sport. The water of the British Columbian
river in which he stood knee-deep was icy cold; his rubber boots were
badly ripped and leaky, and he was wet with the drizzle that drove down
the lonely valley. It was difficult to reach the slack behind a boulder
some distance outshore, and the arm he strained at every cast ached from
hours of assiduous labor; but there was another ache in his left side
which was the result of insufficient food, and though the fish were shy
he persevered.
A few hundred yards away the stream came roaring down a long declivity in
a mad white rapid and then shot across the glassy green surface of the
pool below in a raised-up wedge of foam. Wet boulders and outcropping
fangs of rock hemmed in the water, and among them lay stranded logs and
stream-packed masses of whitened branches. Farther back, ragged cypresses
and cedars, half obscured by the drifting haze of spray, climbed the
sides of the gorge, and beyond rose the dim, rounded summits of treeless
hills. There were streaks of snow on some of them, for winter threatened
to close in unusually early.
With a lowering sky overhead and the daylight beginning to fade, it was a
desolate picture; one into which the lonely figure of the man in tattered
deerskin jacket and shapeless hat somehow fitted. His attire matched the
gray-white coloring of rock and boulder; his spare form and agile
movements, together with the intentness of his bronzed face and the
steadiness of his eyes, hinted at the quickness of observation, the
stubborn endurance, and the tireless activity, by which alone life can be
maintained in the savage North. He had the alertness of the wild
creatures of the waste; and it was needed.
All round him stretched a forbidding wilderness, part of the great
desolation which runs north from the warmer and more hospitable
thick-forest belt of British Columbia. Indeed, this wilderness, broken by
the more level spaces between the Rockies and Lake Winnipeg, runs right
across Canada from Labrador to the Pacific on the northern edge of the
heavy-timber line. It contains little human life--a few Hudson Bay
fur-traders and the half-breed trappers who deal with them--and it is
frozen for eight months in the year. There are only two practicable means
of traversing it--with dog sledges on the snow, or by canoe on the lakes
and rivers in the brief summer.
The water routes are difficult in British Columbia, but Lisle and his two
companions had chosen to go by canoe, partly because the question of food
is vitally important to men cut off from all source of supply except
game, and even that is scarce in places. To transport upon one's back any
weight of provisions besides tents, blankets, and other necessaries,
through a rugged country is an almost impossible task. The men,
accordingly, after relaying part of their stores, had secured an Indian
craft and had paddled and poled her laboriously across lakes and up
rivers. Now when their provisions were running short, they were
confronted with a difficult portage round a thundering rapid.
At length Lisle, securing another trout, waded ashore and glanced with a
rueful smile at the dozen this one made. They scarcely averaged half a
pound, and he had spent most of a day that could badly be spared in
catching them. Plodding back along the shingle with his load, he reached
a little level strip beneath a scarp of rock, where a fire blazed among
the boulders. A tent stood beneath two or three small, wind-stunted
spruces, and a ragged man in long river-boots lay resting on one elbow
near the blaze, regardless of the drizzle. He was a few years over
thirty, Lisle's age, and he differed from Lisle in that something in his
appearance suggested that he was not at home in the wilds. As a matter of
fact, Nasmyth was an adventurous English sportsman--which describes him
fairly in person and character.
"Not many," he commented, glancing at the trout Lisle laid down. "They'll
hardly carry us over to-morrow, and I only got a couple from the canoe
with the troll. We've gained nothing by stopping here, and time's
precious."
"A sure thing," Lisle agreed, beginning to clean the trout. "We'll tackle
the portage as soon as it's light to-morrow. Where's Jake?"
"Gone off to look for a deer," was the answer. "Said he wouldn't come
back without one if he camped on the range all night."
Lisle made no comment, but went on dexterously with his work, while
Nasmyth watched him with half-amused admiration.
"You're handy at that and at everything else you do," Nasmyth remarked at
length. "In fact, you easily beat Jake, though he's a professional packer
and, so to speak, to the manner born."
"So am I," said Lisle.
It was growing dark, but the coppery glow of the fire fell upon his face,
emphasizing the strong coloring of his weather-darkened skin. On the
whole, it was a prepossessing face, clearly cut--indeed, it was a trifle
thin--with a hint of quiet determination in the clear gray eyes and firm
mouth. He looked capable of resolute action and, when it was needed, of
Spartan self-denial. There was no suggestion of anything sensual, or even
of much regard for bodily comfort.
"If you don't mind my being a little personal, I'd better own that I
suspected the fact you mention, and it puzzled me," Nasmyth replied. "You
see, when I first met you at the Empress Hotel, in Victoria, you were
dressed and talked like the usual prosperous business man. Trafford, who
introduced us, said that you had a good deal of money in some of the
Yukon mines."
"Trafford was quite right. The point is that I took a part in locating
two of the claims. Before that I followed a good many rough occupations,
mostly in the bush. My prosperity's recent."
Nasmyth still looked curious, and Lisle smiled.
"I can guess your thoughts--I don't speak altogether like a bushman?
Well, my father was an Englishman, and my mother a lady of education from
Montreal; that was why, at the cost of some self-denial on their part, I
was sent East to school."
It was an incomplete explanation. He had inherited the Englishman's
reticence, which forbade him to point out that his father sprang from an
old family of standing and had, for some reason which his son had never
learned, quarreled bitterly with his English relatives. Coming to Canada,
he had married and taken up the bush life on a small and unremunerative
ranch, where he had died and left his widow and his son badly provided
for.
"Thank you," responded Nasmyth; and Lisle supposed it was in recognition
of the fact that he would hardly have furnished even those few
particulars to one whom he regarded as a stranger. "To reciprocate, a few
words will make clear all there is to know about me. English public
school, Oxford afterward--didn't take a degree. Spend most of my time in
the country, though I make a few sporting trips abroad when I can afford
it and have nothing better to do. That partly explains this journey. But
I haven't tried to force your confidence, nor offered you mine,
altogether casually."
"So I supposed," returned Lisle. "It strikes me that since we got near
the Gladwyne expedition's line of march we have both felt that some
explanation is needed. To go back a little, when I met you in Victoria
and you offered to join me in the trip, I agreed partly because I wanted
an intelligent companion, but I had another reason. At first I supposed
you wished to go because a journey through a rough and little-known
country seems to appeal to one kind of Englishman, but I changed my mind
when you showed your anxiety to get upon the Gladwyne party's trail."
"You were right. I knew the Gladwynes in England; the one who died was an
old and valued friend of mine. I could give you the history of their
march, though I hardly think that's needful. You seem remarkably well
acquainted with it."
Lisle's face hardened. With the exception of one man, he knew more than
anybody else about the fatal journey a party of four had made a year
earlier through the region he and Nasmyth were approaching.
"I am," he said. "There's a cause for it; but I'll ask you to tell me
what you know."
He threw more branches on the fire and a crackling blaze sprang aloft,
forcing up the ragged spruce boughs out of the surrounding gloom.
"This is the survivor's narrative. I heard it from his own lips more than
once," began Nasmyth. "I dare say most of it's a kind of story that's not
unusual in the North."
"It's one that has been repeated with local variations over and over
again. But go on."
"There were two Gladwynes--cousins. George, the elder of the two, was a man
of means and position; Clarence, the younger, had practically nothing--two
or three hundred pounds a year. They were both sportsmen--George was a bit
of a naturalist--and they made the expedition with the idea of studying the
scarcer game. Well, their provisions were insufficient; an Indian packer
deserted them; they were delayed here and there; and when they reached the
river that we are making for they were badly worn out and winter was
closing in. Knowing it was dangerous to go any farther, they started
down-stream to strike their outgoing trail, but not long afterward they
wrecked their canoe in a rapid and lost everything except a few pounds of
provisions. To make things worse, George had fallen from a slippery rock at
the last portage and badly hurt his leg. After making a few leagues with
difficulty, he found he could go no farther, and they held a council. They
were already suffering from want of food, but their guide estimated that by
a forced march overland they might reach a place where some skin-hunters
were supposed to be camped. There was a Hudson Bay post farther away. On
coming up they had cached some provisions in two places on opposite sides
of the river--they kept crossing to pole through the easiest slack. George
accordingly insisted that the others go on; each was to follow a different
bank and the first to find the provisions was to try to communicate with
the other and hurry back with food. If they were unable to locate the
caches they were to leave the river and push on in search of help. They
agreed; but deep snow had fallen and Clarence Gladwyne failed to find the
cache. He reached the hunters' camp famishing, and they went back with him.
He found his cousin dead."
"And the guide?"
"It's rather an ugly story. You must have heard it."
"I haven't heard the one Gladwyne told in England."
"The guide reached the Hudson Bay post--a longer journey than the one
Gladwyne made--in the last stage of exhaustion. He had taken very little
food with him--Gladwyne knew exactly how much--and the Hudson Bay agent
decided that it was impossible he could have covered the distance on the
minute quantity. There was only one inference."
"That he had found the cache?" Lisle's face grew very stern.
Nasmyth nodded.
"In a way, there was some slight excuse for him. Think of it--a worn-out,
famishing man, without blankets or means of making a fire, who had
struggled over icy rocks and through leagues of snow, finding a few cans
of provisions and a little moldy flour! Even when he had satisfied his
hunger, he was, no doubt, unequal to making the return journey to rejoin
a man who was probably already dead."
"If that man had found a scrap of food, he would have tried!"
Lisle's voice had a curious ring in it, and Nasmyth looked at him hard.
"You seem convinced."
"I am; I knew him well."
Nasmyth was startled and he showed it, but afterward he looked
thoughtful.
"I believe I understand," he said.
For a minute or two there was silence which was broken only by the
snapping of the branches on the fire and the hollow roar of the rapid.
The latter had a curious, irritating effect on Nasmyth, who hitherto had
scarcely noticed the insistent pulsatory clamor. At length Lisle spoke
again, laying a strong restraint upon himself.
"Our mutual friend called me Lisle at the Empress Hotel. I don't think he
mentioned my first name, Vernon; and as that was the name of Gladwyne's
guide I kept it in the background. I was anxious to take you with me; I
wanted an Englishman of some standing in the old country whose word would
be believed. What was more, I wanted an honest man who would form an
unbiased opinion. I didn't know then that you were a friend of
Gladwyne's."
Nasmyth made a slight gesture which suggested the acknowledgment of a
compliment.
"I'll try to be just--it's sometimes hard." His voice had a throb of pain
in it as he went on: "I was the friend of George Gladwyne--the one who
perished. I had a strong regard for him."
Something in his expression hinted that this regard had not been shared
by the Gladwyne who survived.
"When my father first came out to British Columbia, new to the bush
ways," Lisle resumed, "a neighbor, Vernon, was of great help to him--lent
him teams, taught him how to chop, and what cattle to raise. He died
before my father, and I was named for him; but he left a son, older than
I, who grew up like him--I believe he was the finest chopper and trailer
I have ever come across. He died, as you have heard, from exposure and
exhaustion, a few days after he reached the Hudson Bay post--before he
could clear himself."
Lisle broke off for a moment and seemed to have some difficulty in
continuing.
"When my father died, Vernon took charge of the ranch, at my mother's
request--I was rather young and she meant to launch me in some
profession. Vernon had no ambition--he loved the bush--and he tried to
give me enough to finish my education while he ran both ranches with a
hired man. I think my mother never suspected that he handed her over more
than she was entitled to, but I found it out and I've been glad ever
since that I firmly prevented his continuing the sacrifice. For all that,
I owe him in many ways more than I could ever have repaid." He clenched
one hand tight as he concluded: "I can at least clear his memory."
Nasmyth nodded in sympathy.
"You called me an honest man; you have my word--I'll see the right done."
Quietly as it was spoken, Lisle recognized that it was no light thing his
companion promised him. In the Dominion, caste stands by caste, and
Lisle, having seen and studied other Englishmen of his friend's
description, knew that the feeling was stronger in the older country. To
expose a man of one's own circle to the contempt and condemnation of
outsiders is, in any walk of life, a strangely repugnant thing.
"Well," he said, "to-morrow we'll pull out and portage across the divide
to strike the Gladwynes' trail. And now I'll fry the trout and we'll have
supper."
They let the subject drop by tacit agreement during the meal, and soon
after it was over a shout from the crest of the ridge above, followed by
a smashing of underbrush, announced that their packer was making for the
camp. Lisle answered, and a cry came down:
"Got a deer, and there are duck on the lake ahead! We'll try for some as
we go up!"
Nasmyth's smile betokened deep satisfaction.
"That's a weight off my mind," he declared. "I'll smoke one pipe, and
then I think I'll go to sleep. We'll make a start with the first loads as
soon as it's light enough."