His brain, it was evident, was slightly affected by alcohol then, but

there was no mistaking the genuineness of his bitterness. It was too

deep to be maudlin or tinged with self-commiseration now. The little

hopeless gesture of resignation he made was also very eloquent, and

while the rain splashed upon the roof Brooke sat silent regarding him

curiously. The dim light and the flickering radiance from the fire were

still on one side of his face, forcing it up with all its gauntness of

outline, but the weakness had gone out of it, and for once it was strong

and almost stern. Then a little sardonic smile crept into it.

"A fortune under our feet--and nobody will have it! It is one of Fate's

grim jests," he said. "I spent a month making a theory, and every day of

six years--that is when I was capable of thinking--has shown me

something to prove that theory right. Now Saxton wants to swindle

another man into buying the mine for--you can call it a song."

He poured out another glass with a shaking hand, and then turned

abruptly to his companion. "Put on your rubber coat and come with me,"

he said.

Brooke would much rather have retired to sleep, but the man's

earnestness had its effect on him, and he rose and went out into the

rain with him. Allonby came near falling down the shaft when they stood

at its head, but Brooke got him into the ore hoist and sent him down,

after which he descended the running chain he had locked fast hand over

hand. The level, as he had been told, was close to the surface, and

while Allonby walked unsteadily in front of him with a blinking candle

in his hat, they followed it into the face of the hill. Twice his

companion stumbled over a piece of the timbering, and the light went

out, while Brooke wondered uneasily if there was another sinking

anywhere ahead as he lighted it again. He knew a little about mining,

since he had on one or two occasions earned a few dollars assisting in

the driving of an adit.

Finally, Allonby stopped and leaned against the dripping rock, as he

took off his hat and held the candle high above his head. Then he turned

and pointed down the gallery the way they had come.

"Look at it!" he said, thickly. "Until we struck the ore where you see

the extra timbering, I counted the dollars every yard of it cost me as I

would drops of my life's blood. I worked while the men slept, and lived

like a Chinaman. There was a fortune within my grasp if those dollars

would hold out until I reached it--and fortune meant England, and I once

more the man I had been. Then--we came to that."

He swung round and pointed with a wide, dramatic gesture which Brooke

fancied he would not have used in his prosperous days, to a bare face of

rock. It was of different nature to the sides of the tunnel, and had

evidently come down from above. Brooke understood. The strata his

companion had been working in had suddenly broken off and gone down,

only he knew where. He sat down on a big fallen fragment, and there was

silence for a space, emphasized by the drip of water in the blackness of

the mine. Brooke was very drowsy, but the scene, with its loneliness and

the haggard face of his companion showing pale and drawn in the

candle-light, had a curious effect on him, and in the meanwhile

compelled him to wakefulness.

"You know where that broken strata has dipped to?" he said, at last.

Allonby, who laughed in a strained fashion, sat down abruptly, and

thrust a bundle of papers upon his companion. "Almost to a fathom. If

you know anything of geology, look at these."

Brooke, who unrolled the papers, knew enough to recognize that, even if

his companion had illusions, they were the work of a clever man. There

was skill and what appeared to be a high regard for minute accuracy in

every line of the plans, while he fancied the attached calculations

would have aroused a mathematician's appreciation. He spent several

minutes poring over them with growing wonder, while Allonby held the

candle, and then looked up at him.

"They would, I think, almost satisfy any man, but there is a weak

point," he said.

Allonby smiled in a curious fashion. "The one the rest split on? I see

you understand."

"You deduce where the ore ought to be--by analogy. That kind of

reasoning is, I fancy, not greatly favored in this country by practical

men. They prefer the fact that it is there established by the drill."

Allonby made a little gesture of impatience. "They have driven shaft

and adit for half a lifetime, most of them, and they do not know yet

that one law of Nature--the sequence of cause and effect--is immutable.

I have shown them the causes--but it would cost five thousand dollars to

demonstrate the effect. Well, as no one will ever spend them, we will go

back."

He had come out unsteadily, but he went back more so still, as though a

sustaining purpose had been taken from him, and, as he fell down now and

then, Brooke had some difficulty in conveying him to the foot of the

shaft. When he had bestowed him in the ore hoist, and was about to

ascend by the chain, Allonby laughed.

"You needn't be particularly careful. I shall come down here

head-foremost one of these nights, and nobody will be any the worse

off," he said. "I lost my last chance when that vein worked out."

Then Brooke went up into the darkness, and with some difficulty hove his

companion to the surface. They went back to the shanty together, and as

Allonby incontinently fell asleep in his chair, Brooke retired to the

bunk set apart for him. Still, tired as he was, it was some little time

before he slept, for what he had seen had made its impression. The

shanty was very still, save for the snapping of the fire, and the

broken-down outcast, who held the key of a fortune the men of that

province were too shrewd to believe in, slept uneasily, with head hung

forward, in his chair. Brooke could see him dimly by the dying light of

the fire, and felt very far from sure that it was a delusion he labored

under.

When he awakened next morning Allonby was already about, and looked at

him curiously when he endeavored to reopen the subject.

"It is not considerate to refer next morning to anything a man with my

shortcomings may have said the night before," he said. "I think you

should recognize that fact."

"I'm sorry," said Brooke. "Still, it occurred to me that you believed

very firmly in the truth of it."

Allonby smiled drily. "Well," he said, "I do. What is that to you?"

"Nothing," said Brooke. "I shall, as I think I told you, be worth about

thirty dollars when the month is out. What is the name of the man Saxton

wishes to sell the mine to?"

"Devine," said Allonby, and went out to fling a vitriolic reproof at a

miner who was doing something he did not approve of about the windlass,

while Brooke, who saw no more of him, departed when he had made his

breakfast.

VIII.

A BOLD VENTURE.

It was a hot morning shortly after Brooke's return to the Elktail mine,

and Saxton sat in his galvanized shanty with his feet on a chair and a

cigar in his hand. The door stood open and let a stream of sunlight and

balsamic odors of the forest in. He wore soil-stained jean, and seemed

very damp, for he had just come out of the mine. Thomas P. Saxton was

what is termed a rustler in that country, a man of unlimited assurance

and activity, troubled by no particular scruples and keen to seize on

any chances that might result in the acquisition of even a very few

dollars. He was also, like most of his countrymen, eminently adaptable,

and the fact that he occasionally knew very little about the task he

took in hand seldom acted as a deterrent. It was characteristic that

during the past hour he had been endeavoring to show his foreman how to

run a new rock-drilling machine which he had never seen in operation

until that time.

Brooke, who had been speaking, sat watching him with a faint ironical

appreciation. The man was delightfully candid, at least with him, and

though he was evidently not averse from sailing perilously near the wind

it was done with boldness and ingenuity. There was a little twinkle in

his keen eyes as he glanced at his companion.

"Well," he said, "one has to take his chances when he has all to gain

and very little to let up upon. That's the kind of man I am."

"I believe you told me you had got quite a few dollars together not very

long ago," said Brooke, reflectively.

The smile became a trifle plainer in Saxton's eyes. "I did, but very few

of them are mine. Somehow I get to know everybody worth knowing in the

province, and now and then folks with dollars to spare for a venture

hand them me to put into a deal."

"On the principle that one has to take his chances in this country?"

Saxton laughed good-humoredly. "Well," he said, "I never go back upon a

partner, anyway, and when we make a deal the other folks are quite at

liberty to keep their eyes on me. They know the rules of the game, and

if they don't always get the value they expected they most usually lie

low and sell out to another man instead of blaming me. It pays their way

better than crying down their bargain. Still, I have started off mills

and wild-cat mines that turned out well, and went on coining dollars for

everybody."

"Which was no doubt a cause of satisfaction to you!"

Saxton shook his head. "No, sir," he said. "I felt sorry ever after I

hadn't kept them."

Brooke straightened himself a trifle in his chair, for he felt that they

were straying from the point.

"Industrial speculations in this province remind me of a game we have in

England. Perhaps you have seen it," he said, reflectively. "You bet a

shilling or half-a-crown that when you lift up a thimble you will find a

pea you have seen a man place under it. It is not very often that you

accomplish it. Still, in that case--there is--a pea."

"And there's nothing but low-grade ore in the Dayspring? Now, nobody

ever quite knows what he will find in a mine if he lays out enough

dollars looking for it."

"That," said Brooke, drily, "is probably correct enough, especially if

he is ignorant of geology. What I take exception to is the sprinkling of

the mine with richer ore to induce him to buy it. Such a proceeding

would be called by very unpleasant names in England, and I'm not quite

sure it mightn't bring you within the reach of the law here. Mind, what

you may think fit to do is, naturally, no concern of mine, but I have

tolerably strong objections to taking any further personal part in the

scheme."

"The point is that we're playing it off on Devine, the man who robbed

you, and has once or twice put his foot on me. I was considerably

flattened when I crawled from under. He's a big man and he puts it down

heavy."

"Still, I feel it's necessary to draw the line at a swindle."

Saxton made a little whimsical gesture. "Call it the game with the pea

and thimble. Devine has got a notion there's something in the mine, and

I don't know any reason why I shouldn't humor him. He's quite often

right, you see."

"It does not affect the point, but are you quite sure he isn't right

now?"

"You mean that Allonby may be?"

"I shouldn't consider it quite out of the question."

Saxton laughed softly. "Allonby's a whisky-skin, and I keep him because

he's cheap and it's a charity. Everybody knows that story of his, and he

only trots it out when he has got a good bottle of old rye into him. At

most other times he's quite sensible. Anyway, Devine doesn't want the

mine to keep. He has to get a working group with a certain output and

assays that look well all round before he floats it off on the English

market. If he knew I was quietly dumping that ore in I'm not quite sure

it would rile him."

Brooke sat silent a space. He had discovered by this time that it is not

advisable to expect any excess of probity in a mining deal, and that it

is the speculator, and not the men who face the perils of the

wilderness (which are many, prospecting), who usually takes the profit.

A handful or two of dollars for them, and a big bank balance for the

trickster stock manipulator appeared to be the rules of the game. Still,

nobody can expect to acquire riches without risk or labor, and it seemed

no great wrong to him that the men with the dollars should lose a few of

them occasionally. Granting that, he did not, however, feel it warranted

him in taking any active part in fleecing them.

"Still, if another bag of ore goes into the Dayspring you can count me

out," he said. "No doubt, it's a trifle inconsistent, but you will

understand plainly that I take no further share in selling the mine."

Saxton shook his head reproachfully. "Those notions of yours are going

to get in your way, and it's unfortunate, because we have taken hold of

a big thing," he said. "I'm an irresponsible planter of wild-cat mining

schemes, you're nobody, and between us we're going to best Devine, the

biggest man in his line in the province, and a clever one. Still, that's

one reason why the notion gets hold of me. When you come in ahead of the

little man there's nothing to be got out of him, and Devine's good for

quite a pile when we can put the screw on."

Again Brooke was sensible of a certain tempered admiration for his

comrade's hardihood, for it seemed to him that the project he had

mooted might very well involve them both in disaster.

"You expect to accomplish it?" he said.

"Well," said Saxton, drily, "I mean to try. We can't squeeze him much on

the Dayspring, but we want dollars to fight him with, and that's how

we're going to get a few of them. It's on the Canopus I mean to strike

him."

"The Canopus!" said Brooke, who knew the mine in question was considered

a rich one. "How could you gain any hold on him over that?"

"On the title. By jumping it. Devine takes too many chances now and

then, and if one could put his fingers on a little information I have a

notion the Canopus wouldn't be his. I guess you know that unless you do

this, that, and the other, after recording your correct frontage on the

lead or vein, you can't hold a mine on a patent from the Crown. Suppose

you have got possession, and it's found that there was anything wrong

with the papers you or your prospectors filed, the minerals go back to

the Crown again, and the man who's first to drive his stakes in can

re-locate them. It's done now and then."

Brooke sat silent a space. A jumper--as the man who re-locates the

minerals somebody else has found, on the ground of incorrect record or

non-compliance with the mining enactments, is called--is not regarded

with any particular favor in that province, or, indeed, elsewhere, but

his proceedings may be, at least, perfectly legitimate, and there was a

certain simplicity and daring of conception in the new scheme that had

its effect on Brooke.

"I will do what I can within limits," he said.

Saxton nodded. "Then you will have to get into the mine, though I don't

quite know how we are going to fix it yet," he said. "Anyway, we've

talked enough for one day already, and you have to go down to the

settlement to see about getting those new drills up."

Brooke set out for the settlement, and slept at a ranch on the way,

where he left his horse which had fallen lame, for it was a two days'

journey, while it was late in the afternoon when he sat down to rest

where the trail crossed a bridge. The latter was a somewhat rudimentary

log structure put together with the axe and saw alone, of a width that

would just allow one of the light wagons in use in that country to cross

over it, and, as the bottom of the hollow the river swirled through was

level there, an ungainly piece of trestle work carried the road up to

it. There was a long, white rapid not far away, and the roar of it rang

in deep vibrations among the rocks above. Brooke, who had walked a long

way, found the pulsating sound soothing, while the fragrance the dusky

cedars distilled had its usual drowsy effect on him, and as he watched

the glancing water slide by his eyes grew heavy.

He did not remember falling asleep, but by and by the sombre wall of

coniferous forest that shut the hollow in seemed to dwindle to the

likeness of a trim yew hedge, and the river now slid by smooth and

placidly. There was also velvet grass beneath his feet in place of

wheel-rutted gravel and brown fir needles. Still, the scene he gazed

upon was known to him, though it seemed incomplete until a girl with

brown eyes in a long white dress and big white hat appeared at his side.

She fitted the surroundings wonderfully, for her almost stately serenity

harmonized with the quietness and order of the still English valley, but

yet he was puzzled, for there was sunlight on the water, and he felt

that the moon should be shining round and full above her shoulder. Then

when he would have spoken the picture faded, and he became suddenly

conscious that his pipe had fallen from his hand, and that he was

dressed in soil-stained jean which seemed quite out of keeping with the

English lawn. That was his first impression, but while he wondered

vaguely how he came to have a pipe made out of a corn-cob, which cost

him about thirty cents, at all, a rattle of displaced gravel and

pounding of hoofs became audible, and he recognized that something

unusual was going on.

He shook himself to attention, and looking about him saw a man sitting

stiffly erect on the driving seat of a light wagon and endeavoring to

urge a pair of unwilling horses up the sloping trestle. They were

Cayuses, beasts of native blood and very uncertain temper, bred by

Indians, and as usual, about half-broken to the rein. They also appeared

to have decided objections to crossing the bridge, for which any one new

to the province would scarcely have felt inclined to blame them. The

river frothed beneath it, the ascent was steep with a twist in it, and a

small log, perhaps a foot through, spiked down to the timbers, served as

sole protection. It would evidently not be difficult for a pair of

frightened horses to tilt a wheel of the very light vehicle over it.

Still, the structure compared favorably with most of those in the

mountains, and Brooke, who knew that it is not always advisable to

interfere in a dispute between a bush rancher and his horses, sat still,

until it became evident to him that the man did not belong to that

community. He was elderly, for there was grey in the hair beneath the

wide hat, while something in the way he held himself and the fit of his

clothes, which appeared unusually good, suggested a connection with the

cities. It was, however, evident that he was a determined man, for he

showed no intention of dismounting, and responded to the off horse's

vicious kicking with a stinging cut of the whip. The result of this was

a plunge, and one wheel struck the foot-high guard with a crash. The man

plied the whip again, and with another plunge and scramble the beasts

gained the level of the bridge. Here they stopped altogether, and one

attempted to stand upright while Brooke sprang to his feet.

"Hadn't you better get down, sir, or let me lead them across?" he said.

The man, tightening both hands upon the reins, cast a momentary glance

at him, and his little grim smile and the firm grip of his long, lean

fingers supplied a hint of his character.

"Not until I have to," he said. "They're going to cross this bridge."

Brooke moved a few paces nearer. It was one thing for a rancher

accustomed to horses and bridges of that description to take pleasure in

such a struggle, but quite another in the case of a man from the cities,

and he had misgivings as to the result of it. The latter, however,

showed very little concern, though the near horse was now apparently

endeavoring to kick the front of the wagon in. Then Brooke sprang

suddenly towards them as both backed the wagon against the log. He

fancied that one wheel was mounting it when he seized the near horse's

head, but after that he had very little opportunity of noticing

anything.

The beast plunged, and came near swinging him off his feet, the wagon

pole creaked portentously, and the whip fell swishing across the other

horse's back again. Then there was a hammering of hoofs, and a rattle;

the team bolted incontinently, and because the bridge was narrow,

Brooke, who lost his hold, sprang upon the log that very indifferently

guarded it. It was, however, rounded on the top, and next moment he

found himself standing knee-deep in the river, shaken, and considerably

astonished, but by no means hurt. A drop of ten feet or so is not very

apt to hurt an agile man who alights upon his feet. He saw the wagon

bounce upon the half-round logs, as with the team stretching out in a

furious gallop in front of it, it crossed the trestle on the opposite

side, and vanish into the forest; and then finding himself very little

the worse, proceeded to wade back to the bridge. He was plodding up the

climbing trail beneath the firs when a shout came down and he saw the

man had pulled the wagon up. When Brooke drew level he looked at him

with a little dry smile.

"I guess you and the Cayuses came off the worst," he said.

Brooke glanced at the horses. They were flecked with lather but quiet

enough now, and it was evident that the driver had beaten the spirit out

of them on the ascent.

"I fancied the result would have been different a little while ago," he

said.

The stranger laughed. "I 'most always get my way," he said. "Still, I

didn't pull the team up to tell you that. You're going in to the

settlement?"

Brooke said he was, and the stranger bade him get up, which he did, and

seized the first opportunity of glancing at his companion. There is, it

had already appeared to him, a greater typical likeness between the

business men of the Pacific slope, in which category he placed his

companion, than is usual in the case of Englishmen. Even when large of

frame they seldom put on flesh, and the characteristic lean face and

spare figure alone supply a hint of restlessness and activity, which is

emphasized by mobility of features and quick nervous gesture. The man

who drove the wagon was almost unusually gaunt, and while his eyes,

which were brown, and reminded Brooke curiously of somebody else's,

seemed to scintillate with a faint sardonic twinkle, there was a

suggestion of reticence in his firm thin lips, and an unmistakable stamp

of command upon him. He also held himself well, and Brooke fancied that

he was in his own sphere a man of some importance. His first observation

was, however, not exactly what Brooke would have expected from an

Englishman of his apparent station.

"I'm much obliged to you," he said. "I don't like to be beaten, and it's

a thing that doesn't happen very often. Besides, when a horse is too

much for a man it's kind of humiliating. There's something that doesn't

strike one as quite fitting in the principle of the thing."

Brooke laughed. "I'm not sure it's worth while to worry very much over a

point of that kind, especially when it seems likely to lead to nothing

beyond the probability of being pitched into a river."

"Still," said the stranger, with the little twinkle showing plainer in

his eyes, "in this case it was the other man who fell in."

"I fancy it quite frequently is," said Brooke, reflectively. "That is

usually the result of meddling."

The stranger nodded, and quietly inspected him. "You have been here some

time, but you are an Englishman," he said.

"I am," said Brooke. "Is there any reason why I should hide the fact?"

"You couldn't do it. How long have you been here?"

"Four years in all, I think."

"What did you come out for?"

Brooke was accustomed to Western brusquerie, and there was nothing in

his companion's manner which made the question offensive.

"I fancy my motive was not an unusual one. To pick up a few dollars."

"Got them yet?"

"I can't say I have."

The stranger appeared reflective. "There are not many folks who would

have admitted that," he said. "When a man has been four years in this

country he ought to have put a few dollars together. What have you been

at?"

"Ranching most of the time. Road-making, saw-milling, and a few other

occupations of the same kind afterwards."

"What was wrong with the ranch?"

Persistent questioning is not unusual in that country, for what is

considered delicacy depends largely upon locality, and Brooke laughed.

"Almost everything," he said. "It had a good many disadvantages besides

its rockiness, sterility, and an unusually abundant growth of

two-hundred-feet trees. Still, it was the man who sold it me I found

most fault with. He was a land agent."

"One of the little men?"

"No. I believe he is considered rather a big one--in fact about the

biggest in that particular line."

The little sardonic gleam showed a trifle more plainly in the stranger's

eyes. "He told you the land was nicely cleared ready, and would grow

anything?"

"No," said Brooke. "He, however, led me to believe that it could be

cleared with very little difficulty, and that the lumber was worth a

good deal. I daresay it is, if there was any means whatever of getting

it to a mill, which there isn't. He certainly told me there was no

reason it shouldn't grow as good fruit as any that comes from Oregon,

while I found the greatest difficulty in getting a little green oat

fodder out of it."

"You went back, and tried to cry off your bargain?"

Brooke glanced at his companion, and fancied that he was watching him

closely. "I really don't know any reason why I should worry you with my

affairs. My case isn't at all an unusual one."

"I don't know of any why you shouldn't. Go right on."

"Then I never got hold of the man himself. It was one of his agents I

made the deal with, and there was nothing to be obtained from him. In

fact, I could see no probability of getting any redress at all. It

appears to be considered commendable to take the newly-arrived Britisher

in."

The other man smiled drily. "Well," he said, "some of them 'most seem to

expect it. Ever think of trying the law against the principal?"

"The law," said Brooke, "is apt to prove a very uncertain remedy, and I

spent my last few dollars convincing myself that the ranch was

worthless. Now, one confidence ought to warrant another. What has

brought you into the bush? You do not belong to it."

The stranger laughed. "There's not much bush in this country, from

Kootenay to Caribou, I haven't wandered through. I used to live in

it--quite a long while ago. I came up to look at a mine. I buy one up

occasionally."

"Isn't that a little risky?"

"Well," said the other, with a little smile, "it depends. There are

goods, like eggs and oranges, you don't want to keep."

"And a good market in England for whatever the Colonials have no

particular use for?"

The stranger laughed good-humoredly. "Did you ever strike any real good

salt pork in Canada?"

"No," said Brooke, decisively, "I certainly never did."

"Then where does the best bacon you get in England come from? Same with

cheese--and other things."

"Including mines?"

"Well, when any of them look like paying it's generally your folk who

get them. Know anything about the Dayspring?"

"Not a great deal," Brooke said, guardedly. "I have been in the

workings, and it is for sale."

"Ore worth anything at the smelter?"

Now Brooke was perfectly certain that such a man as his companion

appeared to be would attach no great importance to any information

obtained by chance from a stranger.

"There is certainly a little good ore in it," he said, drily.

"That is about all you mean to tell me?"

"It is about all I know definitely."

The stranger smiled curiously. "Well," he said, "I'm not going to worry

you, and I guess I know a little more."

Brooke changed the topic, and listened with growing interest, and a

little astonishment, to his companion as they drove on. The man seemed

acquainted with everything he could mention, including the sentiments

of the insular English and the economics as well as the history of their

country. He was even more astonished when, as they alighted before the

little log hotel at the pine-shrouded settlement, the host greeted the

stranger.

"You'll be Mr. Devine who wrote me about the room and a saddle horse?"

he said.

"Yes," said the other man, who glanced at Brooke with a little whimsical

smile, "you have addressed me quite correctly."

Brooke said nothing, for he realized then something of the nature of the

task he and Saxton had undertaken, while it was painfully evident that

he had done very little to further his cause at the first encounter. He

also found the little gleam in Devine's eyes almost exasperating, and

turned to the hotel-keeper to conceal the fact.

"Has the freighter come through?" he said.

"No," said the man. "Bob, who has just come in, said he'd a big load and

we needn't expect him until to-morrow."

Devine had turned away now, and Brooke touched the hotel-keeper's arm.

"I don't wish that man to know I'm from the Elktail," he said.

"Well," said the hotel-keeper, "you know Saxton's business best, but if

I had any share in it and struck a man of that kind looking round for

mines I'd do what was in me to shove the Dayspring off on to him."

IX.

DEVINE MAKES A SUGGESTION.

There was only one hotel, which scarcely deserved the title, in the

settlement, and when Brooke returned to it an hour after the six o'clock

supper, he found Devine sitting on the verandah. He had never met the

man until that afternoon, and had only received one very terse response

to the somewhat acrimonious correspondence he had insisted on his agent

forwarding him respecting the ranch. He had no doubt that the affair had

long ago passed out of Devine's memory, though he was still, on his

part, as determined as ever on obtaining restitution. He had, however,

no expectation of doing it by persuasion, though the man was evidently a

very different individual from the one his fancy had depicted, and, that

being so, recrimination appeared useless, as well as undignified. He

was, therefore, while he would have done nothing to avoid him, by no

means anxious to spend the remainder of the evening in Devine's company.

The latter was, however, already on the verandah, and looked up when he

entered it.

"I had almost a fancy you meant to keep out of my way," he said.

Brooke sat down, and there was a trace of dryness in his smile.

"If I had felt inclined to do so, you would scarcely expect me to admit

it? I don't mean because that would not have been complimentary to you,"

he said.

Devine laughed, and handed his cigar-case across. "Take one if you feel

like it. I quite see your point," he said. "Some of you folks from the

old country are a trifle tender in the hide, but I don't mind telling

you that there was a time when I spent an hour or two every day keeping

out of other men's way. They wanted dollars I couldn't raise, you see,

and now and then I had to spend mornings in the city because I couldn't

get into my office on account of them. I meant to pay them, and I did,

but there was no way of doing it just then."

Brooke's smile was a trifle curious, and might have been construed into

implying a doubt of his companion's commendable intentions, but the

latter did not appear to notice it, and he took one of the cigars

offered him, and found it excellent. Though they were to be adversaries,

there was nothing to be gained by betraying a puerile bitterness against

the man, and now he had met him, Brooke was not quite so sure as he

could have wished that he disliked him personally. He meant to secure

his six thousand dollars if it could be done, which appeared distinctly

doubtful, and sentiment of any kind was, he assured himself, out of

place. Still, he did not altogether relish Devine's cigar.

"They were probably persistent men," he said.

Devine glanced at him sharply, but Brooke's face was, or at least he

hoped so, expressionless.

"Well," he said, tranquilly, "I contrive to pay my debts as the usual

thing, but we'll let that slide. What are you at up here in the bush?"

"Mining, just now," said Brooke. "To be more definite, acting as handy

man about a mine."

"You'd make more rock-drilling. Feel fond of it?"

"I can't say I do. Still, I have a notion that it is going to lead to

the acquisition of a few dollars presently."

Devine sat silent at a space, apparently reflecting, and then looked up

again.

"Now," he said, "suppose I was to make you an offer, would you feel

inclined to listen to me?"

Brooke had acquired in England a composure which was frequently useful

to him, but he was young, and started a trifle, while once more the

blood showed through his unfortunately clear skin.

"I think I could promise that much, at least," he said.

"Well," said Devine, "I have some use for a man who knows a little about

bush ranches and mines, and understands the English folks who now and

then buy them from me. I could afford to pay him a moderate salary."

Brooke closed one hand a trifle, and the bronze deepened in his face.

The opportunity Saxton had been waiting for was now, it seemed, being

thrust upon him, and yet he felt that he could not avail himself of it.

It was clear that he had everything to gain by doing so, but there was,

he realized now, a treachery he could not descend to. He strove to

persuade himself that this was a sentimental weakness, for it had become

even more apparent of late that with the knowledge he had gained of that

country there would be no great difficulty in making his way once he had

the dollars he had been robbed of again in his hands, and he had had a

bitter taste of the life that must be dragged through by the man with

none. Still, the fact that his instincts, which, as occasionally happens

to other men, would not be controlled by his reason, revolted from the

part he must play if he made terms with Devine, remained, and he sat

very still, with forehead wrinkled and one hand clenched, until his

companion, who had never taken his eyes off him, spoke again.

"It doesn't sound good enough?" he said.

Brooke shook himself together. "As a matter of fact, I am very doubtful

if I shall get quite as good an offer again. Still, I am afraid I can't

quite see my way to entertaining it."

"No?" said Devine. "I guess you have your reasons?"

Brooke felt that he could scarcely consider the motive which had induced

him to answer as he did a reason. It was rather an impulse he could not

hold in check, or the result of a prejudice, but he could not explain

this, and what was under the circumstances a somewhat illogical

bitterness against Devine took possession of him.

"When I first came into this province my confiding simplicity cost me a

good deal, and I almost think I should rather feel myself impelled to

warn any of my countrymen I came into contact with against making rash

ventures in land and mines than induce them to do so," he said.

Devine smiled drily. "That is tolerably plain talk, anyway. Still, it

ought to be clear that a man can't keep on taking folks' dollars without

giving them reasonable value anywhere. No, sir. As soon as they find out

he has only worthless goods to sell, they stop dealing with him right

away. There's another point. Are they all fools who come out from

England to buy mines and ranching land?"

"I have certainly met a few who seemed to be. Of course, I include

myself," said Brooke, grimly.

"Well, you can take it from me, and I ought to know, that there are

folks back yonder quite as smart at getting one hundred and fifty cents

for the dollar's worth as any man in Canada. We needn't, however, worry

about that. I made you an offer, and you have quite decided that it

wouldn't suit you?"

Again Brooke sat silent a space. He felt in some degree bound to Saxton,

though he had certainly earned every dollar the latter had handed him,

and it had been agreed that a verbal intimation from either would

suffice to terminate the compact between them. There was also no reason

why he should do anything that would prejudice him if he entered

Devine's service, and a very faint hope commenced to dawn on him that

there might be a way out of the difficulty. Devine appeared to be a

reasonable man, and he determined to at least give him an opportunity.

"It is probably an unusual course under the circumstances, but before I

decide I would like to ask a question," he said. "We will suppose that

you or one of your agents had sold a man who did not know what he was

buying a tract of worthless land, and he demanded compensation. What

would you do?"

"The man would naturally look at the land and use his discretion."

"We'll assume that he didn't. Men who come into this country at a time

when everybody is eager to buy now and then most unwisely take a

land-agent's statements for granted. Even if they surveyed the property

offered them they would not very often be able to form any opinion of

its value."

"Then," said Devine, drily, "they take their chances, and can't blame

the other man."

"Still, if the buyer convinced you that your agent knew the land was

worth nothing when he sold it him?"

Devine glanced at him sharply. "That would be a little difficult, but

I'll answer you. I've been stuck with a good many bad bargains in my

time, and I never went back and tried to cry off one of them. No, sir. I

took hold and worried the most I could out of them. Nobody quite knows

what a piece of land in this country is or will be worth, except that

it's quite certain every rod of it is going to be some use for

something, and bring in dollars to the man who holds on to it,

presently."

"Then you would not make the victim any compensation?"

"No, sir. Not a cent. I shouldn't consider him a victim. That's quite

straight?"

"I scarcely think anybody would consider it ambiguous," Brooke said,

drily, for he felt his face grow warm, and realized that it was not

advisable to give the anger that was gaining on him the rein. "It

demands an equal candor, and I have given you one of my reasons for

deciding that it would not suit me to enter your service. I can't help

wondering what induced you to make me the offer."

Devine laughed. "Well," he said, reflectively, "so am I. I had, as I

told you, a notion that I might have a use for a man of the kind you

seem to be, but I'm not quite so sure of it now. Though I don't know

that I'm especially thin in the skin, some of the questions you seem

fond of asking might make trouble between you and me. For another thing,

on thinking it over afterwards, it struck me that the team might have

tilted that wagon off the bridge this afternoon. I'm not sure that they

would have done, but you came along handy."

He rose with a little sardonic smile and went into the hotel, leaving

Brooke sitting on the verandah and staring at the dusky forest vacantly,

for his thoughts were not exactly pleasant just then. He had been

offered a chance Saxton, at least, would have eagerly seized upon, and

it was becoming evident that there was little of the stuff successful

conspirators are made of in him. He could not ignore the fact that it

was a conspiracy they were engaged in, for he meant to get his six

thousand dollars back, and found it especially galling to remember that

it was a kindness Devine had purposed doing him.

He had also misgivings as to what his confederate--for that was, he

recognized, the most fitting term he could apply to Saxton--would have

to say about his decision, and after all it was evident that he owed him

a little. Once more he fumed at his folly in ever buying the ranch, for

all his difficulties sprang from that mistake, and he felt he could not

face the result of it and drag out his days cut off from all that made

life bearable, a mere wielder of axe and shovel, without a struggle,

even though it left a mark on him which could never be quite effaced.

The freighter came in early next morning with the drills, and Brooke,

who hired pack-horses, set off with them, but as he drove the loaded

beasts out of the clearing he saw Devine watching him from the verandah,

with a little smile. He made a salutation, and Brooke, for no apparent

reason, jerked the leading pack-horse's bridle somewhat viciously. It

was a long journey to the mine, and there were several difficult ascents

upon the way, but he reached it safely, and found Saxton expecting him

impatiently. They spent an hour or two getting the drills to work, and

then sat down to a meal in the galvanized shanty.

Saxton was damp and stained with soil, his long boots were miry, and one

of his hands was bleeding, but he laughed a little as he glanced at the

heavy, doughy bread and untempting canned stuff on the table and round

the comfortless room.

"I guess I don't get my dollars easily," he said. "There are quite a few

ways of making them, but the one the sensible man has the least use for

is with the hammer and drill. Still, I'm going back to the city, and

we'll try another one presently. You'll stay here about a week, and then

there'll be work for you. I've heard of something while you were away."

"So have I!" said Brooke. "I met Devine, and he gave me an opportunity

of entering his service."

Saxton became suddenly eager. "You took it?"

"No," said Brooke, drily, "I did not. I had one or two reasons for not

doing so, though I feel it is very probable that you would not

appreciate them."

Saxton stared at him in astonishment, and then made a little gesture of

resignation. "Well," he said, "I guess I wouldn't--after what I've seen

of you. Still, can't you understand what kind of chance you've thrown

away? I might have made 'most anything out of the pointers you could

have picked up and given me."

Brooke smiled drily. "I don't think you could," he said. "As a matter of

fact, I wouldn't have given you any."

Saxton turned towards him resolutely, with his elbows planted on the

table and his black eyes intent. "Now," he said, "I want a straight

answer. Are you going back on your bargain?"

"No. If I had meant to do that, I should naturally have taken Devine's

offer. As I have told you a good many times already, I am going to get

my six thousand dollars out of him. That is, of course, if we can manage

it, about which I am more than a little doubtful."

Saxton laughed contemptuously. "You would never get six dollars out of

anybody who wasn't quite willing to let you have them," he said. "A

struggling man has no use for the notions you seem proud of."

"I really can't help having them," said Brooke, with a little smile.

Saxton shook his head. "Well," he said, "it's fortunate you're not going

to be left to yourself, or somebody would take the clothes off you. Now,

I've heard from a friend of mine, who has a contract to build the

Canopus folks a flume. It seems they want more water, and it's Devine's

mine."

"How is that going to help us?"

"Since Leeson made that contract, he got the offer of another that would

pay him better, and he's willing to pass it on at Devine's figure to any

one who will take it off his hands. Now, I'll find you a man or two and

tools, and when they're ready, you'll start right away for the Canopus

and build that flume."

"The difficulty is that I haven't the least notion how to build a

flume."

Saxton made a little impatient gesture. "Then I guess you have got to

learn, and there are plenty of men to be hired in the bush who do. You

know how to rough down redwood logs and blow out rocks?"

Brooke admitted that he did, and Saxton nodded.

"Then the thing's quite easy," he said. "You look at the one they've got

already, and make another like it. Haven't you found out yet that a man

can do 'most anything that another one can?"

"Well," said Brooke, "I'll try it, but that brings us to the question,

what else do you expect from me? It is very probable that I shall make

an unfortunate mistake for both of us, if you leave me in the dark. I

want to understand the position."

Saxton explained it at length, and Brooke leaned back in his chair,

glancing abstractedly through the open door as he listened, for his mind

took in the details mechanically, while his thoughts were otherwise

busy. He saw the dusky forest he had toiled and lost hope in, and then,

turning his head a trifle, the comfortless dingy room and Saxton's

intent face and eager eyes. He was speaking with little nervous

gestures, vehemently, and all the sensibility that the struggle had left

in Brooke shrank from the sordidness of the compact he had made with

him. The fact that his confederate apparently considered their purpose

perfectly legitimate and even commendable, intensified the disgust he

felt, but once more he told himself that he could not afford to be

particular. There was, it seemed, a price to everything, and if he was

ever to regain his status he must let no more opportunities slip past

him.

Still the memory of the old house in the English valley, and a certain

silver-haired lady who had long ago paced the velvet lawns that swept

about it with her white hand upon his shoulder, returned to trouble him.

She had endeavored to instil the fine sense of honor that guided her own

life into him, and he remembered her wholesome pride and the stories

she had told him of the men who had gone forth from that quiet home

before him. Most of them had served their nation well, even those who

had hewn down the ancient oaks and mortgaged the wheat-land in the

reckless Georgian days, and now, when the white-haired lady slept in the

still valley, he was about to sell the honor she had held priceless for

six thousand dollars in Western Canada. Nevertheless, he strove to

persuade himself that the times had changed and the old codes vanished,

and sat still listening while Saxton, stained with soil and water from

the mine, talked on, and gesticulated with a bleeding hand. He touched

upon frontages, ore-leads, record and patents from the Crown, and then

stopped abruptly, and looked hard at Brooke.

"Now I think you've got it all," he said.

"Yes," said Brooke, whose face had grown a trifle grim, "I fancy I have.

I am to find out, if I can, how far the third drift runs west, and when

the driving of it began. Then one of us will stake off a claim on

Devine's holding and endeavor, with the support of the other, to hold

his own in as tough a struggle as was probably ever undertaken by two

men in our position. You see I have met Devine."

Saxton laughed. "I guess he's not going to give us very much trouble.

He'll buy us off instead, once we make it plain that we have got the

whip hand of him. Your share's six thousand dollars, and if you lay

them out as I tell you, you'll go back to England a prosperous man."

Brooke smiled a trifle drily. "I hope so," he said. "Still, I shall have

left more than I could buy with a great many dollars behind me in

Canada."

"Dollars will buy you anything," said Saxton. "That is, when you have

enough of them. They're going to buy me a seat in the Provincial

Legislature by and by. Then I'll let the business slide, and start in

doing something for the other folks. We've got 'most everything but men

here, and I'll bring out your starving deadbeats from England and make

them happy--like Strathcona."

Brooke looked hard at him, and then leaned back in his chair, and

laughed when he saw that he was perfectly serious.

X.

THE FLUME BUILDER.

It was a hot afternoon, and a long trail of ethereal mist lay motionless

athwart the gleaming snow above, when Brooke stood dripping with

perspiration in the shadow of a towering pine. The red dust was thick

upon him, and his coarse blue shirt, which was badly torn, fell open at

the neck as he turned his head and looked down fixedly into the winding

valley. A lake flashed like a mirror among the trees below, save where

the slumbering shadows pointed downwards into its crystal depths, but

the strip of hillside the forest had been hewn back from was scarred and

torn with raw gashes, and the dull thumping of the stamp-heads that

crushed the gold-bearing quartz jarred discordantly through the song of

the river. Mounds of debris, fire-blackened fir stumps, and piles of

half-burnt branches cumbered the little clearing, round which the

towering redwoods uplifted their stately spires, and the acrid fumes of

smoke and giant powder drifted through their drowsy fragrance.

The blotch of man's crude handiwork marred the pristine beauty of the

wilderness; but it had its significance, and pointed to what was to come

when the plough had followed the axe and drill, and cornfields and

orchards should creep up the hillsides where now the solemn pines looked

down upon the desecrated valley. Brooke, however, was very naturally not

concerned with this just then. He was engaged in building a flume, or

wooden conduit to bring down water to the mine, and was intently

watching two little trails of faint blue smoke with a thin red sparkle

in the midst of them which crept up a dark rock's side.

He had no interest whatever in the task when he undertook it, but a

somewhat astonishing and unexpected thing had happened, for by degrees

the work took hold of him. He was not by nature a lounger, and was

endued with a certain pertinacity, which had, however, only led him into

difficulties hitherto, or he would probably never have come out to

Canada. Thus it came about that when he found the building of the flume

taxed all his ingenuity, as well as his physical strength, he became

sensible of a wholly unanticipated pleasure in the necessary effort, and

had almost forgotten the purpose which brought him there.

"How long did you cut those fuses to burn?" he said to Jimmy, who,

though by no means fond of physical exertion, had come up to assist him

from the ranch.

The latter glanced at the two trails of smoke, which a handful of men,

snugly ensconced behind convenient trees, were also watching.

"I guessed it at four minutes," he said. "They're 'bout half-way through

now. Still, I can't see nothing of the third one."

"No," said Brooke. "Nor can I. That loosely-spun kind snuffs out

occasionally. Quite sure they're not more than half-way through?"

"No," said Jimmy, reflectively. "I'd give them 'most two minutes yet.

Hallo! What in the name of thunder are you going to do?"

It was not an unnatural question, because when those creeping trains of

sparks reached the detonators the rock would be reft asunder by giant

powder and a shower of ponderous fragments and flying debris hurled

across the valley, while Brooke, who swung round abruptly, bounded down

the slope.

Jimmy stared at him in wonder, and then set off without reflection in

chase of him. He was not addicted to hurrying himself when it was not

necessary, but he ran well that day, with the vague intention of

dragging back his comrade, whose senses, he fancied, had suddenly

deserted him. The men behind the trees were evidently under the same

impression, for confused cries went up.

"Go back! Stop right there! Catch him, Jimmy; trip him up!"

Jimmy did his best, but he was slouching and loose of limb, while

Brooke was light of foot and young. He was also running his hardest,

with grim face and set lips, straight for the rock, and was scrambling

across the debris beneath it, which rolled down at every step, when

Jimmy reached up and caught his leg. He said nothing, but when Brooke

slid backwards, grabbed his jacket, which tore up the back; and there

was a shout from the men behind the trees, two of whom came running

towards the pair.

"Pull him down! No, let go of him, and tear the fuses out!"

Nobody saw exactly what took place next, and neither Brooke nor Jimmy

afterwards remembered; but in another moment the latter sat gasping

among the debris, while his comrade clambered up the slope alone. It

also happened, though everybody was too intent to notice this, that a

girl, with brown eyes and a big white hat, who had been strolling

through the shadow of the pines on the ridge above, stopped abruptly

just then. She could see the trail of sparks creep across the stone, and

understood the position, which the shouts of the miners would have made

plain to her if she had not. She could not see the man's face, though

she realized that he was in imminent peril, and felt her heart throb

painfully. Then, in common with the rest of those who watched him, she

had a second astonishment, for he did not pull out the burning fuses,

but crawled past them, and bent over something with a lighted match in

his hand.

Brooke in the meanwhile set his lips as the match went out, and struck

another, while a heavy silence followed the shouts. The men, who grasped

his purpose, now realized that interference would come too late, and

those who had started from them went back to the trees. There only

remained Brooke, clinging with one hand to a cranny of the rock while he

held the match, whose diminutive flame showed pale in the blaze of

sunlight, and Jimmy, rising apparently half-dazed from among the debris.

The girl in the white hat afterwards recalled that picture, and could

see the two lonely men, blurred figures in the shadows, and clustering

pines. When that happened, she also felt a curious little thrill which

was half-horror and half-appreciation.

Then the third fuse sparkled, and Brooke sprang down, grasped Jimmy's

shoulder, and drove him before him. There was a fresh shouting, and now

every one could see two men running for their lives for the shelter of

the pines. It seemed a very long while before they reached them, and all

the time three blue trails of smoke and sparkling lines of fire were

creeping with remorseless certainty up the slope of stone. The girl upon

the ridge above closed her hands tightly to check a scream, and bronzed

men, who had braved a good many perils in their time, set their lips or

murmured incoherently.

In the meanwhile the two men were running well, with drawn faces,

staring eyes, and the perspiration dripping from them, and there was a

hoarse murmur of relief when at last they flung themselves into the

shadow of the pines. It was followed by a stunning detonation, and a

blaze of yellow flame, while the hillside trembled when the smoke rolled

down. Flying fragments of rock came out of it, there was a roar of

falling stones, a crashing in the forest where great boughs snapped, and

the lake boiled as though torn up by cannon shot. Then a curious silence

followed, intensified by an occasional splash and rattle as a stone

which had travelled farther than the rest came down, and the girl in the

white hat retired hastily as the fumes of giant powder, which produce

dizziness and nausea, drifted up the hillside.

Brooke sat down on a felled log, Jimmy leaned against a tree, and while

the men clustered round them they looked at one another, and gasped

heavily.

"I figured you'd be blown into very little pieces less than a minute

ago," said one of those who stood by. "What did you do it for, anyway?"

Brooke blinked at the questioner. "Third fuse snuffed out," he said. "It

would have spoiled the shot. I cut it to match the others, and lighted

it."

This was comprehensible, for to rend a piece of rock effectively, it is

occasionally necessary to apply the riving force at several places at

the same time.

"Still, you could have pulled the other fuses out and put new ones back.

It would have been considerably less risky," said another man.

Brooke laughed breathlessly. "It certainly would, but I never thought of

that," he said.

Then Jimmy broke in. "What made me sit down like I did?" he said.

"It was probably the same thing that tore my jacket half-way up the

back."

"Well," said Jimmy, "there's a big lump there didn't use to be on the

side of my head, too, and it was the concernedest hardest kind of rock I

sat down upon. Next time you try to blow yourself up, I'm not going

after you."

Brooke glanced at him quietly, with a curious look in his eyes.

"What made you come at all?" he said.

Jim appeared to reflect. "I've done quite a lot of foolish things

before--and I don't quite know."

Brooke only smiled, but a little flush crept into Jimmy's face, for men

do not express their sentiments dramatically in that country, that is,

unless they are connected with mineral speculations or the selling of

land.

"Of course!" he said. "I fancy I shall remember it."

They turned away together to inspect the result of the shot, and one of

the miners who looked after them nodded approval. "When that man takes

hold of anything he puts it through 'most every time," he said.

"There's good hard sand in him."

In the meanwhile Jimmy glanced at his comrade, apparently with an entire

absence of interest, out of half-closed eyes.

"I guess you were too busy to see a friend of yours a little while ago?"

he said.

"I expect I was," said Brooke. "Anyway, nobody I'm acquainted with is

likely to be met with in this part of the province, unless it was

Saxton."

"No," said Jimmy, "it wasn't him. Saxton doesn't go trailing round in a

big white hat and a four-decker skirt with a long tail to it."

Brooke turned a trifle sharply, and glanced at him. "You mean Miss

Heathcote?"

"Yes," said Jimmy, reflectively, "if it's the one that was Barbara last

time, I guess I do. You have been finding out the rest of it since you

met her at the ranch? She was up yonder ten minutes ago."

He pointed to a forest-covered ridge above the mine, but Brooke, looking

up with all his eyes, saw nothing but the serried ranks of climbing

pines. As it happened, however, the girl, who stood amidst their

shadows, saw him, and smiled. She had noticed Jimmy's pointing hand, and

fancied she knew what his companion was looking for.

"Then you are certainly mistaken," he said. "There is nowhere she could

be staying at within several leagues of the Canopus."

"There's the Englishman's old ranch house Devine bought. It's quite a

good one."

Brooke started a little, and Jimmy, who was much quicker of wit than

some folks believed, noticed it.

"She certainly couldn't be staying there. It's quite out of the

question," he said, with an assurance that was chiefly intended to

convince himself.

"Well," said Jimmy, who appeared to ruminate, "I guess you know best.

Still, I can't think of any other place, unless she's living in a cave."

Brooke said nothing further, but signed to the men who were waiting, and

proceeded to roll the shattered rock out of the course of his flume. He

felt it was certain that Jimmy was mistaken, for the only other

conclusion appeared preposterous, and he could not persuade himself to

consider it. Still, he thought of the girl with the brown eyes often

while he swung axe and hammer during the rest of the afternoon, and when

he strolled up the hillside after the six o'clock supper he was thinking

of her still. He climbed until the raw gap of the workings was lost

among the pines, and then lay down.

The evening was still and cool, for the chill of the snow made itself

felt once the sunlight faded from the valley. Now and then a sound came

up faintly from the mine, but that was not often, and a great quietness

reigned among the pines, which towered above him, two hundred feet to

their topmost sprays, in serried ranks. They were old long before the

white man first entered that wild mountain land, while, as he lay there

in the scented dimness among their wide-girthed trunks, all that

concerned the Canopus and its pounding stamp-heads slipped away from

him. He was worn out in body, but his mind was clear and free, and,

lying still, unlighted pipe in hand, he gave his fancy the rein, and,

forgetting Devine and the flume, dreamed of what had once been his, and

might, if he could make his purpose good, be his again.

The sordid details of the struggle he had embarked upon faded from his

memory, for the cold silence of the mountains seemed to banish them. It

gave him courage and tranquillity, and, for the time at least, nothing

seemed unattainable, while through all his wandering fancies moved a

vision of a girl in a long white dress, who looked down upon him

fearlessly from a plunging pony's back. That was the recollection he

cherished most, though he had also seen her with diamonds gleaming in

her dusky hair in the Vancouver opera-house.

Then he started, and a little thrill ran through him as he wondered

whether it was a trick his eyes had played him or he saw her in the

flesh. She stood close beside him, with a grey cedar trunk behind her,

in a long trailing dress, but the white hat was in her hand now, and the

little shapely head bared to the cooling touch of the dew. Still, she

had materialized so silently out of the shadows that he almost felt

afraid to move lest she should melt into them again, and he lay very

still, watching her until she glanced at him. Then he sprang, awkwardly,

to his feet, with a little smile.

"I would scarcely venture to tell you what I thought you were, but it is

in one respect consoling to find you real," he said.

"Why?" said the girl.

"Because you are not likely to vanish again. You must remember that I

first saw you clothed in white samite, with the moon behind your

shoulder, in the river."

The girl laughed. "I wonder if you know what white samite is?"

"I don't," said Brooke, reflectively. "I never did, but it seems to go

with water lapping on the rocks and mystery. Still, you--are--material,

fortunately."

"Very," said Barbara. "Besides, I certainly did not bring you a sword."

Brooke appeared to consider. "One can never be quite certain of

anything--especially in British Columbia. But how did you come here?"

The girl favored him with a comprehensive glance, which Brooke felt took

in his well-worn jean, coarse blue shirt, badly-rent jacket, and

shapeless hat.

"I was about to ask you the same thing. It was in Vancouver I saw you

last," she said.

"I came here on a very wicked pack-horse--one that kicked, and on two

occasions came very near falling down a gorge with me. I am now building

a flume for the Canopus mine--if you know what that is."

Barbara laughed. "I fancy I know rather more about flumes than you did a

little while ago. At least, I have reason to believe so, from what a

mining foreman told me this afternoon. He, however, expressed

unqualified approval, as well as a little astonishment, at the progress

you had made. You see, I happened to observe what took place before the

shot was fired a few hours ago."

"Then you witnessed an entirely unwarranted piece of folly."

A curious little gleam crept into Barbara's eyes, but she smiled. "You

could have cut those fuses, and relighted them afterwards, but, since

you did not remember it, I don't think that counts. What made you take

the risk?"

"Well," said Brooke, reflectively, "after worrying over the probable

line of cleavage of that troublesome rock, it seemed to me that if I

wished to split it, I must explode three charges of giant powder in

certain places simultaneously. Now, if you examine what you might call

the texture of a rock, though, of course, a really crystalline body----"

Barbara made a little gesture of impatience. "That is not in the least

what I mean--as I fancy you are quite aware."

"Then," said Brooke, with a faint twinkle in his eyes, "I'm afraid I

don't quite understand the moral causes of the proceeding myself, though

I have heard my comrade describe one quality which may have had

something to do with it as mulishness. It was, of course, reprehensible

of me to be led away by it, especially as when I took the contract I

really didn't care if the flume was never built."

"And now you mean to finish it if it ruins you?"

"No," said Brooke, "I really don't think I do. In fact, I hope to make a

good many dollars out of it, directly or indirectly."

He had spoken without reflection, and was sensible of a most unpleasant

embarrassment when the girl glanced at him sharply, which she did not

fail to notice.

"Building flumes is evidently more profitable than I thought it was,"

she said. "Still, you will no doubt make most of those

dollars--indirectly?"

Brooke decided that it was advisable to change the subject. "I have," he

said, "answered--your--question."

"Then I will do the same. I came here, because one can see the sunset on

the snow from this ridge, most prosaically on my feet."

"But from where?" and Brooke's voice was almost sharp.

"From the old ranch house in the valley, of course!"

Brooke made an effort to retain his serenity, but his face grew a trifle

grim, and he looked at the girl curiously, with his lips tight set. Then

he made a little gesture.

"But that is where Devine lives when he comes here. It's preposterous!"

he said.

Barbara felt astonished, though she was very reposeful. "I really don't

see why it should be. Mrs. Devine is there. We have to entertain a good

deal in the city, and are glad to get away to the mountains for

quietness occasionally."

"But what connection can you possibly have with Mrs. Devine?"

"I am," said Barbara, quietly, "merely her sister. I have always lived

with her."

Brooke positively gasped. "And you never told me!"

"Why should I? You never asked me, and I fancied everybody knew."

Brooke stood silent a moment, with the fingers of one hand closed, and

the blood in his face, then he turned, as the girl moved, and they went

back along the little rough rail together.

"Of course, I can think of no reason," he said, quietly. "Still, the

news astonished me."

Barbara glanced away from him. There was only one way in which she could

account for his evident concern at what she had told him, and the

deduction she made was not altogether unpleasant to her, though, as it

happened, it was not the correct one. The man was, as he had told her,

without friends or dollars, but she knew that men with his capacities do

not always remain poor in that country, and there were qualities which

had gained her appreciation in him, while it had not dawned on her that

there might also be others which could only meet with her

disapprobation.

"If you had called at the address I gave you in Vancouver, you would

have known exactly who I was, but there is now nothing to prevent you

coming to the ranch," she said.

Brooke glanced down somewhat grimly at his hard, scarred hands and his

clothes, and a faint flush crept into the girl's face.

"Have I to remind you again that you are not in the English valley?" she

said. "Mr. Devine, at least, is rather proud of the fact that he once

earned his living with the shovel and the drill."

"I am not sure that the one you imagine is my only reason for feeling a

trifle diffident about presenting myself at Mr. Devine's house," said

Brooke, very slowly.

Barbara looked at him with a little imperious smile. "I did not ask you

for any at all. I merely suggested that if you wished to come we should

be pleased to see you at the ranch."

Brooke made her a little inclination, and said nothing, until, when

another white-clad figure appeared among the pines, the girl turned to

him.

"That is Mrs. Devine," she said. "Shall I present you?"

Brooke stopped abruptly, with, as the girl noticed once more, a very

curious expression in his face. He meant to use whatever means were

available against Devine, but he could not profit by a woman's kindness

to creep into his adversary's house.

"No," he said, almost harshly. "Not to-night. It would be a

pleasure--another time."

Barbara looked at him with big, grave eyes, and the faintest suggestion

of color in her cheek. "Very well," she said. "I need not detain you."

Brooke swung round, and as Mrs. Devine strolled towards them, retired

almost precipitately into the shadow of the pines, while, when he

stopped again, with a curious little laugh, he was distinctly flushed in

face.

XI.

AN EMBARRASSING POSITION.

The wooden conduit which sprang across a gorge just there on a slender

trestle was full to the brim, and Brooke, who leaned on his long hammer

shaft, watched the crystal water swirl by with a satisfaction which was

distinctly new to him, while the roar it made as it plunged down into

the valley from the end of the uncompleted flume came throbbing across

the pines. Though it was a very crude piece of engineering, that trestle

had cost him hours of anxious thought and days of strenuous labor, and

now, standing above it, very wet and somewhat ragged, with hands as hard

as a navvy's, he surveyed it with a pride which was scarcely warranted

by its appearance. It was, however, the creation of his hands and brain,

and evidently capable of doing its work effectively.

Then he smiled somewhat curiously as he remembered with what purpose he

had taken over the contract to build the flume from its original holder,

and, turning abruptly away, walked along it until he stopped where the

torrent that fed it swirled round a pool. The latter had rapidly

lowered its level since the big sluice was opened, and he stood looking

at it intently while a project, which involved a fresh struggle with

hard rock and forest, dawned upon him. He had gained his first

practically useful triumph over savage Nature, and it had filled him

with a desire he had never supposed himself capable of for a renewal of

the conflict. A little sparkle came into his eyes, and he stood with

head flung back a trifle and his corded arms uncovered to the elbow,

busy with rough calculations, and once more oblivious of the fact that

he was only there to play his part in a conspiracy, until a man with

grey in his hair came out of the shadow of the pines.

"I came up along the flume and she's wasting very little water," he

said. "Not a trickle from the trestle! It would 'most carry a wagon. You

must have spent quite a pile of dollars over it."

Brooke smiled a trifle drily, for that was a point he had overlooked

until the cost had been sharply impressed upon him.

"I'm afraid I did, Mr. Devine," he said. "Still, I couldn't see how to

get the work done more cheaply without taking the risk of the flume

settling a little by and by. That would, of course, have started it

leaking. What do you think of it?"

Devine smiled as he noticed his eagerness. "It seems to me that risk

would have been mine," he said. "I've seen neater work, but not very

much that looked like lasting longer. Who gave you the plan of it?"

"Nobody," said Brooke, with a trace of the pride he could not quite

repress. "I worried it out myself. You see, I once or twice gave the

carpenters a hand at stiffening the railroad trestles."

Devine nodded, and flashed a keen glance at him as he said, "What are

you looking at that pool for?"

Brooke stood silent a moment or two. "Well," he said, diffidently, "it

occurred to me that when there was frost on the high peaks you might

have some difficulty in getting enough water to feed the flume. You can

see how the pool has run down already. Now, with a hundred tons or so of

rock and debris and a log framing, one could contrive a very workable

dam. It would ensure you a full supply and equalize the pressure."

"You feel equal to putting the thing through?"

"I would at least very much like to try."

Devine regarded him thoughtfully. "Then you can let me have your

notions."

Brooke unfolded his crude scheme, and the other man watched him keenly

until he said, "If that meets with your approbation I could start two of

my men getting out the logs almost immediately."

Devine smiled. "Has it struck you that there is a point you have

forgotten?"

"It is quite possible there are a good many."

"You can't think of one that's important in particular?"

"No," said Brooke, reflectively, "not just now."

A little sardonic twinkle crept into Devine's eyes. "Well," he said,

"before I took hold of any contract of that kind I would like to know

just how much I was going to make on it, and what it would cost me."

Brooke looked at him and laughed. "Of course!" he said. "Still, I never

thought of it until this moment."

"It's quite clear you weren't raised in Canada," said Devine. "You can

worry out the thing during the afternoon and bring along any rough plan

you'd like to show me to the ranch this evening. That's fixed? Then

there's another thing. Has anybody tried to stop you getting out

lumber?"

"No," said Brooke. "I met two men who appeared to be timber-right

prospectors more than once, but they made no difficulty."

Devine, who seemed a trifle astonished, looked at him curiously before

he turned away. "Then," he said drily, "you are more fortunate than I

am."

Brooke went back to his work, and supper had been cleared away in his

double tent when he completed his simple toilet, which had commenced

with a plunge into a whirling pool of the snow-fed river, preparatory to

his visit to the ranch. Jimmy, who had assisted in it, stood surveying

him complacently.

"Now," he said, with a nod of approbation, "I guess you'll do when I've

run a few stitches up the back of you. Stand quite still while I get the

tent needle."

Brooke glanced at the implement he produced somewhat dubiously, for it

was of considerable thickness and several inches long.

"I suppose," he said, resignedly, "you haven't got a smaller one?"

Jimmy shook his head. "I guess I wouldn't trust it if I had," he said.

"I want to fix that darn up good and strong so it will do you credit.

There are two women at the ranch, and it's quite likely they'll come in

and talk to you."

Brooke made no further protest, but he smiled somewhat curiously as

Jimmy stitched away. His work was not remarkable for neatness, and

Brooke remembered that the two women at the ranch were fresh from the

cities, where men do not mend their clothes with pieces of tents or

cotton flour bags. Then he decided that, after all, it did not matter

what they thought of him. One would probably set him down as a rude bush

chopper, and the other, whose good opinion he would have valued under

different circumstances, was a kinswoman of his adversary. Sooner or

later she would know him for what he was, and then it was clear she

would only have contempt for him. That she of all women should be Mrs.

Devine's sister was, he reflected with a sense of impotent anger, one

of the grim jests that Fate seemed to delight in playing.

"Now," said Jimmy, breaking off his thread at last, "I guess you might

go 'most anywhere if you stand with your face to the folks who talk to

you, and don't sit down too suddenly. Be cautious how you get up again

if you hear those stitches tearing through."

Brooke went out, and discovered that Jimmy had, no doubt as a

precautionary measure, sewn several of his garments together as he

walked through the shadowy bush towards the ranch. Devine, to whom the

scheme suggested had commended itself, was, as it happened, already

waiting him in a big log walled room. He sat by the open window, which

looked across blue lake and climbing pines towards the great white

ramparts of unmelting snow that shut the valley in. The rest of the room

was dim, and now the sun had gone, sweet resinous odors and an

exhilarating coolness that stirred the blood like wine came in. Two

women sat back in the shadow, and Devine moved a little in his chair as

he answered one of them.

"I know very little about the man, but I never saw more thorough work

than he has put in on the flume," he said. "That's 'most enough

guarantee for him, but there are one or two points about him I can't

quite worry out the meaning of. For one thing, the timber-righters

haven't stopped him chopping."

Mrs. Devine looked thoughtful, for she was acquainted with the less

pleasant aspect of mine-owning, but Barbara broke in.

"It is a little difficult to understand what use timber-rights would be

to anybody here," she said. "They could hardly get their lumber out, and

there are very few people to sell it to if they put up a mill."

"I expect they mean to sell it me," said Devine, a trifle grimly.

"But you always cut what you wanted without asking anybody."

"I did. Still, it seems scarcely likely that I'm going to do it again.

If anyone has located timber-rights--which he'd get for 'most nothing on

a patent from the Crown--he has never worried about them until the

Canopus began to pay. Of course, one has to put in timber as he takes

out the ore, and it seems to have struck somebody that the men who

started it on the Canopus had burnt off all the young firs they ought to

have kept. That's why he bought those timber-rights up."

"Still there are thousands of them nobody can ever use, and you must

have timber," said Barbara.

"Precisely!" said Devine. "That man figures that when I get it he's

going to screw a big share of the profits in this mine out of me."

A portentous sparkle crept into Barbara's eyes, while Mrs. Devine, who

knew her husband best, watched him with a little smile.

"But that is infamous extortion!" said the girl.

Devine laughed. "Well," he said, "it's not going to be good business for

the man who puts up the game, but I don't quite see why he didn't strike

Brooke for a few dollars as well. Men of his kind are like ostriches.

They take in 'most anything."

He might have said more, but Brooke appeared in the doorway just then

and stood still with, so Barbara fancied, a faint trace of disconcertion

when he saw the women, until Devine turned to him.

"Come right in," he said. "Barbara tells me she has met you, but you

haven't seen Mrs. Devine. Mr. Brooke, who is building the new flume for

me, Katty."

There was no avoiding the introduction, nor could Brooke escape with an

inclination as he wished to do, for the lady held out her hand to him.

She was older and more matronly than Barbara, but otherwise very like

her, and she had the same gracious serenity. Still, Brooke felt his

cheeks burn beneath the bronze on them as he shook hands with her. It

was one thing to wrest his dollars back from Devine, but, while he

cherished that purpose, quite another to be graciously welcomed to his

house.

"We are very pleased to see any of Barbara's friends," she said. "You

apparently hadn't an opportunity of calling upon us in Vancouver?"

Brooke glanced at Barbara, who was not exactly pleased with her sister

just then, and met his gaze a trifle coldly. Still, he was sensible of a

curious satisfaction, for it was evident that the girl who had been his

comrade in the bush had not altogether forgotten him in the city.

"I left the day after Miss Heathcote was kind enough to give me

permission," he said.

He felt that his response might have been amplified, but he was chiefly

conscious of a desire to avoid any further civilities then, and because

he was quite aware that Barbara was watching him quietly, it was a

relief when Devine turned to him.

"We'll get down to business," he said. "You brought a plan of the dam

along?"

He led the way to the little table at the window, and while Mrs. Devine

went on with her sewing and Barbara took up a book again, Brooke

unrolled the plan he had made with some difficulty. Then the men

discussed it until Devine said, "You can start in when it pleases you,

and my clerk will hand you the dollars as soon as you are through. How

long do you figure it will take you?"

"Three or four months," said Brooke, and looking up saw that the girl's

eyes were fixed on him. She turned them away next moment, but he felt

that she had heard him and they would be companions that long.

"Well," said Devine, "it's quite likely we will be up here part, at

least, of the time. Now you'll have to put on more men, and I haven't

forgotten what you admitted the day I drove you in to the settlement.

You'll want a good many dollars to pay them."

"If you will give me a written contract, I dare say I can borrow them

from a bank agent or mortgage broker on the strength of it."

"Oh, yes," said Devine, drily. "It's quite likely you can, but he would

charge you a percentage that's going to make a big hole in the profit."

"I'm afraid I haven't any other means of getting the money."

"Well," said Devine, "I rather think you have. In fact, I'll lend it you

as the work goes on."

Brooke felt distinctly uncomfortable and sat silent a moment, for this

was the last thing he had desired or expected.

"I have really no claim on you, sir," he said at length. "In this

province payment is very seldom made until the work is done, and quite

often not until a long while afterwards."

Devine smiled drily. "I guess that is my business. Now is there any

special reason you shouldn't borrow those dollars from me?"

Brooke felt that there was a very good one, but it was one he could not

well make plain to Devine. He was troubled by an unpleasant sense of

meanness already, and felt that it would be almost insufferable to have

a kindness thrust upon him by his companion. He was, though he would not

look at her, also sensible that Barbara Heathcote was watching him

covertly, and decided that what he and Devine had said had been

perfectly audible in the silent room.

"I would, at least, prefer to grapple with the financial difficulty in

my own way, sir," he said.

Devine made a little gesture of indifference. "Then, if you should want

a few dollars at any time you know where to come for them. Now, I guess

we're through with the business and you can talk to Mrs. Devine--who has

been there--about the Old Country."

Brooke did so, and after the first few minutes, which were distinctly

unpleasant to him, managed to forget the purpose which had brought him

to the ranch. His hostess was quietly kind, and evidently a lady who had

appreciated and was pleased to talk about what she had seen in England,

which was, as it happened, a good deal. Brooke also knew how to listen,

and now and then a curious little smile crept into his eyes as she

dilated on scenes and functions which were very familiar to him. It was

evident that she never for a moment supposed that the man who sat

listening to her somewhat stiffly, from reasons connected with Jimmy's

repairs to his clothes, could have taken a part in them, but he was

once or twice almost embarrassed when Barbara, who seemed to take his

comprehension for granted, broke in.

In the meanwhile a miner came for Devine, who went out with him, and by

and by Mrs. Devine, making her household duties an excuse, also left the

room. Then Barbara smiled a little as she turned to Brooke.

"I wonder," she said, quietly, "why you were so unwilling to meet my

sister? There is really no reason why anybody should be afraid of her."

Brooke was glad that the dimness which was creeping across the valley

had deepened the shadow in the room, for he was not anxious that the

girl should see his face just then.

"You assume that I was unwilling?" he said.

"It was evident, though I am not quite sure that Mrs. Devine noticed

it."

Brooke saw that an answer was expected from him. "Well," he said, "Mrs.

Devine is a lady of station, and I am, you see, merely the builder of

one of her husband's flumes. One naturally does not care to presume, and

it takes some little time to get accustomed to the fact that these

little distinctions are not remembered in this country."

Barbara laughed. "One could get accustomed to a good deal in three or

four years. I scarcely think that was your reason."

"Why?" said Brooke.

"Well," said the girl, reflectively, "the fact is that we do recognize

the distinctions you allude to, though not to the same extent that you

do; but it takes rather longer to acquire certain mannerisms and modes

of expressing oneself than it does to learn the use of the axe and

drill. To be more candid, any one can put on a flume-builder's clothes."

"I fancy you are jumping at conclusions. There are hotel waiters in the

Old Country who speak much better English than I do."

"It is possible. I am, however, not quite sure that they would make good

flume-builders. Still, we will let that pass, as well as one or two

vague admissions you have previously made me. Why wouldn't you take the

dollars you needed when Mr. Devine was perfectly willing to lend them to

you?"

"It really isn't usual to make a stranger an advance of that kind," said

Brooke, reflectively. "Besides, I might spend the dollars recklessly,

and then break away and leave the work unfinished some day. Everybody is

subject to occasional fits of restlessness here."

Barbara laughed. "Pshaw!" she said. "You had a much better reason than

that. Now I think we were what might be called good comrades in the

bush?"

Again Brooke felt a little thrill of pleasure. The girl sat where the

dim light that still came in through the open window fell upon her, and

she was very alluring with the faint smile, which was, nevertheless,

curiously expressive, in her eyes.

"Yes," he said, almost grimly, "I had a better reason. I cannot tell you

what it was, but it may become apparent presently."

Barbara asked no more questions, and while she sat silent, Mrs. Devine

came in with a little dainty silver set on a tray. Maids of any kind,

and even Chinese house-boys, are scarce in that country, especially in

the bush, and Brooke realized that it must have been with her own hands

she had prepared the quite unusual meal. Supper is served at six or

seven o'clock through most of Canada. Probably the stove was burning,

and her task was but a light one, but once more Brooke was sensible of a

most unpleasant embarrassment when she smiled at him.

"Barbara and I got used to taking a cup of coffee in the evening when we

were in England," she said. "Talking of the Old Country reminded me of

it. Will you pour it out, Barbara?"

Barbara did so, and Brooke's fingers closed more tightly than was

necessary on the cup she handed to him, while the cracker he forced

himself to eat came near choking him. This was absurd sentimentality, he

told himself, but, for all that, he dared scarcely meet the eyes of the

lady who had, he realized, prepared that meal out of compliment to him.

It was a relief when it was over and he was able to take his leave, but,

as it happened, he forgot the plan he had laid down, and Barbara, who

noticed it, overtook him in the log-hall. Devine had not come back yet.

"We shall be here for some little time--in fact, until Mr. Devine has

seen the new adit driven," she said.

Brooke understood that this was tantamount to a general invitation, and

smiled, as she noticed, somewhat wryly.

"I am afraid I shall scarcely venture to come back again," he said.

"Mrs. Devine is very kind, but still, you see--it really wouldn't be

fitting."

Then he turned and vanished into the darkness outside, and Barbara went

back to the lighted room with a curious look in her eyes.

XII.

BROOKE IS CARRIED AWAY.

The flume was finished, and the dam already progressing well, when one

morning Devine came out, somewhat grim in face, from the new adit he was

driving at the Canopus. The captain of the mine also came with him, and

stood still, evidently in a state of perplexity, when Devine looked at

him.

"Well," said the latter, brusquely, "what are we going to do, Wilkins?"

The captain blinked at the forest with eyes not yet accustomed to the

change of light, as though in search of inspiration, which apparently

did not come.

"There's plenty timber yonder," he said.

"There is," said Devine, drily. "Still, as we can't touch a log of it,

it isn't much use to us. There is no doubt about the validity of the

patent that fellow holds it under either, and it covers everything right

back to the canyon. He doesn't seem disposed to make any terms with me."

Wilkins appeared to reflect. "Hanging off for a bigger figure, but there

are points I'm not quite clear about. Mackinder's not quite the man to

play that game--I guess I know him well, and if it had been left to

him, once he saw there were dollars in the thing, he'd have jumped right

on to them and lit out for the cities to raise Cain with them. Now, I

kind of wonder if there's a bigger man behind him."

"That's my end of the business," said Devine, with a little grim smile.

"I'll take care of it. There are men in the cities who would find any

dead-beat dollars if he wanted them for a fling at me. The question

is--What about the mine? You feel reasonably sure we're going to strike

ore that will pay for the crushing at the end of that adit?"

Wilkins glanced round at the forest, and then lowered his voice a

trifle, though it was some distance off and there was nobody else about.

"We have got to, sir--and it's there if it's anywhere," he said. "You

have seen the yield on the lower workings going down until it's just

about worth while to keep the stamps going, and though none of the boys

seem to notice anything, there are signs that are tolerably clear to me

that the pay dirt's running right out. Still, I guess the chances of

striking it again rich on the different level are good enough for me to

put 'most every dollar I have by me in on a share of the crushings. I

can't say any more than that."

"No," said Devine, drily. "Anyway, I'm going on with the adit. But about

the timber?"

"Well, we will want no end of props, and that's a fact. It's quite a

big contract to hold up the side of a mountain when you're working

through soft stuff and crumbly rock, and the split-logs we've been

worrying along with aren't going to be much use to us. We want round

props, grown the size we're going to use, with the strength the tree was

meant to have in them."

Devine looked thoughtful. "Then I'll have to get you them. Say nothing

to the boys, and see nobody who doesn't belong to the gang you have sent

there puts his foot in any part of the mine. It is, of course, specially

necessary to keep the result of the crushings quiet. I'm not telling you

this without a reason."

Wilkins went back into the adit, and Devine proceeded to flounder round

the boundaries of the Englishman's abandoned ranch, which he had bought

up for a few hundred dollars, chiefly because of the house on it. It

consisted, for the most part, of a miry swamp, which the few prospectors

who had once or twice spent the night with him said had broken the heart

of the Englishman after a strenuous attempt to drain it, while the rest

was rock outcrop, on which even the hardy conifers would not grow.

Devine, who wet himself to the knees during his peregrination, had a

survey plan with him, but he could see no means of extending his rights

beyond the crumbling split-rail fence, and inside the latter there were

no trees that appeared adapted for mining purposes. Willows straggled

over the wetter places, and little, half-rotten pines stood tottering

here and there in a tangled chaos a man could scarcely force his way

through, but when he had wasted an hour or two, and was muddy all over,

it became evident that he was scarcely likely to come upon a foot of

timber that would be of any use to him. He had, of course, been told

this, but he had on other occasions showed the men who pointed out

insuperable difficulties to him that they were mistaken.

Devine, however, was, as that fact would indicate, not the man to be

readily turned aside. He wanted mine props, and meant to obtain them,

and, though his face grew a trifle grimmer, he climbed the hillside to

where Brooke was busy knee-deep in water at the dam. He signed to him,

and then, taking out his cigar-case, sat down on a log and looked at the

younger man.

"Take one!" he said.

Brooke lighted a cigar, and sat down, with the water draining from him.

"We'll have another tier of logs bolted on to the framing by to-morrow

night," he said.

Devine glanced at the dam indifferently. "You take kindly to this kind

of thing?" he said.

Brooke smiled a little, for he had of late been almost astonished at his

growing interest in his work. Of scientific engineering he knew nothing,

though he remembered that several relatives of his had made their mark

at it, but every man who lives any time in the bush of the Pacific slope

of necessity acquires some skill with axe and cross-cut saw, besides a

working acquaintance with the principles of construction. Wooden houses,

bridges, dams, must be built, and now and then a wagon road underpinned

with redwood logs along the side of a precipice. He had done his share

of such work, but he had, it seemed, of late become endued with a

boldness of conception and clearness of insight into the best means of

overcoming the difficulties to be faced, which had now and then

astonished those who assisted him.

"I really think I do, though I don't know why I should," he said. "I

never undertook anything of the description in England."

"Then I guess it must be in the family. Any of your folks doing well

back there as mechanics?"

Brooke smiled somewhat drily. As a matter of fact, a near kinsman of his

had gained distinction in the Royal Engineers, and another's name was

famous in connection with irrigation works in Egypt. He did not,

however, feel it in any way incumbent on him to explain this to Devine.

"I could not exactly say they are," he said. "Anyway, isn't it a little

outside the question?"

"Well," said Devine, drily, "I don't quite know. What's born in a man

will come out somehow, whether it's good for him or not. Now, I was

thinking over another piece of work you might feel inclined to put

through for me."

Brooke became suddenly intent, and Devine noticed the little gleam in

his eyes as he said, "If you can give me any particulars----"

"Come along," said Devine, a trifle grimly, "and I'll show you them.

Then if you still feel willing to go into the thing we can worry out my

notion."

Brooke rose and followed him along the hillside, which was seamed with

rock outcrop and thinly covered with brushwood, while the roar of water

grew louder in his ears. When they had made a mile or so Devine stopped

and looked about him.

"It wouldn't cost too much to clear a ground-sled trail from here to the

mine," he said. "A team of mules could haul a good many props in over it

in a day."

"But where are you going to get them from?" said Brooke.

Devine smiled curiously. "Come along a little further, and I'll show

you."

Again Brooke went with him, wondering a little, for he knew that a canyon

would cut off all further progress presently, until Devine stopped once

more where the hillside fell sheer away beneath them.

"Now," he said, quietly, "I guess we're there. You can see plenty young

firs that would make mining props yonder."

Brooke certainly could. The hillside in front of him rose, steep as a

roof, to the ridge where the tufts of ragged pines were silhouetted in

sombre outline against the gleaming snow behind. Streaked with drifting

mist, they rolled upwards in serried ranks, and there was apparently

timber enough for half the mines in the province. The difficulty,

however, was the reaching it, for, between him and it, a green-stained

torrent thundered through a tremendous gap, whose walls were worn smooth

and polished for four hundred feet or so. Above that awful chasm rose

bare and slippery slopes of rock, on which there was foothold for

neither man nor beast, and only a stunted pine clung here and there in

the crannies. What the total depth was he did not know, but he recoiled

instinctively from the contemplation of it, and would have drawn back a

yard or two only that Devine stood still, looking down into the gap with

his usual grim smile.

Still, it was a minute or two before he was sensible of more than a

vague awe and a physical shrinking from that tremendous display of

Nature's forces, and then, by degrees, his brain commenced to record the

details of the scene. He saw the snow-fed river diminished by distance

to a narrow green riband swirling round the pools, and frothing with a

curious livid whiteness over reef and boulder far down in the dimness.

The roar it made came up in long pulsations of sound, which were flung

back by the climbing pines that seemed to tremble in unison with it.

The rocks were hollowed a trifle at their bases, and arched above the

river. It was, as a picture, awe-inspiring and sublime, but from a

practical point of view an apparently insurmountable barrier between the

owner of the Canopus mine and the timber he desired. Devine, however,

knew better, for he was a man who had grappled with a good many

apparently insuperable difficulties, and Brooke became sensible that he

expected an expression of opinion from him.

"The timber is certainly there, but I quite fail to see how it could be

of the least use to anybody situated where we are," he said. "That canyon

is, I should fancy, one of the deepest in the province."

Devine nodded, but the little smile was still in his eyes, and he

pointed to the one where, by crawling down the gully a torrent had

fretted out, an agile man might reach a jutting crag a couple of hundred

feet below.

"The point is that it isn't very wide," he said. "It wouldn't take a

great many fathoms of steel rope to reach across it."

Brooke realized that, because the crag projected a little, this was

correct; but as yet the suggestion conveyed no particular meaning to

him.

"No," he said. "Still, it isn't very evident what use that would be."

Devine laughed. "Now, if you had told me you knew anything about

engineering, you would have given yourself away. Have you never heard of

an aerial tramway? It's quite simple--a steel rope set up tight, a winch

for hauling, and a trolley. With that working, and a skid-slide up the

gully, one could send over the props we want without much difficulty. It

would be cheaper than buying off the timber-righters."

Brooke gasped as the daring simplicity of the scheme dawned on him. If

one had nerve enough to undertake it the thing was perfectly feasible,

and he turned to Devine with a glow in his eyes.

"It could be done," he said. "Still, do you know anybody who would be

willing to stretch that rope across?"

Devine looked at him steadily, noticing the slight dilation of his

nostrils and the intentness of his face.

"Well," he said, drily, "I was going to ask you."

The blood surged into Brooke's forehead, and for the time he forgot his

six thousand dollars and that the man who made the suggestion had

plundered him of them. He had, during the course of his English

education, shown signs of a certain originality and daring of thought

which had slightly astonished those who taught him, and then had lounged

three or four years away in the quiet valley, where originality of any

kind was not looked upon with favor. The men and women he had been

brought into contact with in London were also, for the most part, those

who regarded everything from the accepted point of view, and his

engagement to the girl his friends regarded with disapproval had, though

he did not suspect this at the time, been in part, at least, a protest

against the doctrine that no man of his station must do anything that

was not outwardly befitting and convenient to it.

The revolt had brought him disaster, as it usually does, but it had also

thrust upon him the necessity of thinking for himself, though even

during his two years' struggle on the worthless ranch he had not

realized what qualities he was endued with, for it was not until he met

Barbara Heathcote by the river that they were wholly stirred into

activity. Then ambition, self-confidence, and lust of conflict with men

and Nature asserted themselves, for it was, in point of fact, a sword

she had brought him. Still, he was as yet a trifle inconsequent and

precipitate in his activities, for at times the purpose which had sent

him to the Canopus mine faded into insignificance, and he became

oblivious to everything beyond the pleasure he found in the grapple with

natural difficulties he was engaged in. Those who had known Brooke in

England would have had little difficulty in recognizing him morally or

physically as he stood, brawny and sinewy, in ragged jean, high above

the thundering river.

"Then I'll undertake it," he said, with a little vibration in his

voice.

Devine looked hard at him again. "Feel sure you can do it? You'll want

good nerves."

"I think I can," said Brooke, with a quietness the other man

appreciated.

"Then you can go down to the Mineral Development's new shaft, where they

have one of those tramways working, and see how they swing their ore

across the valley. I'll give you a line to the manager. Start when

you're ready."

Devine said nothing further as they turned back towards the mine, but

Brooke felt that the bargain was already made. His companion was not the

man to haggle over non-essentials, but one who knew what he wanted and

usually went straight to the point. Brooke left him presently, and,

turning off where the flume climbed to the dam, came upon Jimmy,

tranquilly leaning upon his shovel while he watched the two or three men

who toiled waist-deep in water.

"I was kind of wondering whether she wouldn't be stiffer with another

log or two in that framing?" he said, in explanation.

"Of course!" said Brooke, drily. "It's more restful than shovelling.

Still, that's my affair, and you'll have to rustle more and wonder less.

I'm going to leave you in charge here."

Jimmy grinned. "Then I guess the way that dam will grow will astonish

you when you come back again. Where're you going to?"

Brooke told him, and Jimmy contemplated the forest reflectively.

"Well," he said, "nobody who saw you at the ranch would ever have

figured you had snap enough to put a contract of that kind through.

Still, you have me behind you."

"A good way, as a rule," said Brooke, drily. "Especially when there is

anything one can get very wet at to be done. Still, I shouldn't wonder

if you were quite correct. I scarcely think I ever suspected I had it in

myself."

Jimmy still ruminated. "A man is like a mine. You see the indications on

the top, but you can't be sure whether there's gold at the bottom or

dirt that won't pay for washing, until you set the drills going or put

in the giant powder and shake everything up. Still, I can't quite figure

how anything of that kind could have happened to you."

Brooke flashed a quick glance at him, but Jimmy's eyes were vacant, and

he was apparently watching a mink slip in and out among the roots of a

cedar.

"There is a good deal of gravel waiting down there, and only two men to

heave it out," he said.

"Oh, yes," said Jimmy, tranquilly. "Still, it's a good while until it's

dark, and I was thinking. Now, if you had the dollars you threw away

over that ranch, and me for a partner, you'd make quite a smart

contractor. While they're wanting flumes and bridges everywhere, it's a

game one can pile up dollars at."

Brooke's face flushed a trifle, and he slowly closed one hand.

"Confound the six thousand dollars, and you for reminding me of them!"

he said. "Get on with your shovelling."

XIII.

THE OLD LOVE.

Next morning Brooke set out for the Mineral Development Syndicate's new

shaft, which lay a long day's ride nearer the railroad through the bush,

and was well received by the manager.

"Stay just as long as it pleases you, and look at everything you want,

though you'll have to excuse me going round with you to-day," he said.

"There's a party of the Directors' city friends coming up, and it's

quite likely they'll keep me busy."

Brooke was perfectly content to go round himself, and he had acquired a

good deal of information about the working of aerial tramways when he

sat on the hillside watching a rattling trolley swing across the tree

tops beneath him on a curving rope of steel. A foreman leaned on a

sawn-off cedar close by, and glanced at Brooke with a little ironical

grin when a hum of voices broke out behind them.

"You hear them? I guess the boss is enjoying himself," he said.

Brooke turned his head and listened, and a woman said, "But how do

those little specks of gold get into the rock? It really looks so

solid."

"That's nothing," said the foreman. "She quite expects him to know how

the earth was made. Still, the other one's the worst. You'll hear her

starting in again once she gets her breath. It's not information she's

wanting, but to hear herself talk."

The prediction was evidently warranted, for another voice broke in,

"What makes those little trucks run down the rope? Gravity! Of course, I

might have known that. How clever of you to think of it. You haven't

anything like that at those works you're a director of, Shafton?"

Brooke started a little, for though the speaker was invisible her voice

was curiously familiar. It was also evidently an Englishman who answered

the last remark, and Brooke, who decided that his ears must have

deceived him, nevertheless became intent. He felt that the mere fancy

should have awakened a host of memories, but he was only sensible of a

wholly dispassionate curiosity when the voice was raised again, though

it was, at least, very like one to which he had frequently listened in

times past. Then there was a patter of approaching steps, and he rose to

his feet as the strangers and the mine manager came down the slope.

There were several men, one of whom was palpably an Englishman, and two

women. One of the latter stopped abruptly, with a little exclamation.

"Harford--is it really you?" she said.

Brooke quietly swung off his wide hat, which he remembered, without

embarrassment, was considerably battered, and while most of the others

turned and gazed at him, stood still a moment looking at her. He did not

appreciate being made the central figure in a dramatic incident, but it

was evident that the woman rather relished the situation. Several years

had certainly elapsed since she had tearfully bidden him farewell with

protestations of unwavering constancy, but he realized with faint

astonishment that he felt no emotion whatever, not even a trace of

anger.

"Yes," he said. "I really think it is."

The woman made a little theatrical gesture, which might have meant

anything, and in that moment the few illusions Brooke still retained

concerning her vanished. She seemed very little older than when he

parted from her, and at least as comely, but her shallow artificiality

was very evident to him now. Her astonishment had, he felt, been

exaggerated with a view to making the most of the situation, and even

the little tremble in her voice appeared no more than an artistic

affectation. The same impression was conveyed by her dress, which struck

him as too ornate and in no way adapted to the country.

Then she turned swiftly to the man who stood beside her, looking on with

a little faintly ironical smile. He was a personable man, but his lips

were thin, and there was a suggestion of half-contemptuous weariness in

his face.

"This is Harford Brooke, Shafton. Of course, you have heard of him!" she

said with a coquettish smile, which it occurred to Brooke was not, under

the circumstances, especially appropriate. "Harford, I don't think you

ever met my husband."

Brooke stood still and the other man nodded with an air of languid

indifference. "Glad to see you, I'm sure," he said. "Met quite a number

of Englishmen in this country."

Then he turned towards the other woman as though he had done all that

could be reasonably expected of him, and when the manager of the mine

led the way down into the valley Brooke found himself walking with the

woman who had flung him over a few paces behind the rest of the party.

He did not know exactly how this came about, but he was certain that he,

at least, had neither desired nor in any way contrived it.

They went down into the hollow between colonnades of towering trunks,

crossed a crystal stream and climbed a steep ascent towards the clashing

stamp-heads, but the woman appeared in difficulties and gasped a little

until Brooke held out his arm. He had already decided that her little

high-heeled shoes were distinctly out of place in that country, and

wondered at the same time what kind Barbara Heathcote wore, for she, at

least, moved with lithe gracefulness through the bush. He was, however,

sensible of nothing in particular when his companion looked up at him as

she leaned upon his arm.

"I was wondering how long it would be before you offered to help me. You

used to be anxious to do it once," she said.

Brooke smiled a little. "That was quite a long time ago. I scarcely

supposed you needed help, and one does not care to risk a repulse."

"Could you have expected one from me?"

There was an archness in the glance she cast him which Brooke was not

especially gratified to see, and it struck him that the eyes which he

had once considered softest blue were in reality tinged with a hazy

grey, but he smiled again as he parried the question. "One," he said,

"never quite knows what to expect from a lady."

His companion made no immediate answer, but by and by she once more

glanced up at him.

"I am really not used to climbing if Shafton is, and I am not going any

further just now," she said.

A newly-felled cedar lay conveniently near the trail, but its

wide-girthed trunk stood high above the underbrush, and Brooke dragged

up a big hewn-off branch to make a footstool before his companion sat

down on it. The branch was heavy, and she watched his efforts

approvingly.

"Canada has made you another man. Now, I do not think Shafton could have

done that in a day," she said. "Of course, he would never have tried,

even to please me."

Brooke, who was by no means certain what she wished him to understand

from this, leaned against a cedar looking down at her gravely. This was

the woman who had embittered several years of his life, and for whom he

had flung a good deal away, and now he was most clearly sensible of his

folly. Had he met her in a drawing-room or even the Vancouver

opera-house, it might not have been quite so apparent to him, but she

seemed an anachronism in that strip of primeval wilderness. Nature was

dominant there, and the dull pounding of the stamp-heads, which came

faintly through the silence among the great trunks that had grown slowly

during centuries, suggested man's recognition of the curse and privilege

that was laid upon him in Eden. Graceful idleness was not esteemed in

that country, where bread was won by strenuous toil, and the stillness

and dimness of those great forest aisles emphasized the woman's

artificial superficiality. Voice and gesture, befrizzled, straw-colored

hair which he had once called golden, constricted waist, and figure

which was suggestively wooden in its curves, enforced the same

impression, until the man, who realized that she had after all probably

made at least as good a use of life as he had, turned his eyes away.

"You really couldn't expect him to," he said, with a little laugh. "He

has never had to do anything of that kind for a living as I have."

He held up his hands and noticed her little shiver as she saw the

scarred knuckles, hard, ingrained flesh, and broken nails.

"Oh," she said, "how cruel! Whatever have you been doing?"

Brooke glanced at his fingers reflectively. "On the contrary, I suppose

I ought to feel proud of them, though I scarcely think I am. Building

flumes and dams, though that will hardly convey any very clear

impression to you. It implies swinging the axe and shovel most of every

day, and working up to the waist in water occasionally."

"But you were always so particular in England."

"I could naturally afford to be. It cost me nothing when I was living on

another man's bounty."

The woman made a little gesture. "And you gave up everything for me!"