MILLICENT SUMMONS HER GUIDE
Lisle was living luxuriously in Victoria when Nasmyth's answer reached
him by mail. Though it was still winter among the ranges of the North,
the seaboard city had been bathed in clear sunshine and swept by mild
west winds during the past few days, and after the bitter frost and
driving snow Lisle rejoiced in the genial warmth and brightness. There
are few more finely situated cities than Victoria, with its views across
the strait of the white heights of Mount Baker and the Olympians on the
American shore, even in the Pacific Province where the environment of all
is beautiful.
Lisle was sitting in the hotel lounge after dinner when three English
letters were handed to him. The sight of them affected him curiously, and
leaning back in his chair he glanced round the room. Like the rest of the
great building in which he had his quarters, it was sumptuously
furnished, but everything was aggressively new. There was, he felt,
little that suggested fixity of tenure and continuity in the West; the
times changed too rapidly, people came and went, alert, feverishly
bustling, optimistic. In the old land, his friends among the favored few
dwelt with marked English calm in homes that had apparently been built to
stand forever. Yet he was Western, by deliberate choice as well as by
birth; while there was much to be said for the other life which had its
seductive charm, the strenuous, eager one that he led was better.
He opened the letters--one from Bella, announcing her engagement and
inquiring about her brother; a second from Millicent, stating that it was
decided that she would visit British Columbia in the early summer; and a
third from Nasmyth, which, dreading its contents, he kept to the last.
He was, however, slightly reassured when he opened it. Nasmyth's remarks
were brief but clear enough. There was no actual engagement between
Millicent and Clarence, though Mrs. Gladwyne was doing her utmost to
bring one about and Millicent saw the man frequently. In the meanwhile,
he did not think there was anything to be done; Lisle could not
conclusively prove his story, though he could make a disastrous
sensation, which was to be avoided, and it would be wiser to defer the
disclosure until the engagement should actually be announced. Millicent's
attachment to Clarence was not likely to grow very much stronger in a
month or two. In conclusion, he urged Lisle to wait.
On the whole, Lisle agreed with him. Somehow he felt that Millicent would
never marry Gladwyne. Apart from his interference, he thought that her
instincts would, even at the last moment, cause her to recoil from the
match. Furthermore, turning to another aspect of the matter, he could not
clear his dead comrade's memory by telling a tale that was founded merely
on probabilities. There was nothing for it but to await events, though he
was still determined to start for England the moment Nasmyth's letter
made this seem advisable.
Shortly afterward, one of his business associates came in: a young man
with a breezy, restless manner who would not have been trusted in England
with the responsibilities he most efficiently discharged. In the West, a
staid and imposing air carries no great weight with it and eagerness and
even rather unguided activity are seldom accounted drawbacks. There
dulness is dreaded more than rashness.
"I've seen Walthew and Slyde," he announced. "It will be all right about
the money; we'll put the hydraulic plant proposition through at the next
Board meeting. You'll have to go back right away."
"I've only just come down; the frost's not out of me yet," Lisle
grumbled. "Besides, you seem to be going ahead rather fast here in the
city. Walthew's a little too much of a hustler; I'd rather he'd stop to
think. You're almost as bad, Garnet."
The young man laughed.
"I guess you can't help it, it's the English streak in you; but in a way
you're right. Fact is Walthew and I have hustled the rest of the crowd
most off their feet, and we mean to keep them on the jump. Last meeting
old Macalan's eyes were bulging with horror, he could hardly stammer out
his indignation--said our extravagance was sinful. Anyway, you've got to
go."
Lisle made an acquiescent grimace. His face was strongly darkened by
exposure to the frost and the glare of the snow; his hands were scarred,
with several ugly recently-healed wounds on them.
"Well," he complied with some reluctance, "if it's necessary."
"It is," Garnet explained. "Think we're going to have washing plant worth
a good many thousand dollars left lying in the bush or dropped into
rivers? You'll have to arrange for transport and break new trails. You
can do it best when the snow's still on the ground, and that plant must
start working soon after the thaw comes. We've got to justify our
expenditure while the season's open."
"You haven't got your authority to buy the plant yet."
Garnet chuckled.
"It was ordered, provisionally, the day you came down; the makers are
only waiting for a wire from the Board meeting. In fact, I shouldn't be
astonished if some of the work isn't in progress now."
Lisle was quick of thought and prompt in action, but he sometimes felt as
if Garnet took his breath away.
"If you have it all arranged, I may as well agree," he laughed. "I'll
take Crestwick back."
"That reminds me; he said something about taking an interest--asked if I
could get him shares at a moderate premium, though he owned that his
trustees might make trouble about letting him have the money."
"He's not to have them!" Lisle replied emphatically. "What's more, the
trustees won't part with a dollar unless I guarantee the project--I've
been in communication with them. Rest assured that the idea won't get my
endorsement."
"I could never get at the workings of the English mind," Garnet declared.
"Now if my relatives had any money, I'd rush them all in. This is the
safest and best-managed mining proposition on the Pacific Slope. What
kind of morality is it that gathers in the general investor and keeps
your friends out?"
"I don't know; it doesn't concern the point. I'm actuated by what you may
call a prejudice. You can't remove it."
"Well," Garnet responded good-humoredly, "it's a pretty tough country up
yonder and I suppose the lad's of some service. You're saving us a pile
of money in experts' fees and I don't see why you shouldn't put him on
the company's payroll. I mentioned the thing to Walthew; he was
agreeable."
They talked about other matters and presently Crestwick came in, smartly
dressed and looking remarkably vigorous and clear-skinned. There were
many points of difference between his appearance now and when Lisle had
first met him.
"Mr. Garnet has a proposition to make," Lisle informed him; and the
Canadian briefly stated it.
Crestwick did not seem surprised, nor did he display much appreciation.
"To tell the truth, I thought you might have mentioned the matter
before," he remarked. "Still, if you want my services, you'll have to go
up twenty dollars."
"A week?" Garnet asked ironically. "You promise well; if you stay here a
year or two you'll make a useful and enterprising citizen. We could get
an experienced boss packer for what I offered you."
"Down here, yes. When he got to where the claims are, he'd almost
certainly drop you and turn miner, and you couldn't blame him. A man
deserves a hundred dollars a day merely for living up yonder. But it's a
month I was speaking of. If you want me, you'll have to come up."
Garnet laughed.
"I guess I can fix it; but we'll get our value out of you."
"That's a compliment, if you look at it in one way," Crestwick grinned in
reply.
When Garnet had left them, he turned to Lisle.
"Thanks awfully. Of course, it was your idea."
"Garnet suggested the thing; that's more flattering, isn't it?"
Crestwick looked at him, smiling.
"I'm not to be played so easily as I was when I first met you," he said.
"Of course, in a sense, the pay's no great inducement to me; it's the
idea of being offered it. I'm going to advise old Barnes, my trustee; he
was fond of saying that I was fortunate in being left well off because
I'd never earn sixpence as long as I lived, until I stopped the thing by
offering him ten to one I'd go out and make it in a couple of hours by
carrying somebody's bag from the station. Anyhow, this is the first
move."
"Then you're going farther?"
"Quite so," was the cheerful answer. "I'll be a director of this company
before I've finished. You can't stop my buying shares when I come into my
property."
Lisle was conscious of some relief. It was a laudable ambition and
Crestwick promised to be much less of a responsibility than he had once
anticipated.
"I've a letter from Bella," Lisle told him. "She still desires to be
informed if you're getting along satisfactorily. I think I can tell her
there's no cause for uneasiness."
"Bella's a good sort," returned Crestwick. "She'll stop asking such
questions by and by. At least, I think she'll have some grounds for doing
so."
They went out into the city and a week afterward they sailed together for
the North. It was still winter in the wilds, and though that made Lisle's
work a little easier, because rivers and lakes and muskegs were frozen,
he found it sufficiently arduous. He had to survey and break new trails
suitable for the conveyance of heavy machinery, up rugged valleys and
over high divides, and to arrange for transport--canoes here, a
log-bridge there, relays of packers farther on. No man's efforts could be
wasted, for time was precious and wages are high in the wilderness. Then,
when at last the frost relaxed its grip and rock and snow and loosened
soil came thundering down the gullies in huge masses, the work grew more
difficult as he began to build a dam.
Some of the men sent up to him, artizans from the cities, sailor
deserters, dismayed by the toils of the journey and the nature of their
tasks, promptly mutinied on arrival. Others dispatched after them failed
to turn up, and Lisle never discovered what became of them. The camp-site
was a sea of puddled mire with big stones in it; tents and shacks were
almost continuously dripping; and every hollow was filled with a raging
torrent. Nobody had dry clothes, even to sleep in; the work was mostly
carried on knee-deep in water, and at first things got little better as
the days grew warmer. The hill-benches steamed and clammy mists wrapped
the camp at night; the downward rush of melting snow increased, and
several times wild floods swept away portions of the dam and half-built
flume.
In spite of it all, the work went on: foot by foot the wall of pile-bound
rock rose and the long wooden conduit curved away down the valley; and
when at length the hydraulic plant began to arrive, piecemeal, Lisle
found Crestwick eminently useful. He superintended the transport,
patrolling the trails and keeping them repaired. His skill with shovel
and ax was negligible, but he could send a man or two to mend the gap
where the path had slipped away down some gully or to fling a couple of
logs across a swollen creek that could not be forded. He got thinner and
harder from constant toil and from sleeping, often scantily fed,
unsheltered in the rain.
After a while, however, there was a pleasant change: the days grew hot,
the nights were clear and cold, and the short, vivid summer broke
suddenly upon the mountain land. Then it seldom rained, as the high
seaward barrier condensed most of the Pacific moisture, but at times the
clouds which crossed the summits unbroken descended in a copious deluge,
and it was in the midst of such a downpour that Crestwick returned to
camp one evening after a week's absence on the trail. His dripping
garments were ragged, his boots gaped open, and his soft felt hat had
fallen shapeless about his head. He found Lisle in a similar guise
sitting at his evening meal.
"Have they got the pipes and those large castings across the big ravine?"
Lisle asked.
"Yes, that has been done," Crestwick answered. "By the way, one of the
packers told me that the man who's coming up to run the plant--Carsley,
isn't it?--has arrived. There were some fittings or something wrong and
he stopped behind to investigate, but the packer seemed to think he'd get
through soon after I did. That turns us loose, doesn't it?"
"I dare say I could hand things over to him in about a week," replied
Lisle. "Then we'll clear out. I suppose you won't be sorry?"
Crestwick stretched out his feet to display his broken boots and rent
trousers.
"Well," he said, "since I left here, I've spent a good deal of my time in
an icy creek, and it's nearly a week since I had any sleep worth speaking
of. We had to make a bridge for the freighters to bring those castings
over and we'd no end of trouble to get the stringers fixed--the stream
was strong and we had to build a pier in it. Not long ago, I'd have
considered anybody who did this kind of thing without compulsion mad, but
in some mysterious way it grows on you. I don't pretend to explain it,
but it won't be with unmixed delight that I'll go back to the city."
He paused and fumbled in his pocket.
"I was forgetting your mail. I'm afraid it's rather pulpy, but I couldn't
help that. By the way, I'd a letter from Bella, written at the Frontenac,
Quebec. She's brought Carew out; they're going to Glacier very soon, and
she still intends to look me up."
Lisle opened the letters handed him and managed to read them, though
their condition fully bore out Crestwick's description. Two or three were
on business matters, but there was one from Millicent, and he started at
the first few lines.
"Miss Gladwyne and Miss Hume have sailed--they must have landed a week
ago," he announced. "She wants to go over the ground her brother
traversed--you have heard of that project. Nasmyth sailed a week earlier
to arrange matters at this end; but I don't know how Miss Hume will get
along."
"It's merely a question of transport," asserted Crestwick with the air of
an authority on the subject. "So long as you provide sufficient packers,
with relays from supply bases, you can travel in comparative comfort,
though it's expensive." Then an idea occurred to him. "They're pretty
sure to run across Bella; Miss Gladwyne knows Carew."
Lisle sat silent a few minutes, conscious of a strong satisfaction.
Millicent was in Canada, and there was no mention of Gladwyne! Then it
struck him as curious that Bella should have come over at the same time.
As Millicent knew Carew, it was very probable that Bella would insist on
joining the expedition, which Millicent might agree to, if, as seemed
likely, her rather elderly companion had to be left behind. Nasmyth had,
no doubt, already reached British Columbia; and it looked as if those
indirectly brought together by George Gladwyne's tragic death would be
reunited at the scene of it. This was, Lisle reflected, merely the result
of a natural sequence of events, but there was for all that something
strangely significant about it.
"Well," he said, "it has been arranged that I'm to act as guide, and Miss
Gladwyne says they'll wait for me. As that's the case, I don't see why I
shouldn't start as soon as Carsley gets through. I shouldn't wonder if he
brings a letter from Nasmyth. It will be a tough journey, and I'll have
to break a new trail. Are you coming, or will you head for Vancouver to
join Bella?"
"We'll stick together," replied the lad. "Bella's to stay over here some
months, and if she decides to join Miss Gladwyne she'll leave Glacier
long before I could reach the place."
Lisle rose and shook out his pipe.
"Then," he responded, "I'll take a look around, and you had better start
off the first thing to-morrow and hurry those castings on. There's a good
deal to be done if we're to get away when Carsley turns up."